What Psalms and Shakespeare Teach Us About Speaking into the Void

What Psalms and Shakespeare Teach Us About Speaking into the Void

Prayer as Narrative: Psalms, Shakespeare, and Lorca:

What does Psalm 13 have in common with Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be”? More than you’d think. Both are one person speaking into the void, hoping that someone out there is listening. And whether it’s God or an empty stage, the act of speaking changes the speaker.

Prayer at its core, is a story told toward heaven, a silent, private message sent from a soul to often, a God believed in. Sometimes it’s short, a breathless plea, and other times, it’s a long, winding argument. Whether it’s whispered or shouted, the structure of a prayer is not unlike the structure of a monologue in a play, as it is often one voice, speaking with urgency to an unseen listener who holds the power to respond or to remain silent. 

What struck me as a reader was reading the Psalms alongside monologues of Shakespeare and Federico Garcia Lorca. The way in which both forms create intimacy, not just with the person being addressed, the reader, but also with the audience that overhears them. 

The Structure of Psalm

For example, Psalm 13:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

The message starts with desperation, then moves through a series of emotional turns, lament, petition, and finally evolves to trust:

But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

This arc, with its raw opening, reasoning, reflection, and eventual resolution,  mirrors the way a skilled playwright would build a monologue. The speaker begins in emotional chaos, sifts through their thoughts aloud, and lands somewhere new. And even if nothing changes externally, the act of speaking reshapes the soul.

Shakespeare’s Stage-Prayers

Consider Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy. Though not a prayer in the religious sense, it is a meditation spoken into the void, wrestling with mortality, meaning, and the afterlife:

To die, to sleep —
To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there’s the rub.

Almost like a psalmist, Hamlet exposes his inner life before an invisible audience, because for him, the audience is the universe itself. His words are not for the other characters, but for himself, and for us, the overhearers and the listeners.

Shakespeare’s characters, such as the psalmists, are unafraid to let contradiction live inside a single speech. Petition and protest exist side by side, creating a textured humanity that makes us trust them, even when we disagree.

Lorca’s Earthbound Prayers

Federico García Lorca, with his fusion of folk tradition and poetic intensity, often crafted monologues that feel like prayers rooted in soil. In Yerma, the title character pours out her longing for a child in a way that is both intimate and cosmic:

I want to sleep for half a year
and wake up with a child.

This is a petition in its most vulnerable form, a request that is physical, emotional, and spiritual at once. Like the Psalms, Lorca’s prayers are not sterile, but they are sweaty, tear-stained, and earthy. They address God, fate, or the universe in the same breath.

Intimacy Through Overhearing

Whether in biblical psalm, Shakespearean soliloquy, or  Lorca monologue, the audience is often a third party to a private address. This “overhearing” effect creates a unique intimacy. We are not the intended recipients of the words, yet hearing them changes us.

In prayer, the speaker invites God into the room. In a play, the speaker invites the audience into their soul. In both, language bridges an infinite gap.

Why It Matters

When we think about prayer, we often imagine it as a fixed form, taking physical form in a group of bowed heads and folded hands. However, what we can take from literature is that it reminds us that prayer can be a narrative act, becoming the process of finding meaning in speaking in itself. And when we are given the opportunity to read or watch these monologues, we are reminded that overhearing vulnerability can be just as transformative as speaking it.

Question for Readers:
Do you think prayers are more for God or for ourselves? And when you hear a character in a play bare their soul, does it feel like a kind of prayer to you?