Monologue (pronounced mon-uh-lawg or mon-uh—log)
(1) A
form of dramatic entertainment, comedic solo, or the like by a single speaker,
delivered to others.
(2) In
casual use, a prolonged talk or discourse by a single speaker, especially one
dominating or monopolizing a conversation; a monopolizing utterance.
Circa 1550: From the French monologue (on the model of dialogue), from the Ancient Greek, via the Byzantine Greek μονόλογος (monólogos) (speaking alone or to oneself), the construct being monos (single, alone), from the primitive Indo-European root men- (small, isolated) + logos (speech, word), from legein (to speak), from the primitive Indo-European root leg- (to collect, gather), with derivatives meaning "to speak” (as in “to pick out words”). The travelogue (originally a talk on travel), dates from 1903, the construct a hybrid of travel + logue (abstracted from monologue) and coined by US traveler, photographer and filmmaker Burton Holmes (1870-1958), who essentially invented the multi-media documentary lecture in its modern understanding. The alternative spelling is monolog. Monologue, monologist & monology are nouns, monologuing, monologed, monologuer & monologize are verbs, monologic & monological are adjectives and monologically is an adverb; the noun plural is monologs. There was once a debate about whether the noun monologician existed and it seems not, monologist used on the rare occasions such a form is thought needed.
Although the term “monologue is used in a number of senses, the core of the concept is a single individual speaking alone, sometimes to an audience, sometimes not. In the Western tradition, many prayers, much lyric verse and all laments are monologues, but beyond those, they tend to be listed in four classes: (1) the monodrama (a (usually) theatrical performance in which there is only one character (an exemplar being Samuel Beckett's play Krapp's Last Tape (1958))), (2) the soliloquy, (3) a solo address to an audience (such as Iago in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) Othello (1603) explaining what he’s about to do and (4) the dramatic monologue in which one imaginary speaker addresses an imaginary audience (as in Robert Browning’s (1812–1889) poem My Last Duchess (1842)), such a fine example it has appeared in dozens of anthologies to illustrate the technique). James Joyce's (1882–1941) Ulysses (1922), which purports to be an account of the actions, thoughts, feelings & experiences of two men over some 24 hours in Dublin on 6 June 1904, famously contains the 40-odd page interior monologue of Molly Bloom (a passage with but a single punctuation mark). One of literature’s longer “fragments”, from it one learns much about Joyce but probably less about the thoughts of women, rather as in all he wrote of women, Philip Roth (1933–2018) revealed a lot about himself but little about them, despite the often elegant internal logic.
In Mean Girls, while there are moments that could be called monologues there are, in the strict theatrical sense, no soliloquies. Ms Norbury’s speech about girl-on-girl sabotage and self-esteem in the “gym scene” are both monologues as is that given by Janis mocking the social hierarchy while Cady’s Spring Fling Queen speech is a monologue which does double-duty as part of the plot resolution. As a technical point, when Cady narrates her thoughts in voice-over, she’s not literally alone on stage speaking to herself; rather it’s a narration to the audience, so is more a voice-over commentary than a theatrical soliloquy. A variant is interior monologue, distinguished by it being a recording of the continuum of impressions, thoughts and impulses, prompted either by conscious experience or arising from the well of the subconscious. The phrase was first used in a 1921 essay on Joyce by the French poet Valery Larbaud (1881–1957) and was long regarded as synonymous with “stream of consciousness” although use in popular works has made the latter the more frequently used form. Mere popularity however isn’t enough to satisfy literary theorists and there are factions, some arguing the stream of consciousness includes all imitations of interiority, the interior monologue just one method among many. Others maintain the interior monologue is the overarching category and stands for all methods of self-revelation (including some kinds of dramatic monologue) and in this model, a stream of consciousness is an uninterrupted flow in which logic, conventional syntax and punctuation can be abandoned (emulating the not always formally-structured human thought processes). For the reader, the result can be exhilarating or incomprehensible but the beat poets of the 1950s made it fashionable. In the English tradition, usually, the dramatic monologue appears on paper as spoken text but often (rapidly or eventually) it becomes reverie and the speaker patently is not the poet (imaginary speaker; imaginary audience). French writers (especially the symbolist poets) often rendered their interior musings as something more ambiguous but the idea was the same.
Soliloquy (pronounced suh-lil-uh-kwee)
(1) As
a theatrical device, an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to
himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any others present
(often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts).
(2) The
act of talking while or as if alone.
1595–1605: From the Late Latin sōliloquium (a talking to oneself), the construct being sōli- (from sōlus (sole)) + loqu(ī) (to speak) from primitive Indo-European root tolkw- (to speak) + -ium. English picked up the word from the title of Saint Augustine's (354-430) somewhat unsatisfactory treatise Soliloquiorum libri duo (Two Books of Soliloquies (387-388)), Augustine said to have coined the word, by analogy with the Ancient Greek monologia. In the technical jargon of musical criticism (used widely in many languages), a soliloquent is a soloists. In psychiatry, there’s even a distinction between “the internal soliloquy” in which the patient imagines speaking to themselves and the “internal monologue” in which others might in the mind be summoned to listen or respond. Soliloquy & soliloquist are nouns, soliloquize, soliloquing, soliloquied & soliloquiaste are verbs; the noun plural is soliloquies.
In drama, there are three types of soliloquy: (1) the most common form is where the character speaks either to themselves or the universe, essentially thinking out loud (or in the technical language of theatre direction “talking to an empty room”. As a dramatic device, it’s the expression of the character’s inner thoughts and the structural equivalent of first-person narration in written fiction. (2) Soliloquies are sometimes delivered to some specific but non-human; that might be a skull, a book, an animal or a corpse (the (sort-of) exception to the non-human rule), it being necessary only that what is being addressed cannot hear or respond. (3) The third type appears to break the rules but theorists insist it remains a soliloquy. This is the so-called “breaking the fourth wall” (ie the (imaginary) wall between the actor and audience (the other three being the backdrop and the wings)) during which the actor directly will speak to the audience. If this is just a few words then it’s a stage whisper or an aside but if a long-form speech, then it’s a soliloquy. Soliloquy is sometimes wrongly used where monologue is meant, even the most famous in English literature ("to be, or not to be") from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is sometimes called a monologue. In general use, monologue is the more popular word and, of course, except on stage, soliloquies rarely are seen in public.
Although etymologists note rather than endorse the tale, it’s possible the word “soliloquy” came from a Latin compound coined by the theologian Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), the construct of soliloquiam being solus (alone) + loqui (to speak). A soliloquy is a speech (often one of some length) in which a character (alone on the stage), expresses their thoughts and feelings and it has long been accepted as a dramatic convention of great significance. Its utility came from it being a device which enabled a dramatist directly to convey to their audience important information about a character: state of mind, intimate thoughts & feelings, his motives and intentions. Soliloquies were rare in Classical drama and it was in the Elizabethan era of the late 1500s and the Jacobean period in the following century it became an integral part of theatre production, the technique honed and exploited to a degree not since equalled. Shakespeare’s soliloquies are of course among the most performed and celebrated but there are structuralist critics who claim the best executed examples appear in Christopher Marlowe’s (1564–1593) Doctor Faustus (1601).
One thing the use of a soliloquy lent a author was a way of “fleshing out” the plot with a speech of a few minutes, something which might otherwise have absorbed many time-consuming scenes and a prime exponent was “the villain” who, being often manipulators of the plot and commentators on the action, could use their prolonged asides as direct addresses to the audience; then, the trick had yet to be called post-modern. Although use faded, dramatists continued include soliloquies during the Restoration and even into the early nineteenth century although as more naturalistic works came to be preferred, it was only in the niche of the verse play that use persisted. However, in its very structural subversiveness the soliloquy had appeal and the device appeared in WH Auden’s (1907-1973) The Ascent of F6 (1937) and Robert Bolt's (1924–1995) A Man for All Seasons (1960).
Juliet’s “Farewell!” speech (Act IV, Scene 3) in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597) is the definitive soliloquy because (1) she’s alone on stage having sent away the nurse so she can drink the poison, (2) what she says are her own, private thoughts, not an address to another character or the audience and (3) the speech exists to reveal her fears and resolve the plot. For that reason, a soliloquy (in the Elizabethan sense) was often described as “a monologue to oneself”. Shakespeare didn’t invent the soliloquy but, debatably, he may have perfected it and scholars have detected his stagecraft “formula”, one which was not especially subtle because the bard wanted his audience to recognize the device; it would help them “follow the plot”. Blatantly, he had Juliette say to the nurse: “Let me now be left alone”, a trigger warning for the audience to prepare for a soliloquy and the scholars have deconstructed Shakespeare’s "soliloquy algorithm": (1) There’s an “opening hook” of a direct emotional outburst, rhetorical question, or statement of purpose (“To be, or not to be—that is the question”), (2) Then there’s a self-dialogue or internal debate in which a dilemma is explored, often imagining consequences, illustrated sometimes with vivid mental imagery & hypotheticals (ghosts, poison, deathbeds), (3) That proceeds towards resolution, the making of a decision to pursue a certain course of action which (4) must conclude with the physical acts matching the decision, be they happy or tragic.
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