Technical Stuff Flashcards
Dramatic conventions: Soliloquies or asides
Character’s spontaneous thoughts and feelings
Name some dramatic conventions:
Dramatic irony
Off-stage action
Disguise
Parallelism of main and sub plot
Internal and external conflict
Dramatic conventions: juxtaposition of scenes eg:
Malvolio locked up vs Sebastian ‘s love
Dramatic conventions: dramatic relief
Contrasting comedy and tragedy
Dramatic conventions: movement
The ways in which the play falls aka its story
Dramatic conventions: dramatic structure
Including tension and intensity - not everything at once
Dramatic conventions: situational irony
When a situation has results contrary to those expected
Literary devices: paradox
A statement that appears contradictory but contains truth
Give an example of a paradox from the play
‘Than love that would seem his: love’s night is noon’
Literary devices: oxymoron
A term or phrase that is apparently self-contradictory
Give an example of an oxymoron from the play
‘Sweet pangs’
Literary devices: verbal irony
A discrepancy between what is said and what it really means
Literary devices: pun
An expression that utilises two distinct definitions of the same word or phrase to achieve emphasis or humour
allegory
a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. A symbol
ALLITERATION
the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
“the alliteration of ‘sweet birds sang’
allusion
to make reference to something usually biblical
amplification
extending a sentence to elaborate or exaggerate
anagram
a type of word play in which the letters of a word or phrase are rearranged to create new words or phrases
analogy
where two unrelated objects are compared for their similarities
anastrophe
the order of the noun and the adjective are exchanged
e.g. ‘he spoke of times past and future, and dreamt of things to be’
anecdote
a very short story relevantant to the topic
anthromorphism
giving objects human qualities
antithesis
means opposite
two statements which contrast each other e.g. one small step for man one giant leap for mankind
aphorism
a short truthful statement e.g. if the show fits wear it
archetype
a universal story character or symbol used in many different stories e.g. a hero
assonance
the repetition of similar vowel sounds
asyndeton
leaving out conjunction words
authorial intrusion
where the author steps away from the text and speaks to the reader
biblomancy
the practice of foretelling the future by interpreting a randomly chosen passage from a book, especially the Bible
bildungsroman
coming of age story
cacophony
a harsh discordant mixture of sounds.
caesura
punctuation in the middle of the line
characterisation
the construction of a character
chiasmus
the reversing the order of words in the second of two parallel phrases. e.g. do i love you because you’re beautiful or are you beautiful because i love you
circumlocution
the use of many words where fewer would do, especially in a deliberate attempt to be vague or evasive.
consonance
the recurrence of similar-sounding consonants in close proximity,
denotation
the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
deus ex machina
an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.
doppelganger
a literary archetype of a character who meets his or her apparent double, with plot developments following. The plot and character device of “twinning”
epithet
an adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.
euphony
the quality of being pleasing to the ear.
foil
a character who contrasts with another character —usually the protagonist— to highlight particular qualities of the other character. In some cases, a subplot can be used as a foil to the main plot. This is especially true in the case of metafiction and the “story within a story” motif.
hubris
another word for pride (as a cause for destruction)
hyperbaton
an inversion of the normal order of words, especially for the sake of emphasis, as in the sentence ‘ this I must see ’.
litotes
ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary eg ‘i shan’t be sorry’ for ‘i shan’t be glad’
