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To comprehend the spirit of the monologue demands a clear conception, not only of the character of the speaker, but also of the person addressed. The hearer is often of as great importance to the meaning of a monologue as is the person speaking.

It is a common blunder to consider dramatic instinct as concerned only with a speaker. Nearly every one regards it as the ability to “act a character,” to imitate the action or the speech of some particular individual. But this conception is far too narrow. The dramatic instinct is primarily concerned with insight into character, with problems of imagination, and with sympathy. By it we realize another’s point of view or attitude of mind towards a truth or situation, and identify ourselves sympathetically with character.

Dramatic instinct is necessary to all human endeavor. It is as necessary for the orator as it is for the actor. While it is true that the speaker must be himself and must succeed by the vigor of his own personality, and that the actor must succeed through “fidelity of portraiture,” still the orator must be able not only to say the right word, but to know when he says it, and this ability results only from dramatic instinct. The actor needs more of the personating instinct or insight into motives of character; the speaker, more insight into the conditions of human thought and feeling.

While one function of dramatic instinct is the ability to identify one’s self with another, it is much easier to identify one’s self with the speaker than with the listener. Even on the stage the most difficult task for the actor is to listen in character; that is, to receive impressions from the standpoint of the character he is representing.

Possibly the fundamental element in dramatic instinct is the ability to occupy a point of view, to see a truth as another sees it. This shows why dramatic instinct is the foundation of success. It enables a teacher to know whether his student is at the right point of view to apprehend a truth, or in the proper attitude of mind towards a subject. It tells him when he has made a truth understood. It gives the speaker power to adapt and to illustrate his truth to others, and to see things from his hearers’ point of view. It gives the writer power to impress his reader. Even the business man must intuitively perceive the point of view and the mental attitude of those with whom he deals.

Dramatic instinct as applied to listening on the stage, and everywhere, is apt to be overlooked. It is comparatively easy when quoting some one to stand at his point of view and to imitate his manner, or to contrast the differences between a number of speakers; but a higher type of dramatic power is exhibited in the ability to put ourselves in the place and receive the impressions of some specific type of listener.

The speeches of different characters are given formally and successively in a drama. Hence, the writer of a play, or the actor, is apt to centre attention, when speaking, upon the character, without reference to the shape his thought takes from what the other character has said, and especially from those attitudes or actions of the other character which are not revealed by words. The same is true in the novel, and even in epic poetry. True dramatic instinct in any form demands that the speaker show not only his own thought and motive by his words, but that of the character he is portraying, and the influence produced upon him at the instant by the thought and character of the listener.

While the dialogue is not the only form of dramatic art, still its study is required for the understanding of the monologue, or almost any aspect of dramatic expression. The very name “dialogue” implies a listener and a speaker who are continually changing places. The listener indicates by his face and by actions of the body his impression, his attention, the effect upon him of the words of the speaker, his objection or approval. Thus he influences the speaker in shaping his ideas and choosing his words.

In the monologue the speaker must suggest the character of both speaker and listener and interpret the relation of one human being to another. He must show, as he speaks, the impression he receives from the manner in which his listener is affected by what he is saying. A public reader, or impersonator, of all the characters of a play must perform a similar feat; he must represent each character not only as speaker, but show that he has just been a listener and received an impression or stimulus from another; otherwise he cannot suggest any true dramatic action.

In the monologue, as in all true dramatic representation, the listener as well as the speaker must be realized as continuously living and thinking. The listener, though he utters not a word, must be conceived from the effect he makes upon the speaker, in order to perceive the argument as well as the situation and point of view.

The necessity of realizing a listener is one of the most important points to be noted in the study of the monologue. Take, as an illustration, Browning’s “Incident of the French Camp.”

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:

A mile or so away,

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming day;

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,

Legs wide, arms locked behind,

As if to balance the prone brow

Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, “My plans

That soar, to earth may fall,

Let once my army-leader Lannes

Waver at yonder wall,”—

Out ’twixt the battery smokes there flew

A rider, bound on bound

Full galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,

And held himself erect

By just his horse’s mane, a boy:

You hardly could suspect—

(So tight he kept his lips compressed,

Scarce any blood came through)

You looked twice ere you saw his breast

Was all but shot in two.

“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace

We’ve got you Ratisbon!

The Marshal’s in the market-place,

And you’ll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his wings

Where I, to heart’s desire,

Perched him!” The Chief’s eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

The Chief’s eye flashed; but presently

Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle’s eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes:

“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” his soldier’s pride

Touched to the quick, he said:

“I’m killed, Sire!” And, his Chief beside,

Smiling the boy fell dead.

I have heard prominent public readers give this as a mere story without affording any definite conception of either speaker or listener. In the first reading over of the poem, one may find no hint of either. But the student catches the phrase “we French,” and at once sees that a Frenchman must be speaking. He soon discovers that the whole poem is colored by the feeling of some old soldier of Napoleon who was either an eye-witness of the scene or who knew Napoleon’s bearing so well that he could easily picture it to his imagination. The poem now becomes a living thing, and its interpretation by voice and action is rendered possible. But is this all? To whom does the soldier speak? The listener seems entirely in the background. This is wise, because the other in telling his story would naturally lose himself in his memories and grow more or less oblivious of his hearer. But the conception of a sympathetic auditor is needed to quicken the fervor and animation of the speaker. Does not the phrase “we French” imply that the listener is another Frenchman whose patriotic enthusiasm responds to the story? The short phrases, and suggestive hints through the poem, are thus explained. The speaker seems to imply that Napoleon’s bearing is well known to his listener. Certainly upon the conception of such a speaker and such a hearer depends the spirit, dramatic force, and even thought of the poem.

I have chosen this illustration purposely, because, of all monologues, this lays possibly the least emphasis on a listener; yet it cannot be adequately rendered by the voice, or even properly conceived in thought, without a distinct realization of such a person.

In Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” the speaker is an old man. “Grow old along with me!” indicates this, and we feel his age and experience all through the poem. But without the presence of this youth, who must have expressed pity for the loneliness and gloom of age, the old man would never have broken forth so suddenly and so forcibly in the portrayal of his noble philosophy of life. He expands with joy, love for his race, and reverence for Providence. “Grow old along with me!” “Trust God: see all, nor be afraid!” His enthusiasm, his exalted realization of life, are due to his own nobility of character. But his earnestness, his vivid illustrations, his emphasis and action, spring from his efforts to expound the philosophy of life to his youthful listener and to correct the young man’s one-sided views. The characters of both speaker and listener are necessary in order that one may receive an understanding of the argument.

RABBI BEN EZRA

Grow old along with me! the best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand who saith, “A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

Not that, amassing flowers, youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,

Which lily leave and then as best recall!”

Not that, admiring stars, it yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars;

Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”

Not for such hopes and fears, annulling youth’s brief years,

Do I remonstrate; folly wide the mark!

Rather I prize the doubt low kinds exist without,

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed, were man but formed to feed

On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:

Such feasting ended, then as sure an end to men;

Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied to That which doth provide

And not partake, effect and not receive!

A spark disturbs our clod; nearer we hold of God

Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff that turns earth’s smoothness rough,

Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!

Be our joys three parts pain! strive and hold cheap the strain;

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence—a paradox which comforts while it mocks—

Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:

What I aspired to be, and was not, comforts me;

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.

What is he but a brute whose flesh hath soul to suit,

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?

To man, propose this test—thy body at its best,

How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use: I own the past profuse

Of power each side, perfection every turn:

Eyes, ears took in their dole, brain treasured up the whole;

Should not the heart beat once “How good to live and learn”?

Not once beat “Praise be thine! I see the whole design,

I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:

Perfect I call Thy plan: thanks that I was a man!

Maker, remake, complete—I trust what Thou shalt do!”

For pleasant is this flesh: our soul, in its rose-mesh

Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:

Would we some prize might hold to match those manifold

Possessions of the brute—gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say, “Spite of this flesh to-day

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”

As the bird wings and sings, let us cry, “All good things

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”

Therefore I summon age to grant youth’s heritage,

Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:

Thence shall I pass, approved a man, for aye removed

From the developed brute; a God though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon take rest, ere I be gone

Once more on my adventure brave and new;

Fearless and unperplexed, when I wage battle next,

What weapons to select, what armor to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try my gain or loss thereby;

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:

And I shall weigh the same, give life its praise or blame:

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts, a certain moment cuts

The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:

A whisper from the west shoots, “Add this to the rest,

Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.”

So, still within this life, though lifted o’er its strife,

Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,

“This rage was right i’ the main, that acquiescence vain:

The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.”

For more is not reserved to man, with soul just nerved

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day;

Here, work enough to watch the Master work, and catch

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.

As it was better, youth should strive, through acts uncouth,

Toward making, than repose on aught found made;

So, better, age, exempt from strife, should know, than tempt

Further. Thou waitedst age; wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right and Good and Infinite

Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,

With knowledge absolute, subject to no dispute

From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all, severed great minds from small,

Announced to each his station in the Past!

Was I the world arraigned, were they my soul disdained,

Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate? Ten men love what I hate,

Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;

Ten, who in ears and eyes match me: we all surmise,

They this thing, and I that; whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass called “work” must sentence pass,

Things done, that took the eye and had the price;

O’er which, from level stand, the low world laid its hand,

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world’s coarse thumb and finger failed to plumb,

So passed in making up the main account;

All instincts immature, all purposes unsure,

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount;

Thoughts hardly to be packed into a narrow act,

Fancies that broke through language and escaped;

All I could never be, all men ignored in me,

This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter’s wheel, that metaphor! and feel

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay—

Thou, to whom fools propound, when the wine makes its round,

“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”

Fool! All that is at all lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:

What entered into thee, that was, is, and shall be: Time’s wheel runs back or stops; potter and clay endure. He fixed thee mid this dance of plastic circumstance, This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest Machinery just meant to give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. What though the earlier grooves which ran the laughing loves Around thy base, no longer pause and press? What though, about thy rim, skull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? Look thou not down but up! to uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal, The new wine’s foaming flow, the Master’s lips a-glow! Thou, Heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel? But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men; And since, not even while the whirl was worst, Did I—to the wheel of life, with shapes and colors rife, Bound dizzily—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst; So take and use Thy work, amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in Thy hand! perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Even when the words are the same, the delivery changes according to the peculiarities of the hearer. No one tells a story in the same way to different persons. When it is narrated to a little child, greater emphasis is placed on points; we make longer pauses and more salient, definite pictures; but if it is told to an educated man, the thought is sketched more in outline. To one who is ignorant of the circumstances many details are carefully suggested. Even the figures and illustrations are consciously or unconsciously so chosen by one with the dramatic instinct as to adapt the truth to the listener.

In “The Englishman in Italy,” the story is told to a child. After the quotation, “such trifles,” the Englishman speaking would no doubt laugh. The spirit of the poem is shown by the fact that it is spoken by an Englishman to a little child that is an Italian.

A monologue shows the effect of character upon character, and hence nearly always implies the direct speaking of one person to another. In this it differs from a speech. Still, the principle applies even to the speaker. He cannot present a subject in the same way to an educated and to an uneducated audience, but instinctively chooses words common to him and to his hearers and finds such illustrations as make his meaning obvious to them. All language is imperfect. Truth is not made clear by being made superficial, but by the careful choosing of words and illustrations understood by the hearer. The speaker, accordingly, must feel his audience. The imperfection of ordinary teaching and speaking is thus explained by a form of dramatic art. Browning says at the close of “The Ring and the Book”:

“Why take the artistic way to prove so much?

Because, it is the glory and good of Art,

That Art remains the one way possible

Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine, at least.

How look a brother in the face and say

‘Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou, yet art blind, Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length, And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith!’ Say this as silvery as tongue can troll— The anger of the man may be endured, The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him Are not so bad to bear—but here’s the plague, That all this trouble comes of telling truth, Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false, Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, Nor recognizable by whom it left; While falsehood would have done the work of truth. But Art—wherein man nowise speaks to men, Only to mankind—Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word.”

In “A Woman’s Last Word,” already explained (p. 6), the listening husband, his attitude towards his wife, his jealousy and suspicion, all serve to call forth her love and nobility of character. He is the cause of the monologue, and must be as definitely conceived as the speaker. Without a clear conception of his character, her words cannot receive the right interpretation.

In “Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” the listener, Mr. Gigadibs, is definitely, though indirectly, portrayed. He is a young man of thirty, impulsive, ideal, but has not yet struggled with the problems of life. His criticisms of Blougram are answered by that worldly-minded ecclesiastic, who can declare most truly the fact that an absolute faith is not possible, and then assume—and thus contradict himself—that to ignorant people he must preach an absolute faith. The character of the Bishop is strongly conceived, and his perception of the highest possibility of life, as well as his failure to carry it out, are portrayed with marvellous complexity and full recognition of the difficulties of reconciling idealism with realism. But the character of his young, enthusiastic, and earnest critic, who lacks his experience and who may be partially silenced, is as important as the apology of Blougram. The poem is a debate between an idealist and a realist, the speech of the realist alone being given. We catch the weakness and the strength of both points of view, and thus enter into the comprehension of a most subtle struggle for self-justification.

It is some distance from Bishop Blougram to Mr. Dooley, but the necessity for a listener in the monologue, a listener of definite character, is shown in both cases.

Dooley’s talks are a departure from the regular form of the monologue, in the fact that Hennessey now and then speaks a word directly; but this partial introduction of dialogue does not change the fact that all of these talks are monologues. Such interruptions are not the only types of departure from the strict form of the monologue. Browning gives a narrative conclusion to “Pheidippides” and “Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” and many variations are found among different authors. Hennessey’s remarks may be introduced as a way of arousing in the imagination of ordinary people a conception of the listener. The relationship of the two characters is thus possibly more easily pictured to the ordinary imagination.

Of the necessity of Hennessey there can be no doubt. Mr. Dooley would never speak in this way but for the sympathetic and reverently attentive Hennessey. The two are complemental and necessary to each other.

Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures were very popular, perhaps partly because of the silence expressing the patience of Caudle, though there were appendices that indicated remarks written down by Mr. Caudle, but long afterwards and when alone. There are some advantages in the pure form; the mind is kept more concentrated. So without Hennessey’s direct remarks the picture of Dooley might have been even better sustained. The form of a monologue, however, must not be expected to remain rigid. The point here to be apprehended is the necessity of recognizing a listener as well as a speaker.

Every Dooley demands a listener. He must have appreciation. These monologues are a humorous, possibly unconscious, presentation of this principle. The audience or the reader is turned by the author into a contemplative spectator of a simple situation. A play demands a struggle, but here we have all the restfulness, ease, and repose of life itself. We all like to sit back and observe, especially when a character is unfolding itself.

In the monologue as well as in the play there is no direct teaching. Things happen as in life, and we see the action of a thought upon a certain mind and do our own exhorting or preaching.

The monologue adapts itself to all kinds of characters and to every species of theme. It does not require a plot, or even a great struggle, as in the case of the play. Attention is fixed upon one individual; we are led into the midst of the natural situations of every-day life, and receive with great force the impressions which events, ideas, or other characters make upon a specific type of man.

Eugene Field often makes children talk in monologues. Some persons have criticized Field’s children’s poems and said they were not for children at all. This is true, and Field no doubt intended it so. He made his children talk naturally and freely, as if to each other, but not as they would talk to older people.

“Jes’ ’Fore Christmas” is true to a boy’s character, but we must be careful in choosing a listener. The boy would not speak in this way to an audience, to the family at the dinner table, nor to any one but a confidant. He must have, in fact, a Hennessey—possibly some other boy, or, more likely, some hired man.

It is a mistake, unfortunately a common one, to give such a poem as a speech to an audience. It is not a speech, but only one end of a conversation. It is almost lyric in its portrayal of feeling, but still it concerns human action and the relations of persons to each other. Therefore, it is primarily dramatic, and a monologue. The words must be considered as spoken to some confidential listener.

A proper conception of the monologue produces a higher appreciation of the work of Field. As monologues, his poems are always consistent and beautiful. When considered as mere stories for children, their artistic form has been misconceived, and interpreters of them with this conception have often failed.

Even “Little Boy Blue,” a decided lyric, has a definite speaker, and the objects described and the events indicated are intensely as well as dramatically realized. Notice the abrupt transitions, the sudden changes in feeling. It is more easily rendered with a slight suggestion of a sympathetic listener.

Many persons regard James Whitcomb Riley’s “Knee-deep in June” as a lyric; but has it enough unconsciousness for this? To me it is far more flexible and spontaneous when considered as a monologue. The interpreter of the poem can make longer pauses. He can so identify himself with the character as to give genial and hearty laughter, and thus indicate dramatically the sudden arrival of ideas. To reveal the awakening of an idea is the very soul of spontaneous expression, and such awakening is nearly always dramatic. So in the following conception, what a sudden, joyous discovery can be made of

“Mr. Blue Jay full o’ sass,

In them base-ball cloes o’ hisn.”

Notice also the sudden breaks in transition that can be indicated in

“Blue birds’ nests tucked up there

Conveniently for the boy ’at’s apt to be

Up some other apple tree.”

Notice after “to be” how he suddenly enjoys the birds’ cunning and laughs for the moment at the boys’ failure. You can accentuate, too, his dramatic feeling for May and “ ’bominate its promises” with more decision and point.

The “you” in this poem and the frequent imperatives indicate the conception in the author’s mind of a speaker and a sympathetic companion out in the fields in June. It certainly detracts from the simplicity, dramatic intensity, naturalness, and spontaneity to make of it a kind of address to an audience. The same is true of the “Liztown Humorist,” “Kingsby’s Mill,” “Joney,” and many others which are usually considered and rendered as stories. They are monologues. Possibly a completer title for them would be lyric monologues.

While the interpreter of these monologues can easily turn his auditors into a sympathetic and familiar group who might stand for his listener, he can transport them in imagination to the right situation; and while this is often done by interpreters with good effect, to my mind this does not change their character as monologues.

Granting, however, that some of Riley’s poems are more or less speeches, it must be admitted that he has written some definite and formal poems which cannot be so conceived. “Nothin’ to Say,” for example, is one of the most decided and formal monologues found anywhere. In this the listener