The Poetical Works of Robert Browning. Vol. V

1889

Brasch PR4200 1889

London: Smith

Robert Browning specialised in dramatic verse. In dramatic monologues such as ‘My Last Duchess,’ Browning’s narrators reveal their situation and character, not so much by what they say directly, but by what they unintentionally give away about themselves. Browning leaves it to the reader of these psychological portraits to assess the narrator and the views he expresses. Browning’s dramatic monologues influenced many modernist writers, including Frost and Joyce, by the way he developed a stream-of-consciousness technique and emphasised the revelation of character.