Shakespeare Terms

1. that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage
4. relief-humor added that lessens the seriousness of a plot.
6. consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; couplets often signal the EXIT of a character or end of a scene
8. unusually long speech in which a character who is on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts aloud.
10. character-character who changes as a result of the story’s events
12. lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter and that has one of several rhyme schemes (Shakespearean-3 four-line units or quatrains, followed by a concluding two-line unit, or couplet; abab cdcd efef gg).
13. unadorned form of language, written or spoken, in ordinary use
16. story written to be acted for an audience.
17. (“unrhymed”-no rhyme at the end of lines) Verse-poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter (“pent”=5; “meter”=measure); each line of poetry contains 5 iambs, or metrical feet, that consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
18. group who says things at the same time
19. irony-a writer or speaker says one thing, but really means something completely different
20. combination of contradictory terms (EX: jumbo shrimp).

2. character-character who does not change much in the course of a story.
3. who is used as a contrast to another character; writer sets off/intensifies the qualities of 2 characters this way.
5. speech by one character in a play.
7. play on the multiple meanings of a word, or on two words that sound alike but have different meanings
9. short introduction at the beginning of a play that gives a brief overview of the plot
11. or detail that is inappropriate for the time period.
14. play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end.
15. irony-the audience or reader knows something important that a character in a play or story does not know