Transcript Shakespearean Drama

Shakespeare’s Plays
 Tragedy: a play that traces the main character’s downfall
 Comedy: a play that ends happily and usually contains many
humorous elements
 History: a play that chronicles the life of an English monarch
Tragedy and the Tragic
Hero
 Shakespeare’s tragedies are often called his
“greatest plays.”
 Every tragedy contains a “tragic hero”
 Tragic hero: a main character who goes through a
series of events that lead to his/her downfall
Qualities of a Tragic Hero
 Possesses importance or high rank
 Exhibits extraordinary talents
 Displays a tragic flaw—an error in judgment or
defect in character—that leads to downfall
 Faces downfall with courage and dignity
Tragic Hero Cont.
 Dramatic Foils- characters that are opposites or
pitted against each other. The foil usually tried to
prevent another character, usually the hero or
protagonist, from doing something. He “foils” his
plans.
Soliloquy and Aside
 Shakespeare uses soliloquies and asides even though
these are not things that are used in real life.
 Soliloquy: a long speech given by a character while
alone on stage to reveal his or her private thoughts or
intentions. (monologue)
 Aside: a character’s quiet remark to the audience or
another character that no one else on stage is
supposed to hear. A stage direction (often in brackets)
indicates an aside
Aside Example
Trebonius: Caesar, I will. [Aside] And so near will I be
That your best friends shall wish I had been further.
The audience is meant to hear the aside, but not
Caesar.
What does the aside suggest?
Dramatic Irony
 Dramatic Irony: when the reader or audience knows
something that one or more of the characters do not
know.
 How is dramatic irony used in horror movies?
Word Play
 PUNS – words with similar sounds but
different meanings.
 I continually asked the track coach about joining
the team but he just kept giving me the runaround.
 Did you hear about the guy whose whole left
side was cut off? He's all right now.
Word Play

OXYMORON – words with opposite
meaning that are used together.
 Original copy
 Second best
 Same difference
 Easy payments
 Work party
Word Play
 SEXUAL DOUBLE ENTENDRES-
common words with sexual
connotation.
 The photographer was disappointed because when he
looked at the pictures of the cheerleading team, he
realized they weren’t developed.
Word Play
 AMBIGUITY – words that convey more
than one meaning.
 "Thanks for dinner. I’ve never seen
potatoes cooked like that before."

(Jonah Baldwin in the film Sleepless in Seattle, 1993)
Word Play
 MALAPROPISMS – words misused,
usually humorously, because they
happen to sound like other words.
 "I resemble that remark!” (Instead of resent)
 “Density has brought me to you.” (Instead of destiny)
Literary Term
 Alliteration- the repeated occurrence of a consonant
sound at the beginning of several words in the same
phrase.
 "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …"
You got rhythm, but no
rhyme!
 Blank Verse is a type of poetry,
distinguished by having a regular
meter, but no rhyme.
 Meter is the pattern of stressed or
unstressed syllables.
Iambic Pentameter
 The most common meter in English poetry, the socalled iambic pentameter, is a sequence of five
iambic feet or iambs, each consisting of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one ("daDUM") :
 da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM