Shakespeare Literary Terms

Drama

• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot
• a story written to be acted for an audience
• a writer or speaker says one thing, but really means something completely different
• character who is used as a contrast to another character; writer sets off/intensifies the qualities of 2 characters this way

Tragedy 

• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud
• two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; couplets often signal the EXIT of a character or end of a scene
• a play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end
• character who changes as a result of the story’s events

Prologue 

• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot
• character who does not change much in the course of a story
• words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage
• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud

Sonnet 

• a group who says things at the same time
• fourteen-line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter and that has one of several rhyme schemes
• the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know
• a writer or speaker says one thing, but really means something completely different

Prose 

• event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period
• a combination of contradictory terms
• direct, unadorned form of language, written or spoken, in ordinary use
• Shakespearean-3 four-line units or quatrains, followed by a concluding two-line unit, or couplet; abab cdcd efef gg

Chorus

• a group who says things at the same time
• two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; couplets often signal the EXIT of a character or end of a scene
  
• “unrhymed”-no rhyme at the end of lines
• words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage
  

Anachronism 

• a story written to be acted for an audience
• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot
• poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter ;each line of poetry contains 5 iambs, or metrical feet, that consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
• event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period

Verbal Irony 

• the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know
• character who is used as a contrast to another character; writer sets off/intensifies the qualities of 2 characters this way
• a writer or speaker says one thing, but really means something completely different
• a speech by one character in a play

Dramatic Irony 

• character who is used as a contrast to another character; writer sets off/intensifies the qualities of 2 characters this way
• humor added that lessens the seriousness of a plot
  
• the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know
• two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; couplets often signal the EXIT of a character or end of a scene
  

Monologue

• a speech by one character in a play
• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot
• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud
• words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage