The Convent Threshold

A dramatic monologue is a type of lyric poem written as if it were a speech from a single character, who is definitively not the poet, and addressed to another person. The poem focuses on a critical moment in the character’s life to reveal something of the speaker’s state of mind. It was a particularly popular form during the early Victorian era. Both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote their own dramatic monologues.

Rossetti’s speaker is a woman whom Rossetti would have labeled a “fallen” woman. This outdated term was used as a way of morally judging a woman who had premarital sex, equating her choice to a fall from the grace of God. This label was applied both to women in relationships and those performing sex work. Likely inspired at least partially by her work at the St. Mary Magdalene house of charity, Rossetti does portray her speaker with some sympathy, as she sees it as possible for these women to be redeemed.

Rossetti’s purpose centers on persuading her audience to repent. The dramatic monologue allows her to describe intense emotions. Here, her speaker expresses intense guilt for living in sin in the beginning of the poem while ending the poem with the reassuring relief of salvation.