Shakespeare's Language and Dramatic Devices Flashcards
Alliteration
repetition of the same initial consonant sound throughout a line of verse
“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought….” (Sonnet XXX)
Anadiplosis
the repetition of a word that ends one clause at the beginning of the next
“My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.”1 (Richard III, V, iii)
Anaphora
repetition of a word or phrase as the beginning of successive clauses
“Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!” (King John, II, i)
Anthimeria
substitution of one part of speech for another
“I’ll unhair thy head.” (Antony and Cleoptra, II, v)
Antithesis
juxtaposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction
“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” (Julius Caesar, III, ii)
Assonance
repetition or similarity of the same internal vowel sound in words of close proximity
“Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks.” (Romeo and Juliet, V, iii)
Asyndeton
omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words
“Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure?” (Julius Caesar, III, i)
Chiasmus
two corresponding pairs arranged in a parallel inverse order
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (Macbeth, I, i)
Diacope
repetition broken up by one or more intervening words
“Put out the light, and then put out the light.” (Othello, V, ii)
Ellipsis
omission of one or more words, which are assumed by the listener or reader
“And he to England shall along with you.” (Hamlet, III, iii)
Epanalepsis
repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause
“Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer’d blows.” (King John, II, i)
Epimone
frequent repetition of a phrase or question; dwelling on a point
“Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him I have offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any speak; for him have I offended.” (Julius Caesar, III,ii)
Epistrophe
repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses
“I’ll have my bond!
Speak not against my bond!
I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.” (Merchant of Venice, III, iii)
Hyperbaton
altering word order, or separation of words that belong together, for emphasis
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” (Measure for Measure, II, i)
Malapropism
a confused use of words in which an appropriate word is replaced by one with similar sound but (often ludicrously) inappropriate meaning
“I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honor two notorious benefactors.”
“Are they not malefactors?” (Measure for Measure, II, i)
Metaphor
implied comparison between two unlike things achieved through the figurative use of words
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York.” (Richard III, I, i)
Metonymy
substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is meant (e.g., “crown” for royalty)
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” (Julius Caesar, III, ii)
Onomatopoeia
use of words to imitate natural sounds
“There be moe wasps that buzz about his nose.” (Henry VIII, III, ii)
Paralepsis
emphasizing a point by seeming to pass over it
“Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.
It is not meet you know how Caesar lov’d you.” (Julius Caesar, III, ii)
Parallelism
similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses
“And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determinèd to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.” (Richard III, I, i)
Parenthesis
insertion of some word or clause in a position that interrupts the normal syntactic flow of the sentence (asides are rather emphatic examples of this)
“…Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester—
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.” (Henry V, IV, iii)
Polysyndeton
the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses4
“If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I’ll not endure it.” (Othello, III, iii)
Simile
an explicit comparison between two things using “like” or “as”
“My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease” (Sonnet CXLVII)
Synecdoche
the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part5
“Take thy face hence.” (Macbeth, V, iii)
Dramatic device: Act
A major division in a play. An act can be sub-divided into scenes. (See scene). Greek plays were not divided into acts. The five act structure was originally introduced in Roman times and became the convention in Shakespeare’s period. In the 19th century this was reduced to four acts and 20th century drama tends to favour three acts.
Dramatic device: Antagonist
A character or force against which another character struggles.
Examples: Creon is Antigone’s antagonist in Sophocles’ play Antigone; Tiresias is the antagonist of Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.1
1 Unless otherwise stated the entries are taken from and adapted from the following web site: highered.mcgraw-hill.com
Dramatic device: Apron
The part of a proscenium stage that sticks out into the audience in front of the proscenium arch.
Dramatic device: Aside
Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, but not “heard” by the other characters on stage during a play
Example: In Shakespeare’s Othello, Iago voices his inner thoughts a number of times as “asides” for the audience.
Dramatic device: Blocking
Movement patterns of actors on the stage. Usually planned by the director to create meaningful stage pictures
Dramatic device: Box set
A set built behind a proscenium arch to represent three walls of a room. The absent fourth wall on the proscenium line allows spectators to witness the domestic scene. First used in the early nineteenth century.
Dramatic device: Catharsis
The purging of the feelings of pity and fear. According to Aristotle the audience should experiences catharsis at the end of a tragedy.
Dramatic device: Character
An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work. Dramatic characters may be major or minor, static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change).
Example: In Shakespeare’s Othello, Desdemona is a major character, but one who is static. Othello is a major character who is dynamic, exhibiting an ability to change.
Dramatic device: Chorus
A traditional chorus in Greek tragedy is a group of characters who comment on the action of a play without participating in it. A modern chorus (any time after the Greek period) serves a similar function but has taken a different form; it consists of a character/narrator coming on stage and giving a prologue or explicit background information or themes.
Dramatic device: Climax
The turning point of the action in the plot of a play and the point of greatest tension in the work. (See Appendix 1: Freytag’s Pyramid)
Example: The final duel between Laertes and Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Dramatic device: Comedy
A dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion. (Taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com). Comedy can be divided into visual comedy or verbal comedy. Within these 2 divisions there are further sub-divisions. For example visual comedy includes farce and slapstick. Verbal Comedy includes satire, black comedy and comedy of manners.
Dramatic device: Comic Relief
Comic relief does not relate to the genre of comedy. Comic relief serves a specific purpose: it gives the spectator a moment of “relief” with a light-hearted scene, after a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments. Typically these scenes parallel the tragic action that they interrupt. Comic relief is lacking in Greek tragedy, but occurs regularly in Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Example: The opening scene of Act V of Hamlet, in which a gravedigger banters with Hamlet.
Dramatic device: Conflict
There is no drama without conflict. The conflict between opposing forces in a play can be external (between characters) or internal (within a character) and is usually resolved by the end of the play. Example: Lady Gregory’s one-act play The Rising of the Moon exemplifies both types of conflict as the Policeman wrestles with his conscience in an inner conflict and confronts an antagonist in the person of the ballad singer.
Dramatic device: Complication
An intensification of the conflict in a play
Dramatic device: Convention
Literary conventions are defining features or common agreement upon strategies and/or attributes of a particular literary genres. Examples: The use of a chorus was a convention in Greek tragedy. Soliloquies, (which are not realistic) are accepted as part of the dramatic convention.
Dramatic device: Denouement / Resolution
Literally the action of untying. A denouement (or resolution) is the final outcome of the main complication in a play. Usually the denouement occurs AFTER the climax (the turning point or “crisis”). It is sometimes referred to as the explanation or outcome of a drama that reveals all the secrets and misunderstandings connected to the plot. (See Appendix 1: Freytag’s Pyramid) Example 1: Traditional Chorus – The majority of Sophocles’ plays. Glossary of Dramatic Terms Example 2: Modern Chorus – The Prologue in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which gives the background to the action. The protagonist in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie who introduces the themes of the play.
Dramatic device: Deus Ex Machina
When an external source resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention. The Latin phrase means, literally, “a god from the machine.” The phrase refers to the use of artificial means to resolve the plot of a play.
Examples: Many of Euripides’ plays have gods coming to rescue the day. In Medea a dragon-drawn chariot is sent by Apollo, the Sun-God, to rescue Medea who has just murdered her children. In Joe Orton’s classic play, What the Butler Saw (1969) the deus ex machina comes in the form not of a god but of a policeman who saves the day.
Dramatic device: Dialogue
The conversation of characters in a literary work. In plays, characters’ speech is preceded by their names. (See Appendix 2 for discussion on what is dialogue in dramatic terms.)
Dramatic device: Diction
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, diction is “the manner in which words are pronounced.” Diction, however, is more than that: it is a style of speaking. In drama diction can (1) reveal character, (2) imply attitudes, (3) convey action, (4) identify themes, and (5) suggest values. We can speak of the diction particular to a character.
Example: Iago’s and Desdemona’s very different ways of speaking in Othello.
Dramatic device: Dramatic Irony
A device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation reversed or fulfilled in a way that the character did not expect but that the audience or readers have anticipated because their knowledge of events or individuals is more complete than the character’s. (Taken from and adapted: http://www.wwnorton.com)
Example: In Shakespeare’s Othello Othello blames Desdemona for cheating on him. The audience knows that she is faithful and Iago deceives him.
Dramatic device: Dynamic Character
Undergoes an important change in the course of the play- not changes in circumstances, but changes in some sense within the character in question – changes in insight or understanding or changes in commitment, or values.
Dramatic device: Exodos
The final scene and exit of the characters and chorus in a classical Greek play.
Dramatic device: Exposition
“The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided” (highered.mcgraw-hill.com). (See Appendix 1: Freytag’s Pyramid). In most drama the characters have to expose the background to the action indirectly while talking in the most natural way. What any person says must be consistent with his character and what he knows generally. Exposition frequently employs devices such as gestures, glances, “asides” etc. (See Prologue for explicit exposition).
Example: Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, begins with a conversation between the two central characters. This dialogue gives the audience details (in the most natural way) of what has occurred before the play began, details, of importance to the development of the plot.
Dramatic device: Falling Action
This is when the events and complications begin to resolve themselves and tension is released. We learn whether the conflict has or been resolved or not.
Dramatic device: Flashback
An interruption of a play’s chronology (timeline) to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time-frame of the play’s action.
Examples: In Shakespeare’s Othello, Othello recalls how he courted Desdemona
Dramatic device: Flat Characters
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. (Taken from and adapted: http://www.wwnorton.com)
Dramatic device: Foil
A secondary character whose situation often parallels that of the main character while his behavior or response or character contrasts with that of the main character, throwing light on that particular character’s specific temperament.
Examples: In Hamlet, Laertes’, father is murdered. His situation parallels Hamlet’s situation but his response is very different. In Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils for Desdemona.
Dramatic device: Foreshadowing
Anton Chekhov best explained the term in a letter in 1889: “One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.” Chekhov’s gun, or foreshadowing is a literary technique that introduces an apparently irrelevant element is introduced early in the story; its significance becomes clear later in the play. (Taken from and adapted: Wikipedia on Chekhov)
Examples: At the beginning of the Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the protagonist Nora goes against the wishes of her husband in a very minor way. This action foreshadows her later significant rebellion and total rejection of her husband. In Synge’s Riders to the Sea the mother’s vision of her recently drowned son foreshadows the death of her remaining son.
Dramatic device: Fourth Wall
The imaginary wall that separates the spectator/audience from the action taking place on stage. In a traditional theatre setting (as opposed to a theatre in the round) this imaginary wall has been removed so that the spectator can “peep” into the fictional world and see what is going on. If the audience is addressed directly, this is referred to as “breaking the fourth wall.”
Dramatic device: Gesture
The physical movement of a character during a play. Gesture is used to reveal character, and may include facial expressions as well as movements of other parts of an actor’s body.
Example: Most modern playwrights explicitly mention both bodily and facial gestures, providing detailed instructions in the play’s stage directions.
Dramatic device: Hubris
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. (Taken from http://web.cn.edu)
Example: In Sophocles Oedipus, Oedipus’ refusal to listen to anyone illustrates hubris. He believes he knows best – even better than the prophet Tiresias – and his refusal to listen leads to his downfall. Glossary of Dramatic Terms
Dramatic device: Linear Plot
A traditional plot sequence in which the incidents in the drama progress chronologically; in other words, all of the events build upon one another and there are no flashbacks. Linear plots are usually based on causality (that is, one event “causes” another to happen) occur more commonly in comedy than in other forms. (Taken from and adapted: www.wwnorton.com)
Dramatic device: Monologue
A speech by a single character without another character’s response. The character however, is speaking to someone else or even a group of people. (see soliloquy below)
Examples: Shakespeare’s plays abound with characters talking with no one responding. A clear example of how a monologue addresses someone occurs when Henry V delivers his speech to the English camp in the Saint Crispin’s Day speech. He wants to inspire the soldiers to fight even though they are outnumbered. This is a monologue because (a) he alone speaks (b) he is addressing other characters.
Dramatic device: Motivation
The thought(s) or desire(s) that drives a character to actively pursue a want or need. This want or need is called the objective . A character generally has an overall objective or long-term goal in a drama but may change his or her objective, and hence motivation, from scene to scene when confronted with various obstacles. (Taken from and adapted: www.wwnorton.com) Example: In the play Othello, Iago’s objective is Othello’s downfall.
Dramatic device: Point of attack
The point in the story at which the playwright chooses to start dramatizing the action.
Dramatic device: Plot
The sequence of events that make up a story. According to Aristotle, “The plot must be ‘a whole’ with a beginning, middle, and end” (Poetics, Part VII). A plot needs a motivating purpose to drive the story to its resolution, and a connection between these events.
Example: “The king died and then the queen died.” Here there is no plot. Although there are two events – one followed by the other – there is nothing to tie them together. In contrast, “The king died and then the queen died of grief,” is an example of a plot because it shows one event (the king’s death) being the cause of the next event (the queen’s death). The plot draws the reader into the character’s lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make. (Taken from and adapted: http://english.learnhub.com)
Dramatic device: Plot Structure
See Appendix 1: Freytag’s Pyramid
Dramatic device: Point of attack
The point in the story of a play where the plot begins. This may occur in the first scene, or it may occur after several scenes of exposition. The point of attack is the main action by which all others will arise. It is the point at which the main complication is introduced. Point of attack can sometimes work hand in hand with a play’s inciting incident, which is the first incident leading to the rising action of the play. Sometimes the inciting incident is an event that occurred somewhere in the character’s past and is revealed to the audience through exposition.
Dramatic device: Proscenium Arch
An architectural element separating the performance area from the auditorium in a theatre. The arch functions to mask stage machinery and helps create a “frame” for the stage action. First used in Europe during the Renaissance, the arch developed throughout the 18th and 19th centuries into the “picture frame” stage of the late 19th century. Glossary of Dramatic Terms
Dramatic device: Prologue
(1) In original Greek tragedy, the prologue is either the action or a set of introductory speeches before the first entry of the chorus. Here, a single actor’s monologue or a dialogue between two actors would establish the play’s background events. (2) In later literature, the prologue serves as explicit exposition introducing material before the first scene begins. (Taken from and adapted: http://web.cn.edu). The prologue is performed/delivered by the chorus. (See Chorus)
Examples: A chorus gives a prologue with the background information as to the feud between the families in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Tom, one of the protagonists in William’s A Glass Menagerie gives a prologue both of the background of the play and the character’s philosophy.
Dramatic device: Props
Articles or objects that appear on stage during a play. Props can also take on a significant or even symbolic meaning.
Examples: The Christmas tree in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Laura’s collection of glass animals in Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie.
Dramatic device: Protagonist
The main character of a literary work.
Dramatic device: Recognition
See denouement.
Dramatic device: Repertory
A system of producing plays in which a company of actors is assembled to stage a number of plays during a specific period of time. The repertory company included actors, each of whom played roles in several plays throughout a theatrical season and who often specialized in a specific type of role
Dramatic device: Resolution
The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story. (See Appendix 1: Freytag’s Pyramid)
Dramatic device: Reversal or Peripeteia
The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist- from failure to success or success to failure.
Examples: Oedipus’s and Othello’s moments of enlightenment are also reversals. They learn what they did not expect to learn.
Dramatic device: Rising Action
An event, conflict or crisis or set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play’s plot leading up to the climax. (See Appendix 1: Freytag’s Pyramid)
Example: The result of Othello promoting Cassio rather than Iago sets in motion everything else that follows.
Dramatic device: Round Characters
A round character is depicted with such psychological depth and detail that he or she seems like a “real” person. The round character contrasts with the flat character who serves a specific or minor literary function in a text, and who may be a stock character or simplified stereotype. If the round character changes or evolves over the course of a narrative or appears to have the Glossary of Dramatic Terms capacity for such change, the character is also dynamic. In longer plays, there may be several round characters. (http://web.cn.edu).
Dramatic device: Satire
A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.
Example: Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What a Lovely War about World War I. Even the title indicates this is a satire
Dramatic device: Scene
A traditional segment in a play. Scenes are used to indicate (1) a change in time (2) a change in location, (3) provides a jump from one subplot to another, (4) introduces new characters (5) rearrange the actors on the stage. Traditionally plays are composed of acts, broken down into scenes. (Adapted from: www.wwnorton.com)
Dramatic device: Scenery
The physical representation of the play’s setting (location and time period). It also emphasizes the aesthetic concept or atmosphere of the play. (Taken from and adapted: www.wwnorton.com)
Dramatic device: Strophe (& Antistrophe)
A portion of a choral ode in Greek tragedy followed by a metrically similar portion, the antistrophe. The words mean “turn” and “counter-turn,” suggesting contrasting movements of the chorus while the ode was being sung. These two parts are sometimes followed by an epode, during which the chorus may have remained stationary
Dramatic device: Soliloquy
A speech meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage (as opposed to a monologue which addresses someone who does not respond). In a soliloquy only the audience can hear the private thoughts of the characters.
Example: Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” speech.
Dramatic device: Stage Direction
A playwright’s descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (as well as actors and directors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play. Modern playwrights tend to include substantial stage directions, while earlier playwrights typically use them more sparsely, implicitly, or not at all. (See gesture).
Dramatic device: Staging
The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors on stage, the scenic background, the props and costumes, and the lighting and sound effects.
Dramatic device: Static Character
A literary or dramatic character who undergoes little or no inner change; a character who does not grow or develop
Dramatic device: Suspension of Disbelief
Samuel Taylor Coleridge first used the term in 1817. Basically the term means that you accept something as real or representing the real when it obviously is not real. In drama this is a crucial condition, as “you have to put aside put aside your disbelief and accept the premise as being real for the duration of the story” (from http://www.mediacollege.com)
Example: The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, …
can this cockpit [stage] hold The vast fields of France?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, …, On your imaginary forces work.
Shakespeare, Prologue Henry V
Shakespeare says it most clearly in the speech above. On entering the theatre, the audience let their imagination take them into another world and they ignore their literal surroundings. For example, they accept that the few actors playing soldiers represent the thousands that took part in the battle.
Dramatic device: Stock Character
A recognizable character type found in many plays. Comedies have traditionally relied on such stock characters as the miserly father, the beautiful but naïve girl, the trickster servant.
Dramatic device: Subplot
A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot that coexists with the main plot.
Example: The story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forms a subplot within the overall plot of Hamlet.
Dramatic device: Theatre of the Absurd
A type of drama and performance that conveys a sense of life as devoid of meaning and purpose. The term was coined by the critic Martin Esslin, who described and analyzed a group of mid-twentieth-century play in his book, The Theatre of the Absurd, including the work of Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco.
Dramatic device: Tragedy
A type of drama in which the characters experience reversal of fortune, usually for the worse. In tragedy, suffering awaits many of the characters, especially the hero. See Appendix 4 on Tragedy.
Dramatic device: Tragic flaw
A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.
Example: Othello’s jealousy and too trusting nature is his tragic flaw.
Dramatic device: Tragic hero
A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and/or fate, suffers a fall from a higher station in life into suffering.
Example: Sophocles’ Oedipus.
Dramatic device: Unity of time, place, and action (“the unities”)
limiting the time, place, and action of a play to a single spot and a single action over the period of 24 hours.
