In King Lear, Shakespeare inventively and daringly employed the astonishingly precise features of the convention that governed soliloquies in late Renaissance drama. Plentiful, unambiguous, conspicuous, varied, and one-sided evidence demonstrates that soliloquies represented self-addressed speeches by characters as a matter of convention rather than either interior monologues or audience addresses. The most distinctive employment of the convention in Lear occurs when a character speaks to himself in the presence of others without guarding his soliloquy from their hearing either because the speaker loses consciousness of their presence or because he does not care that others overhear his speech.

在《李尔王》中，莎士比亚巧妙地，大胆地运用了文艺复兴后期戏剧中独白统治的惯例的惊人精确特征。大量，明确，显眼，多样且单方面的证据表明，独白代表人物的自我演讲是惯例，而不是内部独白或听众讲话。里尔公约中最独特的约定是，当角色在其他人在场的情况下对自己讲话时，又不会因为说话者对他们在场的意识丧失意识或因为他不在乎别人听到他的讲话而保护自己的自言自语。