Drama Terms

Drama

Literature written to be performed.

Playwright

Author of a play.

Script

Text of the play which includes dialogue and stage directions.

Act

A division or unit of a drama.

Scene

A subdivision of an act; changes when the location or time of the action shifts.

Dialogue

The lines spoken by the characters (2 or more).

Monologue

Extended speech by one character with others on stage.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character, alone on stage, addresses himself or herself.

Aside

Brief comments by an actor addressing the audience, not heard by other characters.

Stage Directions

Words in a script that define an actor's actions, movements, attitudes, etc.

Allusion

An indirect reference by casually mentioning something generally familiar.

Comic Relief

A bit of humor injected into a serious play to relieve tension.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience or another character knows something that the main character does not.

Foils

Contrasting characters.

Theme

A universal idea in a literary work.

Motif

A repeated pattern—an image, sound, word, or symbol that supports the theme.

Foreshadowing

Lines that give a hint or clue to future events.

Props

Short for 'properties,' the elements providing the stage's background.

Set

Constructions that show where the drama takes place.

Meter

Pattern of rhythmic accents in verse form.

Monometer

1 foot line.

Diameter

2 foot line.

Trimeter

3 foot line.

Tetrameter

4 foot line.

Pentameter

5 foot line.

Hexameter

6 foot line.

Heptameter

7 foot line.

Octometer

8 foot line.

Foot

A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Iamb

Two syllable foot pattern of unstressed, stressed.

Trochee

Two syllable foot pattern of stressed, unstressed.

Anapest

Three syllable foot pattern of unstressed, unstressed, stressed.

Dactyl

Three syllable foot pattern of stressed, unstressed, unstressed.

Rhymed Verse

Verse with end rhyme and usually with a regular meter.

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern or sequence in which the rhyme occurs.

Couplet

2 lines of verse that rhyme ('a'-'a').

Triplet or Tercet

3 line stanza or three lines of verse that usually rhyme ('a'-'a'-'a').

Quatrain

4 rhymed lines that take various forms; the most common stanza in English verse.

Blank Verse

Lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Free Verse

Lines of verse that do not have a regular meter and do not contain rhyme.