Use of Characters
The Plot of a Drama
Dramatic Speech
Dramatic Conventions
Dramatic/Poetic Conventions
100
A character or force against which another character struggles. Tybalt is Romeo's.
What is an antagonist?
100
This distinguishes a tragedy from a comedy, and it usually happens late in the tragedy.
What is the death of one or more of the main characters?
100
A long speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, this represents the character thinking aloud. Juliet's speech prior to taking her potion is an example.
What is a soliloquy?
100
A contrast or discrepancy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens in literature.
What is irony?
100
A literary work that relies on dialogue and character actions (rather than the voice of a narrator) to advance the plot. There are three types: comedy, tragedy, and history.
What is drama?
200
A group of characters in Greek tragedy (and in later forms of drama), who comment on the action of a play without participation in it. Shakespeare uses this to open and close the action of Romeo and Juliet.
What is the Chorus?
200
The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. In Five Act Plays, this is usually the 3rd Act.
What is the Climax?
200
A long, uninterrupted speech by a single character to other characters on stage.
What is a monologue?
200
A contrast that occurs when a character says one thing, but means something else entirely.
What is verbal irony?
200
The point at which the plot is at its level of highest emotional intensity.
What is the climax?
300
Two characters who are exact opposites of one another.
What are dramatic foils?
300
The resolution of the plot of a literary work. This takes place after the catastrophe, in the 5th act of a five-act play.
What is the Denouement?
300
The conversations between characters in a play is known as this.
What is the dialogue?
300
A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero. Romeo's immaturity and rash behavior are his.
What is a tragic flaw?
300
The associations - or connections - called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning.
What is connotation?
400
Friar Laurence represents the Wise Counselor or Mentor in the story of Romeo and Juliet. The Wise Counselor is an __________, or a character we see represented over and over again in our literature.
What is an archetype?
400
The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided. In five-act plays, this would be Act I.
What is the Exposition or Introduction?
400
Shakespeare wrote the love scenes in Romeo and Juliet using this meter because it most closely represents the rhythm of the beating human heart.
What is iambic pentameter?
400
A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the worse.
What is a tragedy?
400
Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.
What is an aside?
500
A privileged, well-respected character, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering.
What is a tragic hero?
500
A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play or story's plot leading up to the climax. In a five-act play, this is usually Act II.
What is Rising Action?
500
A 14-line poem (or portion of a drama) written in iambic pentameter with a set rhyme scheme is called this. The Chorus opens Romeo and Juliet with one.
What is a sonnet?
500
A contrast that occurs when the audience knows something that the characters on stage do not know.
What is dramatic irony?
500
The final two lines of a Shakespearean Sonnet They teach the lesson, or act as the turning point of the poem.
What is the volta?
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