| Term | Definition |
| drama | a story written to be acted for an audience |
| tragedy | a play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end |
| prologue | a short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot |
| sonnet | fourteen line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter and that has one of several rhyme schemes |
| prose | direct unadorned form of language, written or spoken, in ordinary use |
| chorus | a group who says things at the same time |
| anachronism | event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period |
| verbal irony | a writer or speaker says one thing, but means something completely different |
| dramatic irony | the audience or reader knows something important that the character doesn't know |
| monologue | a speech by one character in a play |
| soliloquy | an unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud |
| foil | character who is used as a contrast to another character |
| oxymoron | a combination of two contradictory terms |
| aside | words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or another character that isn't supposed to be overheard by other people onstage |
| pun | a play on the multiple meanings of a word |
| comic relief | humor added that lessens the seriousness of the plot |
| static character | character who does not change much in the course of a story |
| dynamic character | character who changes as a result of the story's events |
| blank verse | poetry written that doesn't rhyme at the end |
| couplet | two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; they often signal the exit of a character or the end of a scene |
