Speech on gloom, delivered by university head of English (9)
I believe the answer is:
monologue
'speech' is the definition.
(I know that monologue is a type of speech)
'on gloom delivered by university head of english' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'on' is within the answer.
an anagram of 'gloom' is 'molog' which is present in the remaining letters.
'university' could be 'u' (abbreviation as in UMass) and 'u' is found within the answer.
'english' could be 'e' (abbreviation as in OED) and 'e' is found within the answer.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for monologue that I've seen before include "Long solo speech" , "Long dramatic speech by a single actor" , "Long uninterrupted speech" , "Soliloquy" , "Long and tedious speech" .)