playful terms
A short comment or speech that a character delivers directly to the audience, or to himself, while other actors on the stage appear not to hear.
What is an aside?
The temporary acceptance as believable of events or characters that would ordinarily be seen as incredible (not believable), usually to allow an audience to appreciate works of literature or drama
What is suspension of disbelief?
An event or condition in which incongruity exists between actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate, or between what is anticipated and what actually comes to pass
What is situational irony?
Means poetic story... a long narrative poem
(NOTE: Bonus points for each characteristic named - to all players)
What is an epic?
Refers to a poem of six lines, or a six-lined stanza in a poem, which can be distinguished from other units by line breaks.
What is a sestet?
A speech that “reveal[s] the innermost thoughts of a character” and is delivered by one character alone on stage
What is a soliloquy?
A story set within a story, narrative, or movie, told by the main or the supporting character.
What is frame story?
A figure of speech in which what is meant is the opposite of what is said; the speaker says one thing but means the opposite
What is verbal irony?
An author’s choice to narrate a story from the middle after supposing that the audience are aware of past events
What is in medias res?
It is a verse form that contains eight lines, which usually appear in iambic pentameter. In simple words, it can be any stanza in a poem that has eight lines and follows a rhymed or unrhymed meter
What is an octave?
The speech or verbal presentation given by a single character in order to express his or her collection of thoughts and ideas aloud for the purpose of progressing the plot
What is a monologue?
A short poem, quotation, or statement that an author places at the beginning of a piece, creating some kind of introductory, summary, or associative context for it
What is an epigraph?
A device by which the author implies a different meaning from that intended/spoken by the speaker; e.g. the characters are oblivious of the situation, but the audience is not.
What is dramatic irony?
This extended comparison – often 4 to 6 lines – of two unlike things using like or as works as an analogy, helping the reader better understand or imagine a character or action by comparing it to a natural event
What is a Miltonic (or epic) simile?
The turn of thought or argument in a sonnet.
What is a Volta?
A type of drama that presents a serious subject matter about human suffering and corresponding terrible events in a dignified manner
What is a tragedy?
Genre pertaining to letters, in which writers use letters, journals, and diary entries in their works, or they tell their stories or deliver messages through a series of letters
What is epistolary?
A technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule with intention to change/improve humanity by criticizing its flaws.
What is satire?
A word or phrase that describes a place, a thing, or a person in such a way that it helps in making its characteristics more prominent
What is an epithet?
A rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas expressed with parallel structure are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect
What is antithesis?
The use of words, phrases, conditions, and events which function as hints as the work unfolds.
(Yes, this one is slightly unrelated but everything is related in English class.)
What is foreshadowing?
A commonly used expression understood within a culture for its figurative meaning; confusing if interpreted literally. An example is “beat the clock,” meaning finish before time expires. Another example is “ducks in a row,” meaning to organize something.
What is an idiom?
An imitation of a writer, artist, or genre, exaggerating it deliberately to produce a comic effect, achieved by imitating and overstressing noticeable features of a famous piece of literature
What is a parody?
An attempt to vindicate (or explain or defend) divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil
What is theology?
Iambic pentameter and consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet.
What is an Elizabethan/Shakespearean Sonnet?