Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Resonance in Monologues

Resonance in Monologues

Well my culinary blog did not attract a host of impressed gourmets. It was received on about the same par as my leadership and automotive blogs. Since I gave away all my cooking tips in a single effort I won’t be following up on any more food tips.

It is still a little early but I intend to try and get my students to put some resonance into their monologues. Initially I was going to have them try some rap but after sleeping on the idea decided it wasn't such a good one. Still rap is a form or resonance and I need to get them to interject it into the monologues.

The first cousin to the stage play is the musical and guess what the monologues are in a musical. Yes, Yes! You are all so clever…..SONGS! Now everybody knows that all songs have resonance or they wouldn’t be songs. But a monologue does not have to be a song.

Shakesphere used poetry….a whole lot of iambic pentameter. Read Hamlet or Macbeth or the Henry’s ……

This is Hotspurs soliloquy which provides a splendid example…I liked it so much I memorized it after Vietnam. I am not trying to impress anyone with my recollection but this is truly great stuff….Actually it was spoken to Henry by Hotspur and thus probably does not constitute a thought monologue but is rather a spoken monologue…. If there is such a thing. People certainly don’t dialogue like this example in casual conversation….however lawyers do get a bit long winded in opening and closing arguments.

My liege, I did deny no prisoners
But I remember when the fight was done.
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil
Breathless and faint, leaning on my sword,
There came this lord neat and trimly dressed.

Fresh as a brides groom, his chin new reaped
Shown like a stubble land at harvest home
He was perfumed like a milliner
And twist his finger and thumb he held a pounced box
Which ever and anon he gave his nose and took away again.
Therewith angered when next it came there
Took it in snuff….and still he smiled and talked.

And as my soldiers bore dead bodies by
He called them untaught knaves…unmannerly
To bring a slovenly and unhandsome corpse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms he questioned me
Amongst the rest demanded my prisoners in your majesties behalf.

I all smarting with my wounds being cold
To be so pestered by this popinjay
Out of my grief and impatience answered neglecting
He should or he should not….
For he made me mad to see him shine so brisk
And smell so sweet, and talk so like a waiting gentlewoman
Of guns and drums and wounds, God save the mark.
And were it not for these vile guns,
he himself might have been a soldier.

This bald and unjointed chat of his I answered indirectly
…..As I said
And I beseech thee let not his report come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

Since nobody has ever heard another’s thoughts they can be expressed any way the writer wants to, however historically they tended towards song or poetry….I think that free verse would work well if it had a little rhythm.

I think I will suggest the playwright begin by writing monologues in straight prose and then going back and trying to apply as best they can a little resonating grease….What do you readers think….Is it worth the trouble?