LIST OF MONOLOGUES
These are just a few of the many excellent monologues you could choose from Shakespeare’s assigned tragedies. The first line of each monologue is quoted below. If the first line is not well known or does not reveal the content of the monologue, another line (placed inside parenthesis) follows.
These monologues are of different lengths; don’t let the length or brevity of a monologue alone determine your choice. If you perform a monologue in class, the minimum number of required lines is thirty (30). If the monologue you choose is shorter than thirty (30) lines, however, please select additional lines to perform in class (on another occasion, if you wish) or recite in my office. If your monologue is longer than thirty (30) lines, you may cut lines from it or, to benefit your grade, exceed the minimum number of lines.
Titus Andronicus
1.1.434-58: Tamora: “Not so, my lord, the gods of
2.1.1-25: Aaron: “Now climbeth Tamora Olympus’ top”
2.1.103-31: Aaron: “For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar” (“The forest walks are wide and spacious”)
Romeo and Juliet
Prologue 1-14: Chorus: “Two households, both alike in dignity”
1.4.53-94: Mercutio: “O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you”
2.2.1-32: Romeo: “He jests at scars that never felt a wound. / But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?”
3.2.1-31: Juliet: “Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds”
4.3.14-58: Juliet: “Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. / I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins”
5.1.34-57: Romeo: “Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night”
Julius Caesar
1.3.3-13, 14-32: Casca: “Are not you mov’d, when all the sway of earth” (“Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets”)
2.1.10-34: Brutus: “It must be by his death”
2.1.162-83: Brutus: “Our course will seem too bloody” (“Let’s be sacrificers, but not butchers”)
3.1.58-77: Caesar: “I could be well mov’d, if I were as you”
3.2.73-107:
3.2.169-97:
5.5.68-75:
Hamlet
1.2.129-59: Hamlet: “O that this too too sallied flesh would melt”
1.3.55-81: Polonius: “Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!” (“This above all: to thine own self be true”)
1.5.9-23, 25, 27-28, 31b-39a, 42-91: Ghost: “I am thy father’s spirit, / Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night” [You will definitely want to cut some of these lines.]
2.2.549-605: Hamlet: “Now I am alone. / O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I”
3.1.55-88: Hamlet: “To be, or not to be, that is the question”
3.2.1-45: Hamlet: “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you” [This particular prose monologue is fine, but, in general, you should choose monologues in poetry rather than prose.]
3.3.36-72: Claudius: “O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven”
3.3.73-96: Hamlet: “Now might I do it [pat], now ’a is a-praying”
4.4.32-66: Hamlet: “How all occasions do inform against me” [known as Hamlet’s “eggshell” soliloquy]
Othello
1.3.128-70: Othello: “Her father lov’d me, oft invited me”
1.3.383-404: Iago: “Thus do I ever make my fool my purse”
2.1.286-312: Iago: “That Cassio loves her, I do well believe ’t”
2.3.336-62: Iago: “And what’s he then that says I play the villain” (“I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear”)
3.3.155-61: Iago: “Good name in man and woman, dear my lord”
3.3.165-70: Iago: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy”
5.2.1-22: Othello: “It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul”
5.2.338-56: Othello: “Soft you; a word or two before you go” (“Then must you speak / Of one who lov’d not wisely but too well”)
King Lear
1.2.1-22: Edmund: “Thou, Nature, art my goddess”
2.4.264-86: Lear: “O, reason not the need”
3.4.6-36: Lear: “Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm” (“Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are”)
Macbeth
1.5.15-30: Lady Macbeth: “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor”
1.5.38-58: Lady Macbeth: “The raven himself is hoarse”
1.7.1-28: Macbeth: “If it were done, when ’tis done”
2.1.33-64: Macbeth: “Is this a dagger which I see before me”
3.1.47b-71: Macbeth: “To be thus is nothing, / But to be safely thus”
5.5.9-15, 16-28: Macbeth: “I have almost forgot the taste of fears” (“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”)
5.8.17-22, 27b-34: Macbeth: “Accursed be that tongue that tells me so” (“Lay on, Macduff”)
2.2.190-218, 233-39: Enobarbus: “I will tell you. /The barge she sat in . . . / Burnt on the water”
4.12.9-30a:
5.2.207b-21: Cleopatra: “Now, Iras, what think’st thou?” / Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shall be shown / In Rome as well as I”
5.2.280-98, 300b-13: Cleopatra: “Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have / Immortal longings in me”