Teaching Shakespeare: Scenes and Monologues

There is something about a Shakespearean monologue that sets it apart from all other speeches. It is not just the iambic pentameter, although no other playwright uses that structure with such brilliance. It is the way the language transports us into the inner life of the speaker, using words so descriptive and colourful as to almost magically bring characters into existence, fully human and breathtakingly dramatic. This collection contains nine monologues for male characters and nine for female characters. You can act across gender lines, of course: Shakespeare would approve since male actors generally played the female roles in his time.