Shakespeare Terms

Sililoquy

• the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know

• character who changes as a result of the story’s events

• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud

• “unrhymed”-no rhyme at the end of lines

Tragedy 

• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud

• two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; couplets often signal the EXIT of a character or end of a scene

• a play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end

• character who changes as a result of the story’s events

Prologue 

• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot

• character who does not change much in the course of a story

• words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage

• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud

Sonnet 

• a group who says things at the same time

• fourteen-line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter and that has one of several rhyme schemes

• the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know

• a writer or speaker says one thing, but really means something completely different

Prose 

• event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period

• a combination of contradictory terms

• direct, unadorned form of language, written or spoken, in ordinary use

• Shakespearean-3 four-line units or quatrains, followed by a concluding two-line unit, or couplet; abab cdcd efef gg

Anachronism 

• a story written to be acted for an audience

• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot

• poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter ;each line of poetry contains 5 iambs, or metrical feet, that consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

• event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period

Monologue

• a speech by one character in a play

• a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot

• an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud

• words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage

Foil

• character who is used as a contrast to another character; writer sets off/intensifies the qualities of 2 characters this way

• a play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end

• a group who says things at the same time

• character who changes as a result of the story’s events

Aside

• poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

• a combination of contradictory terms

• words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage
  

• a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings

Comic Relief

• humor added that lessens the seriousness of a plot
  

• direct, unadorned form of language, written or spoken, in ordinary use

• event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period

• a speech by one character in a play