Victorian Poetry and the dramatic monologue

Victorian Poetry

During Victoria’s reign poetry was used for intellectual and moral debate. This led on the one hand to the creation of poetry linked to belief of the greatness of England; on the other hand to the creation of poetry more inclined to solve the ethical problems raised by science and progress.
Now the poet was seen as a ‘prophet’ and a ‘philosopher’. People expected that he could reconcile faith and progress, and optimists believed that the benefits of progress could be reached without altering the traditional social organisation or destroying the beauty of the countryside.
The major poets of the age were Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett who wrote beautiful love sonnets, and Matthew Arnold who used poetry to express his dissatisfaction with his time.
The dramatic monologue is a narrative poem in which a single character may address one or more listeners. In a dramatic monologue the speaking character is different from the poet himself, and is caught in a crucial moment of crisis. Since the poet does not speak with his own voice, the reader has to deduction if he is intended to accept or criticise what is said by the speaker. As the speaker must be judged only on his own words, different points of view may be justified and supported. In the dramatic monologue, the tone of the language is argumentative, aiming at revealing the main character’s thoughts, thus reflecting a great interest in human psychology.