What is the definition of monologue?
The definition of monologue is a passage in a literary work in which a solitary character speaks.
Monologue
Last Updated on December 2, 2021, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 131
Monologue - refers to a speech by one person in a drama, a form of entertainment by a single speaker, or an extended part of the text of a play uttered by an actor.
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The term is taken directly from the Greek monologos, meaning “speaking alone.”
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An example is Macbeth’s questioning of his own sanity in Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee!
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
Act II, scene i : lines 42 – 48
see: dialogue, interior monologue, soliloquy
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