1. Romeo and Juliet By: William Shakespeare
Drama Terms
Romeo and Juliet
By: William Shakespeare

2. Elizabethan Terms:
The Elizabethan Era was named after Queen Elizabeth I of England (who reigned from ).
Renaissance: A period of rebirth, originating in Italy in the 1300’s. This was a time during which great accomplishments were made in science, art and literature (lots of change)

3. Elizabethan Terms (cont.):
Elizabethan Drama: Playwrights turned away from writing about religious subjects and began writing more sophisticated plays, drawing on ancient Greek and Roman models.

4. Drama Terms
Soliloquy: A speech by a person who is talking to him/herself; used to reveal their inner thoughts and feelings to the audience
Monologue: A talk/speech by a single speaker who is speaking alone but others can hear them (kind of like a solo in a musical)
Aside: Words spoken so as not to be heard by the other characters, but are intended for the audience only (think Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).

5. Drama Terms Continued:
Tragedy: Plays where disaster falls upon the hero/heroine (unlike comedies where everyone gets married in the end, in tragedies, the characters usually die in the end)
Tragic Hero: A character who makes an error in Judgment or has a fatal flaw, which leads to their own demise or the demise of others (example: Batman/Bruce Wayne from Dark Knight Rises)

6. Drama Terms Continued:
Apparition: A supernatural appearance of a person/thing, especially a ghost or phantom (like in A Christmas Carol when Scrooge is visited by 3 ghosts)
Foil: A character who contrast well with another character in order to highlight the differences between the two (example: Mufasa vs Scar in The Lion King)

7. Literary terms:
Allusion: A reference, in literature, to something either directly or by implication
Dramatic Irony: When the audience knows what is going on, but the characters do not!
Tone (*): The way something is said, the way is sounds and the emotion conveyed (example: If you talk back to your mom, she might say, “Don’t take that tone of voice with me young lady”)

8. Literary terms: Motif: Recurring idea (pattern) in literature
Anachronism: Object out of place/time (like a computer in the wild west)
Pun: the humorous use of a word/phrase to suggest two or more meanings at the same time

9. Form and Structure Terms:
Meter: Poetic measure; the arrangement of words in a regularly measured, patterned, or rhythmic lines/verses
Blank Verse: Verse where the lines do not rhyme, but they share the same meter (usually iambic pentameter)

10. Form and Structure Terms:
Iamb: An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
Iambic Pentameter: five verse feet with each foot in an iamb (ten syllable line with the pattern going stressed, unstressed, stress, unstressed)

11. Poetry Terms: Couplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
Quatrain: a poem or stanza within a poem, always consisting of 4 lines.

12. Poetry Terms: Sonnet: 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet: Has 3 quatrains, and ends with a couplet. A Shakespearean sonnet has a specific rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG)