Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
AP Drama Lit Terms
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Aside | A brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the audience. |
| Allusion | A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history. |
| Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply. |
| Antagonist | Any force in a story that is in conflict with the protagonist. It may be another person, nature or social and physical environment. |
| Protagonist | The central character in a story. |
| Sililoquy | A speech in which a character, alone on the stage, addresses himself or herself. |
| Fantasy | A kind of fiction that pictures creatures or events beyond the boundaries of know reality. |
| Foil Characters | A minor character whose situation or actions parallel those of a major character, and thus by contrast sets off or illuminates the major character. |
| Themes | The central idea of a literary work. |
| Deus ex Machina | The resolution of a plot by use of a highly improbable chance or coincidence. (so named from the practice of some Greek dramatists of having a god descend from heaven at the last possible minute. |
| Didactic | Primary purpose it to teach or preach. |
| Dilemma | A situation in which a character must choose between two courses of action, both undesirable. |
| Dramatic Exposition | The presentation through dialogue of information about events that occurred before the action of a play, or that occur offstage or between the staged actions; this may also refer to the presentation of information about individual characters backgrounds. |
| Dramatic Conventions | Any dramatic device which, though it departs from reality, is implicitly accepted by author and audience as a means of representing reality. |
| Melodrama | A type of drama related to tragedy but featuring sensational incidents, emphasizing plot at the expense of characterization, relying on cruder conflicts and having a happy ending in which good triumphs over evil. |
| Farce | A type of drama related to comedy but emphasizing improbable situation, violent conflicts, physical action, and course wit over characterization or articulated plot. |
| Drama of the Absurd | A type of drama, allied to comedy, radically nonrealistic in both content and presentation, that emphasizes the absurdity, emptiness, or meaninglessness of life. |
| Catharsis | A term used by Aristotle to describe some sort of emotional release experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy. |
| Chorus | A group of actors speaking or chanting in unison, often while going through the steps of an elaborate formalized dance; a characteristic device of Greek drama for conveying communal or group emotion. |
| Comedy | A type of drama, opposed to tragedy, having usually a happy ending, and emphasizing human limitation rather than human greatness. |
| Scornful Comedy | A type of comedy whose main purpose is to expose and ridicule human folly, vanity, or hypocrisy. |
| Romantic Comedy | A type of comedy whose likable and sensible main characters are placed in difficulties from which they are rescued at the end of the play, either attaining their ends or having their good fortunes restored. |
| Paradoxical Situation | A situation containing apparently but not actually incompatible elements. |
| Plot Manipulation | A situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved. |
| Dramatic Framework | The situation, whether actual or fictional, realistic, or fanciful, in which an author places his or her characters in order to express theme. |
| Realistic Drama | Drama that attempts, in content and in presentation, to preserve the illusion of actual, every day life. |
| Sarcasm | Biting or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed. |
| Satire | A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice. |
| Nonrealisitic Drama | Drama that, in content, presentation, or both, departs markedly form fidelity to the outward appearances of life. |
| Tragedy | A type of drama, opposed to comedy, which depicts the causally related events that lead to the downfall and suffering of the protagonist, a person of unusual moral or intellectual stature or outstanding abilities. |
Created by:
Mrs. Munson
Popular Academic Vocabulary sets