Dramatic/Literary Elements Flashcards
Allusion
Reference to a historical or literary person, place, or event with which the reader is assumed to be familiar.
Exposition
Detailed explanation, usually at the beginning of a literary work, that provides background information.
Irony
Dramatic irony occurs when the words or acts of a character convey a meaning understood by the audience but not by one or more of the characters.
Blank verse and hectic couplets
Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter
A heroic couplet consists of two consecutive rhyming lines.
Motif
Words or phrases related to a focused idea throughout the play to form a sense of unification.
Soliloquy
A speech given by a character while she or he is either alone on stage or among characters who are ignored temporarily. Purpose is to let the audience know what the character is thinking be planning.
Aside
A remark spoken by one character to the audience or to another character which the remaining characters supposedly do not hear. Used to express characters feelings or thoughts.
Echoing
To reinforce hey ideas the characters in the play repeat certain words and phrases, sometimes with slightly different meanings.
Foil
Characters who revised a striking contrast to another character. By using a foil, A writer calls attention to certain traits possessed by a main character or simply enhances a character by contrast.
Simile
A comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though when the two things remain distinct.
Personification
When an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
Imagery
Elements of writing used to evoke mental images, sensory experience, or emotion.
Pun
A play on words that sometimes uses the same word, and other times uses the similar sense or sound of different words.
Malapropism
Ludicrous misuse of a word.
