Alison Chisholm explores two poems – one classic and one sent by a reader – to illustrate the power of the dramatic monologue
Dramatic monologues allow the poet to assume the character of another person, creature or even an inanimate object, and to examine some situation or event through that viewpoint. From Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover to Carol Ann Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife, we are shown dramatic scenes unfolding before our eyes, and drawn into the centre of the action.