Last Updated on March 17, 2020, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 130

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.

Download Guide to Literary Terms Study Guide

Subscribe Now

The term is taken directly from the Greek monologos, meaning “speaking alone.”

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

Explore all literary terms.