Bradley Greek Drama Terminology
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Created by:
equinelike94 on November 4, 2010
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26 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Agon | the debate in a drama; 'contest'; a formal debate, highly rhetorical in nature and often somewhat artificial |
| Antagonist | the hero's opposite and foil |
| Antistrophe | see Strophe |
| Blank Verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter verse |
| Catharsis | quality in a tragedy that provides emotional release; helps the audience to lose themselves in the play |
| Chorus | singing and dancing groups in Greek tragedy - derives from Dionysiac rituals |
| Classical | characterized by consciousness of perfection of form; opposed to "formlessness" of the romantic |
| Deus ex machina | "The god from the machine," an unconvincing method of supernaturally or easily solving a problem in a play or literature |
| Dithyramb | hymn of praise (paean) to the god Dionysus; originally the songs of the chorus |
| Epiphany | a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something |
| Episode | any unit of action in a play; comparable to a scene |
| Epode | point at which the choric ode stops between the strophe and antistrophe |
| Exodos | conclusion of the play (similar to epilogue) |
| Golden Mean | Doctrine of moderation in all things; taking nothing to excess |
| Hamartia | tragic, fatal flaw |
| Hubris | excessive pride |
| Iambic | an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one |
| Ode | any strain of exalted verse |
| Parados | the processional of the chorus at the play's beginning |
| Pathos | literally, "suffering," quality that evokes compassion |
| Prologue | opening of a tragedy: sets the scene and tempo |
| Satyr-play | a farce or comic-relief play appended to the tragic trilogy in honor of Dionysus |
| Sophoclean Irony | dramatic irony: a situation in which the audience knows something that a character in the play does not; used to convey the contradictory nature of human existence |
| Stasimon | choral odes following each scene or episode in a Greek tragedy |
| Strophe | part of a stasimon; the singers move up one side in the orchestra in the strophe, and reversed their movements in the antistrophe; the lines in the strophe and antistrophe are equivalent |
| Tragedy | form of drama in which the protagonist undergoes a morally significant struggle |
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