Again, the monologue has been confused with the lyric poem. Browning called one of his volumes "Dramatic Lyrics"; another, "Dramatic Idyls"; and another, "Dramatic Romances and Lyrics." Though many monologues are lyric in spirit, they are more frequently dramatic.
A lyric is the utterance of an individual intensely realizing a specific situation, and implies deep feeling. But the monologue may or may not be emotional. No doubt it may result from as intense a realization as the lyric poem. It resembles a lyric in being simple and in being usually short, but is unlike it in that its theme is chiefly dramatic, its interest indirect, and that it lays bare to a far greater degree human motives in certain situations and under the ruling forces of a life.
The monologue is like a lyric also in that it must be recognized as a complete whole. Each clause must be understood in relation to others as a part of the whole. An essay can be understood sentence after sentence. A story gives a sequence of events for their own sake. A discussion may consist of a mere recital or succession of facts. In all these the whole is built up part by part. But the monologue differs from all these in that the whole must be felt from the beginning.
Further, in the monologue ideas are not given directly, as in the story or essay, but usually the more important points are suggested indirectly. The attention of the reader or hearer is focussed upon a living human being. What is said is not necessarily a universal and impersonal truth, it is the opinion of a certain type of man. We judge what is said by the character of the speaker, by the person to whom he speaks, and by the occasion.
Mr. Furnivall may prefer to have every man speak directly from the shoulder and may write slightingly of such an indirect way of stating a truth as we find in the monologue. We may all prefer, or think we do, the direct way of speaking,--a sermon or lecture, for example,--and dislike what Edmund Spenser called a "dark conceit"; but soon or late we shall agree with Spenser, the master of allegory, that the artistic method is "more interesting," and that example is better than precept.
The monologue is one of the examples of the indirect method common to all art--a method which is necessary on account of the peculiarities of human nature. One person finds it difficult to explain a truth directly to another. Nine-tenths of every picture is the product, not of perception, but of apperception. Hence, without the aid of art, we express in words only half truths. The monologue makes human expression more adequate. It is like a nut; the shell must be penetrated before we can find the kernel. The real truth of the monologue comes only after comprehension of the whole. It reserves its truth until the thought has slowly grown in the mind of the hearer. It holds back something until all parts are co-ordinated and "does the thing shall breed the thought." Accordingly, there are many things to settle in a monologue before the truth it contains can possibly be realized.