Objective 1: Key Terms and Vocabulary

By the time you finish taking notes on this presentation, you should understand the definitions of the following terms and be able to identify examples of each: Comedy Comic Relief Tragedy Tragic flaw / hero Dialogue Aside Monologue Soliloquy Stage Directions Dramatic Irony

It’s tempting to think of a “comedy” as simply being a work that utilizes humor, but in the context of drama this is not correct. A comedy, quite simply, when we are talking about drama is any dramatic work that portrays the rise in fortune of a sympathetic character, usually due to luck, fate or chance. A comedy will almost always have a happy ending. At its simplest, you can think of comedy as being a dramatic work where the main character starts off in a bad place, and ends up in a good place.

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a great example of a comedy. In this play, the main characters (Demetrius, Lysander, Helena, and Hermia) start off the play in a fairly bad place. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her dad wants her to marry Demetrius, who is loved by Helena (but Demetrius doesn’t love her back, unfortunately. He actually does like Hermia). A great deal of shenanigans ensue, caused mostly by a group of mischievous fairies. In the end, however, the right couples are in love and are going to be married: Demetrius and Helena, and Hermia and Lysander.

Along the same lines, it’s probably tempting to think of tragedy as being a play that’s sad. This is more accurate than our assumption about comedy, but still not correct. A tragedy is basically the opposite of a comedy: any dramatic work that portrays the downfall of a basically good person, usually due to a tragic flaw or mistake. A tragedy will almost always have a sad ending. You can think of a tragedy as being a play in which the character starts off in a good place, and ends up in a bad one.

A key characteristic of tragedies is the presence of a tragic hero, who is at the center of the text. The major characteristics of the tragic hero are: Elevated position in society at the beginning of the play Possesses some level of “hubris” (excessive pride or confidence) Experiences a dramatic “fall” due to his or her own error or flaw That last bulletpoint refers to the “tragic flaw”. This is the trigger in all tragedies for the plot and the downfall of the tragic hero. The key thing is that the reversal of fortune of a tragic hero is almost always his or her own fault.

Another Shakespeare play, Macbeth, is an excellent example of a tragedy. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a powerful thane, who has won many battles for King Duncan and Scotland and is well respected. Unfortunately, the prophecy of three witches causes him to decide that he wants to be King himself, so he and his wife murder Duncan and then must murder even more people to try to keep others from finding out what happened. In the end, Macbeth’s life is ruined and he dies.

This term might seem like it would be a dramatic device that occurs in comedies, but it actually is more common in tragedies. The comic relief in a play is a humorous scene, incident, or character that is included in a serious play to provide a brief change or break from the emotional intensity. For example, in Macbeth, right after Macbeth goes through with his plan to kill Duncan, there is an extended scene in which a porter humorously imagines himself as the gatekeeper to Hell and discusses the various people he will be admitting to Hell. He uses a great deal of raunchy humor to make his point.

Most plays are told almost entirely through dialogue, or the verbal speech of characters. There are a few specific kinds of dialogue that are important to know about: Asides Monologues Soliloquies In addition, it is also important to understand what stage directions are and how they are used.

An aside is a dramatic device in which a character briefly speaks his or her thoughts aloud, in words meant to be heard by the audience but not by the other characters. The character could be speaking directly to the audience in an aside, or just talking to him or herself. There are numerous examples of this in drama, but a more recent example can be found in the television series House of Cards. The character of Frank Underwood frequently speaks directly to the camera, in short asides that can not be heard by the other characters, but which the audience can clearly hear. They give insight into what he is thinking at a given moment.

A monologue is when, in a play, a character speaks his or her thoughts aloud for an extended period of time. This can be directed toward the audience, or toward the other characters in the play. A more specific version of the monologue is the soliloquy. A soliloquy is a monologue in which the character expresses his or her thoughts, but is not directing them towards any other characters in the scene. In some cases, the character is not even meant to be addressing the audience. In a soliloquy, the characters are often completely alone on stage (though you might also see soliloquies where there are other characters in the background, but they are unaware of the soliloquy).

Plays are told largely through dialogue – that is, the things that are spoken out loud by the characters in the play. However, most plays also include “stage directions” – or, instructions that may include any other information needed to stage the play that is not clear from the dialogue, such as character actions, dialogue tone, setting descriptions, and background information. Some playwrights, like Tennessee Williams and George Bernard Shaw are known for long and detailed stage directions. Other playwrights, like William Shakespeare, are known for including very minimal stage directions, leaving much of the staging of the play up to the individual directors.

Irony, as you should know, is a rhetorical device that takes advantages of incongruities or contrasts to create a specific effect There is a specific form of irony that is most closely related to drama known as dramatic irony. Specifically, dramatic irony refers to any situation within a dramatic work in which the audience knows something that the character(s) do not.