Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- SERIES EDITOR'S PREFACE -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Definitions -- Setting the terms of the debate -- Poet and speaker -- Reader and auditor -- Character and subject -- Changes in the canon -- 3 Origins -- The influence of genre theory -- Reacting to the Romantics -- Contemporary theories of poetry -- Self in the broader context -- An alternative theory -- 4 Men and women -- Women's voices -- The critique of gender ideology -- Men's voices -- The gendered dynamics of self and other -- Cross-gendered monologues -- The monologue in dialogue -- 5 Victorian developments -- The question of style -- The historical consciousness -- Questions of epistemology -- Social critique -- 6 Modernism and its aftermath -- The decline of the genre? -- An alternative view -- Sixties revival -- 7 Contemporary dramatic monologues -- The dramatic monologue and society -- Revisionist dramatic monologues -- Dramatic monologues and the media -- GLOSSARY -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.

The dramatic monologue is traditionally associated with Victorian poets such as Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson, and is generally considered to have disappeared with the onset of modernism in the twentieth century. Glennis Byron unravels its history and argues that, contrary to belief, the monologue remains popular to this day. This far-reaching and neatly structured volume: * explores the origins of the monologue and presents a history of definitions of the term * considers the monologue as a form of social critique * explores issues at play in our understanding of the genre, such as subjectivity, gender and politics * traces the development of the genre through to the present day. Taking as example the increasingly politicized nature of contemporary poetry, the author clearly and succinctly presents an account of the monologue's growing popularity over the past twenty years.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.