Dramatic Literature

Question 1

Drama

Answer 1

Performance by actors onstage before an audience

Question 2

Deus Ex Machina

Answer 2

Gods intervene at a point of crisis to save the hero or change the course of events

Question 3

Tragedy

Answer 3

Drama in which a protagonist who is heroic or well respected brings about his or her own downfall through a fatal character.

Question 4

Comedy

Answer 4

Play written to be amusing and features exaggerated characters and funny situations.

Question 5

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 5

Poetic form in which a character speaks in his or her own voice with an implied listener.

Question 6

Soliloquy

Answer 6

A dramatic speech in which a character talks to himself allowing the audience to overhear and judge the character’s state of mind

Question 7

The Theater of the Absurd

Answer 7

Sought to illustrate the essentially purposeless and illogical nature of mankind’s condition. Characters in these plays use dislocated, repetitious, and cliched speech to present a chaotic, senseless modern world.

Ex: Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Rhinoceros