SOLILOQUY: Stolen Shakespeare Literary Device #2

Soliloquy: A speech, usually lengthy, in which a character, alone on stage, expresses his or her thoughts aloud. The soliloquy allows the dramatist to convey a character's most intimate thoughts and feelings directly to the audience.

As I pointed out yesterday, a Shakespearean soliloquy differs from a monologue, which is spoken in the presence of other characters.

Now think about a novel. When does a first-person narrative become a soliloquy? When does it stop being one? A good dinner-table topic for some long evening with close friends.

The most famous soliloquy in the English language is Hamlet's "To be or not to be," but I won't be bothering you with that. You may well be sick of it.

Below, the villian Iago's in-your-face explanation to the audience of exactly what he plans to do to "enmesh them all." It's a perfect example of a soliloquy (not a monologue, as the YouTube description mistakenly attests). Why? Because if any other character in Othello were to overhear this battle plan, the play would be over! Here, the audience becomes a secret co-conspirator in the plot.

Below, a sentence from one of Firestone's soliloquies in my novel JIHADI.

Spurred by the present White Album track, I have just ordered a bowl of onion soup, though I doubt it will live up to my vivid memories of my mother's recipe: the delicate, translucent, caramelized pearls heaped atop and strewn throughout; the subtle touch of cinnamon; the broth of white wine that some would now condemn as hellfuel; central object, central ritual of those glorious candlelit Salem Thanksgivings of hers, soon to be rekindled.


You can read the entirety of Chapter One of my novel JIHADI by clicking here if you want a longer look.

575 words yesterday. Every day, every day, every day I write the book.

Hello again to all you writers and readers and thinkers I admire:  +L. T. Dalin 
+Elizabeth Einspanier +Ksenia Anske +Brandi Mazesticeon +C.M. Albert +Adella Wright +Brian Meeks +Paul Kater +Puddin' Tang +Paul Dinas +Kim K +lynn paden +Adrianna Joleigh +Becky Flade +Douglas Karlson +Madison Dusome +Claudette Anne Pearson +C.M. Skiera +Eustacia Tan +David Eccles +Mary Cain +Duncan Ellis +Becky Flade +kat Folland +N. Dionisio +James Mayes +Nina MJ  +Vladimir Nabokov  +Gavin Cruickshank +N. M. Scuri  +Ann Smyth +Christina Vani  +Ellis Bell  +John Ward +robson ferreira da silva +C.M. Albert +Daoud Ali +Aalia Khan Yousafzai +Ronda K. Reed +Puddin' Tang . I am using this blog to lift the curtain on my favorite new sentence of the writing day. The fact that I have committed to do this in front of all of you makes me less likely to get dodgy about my word count totals, which need to average 600 a day if I am to hit my complete draft target date. No comment or critique is requested, but knowing this is out there to you as a Monday through Friday commitment makes a difference in terms of my own integrity. Of course, if you don't want to be in on this, just let me know.

MONOLOGUE: Stolen Shakespearean Literary Device #1

So -- based on what I am seeing in the numbers, it makes sense to focus this blog's daily writing totals on the ideas I steal from Shakespeare. That seems to be what interests people, and I certainly have enough material to work with. Stealing from Shakespeare was good enough for Nabokov; it's damn well good enough for me.

A Shakespearean monologue differs from an aside or a soliloquy in that it is spoken in "real time" in front of other people who are onstage. (A soliloquy, by contrast, is a speech delivered while a character is alone onstage; it presents the inner workings of the person's mind, directly to the audience.)

Among the more famous Shakespearean monologues is Henry V's "Once more unto the breach" speech, here delivered powerfully by Kenneth Branagh in his masterful film version:

I am classifying a "monologue" in the novelistic sense as an extended real-time speech from one person to one or more audible listeners who are also in that scene. Here is a sentence from a monologue that appears in JIHADI:

You get all the big themes now, if you want them: Freedom, Danger, Courage, so on, and make no mistake, T, it's quite a coup, talking about that kind of stuff in front of a group of this pedigree, and about Sacrifice, we can't forget Sacrifice.


You can read the entirety of Chapter One of my novel JIHADI by clicking here if you want a longer look.

510 words yesterday. Every day, every day, every day I write the book.

Hello again to all you writers and readers and thinkers I admire:  +L. T. Dalin 
+Elizabeth Einspanier +Ksenia Anske +Brandi Mazesticeon +C.M. Albert +Adella Wright +Brian Meeks +Paul Kater +Puddin' Tang +Paul Dinas +Kim K +lynn paden +Adrianna Joleigh +Becky Flade +Douglas Karlson +Madison Dusome +Claudette Anne Pearson +C.M. Skiera +Eustacia Tan +David Eccles +Mary Cain +Duncan Ellis +Becky Flade +kat Folland +N. Dionisio +James Mayes +Nina MJ  +Vladimir Nabokov  +Gavin Cruickshank +N. M. Scuri  +Ann Smyth +Christina Vani  +Ellis Bell  +John Ward +robson ferreira da silva +C.M. Albert +Daoud Ali +Aalia Khan Yousafzai +Ronda K. Reed +Puddin' Tang . I am using this blog to lift the curtain on my favorite new sentence of the writing day. The fact that I have committed to do this in front of all of you makes me less likely to get dodgy about my word count totals, which need to average 600 a day if I am to hit my complete draft target date. No comment or critique is requested, but knowing this is out there to you as a Monday through Friday commitment makes a difference in terms of my own integrity. Of course, if you don't want to be in on this, just let me know.

Three civil questions about William Shakespeare and Edward De Vere for Sir Derek Jacobi -- and a dinner invitation

In an intriguing diversion from his brilliant televised journey into the history and meaning of the play Richard II, Sir Derek Jacobi shook things up. 

Jacobi expressed his personal belief that the Elizabethan aristocrat Edward DeVere composed the plays traditionally attributed to the actor William Shakespeare. He also predicted that the fur would fly (or something like that) because he was wiling to share his opinion out loud, on TV.

No airborne fur  here. Sir Derek is certainly entitled to his opinion. I do have three questions I would pose -- civilly, of course -- if I were ever to have the honor of making dinner and serving it to my favorite actor of all time.

So this post is, first and foremost, a dinner invitation to Sir Derek. If he should ever find himself in Charlotte, North Carolina, eager to discuss the Oxfordian theory, I hope he will allow me to be his host.

Each question will sound much better when delivered over a nice baked chicken breast with a side of risotto.

1. We now know that the frequency of certain words appearing in the plays correlate strongly to roles Shakespeare himself is likely to have played as an actor. Thus: Certain rare words recited by the actor who performed the Ghost in Hamlet are statistically more likely to show up in the plays written after 1601. Why? Because Shakespeare was a member of the troupe, and he was repeating these unusual words every day in 1601 and 1602. He had them "front of mind" regularly, and was predisposed to use them in his new plays. Now, with all respect, the data analysis on all this is quite solid. For more on the remarkable computer-driven 21st-century scholarship that connects these dots, see http://shakespeareauthorship.com/shaxicon.html . Question: Given these striking statistical patterns, wouldn't Edward De Vere have to have performed as an actor in Shakespeare's troupe, performing roles such as Adam in As You Like It and The Ghost in Hamlet on a daily basis?

2. De Vere died in 1604. This means that plays written before that date -- say, A Midsummer Night's Dream (now trending as #dream40) -- are far easier to fit into a De Vere timeline than plays written after that year. The problem: There are a lot of plays traditionally attributed to Shakespeare written after 1604. How do we know that? Well, take Macbeth. It contains direct references to the "equivocation" theme that Londoners of the time knew to connect to the 1605 Gunpowder Plot against King James I, the great political story of the day. Questions: Are the generations of scholars who have placed the composition of Macbeth later than the Gunpowder Plot incorrect? Why?

3. Similarly, The Tempest contains a clear allusion to a troubled 1609 journey to the Bermudas that was widely reported, and a popular topic of conversation in London before The Tempest was performed in 1611. Question: How did De Vere know about the perils of the Sea Vessel's journey to Bermuda five years before it occurred?

I don't suppose I'll get a reply to my  dinner invitation any time soon. But Sir Derek has been my favorite interpreter of Shakespeare for as long as I can remember. I am emboldened to hope he will come across this note, read it, and accept not only these questions but also my gratitude, respect, and admiration for his remarkable body of work.

Sir Derek, you can read the current chapter excerpt from my novel JIHADI by clicking here if you want a look.

Finally: I want to acknowledge that, after a career like his, the man gets to say whatever the hell he wants to say about these plays. 

Hyperbole: Another trick stolen shamelessly from Shakespeare

"You tell Mother and the entire universe," Noura said, "that everyone I meet is a hallucination, but what does that make you?" 

My eyes at the moment of the apparitions by August Natterer, a German artist who created many drawings of his hallucinations.

Above, a representative sentence from yesterday's 504 words on my novel JIHADI. A character in my story sometimes indulges in  hyperbole.

According to the glossary of literary terms, hyperbole is "a grossly exaggerated description or statement."

While researching this post, I recalled that hyperbole is one of Shakespeare's favorite tricks, and one well worth stealing. (I steal as many of his tricks as I can.) In MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Shakespeare makes Beatrice say of Benedick: "He is sooner caught than the pestilence and the taker runs presently mad." 

You can read the current chapter excerpt from my novel JIHADI by clicking here if you want a longer look.

Every day, every day, every day I write the book.

Hello again to all you writers and readers and thinkers I admire:  +L. T. Dalin 
+Elizabeth Einspanier +Ksenia Anske +Brandi Mazesticeon +C.M. Albert +Adella Wright +Brian Meeks +Paul Kater +Puddin' Tang +Paul Dinas +Kim K +lynn paden +Adrianna Joleigh +Becky Flade +Douglas Karlson +Madison Dusome +Claudette Anne Pearson +C.M. Skiera +Eustacia Tan +David Eccles +Mary Cain +Duncan Ellis +Becky Flade +kat Folland +N. Dionisio +James Mayes +Nina MJ  +Vladimir Nabokov  +Gavin Cruickshank +N. M. Scuri  +Ann Smyth +Christina Vani  +Ellis Bell  . I am using this blog to lift the curtain on my favorite new sentence of the writing day. The fact that I have committed to do this in front of all of you makes me less likely to get dodgy about my word count totals, which need to average 600 a day if I am to hit my complete draft target date. No comment or critique is requested, but knowing this is out there to you as a Monday through Friday commitment makes a difference in terms of my own integrity. Of course, if you don't want to be in on this, just let me know.

Landmark Forum Takeaway #2: Freedom

FREEDOM is the ability to use declarative language to define alternatives and select among them.

Language is powerful, more powerful than we think.

We harness the power of language WHEN we use it to...

 * Distinguish the facts from the interpretation we have about the facts.

 * Know ourselves and get clear about what we're committed to.

 * Discover the unrealized potential of language by creating action steps and putting them on the calendar

Daily, and now, I am creating the possibility of being CREATIVE, RESPONSIBLE, HEARD, and PROSPEROUS.

Here is short a video about the use of language.

The current +JIHADI (novel by Brandon Toropov) chapter excerpt is here if you want a longer look, Clive. Every day, every day, every day I write the book.