Womens Lit Quiz 3

Front 1

Drama

Back 1

An individual play; also plays considered as a group; one of three major genres of imaginative literature

Front 2

Blocking

Back 2

In the performance of a play, the directors plan for the grouping and movement of characters on stage.

Front 3

Blocking agent

Back 3

A person,circumstance, or attitude that obstructs the plans of various characters,such as the parental denial of permission to marry

Front 4

Aside

Back 4

A speech, usually short and often witty or satirical, delivered by a character to the audience or to another character, the convention being that only the intended characters can hear it, along, of course, with the audience.

Front 5

Comedy of manners

Back 5

A form of comedy, regular (five acts or three acts), in which attitudes and customs are examined and satirized in the light of high intellectual and moral standards. The dialogue is witty and sophisticated, and characters are often measured according to their linguistic and intellectual powers.

Front 6

Comedy of the absurd

Back 6

A form of comedy dramatizing the apparent pointlessness, ambiguity, uncertainty, and absurdity of human existence.

Front 7

Dramatic irony

Back 7

A special kind of situational irony in which a character percieves his or her plight in a limited way wher ew as the audience and one or more of the other characters understand it entirely.

Front 8

Comic action

Back 8

A pattern of action, including funny situations and language, that is solvable and correctable and therefore satisfying.

Front 9

Performance

Back 9

An individual production of a play, either for an evening or for an extended period, comprising acting, movement, lighting, sound effects, staging and scenery, ticket sales, and the accommodation of the audience.

Front 10

Chorus

Back 10

In ancient Athenian drama, a group of young men (fifteen in tragedies and twenty-four in comedies) who chanted or sang, probably in unison, and who performed dance movements to a flute accompaniment. The chorus was, in effect, a major (and also collective) character in the drama.

Front 11

Scene

Back 11

In a play, a part or division (of an act, as in Hamlet, or of an entire play, as in Fences) in which there is a unity of subject.

Front 12

Hubris

Back 12

The pride and attitudes that lead tragic figures to commit their mistakes or offenses.

Front 13

Monologue

Back 13

A long speech spoken by a single character to himself or herself, to the audience, or to an off-stage character.

Front 14

Soliloquy

Back 14

A speech made by a character, alone on stage, directly to the audience, the convention being that the xhara ter is revealing his or her inner thoughts, feelings, hopes, and plans. A soliloquy is to be distinguished from an aside, which made to the audience (or confidentially to another character) when other characters are present.

Front 15

Multiple plot

Back 15

A development in which two or more stories both contrasted and woven together.

Front 16

Heroic couplet

Back 16

Also called neoclassic couplet. Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter, a characteristic of much poetry written between 1660 and 1800. Five stress couplets are often called "heroic" regardless of their topic matter and the period on which they were written.

Front 17

Dues ex machine

Back 17

("A god out of the machine"; theos apo mechanes in Greek, a phrase attributed to the ancient Greek playwright Menander). In ancient Athenian drama, the entrance of a god to unravel the problems in a play. Today the phrase deus ex machina refers to the artificial, convenient, easy, and illogical solution of problems.

Front 18

Double entendre

Back 18

(French for double meaning) Deliberate ambiguity, usually comic, and often sexual.

Front 19

Logos

Back 19

Logic, reason

Front 20

Pathos

Back 20

Emotional persuasion or appeal