Dramatic and Poetic Terms

Question 1

Alliteration

Answer 1

The repetition of the same consonants (usually the initial sounds of words or of stressed syllables) at the start of several words or syllables in sequence or in close proximity to each other.

Question 2

Assonance

Answer 2

The word is usually used to describe the repetition of vowel sounds in neighbouring syllables. The consonants can differ: so ‘deep sea’ is an example of assonance

Question 3

Asyndeton

Answer 3

The omission of a conjunction from a list (‘chips, beans, peas, vinegar, salt, pepper’)

Question 4

Anthropomorphism

Answer 4

Giving human characteristics to an animal.

Question 5

Anaphora

Answer 5

In writing or speech, the deliberate repetition of the first part of the sentence in order to achieve an artistic effect is known as anaphora

Question 6

Bathos

Answer 6

Typically, serious moments are separated from comedic moments. When they are combined through bathos, the sudden change in tone surprises the audience with the unexpected comic touch.

Question 7

Dramatic Irony

Answer 7

The audience knows something the character(s) does not

Question 8

Metaphor

Answer 8

the transfer of a quality or attribute from one thing or idea to another in such a way as to imply some resemblance between the two things or ideas: ‘his eyes blazed’ implies that his eyes become like a fire.

Question 9

Metonymy

Answer 9

A figure of speech in which the name of one object is replaced by another which is closely associated with it. So ‘the turf’ is a metonym for horse-racing, ‘Westminster’ is a metonym for the Houses of Parliament, ‘Downing Street’ is a metonym for the government.

Question 10

Motif

Answer 10

A repeated element that has symbolic significance in a text.

Question 11

Onomatopoeia

Answer 11

The use of words or sounds which appear to resemble the sounds which they describe. Some words are themselves onomatopoeic, such as ‘snap, crackle, pop.

Question 12

Personification

Answer 12

The attribution to a non-animate thing of human attributes

Question 13

Plosive

Answer 13

A consonantal sound in the formation of which the passage of air is completely blocked, such as ‘p’, ‘b’, ‘t’.

Question 14

Polysyndeton

Answer 14

The use of multiple conjunctions, usually where they are not strictly necessary - (‘chips and beans and fish and egg and peas and vinegar and tomato sauce’)

Question 15

Register

Answer 15

a term designating the appropriateness of a given style to a given situation.

Question 16

Simile

Answer 16

a comparison between two objects or ideas which is introduced by ‘like’ or ‘as’ e.g. ‘the car wheezed like an asthmatic donkey’. Epic similes are more extended similes, which might involve multiple points of correspondence. They frequently occur in long heroic narrative poems in the classical tradition, such as Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), as when Milton describes the combat of Satan and Death:

Question 17

Sibilance

Answer 17

Repetition of s sounds close together.

Question 18

Theme

Answer 18

A topic that runs through a text.

Question 19

Zoomorphism

Answer 19

Description giving people or things that are not animals animalistic qualities.

Question 20

Blank verse

Answer 20

The metre most frequently used by Shakespeare. It consists of an unrhymed iambic pentameter. It was adopted as the chief verse form in Elizabethan verse drama, and was subsequently used by Milton in Paradise Lost.

Question 21

Caesura

Answer 21

A pause created by punctuation in a line of a poem, rather than at the end.

Question 22

Couplet

Answer 22

A rhymed pair of lines, which are usually of the same length.

Question 23

Enjambement

Answer 23

The effect achieved when there is no punctuation at the end of the line so there is no pause in the rhythm.

Question 24

End-stopping

Answer 24

The effect achieved by punctuation at the end of a line. The opposite of enjambement.

Question 25

Feminine Rhyme

Answer 25

A rhyme of two syllables in which the final syllable is unstressed (‘mother | brother’). Feminine rhyme can be used for comic effect

Question 26

Form

Answer 26

The term is usually used in the analysis of poetry to refer to the structure of stanzas (for example in sonnets). It can also be used less technically of the general structural principles by which a work is organised, and is distinguished from its content.

Question 27

Free Verse

Answer 27

Verse in which the metre and line length vary, and in which there is no discernible pattern in the use of rhyme.

Question 28

Iambic pentameter

Answer 28

an unrhymed line of five iambs It sounds like a heartbeat. The form is very flexible: it is possible to have one or more feet in which the expected order of accent is reversed (dúm di). These are called trochees.

Question 29

Masculine rhyme

Answer 29

rhyme between final stressed syllables (e.g. blow / flow, confess / redress ).

Question 30

Refrain

Answer 30

A more poetic term for the chorus of a poem

Question 31

Antagonist

Answer 31

A character or force against which another character struggles.

Question 32

Aside:

Answer 32

Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not “heard” by the other characters on stage during a play. In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago voices his inner thoughts a number of times as “asides” for the play’s audience.

Question 33

Anagnorisis

Answer 33

A moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery.

Question 34

Catastrophe

Answer 34

The action at the end of a tragedy that initiates the denouement or falling action of a play. One example is the fencing scene in Act V of Hamlet in which Hamlet dies, along with Laertes, King Claudius, and Queen Gertrude.

Question 35

Catharsis

Answer 35

The purging of the feelings of pity and fear that, according to Aristotle, occur in the audience of tragic drama. The audience experiences catharsis at the end of the play, following the catastrophe.

Question 36

Climax

Answer 36

The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. The climax represents the point of greatest tension in the work.`

Question 37

Comic relief

Answer 37

The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments. The comedy of scenes offering comic relief typically parallels the tragic action that the scenes interrupt. Comic relief occurs regularly in Shakespeare’s tragedies. One example is the opening scene of Act V of Hamlet, in which a gravedigger banters with Hamlet.

Question 38

Denouement

Answer 38

The resolution of the plot of a literary work. The denouement of Hamlet takes place after the catastrophe, with the stage littered with corpses. During the denouement Fortinbras makes an entrance and a speech, and Horatio speaks his sweet lines in praise of Hamlet.

Question 39

Dynamic Character

Answer 39

Undergoes an important change in the course of the play. These are not changes in circumstances, but changes within the character - e.g. changes in understanding or changes in commitment, or values.

Question 40

Exposition

Answer 40

The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, for instance, begins with a conversation between the two central characters, a dialogue that fills the audience in on events that occurred before the action of the play begins, but which are important in the development of its plot.

Question 41

Expressionist Drama

Answer 41

Expressionism began as a catch-all term for anything in the arts that departed from realism– it is sometimes used as a synonym for surrealism (due to the dreamlike elements of many expressionist plays)

Question 42

Falling action

Answer 42

In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution. Falling action can occur at different times depending on the number of climaxes. You can recognise it because the atmosphere becomes less tense.

Question 43

Flat Characters

Answer 43

Flat characters in a play are often, but not always, relatively simple minor characters. They tend to be presented though particular and limited traits; hence they become stereotypes. For example, the selfish son, the pure woman, the lazy child, the dumb blonde, etc. These characters do not change in the course of a play

Question 44

Foil

Answer 44

A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil for the main character; in Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona.

Question 45

Hamartia

Answer 45

a personal error in a protagonist’s personality that brings about his tragic downfall in a tragedy. This defect in a hero’s personality is also known as a “tragic flaw. Aristotle used the word in his “Poetics” where it is taken as a mistake or error in judgment.

Question 46

Hubris

Answer 46

The Greek term hubris is difficult to translate directly into English. This negative term implies both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, and a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one’s abilities. This overwhelming pride inevitably leads to a downfall.