Writing About Literature Midterm 2

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Greek word meaning "to do" its where we get the word drama

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Dran

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The written text of a play, which includes the dialogue, stage directions, and often other expository information

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Script

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A play that is written to be read rather than performed onstage

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Closet Drama

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A major division in the action of a play. They are typically indicated by lowering the curtain or turning up the houselights. Play writers frequently employ it to accommodate changes in time, setting, characters onstage, or mood. In many full-length plays, they are further divided into scenes.

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Acts

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A play that takes place in a single location and unfolds as one continuous action. The characters are presented economically and the action is sharply focused.

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One-act-play

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In drama, it is a subdivision of an act. In modern plays they usually consist of units of action in which there are no settings or breaks in the continuity of time. According to traditional conventions, it changes when the location of the action shifts or when a new character enters.

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Scenes

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A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable. Are Defining features of particular literary genres, such as a novel, short story, ballad sonnet, and play.

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Conventions

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The time and place of a literary work that establish its context.

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Setting

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The anxious anticipation of a reader or an audience as to the outcome of a story, especially concerning the character or characters with whom sympathetic attachments are formed. It helps to secure and sustain the interest of the reader of audience throughout a work.

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Suspense

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The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided, sometimes a dialogue that fills the audience in on events that occurred before the action of the play begins, but which are important in the development of its plot.

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Expositions

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The verbal exchange between characters

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Dialogue

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The unified structure of incidents in a literary work

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Plot

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A subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot

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Subplot

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The main character of a literary work

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Protagonist

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A character of force against which another character struggles

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Antagonist

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A playwright's descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play. Modern playwrights tend to include substantial, while earlier playwrights typically used them more sparsely, implicitly, or not at all

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Stage Directions

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Divides the plot into three essential parts, the rising action, in which complication creates conflict for the protagonist, the climax, the moment of greatest emotional tension usually marking a turning point in the plot at which the rising actions reverses to become the falling action, the falling action (or resolution) is characterized by the diminishing tensions and resolutions of the plot's conflicts and complications

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Pyramidal Pattern

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A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play;s or story's plot leading up to the climax

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Rising Action

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The moment of greatest emotional tension in a narrative, usually marking a turning point in the plot at which the rising action reverses to become the falling action

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Climax

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A turning point in the action of a story that has a powerful affect on the protagonist, when opposing forces come together they lead to one.

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Crisis

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In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves toward it denouement or resolution

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Falling action

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The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story

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Resolution

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The point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist

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Reversal

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The resolution of the plot of a literary work

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Denouement

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A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story

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Foil

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The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of generalization

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Theme

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A group who dance, sing and comment on the action of a play without participation in it. Their leader is the choragos

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Greek Chorus

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Ground-level area where the chorus performed. It was in front of the proscenium

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Greek Orchestra

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Building behind the stage. First used as a dressing area for actors (and sometimes an entrance or exit area for actors) , eventually becoming a background showing appropriate scenery

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Skene

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A god who resolves the entanglements of a play by supernatural intervention. Latin phrase literally means "a god from the machine", it refers to the use of artificial means to resolve the plot of a play

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Dues Ex Machina

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Introduction of a play that provides background material

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Greek Prologue (Prologos)

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Act where chorus makes first entrance

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Greek Parodos

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Scene or section of a play with dialogue, it may be compared with acts or scenes in a Shakespeare play. They come between the odes sung by the chorus

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Greek Episode

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A song sung during the play, between episodes of action where chorus responds and explains dialogue

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Greek Stasimon

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Final scene of a play after the last stasimon

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Greek Exodus Exode (Exodus)

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Tragedy that depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine, usually thorugh some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. The tragic hero's powerful wish to achieve some goal inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty (flaws in reason, hubris, society), the gods ( through oracles, prophets, fate), or nature. Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/ or make some mistake (hamartia)

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Greek Tragedy

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A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero. Othello's jealousy and too trusting nature is one example

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Hamartia (Tragic Flaw)

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Meaning "insolence or pride" the word was used to refer to the emotions in the greek tragic heroes that led them to ignore warnings from the gods and thus invite catastrophe. It is considered a form of harmartia or tragic flaw that stems from overbearing pride and lack of piety

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Hubris

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The purging of the feeling of pity and fear that occur in the audience of tragic drama. The audience experiences catharsis at the end of the play, following the catastrophe

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Catharsis

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A reversal of circumstances, or turning point. The term is primarily used with reference to works of literature, it is a sudden reversal dependent on intellect and logic, in modern Greek it means adventure

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Peripeteia

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A moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery, a sudden awareness of a real situation

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Anagnorisis

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Are among the earliest formally develop plays in medieval Europe, Focusing on the representation of the Bible stories with accompanying song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century being rendered obsolete by the rising of professional theatre

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Mystery Play

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Type of vernacular drama performed in the Middle Ages, presenting a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles, or martyrdom of a saint. By the 13th century plays were separated from church services and performed at public festivals by members of craft guilds and other amateur actors

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Miracle Play

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Is a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays they represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre

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Morality Play

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Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play

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Aside

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A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by others characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, it represents the character thinking aloud. Example is Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech

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Soliloquy

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A speech by a single character without another character's response

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Monologue

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A play representing events drawn wholly or partly from recorded history

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History Play

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A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usually for the better, things work out happily in the end. This type of drama may be either romantic- characterized by a tone of tolerance and geniality- or satiric

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Comedy

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The use of comic scene to interrupt a succession of intensely tragic dramatic moments. The comedy of scenes offering it typically parallels the tragic action that the scenes interrupt, it occurs regularly in Shakespeare's tragedies

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Comic Relief

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In this genre the primary distinguishing feature is a love plot in which two sympathetic and well-matched lovers are united or reconciled. The two lovers tend to be young, like able, and apparently meant for each other, yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance (e.g. class differences, parental interference; a previous girlfriend or boyfriend) until, surmounting all obstacles, they re finally wed. A wedding-bells, fairy-tale-style happy ending is practically mandatory

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Romantic Comedies

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A type of comedy characterized by "horseplay," slapstick and/ or farce. Examples include somebody throwing a custard pie in another's, also includes lewd types of comedy that rely on physical jokes, for example wedgie

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Low Comedy

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Comedy appealing to, and reflecting the life and problems of, the upper social classes, characterized by a witty, sardonic treatment, verbal wit such as puns

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High Comedy

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Human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision with the intent to bring about improvement. It is usually meant to not be funny, the purpose of satire is not primarily humor in itself so much as an attack on something of which the author strongly disapproves, using the weapon of wit. A very common, almost defining feature of it is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing

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Satire

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A form of humor based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities. It involves rapid shifts in action and emotion, as well as slapstick comedy and extravagant dialogue

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Farce

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Concerned primarily with one person- the tragic hero. The story is essentially one of the exceptional suffering and calamity leading to the death of the hero. The tragedy involves a person of high estate. The hero undergoes a sudden reversal of fortune. The tragic fate of the hero is often triggered by a tragic flaw in the hero's character. The hero contributes in some way, shape, or form to the disaster in which he perishes. Much of the plot seems to hinge on "chance" or "accident". Besides the outward conflict between individuals or groups of individuals, there is also an inner conflict(s) and torment(s) within the soul of the tragic hero. The central impression of the tragedy is one of waste. Unfortunately for the tragic heroes, their plans do not materialize as they may have hoped and their actions ultimately lead to their own destruction.

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Shakespearian Tragedy

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Refers primarily to tragic drama written to be performed by actors in which a central character called a tragic protagonist or hero suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental, but is significant in that the misfortune is connected with the hero's actions. Tragedy stresses the vulnerability of human beings whose suffering is brought on by a combination of human and divine actions, but is generally undeserved with regard to its harshness.

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Greek Tragedy

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The theory of writing in which the familiar, ordinary aspects of life are depicted in a matter of fact, straightforward manner designed to reflect life as it actually is. It often presents a careful description of everyday life, often concerning itself with the lives of the so called middle or lower class. It downplays plot in favor of character

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Realism

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Term applied to any literary work that relied on implausible events and sensational action for its effects. The conflicts typically arise out of the plot rather than characterization; often a virtuous individual must somehow confront and overcome a wicked oppressor. The story usually ends happily, with the protagonist defeating the antagonist at the last possible moment

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Melodramas

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A type of drama that presents a social issue in order to awake the audience to it. These plays usually reject romantic plots in favor of holding up a mirror that reflects not simply what the audience wants to see, but what the playwright sees in them. Often, they will propose a solution to the problem that does not coincide with prevailing opinion.

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Problem Play

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It refers to the threate that attempts to create a perfect illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies an exclusive focus on subjects that are contemporary and indigenous (no exotic, otherworldly or fantastic locales, nor historical or mythical or mythic time- periods); It tries to imply the realistic stage presence of humans in everyday life and it is trying to put across sometimes even a moral or a meaning of the story

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Naturalism

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a realistic style of play that employs conventions including plenty of suspense created by meticulous plotting. Well-made plays are tightly and logically constructed, and lead to a logical resolution that is favorable to the protagonist

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Well-Made-Play

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A protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. He or she may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely pathetic. Often what anti heroes learn, if they learn anything at all, is that the world isolates them in an existence devoid of God and absolute values

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Anithero