From the execution ballad to the dramatic monologue: Criminal confession reconfigured

Martens, Britta

Abstract

Victorian dramatic monologues about murder, including such prominent examples as Robert Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover,” “My Last Duchess,” and The Ring and the Book, as well as Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “A Last Confession,” often rely upon readers’ familiarity with the popular genre of the execution ballad. Subverting the straightforward plotline and deterrent social function of the primarily didactic ballad, these monologues shift the reader’s horizon of expectation towards greater psychological sophistication and moral ambiguity, obliging them to contemplate a world in which crime may go unpunished and social order is fragile.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 4, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Feb 4, 2025
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jan 8, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 2, 2024
• Journal: Victorian Poetry
• Print ISSN: 0042-5206
• Electronic ISSN: 1530-7190
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 76-108
• Keywords: Browning, Robert; confession; crime; dramatic monologue; execution ballad; horizon of expectation; murder; reception; Rossetti, Dante Gabriel.
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11597354
• Publisher URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/948526