Literature Concepts

SShakespeare wrote around 37 plays about historical figures, comedies, and tragedies. TThese plays explore many aspects of the human experience like: RRomance and friendship LLife and Death CComedy and tragedy

TTragedy is a drama that ends in catastrophe (most often death) for the main character or characters. SShakespearean tragedy has a main character called the “tragic hero”, who is usually someone who is nobly born (the highest social class) and may have an important influence in his or her society.

 The tragic hero has one or two fatal (deadly) character flaws (faults, bad personality traits).  These flaws are weaknesses or serious errors in judgment that lead to the hero’s downfall.

 Within his tragedies, Shakespeare often includes comic relief, which is a humorous (funny) scene, incident, or speech that relieves the overall emotional intensity of the tragedy.  Comic relief provides contrast, which helps the audience to absorb the earlier events in the plot and get ready for the ones to come.

 In a work of literature, an allusion is a brief reference to something (that the audience or reader is expected to know of) outside that work of literature.  For example, the writer might allude to a historical or current event or to a line from another work of literature. Shakespeare’s plays often contain allusions to ancient Greek and Roman mythology and to the Bible.

 A foil is a character whose personality or attitudes are in sharp contrast to those of another character in the same story.  By using a foil, the author highlights the other character’s traits or attitude.  The kind behavior of one character, for example, will be made clearer when it is presented in sharp contrast to another character who is not at all kind.

 Shakespeare uses “dramatic conventions”, which are devices that theater audiences accept as realistic even though they do not necessarily reflect the way real-life people behave. (like giving a speech when all alone –called a soliloquy)  A soliloquy is a speech that a character gives when he or she is alone on stage. Its purpose is to let the audience know what the character is thinking.

 Another “dramatic convention” is called an “aside”  An aside is a character’s remark, either to the audience or to another character, that others on stage do not and are not supposed to hear.  Its purpose, like a soliloquy’s, is to reveal the character’s private thoughts.  A stage direction, usually in [brackets] or (parentheses), indicated when an aside is being made.  Asides are spoken to the audience unless the stage directions say otherwise.