Literary terms 1 Flashcards
Hubris
Excessive pride of self-confidence that leads a protagonist you disregarded define warning or violate an important moral law
Catharsis
A purgation of the emotion of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy
Reversal (peripeteia)
Send reversal of the situation
Feud ex machina
Latin for God out of a machine in Greek drama do you serve a God lowered by mechanism of this some sort onto the stage to resurrect a hero or untangle the plot.
Poetic Justice
The good are rewarded and the evil punished. The punishment fits the crime.
Hamartia
An action or error in judgment that results from the tragic flaw.
Dramatic Irony
A discrepancy between what a character says or believes in what the reader or audience knows to be true
Tragic Irony
A form of dramatic irony in tragedies such as Oedipus in which the protagonist is words or actions ironically return to hurt them in the end
Prologue
The opening speech or dialogue of play especially a classic greek play is the exposition necessary to the following subsequent actions
Chorus
In Greek tragedies a group of people who served as commentators on the characters and events