Glossary extracted starting with automatic seeds, with PTM for the domain roy and language EN

italian sonnet	Another term for a Petrarchan sonnet
theme	a major principle or ethical precept the play deals with.
expressionism	Early-twentieth-century literary and performance style that attempted to create the inner workings of the human mind by showing subjective states of reality through distortion, nightmarish images, and similar devices.
jeremiad	A jeremiad is a long literary work, usually in prose, but sometimes in poetry, in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective, and always contains a prophecy of society's imminent downfall.
hypokrites	the original Greek term for "actor"; originally it meant "answerer."
complication	the building of the conflict in plot as part of the rising action
omniscient narrator	see narrator
caricature	A character portrayed very broadly and in a stereotypical fashion, ordinarily objectionable in realistic dramas
dionysus	God of fertility and wine
conflict	the struggle of opposing external or internal forces
monologue	a speech by a single character
interlaced rhyme	In long couplets, especially hexameter lines, sufficient room in the line allows a poet to use rhymes in the middle of the line as well as at the end of each line
lullaby	A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process
end-stopped line	a line of verse that contains or concludes a complete clause and usually ends with a punctuation mark
cothurni	The Greek word for the elevator-shoes worn by important actors on stage
near rhyme	Another term for inexact rhyme or slant rhyme.
metaphor	A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as
link	Chaucer scholars use the word "link" or "linking passage" to refer to the material connecting the individual tales in the Canterbury Tales to the surrounding stories
synecdoche	a type of metonymy in which the part is used to name or stand in for the whole, as when we refer to manual laborers as hands or say wheels to mean a car.
props	objects or items used by the actors on the stage
action	The series of events that make up the plot.
asyndeton	The artistic elimination of conjunctions in a sentence to create a particular effect
"single effect" theory	Edgar Allan Poe's theory about what constituted a good short story
symbolic poem	a poem in which the use of symbols is so pervasive and internally consistent that the reference to the outside world being symbolized becomes secondary
foil	a character that serves as a contrast to another.
particular setting	see setting.
greek theatre	Greek Dramatic Theory
direct adress	words that tell the reader who is being addressed
epiphany	Christian thinkers used this term to signify a manifestation of God's presence in the world
trochaic rhyme	Another word for double rhyme in which the final rhyming word consists of a heavy stress followed by a light stress.
metal dies	Engraved steel, brass or bronze stamps used in embossing a design or letter in leather.
paraphrase	A summary or recapitulation of a piece of literature
environmental theater	performance mode in which the action is not confined to a traditional stage but uses the entire "environment" for the presentation of the play; the action frequently takes place in and around the spectators (who are often encouraged to participate in the play).
paradelle	A paradelle is a modern poetic form which was invented by United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins as a parody of the villanelle.
brio	vigor, spirit broken chord - the tones of a chord played consecutively, usually according to some pattern
baroque	Baroque (pronounced /bəˈroʊk/ bə-rohk in American English or /bəˈrɒk/ in British English) is an artistic style prevalent from the late 16th century to the early 18th century in Europe
epiphany	a sudden revelation of truth, often inspired by a seemingly simple or commonplace event
elizabethan	Occurring in the time of Queen Elizabeth I's reign, from 1558-1603
absurd theatre	Tragic farces in which human existence is seen to be pointless.
comitatus	(Latin: "companionship" or "band"): The term describes the tribal structure of the Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic tribes in which groups of men would swear fealty to a hlaford (lord) in exchange for food, mead, and heriot, the loan of fine armor and weaponry
soliloquy	A speech, usually lengthy, in which a character, alone on stage, expresses his or her thoughts aloud
festival of dionysus	Festival that paid tribute to the god Dionysus
villanelle	A versital genre of poetry consisting of nineteen lines--five tercets and a concluding quatrain
unity of action	Scenes must contribute directly to the plot
repetition	The return of a word, phrase, stanza form, or effect in any form of literature
foil	a character who serves as a contrast to another (and usually central) character; Laertes and Fortinbras are foils to Hamlet.
anapestic	referring to a metrical form in which each foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one—for example, "There are mán- \| y who sáy \| that a dóg \| has his dáy" (Dylan Thomas, "The Song of the Mischievous Dog")
romanzo d' appendice	Romanzo d'appendìce (Italian for Feuilleton) was a popular genre in literature, which originated in England and France, in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th.
blank verse	unrhymed verse
inversion	Another term for anastrophe.
humour	Humour or humor (see spelling differences) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement
great chain of being	Medieval worldview that used the metaphor of a chain to show that all of creation was linked: God was at the superior end of the chain, nonliving matter at the other
convention	in literature, a standard or traditional way of presenting or expressing something, or a traditional or characteristic feature of a particular literary genre or subgenre
terza rima	A three-line stanza form borrowed from the Italian poets
oxymoron	a figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, as in wise fool.
analects	Lunyu (English: Analects) (simplified Chinese: 论语; traditional Chinese: 論語; pinyin: Lún Yǔ), also known as the Analects of Confucius, are considered a record of the words and acts of the central Chinese thinker and philosopher Confucius and his disciples, as well as the discussions they held.
analogy	in Rhetoric
facetiae	A bookseller's term for obscene or humorous books.
bestiary	A medieval treatise listing, naming, and describing various animals and their attribute
themes - theme analysis	Point of View
connotation	what is suggested by a word, apart from what it literally means or how it is defined in the dictionary
style	The author's words and the characteristic way that writer uses language to achieve certain effects
hovering accent	Another term for spondee
whole note	the basic unit of note values whole-tone scale - a scale of six notes a whole step apart
costume designer	the artist in charge of creating the look of the costumes for a play.
free verse	Poetry without standardized rhyme, meter, or structure
sestet	six lines of verse linked by a pattern of rhyme, as in the last six lines of the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet
test 2	Answers Test 1
point of view	The angle of vision from which a story is narrated
actor	a performer in a play; may be male or female.
k¯oken	Black-garbed and veiled actors' assistants who perform various functions onstage in kabuki theatre.
primo	first, principal prima volta - the first time program music - instrumental music which the composer intends to be descriptive of some action, scene, or story, and which carries a descriptive title
tenor	The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register
parados	The ode sung by the chorus entering the orchestra in a Greek tragedy; the space between the stagehouse (skene) and audience seating area (theatron) through which the chorus entered the orchestra.
sermon joli	Another term for a sermon joyeaux
death poem	A death poem (絶命詩) is a poem written near the time of one's own death
soliloquy	a monologue in which the character in a play is alone onstage and thinking out loud, as in the famous Hamlet speech that begins "To be or not to be."
extended metaphor	see metaphor
sheng	In xiqu, the male roles and the actors who play them.
legitimate theater	The term "legitimate theater" dates back to the Licensing Act of 1737, which restricted "serious" theatre performances to the two patent theatres licensed to perform "spoken drama" after the English Restoration in 1662
envoy	Also spelled, envoi, the word envoy refers to a postscript added to the end of a prose writing or a short verse stanza (often using different meter and rhyme) attached to the conclusion of a poem
jacobean era	Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James VI (1567â€"1625) of Scotland, who also inherited the crown of England in 1603
syllogism	A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός – syllogismos – "conclusion," "inference") or logical appeal is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises) of a certain form, i.e
iambic	See discussion under meter.
stage left	side of the stage on the actors’ left as they face the audience.
marginalia	Drawings, notation, illumination, and doodles appearing in the margins of a medieval text, rather than the central text itself.
reader time	see time
kabbalah	Kabbalah (‘tradition') is the mystical theosophical system developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as represented by the Zohar, and later reinterpreted and recast by Isaac Luria (the Ari), in sixteenth century Safed.
verse	There are three general meanings for verse (1) a line of metrical writing, (2) a stanza, or (3) any composition written in meter (i.e., poetry generally)
authentic cadence	a cadence concluding with the progression dominant to tonic (V I)
setting	Or "set," the fixed (stable) stage scenery.
chapter 10	Chapter 11
masculine rhyme	A masculine rhyme is a rhyme that matches only one syllable, usually at the end of respective lines
test 1	Test 2
free meter	Not to be confused with free verse, free meter refers to a type of Welsh poetry in which the meters do not correspond to the "strict meters" established in the 1400s
tragic irony - irony	Tragic irony is a special category of dramatic irony
shakespearean sonnet	see sonnet
antagonist	In certain Greek tragedies, the opponent of the protagonist.
afikomen	The middle of three pieces of matza on the seder plate at Passover
living newspaper	Living Newspaper is a term for a theatrical form presenting factual information on current events to a popular audience
epic	a long narrative poem, usually depicting the values of a culture through the adventures of a hero
marinism	Marinism (Italian marinismo, or secentismo, "17th century") is the name now given to an ornate, witty style of poetry and verse drama written in imitation of Giambattista Marino (1569-1625), following in particular La Lira and L'Adone.
english sonnet	see sonnet
motivation	That which can be construed to have determined a person's (or character's) behavior
lighting designer	artist in charge of creating the lighting effects for a play.
onomatopoeia	a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes; buzz is a good example.
utopia	A place in which social, legal, and political justice and perfect harmony exist.
ellipsis	indication of an omission of words in a quote
verse	a line or the form of poetry
stage directions	Scene descriptions, blocking instructions, and general directorial comments written, usually by the playwright, in the script.
talmud	The Talmud (‘learning') is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history
foreshadowing	a hint of what is to come in the story
folk ballad	A story told in verse that is by an unknown author and meant to be sung.
oxidation	The chemical reaction in which a material combines with oxygen to form an oxide
trivium	In medieval universities, the trivium comprised the three subjects that were taught first: grammar, logic, and rhetoric
reverse chronology	Reverse chronology is a method of story-telling whereby the plot is revealed in reverse order.
redaction	In the study of literature, redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined (redacted) and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work
rhyme	The repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that usually appear close to each other in a poem
curtain	end of a scene; closing of a curtain to depict the end of an act or scene.
makeup	cosmetics, wigs, hair colorings, or other items applied to the actors to change or enhance their appearance.
setting	the environment in which the work takes place
volta seconda	the second time volti - turn over volti subito - turn the page over quickly volubilita - freedom of performance
auditory imagery	Descriptive language that evokes noise, music, or other sounds
terza rima	literally, "third rhyme" (Italian); a verse form consisting of three- line stanzas in which the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third of the next
ballad stanza	a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four-foot and three-foot lines; lines 1 and 3 are unrhymed iambic tetrameter (four feet), and lines 2 and 4 are rhymed iambic trimester (three feet), as in "Sir Patrick Spens."
hokku	In Japanese poetry, the term hokku literally means "starting verse." A hokku was the first starting link of a much longer chain of verses known as renga or linked verse
linguistics	Linguistics is the scientific study of human language
experimental novel	Experimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.
hibbut ha-kever	Literally "thrashing in the grave" it is a cabbalistic text on means of punishment inflicted by angels in order to exempt the deceased from further purgatory.
plot	The sequence of events or happenings in a literary work
ka`arat kesef	Literally meaning "silver dish" (see Numbers 7, 49 etc), title of an ethical poem by Joseph Ha-ezobi (Provence, 13th century)
slice-of-life	Pure naturalism: stage action that merely represents an ordinary and arbitrary "slice" of the daily activity of the people portrayed.
setting	The time and place of a literary work that establish its context
simile	A comparison made between two dissimilar things through the use of a specific word of comparison such as Like, as, than, or resembles
groundlings	While the upper class paid two pennies to sit in the raised area with seats, and some nobles paid three pennies to sit in the Lords' rooms, the majority of viewers who watched Shakespeare's plays were called groundlings or understanders
hemistich	A hemistich is a half-line of verse, followed and preceded by a caesura, that makes up a single overall prosodic or verse unit
restoration	In England, the period following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660
song	A lyric poem with a number of repeating stanzas (called refrains), written to be set to music in either vocal performance or with accompaniment of musical instruments
foreshadowing	The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest what action is to come
greenroom	A room near the stage where actors may sit comfortably before and after the show or during scenes in which they do not appear
bed-trick	The term for a recurring folklore motif in which circumstances cause two characters in a story to end up having sex with each other because of mistaken identity--either confusion in a dark room or deliberate acts of disguise in which one character impersonates another
red herring	Frequently used in mystery stories; a clue, event, or statement designed to throw the reader off the track.
avant-garde	In military terms, the "advance-battalion" of an army that goes beyond the front lines to break new ground; in theatre terms, those theatre artists who abandon conventional models and create works that are in the forefront of new theatrical movements and styles.
textual criticism	Textual criticism (or lower criticism) is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts
colloquial diction	see diction.
frame narrative	see narrative
dramatic irony	see irony
dan	In xiqu, the female roles and the actors who play them.
underplot	a particular type of subplot, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, that is a parodic or highly romantic version of the main plot
oeuvre	all of the works verifiably written by one author.
couplet	a pair of rhyming verse lines
metaphorical language	Metaphorical language is the use of a complex system of metaphors to create a sub-language within a common language which provides the basic terms (verbs, prepositions, conjunctions) to express metaphors.
imagery	term used to describe words or phrases that appeal to the five senses
mise en scène	Mise-en-scène (French: "placing on stage") is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story" —both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction
irony	A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually does happen
rhythm	The pattern of sound in a poem
lyric	originally, a poem meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now, any relatively short poem in which the speaker expresses his or her thoughts and feelings in the first person rather than recounting a narrative or portraying a dramatic situation.
internal rhyme	In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs in a single line of verse.
crown	The King or Queen as Canada's Head of State
ode i	Scene II
traveler	A curtain that, instead of flying out (see fly), moves horizontally and is usually opened by dividing from the center outward.
tableau vivant	Tableau vivant (plural: tableaux vivants) is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit
verisimilitude	The sense that what one reads is "real," or at least realistic and believable
bunraku	A Japanese puppet theatre, founded in the seventeenth century and still performed today.
inductive/deductive reasoning	inductive reasoning moves from observation of specific circumstances and makes a general conclusion; deductive reasoning takes a general truth and applies it to specific circumstances
entr'acte	short entertainment (such as a song or dance) inserted between the acts of a play; also, the musical overture preceding the second act of a musical theater piece.
historification	setting the action of a play in the historic past to draw parallels with contemporary events; among Brecht's favorite devices for creating an alienation effect for his audience.
situational irony	and event that occurs which directly contradicts the expectaions of the characters, reader, and audience
theatre of cruelty	A notion of theatre developed by the French theorist Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)
dim out	To fade the lights gradually to blackness.
groundlings	generic term for the members of an audience at an Elizabethan public theater who stood in the "pit" (i.e., on the ground) in such theaters as the Globe.
envoy	Diplomatic rank is the system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations
epithalamiom	Epithalamium (Latin form of Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον epithalamion from ἐπί epi "upon," and θάλαμος thalamos nuptial chamber) refers to a form of poem that is written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber
dramatic monologue	A poem in which a poetic speaker addresses either the reader or an internal listener at length
hametz / chametz	The Hebrew term for "leavened" (bread or other baked foodstuff)
couplet	two consecutive lines of verse linked by rhyme and meter; the meter of a heroic couplet is iambic pentameter.
hua lien	the "painted face" roles in Chinese drama.
hanimichi	the runway from the back of the auditorium to the Kabuki stage which actors use for entrances and exits.
comic relief	A humorous scene, incident, character, or bit of dialogue occurring after some serious or tragic moment
scansion	The study of verse for patterns of accented and unaccented syllables; also known as "metrics."
climax	That point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative.
gauchescos	Argentine plays about "gauchos" (cowboys), comparable to westerns of the United States.
well-made play	Pièce bien faite in French; in the nineteenth century, a superbly plotted play, particularly by such gifted French playwrights as Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) and Victorien Sardou (1831-1908); today, generally used pejoratively, as to describe a play that has a workable plot but shallow characterization and trivial ideas.
shakespearean sonnet - sonnet	* Sicilian octave
folk tale	An account, legend, or story that is passed along orally from generation to generation
first stasimon	at the end of each episode when the characters leave the stage and the chorus dances and sings a stasimon (or choral ode) It reflects on things said in the episode
gestus	the most important term in Brecht's vocabulary for actors; it refers to the social reality the character is asked to play (as opposed to the psychological reality of Stanislavskian acting).
jingju	"Capital theatre" in Chinese; the Beijing (or Peking) Opera, the most famous form of xiqu.
euphony - phonaesthetics	Phonaesthetics (from the Greek, "voice-sound"; and "aesthetics") is the claim or study of inherent pleasantness or beauty (euphony) or unpleasantness (cacophony) of the sound of certain words and sentences
thesis	An attitude or position on a problem taken by a writer or speaker with the purpose of proving or supporting it.
novel	A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose
tone	The attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject, characters, and readers
anti-semitic literature	Literature that vilifies Jews or encourages racist attitudes toward them
tagelied	The Tagelied (dawn song) is a particular form of mediaeval German language lyric, taken and adapted from the Provençal troubadour tradition (in which it was known as the alba) by the German Minnesinger
emblem	An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.
shaped poetry	See concrete poetry.
subtext	According to Konstantin Stanislavsky, the deeper and usually unexpressed "real" meanings of a character's spoken lines
scansion	Scansion is the act of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical character of a line of verse.
convention	A theatrical custom that the audience accepts without thinking, such as "when the curtain comes down, the play is over." Each period and culture develops its own dramatic conventions, which playwrights may either accept or violate.
expository essay	an essay which shares, explains, suggests, or explores information, emotion, and ideas
consideration	Money or valuables given by one person to another under the terms of a CONTRACT
third-person narrator	see narrator
point of view character	The central figure in a limited point of view narration, the character through whom the reader experiences the author's representation of the world
tristich	A stanza of three lines.
eponymous author	The eponymous author of a literary work, often a work that is meant to be prophetic or homiletic, is not really the author
metre - meter	* Metrical foot - Foot (prosody)
acatalectic	An acatalectic line of verse is one having the metrically complete number of syllables in the final foot
epistrophe	Epistrophe (Greek: ἐπιστροφή, "return"), also known as epiphora (and occasionally as antistrophe), is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora
character	An imaginary person that inhabits a literary work
central consciousness	a character whose inner thoughts, perceptions, and feelings are revealed by a third-person limited narrator who does not reveal the thoughts, perceptions, or feelings of other characters.
tristich	A Tristich is any strophe, stanza, or poem that consists of exactly three lines.
synaeresis	When two vowels appear side-by-side within a single word, and the poet blurs them together into a single syllable to make his meter fit
scrim	A theatrical fabric woven so finely that when lit from the front it appears opaque and when lit from behind it becomes transparent
virelai	A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music
eye rhyme	Eye rhyme, also called visual rhyme and sight rhyme, is a similarity in spelling between words that are pronounced differently and hence, not an auditory rhyme
tropological	Not to be confused with either typology or the rhetorical device of the trope, the term tropological refers to the interpretation of literature in which the interpreter focuses on the ethical lesson presented in the text, i.e., "the moral of the story." See more discussion under fourfold interpretation.
jacobean	During the reign of King James I, i.e., between the years 1603-1625
aggadah	Literally "story-telling", i.e
spondaic	The adjective spondaic describes a line of poetry in which the feet are composed of successive spondees
motif	A recurring object, concept, or structure in a work of literature.
easement	A right to use land for a particular and limited purpose
keyboard	the series of black and white keys of a piano, organ, harpsichord or similar instrument
plot	The events of the play, expressed as a series of linked dramatic actions; more generally, and in common terms, the story of the play
pathya vat	The Pathya Vat is a Cambodian verse form, consisting of four lines, where lines two and three rhyme
procatalepsis	Procatalepsis, also called prebuttal, is a figure of speech in which the speaker raises an objection to his own argument and then immediately answers it
exposition	The first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided.
syntax	word order; the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.
allegory	A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning
end rhyme - rhyme	A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs
aristeia	An aristeia or aristia (Ancient Greek: ἀριστεία, IPA: [aristéːa], "excellence"; English: /à¦rÉ¨ËstiË.É/) is a scene in the dramatic conventions of such works as the Iliad in which a hero in battle has his finest moments (aristos = best)
scene vi	Scene VII
theatron	From the Greek for "seeing place"; the original Greek theatre.
playwright	author of a play.
petrarchan sonnet	The oldest form of the sonnet is the Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet (named for its greatest practitionerPetrarch)
scholia	'curlicues'; marginal notes added to our earlier manuscripts by scholars ('scholiasts') who culled their information from a variety of ancient sources
tetrameter	A line of verse containing four feet
universal symbol	Another term for an archetype.
hayagawari	quick-change and physical transformation effects in the Kabuki theater (e.g., a woman is changed into a spider).
style	The specific manner in which a play is shaped, as determined by its genre, its historical period, the sort of impact the director wishes to convey to the audience, and the skill of the artists involved
broadside	A broadside is the side of a ship; the battery of cannon on one side of a warship; or their simultaneous (or near simultaneous) fire in naval warfare.
concrete poetry	poetry in which the words on the page are arranged to look like an object; also called shaped verse
choric figure	Any character in any type of narrative literature that serves the same purpose as a chorus in drama by remaining detached from the main action and commenting upon or explaining this action to the audience
acoustics	qualities that evaluate the ability of a theater to clearly transmit sounds from the stage to the audience.
iambic pentameter	See discussion under meter.
voice	the personality or style of the writer or narrator that seems to come to life in the words
paraklausithyron	Paraclausithyron (Ancient Greek: ωδηπαρακλαυσίθυρον) is a motif in Greek and especially Augustan love elegy, as well as in troubadour poetry.
juggernaut	Juggernaut is a term used in the English language to describe a literal or metaphorical force regarded as unstoppable.
author time	see time
quatrain	Usually a stanza or poem of four lines
french scene	A numbering system for a play in which a new scene is numbered whenever characters exit or enter the stage
non-verbal theatre	Theatre where language is less important and movement, mime and gesture are used to the full.
contemporary literature	Literature written "at the present moment." Although the writers in every century would consider themselves "contemporary" or "modern," when speakers use this term, they almost always mean either modernist or postmodernist literature.
tetrameter	A line consisting of four metrical feet
regionalism	In literature, regionalism or local color fictionality refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features – including characters, dialects, customs, history, and topography – of a particular region.
octave	The first eight lines of a Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet.
limerick	A five line poem
setting	The imaginary place and time that the stage area represents.
textuality	Textuality is a concept in linguistics and literary theory that refers to the attributes that distinguish the text (a technical term indicating any communicative content under analysis) as an object of study in those fields
monodrama	A monodrama (also Solospiel in German; "solo play") is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character.
sarcasm	Another term for verbal irony--the act of ostensibly saying one thing but meaning another
speaker	(1) the person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem; (2) anyone who speaks dialogue in a work of fi ction, poetry, or drama.
denotation	The minimal, strict definition of a word as found in a dictionary, disregarding any historical or emotional connotation
complication	A series of difficulties forming the central action in a narrative.
verse paragraph	though sometimes used as a synonym for stanza, this term technically designates passages of verse, often beginning with an indented line, that are unified by topic (as in a prose paragraph) rather than by rhyme or meter.
neoclassicism	a movement which dominated during the eighteenth century and was notable for its adherence to the forms of classical drama
foot	A basic unit of meter consisting of a set number of strong stresses and light stresses
canticle	A hymn or religious song using words from any part of the Bible except the Psalms.
duologue	A scene for two actors.
point of view	The perspective from which the narrator speaks to us
unities	The unities of time, place, and action as principles of dramatic composition have been hotly debated since Aristotles Poetics
ballade	The ballade (pronounced /bəˈlɑːd/; not to be confused with the ballad) is a verse form typically consisting of three eight-line stanzas, each with a consistent metre and a particular rhyme scheme
apron	The part of the stage located in front of the proscenium; the forwardmost portion of the stage
hamartia	Hamartia (Ancient Greek: ἁμαρτία) is a term developed by Aristotle in his work Poetics
quatrain	a four-line unit of verse, whether an entire poem, a stanza, or a group of four lines linked by a pattern of rhyme (as in an English or Shakespearean sonnet).
dithyramb	An ancient Athenian poetic form sung during the Dionysia (see above)
chai	In the Hebrew language, the word chai means "living", being the singular of the word for "life", chayyim
himation	The gownlike basic costume of the Greek tragic actor.
language interpretation	Language interpretation is the facilitating of oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively, between users of different languages
enjambment	in poetry, the technique of running over from one line to the next without stop, as in the following lines by William Wordsworth: "My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky." The lines themselves would be described as enjambed.
ground plan	A schematic drawing of the stage setting, as seen from above, indicating the location of stage-scenery pieces and furniture on (and sometimes above) the floor
dramatic irony	The situation when the audience knows something the characters don't, as in Shakespeare's Macbeth, when King Duncan remarks on his inability to judge character - while warmly greeting the man (Macbeth) we already know plans to assassinate him.
exposition	The kind of writing that is intending primarily to present information
theatron	where the spectators sat
rhyme	A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs
litotes	In rhetoric, litotes are a figure of speech in which understatement is employed for rhetorical effect when an idea is expressed by a denial of its opposite, principally via double negatives
ubi sunt	Ubi sunt (literally "where are...") is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?"
backstage	The offstage area hidden from the audience that is used for scenery storage, for actors preparing to make entrances, and for stage technicians running the show
semiotic literary criticism	Semiotic literary criticism, also called literary semiotics, is the approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics
major character	see character
epizeuxis	In linguistics, an epizeuxis is the repetition of words in immediate succession, for vehemence or emphasis.
set	the scenery of the play; depicts time, place and mood.
piece-bien-fait	The French term for the dramatic genre called the "well-made play." See discussion under well-made play.
gagaku	ancient Japanese folk dance from which Noh drama may have evolved.
dramatic irony	when the audience knows something that the characters do not
emotion memory	acting technique in which the performer summons up the memory of a particular emotional experience and transfers it to the emotional life of the character he or she portrays.
farce	Very comic situations pushed beyond the bounds of belief
scene vii	Scene VIII
isocolon	See discussion under parallelism.
lunga pausa	a long pause lusingando - alluring, flattering luttuoso - sorrowful lyric - song-like, as opposed to dramatic.
hornpipe	a very lively English dance, first written in triple time but later in quadruple time
avant-garde	Avant-garde (French pronunciation: [avɑ̃ɡaʁd]) means "advance guard" or "vanguard"
apologue	An apologue (from the Greek "Î±ÏÎ¿Î»Î¿Î³Î¿Ï," a "statement" or "account") is a brief fable or allegorical story with pointed or exaggerated details, meant to serve as a pleasant vehicle for a moral doctrine or to convey a useful lesson without stating it explicitly
xiqu	Chinese for "tuneful theatre"; the general term for all varieties of traditional Chinese theatre, often called "Chinese Opera."
understatement	A form of irony in which something is intentionally represented as less than it is in fact.
purple prose	Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself
terza rima	Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme
transferred epithet - hypallage	Hypallage (pronounced /haɪˈpælədʒiː/, from the Greek: ὑπαλλαγή, hypallagḗ, "interchange, exchange") is a literary device that is the reversal of the syntactic relation of two words (as in "her beauty's face").
figurative language	language which expresses more than a literal meaning (e.g., metaphor, simile)
interior monologue	see monologue
epithet	A descriptive adjective or phrase used to characterize someone or something.
trilogy	A group of three literary works that together compose a larger narrative
tragic flaw	See hamartia.
nonfiction	a work or genre of prose works that describe actual, as opposed to imaginary or fictional, characters and events
free verse	poetry characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines.
imagery	Language that appeals to any sense or any combination of the senses.
refrain	A refrain (from Vulgar Latin refringere, "to repeat", and later from Old French refraindre) is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song
objective correlative	An objective correlative is a literary term referring to a symbolic article used to provide explicit, rather than implicit, access to such traditionally inexplicable concepts as emotion or colour.
scene ii	Ode II
satiric comedy	Any drama or comic poem involving humor as a means of satire.
petrarchan sonnet	see sonnet
iambic trimeter	the spoken meter of Greek drama, said to resemble daily speech; basic metrical scheme: ̌ ̄ ̌ ̄ \| ̌ ̄ ̌ ̄ \| ̌ ̄ ̌ ̄
sterling silver	Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% other metals, usually copper
criticism	see literary criticism
ballad	A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung
meiosis	Understatement, the opposite of exaggeration: "I was somewhat worried when the psychopath ran toward me with a chainsaw." (i.e., I was terrified)
dramaturgy	The science of drama; the art of play construction; sometimes used to refer to play structure itself.
analogue	The term analogue is used in literary history in two related senses:
dramatic monologue	a type or subgenre of poetry in which a speaker addresses a silent auditor or auditors in a specific situation and setting that is revealed entirely through the speaker’s words; this kind of poem’s primary aim is the revelation of the speaker’s personality, views, and values
hyperbole	the trope of exaggeration or overstatement
sermon	See discussion under homily.
epode	Epode, in verse, is the third part of an ode, which followed the strophe and the antistrophe, and completed the movement.
turn	Also called a volta, a turn is a sudden change in thought, direction, or emotion at the conclusion of the sonnet
tone	the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject, especially the way this attitude is revealed through diction.
secondary source	A critique or evaluation of a primary source. For example, a review of "Rear Window."
ode	Ode (from the Ancient Greek ὠδή) is a type of lyrical verse
open the house	A direction to admit the audience
corpus christi play	A religious play performed outdoors in the medieval period that enacts an event from the Bible, such as the story of Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, the crucifixion, and so on
litigation	Going to court; for example, settling a CLAIM by submitting it to a court for a hearing and a final decision
scene	A fairly short piece of drama that forms one section of the whole.
movement coach	a person familiar with the ways people physically relate to one another in different historical periods, as well as general historically and culturally accurate movements
critic	a writer who reviews plays.
epitaph	An epitaph (from Greek ἐπιτάφιον epitaphion "a funeral oration" from ἐπί epi "at, over" and τάφος taphos "tomb") is a short text honouring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively
audience	The people who come to watch the performance.
scan	Scan may refer to:
villain	a character who not only opposes the hero or heroine (and is thus an antagonist) but also is characterized as an especially evil person or "bad guy."
narrative	A collection of events that tells a story, which may be true or not, placed in a particular order and recounted through either telling or writing.
attitude	An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for an item
verse	A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g
medieval romance	See discussion under romance, medieval.
atmosphere	the dominant mood or tone of setting
expressionism	Expressionism was a cultural movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the start of the 20th century
aube	A dawn-song or aubade, but specifically one sung by a friend watching over a pair of lovers until dawn to prevent any interruption to their love-making or to cover up the noise of the love-making
stanza	In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem
figurative language	Language that is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense
adverse possession	A person who lives on someone else's land for some time, who does not abandon it, and who is never removed by the owner is "in adverse possession" of the land
dialogue	(1) usually, words spoken by characters in a literary work, especially as opposed to words that come directly from the narrator in a work of fiction; (2) more rarely, a literary work that consists mainly or entirely of the speech of two or more characters; examples include Thomas Hardy’s poem "The Ruined Maid" and Plato’s treatise Republic.
dramatic unities	see classical unities
irato	angrily ironico - ironical irresoluto - wavering istesso - the same istesso tempo - the same time
galán	Spanish for "gallant," the handsome and virtuous male character in romantic dramas.
diction	A writer’s choice of words, particularly for clarity, effectiveness, and precision
extrametrical verse - acatalexis	An acatalectic line of verse is one having the metrically complete number of syllables in the final foot
visual imagery	Imagery that invokes colors, shapes, or things that can be seen
foreshadowing	a hint or clue about what will happen at a later moment in the plot.
thespian	Actor; after Thespis, the first Greek actor.
explication de texte	Explication de Texte is a French formalist method of literary analysis that allows for limited reader response, similar to close reading in the English-speaking literary tradition
alliosis	While presenting a reader with only two alternatives may result in the logical fallacy known as false dichotomy or either/or fallacy, creating a parallel sentence using two alternatives in parallel structure can be an effective device rhetorically and artistically
episodic plot	a story with a series of events, often unrelated, which can take place over great periods of time and in many locales; the events of an episodic plot are not necessarily causally related
alliteration	the repetition of initial consonant sounds in words close together (e.g
suspension	a nonharmonic device in which a chordal (consonant) tone is held through a bhange of harmony to become a nonchordal (dissonant) tone which then resolves downward to another chordal (consonant) tone
foil	A character who sets off another character by contrast
church summoner	Medieval law courts were divided into civil courts that tried public offenses and ecclesiastical courts that tried offenses against the church
auditor	an imaginary listener within a literary work, as opposed to the reader or audience outside the work.
imitative poem/structure	a poem structured so as to mirror as exactly as possible the structure of something that already exists as an object and can be seen.
strambotto - ottava rima	Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin
apron stage	A stage that projects out into the auditorium area
samisen	The three-stringed banjolike instrument used in kabuki and bunraku.
hua pu	folk dramas in the Chinese theater.
ossia	otherwise, or else ostinato - continuous, unceasing rhythmic and/or melodic pattern
thrust stage	a stage set at one end of the room which extends out into the audience area; audience surrounds the stage on three sides.
seder	Literally meaning ‘order', Seder refers to the order of the ritual meal and explication, conducted on the first two nights of Passover, the festival recalling the Jews' exodus from Egypt.
italic	The branch of Indo-European languages giving rise to Latin and Romance languages like Spanish, French, and Italian
set designer	the artist in charge of creating the world in which the play will live, usually in drawings and scale models.
phorbeia	the leather strap worn around the head of musicians to allow them to attach the double pipes of the aulos
ellesmere manuscript	Usually referred to as "the Ellesmere," this book is one of the most important surviving fifteenth-century manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
dialect	a speech pattern which is distinctive, or the use of a cultural accent on stage.
cycle plays	In medieval England, a series of mystery plays that, performed in sequence, relate the story of religion, from the Creation of the universe to Adam and Eve to the Crucifixion to Doomsday
stage right	Right, from the actor's point of view.
regency novel	Regency novels are either:
follies	theatrical variety show using song and dance, and (frequently) scantily clad female performers.
arena stage	A theater arrangement in which viewers sit encircling the stage completely
initiation story	a kind of short story in which a character—often a child or young person—first learns a significant, usually life-changing truth about the universe, society, people, or himself or herself; also called a coming-of-age story
satire	a literary work—whether fiction, poetry, or drama—that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure
plot time	see time
anthropomorphism	(a) The attribution to God of human qualities and behaviour
suspense	That quality of a literary work that makes the reader or audience uncertain or tense about the outcome of events
simile	a comparison using "like" or "as." She was as cold as ice.
internal conflict	In literature, internal conflict is the struggle occurring within a character's mind
ajust	See discussion under humors.
beat generation	The Beat Generation is a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired
arcaded	Designs arranged in the form of arches.
premise	The statement that forms the basis of an argument.
pathetic fallacy	The pathetic fallacy or anthropomorphic fallacy is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations
rotating repertory	The scheduling of a series of plays in nightly rotation
plot	sequence of events in a literary work
unlimited point of view	see point of view
satire	Plays which mock or make fun of certain sections of society.
stanza	a section of a poem, marked by extra line spacing before and after, that often has a single pattern of meter and/or rhyme
anthology	An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler
meter	A recognizable though varying pattern of stressed syllables alternating with syllables of less stress
subplot	Secondary action that is interwoven with the main action in a play or story
colour separation	The process of separating an image (usually by laser scanning) into its constituent colours of CMYK - cyan, magenta, yellow and black (which is sometimes referred to as ‘key')
outside speaker	The "speaker" of a poem or story presented in third-person point of view, i.e., the imaginary voice that speaks of other characters in the third person (as he / she / they) without ever revealing the speaker's own identity or relationship to the narrative.
argumentative essay	an essay that tries to prove a point by supporting it with evidence
trimeter	A line of verse consisting of three feet.
protagonist	the main character; the person whose success or failure the audience is most concerned with.
tale	Tale may refer to:
mechanê	crane used to portray figures in flight, often divinities (hence the term deus ex machina: 'the god from the machine')
proscenium	A type of stage in which an arch frames the playing area; the stage is at one end of a room and the audience sits in front of it, watching the play through the arch, almost like a picture frame which contains the action to that area.
colloquialism	A word or phrase used everyday in plain and relaxed speech, but rarely found in formal writing
answers test 1	Answers Test 2
dionysus	The Greek god of drama as well as the god of drinking and fertility
metafiction	a subgenre of works that playfully draw attention to their status as fiction in order to explore the nature of fiction and the role of authors and readers
foot	a combination of syllables which represent one measure of meter in a verse line
irony	a contrast between what is and what appears to be
discursive poem/structure	a poem structured like a treatise, argument, or essay.
tetrapody	A group of words or a line of verse containing four feet
voice	See speaker, poetic.
morality play	The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment
limerick	a light or humorous verse form consisting of mainly anapestic lines of which the first, second, and fifth are of three feet; the third and fourth lines are of two feet; and the rhyme scheme is aabba.
canto	A sub-division of an epic or narrative poem comparable to a chapter in a novel
troupe	A group of actors who perform together, often on tour
spenserian stanza	a stanza consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter (five feet) followed by a ninth line of iambic hexameter (six feet)
märchen	A technical German word used in folklore scholarship to refer to fairy tales
victorianism	Victorianism is the name given to the attitudes, art, and culture of the later two-thirds of the 19th century
character	A "person" in a play, as performed by an actor
tricolon	The repetition of a parallel grammatical construction three times for rhetorical effect
situational irony	see irony
personification	giving human qualities to things non-human
pararhyme	Pararhyme, also known as partial or imperfect rhyme is a term devised by the poet Edmund Blunden to describe a near rhyme in which the consonants in two words are the same, but the vowels are different
prologue	(1) In original Greek tragedy, the prologue was either the action or a set of introductory speeches before the first entry (parados) of the chorus
rhetorical question	A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question posed for its persuasive effect without the expectation of a reply (e.g.: "Why me?") Rhetorical questions encourage the listener to think about what the (often obvious) answer to the question must be
iambic pentameter	Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama
discriminated occasion	a specific, discrete moment portrayed in a fictional work, often signaled by phrases such as "At 5:05 in the morning
assonance	the repetition of internal vowel sounds in words close together (time line, free and easy)
vellum	The skin of a young calf used as a writing surface--the medieval equivalent of "paper." A technical distinction is usually made between vellum and parchment; the latter is made from goatskin or sheepskin
rondel	A short poem resembling the rondeau
onomatopoeia	The use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its meaning
synthesis	The combination of two or more elements into a unified whole
dynamic character	A character who undergoes an important and basic change in personality or outlook.
dale's classification of rhymes	An Introduction To Rhyme (ISBN 1-85725-124-5) is a book by Peter Dale which was published by Agenda/Bellew in 1998
forestage	A modern term for apron, the small portion of the stage located in front of the proscenium.
diacritic	An accent or change to a normal alphabetical letter to differentiate its pronunciation
ensemble pathos	term coined by Francis Ferguson to describe playwriting style that focuses not on the plight of a single individual but on a group of people; the audience's emotional response is therefore dispersed among the group
fly gallery	The operating area for flying scenery, where fly ropes are tied off (on a pinrail) or where ropes in a counterweight system are clamped in a fixed position.
literal language	A fact or idea stated directly
aside	a brief remark made by a character and intended to be heard by the audience but not by other characters.
trimeter	A line consisting of three metrical feet
robinsonade	Robinsonade is a literary genre that takes its name from the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
setting	The time and place of the action.
analyzed rhyme	Another term for inexact rhyme
apollonian	That which is beautiful, wise, and serene, in the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche, who believed drama sprang from the junction of Apollonian and Dionysian forces in Greek culture.
theologeion	raised structure from which supernatural beings spoke; either above skenê roof or simply the skenê roof itself
grandioso	grand, noble grave - extremely slow and solemn grazioso - in a graceful style grosso - full, great grottesco - grotesque gusto - taste, expression
epigraph	a quotation appearing at the beginning of a literary work or of one section of such a work; not to be confused with epigram.
metonymy	Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept
theatre of the absurd	See absurd.
arena stage	A stage surrounded by the audience; also known as "theatre-in-the-round." Arena is a latin term meaning "sand," and it originally referred to the dirt circle in the midst of an amphitheatre.
pardons	Another term for papal indulgences
apocope	In phonology, apocope (pronounced /əˈpɒkəpiː/, from the Greek apokoptein "cutting off", from apo- "away from" and koptein "to cut") is the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word, and especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.
villanelle	A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 19th century from the imitation of French models
gallows humor	Gallows humor is a type of humor that arises from stressful, traumatic, or life-threatening situations; often in circumstances such that death is perceived as impending and unavoidable
style	the choice of words and sentence structure which makes each authors writing different
belles-lettres	Belles-lettres or belles lettres is a term that is used to describe a category of writing
costume shop manager	the person in charge of realizing the vision of the costume designer in actual clothes, responsible for maintaining the costumes and wigs during the course of the production.
atmosphere	tone or mood established by events, places, or situations
personification	an inanimate object is given life-like qualities. Sandburg describes Chicago
quatrain	a four line stanza
upstage	the part of the stage farthest from the audience
wagoto	In kabuki, "gentle-style" acting performed by certain male romantic characters.
scansion	analysis of the kind and number of metrical feet in a poem
parody	any work that imitates or spoofs another work or genre for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original; parody is a subgenre of satire
narration	(1) broadly, the act of telling a story or recounting a narrative; (2) more narrowly, the portions of a narrative attributable to the narrator rather than words spoken by characters (that is, dialogue).
flourisher	In medieval times, this was a professional artist who works in conjunction with illuminators and rubricators to design pen-work decoration on initials and /or flourishwork on the borders of decorated books
ottava rima	literally, "octave (eighth) rhyme" (Italian); a verse form consisting of eight-line stanzas with an abababcc rhyme scheme and iambic meter (usually pentameter)
hand prop	A prop that can be easily handled
romanticism	A nineteenth-century European movement away from neoclassic formalism and toward outsized passions, exotic and grotesque stories, florid writing, and all-encompassing worldviews
monologue	(1) a speech of more than a few sentences, usually in a play but also in other genres, spoken by one person and uninterrupted by the speech of anyone else, or (2) an entire work consisting of this sort of speech
university wits	University Wits were a group of late 16th century English playwrights who were educated at the universities (Oxford or Cambridge) and who became playwrights and popular secular writers
epitaph	an inscription on a tombstone or grave marker; not to be confused with epigram, epigraph, or epithet.
uta	Another term for the Japanese genre of poetry also called a waka or tanka
structuralism	Structuralism is an intellectual movement that developed in France in the 1950s and 1960s, in which human culture is analysed semiotically (i.e., as a system of signs).
cyhydedd naw ban	A syllabic verse form in ancient Welsh poetry in which some lines are composed of nine syllables
deus ex machina	literally, "god out of the machine" (Latin); any improbable, unprepared-for plot contrivance introduced late in a literary work to resolve the conflict
continuo	without cessation contralto - the deepest female voice contrary motion - simultaneous melodic progression in opposite direction between two parts
n-plural	The plural form of a few modern English weak nouns derives from the n-stem declension or n-plural of Anglo-Saxon (Old English)
caricature	A character where one main aspect is exaggerated.
trochaic meter	Poetry in which each foot consists primarily of trochees (poetic feet consisting of a heavy stress followed by a light stress)
character	a person in fiction, drama, or poetry
caesura	In meter, a caesura (alternative spellings are cæsura and cesura) is a complete stop in a line of poetry
troppo	too much; non troppo - not too much tune - A melody
slapstick comedy	Low comedy in which humor depends almost entirely on physical actions and sight gags
heptameter	A line consisting of seven metrical feet
prose	Any material that is not written in a regular meter like poetry
couplet	Two lines--the second line immediately following the first--of the same metrical length that end in a rhyme to form a complete unit
rhyme scheme	The pattern of rhymes in a poem
mie	A "moment" in kabuki theatre in which the actor (usually an aragoto character) suddenly freezes in a tense and symbolic pose.
spenserian stanza	The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene
heroic couplet	see couplet
city dionysia	See discussion under dionysia.
parados	Scene I• Ode I • Scene II • Ode II • Scene III• Scene IV • Ode IV• Scene V• Paean• Exodus
breve	A mark in the shape of a bowl-like half circle that indicates a light stress or an unaccented syllable.
onomatopoeia	a word which sounds like what it represents (e.g., the buzzing of a bee)
ode iv	Scene V
proof	A test print to check the accuracy of the colour reproduction
amphitheatre	In Rome, a large elliptical outdoor theatre, originally used for gladiatorial contests
ambiance	Loosely the term is equivalent to atmosphere or mood, but more specifically, ambiance is the atmosphere or mood of a particular setting or location
biography	An account of a person’s life written by another person.
existentialism	predominantly twentieth-century philosophy that argues that humans define themselves (i.e., their "existence" rather than their "essence") by the choices and actions they freely and consciously make
new comedy	Greek comic dramas - almost all of which are now lost - of the late fourth to the second centuries B.C
virelay	An old French term for a short poem consisting of (A) short lines using two rhymes and (B) two opening lines that recur intermittently
variorum	A variorum edition is any published version of an author's work that contains notes and comments by a number of scholars and critics
comic opera	An outgrowth of the eighteenth-century ballad operas, in which new or original music is composed specially for the lyrics
poetry	Traditional poetry is language arranged in lines, with a regular rhythm and often a definite rhyme scheme
improvisation	to make up as you go along; often used as a rehearsal technique to make actors more comfortable with their characters; may be a part of some performance situations.
pastourelle	The pastourelle is a typically Old French lyric form concerning the romance of a shepherdess
beat	A heavy stress or accent in a line of poetry
diction	choice of words
trochaic	referring to a metrical form in which the basic foot is a trochee—a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one ("Hómer").
rhyme royal	Rhyme royal (or Rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer.
simile	a figure of speech involving a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection, as in "My love is like a red, red rose." An analogy is an extended simile
literature	Literature (from Latin litterae (plural); letter) is the art of written works
antistrophe	Epistrophe (Greek: ἐπιστροφή, "return"), also known as epiphora (and occasionally as antistrophe), is a figure of speech and the counterpart of anaphora
hellenistic theatre	Ancient Greek theatre during the fourth and third centuries B.C
counting	A technique of determining stylistic qualities of a piece of writing by counting the numbers of words in paragraphs or sentences, and determining the average number of modifiers, average word lengths, and so on.
trope	Trope has two meanings: (1) a rhetorical device or figure of speech involving shifts in the meaning of words--click on the tropes link for examples, (2) a short dialogue inserted into the church mass during the early Middle Ages as a sort of mini-drama.
cycle	see sequence.
drop	A flat piece of scenery hung from the fly gallery, which can "drop" into place by a flying system.
travesty	- Travesti, transgendered men in South America - Travesti (theatre), about men and women playing the opposite sex in Western opera, ballet and theatre
lenaia	An Athenian religious festival occurring shortly after the Dionysia
vernacular	The domestic or native language of the people of a particular country or geographical area.
ottava rima	Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin
voice	Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless (unvoiced) or voiced
farce	comic genre that depends on an elaborately contrived, usually improbable plot, broadly drawn stock characters, and physical humor
simile	A figure of speech that states a comparison between two essentially unlike things which are similar in one aspect
conventions	Unrealistic devices or procedures that the reader (or audience) agrees to accept.
understatement	See litotes and meiosis under tropes.
paean	Exodus
elegy	(1) since the Renaissance, usually a formal lament on the death of a particular person, but focusing mainly on the speaker’s efforts to come to terms with his or her grief; (2) more broadly, any lyric in sorrowful mood that takes death as its primary subject
offset lithography	A printing process that involves the transfer of the image from a metal plate to a rubber-covered cylinder, which is then offset (transferred) by pressure onto the paper
rhetorical device	In rhetoric, a rhetorical device or resource of language is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading him or her towards considering a topic from a different perspective
coming of age	The maturation of a character due to an event that forces him to lose his innocence.
scene iii	Ode III
resolution	Themes - Theme Analysis
skene	the "tent" behind the stage
skene	a low building in the back of the stage area in classical Greek theaters
dramatic monologue	In a dramatic monologue, the poet, like an actor in a play, speaks through the voice and personality of another person.
abusio	A type of catachresis known as the "mixed metaphor." The term is often used in a derogatory manner
shaped verse	see concrete poetry
tragic flaw - hamartia	Hamartia (Ancient Greek: ἁμαρτία) is a term developed by Aristotle in his work Poetics
stage directions	descriptions (in the text of the play) of the set, the props, voice and movements of the actors, and the lighting
non-fiction novel	The non-fiction novel or faction is a literary genre which, broadly speaking, depicts real events narrated with techniques of fiction
plot	The structure of the story
renku	Renku (連句 "linked verses"?), the Japanese form of popular collaborative linked verse poetry formerly known as haikai no renga (俳諧の連歌), is an offshoot of the older Japanese poetic tradition of ushin renga, or orthodox collaborative linked verse
off-off-broadway	A term designating certain theatre activity in New York City, usually nonprofessional (although with professional artists involved) and usually experimental and avant-garde in nature
stereotype	A stereotype is a held popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals
pruning poem	A pruning poem is a poem that uses rhymes that are prunings of each other.
neoclassic couplet	See discussion under heroic couplet.
heavy-stress rhyme	Another term for a masculine ending in a rhyme.
repertory	The plays a theatre company produces
stress	In linguistics, the emphasis, length and loudness that mark one syllable as more pronounced than another
informal diction	see diction
histriones	Latin word for "actors;" histrionic refers to deliberate theatrical displays of emotion.
complication	An intensification of the conflict in a story or play
full house	Audience seating filled to capacity
ghost characters	This term should not be confused with characters who happen to appear on stage as ghosts
autotelic	Autotelic is defined by one "having a purpose in and not apart from itself"
destabilizing event	see inciting incident
haikai renga	Another term for renku
ensemble	Literally, the group of actors (and sometimes directors and designers) who put a play together; metaphorically, the rapport and shared sense of purpose that bind such a group into a unified artistic entity.
sonnet	a fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines usually in iambic pentameter
antonym	In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow
musicology	the scholarly study of music, especially research in music history.
alter of dionysus	Fixture on the back of the stage that pays tribute to dionysus
rhythm	the modulation of weak and strong (or stressed and unstressed) elements in the flow of speech
jing	In xiqu, the "painted-face" roles, often of gods, nobles, or villains.
radak	The RaDaK, (initials of Rabbi David Kimchi), was born in the city of Narbonne in the Provence area of southern France in the year 1160
triad	A triad in simplest terms is defined as a "group of three".
epilogue	A conclusion added to a literary work such as a novel, play, or long poem
parallelism	The use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar or complementary in structure or in meaning.
fable	A brief story or poem that is told to present a moral, or practical lesson
imagery	Imagery is used in literature to refer to descriptive language that evokes sensory experience.
plot	the arrangement of the action
morality play	An allegorical medieval play form, in which the characters represent abstractions (Good Deeds, Death, and so on) and the overall impact of the play is moral instruction
impressionism	Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence in the 1870s and 1880s
metaphysical conceit - conceit	In English literature the term is generally associated with the 17th century metaphysical poets, an extension of contemporary usage
aside	In drama, a few words or a short passage spoken by one character to the audience while the other a
focus	the visual component of point of view, the point from which people, events, and other details in a story are viewed; also called focalization
burlesque	Literally, a parody or mockery, from an Italian amusement form
gesture	A movement, usually of the arm, that helps to express an idea or feeling.
stigma of print	The stigma of print is the concept that an informal social convention restricted the literary works of aristocrats in the Elizabethan and Tudor age to private and courtly audiences — as opposed to commercial endeavors — at the risk of social disgrace if violated, and which obliged the author to profess an abhorrence of the press and to restrict his works from publication
epigram	a very short, usually witty verse with a quick turn at the end.
couplet	Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
gothic fiction	Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance
classical drama	Technically, plays from classical Greece or Rome
book	In a musical, the dialogue text, apart from the music and song lyrics.
burlesque	Burlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration.
logeion	'stage' (existence and nature uncertain in the fifth century)
limited narrator	see narrator
assonance	the repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words with different endings—for example, "The death of the poet was kept from his poems" in W
mock epic	see epic
hiatus	In phonology, hiatus or diaeresis refers to two vowel sounds occurring in adjacent syllables, with no intervening consonant
conflict	A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work
free verse	Poetry that has no fixed meter or pattern and that depends on natural speech rhythms
dramatic poetry	Poetry in which one or more characters speak
decorated initial	In medieval manuscripts, this term refers to an introductory letter of a text division, embellished with some type of abstract design, i.e., a design not necessarily containing a picture (which would make it an inhabited initial) and not necessarily containing a scene from the story (which would make it an historiated initial)
althing	The closest approximation the Icelandic Vikings had to a government/court system/police--a gathering of representatives from the local things to decide on policy, hear complaints, settle disputes, and proclaim incorrigible individuals as outlaws (see below)
comic relief	a humorous scene or speech in a serious drama which is meant to provide relief from emotional intensity and, by contrast, to heighten the seriousness of the story.
symbolist drama	seek its truth in symbols, myths, and dreams
comedy of manners	A comic drama consisting of five or three acts in which the attitudes and customs of a society are critiqued and satirized according to high standards of intellect and morality
oneiromancy	The belief that dreams could predict the future, or the act of predicting the future by analyzing dreams
metaphor	an implied comparison of two apparently dissimilar things
descriptive poem/structure	a poem organized as a description of someone or something.
nonfiction	Any prose narrative that tells about things as they actually happened or that posses factual information about something
crisis	the turning point of plot (closely related to climax which seems to complete its action)
anachronism	Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period
valorization	In literary criticism, the privileging of one key aspect of a literary text or one particular process as the focus of literary analysis
hypocorism	A hypocorism (from Greek ὑποκορίζεσθαι hypokorizesthai, "to use child-talk") is a shorter form of a word or given name, for example, when used in more intimate situations as a nickname or term of endearment.
ghost writer	person hired by an author to write on his or her behalf-receives no public credit.
gvs	The abbreviation that linguists and scholars of English use to refer to the Great Vowel Shift
dance captain	member of the cast in charge of working with the dancers to maintain the quality of the dance numbers, make sure dancers are properly warmed up before performance, and teach understudies and new cast members existing numbers.
figurative language	language that uses figures of speech.
petrarchan sonnet	A fourteen-line lyric poem consisting of two parts: the octave (or first eight lines) and the sestet (or last six lines)
soliloquy	A soliloquy is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters
aside	a brief comment by an actor, heard by the audience, but not the other characters on stage
bibliography	The Author's Other Works
tercet	A tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem
proverb	A proverb (from Latin: proverbium) is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth, based on common sense or the practical experience of humanity
off-broadway	The New York professional theatre located outside the Broadway district; principally in Greenwich Village and around the upper East and West Sides
synesthesia	An alternative spelling of synaesthesia, above.
chapter 9	Chapter 10
summoner	Medieval law courts were divided into civil courts that tried public offenses and ecclesiastical courts that tried offenses against the church
character	The imaginary person that the actor pretends to be on stage.
metaphor	a comparison not using "like" or "as." She is ice.
denouement	the resolution of the plot in fiction or drama (an untying of the complications at the end of the story line)
external actor	an actor whose primary emphasis and training are on such things as voice, physicality, and gesture.
dramatic poem/structure	a poem structured so as to present a scene or series of scenes, as in a work of drama, though the term dramatic poem is usually not applied to verse drama
pilgrimage	An act of spiritual devotion or penance in which an individual travels without material comforts to a distant holy place
dramatic irony	A device whereby the audience (or reader) understands more of a situation or of what is being said than the character is aware of
ballad	a verse narrative that is, or originally was, meant to be sung
catharsis	The purifying of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions.
choregus	'producer'; person charged with the public duty ('liturgy') of financing the performance of an author's work
sonnet	A lyric poem of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to certain definite patterns
recognition	The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is
accentual verse	Accentual verse has a fixed number of stresses per line or stanza regardless of the number of syllables that are present
liturgical drama	Liturgical drama or religious drama, in its various Christian contexts, originates from the mass itself, and usually presents a relatively complex ritual that includes theatrical elements.
summary	the material condensed to its main points
laureate	In English, the word laureate has come to signify eminence or association with literary or military glory
lazzo	A physical joke, refined into traditional business and inserted into a play, in the commedia dell'arte
fantasy	Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting
byronic hero	The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings of Lord Byron, characterised by his ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb (who said it before becoming Byron's lover) as being "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"
constitution	The legal document that sets out the basic laws and principles by which a nation is ruled
minnesang	Minnesang was the tradition of lyric and song writing in Germany which flourished in the 12th century and continued into the 14th century
episteme	Episteme, as distinguished from techne, is etymologically derived from the Greek word ἐπιστήμη for knowledge or science, which comes from the verb ἐπίσταμαι, "to know".
golden line	The golden line is a type of Latin dactylic hexameter frequently mentioned in Latin classrooms in English speaking countries and in contemporary scholarship written in English.
climax	The climax (from the Greek word "κλῖμαξ" (klimax) meaning "staircase" and "ladder") or turning point of a narrative work is its point of highest tension or drama or when the action starts in which the solution is given.
hexameter	A line consisting of six metrical feet
in medias res	In medias res or medias in res (into the middle of things) is a Latin phrase denoting the literary and artistic narrative technique wherein the relation of a story begins either at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the beginning (cf
scene ii	Scene III
biography	a work of nonfiction that recounts the life of a real person
groundlings	Members of an Elizabethan audience who paid a very low entrance fee and stood in the open area below and around the stage
stage left	Left, from the actor's point of view.
satire	A kind of writing that holds up to ridicule or contempt the weaknesses and wrongdoing of individuals, groups, institution, or humanity in general.
episodia	The Greek word for episode
high comedy	A comedy of verbal wit and visual elegance, usually peopled with upper-class characters
act	(verb) To perform in a play
tract	A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature
stage business	See business.
emendation - improve	Improve means to make something better.
renaissance	There are two common uses of the word.
verisimilitude	from the Latin phrase verisimiles ("like the truth"); the internal truthfulness, lifelikeness, and consistency of the world created within any literary work when we judge that world on its own terms rather than in terms of its correspondence to the real world
parody	Dramatic material that makes fun of a dramatic genre or mode or of specific literary works; a form of theatre that is often highly entertaining but rarely has lasting value.
phronesis	Phronēsis (Greek: φρόνησις) in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the virtue of practical thought, usually translated "practical wisdom", sometimes as "prudence".
at rise	refers to the action taking place as the curtain rises.
narration	The kind of writing or speaking that tells a story.
genre	Quotes / Quotations and Analysis
upstage	A movement or area away from the audience.
omniscient point of view	see point of view.
monody	Any elegy or dirge represented as the utterance of a single speaker
villanelle	a verse form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas—five tercets (three-line stanzas) and one quatrain (four- line stanza)
ode	a lyric poem characterized by a serious topic and formal tone but without a prescribed formal pattern
scene	a section or subdivision of a play or narrative that presents continuous action in one specific setting.
archetypal criticism	The analysis of a piece of literature through the examination of archetypes and archetypal patterns in Jungian psychology
connotation	the personal definition or association triggered by a word
easter uprising	On Easter Monday in 1916, about 1,200 Irish revolutionaries armed with only rifles engaged in an aborted rebellion against English domination of their country
biomechanics	An experimental acting system, characterized by expressive physicalization and bold gesticulation, developed by Russian play director Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940) in the 1920s.
documentary drama	Drama that presents historical facts in a nonfictionalized, or only slightly fictionalized, manner.
stanza	A group of lines forming a unit in a poem
naturalism	A style of writing, acting and production that aims to reproduce real life exactly on stage.
temporal setting	see setting
hysteron proteron	The hysteron proteron (from the Greek: ὕστερον πρότερον, hýsteron próteron, "latter before") is a rhetorical device in which the first key word of the idea refers to something that happens temporally later than the second key word
subplot	A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot
aside	A short speech made to the audience not heard by other characters.
ode	a formal lyric poem recited for ceremonial occasions
partimen	The partimen, partiment, partia, or joc partit is a genre of Occitan lyric poetry composed between two troubadours, a subgenre of the tenso or cobla exchange in which one poet presents a dilemma in the form of a question and the two debate the answer, each taking up a different side
burns stanza	The Burns stanza is a verse form named after the Scottish poet Robert Burns
flashforward	a plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional future is inserted into the fictional present or is dramatized out of order.
voice	the verbal aspect of point of view, the acknowledged or unacknowledged source of a story’s words; the speaker; the "person" telling the story and that person’s particular qualities of insight, attitude, and verbal style
griot	African term for storyteller.
underground press	The phrase underground press is most often used to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and other western nations
repetition	Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words, in order to emphasize
aside	An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience
coming-of-age story	see initation story
unity of time	Time on stage represents time off stage
floorplan	a set designer's drawing of the layout of the stage to show the spatial relationships between set pieces, placement of platforms, entrances, exits, and so on
litotes	a form of understatement in which one negates the contrary of what one means
apology	Apologetics (from Greek Î±ÏÎ¿Î»Î¿Î³Î¯Î±, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (usually religious) through the systematic use of reason
emblem book	Emblem books are a category of illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text.
hyperbole	Hyperbole (from ancient Greek ὑπερβολή 'exaggeration') is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech
cyrch a chwta	A Welsh verse form consisting of an octave stanza of six rhyming or alliterating seven-syllable lines plus a couplet
permit	A legal document granting temporary or short-term permission to do something
synecdoche	Synecdoche (from Greek synekdoche (συνεκδοχή), meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:
type	An earlier figure, event, or symbol in the Old Testament thought to prefigure a coming antitype (corresponding figure, event, or symbol) in the New Testament
homeric simile	Homeric simile, also called epic simile, is a detailed comparison in the form of a simile that is many lines in length
scenery	The physical constructions that provide the specific acting environment for a play and that often indicate, by representation, the locale where a scene is set; the physical setting for a scene or play.
agon	"Action," in Greek; the root word for "agony." Agon refers to the major struggles and interactions of Greek tragedies.
acephalous	From Greek "headless," acephalous lines are lines in normal iambic pentameter that contain only nine syllables rather than the expected ten
deuteragonist	second actor
scriptorium	An area set aside in a monastery for monks to work as scribes and copy books.
thrust stage	A platform or acting area that juts out into the audience or auditorium.
raked stage	A sloped stage, angled so that the rear (upstage) area is higher than the forward (downstage) area
trouvère	Trouvère (is the Northern French (langue d'oïl) form of the word trobador (as spelled in the langue d'oc)
rhesis	formal speech, often highly rhetorical in nature
personification	a figure of speech that involves treating something nonhuman, such as an abstraction, as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities, as in "Death entered the room."
blank verse	Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme
scènes à faire	Scène à faire (French for "scene to be made" or "scene that must be done"; plural: scènes à faire) is a scene in a book or film which is almost obligatory for a genre of its type
episode	An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program
theatre of alienation	See alienation effect, epic theatre.
tony	awards given annually by the American Theatre Wing for outstanding contributions to the theater; officially the Antoinette Perry Awards.
gather	Gather, gatherer, or gathering may refer to:
didactic drama	Drama dedicated to teaching lessons or provoking intellectual debate beyond the confines of the play; the dramatic form espoused by Bertolt Brecht
dénouement	The resolution of the plot of a literary work.
feminist theater	theater practice, theory, and criticism devoted to drama by women and/or about the problems of women in society.
parados	Scene I • Ode I • Scene II • Ode II • Scene III • Ode III• Scene IV• Ode IV• Exodus Oedipus At Colonus • Scene I • Scene II • Scene III • Scene IV • Scene V • Scene VI • Scene VII • Scene VIII
commedia dell'arte	A form of largely improvised, masked street theatre that began in northern Italy in the late sixteenth century and still can be seen today
waka	A Japanese genre of poetry closely related to the tanka, consisting of alternate five- and seven-syllable lines
trimeter	In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line—example:
implied author	see author
antagonist	A character or force against which another character struggles
epode	a lyric poem sung by the chorus in a Greek tragedy; one of the three parts of the stasimon.
image	A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea
postmodern	A wide-ranging term describing certain post-World War II artistic works, characterized by nonlinearity, self-referentiality if not self-parody, and multiple/simultaneous sensory impressions.
hendecasyllable	The hendecasyllable is a verse of eleven syllables, used in Ancient Greek and Latin quantitative verse as well as in medieval and modern European poetry.
cancel	A bibliographical term referring to a leaf which is substituted for one removed by the printers because of an error
exeunt	stage direction meaning “they exit.”
ballad	A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music
pathos	"Passion," in Greek; also "suffering." The word refers to the depths of feeling evoked by tragedy; it is at the root of our words "sympathy" and "empathy," which also describe the effect of drama on audience emotions.
subplot	A minor or subordinate secondary plot, often involving a deuteragonist's struggles, which takes place simultaneously with a larger plot, usually involving the protagonist
soliloquy	A monologue delivered by a single actor with no one else onstage, sometimes played as the character "thinking aloud" and sometimes as a seeming dialogue with the (silent) audience.
unity of place	The plays all in one location
havdalah	Havdalah literally means ‘separation'
point of view	The vantage point from which a narrative is told.
pathos	Pathos (Greek: πάθος, for "suffering" or "experience;" adjectival form: 'pathetic' from παθητικός) represents an appeal to the audience's emotions
sound designer	the artist responsible for the creation of the sounds heard during a performance, including music and special effects.
anaphora	In rhetoric, an anaphora (Greek: ἀναφορά, "carrying back") is a rhetorical device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginnings of neighboring clauses, thereby lending them emphasis
personification	Personification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person.
gracioso	stock character in Spanish dramas, usually the "fool" or "wise fool" who stands outside the action and comments on the folly of his betters.
chapter 1	Chapter 2
dramatic irony	Where the audience or reader is aware of something important, of which the characters in the story are not aware.
syntax	In linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek σύνταξις "arrangement" from σύν syn, "together", and τάξις táxis, "an ordering") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in natural languages.
metaphor	Metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another
arsis	In music and prosody, arsis and thesis refer to the stronger and weaker parts of a musical measure or poetic foot
documentation	accounting for and giving credit to the origin of a source
exegesis	(1) In Roman times, the term exegesis applied to professional government interpretation of omens, dreams, and sacred laws, as Cuddon notes (315)
follow-spot	A swivel-mounted lighting instrument that can be pointed in any direction by an operator.
n¯o	The classical dance-drama of Japan
translation	Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text
metaphor	a figure of speech that implies or states a comparison between two unlike things which are similar in some way
genzai play	one of the five types of Noh drama; a "living person piece" usually dealing with madness, obsessions, and passion.
static character	A character who remains the same throughout a narrative
humorism	Humorism, or humoralism, is a discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers
syntax	the ordering of words in a sentence
persona	the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author; also called implied author.
whimsical	A critical term for writing what is fanciful or expresses odd notions.
blocking	The specific staging of a play's movements, ordinarily by the director
assonance	Assonance is the refrain of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse
set	The actual pieces of furniture, blocks, structures on the stage.
stage manager	person who coordinates all aspects of the production during a performance, runs or calls the show.
downstage	A movement or area toward the audience.
invocation of the muse	A prayer or address made to the one of the nine muses of Greco-Roman mythology, in which the poet asks for the inspiration, skill, knowledge, or appropriate mood to create a poem worthy of his subject-matter
poetry	one of the three major genres of imaginative literature, which has its origins in music and oral performance and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax (often using meter and rhyme); compression and compactness and an allowance for ambiguity; a particularly concentrated emphasis on the sensual, especially visual and aural, qualities and effects of words and word order; and especially vivid, often figurative language.
apocalypse	From the Greek word apocalypsis ("unveiling"), an apocalypse originally referred to a mystical revelation of a spiritual truth, but has changed in twentieth-century use to refer specifically to mystical visions concerning the end of the world
hypothesis	summary, found in our manuscripts, of the play's plot and principal characters, occasionally with some information about the original date of production and an attempt at critical evaluation of the work; the most valuable are those by Aristophanes of Byzantium
theme	is the overall meaning we derive from the poem, story, play, essay
anacrusis	In poetry, anacrusis (Ancient Greek: ἀνάκρουσις "pushing back") is the lead-in syllables, collectively, that precede the first full measure.
antihero	a protagonist who is in one way or another the very opposite of a traditional hero
resolution	see conclusion.
universality	Universality may refer to:
symbolism	Frequent use of words, places, characters, or objects that mean something beyond what they are on a literal level
hana	Japanese term meaning "flower" applied to the aesthetics of acting in the Noh theater; it is achieved through rigorous training and sacrificing oneself to the art.
legend	a type of tale conventionally set in the real world and in either the present or historical past, based on actual historical people and events, and offering an exaggerated or distorted version of the truth about those people and events
dialect	A representation of the speech patterns of a particular region or social group
selihot	Prayers and liturgical poems, seeking "divine forgiveness", recited during and leading up to the penitential season of 1-10th Tishri and culminating in the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).
prosimetrum	A prosimetrum (Latin) is a literary piece that is made up of alternating passages of prose and poetry.
xenophanic	A term used to describe a wandering poet who writes witty, satirical verse
inciting moment	the first bit of action that occurs which begins the plot
miracle of the virgin	A vita or a miracle play that dramatizes some aspect of humanity activity, and ends with the miraculous intervention of the Blessed Virgin
sestet	The last six lines of a Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet
paraphrase	Paraphrase is restatement of a text or passages, using other words
company	A group of theatre artists gathered together to create a play production or a series of such productions.
image / imagery	descriptive language which helps us see, hear, smell, taste, or feel
picaresque novel	The picaresque novel (Spanish: "picaresca", from "pícaro", for "rogue" or "rascal") is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society
canon	the range of works that a consensus of scholars, teachers, and readers of a particular time and culture consider "great" or "major."
thesis	the point of the essay
imagism	Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language
fuoco	fire, passion fugal - in the style of a fugue; use of contrapuntal imitation
syntax	The arrangement of words to form phrases, clauses and sentences; sentence construction
symbol	An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself.
ode ii	Scene III
intonation	The upwards and downwards pattern of the voice rising and falling.
menippean satire	The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes instead of specific individuals
maqama	Picaresque Arabic stories in rhymed prose
narrative poetry	Poetry that tells a story
liturgical drama	Dramatic material that was written into the official Catholic Church liturgy and staged as part of regular church services in the medieval period, mainly in the tenth through twelfth centuries.
prologue	In Greek tragedy, a speech or brief scene preceding the entrance of the chorus and the main action of the play, usually spoken by a god or gods
waki	The secondary character in n¯o.
green room	a small lounge backstage where actors can relax and get ready to go on.
motif	In narrative, a motif (pronunciation) (help·info) is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story
octave	An octave is a verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter (in English) or of hendecasyllables (in Italian)
allegory	an extended metaphor
abecedarian	See discussion under acrostic, below.
rhymed prose	Rhymed prose is a literary form and literary genre, written in unmetrical rhymes
flat	A wooden frame covered in fabric or a hard surface and then painted, often to resemble a wall or portion of a wall
coherence	The logical relationship of each element of the work.
cue	A signal to begin action or dialogue.
dionysian	Passionate revelry, uninhibited pleasure-seeking; the opposite of Apollonian, according to Friedrich Nietzsche, who considered drama a merger of these two primary impulses in the Greek character.
rondino	a small or easy rondo
anagnorisis	Anagnorisis (pronounced /ˌænəɡˈnɒrɨsɨs/; Ancient Greek: ἀναγνώρισις) is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery
metaphor	A literary term designating a figure of speech that implies a comparison or identity of one thing with something else
figurative language	A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words
farce	Highly comic, lighthearted, gleefully contrived drama, usually involving stock situations (such as mistaken identity or discovered lovers' trysts), punctuated with broad physical stunts and pratfalls.
stylize	To deliberately shape a play (or a setting, a costume, or so on) in a specifically non-naturalistic manner.
dialect coach	person responsible for working with a cast on correct pronunciation and dialect usage.
verse paragraph	Verse paragraphs are stanzas with no regular number of lines or groups of lines that make up units of sense
diction	The selection of words in a literary work
vates	The earliest Latin writers used vates to denote "prophets" and soothsayers in general; the word fell into disuse in Latin until it was revived by Virgil
accentual rhythm	See discussion under sprung rhythm.
miscellanies - anthology	An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler
tetralogy	Four plays performed together in sequence
refrain	A word, phrase, line, or group of lines repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of each stanza.
bretons	The Celtic inhabitants of Brittany ("Little Britain") in northeast France who speak the Breton language
rubaiyat	An Arabic term meaning a quatrain, or four-line stanza
business	The minute physical behavior of the actor, such as fiddling with a tie, sipping a drink, drumming the fingers, lighting a cigarette, and so forth
tale	A simple narrative
av	Av is the eleventh month of the ecclesiastical year and the fifth month of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar
zadacha	Russian for "task"; (though commonly translated as "objective"); according to Konstantin Stanislavsky, the character's (fictional) tasks (or goals) that the actor must pursue during the play.
apotropaic	Designed to ward off evil influence or malevolent spirits by frightening these forces away
alienation effect	A technique, developed by German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), by which the actor deliberately presents rather than represents his or her character and "illustrates" the character without trying to embody the role fully, as naturalistic acting technique demands
monody	In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death
magic realism	Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality
allusion	a reference to another literary / artistic/ historic, work, author, character, or event (frequently biblical or mythological)
boulevard theatre	Boulevard theatre is a theatrical aesthetic which emerged from the boulevards of Paris's old city.
environmental theatre	Plays produced not on a conventional stage but in an area where the actors and the audience are intermixed in the same "environment" and where there is no precise line distinguishing stage space from audience space.
mood	the atmosphere or tone of a work
narrative poetry	Narrative poetry is poetry that has a plot
epic	A long narrative poem that relates the deeds of a hero
alliteration	In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words and/or phrases
inciting action	In play construction, the single action that initiates the major conflict of the play.
antithesis	Antithesis (Greek for "setting opposite", from ἀντί "against" + θέσις "position") is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition
quire	A collection of individual leaves sewn together, usually containing between four and twelve leaves per quire
fly	(verb) To raise a piece of scenery (or an actor) out of sight by a system of ropes and/or wires
rhyme	when final vowel and consonant sounds in the last syllable of one word match those of another, usually at the end of lines
prop	in drama, an object used on the stage.
monometer	In poetry, a monometer is a line of verse with just one metrical foot, exemplified by this portion of Robert Herrick's "Upon His Departure Hence":
juxtaposition - contrast	In semantics, contrast is a relationship between two discourse segments
macaronic language	Macaronic refers to text spoken or written using a mixture of languages, sometimes including bilingual puns, particularly when the languages are used in the same context (as opposed to different segments of a text being in different languages)
yarn	A tale or story
narrative poem/structure	a poem that tells a story.
sprung rhythm	Also called "accentual rhythm," sprung rhythm is a term invented by the poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins to describe his personal metrical system in which the major stresses are "sprung" from each line of poetry
triolet	A triolet is a one stanza poem of eight lines
floor manager	person in charge of running the show from backstage, gives actors cues to enter, handles props, manages the run crew, and is in charge of setting the stage before and after the performance.
imagination	See discussion under fancy.
half-rhyme	See inexact rhyme.
metaphysical poets	The metaphysical poets were a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century, who shared an interest in metaphysical concerns and a common way of investigating them, and whose work was characterised by inventiveness of metaphor (these involved comparisons being known as metaphysical conceits)
scene i	Ode I
shakespearean sonnet	A fourteen-line lyric poem consisting of three quatrains (four line stanza) and a concluding couplet (two rhyming lines)
affidavit	A formal written statement of facts to which the person making the statement attaches a formal oath swearing that everything in it is true
kathakali	A traditional dance-drama of India.
denotation	a word’s direct and literal meaning, as opposed to its connotation.
musical comedy	A popular form of twentieth-century theatre, with singing and dancing, designed primarily for entertainment.
classification	Classification is a figure of speech linking a proper noun to a common noun using the or other articles.
soliloquy	A speech given by a character alone on the stage
literary ballad	A story told in verse in which a known writer imitates a folk ballad.
stereotype	A character who is so ordinary or unoriginal that the character seems like an oversimplified representation of a type, gender, class, religious group, or occupation
sestina	an elaborate verse structure written in blank verse that consists of six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three- line stanza
alienate	To sell, give away, or otherwise dispose of land, or other property, permanently
inference	Inference is the act of drawing a conclusion by deductive reasoning from given facts
soliloquy	a long speech representing the thoughts of characters on stage
inciting incident	an action that sets a plot in motion by creating conflict; also called destabilizing event.
evidence	Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion
apostrophe	Apostrophe (Greek ἀποστροφή, apostrophé, "turning away"; the final e being sounded) is an exclamatory rhetorical figure of speech, when a speaker or writer breaks off and directs speech to an imaginary person or abstract quality or idea
choreographer	the artist in charge of creating the dances and/or movements used by actors in a play.
shite	The principal character (the "doer") in n¯o.
exposition	essential information that an audience needs to know about a character or events (particularly those that happen prior to the first scene)
viewpoint - narrative mode	The narrative mode (also known as the mode of narration) is the set of methods the author of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical story uses to convey the plot to the audience.
thesis	A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for a degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings
broadway	The major commercial theatre district in New York, bordered by Broadway, 8th Avenue, 42nd Street, and 52nd Street.
entremesés	Spanish term for "interludes," that is, short plays performed between courses of a banquet or other affair; forerunner of classical Spanish drama.
foetal vellum	Vellum made from the skin of an unborn animal.
haikai	Another term for haikai renga or renku
mock-heroic	Mock-heroic, mock-epic or heroi-comic works are typically satires or parodies that mock common Classical stereotypes of heroes and heroic literature
controlling metaphor	see metaphor
eumenides	"the Kindly Ones," who supplanted the Erinyes and kept order through justice.
monologue	A long unbroken speech in a play, often delivered directly to the audience (when it is more technically called a soliloquy).
monograph	A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author
scene i	Scene II
classical unities	as derived from Aristotle’s Poetics, the three principles of structure that require a play to have one plot (unity of action) that occurs in one place (unity of place) and within one day (unity of time); also called the dramatic unities
lake poets	The Lake Poets are a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century
narrator time	see time
epilogue	(1) in fiction, a short section or chapter that comes after the conclusion, tying up loose ends and often describing what happens to the characters after the resolution of the conflict; (2) in drama, a short speech, often addressed directly to the audience, delivered by a character at the end of a play.
chapter 11	Chapter 12
tome	A volume forming part of a larger work
persuasion	The type of speaking or writing that is intended to make its audience adopt a certain opinion or pursue an action or do both.
understudy	an actor who has memorized all the lines and action of an actor in a play, so that if the original actor falls ill or cannot perform, there is someone prepared to take his or her place at a moment’s notice.
transition	In a piece of writing, the passing from one subject or division of a composition to another
chapter 8	Chapter 9
muse	The Muses (Ancient Greek αἱ μοῦσαι, hai moũsai: perhaps from the o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "think") in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts
metaphysical conceit	See conceit.
foil	A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story
quasi	in the manner of quieto - quick, calm, serene
certificate of occupation/possession	See LOCATION TICKET.
dionysia	Or "Great Dionysia" or "City Dionysia"; the week-long Athenian springtime festival in honor of Dionysus, which was, after 534 B.C., the major play-producing festival of the Greek year.
alexandrine	a line of verse in iambic hexameter, often with a caesura after the third iambic foot.
epirrhema	passage wherein one actor (or the chorus) speaks or chants lines in response to another actor's lyrics
setting	Themes
elegy	In classical Greco-Roman literature, "elegy" refers to any poem written in elegiac meter (alternating hexameter and pentameter lines)
subject	What a story or play is about; to be distinguished from plot and theme
pound's ideogrammic method	The Ideogrammic Method was a technique expounded by Ezra Pound which allowed poetry to deal with abstract content through concrete images
unaccompanied	a solo part, passage, or vocal ensemble without accompaniment
fineness	The fineness of a precious metal refers to the ratio of the primary metal to any additives or impurities
close reading	Reading a piece of literature carefully, bit by bit, in order to analyze the significance of every individual word, image, and artistic ornament
house manager	the employee in charge of the audience during a performance, trains ushers, runs the concessions, and troubleshoots seating problems.
profanity act of 1606	This law passed under King James I required that any profanity in a publicly performed play or in published material would result in a ten-pound fine for the performer or printer, a substantial sum
ethos	Ethos is an English word based on a Greek word and denotes the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, a nation or an ideology
estinto	becoming extinct estramamente - extremely ethnomusicology - the study of music of different cultures, especially non-Western or non-European music
framework story	A narrative that contains another narrative
run-on line	See discussion under enjambement
crisis or turning point	A point of great tension in a narrative that determines how the action will come out.
formalism	late-twentieth-century performance style that emphasizes external and visual elements
action	any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that saying something or telling a story within the story may be an event
gemel	A final couplet that appears at the end of a sonnet
genre	a type or category of works sharing particular formal or textual features and conventions; especially used to refer to the largest categories for classifying literature—fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction
concrete language	words which represent specific, particular, graphic qualities and characteristics
downstage	That part of the stage closest to the audience
chapter 4	Chapter 5
unit set	A set that, by the moving on or off of a few simple pieces and perhaps with a change of lights, can represent all the scenes from a play
house	The audience portion of the theatre building.
spatial setting	see setting
evidence	Facts that prove a statement or a CLAIM
dimmer	In lighting, the electrical device (technically known as a potentiometer) that regulates the current passing through the bulb filaments and, thereby, the amount of light emitted from the lighting instruments.
scene	(1) The period of stage time representing a single space over a continuous period of time, now usually marked either by the rise or fall of a curtain or by the raising or lowering of lights but in the past often marked simply by a stage clearing; often the subdivision of an act
fight choreographer	the artist in charge of staging fight scenes, can include swordplay, other weapons, or barehanded combat.
beast fable	The beast fable or beast epic, usually a short story or poem in which animals talk, is a traditional form of allegorical writing
gamebook	A gamebook (also sometimes referred to as choose your own adventure books or CYOA books, not to be confused with the series by that title) is a work of fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making choices that affect the course of the narrative, which branches down various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages
psychological realism	see realism
focalization	Dutch literary theorist Mieke Bal coined the term focalization to describe a shift in perspective that takes place in literature when an author switches from one character's perspective to another
vice	An evil habit or wicked tendency present in characters in a literary work or poem.
non	not, no nonchordal, nonharmonic - a dissonant tone which does not belong to the chord with which it sounds
black musical	See black theatre.
foreshadowing	Where future events in a story, or perhaps the outcome, are suggested by the author before they happen
fourfold meaning	Another term for fourfold interpretation, this word refers to the medieval idea that every passage in the Bible can be interpreted according to at least one of four possible levels of meaning
alienation	Audiences are constantly reminded that they are watching "make-believe".
semiotics	The study of signs, as they may be perceived in literary works, including plays
arena stage	The audience sit most of the way around the acting area.
harmatia	ignorance or poor judgement; not always a personal choice but a result of fate/destiny.
footlights	In a proscenium theatre, a row of lights across the front of the stage, used to light the actors' faces from below and to add light and color to the setting
cue	The last word of one speech that then becomes the "cue" for the following speech
tone	The means of creating a relationship o
crossed rhyme	In long couplets, especially hexameter lines, sufficient room in the line allows a poet to use rhymes in the middle of the line as well as at the end of each line
genetic fallacy	The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context
dithyramb	A Greek religious rite in which a chorus of fifty men, dressed in goatskins, chanted and danced; the precursor, according to Aristotle, of Greek tragedy.
trimeter	a line of poetry with three feet: "Little \| lamb, who \| made thee?" (Blake).
scansion	the process of analyzing (and sometimes also marking) verse to determine its meter, line by line.
scribe	A literate individual who reproduces the works of other authors by copying them from older texts or from a dictating author
anti-hero	In fiction, an antihero (sometimes antiheroine as feminine) is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis
head rhyme	Another term for alliteration--especially alliteration of consonants at the beginning of words, rather than alliteration of internal consonants within the bodies of words
characterization	Characterisation or characterization is the process of conveying information about characters in narrative or dramatic works of art or everyday conversation
cywdd deuair hirion	In Welsh prosody, the term refers to a form of light verse consisting of a single couplet with seventeen syllables
ruritanian romance	A Ruritanian Romance is a story set in a fictional country, usually in Central or Eastern Europe, such as the Ruritania that gave the genre its name
unit set	A series of lowered or raised platforms on stage, often connected by various stairs and exits, which form the various locations for all of a play's scenes
discovery	A character who appears onstage without making an entrance, as when a curtain opens
scenography	Scene design, particularly as it fits into the moving pattern of a play or series of plays
stage right	side of the stage on the actors’ right as they face the audience.
hashigakari	a bridgeway in the Japanese Noh theater over which actors enter the stage; traditionally, it is decorated with three small pine trees.
zeitgeist	The characteristic thought, preoccupation or spirit of a particular period.
death of the novel	The death of the novel is the common name for the theoretical discussion of the declining importance of the novel as literary form
holograph	A holograph is a document written entirely in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears
progymnasmata	Progymnasmata (Greek "fore-exercises", Latin praeexercitamina) are rhetorical exercises gradually leading the student to familiarity with the elements of rhetoric, in preparation for their own practice speeches (gymnasmata, "exercises") and ultimately their own orations.
genero chico	Spanish-American variety shows similar to the vaudeville or music hall
audition	The process whereby an actor seeks a role by presenting to a director or casting director a prepared reading or by "reading cold" from the text of the play being presented.
enlightenment	eighteenth-century philosophic movement characterized by an emphasis on rationalism and a rejection of traditional religious, political, and social beliefs in favor of empiricism and the new science.
sephardi	A Hebrew term, meaning "native of Spain" - Jews of Spanish and Portuguese extraction
honmizu	water effects in the Kabuki theater (e.g., creating a waterfall or a running brook).
censorship ordinance of 1559	This law under Queen Elizabeth required the political censorship of public plays and all printed materials in matters of religion and the government
sequence	(1) the ordering of action in a fictional plot; (2) a closely linked series or cycle of individual literary works, especially short stories or poems, designed to be read or performed together, as in the sonnet sequences of William Shakespeare and Edna St
tetrameter	In poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet
ballad measure	Traditionally, ballad measure consists of a four-line stanza or a quatrain containing alternating four-stress and three-stress lines with an
melodrama	The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work which exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions
hikimaku	The traditional striped curtain of the kabuki theatre.
pantun	The pantun is a Malay poetic form
point of view	the perspective from which people, events, and other details in a work of fiction are viewed; also called focus, though the term point of view is sometimes used to include both focus and voice
denotation	the literal, dictionary definition of a word
aside	A short line in a play delivered directly to the audience; by dramatic convention, the other characters onstage are presumed not to hear it
character	a person in a play created by the playwright and represented by an actor.
exordium	In Western classical rhetoric, the exordium was the introductory portion of an oration
type scene	A type scene is a literary convention employed by a narrator across a set of scenes, or related to scenes (place, action) already familiar to the audience
masks	Characters wore them
scene v	Paean
gonzo journalism	Gonzo journalism is a style of journalism that is written subjectively, often including the reporter as part of the story via a first-person narrative
verse drama	see drama.
long metre	Long metre is a poetic meter consisting of four line stanzas, or quatrains, in iambic tetrameter with alternate rhyme pattern a-b-a-b
deus ex machina	In Greek tragedies, the resolution of the plot by the device of a god ("deus") arriving onstage by means of a crane ("machina") and solving all the characters' problems
anglican church	The Protestant Church in England that originated when King Henry VIII broke his ties to the Vatican in Rome (the Catholic Church).
satire	ridiculing stupidity, vice, folly through exaggeration and humor
foreshadowing	hints of events or actions to come in a play; usually foreshadowing helps create suspense.
new comedy	The Greek comedy the developed circa 300 BCE, stressing romantic entanglements, wit, and unexpected twists of plot.
verse	A line of poetry
paradox	a statement that seems contradictory but is at the same time profoundly logical
fantasy	a genre of literary work featuring strange settings and characters and often involving magic or the supernatural; though closely related to horror and science fiction, fantasy is typically less concerned with the macabre or with science and technology
kothorni	See buskins.
monologue	one person speaking on a stage
acrostic	A poem in which the first or last letters of each line vertically form a word, phrase, or sentence
loose sentence	A loose sentence is a type of sentence in which the main idea (independent clause) comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses
bachic meter	Poetry in which each foot is a three-syllable foot consisting of three heavy stresses
unity of action	see classical unities.
amidah	"[Prayer recited] standing", the central element in every statutory service, consisting of a series of blessings.
menorah	A seven branched candelabrum, the menorah is one of the oldest symbols of the Jewish people and has been said to symbolize the burning bush as seen by Moses on mount Sinai
dochmiacs	a meter peculiar to tragedy, expressing extreme agitation or distress; typical metrical schemes: ̌ ̄ ̄ ̌ ̄ and ̄ ̌ ̌ ̄ ̌ ̄
hanamichi	In the kabuki theatre, a long narrow runway leading from the stage to a door at the back of the auditorium that is used for highly theatrical entrances and exits right through the audience.
characterization	The means by which writers present and reveal character
slapstick	Literally, a prop bat made up of two hinged sticks that slap sharply together when the bat is used to hit someone; a staple gag of the commedia dell'arte
chapter 6	Chapter 7
monologue	A scene for one actor who speaks his or her thoughts aloud or talks to an imaginary character or directly to the audience.
aside	words spoken in an undertone not intended to be heard by all characters
chapter 7	Chapter 8
complication	in plot, an action or event that introduces a new conflict or intensifies the existing one, especially during the rising action phase of plot.
flashback	A method of narration in which present action is temporarily interrupted so that the reader can witness past events--usually in the form of a character's memories, dreams, narration, or even authorial commentary (such as saying, "But back when King Arthur had been a child
play	A specific piece of drama, usually enacted on a stage by diverse actors who often wear makeup or costumes to make them resemble the character they portray
personification	The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities
scansion	The act of "scanning" a poem to determine its meter
purim	"Lots", i.e
critique	A critical analysis of a literary work.
verso	See discussion under quarto or examine this chart.
proscenium	An arch that frames a box set and holds the curtain, thus creating a sort of invisible boundary through which the audience views the on-stage action of a play.
paraskenion	wings extending out from either end of skenê (existence in fifth century disputed)
prolepsise	Prolepsis may refer to:
neoclassic	An adjective referring to the Enlightenment
primal scene	In psychoanalysis, the primal scene is the initial witnessing by a child of a sex act, usually between the parents, that traumatizes the psychosexual development of that child
anagogical	In fourfold interpretation, the anagogical reading is the fourth type of interpretation in which one reads a religious writing in an eschatological manner, i.e., the interpreter sees the passage as a revelation concerning the last days, the end of time, or the afterlife.
eschatology	The branch of religious philosophy or theology focusing on the end of time, the afterlife, and the Last Judgment
verisimilitude	Verisimilitude, with the meaning ˝of being true or real˝ is a likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact's probability
modern classic	A term used to designate a play of the past hundred years that has nonetheless passed the test of time and seems as if it will last into the century or centuries beyond, such as the major works of Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett
analepsis	Flashback (also called analepsis, plural analepses) is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached
assonance	The repetition of similar vowel sounds, usually close together, in a group of words.
ad lib	A line improvised by an actor during a performance, usually because the actor has forgotten his or her line or because something unscripted has occurred onstage
satire	A play or other literary work that ridicules social follies, beliefs, religions, or human vices, almost always in a lighthearted vein
pentameter	five feet of verse line
mood - setting tone	Authors set a Tone in literature by conveying emotions/feelings through words
stanza	a unit of lines in a poem which usually share a metrical or thematic pattern
caesura	a short pause within a line of poetry; often but not always signaled by punctuation
audition	a brief performance of either a monologue or a short scene done by actors for the director of a play in order for the director to decide which actor he or she wants to cast in a particular role.
triad	A group of three
vers de société	Vers de société, a term for social or familiar poetry, which was originally borrowed from the French, and has now come to rank as an English expression.
antagonist	See discussion under character, below.
pièce bien faite	See well-made play.
antimetabole	In rhetoric, antimetabole (pronounced /æntɨməˈtæbəliː/ AN-ti-mə-TAB-ə-lee) is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed grammatical order (e.g., "I know what I like, and I like what I know")
meter	A generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.
skene	The Greek stagehouse (and root word of our scene)
chapter 5	Chapter 6
xenophanic	This adjective refers to itinerant poets who make use of satire and witticism
style	a distinctive manner of expression; each author’s style is expressed through his or her diction, rhythm, imagery, and so on.
chapter 3	Chapter 4
tone	The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work
syllabus	An outline or abstract containing the major points included in a book, a course of lectures, an argument or a program of study.
trope	see figure of speech
ad personam	Copies numbered with Roman numerals or prefixed ‘AP' are in every respect identical to the other conventionally-numbered copies in the edition
speaker	The voice in a poem
blank verse	unrhymed iambic pentameter
abecedarius	An abecedarius is an acrostic in which the first letter of every word, strophe or verse follows the order of the alphabet
bouts-rimés	Bouts-Rimés, literally (from the French) "rhymed-ends", is the name given to a kind of poetic game defined by Addison, in the Spectator, as
folktale	see tale
contract	A formal legal agreement that binds those who participate in it to certain things
intertextuality	Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts
haiku	a poetic form, Japanese in origin, that consists of seventeen syllables arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively.
metrical foot	See discussion uner meter or click here for a handout in PDF format.
dramaturge	A specialist in dramatic construction and the body of dramatic literature; a scientist of the art of drama
lexis	In linguistics, a lexis (from the Greek: λέξις "word") is the total word-stock or lexicon having items of lexical rather than grammatical, meaning
interlude	A scene or staged event in a play not specifically tied to the plot; in medieval England, a short moral play, usually comic, that could be presented at a court banquet amid other activities.
dactylic	referring to the metrical pattern in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones—for example, "Fláshed all their / sábres bare" (Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade")
sanhedrin	The court which, in temple times, administered criminal law and certain other matters
monostich	A monostich is a poem which consists of a single line.
leaf - bookbinding	Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material
hyperbole	exaggeration. I would slay dragons to prove my love.
pun	humorous use of a word with two meanings
hypotaxis	Hypotaxis is the grammatical arrangement of functionally similar but "unequal" constructs (hypo="beneath", taxis="arrangement"), i.e., constructs playing an unequal role in a sentence.
document	A paper or record, especially an official one
antitype	A figure, event, or symbol in the New Testament thought to be prefigured by a different figure, event, or symbol in the Old Testament
static character	see character
collection	Every church
onomatopoeia	An onomatopoeia or onomatopœia (Greek ὀνοματοποιία; ὄνομα for "name" and ποιέω for "I make", adjectival form: "onomatopoeic" or "onomatopoetic") is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes
bildungsroman	The Bildungsroman (German pronunciation: [ˈbɪldʊŋs.ʁoˌmaːn]; German: "formation novel") is a genre of the novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood
erinyes	the Furies, who in Greek theology were charged with the duty of keeping order, usually through revenge or torment.
epistle	An epistle (pronounced /i'pis.l/; Greek ἐπιστολή, epistolē, 'letter') is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter
gallery	The elevated seating areas at the back and sides of a theater.
paraphrase	to record someone elses words in the writers own words
catharsis	An emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety
found object	In scene or costume design (and art in general), an item that is found rather than created and subsequently incorporated into the finished design.
maxim - saying	A saying is something that is said, notable in one respect or another, to be "a pithy expression of wisdom or truth."
interpretation	an analysis of a work to determine its meaning
reflective poem/structure	a poem organized primarily around reflection on a subject or event and letting the mind play with it, skipping from one thought or object to another as the mind receives them.
medieval theatre	Medieval theatre refers to the theatre of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance
booth	the small room set up for the management of the technical elements needed during a play, usually set behind the audience with a window facing the stage
innuendo	An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas
slang	Informal diction or the use of vocabulary considered inconsistent with the preferred formal wording common among the educated or elite in a culture
mime	A stylized art of acting without words
scene	A dramatic sequence that takes place within a single locale (or setting) on stage
catharis	the purging of emotion at the end of the play which inspires people to live a better life
shih poetry	Shih is Chinese for "songs." There is no general word for "poetry" specifically in Chinese, but there are exact words for different genres of poetry
soliloquy	A speech spoken by one character alone on stage.
heroic couplet	Two consecutive lines of rhyming poetry that are written in iambic pentameter and that contain a complete thought
argument	In logic, an argument is a set of one or more meaningful declarative sentences (or "propositions") known as the premises along with another meaningful declarative sentence (or "proposition") known as the conclusion
downstage	front area of the stage, nearest to the audience.
fairy tale	see tale
connotation	The emotion or association that a word or phrase may arouse
internal audience	An imaginary listener(s) or audience to whom a character speaks in a poem or story
masculine ending	Masculine ending is term used in prosody, the study of verse form
freeze	To keep absolutely still and motionless.
plot	The unified structure of incidents in a literary work
polysyndeton	Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect in a sentence
aragoto	The flamboyant and exaggerated masculine style of acting employed in certain kabuki roles.
virgule - slash	The slash is a sign, "/", used as a punctuation mark and for various other purposes
hosha`not	Prayers recited in connection with the ceremonial parading of lulavim (palm-branches) on the festival of Sukkoth (Tabernacles)
unity of place	see classical unities
hymn	A religious song consisting of one or more repeating rhythmical stanzas
stave	Another term for stanza
denouement	A French word meaning "unknotting" or "unwinding," denouement refers to the outcome or result of a complex situation or sequence of events, an aftermath or resolution that usually occurs near the final stages of the plot
ingenue	The young, pretty, and innocent girl role in certain plays; also used to denote an actress capable of playing such roles.
flashback	An interruption of a work's chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame of a work's action
schism	A schism is a split or division in the church concerning religious belief or organizational structure--one in which a single church splits into two or more separate denominations--often hostile to each other
proscenium arch	An arch framing the stage which separates the actors and audience.
personification	A figure of speech in which an animal, an object, a natural force, or an idea is given personality, or described as if it were human.
historical novel	According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is: "a novel that has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity (which is in some cases only apparent fidelity) to historical fact
director	a person responsible for initiating the interpretation of the play, enhancing that interpretation with the concepts of the designers and making all final decisions on production values; tells the actors where to move and how best to communicate the interpretation of the play to the audience.
tragedy	From the Greek for "goat song"; originally meant a serious play
scene	a small unit of a play in which there is usually no shift of locale or time.
sarcasm	see irony
apophasis	Denying one's intention to talk or write about a subject, but making the denial in such a way
cast	to assign parts to the actors in a play.
iambic	an unstressed/stressed combination of syllables in a metrical foot
psychoanalytic theory	Psychoanalytic theory refers to the definition and dynamics of personality development which underlie and guide psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychotherapy
scenic artist	a painter or machinist who reproduces the scene designer’s drawings in full scale on the stage.
renga	Renga (連歌 renga?, collaborative poetry) is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry
flyting	A contest of wits and insults between two Germanic warriors
homily	A homily is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture
black theatre	In America, theatre that is generally by, with, and about African Americans.
gidayu	The traditional style of chanting in kabuki and bunraku theatre
synecdoche	A form of the metaphor in which the part mentioned signifies the whole
parable	a short work of fiction that illustrates an explicit moral but that, unlike a fable, lacks fantastic or anthropomorphic characters
archives	Collections of old or unpublished records which can be used in historical and other RESEARCH
west end	The commercial theatre district of London, England.
anapodoton	Deliberately creating a sentence fragment by the omission of a clause: "If only you came with me!" If only students knew what anapodoton was! Good writers never use sentence fragments? Ah, but they can
metrical substitution	A way of varying poetic meter by taking a single foot of the normal meter and replacing it with a foot of different meter
tz'u	A Chinese genre of poetry invented during the T'ang period
upstage	(noun) In a proscenium theatre, that part of the stage farthest from the audience; the rear of the stage, so called because it was in fact raised ("up") in the days of the raked stage
callback	After the initial audition, the director or casting director will "call back" for additional - sometimes many - readings those actors who seem most promising
visual poetry	See concrete poetry.
literary ballad - ballad	Literary or lyrical ballads grew out of an increasing interest in the ballad form among social elites and intellectuals, particularly in the Romantic movement from the later 18th century
xanaduism	Research to discover the sources that have contributed to a work of art.
gnomic poetry	Gnomic poetry consists of sententious maxims put into verse to aid the memory
intermission	In England, "interval"; a pause in the action, marked by a fall of the curtain or a fade-out of the stage lights, during which the audience may leave their seats for a short time, usually ten or fifteen minutes
round character	see character
scene v	Scene VI
historiated initial	In the artwork of medieval manuscripts, a historiated initial is an enlarged, introductory letter in a written word that contains within the body of the letter a pictoral scene or figure related to the text it introduces
persona	A personality, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor
gothic fiction	a subgenre of fiction conventionally featuring plots that involve secrets, mystery, and the supernatural (or the seemingly supernatural) and large, gloomy, and usually antiquated (especially medieval) houses as settings
georgian poetry	Georgian Poetry was the title of a series of anthologies showcasing the work of a school of English poetry that established itself during the early years of the reign of King George V of the United Kingdom.
oulipo	Oulipo (French pronunciation: [ulipo], short for French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature") is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques
moral	a rule of conduct or a maxim for living (that is, a statement about how one should live or behave) communicated in a literary work
parados	the ode chanted by the chorus as they enter in Greek tragedy
pentameter	Pentameter may refer to:
habit à la romaine	classical French costuming meant to suggest the clothing of Roman antiquity.
shakespearean sonnet	See discussion under sonnet.
gratuity	Originally, a freely given gift or payment of money
anadiplosis	Anadiplosis (pronounced /ænədɨˈploʊsɨs/, AN-ə-di-PLOH-sis; from the Greek: á¼Î½Î±Î´Î¯ÏÎ»ÏÏÎ¹Ï, anadàplÅsis, "a doubling, folding up") is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause
dada	A provocative and playful European art movement following World War I - characterized by seemingly random, unstructured, and "anti-aesthetic" creativity - that was briefly but deeply influential in poetry, painting, and theatre.
house	the audience or the theatrical building.
motif	a recurrent device, formula, or situation within a literary work
saint's life	Another term for the medieval genre called a vita
internal narration or narrator	see narrator
total theatre	A performance that includes all or most of the theatrical elements music, dance, song, spectacle, special effects.
duo	two, in two parts duolo - sorrow, sadness duple meter - two or four beats to the measure
lenaea	The winter dramatic festival in ancient Athens
figurative language	The nonstandard, as opposed to literal, use of language composed of figures of speech.
freytag’s pyramid	a diagram of plot structure first created by the German novelist and critic Gustav Freytag (1816–1895).
rising rhyme	Another term for masculine rhyme in which the final foot ends in a stressed syllable
empathy	Audience members' identification with dramatic characters and their consequent shared feelings with the plights and fortunes of those characters
roman à clef	Roman à clef or roman à clé (French for novel with a key, is the term used for a novel describing real life, behind a façade of fiction
character	The individual within the literary work
tragic hero/tragic figure	A protagonist who comes to a bad end as a result of his own behavior, usually cased by a specific personality disorder or character flaw.
light ending	Light ending may refer to:
blank verse	the metrical verse form most like everyday human speech; blank verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter
letters - intellectual	An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence (thought and reason) and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.
epistolary novel	see novel
meaning	In linguistics, meaning is what is expressed by the writer or speaker, and what is conveyed to the reader or listener
chiton	The full-length gown worn by Greek tragic actors.
point of view	The perspective from which the story is told. In a third person point of view, a narrator outside the story describes the events and thoughts of the characters. Limited point of view refers to a narrator who tells the story in the third person but from a character's viewpoint. The first person point of view, narrated from an "I" perspective, is very limited because the reader only knows what the character knows.
figure of speech	A term applied to a specific kind of figurative language, such as a metaphor or simile
stage business	small pieces of action; often humorous; put into a scene to heighten its appeal or suspense.
extended metaphor	An extended metaphor, also called a conceit, is a metaphor that continues into the sentences that follow
kabuki	One of the national theatres of Japan
scene iv	Scene V
elegy	In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.
geza	The stage right, semi-enclosed musicians' box in kabuki theatre
meter	the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry
terminus a quo	The earliest possible date that a literary work could have been written, a potential starting point for dating a manuscript or text
rhyme scheme	the pattern of end rhymes in a poem, often noted by small letters, such as abab or abba.
climax	the third part of plot, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing; also called turning point or (following Aristotle) peripeteia
lost generation	The "Lost Generation" is a term used to refer to the generation that came of age during World War I
episode	the equivalent of an act in a Greek play; episodes advance the story line (see stasimon).
dirge	See discussion of elegy, below.
dialogue	The speeches - delivered to each other - of the characters in a play
paradox	In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight
metonymy	a figure of speech in which the name of one thing is used to refer to another thing associated with it
chorus	(1) A group of singers who stand alongside or off stage from the principal performers in a dramatic or musical performance
conclusion	also called resolution, the fifth and last phase or part of plot, the point at which the situation that was destabilized at the beginning becomes stable once more and the conflict is resolved.
symbolism / imagery	Language and Author's Style
beast poetry	Beast poetry, in the context of European literature and Medieval studies, refers to a corpus of poems written in Latin from the 8th to the 11th century.
gloss	A gloss (from Latin: glossa, from Greek: γλῶσσα glóssa "tongue") is a brief notation of the meaning of a word or wording in a text
abstract language	words which represent broad qualities or characteristics (e.g., interesting, good, fine, horrible, lovely)
eponymous	having a name used in the title of a literary work
rhythm	The arrangement of stressed an unstressed syllables into a pattern
sonnet	a fourteen line lyric poem usually in iambic pentameter
anti-masque	An anti-masque (also spelled antimasque) is a comic or grotesque dance presented before or between the acts of a masque, a type of dramatic composition
paranomasia	The technical Greek term for what English-speakers commonly refer to as a "pun." See extended discussion under pun, below.
sound board operator	the person who discharges the correct sounds or music at the appropriate moment in the play.
hyperbole	see overstatement
italian sonnet	see sonnet
costumes	the clothes worn by actors in an a play designed to fit the era, mood, and personality of the characters as well as enhance the overall design look of the production.
palinode	A palinode or palinody is an ode in which the writer retracts a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem
theme	The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization
reader-response criticism	Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and his or her experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work.
black-box theatre	A rectangular room with no fixed seating or stage area; this theatre design allows for a variety of configurations in staging plays.
crossover	a hidden passage, often behind the scenery, through which actors can go from one side of the stage to the other without being seen by the audience
call	the time at which an actor is supposed to be at rehearsal or performance.
ekkyklema	a wheeled platform used to display dead bodies or suggest an interior scene in the Greek theater.
general setting	see setting
rising action	that point in the plot when conflict and our emotional involvement intensifies
exodos	when the chorus exits at the end of the play
vulgate	The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin version of the Bible, and largely the result of the labors of St
bowdlerize	Thomas Bowdler (pronounced /ˈbaʊdlər/) (11 July 1754 â€" 24 February 1825) was an English physician who published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work, edited by his sister Harriet, intended to be more appropriate for 19th century women and children than the original.
minor character	see character
truncated line - acatalexis	An acatalectic line of verse is one having the metrically complete number of syllables in the final foot
octave	eight lines of verse linked by a pattern of end rhymes, especially the first eight lines of an Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet
narrative poem	a poem that tells a story
iambic pentameter	The most common verse line in English poetry
theatricalist	A style of contemporary theatre that boldly exploits the theatre itself and calls attention to the theatrical contexts of the play being performed
mora	Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress or timing) in some languages
internal rhyme	A poetic device in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end of the same metrical line
aufklärung	The German term for the philosophical movement called in English "the Enlightenment" or the Neoclassical movement
paraphrase	A brief restatement in one's own words of all or part of a literary or critical work, as opposed to quotation, in which one reproduces all or part of a literary or critical work word-for-word, exactly.
mark	The signature of someone who does not know how to write
dresser	person in charge of assisting actors with their costumes, wigs, and makeup during a production.
unity of time	see classical unities
magic realism	a type of fiction that involves the creation of a fictional world in which the kind of familiar, plausible action and characters one might find in more straightforwardly realist fiction coexist with utterly fantastic ones straight out of myths or dreams
roundelay	A term used as a generic label for fixed forms of poetry using limited rhymes--such as the rondeau, rondel, and roundel
ballad stanza	In poetry, a Ballad stanza is the four-line stanza, known as a quatrain, most often found in the folk ballad
intrusive narration or narrator	see narrator
octameter	Octameter in poetry is a line of eight metrical feet
audience	An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called the "reader"), theatre, music or academics in any medium
drama	The art of the theatre; plays, playmaking, and the whole body of literature of and for the stage.
tone	the attitude expressed by the writer toward the subject