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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.