| catastrophe (denouncement) | the tragic conclusion of a story or play that follows the climax and contains a resolution for the plot |
| Catastasis | the dramatic complication that immediately precedes the catastrophe of a tragedy, or it may occur during the climax; this moment leads directly to the catastrophe |
| Catharsis | refers to a character’s emotional outpouring, often when a character realizes his/her downfall; used to describe the emotional outpouring of characters |
| Tragic hero | A literary archetype who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction; essentially a good man, but with a fatal flaw |
| Anagnorisis | the moment of realization; the point at which the tragic hero recognizes or identifies his true nature, recognizes another’s true identity, discovers the true nature of his situation, or recognizes the real situation of others; a startling discovery |
| Hamartia | a character flaw in the protagonist’s personality that brings about his downfall |
| hubris | excessive pride or arrogance that brings about a character’s downfall; conceit, haughtiness |
| peripetia | a reversal of fortune; the point at which the tragic hero’s good fortune dramatically shifts to tragedy; a surprising, drastic change in fortune or circumstances |
| fate | many tragedies are considered tragedies of fate; though a tragic hero is brough down by some deficiencyin his character, fate plays a pivotal role in his downfall, too; a hero often tries to outwit his fate |
| Supernatural elements | provide a catalyst for action, an insight into characters, and even augment the impact of many key scenes |
| tragic waste | a term used to describe how both good and evil are equally (albeit unfairly) destroyed at the conclusion of a tragedy |
| Poetic justice | an outcome in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded |
| comic relief | used to cal or soothe the audience and sometimes used to bring about the full effect of unfortunate events |
| aside | a short comment or speech that a character delivers directly to the audience that other actors on the stage cannot hear; it could also reveal a character’s private opinions an reactions |
| dramatis personae | the characters or actors in a drama; a list of characters/actors in a drama |
| foil | a character who contrasts another character (usually the protagonist) to highlight particular qualities of the other character |
| monologue | a long speech by one character in a drama delivered to an audience (or other characters on the stage or the actual audience) |
| soliloquy | a lengthy speech delivered privately by a character that reveals the figure’s innermost thoughts and feelings; usually develop a character and are introspective and complex |
| alliteration | the frequent recurrence of the same initial (first) letter or sound |
| Allusion | a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical, cultural literary, or political significance |
| Antithesis | meaning opposite, a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect |
| apostrophe | a figure of speech in which a person directly addresses someone or something that isn’t present, such as an abstract concept, person, place, or thing |
| assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or clauses |
| Chiasmus | a rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures (idea is swapped, but the wording is changed) |
| antimetabole | a rhetorical device in which the exact same words are repeated and reversed in a sentence |
| couplet | two successive rhyming lines of verse that sharethe same meter and form a complete thought |
Macbeth elements of Shakespearean tragedy
August 25, 2019