1. Drama Vocabulary

2. Foil
• Two contrasting characters placed in the same
play

3. Monologue
• Long speech by one character to another
character on stage

4. Soliloquy
• A speech by a character alone on stage

5. Dramatic Irony
• Audience knows something the characters
don’t

6. Aside
• One or two lines spoken to the audience

7. • Comic Relief: A humorous scene, incident, or
speech that relieves the overall emotional
intensity in the play. Comic relief helps the
audience absorb the tragic events in the plot
of a play.

8. • Blank Verse: Unrhymed lines of iambic
pentameter. Shakespeare wrote all of his
plays in blank verse.
– Typically the presence of a character speaking in
iambic pentameter indicates that the character is
an aristocrat (upper class). Lower class characters
speak in prose.

9. Example of Blank Verse
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /
But soft.|What light| through yon|der win|dow
breaks?
~ / ~ / ~ / ~~ / ~ /
It is| the east|, and Jul|iet is |the sun!

10. Elements of Shakespearean Tragedy
• Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero
or heroine, typically royalty, usually through
some combination of hubris (pride), fate, and
the will of the gods.
• The tragic hero should have a flaw and/or
make some mistake (hamartia).
• The hero must undergo a change in fortune,
typically death, as a result of his flaw.

11. Pun
• Play on words

12. Allusion
• Reference to something outside of the play;
usually another work of literature

13. Oxymoron
• Two opposite words placed next to each other

14. Foreshadowing
• Hint of things to come