William Shakespeare's Monologues
When considering writing a research paper on William Shakespeare's monologues, try to narrow your research paper to only one or two monologues. Paper Masters can help you choose the most appropriate monologue to use or we can custom write your research paper on William Shakespeare's monologues for you.
There are over 200 main monologues from William Shakespeare's plays. An example of a few monologues from Romeo and Juliet are:
- Prince Escalus stops the fight between Montegues and Capulets
- Romeo sees Juliet at her window
- Juliet expresses her love for Romeo
- Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene
In many of his plays, William Shakespeare has his characters provide a monologue. Shakespeare's plays were written in poetic verse (iambic pentameter to be precise), so these dramatic monologues can be considered a self-contained poetic speech. Monologues both reveal some aspect of the character while delivering important plot points.
Perhaps the most famous of Shakespeare's monologues is Hamlets famous soliloquy: "To be or not to be, that is the question." Hamlet delivers several other monologues in the play, including "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well." In fact, there are a total of twenty-five monologues in Hamlet, spoken by several characters other than Hamlet himself. Another equally famous Shakespearean monologue is "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears," from Julius Caesar. However, Shakespeare also wrote monologues into his comedies and histories and for both men and women characters. In fact, Richard III opens with a monologue, "Now is the winter of our discontent."
Monologues, especially Shakespeare's provide actors with an opportunity to deliver a set piece of shorter duration that is meant to be performed before an audience. While poetic, these instances in Shakespeare's plays provide the actor a moment to express their art in a solo fashion. Shakespearean monologues are both brilliant poetry and fascinating character studies from the master playwright of the English language.