Dramatic Literary Terms

1. Dramatic Literary Terms

2. Drama • A story written and meant to be acted for an audience

3. Tragedy • A play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character(s) come(s) to an unhappy end

4. Prologue • A short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot

5. Chorus • A group who says things at the same time

6. Verbal Irony • A writer or speaker says one thing, but really means something completely different

7. Dramatic Irony • The audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know

8. Monologue • A speech recited by one character in a play

9. Soliloquy • An unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud

10. Foil • A character who is used as a contrast to another character • The writer intensifies the qualities of the two characters this way

11. Aside • Words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character, but that are not meant to be overheard by the others onstage

12. Comic Relief • Humour added that lessens the seriousness of the plot

13. Sonnet • Fourteen-line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter that follows a set rhyme scheme

14. Couplet • Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme • Couplets often signal the exit of a character or the end of a scene

15. Prose • Direct, unadorned form of language, written or spoken, in ordinary use