Shakespeare's Tragedies Test Review

Flashcards for Shakespeare's Tragedies Test

What is a tragic hero?

A character, neither wholly good nor evil, who falls from fortune to misery due to their own flaw.

What is hamartia?

A fatal flaw in the character of a tragic hero.

What is a soliloquy?

An extended speech by a character alone on stage, revealing inner thoughts.

What is an aside?

A remark in a play heard by the audience but not by other characters.

What is prose?

Expression following natural syntax, without conscious meter or rhyme.

What is blank verse?

Unrhymed but metered lines, often in iambic pentameter.

What is a rhyming couplet?

A pair of successive rhyming lines.

What is dramatic irony?

Audience knows something characters don't, increasing tension or comedy.

What is the great chain of being?

Hierarchical structure of matter and life, from God to minerals.

What is surface and syntactic accuracy?

Understanding accuracy in written English.

Examples of surface accuracy.

Capital letters, sentence-ending punctuation, commas, apostrophes.

Examples of word classes.

Noun, pronoun, verb, conjunction.

Examples of sentence structures.

Independent, simple, compound, complex, compound-complex.

What are the key themes in Macbeth?

Ambition; guilt; fate and freewill

What are the key themes in Julius Caesar?

Honour; omens & fate; the power of speech

What knowledge of the play is required?

Central characters, plot of Acts I & II, tragic hero status.

What conventions of tragedy are tested?

A tragic hero, hamartia, the fall of the tragic hero.

What is important context about Shakespeare's time?

What the Globe Theatre was like.

What attitudes of Shakespeare's day are worth knowing?

Beliefs about the supernatural and witchcraft.

What was theatre-going like in Shakespeare's day?

Attending productions at the Globe.