Alone, Macbeth says, “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?” What does the soliloquy give the audience that dialogue could not?

Left onstage, Hamlet asks, “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” What does this soliloquy chiefly place in the audience’s hands?

After arranging the play, Hamlet says alone, “The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.” What does the soliloquy give us?

Alone in Richard III, Richard says, “I am determined to prove a villain.” What does the soliloquy establish?

Iago ends a scene alone: “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse.” What does the soliloquy give the audience?

Edmund, alone in King Lear, invokes “Nature” and asks, “Wherefore should I / Stand in the plague of custom?” What does the soliloquy reveal?

In Hamlet, Claudius kneels alone: “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.” What does the soliloquy let the audience know?

After the ghost exits, Hamlet says, “O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?” Why is this a soliloquy rather than ordinary dialogue?

In Macbeth, aside after hearing he is Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth says, “Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor: / The greatest is behind.” What does the aside do?

Juliet answers the Nurse’s “Shame come to Romeo!” with “Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” and then argues with herself aloud. What does that inward turn give the audience?

In Much Ado, Benedick comes out of hiding after the staged conversation and says alone, “This can be no trick.” What does the speech accomplish?

In Othello, Iago says aside, “O, you are well tuned now! / But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music.” What does the aside do?

In The Tempest, as Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love, Prospero says aside, “this swift business / I must uneasy make, lest too light winning / Make the prize light.” What does the aside secure?

In Hamlet, the prince speaks in prose to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: “I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth.” What does the prose mark?

Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” is verse, but his talk with the gravedigger is prose. What contrast does the shift help stage?

In Othello, Iago’s prose with Roderigo differs from Othello’s elevated verse before the senate. What does that contrast help mark?

In Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice and Benedick spar mainly in prose. What does that choice emphasize?

Lear’s speeches often strain verse, but the Fool’s riddling talk is prose and song. What does the difference do dramatically?

Romeo banters with Mercutio in prose, but with Juliet he speaks lyric verse. What does the contrast mark?

In Henry IV, Prince Hal moves between tavern prose and courtly verse. What does that formal mobility help dramatize?

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s “Out, damned spot! out, I say!” is prose rather than her earlier controlled verse. What does the switch mark?

In Hamlet, Ophelia’s mad scene mixes songs and broken prose rather than courtly blank verse. What does the formal change help show?

Lear cries over Cordelia, “Never, never, never, never, never.” What does the departure from regular blank verse do at this extremity?

Macbeth hears of Lady Macbeth’s death and says, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.” How does the line’s repetitive drift work against blank-verse momentum?

Othello’s “Put out the light, and then put out the light” bends the line around repetition. What is the effect?

When Hamlet breaks off, “The rest is silence,” what does the shortened utterance do at the moment of death?

After seeing Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth’s verse fractures into exclamations: “Avaunt! and quit my sight!” What does the break from measured control show?

Macbeth exits to kill Duncan on the couplet, “Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell.” What does the rhyme do?

At the end of a scene, Iago rhymes, “I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.” What does the couplet accomplish?

Puck ends A Midsummer Night’s Dream with “Give me your hands, if we be friends, / And Robin shall restore amends.” What does the closing couplet do?