GLOSSARY OF DRAMATIC TERMS

Act: traditional segmentation of a play that indicates a change in time, action, or location, and helps to organize a play’s dramatic structure. Plays may be composed of acts that, in turn, are composed of scenes. Action: the physical activity or accomplishment of a character’s intentions. Aristotle describes tragedy as “an imitation of an action,” meaning that a character’s choices are not simply narrated but acted out onstage. Moreover, a play as an “imitation of an action” means that the several events of the play together constitute one large human action; in this sense, action refers to the entire core of meaning of the events depicted onstage. Agon: literally, a contest; an ancient Greek term used to denote the fundamental conflict in any drama. Allegory: an extended metaphor in which characters, objects, and actions represent abstract concepts or principles in a drama that conveys a moral lesson. Allegorical plays were especially popular in medieval England. Anagnorisis: the moment of recognition—of understanding, awareness, comprehension, or enlightenment—that is achieved when the main character discovers his true relationship to the incidents in the plot and to the other characters within it, that is, to what has occurred and why. This term was first described by Aristotle in his Poetics (330 B.C.) Antagonist: the person or force that opposes the protagonist or main character in a play. The term derives from the Greek word meaning “opponent” or “rival.” Antihero: a protagonist or central character who lacks the qualities typically associated with heroism—for example, bravery, morality, or good looks—but still manages to earn sympathy from the spectator. Aside: a theatrical convention (commonly used in drama prior to the nineteenth century but less often afterwards) in which a character, unnoticed and unheard by the other characters onstage, speaks frankly to the audience. Blank verse: the verse form most like everyday speech; in English, unrhymed iambic pentameter. This is the form in which the great majority of English verse plays, including Shakespeare’s, are written. Burlesque: a satirical play with a strong element of parody (especially of a work by the author’s rival). Sheridan’s The Critic (1779) and Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) are examples of this type. In late-nineteenth-century America, burlesques incorporating music and elements of fantasy became a popular medium for vaudeville or variety shows featuring bawdy sexual humor.

175 GLOSSARY OF DRAMATIC TERMS

Catalyst: a character whose function in a play is to introduce a change or disruption into a stable situation and, thus, to initiate the action of the play; the catalyst is often involved in the drama’s inciting incident. Catastasis: Greek word for the crisis or turning point—the height of the action—in a play. Catharsis: the emotional release or sense of relief a spectator may feel at the end of a tragedy. In the Poetics (330 B.C.), Aristotle posits that the proper aim of tragedy is to arouse pity and fear and effectively rid the body of these feelings, and catharsis is the term he uses to describe this purging of emotions. Character: the word for a person in a play and the word for the qualities of mind and spirit which constitute that person. In drama, actors must demonstrate character through mimesis or imitation rather than narration. Climactic plot: a plot that has one or more of the following characteristics: begins late in the story, toward the very end of climax; covers a short space of time, perhaps a few hours, or at most a few days; contains a few solid, extended scenes, such as three acts with each act comprising one long scene; occurs in a restricted locale, one room or one house; contains a limited number of characters, usually no more than six to eight; is linear and moves in a single line with few, if any, subplots or counterplots; proceeds in a cause-and-effect chain, with its characters linked in a sequence of logical, almost inevitable development. Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881) and Hedda Gabler (1890) both incorporate climactic plots. Climax: The moment when the root conflict of the play is resolved. At this moment the root action ceases. The climax is the final, culminating event in the dramatic action, the moment toward which the action of the play has been pointing or moving. The statement of the climax must be narrowed to a single incident, usually the high dramatic moment of the script. After this moment there may be clarification, but there is no more conflict. Comedy: from the Greek word komos, meaning “band of revelers,” comedy is a form of drama that is distinguished by humorous content and endings that are, on balance, “happy” ones. Most comedies attempt to highlight or satirize absurdities of their society’s norms and values. Comedy is concerned with human beings in their social capacity and is therefore heavily dependent on codes of conduct, manners, and morality, which it uses to express or imply a standard against which deviations are measured. Comedy of manners: a form of comedy that satirizes the foibles of the upper class and the aristocracy by means of witty dialogue and the ridicule of artificial social decorum. The form originated in the late seventeenth century in England, during the Restoration, in the works of William Wycherley, William Congreve, and others.

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