1. Shakespearean Drama
Vocabulary and Terms

2. Shakespeare’s Plays
Tragedy: a play that traces the main character’s downfall
Comedy: a play that ends happily and usually contains many humorous elements
History: a play that chronicles the life of an English monarch

3. Tragedy and the Tragic Hero
Shakespeare’s tragedies are often called his “greatest plays.”
Every tragedy contains a “tragic hero”
Tragic hero: a main character who goes through a series of events that lead to his/her downfall

4. Qualities of a Tragic Hero
Possesses importance or high rank
Exhibits extraordinary talents
Displays a tragic flaw—an error in judgment or defect in character—that leads to downfall
Faces downfall with courage and dignity

5. Tragic Hero Cont.
Dramatic Foils- characters that are opposites or pitted against each other. The foil usually tried to prevent another character, usually the hero or protagonist, from doing something. He “foils” his plans.

6. Soliloquy and Aside
Shakespeare uses soliloquies and asides even though these are not things that are used in real life.
Soliloquy: a long speech given by a character while alone on stage to reveal his or her private thoughts or intentions. (monologue)
Aside: a character’s quiet remark to the audience or another character that no one else on stage is supposed to hear. A stage direction (often in brackets) indicates an aside

7. Aside Example
Trebonius: Caesar, I will. [Aside] And so near will I be That your best friends shall wish I had been further. The audience is meant to hear the aside, but not Caesar. What does the aside suggest?

8. Dramatic Irony
Dramatic Irony: when the reader or audience knows something that one or more of the characters do not know.
How is dramatic irony used in horror movies?

9. Word Play PUNS – words with similar sounds but different meanings.
I continually asked the track coach about joining the team but he just kept giving me the run- around.
Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

10. Word Play
OXYMORON – words with opposite meaning that are used together.
Original copy
Second best
Same difference
Easy payments
Work party

11. Word Play
SEXUAL DOUBLE ENTENDRES- common words with sexual connotation.
The photographer was disappointed because when he looked at the pictures of the cheerleading team, he realized they weren’t developed.

12. Word Play AMBIGUITY – words that convey more than one meaning.
"Thanks for dinner. I’ve never seen potatoes cooked like that before."
(Jonah Baldwin in the film Sleepless in Seattle, 1993)

13. Word Play
MALAPROPISMS – words misused, usually humorously, because they happen to sound like other words.
"I resemble that remark!” (Instead of resent)
“Density has brought me to you.” (Instead of destiny)

14. Literary Term
Alliteration- the repeated occurrence of a consonant sound at the beginning of several words in the same phrase.
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …"

15. You got rhythm, but no rhyme!
Blank Verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme.
Meter is the pattern of stressed or unstressed syllables.

16. Iambic Pentameter da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM
The most common meter in English poetry, the so- called iambic pentameter, is a sequence of five iambic feet or iambs, each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one ("da- DUM") :
da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM