Soliloquy  A dramatic convention by means of which a character, alone onstage, utters his or her thoughts aloud. Playwrights use soliloquies as a convenient way to inform the audience about a character's motivations and state of mind. Shakespeare's Hamlet delivers perhaps the best known of all soliloquies, which begins: "To be or not to be." See also aside, convention.


The definitions in this glossary were adapted from The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Sixth Edition, by Michael Meyer