1. Qualities of Shakespeare’s Plays

2. Dramatic Structure The structure of the plot of Shakespeare’s plays is usually as follows: Exposition and exciting force (characters and problems): Act 1 Rising Action (leads to climax): Acts 1-2 Climax (turning point): Act 3 Falling Action: Acts 4-5 Resolution: Act 5

3. Dramatic Irony Results when the audience knows more than one or more of the characters Helps build suspense

4. Monologue A long speech given onstage in the presence of others.

5. Soliloquy A speech given by a character alone on stage, used to reveal his or her private thoughts and feelings

6. Apostrophe This is a speech given by an actor onstage in which he or she addresses a personification or abstract concept that is not physically present onstage.

7. Aside A character’s remark, either to the audience or to another character, that no one else on stage is supposed to hear

8. Pun A play on the double meaning of a word. Ex: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.” (from Romeo & Juliet). The above exemplifies a pun because, since Mercutio is dying, he will be in his grave tomorrow, but he will also be grave (as in serious) because he will be dead. Ha!

9. Malapropism The mistaken substitution of one word for another word that sounds similar. Ex: The weather in Charlotte is cold one day and hot the next; it really flatulates (should be fluctuates).

10. Blank Verse & Iambic Pentameter Blank verse is unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Shakespeare’s plays are primarily written in blank verse Iambic pentameter is a pattern of rhythm that has five unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable in one line of poetry

11. Rhetorical Devices A rhetorical device is a use of language for a particular effect. Shakespeare uses many rhetorical devices, such as repetition (the use of words and phrases more than once in a short space to emphasize ideas), parallelism (the repetition of grammatical structures to express ideas that are related or of equal importance, and rhetorical questions (a question that expects no answer; used to make the speaker’s rightness seem self-evident).

12. Stage Directions Stage directions are written in brackets. Be sure to read them!

13. Words to know… An: ifMarry: mild oath or exclamation Aught: anythingPrithee: please Beseech: betSave: except But: onlySoft: wait a minute Durst: daredThither: there Ere: beforeWherefore: why Hie: hurryWhither: when Hither: hereWithal: also Mark: notice