dramatic monologue

The dramatic monologue is a poem in which the speaker addresses a silent listener, revealing themselves in the context of a dramatic situation (Murfin & Supryia, 1998). Moreover, the character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life. Examples include Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and Ai’s “Killing Floor.”