Soliloquy

so . lil . o . quy /noun/ an act of speaking one’s thoughts  aloud when by oneself, regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play

How a  particular word applies to us  might not be readily apparent when we first encounter it, but if we look more closely, we can see the connection. This is the case with soliloquy, our word for this week.  At first glance, it doesn’t seem to have any everyday application, but it does. The word means “speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself.”  Now, who among us hasn’t done that?  I have been doing it all my life, it seems. Speaking our thoughts aloud to ourselves can be a way to process information in preparation for making a decision. That’s a good thing to do, I believe.

I came across the word  soliloquy in the book I’m presently  reading and was quite glad to see it, since I had made a note some time before that I would use it as one of the words to write about. I’m reading the novel Christy, by Catherine Marshall, and at one point in it, Dr. MacNeill says, “I could soliloquize on that one for so long you’d be yawning.”  I don’t think the good doctor knows the meaning of the word soliloquize, since it means talking to oneself when nobody else is around, and in this instance he is responding to Christy’s question about an unhealthful habit among the people in the mountains of Appalachia. But he is only a character in a novel, so he can be forgiven.

You, too, may be prone to soliloquize, and sometimes when you catch yourself doing so, you may feel a bit sheepish, but you shouldn’t. You are in good company. Shakespeare’s characters do it quite often. That is how we learn about the internal conflicts and motivation for some of the actions of the characters in his plays. Hamlet’s  “To be or not to be” soliloquy is famous and is  often repeated even by those who are not acquainted with anything else in the play.

Poets deal in words, and those of us who read what they write are often merely  eavesdropping on their personal thoughts.  In this way, they can be said to soliloquize. Sometimes a poet who is not well known writes something that resonates with us as much as a piece by Gwendolyn Brooks, John  Keats, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, or even the Bard himself.  A former colleague and friend of mine published a second book of poetry,  and I was fortunate enough to receive a copy. Voices in the Twilight is a delightful collection  of poems that range from the whimsical to the profound.  The author, Louis Alexander Hemans, educator, linguist, and philosopher, is a distinctively Caribbean poet with an eclectic world view. As I pored over the poems, I came across one that struck me as a soliloquy. In it the author speaks his mind to himself and seems rather confident in his point of view.  His words aren’t directed to an identifiable listener, and he isn’t asking anyone to agree with him. I’m presenting the poem without discussion or analysis. Just let the poet speak.

Words

I like to read what I have written.
I like to read again what already I have read,
For words are medicines to the mortal mind;
They send sweetening solace to the soul.
Broken hearts are mended by kind words,
And spirits, wounded by the thrust of many swords,
Return to wholesomeness with the balm of healing words.
Soft words bring hearing to the deafened ears.
Kind words reduce the weight of passing years
And good words are known to stop the flow of bitter tears.
Therefore, I like to read what I have written,
Reread again the words that I have read before;
For words are music to my errant ears;
They lessen the weight of passing years.
Kind words reduce the harshness of labor  and of care.
They remove the weight from a burdened soul
So that soul may float on upward on heavenly air.

Poet June Masters Bacher says, “Poetry is more than flowery lines. It is the quiet between the words.”  In between Louis Hemans’s lines, we can hear, feel, and even see his satisfaction in giving meaning to words. We listen as he speaks to himself, and in doing so, he speaks to us as well.

Blessings,

Judith

*****

“A poem should not mean/But be.”    Archibald McLeish