• Shuffle
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Alphabetize
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Front First
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Both Sides
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
  • Read
    Toggle On
    Toggle Off
Reading...
Front

Card Range To Study

through

image

Play button

image

Play button

image

Progress

1/106

Click to flip

Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;

Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;

H to show hint;

A reads text to speech;

106 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Pantomime
Use of body movements and facial expressions by actors to convey a message without speaking.
Parabasis
In the drama of ancient Greece, an ode in which the chorus addresses the audience to express opinions of the author, including his views on politics, social trends, and other topics.
Parodus
In the drama of ancient Greece, a song sung by the chorus when it enters; also, the moment when the chorus enters.
Paradox
Contradictory statement that may actually be true. Paradox is similar to oxymoron in that both figures of speech use contradictions to state a truth.
Paranomasia
Pretentious term for pun.
Parody
Imitation of a literary work or film–or the style used by a writer or filmmaker–in order to ridicule the work and its writer or producer.
Patoral Poem
Poem focusing on some aspect of rural life.
Periakti
In the drama of ancient Greece, a prism having surfaces painted with pictures.
Peripeteia
In a stage tragedy in ancient Greece, a sudden reversal of fortune from good to bad.
Peroration
Concluion of a speech in which the speaker summarizes the main points.
Philippic
Speech that bitterly denounces, blames, accuses, or insults a person; speech that viciously attacks a person or his ideas.
Picaresque Novel
Novel that presents the episodic adventures (each a story in itself) of a roguish character as he travels from place to place and meets a variety of other characters, some of them also travelers.
Plaint
Expression of grief or sorrow in a poem.
Plot
The events that unfold in a story; the action and direction of a story; the story line.
Poetics
Important work by Aristotle written about 335 B.C. It analyzes Greek theater and outlines its origin and development
Poetry
Language that expresses powerful emotions and ideas in a stanza or stanzas that may use rhythm and rhyme, as well as other rhetorical devices.
Prolixity
Wordiness, long-windedness.
Prologue
Introduction to a play or another literary work.
Prologos
In the drama of ancient Greece, a prologue that begins the play with dialogue indicating the focus or theme of the play.
Promptbook or Prompt Copy
In Shakespeare's time, the edited version of a play in which an acting company inserted stage directions.
Proscenium
(1) The stage of a theater; (2) the part of the stage extending out toward the audience; (3) the arch over the stage that separates the stage from the audience.
Prose
Language of everyday speech and writing.
Protagonist (Greek Scene)
Main character in an ancient Greek play who usually interacts with the chorus.
Protagonist (Modern Scene)
Main character of a novel, play, or film.
Protasis
Opening part of a stage drama that introduces the characters and focus of the play.
Pun
Play on words; using a word that sounds like another word but has a different meaning.
Quarto
A quarto is sheet of printing paper folded twice to form eight separate pages for printing a book.
Quatrain
Stanza or poem of four lines.
Quill
Writing instrument used before the invention of the fountain pen, the ballpoint pen, and other writing instruments.
Redundancy
Writing flaw in which unnecessary wording is used.
Re-Enter
Stage direction in a play manuscript indicating the re-entrance onto the stage of a character or characters.
Refrain
Group of words repeated at key intervals in a poem, such as Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night."
Realism
In literature, a movement that stressed the presentation of life as it is, without embellishment or idealization.
Repartee
Quick, witty, often amusing reply; a conversation full of witty replies; verbal fencing or sparring.
Rhetoric
Art of effectively using words in speech and writing; the study of language and its rules.
Rhyme, Consonant
A special type of rhyme (consonance) in which pairs of words with different vowel sounds have the same final consonants.
Rhyme, End
Rhyme in which the final syllable (or syllables) of one line mimic the sound of the final syllable (or syllables) of another line.
Rhyme, Eye
Form of rhyme in which the pronunciation of the last syllable of one line is different from the pronunciation of the last syllable of another line even though both syllables are identical in spelling except for a preceding consonant.
Rhyme, Feminine
Rhyme in which the final two syllables of one line mimic the sound of the final two syllables of another line.
Rhyme, Internal
Rhyme that occurs inside a line.
Rhyme, Masculine
Rhyme in which the final yllable of one line mimics the sound of the final yllable of another line.
Roman a Clef
Novel in which real persons are thinly disguised as fictional characters with fictional names.
Romance, Medieval
Long poem resembling an epic in its focus on heroic deeds. Unlike an epic, however, a medieval romance is light in tone, and its content is at times fantastic and magical.
Romanticism
In literature, a movement that championed imagination and emotions as more powerful than reason and systematic thinking.
Rondeau
Lyric poem consisting of three stanzas with a total of fifteen lines. Lines 9 and 15 are the same--that is, they make up a refrain.
Sarcasm
Form of verbal irony that insults a person with insincere praise.
Satire
Literary work that attacks or pokes fun at vices and imperfections; political cartoon that does the same.
Satyre Play
In the drama of ancient Greece, a play that pokes fun at a serious subject involving gods and myths; a parody of stories about gods or myths
Scenario
Plot outline of a play, opera, motion picture, or TV program.
Scene
Part of an act of a play; (2) a settingin a literary work, opera, or film; (3) a theater stage in ancient Greece or Rome; (4) part of a literary work, opera, or film that centers on one aspect of plot development.
Science Fiction
Literary genre focusing on how scientific experiments, discoveries, and technologies affect human beings for better or worse.
Scop
Old English poet often attached to a monarch's court. A scop composed and recited his own poetry.
Sennet
Stage direction in a play manuscript to signal a trumpet flourish that ntroducess the entrance of a character, such as the entrance of King Lear (Act 1) in Shakespeare's play.
Sentimentality
A flaw in a literary work or film in which the author relies on tear-jerking or heart-wrenching scenes rather than writing talent or cinematic skill to evoke a response in readers.
Sermon
A clergyman's talk centering on a scriptural passage.
Sestet
Final six lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet. Petrarch's sonnets each consist of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six-line stanza (sestet).
Sestina
Poem with six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a stanza with three lines (tercet).
Setting
Setting is the environment in which a story unfolds.
Sic
Word inserted in a quoted statement in a research work (essay, magazine article, doctoral thesis, book, etc.) to indicate that the quotation contains an error.
Simile
Comparing one thing to an unlike thing by using like, as, or than.
Soliloquy
Recitation in a play in which a character reveals his thoughts to the audience but not to other characters in the play.
Solus
Stage direction in a play manuscript indicating a character is alone on the stage.
Sonnet
Form of lyric poetry invented in Italy that has 14 lines with a specific rhyme scheme
Sonnet, Curtal
Shortened or contracted sonnet.
Soubrette
In a comedy (a play or an opera), a maid or servant girl involved in intrigue affecting the central characters.
Southern Gothic
Fictional genre with a setting in the Southern United States that vests its stories with foreboding and grotesquerie.
Spoonerism
Slip of the tongue in which a speaker transposes the letters of words.
Stasimon
In a Greek play, a scene in which the chorus sings a song, uninterrupted by dialogue.
Spensarian Stanza
A stanza with eight lines in iambic pentameter and a ninth line in iambic hexameter.
Stationers' Register
In Shakespeare's time, a book in which the English government required printers to register the title of a play before the play was published.
Stanza
Lines that form a division or unit of a poem. Stanzas generally have four lines.
Stereotype
Character in a literary work or film who thinks or acts according to certain unvarying patterns simply because of his or her racial, ethnic, religious, or social background.
Stichomythia
In a stage play brief, alternating lines of dialogue spoken in rapid-fire succession.
Sturm and Drang
In Eighteenth Century Germany, a literary movement characterized by a rejection of many classical literary conventions
Style
Style is the way an author writes a literary work.
Subplot
Secondary or minor plot in a story usually related to the main plot.
Suspense
Anxiety about what will happen next in a story.
Symbol
In a literary work or film, a person, place, thing or idea that represents something else.
Syncope
Omitting letters or sounds within a word.
Synecdoche
Substitution of a part to stand for the whole, or the whole to stand for a part.
Synesthesia
Use of an adjective associated with one sensation to describe a noun referring to another sensation.
Tautology
Wordiness, needless repetition.
Tercet
In poetry, a unit of three lines that usually contain end rhyme.
Terza Rima
Italian verse form invented by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). It consists of a series of three-line stanzas in which Line 2 of one stanza rhymes with Lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza.
Tetralogy
In the drama of ancient Greece, four plays (three tragedies and one satyr play) staged by a playwright during a drama competition.
Theatre, Greek
Open-air structure in which plays were performed.
Theatre of the Absurd
Term coined in 1965 by critic Martin Eslin to describe the plays of Samuel Beckett and other writers who believed that life is meaningless.
Theme
Main idea of a literary work; the thesis.
Thespian
Actor or actress. Also, an adjective referring to any person or thing pertaining to Greek drama or drama in general.
Tone
Prevailing mood or atmosphere in a literary work.
Tiring House
In Shakespeare's time, dressing rooms of actors behind a wall at the back of the stage.
Torches
Stage direction in a Shakespeare play indicating that entering characters are carrying lit torches.
Tragedy, Greek
Verse drama written in elevated language in which a noble protagonist falls to ruin during a struggle caused by a flaw (hamartia) in his character or an error in his rulings or judgments.
Tragicomedy
Play that has tragic events but ends happily.
Transcendentalism
Belief that every human being has inborn knowledge that enables him to recognize and understand moral truth without benefit of knowledge obtained through the physical senses.
Travesty
Play, novel, poem, skit, film, opera, etc., that trivializes a serious subject or composition.
Trope
Figure of speech; figurative language.
Troubadour
Lyric poet/musician of southern France or northern Italy; minstrel.
Ubi Sant
Ubi sunt is Latin for where are.
Unities
Three key elements of dramatic structure: time, place, and action.
Universality
Appealing to readers and audiences of any age or any culture.
Versimilitude
Having the appearance of truth; realism. In a fictional work, a writer creates unreal characters and situations and asks the reader to pretend that they are real.
Verse
Collection of lines (as in a Shakespeare play) that follow a regular, rhythmic pattern.
Villanelle
Form of poetry popularized mainly in France in the 16th Century.
Within
Stage direction in a play manuscript indicating that a person speaking or being spoken to is behind a door or inside a room
Zeugma
Use of one word (usually an adjective or a verb) to serve two or more other words with more than one meaning.