Dramatic monologue is a kind of poem in which a single character reveals a dramatic situation. He is overheard speaking to a silent listener. Robert Browning perfected this form of poetry.
"An ode is a long lyric poem, serious in subject, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic structure." (Abrams). It is often written to praise someone or something, or to mark an important occasion. Pindar, a Greek poet, developed the form of the ode from the varying stanza pattern of the choral songs in Greek tragedy. His complex stanzas were patterned in sets of three: moving in a dance rhythm to the left, the chorus chanted the strophe; moving to right it chanted the antistrophe; then standing still it chanted the epode.
A Tale of Two Cities is essentially a serious and tragic novel of Dickens. But the most outstanding quality of Dickens, the note of humour is not absent in it, though it does not contain too much humour as we find in other novels like 'Great Expectations' and 'David Copperfield'. Since the novel deals with the most serious aspect of society, excess of humour would have marred the tragic effect of the novel. Despite that, the novelist introduces humour through situations, characterization and incidents. Characters like Stryver, Jerry Cruncher and Miss Pross provide us with ample humour.
In spite of the fact that A Tale of Two Cities contains a few grains of humour, it is out and out a tragic novel, containing a large number of melodramatic and sensational meterial. The novelist does not love violence and boodshed for their own sake. Besides the general tragedy of the people of France, the novel also deals with the tragedies of a few individuals. It depicts like a tragedy suffering and misfortune of some characters.
