ROMEO and JULIET

1. ROMEO and JULIET LITERARY TERMS

2. DRAMA A work of literature designed to be performedin frontof an audience. EX: stage plays, movies, TV shows

3. COMEDY A humorous (funny) dramatic work.

4. TRAGEDY A serious work of drama in which the herosuffers catastrophe or serious misfortune, usually because of his own actions. Ends in an unhappy way, most often in death.

5. HISTORY A dramatic work based on an historical figure or event. • (Examples: The movies “Lincoln,” “Titanic,” “The Nuremburg Trials,” “Schindler’s List,” “JFK.”

6. ACT • A division within a play. • Llike the chapters of a novel.

7. Romeo and Juliet is written in five acts ACT – Division within a play

8. SCENE • A division of an act into smaller parts which show the progression of events.

9. Romeo and Juliet: All acts but Act 5 have five scenes

10. SIMILE A comparison between two things using like or as. “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, and it pricks like thorn.” Examples: • As alike as two peas in a pod • As beautiful as nature • As big as a bus • As busy as a bee

11. FORESHADOWING A hint or clue that something is going to happen Tybalt is hinting that he will still take revenge on Romeo for crashing the party.

12. Dramatic Irony A contradictionbetween what a characterthinks and what the reader/audienceknows to be true. Example: At the end of Act 1, we know that Romeo and Juliet are in love, but no one else knows.

13. Situational Irony Contrast between what the reader or a character expects and what actually exists or happens. Example: The heart surgeon fainted at the sight of blood.

14. Verbal Irony When someoneknowingly says one thing and means another. Example: John’s hair is a mess. He looks like he slept in his car last night, but Jimmy says “John, who did your hair? It looks so stylish.” (also known as “sarcasm”)

15. PERSONIFICATION Human qualities are given to an object, animal, or idea. Example: “The world breathed a sigh of relief.”

16. ASIDE Lines that are spoken aloud by a character and meant tobe heard by the audience, but not by the other characters.

17. Sampson speaks to Gregory:who hears him? ASIDE - Lines spoken by a character TO the AUDIENCE, but not heard by others on stage.

18. MONOLOGUE • A long speech spoken by a character to himself, to another character, or to the audience.

19. SOLILOQUY • Thoughts spoken aloud by a character when he/she is alone, or thinks he/she is alone.

20. PUN • A joke that comes from a play on words. • EX: When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds! What’s the point of writing with a broken pencil?

21. OXYMORON • Words with opposite meanings are paired together • Examples: “sweet sorrow” “jumbo shrimp”

22. Oxymoron • Additional examples: • “pretty ugly” • “tender roughness”

23. DRAMATIC FOIL • A character whose traits are in direct contrast to the traits of another (usually the main) character. • The purpose of a dramatic foil is to reveal or emphasize something about the other character.

24. COMIC RELIEF A humorousscene or character that provides a break in tension or a change in emotional intensity. • Example: The character of the nurse in Romeo and Juliet.

25. ALLITERATION Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words “….those…..there…… them…..”Additional Examples:Rabbits Running Over RosesDressy Daffodils Caring cats cascade offLaughing lions laugh

26. CONSONANCE The repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds within or at the end of words close together in a poem EX: Odds and ends • EX: First and last • EX: The tick of the clock.

27. Consonance 3) Thou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe. Additional Examples: Litter and batter Spelled and scald Dress and boss

28. ASSONANCE The repetition of similar vowelsounds within words that are close together in a poem. • Ex: Mybride ran through the nighttide, feeling alive.

29. Assonance 4) Too, soon, woo • Additional Examples: “Hear the mellow wedding bells” “Try to light the fire” “Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese”

30. ENGLISH SONNET A poem of 14 lines, three quatrains (stanzas) and one couplet written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.

31. STANZA A group of two or more lines in a pattern that is repeated throughout a poem. • It is comparable to a paragraph in a story.

32. COUPLET A rhymed pair of lines. EX: I was angry with my foe; I told it not, my wrath did grow.

33. Couplet “………shall,” “……gall.” couplet – two lines that rhyme Example by Emily Dickinson:Singing he was, or fluting all the day; He was as fresh as is the month of May.

34. METER A regular pattern of stressed and unstressedsyllables in poetry.

35. IAMB An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Also known as an iambic foot.

36. IAMBIC PENTAMETER A line of poetry that contains 5iambs.

37. Iambic Pentameter a FAIR ass EMbly: WHItherSHOULD they COME? Iambic Pentameter: five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables within a line of poetry Additional Example:

38. BLANK VERSE • Unrhymed iambic pentameter Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.

39. PROSE • The ordinary form of spoken or written language, withoutmeter (a beat); prose is not poetry or verse. • Only characters in the lower social classes speak in prose in Shakespeare’s plays.