The Politics of Dramatic Form

Isobel Armstrong

Summary:

               In “The Politics of Dramatic Form” Isobel Armstrong compared perspectives of various utilitarian thinkers on dramatic form, specifically that utilized by Robert Browning. Armstrong begins with Mill’s perspective on dramatic form. Mill is said by Armstrong to believe that for poetry to be of the dramatic form it must involve a focus on the “speaker’s” internal conflict of feelings. According to Mill the “speaker” needs to be unaware of any audience because this creates a greater since of drama. This drama is present because the character is expressing feeling as if all else no longer existed. This is the truest form of the emotion that the “speaker” and thus the poet can express. Armstrong also wrote of Bentham’s perspective on dramatic form and the importance of fiction created through language. Bentham said “fictitious entities owe their existence, their impossible, yet indispensable, existence” to language.  Thanks to language the importance of relation to fiction of dramatic form is possible. This relation to fiction is so important because it allows the reader to see him/herself in the fictitious situation of the fictitious character. The reader’s placement of him/herself into the situation is seemingly more dramatic because the emotions become theirs.  Robert Browning utilized many of these utilitarian perspectives to create many his monologues. 

Analysis:

               I agree with much of Armstrong’s opinion on the use of the utilitarian perspectives.  A major example of this I noticed was in Porphyria’s Lover.  After reading Armstrong’s essay the poem made much more sense to me.  The feelings created by the dramatic poem almost became my own, as explained in the essay.  I understood better why these feelings had occurred.  I also agree with his views of the “speaker”.  It makes a monologue much more real when it almost seems as if you, the reader, is there with their thoughts, rather than them thinking for themselves.