Shakespearean Terms – With Examples {Much Ado About Nothing}

comedy1 A drama that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted.Example: MAAN is a ____!
tragedy1 A drama that depicts serious and important events that cause suffering and distress, as well as an unhappy or violent ending for the protagonist.Example: Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet are ____.
soliloquy1 When a character converses with himself/herself by expressing thoughts aloud while alone on stage.Example: {line where Benedick finds out that beatrice loves him–talks w himself in shock onstage}
dramatic irony1 When the full significance of a character’s words or actions are clear to the audience or reader but unknown to characters in the play.Example: Don John’s scheme making it seem like Hero is cheating on Claudio with a man named Borachio on the night before the wedding–Characters think she is cheating–Audience knows Hero is innocent.
foil1 A character who is used as a contrast to another character; this contrast highlights or sets off the personality traits of both characters.Example: Loud Beatrice vs. Quiet & Sweet Hero
comic relief 2 Humor that lessens or offsets the seriousness of the plot.Example: Dogberry and the watchmen in the scene where the plan against Hero is acted (or just Dogberry in general)
pun 2 A play on the multiple meanings of a word, or a play on two words that sound alike but have different meanings.Example: Much Ado About NOTHING–noting-taking note of
malapropism 2 The mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding word, often with an unintentionally amusing effect.Example: Dogberry speaking
oxymoron 2 Two contradictory ideas or words placed side by side (“pure impiety”… “impious purity”).Example: [Claudio] “most foul, most fair {beautiful} (105)” {Talking about Hero}
prose 2 Written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without the metrical structure often found in poetry.Example: Any writing from any book that is not written as a poem–when the lines are very long on the page. (parts of MAAN)
blank verse 3 Verse without rhyme written in iambic pentameter.Example: But fare the well, most foul, most fair, farewell
iambic pentameter 3 A line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable. (Example: “Two households, both alike in dignity.”)—Poetry not proseExample: What(1) fire(2) \ is(3) in(4) \ mine(5) ears(6)? \ Can(7) this(8) \ be(9) true(10)?
quatrain 3 A stanza consisting of four rhymed or unrhymed lines.Example: {beatrice’s line where she finds out that benedick loves her.}
couplet 3 Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; couplets often signal a character’s exit or the end of a scene.Example: [line where hero speaks to Ursula about love and Beatrice overhears –then the two exit] {hero}
sonnet 3 A poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, typically having ten syllables per line. (An Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet has the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg). {contains iambic pentameter}Example: Line spoken by Beatrice on pg. 71 –where she expresses her feelings of surprise when she finds out that Benedick loves her and decides to return his love.
July 3, 2019