Browning characterized this poem as a dramatic lyric; but essentially it is a dramatic monologue, a genre typically associated with Robert Browning,[6] where one person speaks to a presumed audience. It is written in iambic pentameter, employing rhyming couplets and the enjambment technique of not always concluding the sentences at the ends of lines. Because of these techniques, the poem has a conversational quality and can be read as a long speech.