# Monologist

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{{Short description|Solo artist}}
thumb|An actor delivering a monologue

A '''monologist''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|n|ɒ|l|ə|dʒ|ɪ|s|t|,_|-|ɡ|ɪ|s|t}}), or interchangeably '''monologuist''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|ˈ|n|ɒ|l|ə|ɡ|ɪ|s|t}}), is a solo artist who [recites](/source/recitation) or gives [dramatic readings](/source/oral_interpretation) from a [monologue](/source/monologue), [soliloquy](/source/soliloquy), [poetry](/source/poetry), or work of literature,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monologue |title=Monologue |work=Merriam-Webster Dictionary |publisher=merriam-webster.com |access-date=2011-11-29}}</ref> for the entertainment of an audience.  The term can also refer to a person who monopolizes a conversation; and, in an obsolete sense, could describe a bird with an unchanging, repetitive song.<ref>"Monologist." ''Oxford English Dictionary''. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Retrieved via ''OED Online'', 2017-07-15.</ref>

==Dramatic monologist==
A '''dramatic monologist''' is a term sometimes applied to an actor performing in a [monodrama](/source/monodrama) often with accompaniment of [music](/source/music). In a monodrama the lone player relays a story through the eyes of a central character, though at times may take on additional roles.<ref>Pavis, Patrice (1998). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=tIXwrduoDMoC&pg=PA217&lpg=PA217 Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis]''.  Translated from the French by Christine Shantz. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. {{ISBN|9780802081636}}. "Monodrama", pp.&nbsp;217–18.</ref> In the modern era the more successful practitioners of this art have been actresses frequently referred to by the French term “diseuse”.<ref>The Dictionary of World Literature: Criticism, Forms, Technique  By Joseph Twadell Shipley 1964 p. 383</ref><ref name="autogenerated11">Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - the December 21, 1935 p. 11</ref><ref>Tennyson's Rapture: Transformation in the Victorian Dramatic Monologue  By Cornelia D. J. Pearsall 2008</ref>

==Diseuse==
'''Diseuse''' ({{IPAc-en|uk|d|iː|ˈ|z|ɜː|z}}, {{IPAc-en|us|d|iː|ˈ|z|uː|z}})<ref>{{cite Merriam-Webster|diseuse}}</ref><ref>{{Cite dictionary |url=http://www.lexico.com/definition/diseuse |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322185913/https://www.lexico.com/definition/diseuse |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 22, 2020 |title=diseuse |dictionary=[Lexico](/source/Lexico) UK English Dictionary |publisher=[Oxford University Press](/source/Oxford_University_Press)}}</ref> French for "teller", also called talkers, storytellers, dramatic-singers or dramatic-talkers<ref>Theater Dictionary.com</ref><ref>''Beaver County Times'' (Earl Wilson column), March 9, 1972 p. 13</ref> is a term, at least as used  on the English-speaking stage, that appears to date to the last decade of the 19th century. The early uses of “diseuse” as a theatrical term in the American press seem to coincide with [Yvette Guilbert’s](/source/Yvette_Guilbert) tour of New York City in the mid-1890s.<ref>''Le Mars Semi-Weekly Sentinel''. Lemars, Iowa. January 09, 1896. p. 3</ref> In a February 1896 article on Guilbert, ''[Cosmopolitan Magazine](/source/Cosmopolitan_Magazine)'' described the term as a "newly-coined and specific title".<ref>''Cosmopolitan''. February 1896. p. 44</ref><ref>TheaterDictionary.com</ref> Diseuse is the feminine form of the French word ''diseur'' "teller", a derivative of ''dire'' "to say, to tell", which came from [Latin](/source/Latin) ''dīcere''.<ref>''Merriam Webster's Dictionary''</ref> Few male actors became noteworthy performing solely as a dramatic monologist, though many well known actors have played in monodramas over their careers.

In the December 21, 1935, edition of the ''[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette](/source/Pittsburgh_Post-Gazette),'' an entertainment columnist wrote:
<blockquote>The English language does not contain a word which perfectly describes the performance of [Ruth Draper](/source/Ruth_Draper), who comes to [the Nixon](/source/Regional_Enterprise_Tower) next Thursday for the first time in several years to give a different program at each of her four performances here. "Speaking Portraits" and "Character Sketches" are the two terms most frequently applied to Miss Draper's work; and yet it is something more than that. "Diseuse" is the French word, but that is more readily applicable to an artist like [Yvette Guilbert](/source/Yvette_Guilbert) or [Raquel Meller](/source/Raquel_Meller). Monologist is wholly inadequate. The word "Diseuse" really means "an artist in talking" so that may be the real term to use in connection with Miss Draper.<ref name="autogenerated11"/></blockquote>

The publication ''Theatre World'' wrote in a 1949 piece: "In our time we have fallen under the spell of three remarkable women practising the art of the diseuse—[Ruth Draper](/source/Ruth_Draper), [Cornelia Otis Skinner](/source/Cornelia_Otis_Skinner), and [Joyce Grenfell](/source/Joyce_Grenfell). Each of these great artists has the gift of crowding the stage with imaginary figures who become so vivid as to be practically visible, but as all of these artists happen to be members of the fair sex it could be assumed that they possess a magic denied the mere male of the theatre." The article suggests that [Sid Field](/source/Sid_Field) was an actor of comparable talents.<ref>"Whispers from the Wings", by "Looker On". ''Theatre World''. April 1949 (vol. 45, no. 291), p.&nbsp;32. [https://books.google.com/books?id=WVNXAAAAIAAJ Snippet preview on Google Books].</ref>

Joyce Grenfell wrote in ''Darling Ma: Joyce Grenfell's Letters to her Mother 1932–1944'', "What makes a good diseuse is a capacious verbal (and visual) imagination, and an excellent oral delivery. Call these witty ladies Diseuses of the Heart and Lungs. I do."<ref>''Darling Ma: letters to her mother, 1932–1944'', by Joyce Grenfell, 1988</ref>

In the book ''The Guest List'' (2010) by [Ethan Mordden](/source/Ethan_Mordden), the art of the diseuse is defined as "a speaker of lyrics: in effect, one who uses the music to get to the words".<ref>''The Guest List: How Manhattan Defined American Sophistication—from the Algonquin Round Table to Trumam Capote's Ball'' by Ethan Mordden (2010)</ref>

Actresses who have been called noted diseuses{{typo help inline|reason=similar to diseases|date=July 2025}} over the years include:
<!-- Put and keep in alphabetical order by surname; must have source for this classification -->
*[Lucienne Boyer](/source/Lucienne_Boyer)<ref>''The Entertainment of a Nation: or, Three-Sheets in the Wind'' By George Jean Nathan, 1942, p. 265</ref> 
*[Lina Cavalieri](/source/Lina_Cavalieri)<ref>''Lina Cavalieri: the Life of Opera's Greatest Beauty, 1874–1944'', By Paul Fryer, Olga Usova, 2004, p. 4</ref>  
*[Kitty Cheatham](/source/Kitty_Cheatham)<ref>"[https://www.nytimes.com/1913/07/27/archives/kitty-cheatham-honored-to-give-recital-to-students-humperdinck.html Kitty Cheatham Honored; To Give Recital to Students&nbsp;...]" (preview only; subscription required). ''The New York Times''. July&nbsp;27, 1913. p.&nbsp;C2. Retrieved 2017-07-15. "Miss Kitty Cheatham, the well-known American 'diseuse,' has received an invitation from the Faculty of the University of Berlin to give one of her recitals of children's folklore songs before the students at the Royal Academy of Music of Charlottenburg."</ref><ref>Mitchell, Herbert (January&nbsp;6, 1946). "[https://www.nytimes.com/1946/01/06/archives/kitty-cheatham-diseuse-81-dead-interpreter-of-the-literature-and.html Kitty Cheatham, Diseuse, 81, Dead; Interpreter of the Literature and Songs of Childhood Was Author, Lecturer, Pacifist]" (preview only; subscription required). ''The New York Times''. Retrieved 2017-07-15.</ref>
*[Ruth Draper](/source/Ruth_Draper)<ref name="autogenerated516">Sir John Gielgud: ''A Life in Letters By John Gielgud''. 2005. p. 516</ref>
*[Marie Dubas](/source/Marie_Dubas)<ref>''A French Song Companion'' by Graham Johnson, Richard Stokes. 2000 p. 5</ref> 
*[Odette Dulac](/source/Odette_Dulac)<ref>''The Secrets of a Showman'' by Sir Charles Blake Cochran, 1942, p. 97</ref>
*[Joyce Grenfell](/source/Joyce_Grenfell)<ref name="autogenerated516"/>
*[Yvette Guilbert](/source/Yvette_Guilbert)<ref>''Problems of the playwright'', By Clayton Meeker Hamilton, 1917, p. 89</ref>
*[Beatrice Herford](/source/Beatrice_Herford)<ref>The ''[National Cyclopaedia of American Biography](/source/National_Cyclopaedia_of_American_Biography)'' being a multi-volume collection of biographical articles and portraits of Americans, published since the 1890s. Volume 2 by [James Terry White](/source/James_Terry_White) - 1967</ref> 
*[Lotte Lenya](/source/Lotte_Lenya)<ref>''Biography of Kurt Weill,'' Pickford Prod., Inc (unpublished biography April 20, 1945) Yale Music Library</ref> 
*Dela Lipinskaja, a [Russian](/source/Russians) actress popular in [Germany](/source/Germany) [between the wars](/source/between_the_wars)<ref>''Stravinsky: a Creative Spring : Russia and France, 1882–1934'', Stephen Walsh - 2002. p. 189</ref><ref>''The Jewish Response to German Culture: from the Enlightenment to the Second World War'' by Jehuda Reinharz, Walter Schatzberg, 1985, p. 299</ref> 
*[Raquel Meller](/source/Raquel_Meller)<ref>''Syracuse Herald'', April 12, 1931, p. 3 (Magazine Section)</ref> 
*Marjorie Moffett, American diseuse and author<ref>''The One-Woman Show: Monodramas'', By Marjorie Moffett, 1935, p. 1</ref> 
*[Corinna Mura](/source/Corinna_Mura)<ref>''Oakland Tribune'', Saturday, October 20, 1956. p. 5</ref> 
*[Marianne Oswald](/source/Marianne_Oswald)
*[Molly Picon](/source/Molly_Picon)<ref>''Tucson Daily Citizen'' (Tucson, Arizona), August 29, 1952, p. 16</ref>
*[Françoise Rosay](/source/Fran%C3%A7oise_Rosay)<ref>''Design,'' Volume 9, 1965, p. 24</ref>
*Lia Rosen, a Jewish actress (German or Austrian) who began by giving dramatic readings from the [Old](/source/Old_Testament) and [New Testament](/source/New_Testament)s<ref>''Syracuse Herald'' (Syracuse, New York), December 12, 1926 p. 20</ref> 
*[Cornelia Otis Skinner](/source/Cornelia_Otis_Skinner)<ref>''Theo: the autobiography of Theodore Bikel,'' By Theodore Bikel, 2002, p. 94</ref> 
*[Claire Waldoff](/source/Claire_Waldoff)<ref>''The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood'' By [Diana McLellan](/source/Diana_McLellan), 2001, p. 109</ref>
*Albertine Zehme, a German actress from [Leipzig](/source/Leipzig) who was close to [Arnold Schoenberg](/source/Arnold_Schoenberg).<ref>''Orientations: Collected Writings'' By Pierre Boulez, Jean-Jacques Nattiez, [Martin Cooper](/source/Martin_Cooper_(musicologist)), 1990, p. 331</ref>

==Oral interpretation==

'''Oral interpretation''', sometimes called dramatic reading or interpretative reading, is the oral staging of a work of literature, prose or poetry, by a person who reads rather than memorizes the material. Typically they are performed by solo artists who – unlike players in a monodrama – do not assume or tell the story through any one character, but do so instead with oral nuances to bring the story alive with their interpretation of how the creator of the piece intended the story to be told.<ref>Dictionary of Communication  By James Fernandes  2005 p. 302</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.studygs.net/interpretive.htm |title=Studyygs.net |publisher=Studygs.net |access-date=2011-11-29}}</ref>

==Soliloquist==

The term soliloquist can apply to a monologist reciting a [soliloquy](/source/soliloquy), usually from a play, to entertain an audience. Passages in which characters orally reveal their thoughts are probably most associated with the works of [William Shakespeare](/source/William_Shakespeare).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/soliloquy |title= definition of soliloquy by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia |publisher=Thefreedictionary.com |access-date=2011-11-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soliloquy |title=Soliloquy – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-webster.com |access-date=2011-11-29}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

Category:Entertainment occupations
Category:Acting
Category:Theatrical occupations
Category:Monologues

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Monologist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monologist) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monologist?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.