Literary Terms Test V

Satiric Comedy

human weakness or folly is ridiculed from a vantage point of supposedly enlightened superiority; has an educational motive

Romantic Comedy

subtler; main characters are lovers and plot unfolds their ultimately successful strivings to be united

High Comedy

relies on wit and wordplay rather than physical action; addresses audience's intelligence

Low Comedy

greater emphasis on physical action and visual gags; drunkenness, stupidity, lust, senility, trickery, insult, clumsiness are staples of low comedy

Comedy of Manners

witty satire set in elite or fashionable society

Slapstick Comedy

Low comedy where humor depends entirely on physical action and sight gags, purposefully exaggerated form of performance that can portray a cartoon-ish reality (ridiculousness/horseplay)

Farce

a comedy that contains an extravagant and nonsensical disregard of seriousness, although it may have a serious, scornful purpose (ridiculous and absurd comedy) (ex. The Three Stooges or The Importance of Being Earnest)

Burlesque

form of satire, a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects (mockery)

Tragicomedy

a genre combining features of both tragedy and comedy, most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending (often has complex characters and unpredictable plots)

Tragedy

genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character, work of dramatic literature that shows the downfall of a person, usually of high birth or noble status

Drama

portrayal of fictional or non-fictional events through the performance of written dialog (prose or poetry)

Dramatic Question

primary unresolved issue in a drama, a one-sentence summary of the protagonist's central conflict over the course of a story, established in the beginning of a story, guiding force of the story

Closet Drama

play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or sometimes out loud in a large group

Dramatic Conventions

techniques that playwrights use to create dramatic effects in their plays

Symbolic Act

an action whose significance goes well beyond its literal meaning

Theater in the Round

a form of theatrical presentation in which the audience is seated in a circle around the stage or on at least three of its sides, acting area, which may be raised or at floor level, is completely surrounded by the audience

Stage Business

Nonverbal actions that actors do on stage to stay in character when they do not have lines but more prominent characters do

Play

written for the theater that dramatizes events through the performance of dialogue and stage directions

Rising Action

all the events that happen in a story leading to the climax

Falling Action

the period of time in a story that follows the climax and leads to the resolution

Orchestra

the space reserved for musicians, usually the front part of the main floor

Deus ex Machina

a person or thing that appears or is introduced into a situation suddenly and unexpectedly and provides an artificial or contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty (god from the machine), cheap way to insert an easy conclusion

Conceits

a type of figurative language in which the writer establishes a comparison between two very different concepts or objects, a fanciful and often extended metaphor (ex. "dead as a door nail")

Subplot

a secondary strand of the plot that is a supporting side story for any story or for the main plot, adds layers to main storyline

Conventional Symbol

something that is generally recognized to represent a certain idea, well-known symbols (ex. red symbolizing love, passion, or anger)

Catharsis

the use of strong feelings in literature to engage the reader in a type of emotional purification, audience/reader experiences the emotions of the characters

Dialogue

a stylized written or spoken exchange between two or more people

Theater of the Absurd

play written to show the absurdity of life by having absurd situations, a movement made up of many diverse plays

Exodos

the final scene or departure, especially in tragedy and usually Old Comedy

Hamartia

tragic flaw or error that leads to a character's downfall

Prologue

a separate introductory section of a literary work that comes before the main narrative

Flexible Theater

theater venue or theater space that can move its seating banks and stage area

Aside

an actor talks directly to the audience to explain something, probably a motivation; the convention is that others on stage do not hear the comment, a comment that a character makes to him or herself in a play

Ensembles

a large group of central, dynamic characters

Dramatist

a person who writes plays

Box Set

A set built behind a proscenium arch to represent three walls of a room. The absent fourth wall on the proscenium line allows spectators to witness the domestic scene

Symbolist Movement

aimed to eliminate all traces of naturalistic or imitative acting, and all romance and melodrama

Realism

literary genre that attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements

Naturalism

a literary movement taking place from 1865 to 1900 that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character, applies science to literature

Expressionism

aims to depict emotional experience rather than physical reality

Guerrilla Theater

form of political street theater meant to question social norms and inspire political activism