Drama Analysis II Flashcards
When were Elizabethan History Plays popular?
During Elizabethan period
What do Elizabethan History plays deal with?
Tudor history
What do Elizabethan history plays combine?
Comedy and tragedy (depending on historical outcome)
What are examples for Shakespeare history plays?
Henry VI, Richard II
What are main parts of a plot?
- mediation
- chronology
- causality
What is a plot?
Sequence of events within a story: a description of what happens and why it happens
What is a story?
Comprehensive narrative, concludes setting, characters, themes and other factors that influence how the events (or plot) are told
What are the main 3 genres of Shakespeare plays?
Comedy, tragedy, history
What are other sub-genres of Shakespeare‘s plays? (+ 1 example)
- Romantic comedy: As You like it
- Romance: The Tempest
- Tragic comedy: The Merchant of Venice
- Problem Play: Measure for Measure
- Roman play: Anthony and Cleopatra
What are the three unities?
Plot, time, place
What are (neo-) Aristotelian principles for drama?
- the three unities
- mimesis
What are codes for dramatic utterance?
- dialogue
- monologue
- soliloquy
- aside
Whats a dialogue?
Brings action forward, establishes relationships between characters
Whats a monologue?
Frequently develops an idea, explains a character‘s view and position
Whats a soliloquy?
Is stage convention and is used to communicate inner thoughts and emotions of a character
Whats an aside?
Possibility of an actor or character to look at the audience from the side and talk to them (typical of Elizabethian age)
Whats dramatic irony?
Discrepancy of awareness between audience and characters on stage
Whats explicit and authorial?
Verbal description of character traits in secondary text, telling names
Whats authorial and implicit?
Contrasts/correspondences, constellations, configurations
What’s Figural and explicit?
Verbal description of other characters, self-characterisation
What’s figural and implicit?
Behaviour, appearance, body language, use of language
Telling names in medieval and Renaissance allegory?
Fellowship, Goods, Good Deeds (Everyman, 15th century mortality play)
Telling names in Restoration comedy?
Mrs Millimant, Mr. Witwould (Willing Congreve, The way of the world,1700)
What are character functions?
Protagonist, antagonist, foil character
What are character dimensions?
Monodimensional and multidimensional
What are kinds of character developments?
Static vs. Dynamic
Whats comic relief?
Humorous content in a dramatic or literary work that is intended to offset more serious episodes
What is a turn?
Sudden change in story
Whats stichomythia?
A form of dialogue originating in Greek drama in which single lines are uttered by alternate speakers in brief lines
What is prose?
Used when characters have a lower social status (more sentence like)
What is poetry?
used when characters have a higher social status (more poetry like)
What is performance time?
Performance time should be no longer than 3 hours.
Performance time is usually shorter than the story, one chooses the excerpts to perform depending on their importance to the play.
What are types of an aside?
Three types: dialogical, monological, ad spectatores
