Dialogue

Dialogue is a conversation of two or more characters, an exchange of remarks, which is the principal means of revealing the action, the characters, and the conflict, especially in a dramatic work, where it constitutes the basic fabric of the text. Through dialogue the views, intentions, psychology, and the social and linguistic portrait of the characters are manifested, and the clash of positions unfolds. Masterful dialogue individualizes the speech of each hero, making it natural and at the same time artistically expressive. In the drama of the 'theater of the luminaries' (Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Marko Kropyvnytsky) dialogue reproduces living folk speech and sharp social disputes; philosophically saturated, intellectual dialogues mark the dramas of Lesia Ukrainka. In prose, dialogue diversifies the narration, 'enlivens' the scene, and gives it dramatism. Dialogic form also marks philosophical works — from the ancient dialogues of Plato to the dialogues of Hryhorii Skovoroda, where truth is born in the clash of the interlocutors' thoughts.