How does Soliloquy, Dramatic Monologue, and Aside differ?
A soliloquy is a speech you make to yourself. A dramatic monologue is a speech made by yourself to a silent audience. An aside is a line spoken by yourself that is intended for the audience to hear but not the other people on stage. In all of these examples, the ‘you’ is referring to an actor in a play. So the difference is in who is intended to hear the speech and how long it is — an aside has the same audience as a monologue but is a very brief, quick line. An example of all of these literary devices can be found on the link given below (from the The Crucible).
