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28 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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drama
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Designed for performance on stage.
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tragedy
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Representation of serious actions that lead to a disastrous end for the protagonist. Hero must be fundamentally good, fall through an unwitting error (tragic flaw) or fate, and a resolution that reconciles audience to the suffering so that the suffering is NOT senseless and irrational.
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tragic flaw
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A fatal weakness or ignorance in the protagonist that brings him to a bad end. Ranges from mistaken judgement to personal failing (not necessarily a moral one).
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character
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A person represented in a narrative or drama.
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character development
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How a character is introduced, revealed, and changed in a story.
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irony
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In language: a statement whose intended meaning is the opposite of its literal meaning. In life: a discrepancy between an expected outcome and a real outcome.
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irony of fate
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Discrepancy between actions and their results, between what characters deserve and what they get, between expectation and reality.
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catharsis
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Greek: "cleansing," "purging." In stories: passions are aroused but then purged through the course of the drama.
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hubris
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Excessive pride, the insolence that leads to ruin. (For the Greeks it was the opposite of moderation or rectitude.)
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soliloquy
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A speech by a character alone onstage in which thoughts are uttered aloud.
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hero
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Central character in a narrative whose virtues and vies, choices and experiences, are raised to meaningful levels. Today: principal figure in a story.
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stock character
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A stereotypical character that occurs frequently in literature: mad scientist, battle-scarred veteran, strong-but-silent cowboy.
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plot
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Particular arrangement of actions, events, and situations in a narrative. Important, crucial part of a story.
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foreshadowing
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In plot construction, the technique of arranging events and information in such a way that subsequent doings are prepared for, or "shadowed," beforehand.
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exposition
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The opening portion of a story: the scene is set, the protagonist introduced, background information.
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complication
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Introduction of a significant development in the central conflict between characters, initiating a rising action of a story's plot.
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climax
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The moment of greatest intensity in a story which almost always occurs towards the end of a work.
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denouement
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French: "unknotting." The resolution or conclusion of a story. The untangling of complications and a sense of completion. (An Open denouement is an ambiguous conclusion.)
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comic relief
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The appearance of a comic situation or character in the midst of a serious action, serving to lighten an atmosphere, balance the somber with the entertaining.
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dramatic irony
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When the audience understands the meaning or implications of a situation but the character does not.
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parody
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A mocking imitation of a literary work or style, usually for comic purposes, exaggerating distinctive features of the original.
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comedy
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Any work aimed at amusing an audience. Many distinct meanings throughout history. There is a nearness between tragedy and comedy.
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low comedy
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Jokes, slapstick, sight gags, boisterous clowning. Little intellectual content.
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levels of diction
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In English, three levels: Low--colloquial English (like catty, slip-up, pushy), Middle--general English (like spiteful, blunder, assertive), High--formal English (like acrimonious, miscalculation, pugnacious).
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metafiction
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Fiction that consciously explores its own nature as a literary creation.
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point of view
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Perspective from which a story is told. The relation in which the narrator stands to the story. First-person narrator, third-person narrator, participant narrator, omniscient narrator, unreliable narrator.
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theater of the absurd
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A postwar European genre of drama depicting the grotesquely comic plight of human beings thrown by accident into an irrational and meaningless world.
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tragicomedy
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A type of drama that has elements of both tragedy and comedy. Usually brings the protagonist to bring of disaster but ends happily.
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