dramatic monologue
noun
: a literary work (such as a poem) in which a speaker's character is revealed in a monologue usually addressed to a second person
Examples of dramatic monologue in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Each encounter becomes a dramatic monologue.
—
Literary Hub, 12 Aug. 2025
Individuals interested in auditioning are asked to prepare a one- to two-minute contemporary dramatic monologue and be ready to read from the script, the release stated.
—Aurora Beacon-News, Chicago Tribune, 30 May 2025
In one of the most creative responses, U.K. actor Christopher Tester turned Trump’s words into a highly dramatic monologue set to lugubrious music.
—Leslie Katz, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2024
In a dramatic monologue also written by Harbaugh, the coach took a direct shot at his former college rival, Ohio State coach Ryan Day.
—Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2024
Conversations tend to happen in snappy banter or dramatic monologues laden with jungle metaphors.
—Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Feb. 2024
As a fog rolls in, so does Ole with Gator on a leash and a dramatic monologue of his own about useless hands.
—Keith Phipps, Vulture, 9 Jan. 2024
Richard Howard, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who made the venerable genre of the dramatic monologue speak in a modern voice, and whose translations brought the work of Roland Barthes, Alain Robbe-Grillet and dozens of other French writers to an Anglophone audience, died on Thursday in Manhattan.
—New York Times, 31 Mar. 2022
This novel, hovering somewhere between the older epistolary structure and pure dramatic monologue—between correspondence and a playscript—becomes magically liberated from the more burdensome narrative machinery, that wheezing apparatus of persuasion and pastness.
—James Wood, The New Yorker, 1 June 2020
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Literary Hub, 12 Aug. 2025
Individuals interested in auditioning are asked to prepare a one- to two-minute contemporary dramatic monologue and be ready to read from the script, the release stated.
—Aurora Beacon-News, Chicago Tribune, 30 May 2025
In one of the most creative responses, U.K. actor Christopher Tester turned Trump’s words into a highly dramatic monologue set to lugubrious music.
—Leslie Katz, Forbes, 11 Sep. 2024
In a dramatic monologue also written by Harbaugh, the coach took a direct shot at his former college rival, Ohio State coach Ryan Day.
—Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times, 24 July 2024
Conversations tend to happen in snappy banter or dramatic monologues laden with jungle metaphors.
—Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter, 26 Feb. 2024
As a fog rolls in, so does Ole with Gator on a leash and a dramatic monologue of his own about useless hands.
—Keith Phipps, Vulture, 9 Jan. 2024
Richard Howard, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who made the venerable genre of the dramatic monologue speak in a modern voice, and whose translations brought the work of Roland Barthes, Alain Robbe-Grillet and dozens of other French writers to an Anglophone audience, died on Thursday in Manhattan.
—New York Times, 31 Mar. 2022
This novel, hovering somewhere between the older epistolary structure and pure dramatic monologue—between correspondence and a playscript—becomes magically liberated from the more burdensome narrative machinery, that wheezing apparatus of persuasion and pastness.
—James Wood, The New Yorker, 1 June 2020
Cite this Entry
“Dramatic monologue.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dramatic%20monologue. Accessed 26 Oct. 2025.
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