course. In Book X the Pope decides against Guido, and gives the reasons for this decision. Book XI is Guido’s last confession as a condemned man; here his character is still more definitely unfolded. He tries to bribe his guards; though still defiant, he shows his base, cowardly nature at the close, and ends his final weak and chaotic appeal by calling on Pompilia, thus giving the highest testimony possible to the purity and sweetness of the woman he murdered:
“Don’t open! Hold me from them! I am yours,
I am the Granduke’s—no, I am the Pope’s!
Abate—Cardinal—Christ—Maria—God, …
Pompilia, will you let them murder me?”
In his defence he was concealing his real deeds and character, and justifying himself. In this book he reveals himself with great frankness.
In Book XII the case is given as it fades into history, and the poem closes with a lesson regarding the function or necessity of art in telling truth.
“The Ring and the Book” affords perhaps the highest example of the value of the monologue as a form of art. Men who have only one point of view are always “cranks,”—able, that is, to turn only one way. A preacher who can appreciate only the point of view of his own denomination will never get very near the truth. The statesman who declares “there is but one side to a question” may sometime by his narrowness assist in plunging his country into a great war. No man can help his fellows if unable to see things from their point of view. “The Ring and the Book” shows every speaker coloring the truth unconsciously by his own character, and Browning, by putting the same facts in the mouths of different persons, enables us to discover the personal element.
This is the specific function of the monologue. It artistically interprets truth by interpreting the soul that realizes it. This excites interest in the speaker and shows its dramatic character.
Browning, by its aid, interprets peculiarities of human nature before unnoticed. Dramatic instinct is given a new literary form and expression. Human nature receives a profounder interpretation. We are made more teachable and sympathetic. The monologue exhibits one person drawing quick conclusions, another meeting doubt with counter-doubt, or still another calmly weighing evidences; it occupies many points of view, thus giving a clearer perception of truth through the mirror of human character.
III. THE HEARER
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