Renaissance Drama and Shakespeare Lecture Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the elements of drama, theater history, medieval plays, and Renaissance theatrical conventions.

Major characters

Characters who take part in the central conflict of a play.

Minor characters

Characters who serve to fulfill a specific function in a play.

Foil

A character whose traits contrast with and therefore highlight the traits of another character.

Static character

A character who does not change during the course of a play.

Dynamic character

A character who changes during the course of a play.

Irony

The difference between appearance and reality, categorized into dramatic, verbal, and situational irony.

Dialogue

A conversation between two or more characters.

Monologue

A speech in which a character speaks aloud or directly addresses the audience.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character is alone on stage speaking their thoughts.

Aside

A dramatic device where a character literally turns to the audience and comments on the situation.

Motif

A recurring element or pattern that can be visual, thematic, or aural.

Comedy

A lighthearted or humorous dramatic work involving characters with misunderstandings or confusion that moves from initial order to disorder and back to order again.

Tragedy

A serious dramatic work depicting the fall of a king or god, or the downfall of a person of high status.

Tragic flaw

A personal weakness that leads to a character's downfall, such as ambition in Macbeth.

Comic relief

A break from a serious tone in a play, such as the drunken Porter in Macbeth.

Exposition

Background information provided within a play.

Stage directions

Notes included in a play, usually in italics, that describe how something should be performed.

Protagonist

The main character who takes part in the action of a literary work.

Antagonist

The character in a literary work who is associated with the conflict against the protagonist.

Quarto

A smaller, cheaper book format produced by folding a sheet of paper in fourths, yielding 8 pages.

Folio

A larger book format made by folding a sheet of paper in half, yielding 4 pages.

First Folio

The 1623 collection of 36 of Shakespeare's plays (18 surviving) published 7 years after his death, assembled by actors John Heminge and Henry Condell and printed by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount.

Drama

A play or story told through characters played by actors, divided into acts and scenes.

Script

The written form of a drama, consisting of dialogue spoken by characters and stage directions explaining settings and actors.

Spectacle

An element of drama involving the visual portrayal of meaning, achieved through lighting, costumes, and props.

The Globe

An eight-sided playhouse with a central open-air 'wooden O' and a stage canopy supported by 2 large pillars, built by James Burbage and the Lord Chamberlain's Men using materials from the torn-down Theater.

Groundlings

Working-class theatergoers who watched performances from the open-air yard of the playhouse.

Tiring house

The inner backstage area located directly behind the stage in Shakespeare's Globe.

Blackfriars Theater

A smaller, indoor theater opened by Burbage in 1596 that drew wealthier patrons and eventually became the winter home for Shakespeare's company.

Christopher Marlowe

One of the two greatest playwrights of the Elizabethan Age, noted for his pioneering use of blank verse (unrhymed pentameter); also blended tragic w/ comic

James Burbage

The builder who constructed the Theater, the first professional playhouse in England; built the Blackfriars Theater

King Charles II

The English monarch whose reign (1660-1685) marked the reopening of theaters and the first time women were legally allowed to perform on stage.

Miracle plays

Medieval religious plays that told fantastic stories about the lives of saints.

Mystery plays

Medieval religious plays that dramatized stories directly from the Bible.

Morality plays

Medieval religious plays that dramatized the battle between good and evil for an individual's immortal soul.

Guilds

Professional business associations in the Middle Ages whose members staged religious plays outdoors on wagons.

Amphitheaters

Specially-designed open-air stages constructed during the Renaissance to accommodate growing audiences and maximize profits.

Humanist philosophy

A popular Renaissance worldview holding that humans were created in the image of God and possessed the capacity to perfect themselves.

In the Middle Ages, the plays were presented by:

traveling troupes of actors/members of professional business associations called guilds

Renaissance playwrights mined works of:

classical texts and English historical chronicles for subject matter to fashion into English plays

As Renaissance plays began to incorporate more nonreligious sources, they also…

began to examine psychological issues

Theater flourished under Queen Elizabeth I, but then stop because of :

the Puritans, and then reopened by Charles II

Women were not allowed on stage until:

reign of King Charles II

In London sometimes plays were shut down because:

it was a bustling city and negative ideas or diseases could spread

How many of Shakespeare’s plays survive?

18 out of 36

Great drama revival occurred during 17th and 18th centuries with:

Elizabethan and restoration drama

Shakespeare and his contemporaries created dramas with:

5 acts

A motif can be:

visual, thematic, or aural

Motifs can be used to emphasize:

parallèles in the text ad support an overarching theme of the play

chorus:

single character or a group of characters who comment in action of the play

Centuries elapsed between the:

classical drama of Greece and the simple plays of medieval Europe