LITERARY ANALYSIS

Transmission of Information
Epic theatre
Alienation effect
Chorus
Narrator / Perspective
Soliloquy
Aside
Focalization /
  • Dramatic Irony
between audience’s and characters’ knowledge (dramatic irony)
Dramatic Structure
Story
Plot
Plot-line
Linear/non-linear plots
Analytic drama / Three unities:
Unity of plot
Unity of place
Unity of time
Mimesis
Subplot / Freytag’s Pyramid
  • Exposition
  • Complication action
  • peripetia
  • Falling action
  • Catastrophe
  • Denouement

Set-up – title, naming of characters, place names, establishing image
  • Equilibrium – balance
  • All major threads established
  • Maximize dramatic potential, setting, character traits, heighten anticipation
  • Foreshadow the launch
  • Maintain attention
Launch – balance is upset; inciting moment
Story -
Climax
Denouement (catastrophe or resolution)
Open and closed endings / Poetic justice
Dramatic conventions / SETTING
Space
Realism, naturalism, stage props, word scenery, symbolic space – interrelatedness of setting and plot
TIME
Succession
Simultaneity
Plot lines
Temporal frame
Word painting / ORDER
flashback
Flashforward
Ab ovo beginning
In medias res
Inultimas res / DURATION
Real playing time
Played time
Ellipsis
Speed-up / summary
Slow-down/stretch
Pause / FREQUENCY
Singulative – event takes place once and referred to once
Repetitive – takes place once but referred to or presented repeatedly
Iterative-takes place several times but referred to only once
CHARACTER
Multi-dimensional
Dynamic
Round
Mono-dimensional
Static
Flat
Stereotype, stock
foil / Character and Genre Conventions
Dramatis personae
Hamartia
catharsis / Character constellations (cluster – who belongs to who)
Character configurations – sequential (RIII)
Techniques of Characterization
Authorial, figural
Explicit, implicit
Self-characterization
Dialect
Sociolect
Colloquialisms / Authorial
Explicit – descriptions of characters in author commentary or stage directions, telling names
Implicit – correspondences and contrasts; indirectly characterizing names / Figural
Explicit – characters’ descriptions of and comments on other characters; also self-characterization
Implicit – physical appearance, gesture and facil expressions (body language), masks and costumes, stage props, setting, behavior, voice, language (style, register, dialect, etc), topics he/she discusses
Characters represent one of the most important analytical categories in drama since they carry the plot.
Characters’ interactions trigger and move the plot, and their various relationships to one another form the basis for conflicts and dynamic processes
TYPES OF UTTERANCES
Pragmatic function of language
Poetic / rhetorical function of language
Monologue
Dialogue
Soliloquy
Aside / Dialogue
Turn-taking
Allocation of turns
Stichomythia (one line alternating - RIII)
Repartee (quick responses to top remarks of other speaker) / Word play and rhetorical techniques
Figura
Etymologica (puns, varying meanings – “vain”)
Parallelism
Assonance
chiasmus
So what? The distribution and number of turns speakers are allocated in plays is an important feature to investigate. Also, a discrepancy between talk and actions are important to note.
WORDPLAY – entertains audience and attacts and sustains attention
Pun
Comedy of manners
GENRES
Comedy
Tragedy / Comedy
High comedy
Low comedy
Farce - Commedia dell’arte
Romantic comedy
Satiric comedy
Comedy of manners
melodrama / Tragedy
Revenge
(convention – dumb shows)
domestic – bourgeois (common conflict, common characters, prose)
tragicomedy

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