Literary terms 3-4

Soliloquy: an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, esp. by a character in a play.

· Example: To be, or not to be, that is the question…The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons, Be all my sins remembered.

· Function: To be, or not to be" is the opening line of a soliloquy from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet (written about 1600), Act III, Scene 1. It is the best-known quotation from this particular play and one of the most famous in world literature. In this soliloquy Hamlet speaks it to himself, alone onstage. All others leave the room with the king, Claudius, and the queen, Gertrude. Hamlet struggles with his internal conflict of whether or not to kill himself in light of recent events which have depressed him greatly.

Sonnet: fourteen-line rhyming poem with set structure: a short poem with 14 lines, usually ten-syllable rhyming lines, divided into two, three, or four sections. There are many rhyming patterns for sonnets, and they are usually written in iambic pentameter.

· Example: Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents' strife. The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; The which if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

· Function: this is a prologue written as a sonnet. Sonnets were a popular form of poetry in Shakespeare's time; they were a traditional and respected poetic form that usually dealt with a theme of requited love. A sonnet has 14 lines with a set rhyme scheme and a fixed rhythm called ' iambic pentameter' (di-dum/di-dum/di-dum/di-dum/di-dum); this helps to create a sense of harmony and acts to link the ideas expressed in the sonnet.