got any of those, too?

Much of Browning- if you want one with the name, try Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister- pretty funny.

And of course, our buddy Bill- there are soliloquies everywhere.

pam

This one by Antony in Julius Ceasar is prophetic in its desription of wartime:


ANTONY

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate' by his side come hot from Hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.--

---William Shakespeare

You need hardly go past Bill's Hamlet. As Stanley J. Sharpless summed it up:

Prince Hamlet thought Uncle a traitor
For having it off with his Mater
Revenge Dad or not?
That's the gist of the plot,
And he did - nine soliloquies later.

As defined in the SOED, a soliloquy is a literary representation of talking to oneself; a practice we find sane enough in theatre, but which in real life might alarm us about the speaker's mental health. Nowadays there's a third possibility. I heard a verse play a few years ago containing the memorable lines:

It was hard to tell if she was mad and alone
Or talking on her hands-free mobile phone.

Yeah, you used to be able to tell the ranters in NYC, not anymore !

Gregory Corso's poem "Marriage" is a soliloquy.

So it Psalm 22, the one Jesus was reciting on the cross (it begins, "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?") It's a stream-of-consciousness, a document of the shifting back and forth between faith and despair during a really stressful experience.

Here you go Marian:

PSALM 22


My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? And why are you so far from
helping me from the words of my groaning?
Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not
answer; and by night I call, but get no respite.
And yet you are enthroned in holiness, you
are He whose praises Israel sings. In you
our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you
rescued them. They called to you for help
and they were saved; they never trusted you in vain.
Yet here am I, now more worm than man,
abused by all men and scorned by the people.
All who see me jeer at me; they
sneer, they jeer at me and toss their heads
"He relied on God, let God save him! If God
is his friend, let God rescue him!"
Yet you brought me here to this world, you
entrusted me to my mother's breasts; upon
you was I cast from my birth, and since my
mother bore me you have been my God.
O God, be not far from me, for trouble is near
and I have no helper.
A herd of bulls surrounds me, strong bulls of
Bashan close in on me; they open wide their
mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion.
My strength drains away like water and all my
bones are loose: my heart has turned in wax
and melts within me; my mouth is dry as a
postherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaw.
A pack of ruffians surrounds me, a gang of
villains closes me in; they tie me hand and
foot and leave me lying in the dust of death.
I feel pains in every one of my bones while
they stare and gloat overme; they divide my
garments among them and cast lots for my clothes.
My King and God, hear the sound of my cry,
when I call to you for help; spare a thought for my sighs!
Preserve my life and save your servant who trusts in you!
Consider my afflictions and forgive all my sins,
for no man living is righteous before you.
Deliver me from evil men who always stir up wars!
O give my eyes light or I shall sleep in death
and all my foes will say: "We have beaten him!" and all my
oppressors will have the joy of seeing me stumble!
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Will you forget me forever?
My God and Lord why have you forsaken me?
Why, My God, why?


Les

Wow. A soliloquy in the bible...that sort of shoots the whole tinity/3 seperate entities of God theory down the tubes.

maybe theres a trililoquy somewhere

"Spoon River Anthology" is a series of soliloquies.

So is the Ancient Mariner's rime in (you guessed it) "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

ALBATROSS !

Next you'll tell us that albatross tastes like chicken, Johnny really.

Ducks are fowl and chickens never fair
an albatross swoops over the sea
whispering a soliloquy quite rare.


Les

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
From those alive and kickin'
because i thought the Albatross
was tastin' just like chicken.

That poem got so well known that now I think people associate the albatross with BAD LUCK, which in fact it's a sailor's sign of GOOD LUCK. The mariner (in the poem) brought bad luck to the ship by killing one.

In the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels, sailors didn't seem to regard albatrosses as any kind of luck, good or bad. In fact, they caught and ate them. Since his books were quite well-researched, I don't know if the 'luck' issue had worn off by Napoleonic times, or if Coleridge made it up.

pam

he mighta been 'opped up on 'opium at the time !

So, what did you choose?

pam