Download Shakespeare Terms

Shakespeare & Drama Terms
“HE WAS NOT OF AN AGE BUT FOR ALL
TIME.”
-BEN JONSON
Standard for this Lesson ELA9RL1
 The student identifies, analyzes, and applies knowledge of
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the themes, structures, and elements of dramatic literature
and provides evidence from the text to support
understanding; the student:
a. Identifies and analyzes types of dramatic literature (i.e.,
Shakespearean tragedy and comedy).
b. Analyzes the characters, structures, and themes of
dramatic literature.
c. Identifies and analyzes dramatic elements, (i.e.,
exposition, rising action, climax, denouement, dialogue,
monologue, soliloquy, aside, dramatic irony).
d. Identifies and analyzes how dramatic elements support
and enhance interpretation of dramatic literature.
ACTS & SCENES
 An act is major division of a drama.
 Acts are divided into scenes.
Romeo and Juliet has five acts. The five acts follow the
five major divisions of dramatic action:
exposition, complication, climax, falling action,
catastrophe.
ALLUSION
 Reference to a well-known person, place, event,
literary work, or work of art
 “She’ll not be hit with Cupid’s arrow. She hath
Dian’s wit.”
ASIDE
 A short line delivered by a character in a play to
express true feelings and thoughts
Think “Zach” in those old Saved by the Bell reruns
you’ve seen too many of…
BLANK VERSE
 Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
 An iamb is an unstressed syllable followed by a
stressed syllable
 Pentameter refers to five of these units
“But Soft! What light through yonder window
breaks?”
COUPLET
 A pair of rhyming lines
“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
***Often signals the exit of a character or end of a
scene
DIALOGUE
 Conversation of two or more people as reproduced in
writing
STAGE DIRECTIONS
 Notes included in a drama to describe how the work
is to be performed or staged
 Printed in italics and are not spoken aloud
 Used to describe sets, lighting, sound effects, and the
appearance, personalities, and movements of
characters
***In Shakespeare’s day, these instructions were given
in Latin
END-STOPPED LINE
 Line of verse in which both the grammatical
structure and the sense reach completion at the end
of the line
“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name:
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
RUN-ON LINE
 Line having no pause or end punctuation but having
uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into
the next line
“The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.”
FOIL CHARACTER
 A character who provides a contrast to another
character
 Benvolio and Tybalt
FORESHADOWING
 The use of clues that suggest events that have yet to
occur
IRONY
 Differences between appearance and reality
 Verbal- words are used to suggest the opposite of
what is meant
 Situational- an event occurs that directly contradicts
the expectations of characters and the audience
 Dramatic- a contradiction between what a character
thinks and what the audience knows to be true
METAPHOR
 A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as
though it were something else
 “It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”
SIMILE
 A figure of speech in which the words like or as are
used to compare two apparently dissimilar things
“It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.”
MONOLOGUE
 A speech given by a character to an identifiable but
silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s
life
 Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech
SOLILOQUY
 A long speech expressing the thoughts of a character
alone on stage
“To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to
sleep⎯
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural
shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep⎯
To sleep, perchance to dream.”
OXYMORON
 A figure of speech that brings together two
contradictory terms
 “cheerful pessimist”
 “wise fool”
 “jumbo shrimp”
 “sweet sorrow”
PROLOGUE
 A preface or introduction which gives background
information for the play
 Usually spoken by a Chorus or a single speaker
PUN
 A play on words involving a word with two or more
different meanings or two words that sound alike
 “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave
man.”
 Grave= burial site and serious
TRAGEDY
 A work of literature, especially a play, that results in
a catastrophe, a disaster, or great misfortune for the
main character, or tragic hero. The main character is
a significant person- a king or a hero- and the cause
of the tragedy is a tragic flaw, or weakness, in his or
her character
SUSPENSE
 Feeling of uncertainty about the outcome of events in
a literary work