Elements of Drama
Drama
Drama is a form of literature designed to
be performed in front of an audience.
 There are two main types of drama:
comedy and tragedy.
 Like fiction, dramatic works have a plot,
characters, setting, conflict, and one or
more themes.

Act- a division within a play, much like
chapters of a novel
 Aside- lines that are spoken by a character
directly to the audience
 Cast of characters- a list of characters
presented before the action begins
 Chorus- a person or group of people who
act as a narrator, commentator, or general
audience to the action of the play

Comedy- a humorous work of drama
 Dialogue- conversation between two or
more characters
 Foil- a character who is nearly opposite of
another character; the purpose of a foil is
to reveal a stark contrast between the two
characters, often the protagonist and
antagonist

Monologue- a long speech spoken by a
character to himself, another character, or
to the audience
 Scene- a division of an act into smaller
parts
 Soliloquy- thoughts spoken aloud by a
character when he/she is alone, or thinks
he/she is alone

Stage directions- italicized comments that
identify parts of the setting or the use of
props or costumes, give further
information about a character, or provide
background information
 Tragedy- a serious work of drama in which
the hero suffers catastrophe or serious
misfortune, usually because of his own
actions


Tragic hero- a protagonist with a fatal flaw
which eventually leads to his demise
William Shakespeare
William was born to a wealthy business
owner named John and his wife was
named Mary.
 William was born on April 23, 1564.
 They lived in Stratford-upon-Avon in
England.
 Shakespeare began his education at the
age of six or seven at the Stratford
grammar school.

Shakespeare was taken out of school at the age
of 13 due to his father’s financial problems.
 The events of his life between the ages of the
age of thirteen and when he emerged in London
as an actor, is generally unknown.
 At age 18 in 1596 he married Anne Hathaway,
who was eight years older than him and
pregnant at the time.

They had three children, Susanna and
twins Hamnet and Judith.
 In London, he acted and served as a
reviser and writer of plays.
 At 28, he began to impress his
contemporaries with the quality and
popularity of his work.

Shakespeare acted with several companies
including the Chamberlain’s Men who
provided entertainment for the Royal
Court.
 Shakespeare lived a comfortable life,
buying one of the largest homes in
Stratford.
 He was a well-known landowner whose
estate included farmland, pasture, and
gardens.

He also became part-owner of the most
popular theatre in London, the Globe
Theatre.
 Shakespeare died at home on April 23 in
1616.
 Within a few years of Shakespeare’s
death, a monument to him was erected
and placed on the north wall of
Westminster Abbey in London.

Literary Techniques
Allusion- a literary reference to a well-known
work of art, music, history or literature
 Blank-verse- non-rhyming poetry, usually written
in iambic pentameter, most of Shakespeare’s
plays are written in this form
 Comic relief- in a tragedy, a break in the
seriousness for a moment of comedy or silliness

Double entendre- a word or phrase with more
than one meaning, usually when the second
meaning is risqué
 Dramatic irony- when the audience or reader
knows something that the characters in the
story do not know
 Euphemism- a substitution of a more pleasant
expression for one whose meaning may come
across as rude or offensive

Iambic pentameter- a 10-syllable line
divided into 5 iambic feet (one unstressed
syllable followed by one stressed syllable)
 Prose- normal speech rhythm

Appreciating Shakespeare’s Language
Shakespeare used an extensive array of
vocabulary, including archaic language, an
unfamiliar grammatical structure, and a
“backward” arrangement of words in his
sonnets and plays.
 The trick to reading Shakespeare’s works is to
try to get the idea or “gist” of what the
characters are saying, rather than trying to
figure out what every single word means.

Vocabulary
Remember that Shakespeare was an artist
and his words were his tools.
 Shakespeare had a vocabulary of about
29,000 words: almost twice that of an
American college student today.
 Words such as dwindle and assassination
are actually Shakespeare’s invention and
had never been used before him.

Words, Words, Words
Shakespeare liked to use words in clever ways
and often in strange order.
 Translate the following lines into Modern
English. Remember Shakespeare often
rearranged wording or left out words in a
sentence to make the rhythm fit iambic
pentameter.




“Why call you for a sword?”
“Come you this afternoon.”
“Fear me not.”
“Saw you him today?”
 “Right glad I am he was not at this fray.”
 “Dost thou not laugh?”
