This book aims to explain what Browning meant by 'action in character.' Slinn sees Browning as a psychological dramatist using the poetic genre. His concern is with dramatic monologue, which almost invariably focuses on conflicts of identity. Browning's characters, according to Slinn, must walk a tightrope between the distracting lives of others which threaten to fragment the individual's experience on the one hand, and controlled solipsism on the other.
