Summary of “The Dramatic Monologue: Sympathy versus Judgment” by Robert Langbaum

In his 1957 essay, “The Dramatic Monologue: Sympathy versus Judgment,” Robert Langbaum argues for a new understanding of the dramatic monologue as a poetic form. More specifically, he argues that most definitions of the form only “identify a certain mechanical resemblance” between dramatic monologues (523); this is a problem because these resemblances don’t speak to the full complexity and potential of the form. Instead, they create rules. If a poem has a speaker, a listener, an occasion, and some “interplay between speaker and listener,” then it is a dramatic monologue (524). If it doesn’t, then it isn’t a monologue.  As a result of this narrow definition, Langbaum claims, critics and readers have come to see dramatic monologue as a creature of Victorian poetry and not as part of a longer poetic tradition.

Instead of mechanics, Langbaum thinks readers should pay attention to the insides of dramatic monologue. He writes, “It is when we look inside the dramatic monologue, when we consider its effect, its way of meaning, that we see its connection with the poetry that precedes and follows [Robert] Browning” (525). This idea of effect is what brings the reader into the equation, because it’s only by considering the reader that one can consider the effects of a text. He further counsels readers to adopt a sympathetic rather than judgmental stance towards the subject of dramatic monologues. Given that these poems, especially those written by Browning, feature characters with an array of flaws, it can be easy for readers to take on the role of judge. This is a mistake, Langbaum argues, because “we must be less concerned to condemn than to appreciate” (531). If we are, then we open ourselves as readers to the full meaning of the poem.

Langbaum goes on in the essay to use Browning’s “My Last Duchess” to illustrate his point. If, as readers, we immediately condemn the Duke as a murderer, then we don’t allow ourselves to see what makes him a truly compelling character, namely, that he is also a nobleman, a connoisseur, a possessive egotist, and—most likely—a madman (530).  As he puts it, “sympathy frees us for the widest possible range of experience, while the critical reservation keeps us away of how far we are departing” (534)

In the final third of the article, Langbaum moves on to consider this concept of sympathy as it applies to Browning’s and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s religious poetry. This part of the argument is more complex, but basically Langbaum is saying that Browning doesn’t appeal to any sort of “outside moral code” in his religious poems (535). Instead, the argument lies entirely within the poem, where we see Browning “making the empiricist argument, starting without any assumptions as to faith and transcendental values” (537). In other words, it is the conditions in the poem itself that make the argument for or against any particular religious stance or doctrine.

Langbaum concludes by turning again to the idea of judgment. If a sympathetic stance is what’s needed to fully understand dramatic monologue, then where does judgment come in? It’s still important, because it’s one of the things that help readers make sense of dramatic monologue, but judgment—like sympathy—should come from the content of the poem and not from any outside preconceptions. If we can reconceive of dramatic monologue along these terms, Langbaum argues, than we can rescue it from its relative obscurity and place it within a larger tradition that looks back to Romanticism and forward to Modernism.

Langbaum, Robert. "The Dramatic Monologue: Sympathy versus Judgment." Robert Browning's Poetry.

Ed. James F. Loucks and Andrew M. Stauffer. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2007. 523-542. Print.