The Vocabulary of Drama

The Vocabulary of Drama
Subgenres of types
Comedy
Tragedy
Tragicomedy
Closet
Cycle
Miracle
Morality
Thematic Aspects
Deus ex machine
Dramatic irony
Tragic flaw or hermartia
Unities
Speeches
Monologue
Dialogue
Soliloquy
Asides
Chorus
Physical/Technical Aspects
Props
Conventions

Stage Directions
Other Terms
In medias res
A term for Horace, literally meaning “in the midst of things.” It is applied to the literary technique of opening a story in the middle of the action and then supplying information about the beginning of the action through flashbacks and other devices for exposition. The term in medias res is usually applied to the EPIC, where such an opening is one of the conventions.
Comic relief
A humorous SCENCE, incident, or speech in the course of a serious fiction or drama, introduced, it is sometimes thought, to provide relief from emotional intensity and, by contrast, to heighten the seriousness of the story. The original sense, related to “elevate,” implies any sort of contrast, as that between high and low or raised and flat in a so-called relief map. The later sense of “easing” may not always apply to comic relief, because it can have the nearly immediate effect of deepening tragic pain with scarcely a moment’s relaxation. Notable examples are the drunken porter scene in Macbeth, the gravedigger scene in Hamlet, and Mercutio’s personality in Romeo and Juliet. Although not a portion of Aristotle’s formula for a TRAGEDY, comic relief has been almost universally employed by English playwrights.
Dramatis personae
The characters in a drama, a novel, or a poem. The term is also applied to a listing of the characters in the program of a play, at the beginning of the printed version of a play, or sometimes at the beginning of a novel. Such a list often contains brief characterizations of the persons of the work and notations about their relationships.
Act
A major division of a DRAMA. The major parts of ancient Greek plays, distinguished by the appearance of the CHORUS, generally fell, as Aristotle implies, into five parts. The Latin tragedies of Seneca were divided into five acts; and, when English dramatists in the ELIXABETHAN AGE began using act divisions, they followed their Roman models, as did other modern European dramatists. In vary degrees the five-act structure corresponded to the five main divisions of dramatic action: EXPOSITION, COMPLICATION, CLIMAX, FALLING ACTION, and CATASTROPHE. The five-act structure was followed until the late nineteenth century when, under the influence of Ibsen, the fourth and fifth acts were combined. Since the end of the nineteenth century, the standard form for serious drama has been three acts, for musical comedy and comic opera usually two; but great variation is used, with serious plays frequently divided into EPISODES or SCENES, without act-division. Late in the nineteenth century a shorter form, the ONE-ACT PLAY, developed.
Scene
The division of an ACT into scenes is somewhat less systematic than the division of the play itself into acts, for there is incomplete agreement about what constitutes a scene. Sometimes the entrances and exits of important personages determine the beginning and ending of scenes, as in French drama. In some plays a scene is a logical unit. Many English dramatists regard the clearing of the stage as the sign of a change of scene. Some authorities, however, think that not all stage- clearings or entrances and exits really indicate a new scene. Theoretically, a well- managed scene should have a structure comparable to that of a play itself, with the five logical parts. The plays of Shakespeare seldom conform to this requirement, though some of the scenes can be analyzed successfully on this basis, and we out to remember that our divisions into scenes of these plays were not made by Shakespeare himself. The most important principle in scene-construction, perhaps, is that of climactic arrangement. There may be long scenes and short scenes, transitional scenes, expository scenes, development scenes, climactic scenes, relief scenes, messenger scenes, MONOLOGUE scenes, DIALOGUE scenes, ensemble scenes, forest scenes, battle scenes, balcony scenes, street scenes, garden scenes. In some plays not nominally divide into acts, the main parts or sections may be called scenes, a practice that suggests, perhaps, that the dramatic action or activity implicit in “act” is subordinate to the static or symbolic display suggested by the neutral scene.