Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him …
Both soliloquy and monologue mean “single speech.” The first is from Greek and the latter from Latin. However, there is a functional difference between the two forms of speech: A soliloquy is delivered when the speaker is alone on stage, while a monologue is delivered by one speaker in the presence of others. In other words, a soliloquy communicates only to the audience, while a monologue communicates to other characters within the story itself.
