| A | B |
|---|
| tragedy | a drama that ends in catastrophe--usually death--for the main character. |
| comic relief | humor that relieves the overall emotional intensity |
| allusion | a brief reference, within a work, to something outside the work that the reader is expected to know |
| foil | a character whose personality or traits sharply contrast with another character's |
| soliloquy | a speech that a character gives when he or she is alone on stage or THINKS he/she is alone |
| aside | a character's remark that others on stage are not supposed to hear |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| iambic pentameter | 10 syllables alternating stressed syllables followed by unstressed ones |
| couplet | two rhymed lines |
| quatrain | a stanza of four lines following a particular pattern |
| English sonnet | a 14-line poem with rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g |
| prologue | a short poem--usually a sonnet--to introduce the play and get the audience's attention |
| dramatic irony | occurs when the audience knows something that is unknown to the character |
| understatement | the opposite of hyperbole; saying less than is actually or literally true |
| pun | a joke that comes from a play on words; most often uses a word's multiple meanings or rhyme |
| simile | a comparison using "like" or "as" |
| metaphor | a comparison between two things that are basically unlike but that have something in common |
| apostrophe | addressing someone or something who is unable to hear/understand |
| hyperbole | exaggerating the truth for emphasis or humorous effect |
| alliteration | the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words |
| assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds within nonrhyming words |
| idiom | an expression that has meaning different from the meaning of its actual words (She blew up at me!) |
| oxymoron | two contradictory words ("brawling love, loving hate") |
| paradox | a statement that seems to contradict itself but is true nevertheless |
| personification | the attribution of human characteristics to an object, animal, or idea |
| foreshadowing | hints or clues that indicate events and situations that will occur later in the plot |
| situational irony | the type of irony that contrasts what a reader or characters expects with what actually exists or happens |
| verbal irony | a type of irony when someone knowingly exaggerates or says one thing and means another |
| inversion | a reversal of the usual order of words |
| consonance | repeated consonant sounds, usually final consonant sounds of important words |
