DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE

Using “Storycorps” as inspiration.

DEFINITION

A poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader.

The subject discussed is usually far less interesting than what is inadvertently revealed about the speaker himself. (For example in Browning’s My Last Duchess, the Count, in his description of a painting made of his wife, reveals how cruelly he treated her. )

The reason poets choose to write poems like this is to express a point of view through the words of a character.

Often the opinions stated by that character are not the same as the views of the poet.

Most of the time, the speaker is trying to convince someone of something, and may or may not be telling the whole truth.

Sometimes what the speaker doesn't say is just as revealing and interesting as what he or she does say in the poem.

In “Night, Death Mississippi” Robert Hayden adopts the ageing voice of a clan member, listening longingly to a lynching going on outside:

Christ, it was better

than hunting bear

which don’t know why

you want him dead.

The effect of reading the casual violence of the poem is more devastating than any commentary the poet could have provided.

EXAMPLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz2bto1ZVH0

This is an excellent example of a Dramatic Monologue, written by Robin Robertson.

In it, he adopts the voice of the selkie, a mythological creature from Scottish folklore. The stories tend to be Romantic tragedies where, a woman does not know that the handsome man is a selkie (half seal) and falls in love with him, only for him to return to the sea without explanation.

In some stories the woman prevents the selkie from returning to the sea by stealing and hiding his seal skin.

When a selkie returns to the sea, he cannot contact the woman again for seven years.

STORYCORPS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeroZRnax_o

PLANNING

Using this Storycorps story as an example, think about where you might “start” this story. Think about what you would say are the most powerful images from this story?

• The image of the twin towers-linked to the mythical twin?• The image of the car race• The contrast between the macho Italian guy from Brooklyn and the dough-eyed

lover.• The aggressor contrasted with the awakening of love• The image of his window overlooking the East River, which framed the towers for

him.• The image of him throwing the chair through the window.• The image he remembers of her-her eyes in particular• His final promise.