Interpersonal Soliloquy: Self and Audience in Shakespeare and Augustine
@article{Selleck2021InterpersonalSS, title={Interpersonal Soliloquy: Self and Audience in Shakespeare and Augustine}, author={Nancy Selleck}, journal={English Literary Renaissance}, year={2021}, volume={51}, pages={63 - 95} }
This essay re-examines the meaning of Shakespearean soliloquies in light of both historical context and performance practice, arguing that they stage the interpersonal dimensions of identity in early modern culture. Solo speeches in Richard II and Hamlet offer textual evidence of their intended performance not as mere inward contemplation but as direct encounters with the playhouse audience. As dialogic speech acts, they constitute a deliberate ontological paradox: the act of speaking “alone…