Poetry and Drama Terms

Act

Main division of a drama

Alliteration

Repetition of the same initial sound in two or more close associated words

Allusion

Reference to literary or historical person or even to explain a present situation

Aside

A brief remark made by a character and intended to be heard by the audience

Comic relief

Humorous scene or speech in a serious drama

Foreshadowing

Hint of what is to come in the story

Imagery

used to describe words or phrases that appeal to five senses

Irony

Contrast between what is and what appears to be

Metaphor

Implies or states a comparison between two unlike things which are similar in some way

Oxymoron

A contrast of two contradictory terms for the sake of emphasis

Scene

A small unit of a play in which there is no shift of locale or time

Personification

Human qualities are attributes to inanimate objects, animals, or ideas

Simile

Comparison between two essentially unlike things which are similar in one aspect (use like or as)

Soliloquy

Speech given by a character alone on the stage

Tragedy

A type of drama of human conflict which ends in defeat and suffering, sometimes conflict is with forces beyond the control of the character- fate

Foil

Opposite of a character

Pun

Play on words

Couplet

pairs of rhyming lines, usually in iambic pentameter, that often conclude scenes or sonnets, delivering a concise, memorable summary or emotional punch

Prose

unrhymed, non-metrical language to show lower class men

Sonnet

a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter, consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet with the rhyme scheme