Shakespeare Vocab

TERMS TO KNOW

Allusion

Indirect reference to something/one

Aside

Speech delivered to the audience

Blank Verse

Poetry that doesn’t rhyme but follows a regular meter

Hyperbole

Intentional exaggeration

Iambic pentameter

Line of verse composed of ten syllables arranged in 5 metrical feet

Double Entendre

Double meaning to a word, figure, or speech

Malapropism

When a word is mistakenly used for another that sounds similar

Oxymoron

Placing two oppsites together

Prose

Writing style that doesn’t follow a structure of rhyming or meter but arranged into sentences and paragraphs.

Pun

Joke based on the interplay of homophones (same prouncation)

Rhyming Couplet

2 consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme, usually with the final words of each line matching

Soliloquy

A character that speaks to themselves relating to their innermost thoughts as if thinking aloud

Verse

Single line in poetry