Download LITERARY TERMS

LITERARY TERMS
FOR Romeo and Juliet
THE UNDERLINED TERMS SHOULD ALREADY BE FAMILIAR
TO YOU, SO WE WILL NOT SPEND A LOT OF TIME DEFINING
THEM.
1. SOLILOQUY—A speech that a character gives when he/she is
alone on stage. Its purpose is to let the audience know what the
character is thinking.
2. ASIDE—A character’s remark, either to the audience or to
another character, that others on stage are not supposed to hear.
Its purpose, too, is to reveal the character’s private thoughts. A
stage direction usually indicates when an aside is being made.
Asides are spoken to the audience unless the stage directions say
otherwise.
3. MONOLOGUE—A long speech in a play
4. IMAGERY—Descriptive words and phrases that re-create
sensory experiences for the reader. This usually appeals to one or
more of the five senses.
5. PUN—A joke that is a play on words. Puns can make use of a
word’s multiple meanings or of a word’s rhyme
6. METAPHOR—A comparison between two unlike objects without
using like or as—This is stated as a fact where a simile uses like or
as and only makes a comparison.
7. SIMILE—A comparison between two unlike objects using like or
as.
8. RHYME-9. END RHYME—Rhyming at the ends of lines in poetry
10.INTERNAL RHYME—Rhyming that occurs within or in the
middle of a line.
11.APPROXIMATE RHYME—Rhyme that occurs when the sounds
are not quite identical (care and dear). Also known as slant
rhyme, half rhyme, or near rhyme.
12.EXACT RHYME—Rhyme that occurs when the sounds are
identical. Also known as perfect rhyme
13.METER—The regular pattern of accented and unaccented
syllables in a line of poetry. Although all poems have rhythm, not
all of them have regular meter.
14.FOOT—A single unit of meter in poetry
15.SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET—A 14 line poem of
ababcdcdefefgg rhyme scheme written in iambic pentameter. This
sonnet always contains 3 quatrains and a couplet.
16.PETRARCHAN SONNET—A 14 line poem that is either set up
as an octave and a sestet or a sestet and an octave. This sonnet is
named after the famous Italian poet named Petrarch. The rhyme
scheme varies with a little more choice than the set rhyme scheme
in the Shakespearean sonnet.
17.COUPLET—A two lined rhyming stanza
18.QUATRAIN—A four line segment or stanza in a poem
19.SESTET—A six line segment or stanza in a poem
20.OCTAVE—An eight line segment or stanza in a poem
21.BLANK VERSE—A form of poetry that uses unrhymed lines in
iambic pentameter. Shakespeare uses this often
22.FREE VERSE—A form of poetry that has no set rhyme or
metrical pattern.
23.IAMBIC PENTAMETER—A metrical pattern of five unstressed
syllables, each one followed by a stressed syllable. The pattern is
not perfect; sometimes there are breaks in the pattern.
24.DRAMATIC IRONY—When the audience knows something all
of some of the characters do not
25.FORESHADOWING—Clues or hints about what is going to
happen.
26.FOREBODING—A feeling of something bad going to happen.
This can be foreshadowing but foreshadowing doesn’t have to be
ominous or something negative like this.
27.TRAGEDY—A drama that ends in catastrophe—most often
death—for the main character and often for several other
important characters as well. Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet
are prime examples.
28.TRAGIC HERO—The main character in a Shakespearean
tragedy is usually someone who is nobly born and who may have
great influence in his or her society. This character also has one or
more fatal flaws—that leads to his or her downfall. Although the
events in a tragedy are often set in motion by an action of the
tragic hero, fate may also seem to play a role in the course that the
events take.
29.TRAGIC FLAW— A weakness or a serious error in judgment
possessed by the main character
30.COUPLET—Two rhyming lines—Ends a sonnet
31.FOIL—A character whose personality or attitudes are in sharp
contrast to those of another character in the same work. By using
a foil, the writer highlights the other character’s traits or attitude.
Romeo is a foil to Mercutio.
32.ALLUSION—A brief reference, within a work, to something
outside the work that the reader or audience is expected to know.
33.COMIC RELIEF—A humorous scene, incident, or speech that
relieves the overall emotional intensity. It helps the audience to
absorb the earlier events in the plot and get ready for the ones to
come.