Aside | A brief remark by an actor directly to the audience, which is not “heard” by the other characters on stage during a play. |
Comic Relief | The use of a comic scene to interrupt a succession of intense tragic dramatic moments. These scenes typically parallel the tragic action that the scenes interrupt. |
Conflict | The struggle in a work of literature |
Denouncement | Portion of plot that reveal the final outcome of a conflict or a solution of mysteries. |
Foil | A character who contrasts and parallels the main character. |
Foreshadowing | To hint at a future course of action. |
Hubris | Great pride that bring about the downfall of character. |
Monologue | A long speech delivered by one character |
Soliloquy | A recitation in a play in which a character agree to be thinking out loud, thereby communicating his inner thoughts and feelings. |
Tragedy | A form of literature that depicts the downfall of the leading character. |
Tragic Flaw | A weakness or limitation of a character, resulting in fall of tragic hero. |
Tragic Hero | A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who by virtue of a tragic flaw and fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering. |
Imagery | Representation through language of sensory experience. |
Inversion | Changing order usual of word |
Irony | A contradiction of incongruity between appearance or expectations and reality |
Dramatic Irony | When the audience or another character has knowledge of present or future circumstances of which a character is ignorant. |
Situtational Irony | A situation in which the opposite of what is exacted occurs |
Verbal Irony | Characters say the opposite of what they mean |
Metaphor | A figure of speech in which something is directly or indirectly compared to something else |
Motif | A unifying element in a text, especially any recurrent image, symbol, or theme. |
Paradox | A statement that seems self contradictory or nonsensical on the surface but that, on closer examination, maybe been to contain an underlying truth |
Pun | A play on words that capitalizes on a similarity of spelling and/or pronunciation. |
Theme | The main idea or ideas implied or stated by a literary work. |
Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which the speaker directly addresses a person who is dead or not physically present, an imaginary person or entity, something inhuman, or a place or concept. |
Allusion | Reference to a historical event or to mythical biblical or literary figure |
Anaphora | Repetition of a term at the beginning of word groups covering one after the other. |
Metatheatres | A level of communication in which the theater talks about itself as theatrical. |
Antithesis | Juxtaposition of 2 words, phrases, clauses, or sentences contrasted or opposed in meaning in such a way as to give emphasis to contrasting ideas |
Aphorism | Short, often witty statement measuring an observation or a universal truth. |
Euphemism | Substitution of mild or less word or phrase for harsh or blunt one, as in the use of “pass away” instead of “die” |
Hyperbole | Exaggeration; overstatement |
Litotes | Understatement |
Metonomy | Where 1 thing is represented by another that is commonly and often physically associated with it |
Simile | Comparing one thing to an unlike thing, using “like” or “as” |
Synecdoche | Substitution of a part to stand for the whole, or the whole to stand for the part |
Alliteration | The repetition of beginning consonant sounds. |
Iamb | An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. |
Pentameter | Verse written in 5 – foot line. |
Syllepsis | A single word used once with 2 different meanings. |
Chiasmus | inversion of word from the first half of a statement in the second half |
Scasion | Analysis of poetic meter |
Hamlet Vocabulary
August 24, 2019