Polylogue

The polylogue is a form of speech in a literary work that is a conversation of three or more participants — the simultaneous exchange of remarks of many characters, as opposed to dialogue (a conversation of two) or monologue (the speech of one). The polylogue creates an effect of many voices, liveliness, and the mass quality of a scene, allowing different views, social types, and characters to be brought into collision and collective action to be shown. It is widely used in dramaturgy in mass scenes — folk gatherings, quarrels, festivities — where the voices of many characters cross. For example, polylogic mass scenes are characteristic of the social-everyday drama of the 'theater of the luminaries' (Marko Kropyvnytsky, Mykhailo Starytsky), which reproduces the collective life of the Ukrainian village with its many voices. The polylogue heightens the lifelikeness of the depiction, dynamizes the action, and allows a panoramic showing of the social milieu in which the fates of individual heroes unfold.