Reading Shakespeare's Soliloquies


Book Description

'Now I am alone,' says Hamlet before speaking a soliloquy. But what is a Shakespearean soliloquy? How has it been understood in literary and theatrical history? How does it work in screen versions of Shakespeare? What influence has it had? Neil Corcoran offers a thorough exploration and explanation of the origin, nature, development and reception of Shakespeare's soliloquies. Divided into four parts, the book supplies the historical, dramatic and theoretical contexts necessary to understanding, offers extensive and insightful close readings of particular soliloquies and includes interviews with eight renowned Shakespearean actors providing details of the practical performance of the soliloquy. A comprehensive study of a key aspect of Shakespeare's dramatic art, this book is ideal for students and theatre-goers keen to understand the complexities and rewards of Shakespeare's unique use of the soliloquy.




The soliloquies in Shakespeare. Structure and function


Book Description

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2, University of Bonn (Anglistik), course: Hamlet, language: English, abstract: “To be or not to be, that is the question” is one of the most famous speeches in the world. Its technical name is “soliloquy”. The soliloquy is a very important unit of the drama. Playwrights use or used this device to achieve many goals and convey many messages in the story-telling. The soliloquy as a unit of the drama is multifunctional. This paper gives a small idea about the structure and function of this unit of the drama. In the next step, different definitions of the term “soliloquy” from different points of views of different playwrights and analysts are mentioned. Afterwards, the paper gives a distinction of the term from other kinds of these speeches, especially the “Monologue” and the “Aside”. In the third section, it mentions some structural functions of it, and shows how it is used, why and what this device can do on the stage on the character and audience level.




The Soliloquies of Shakespeare


Book Description

Presents a collective study of all of Shakespeare's soliloquies by defining the soliloquy, classifying the soliloquies and presenting them as revelations of thought and feeling.




Shakespeare's Soliloquies


Book Description

Twenty-seven soliloquies are examined in this work, illustrating how the spectator or reader is led to the soliloquy and how the drama is continued afterwards.




Shakespeare and the Soliloquy in Early Modern English Drama


Book Description

This is the first book to provide students and scholars with a truly comprehensive guide to the early modern soliloquy.




Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies


Book Description

Provides the first systematic and comprehensive account of the conventions governing soliloquies in Western drama from ancient times to the twentieth century. Over the course of theatrical history, there have been several kinds of soliloquies. Shakespeare's soliloquies are not only the most interesting and the most famous, but also the most misunderstood, and several chapters examine them in detail. The present study is based on a painstaking analysis of the actual practices of dramatists from each age of theatrical history. This investigation has uncovered evidence that refutes long-standing commonplaces about soliloquies in general, about Shakespeare's soliloquies in particular, and especially about the to be, or not to be episode. 'Shakespeare and the history of Soliloquies' casts new lights on historical changes in the artistic representation of human beings and, because representations cannot be entirely disentangled from perception, on historical changes in the ways human beings have perceived theselves.




The Soliloquies of Shakespeare: A Study in Technic: Columbia University Studies in English


Book Description

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