the.com/soliloquy
Talking to yourself, but with stage lighting and a paying audience eavesdropping.
means A speech in which a character, alone on stage, voices their private thoughts aloud for the audience to hear.
from Coined from Latin: 'solus' (alone) plus 'loqui' (to speak), so literally 'a speaking alone.' The blended Latin form 'soliloquium' is credited to St. Augustine, who used it as a title for a work imagining a dialogue with his own reason; it entered English in the 17th century and found its natural home in the theatre.
- Latin roots
- From solus alone plus loqui to speak
- Hamlet hoarder
- Hamlet has seven, more than any other character
- Not a monologue
- Nobody onstage is meant to hear it
- Mind leak
- Shakespeare's hack for showing private thought