Download - Terms for “Julius Caesar”
TERMS FOR “JULIUS CAESAR”
EQ: How can I identify and analyze the characters, themes, and structures of a Shakespearean Tragedy?
TRAGEDY
A play, novel, or other narrative that depicts serious and important events in which the main character(s) come to an unhappy end.
ANACHRONISM
Event or detail that is inappropriate for the time period.
Example: see notes
APOSTROPHE
A technique by which a writer addresses an inanimate object, idea, or person who is either dead or absent
See example on notes
BLANK VERSE
Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=F221C0F4-C544-41F1-BB8D-C7FCB7FC6E2A&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
A line of poetry that contains 5 metric feet (iambs) consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable.
Metric foot= term for a unit of rhyme and length in a line of verse.
Meter= the basic rhythmic structure
Foot= basic metrical unit (iamb=short followed long, as in the word “delay”)
SO, an iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed. The “DA-DUM” sound, much like the human heart, replicates this sound.
EXAMPLE
da DUM da DU
M da DUM da DU
M da DUM
A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:
The tick-TOCK rhythm of iambic pentameter can be heard in the opening line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 12:
When I do count the clock that tells the time
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much, such men are dangerous.(I. ii. 192-
195)
DIALOGUE
Conversations between two or more characters
ASIDE
A quiet remark to the audience or another character that no one else on stage is supposed to hear.
See example on notes
SOLILOQUY
A long speech given by a character alone on stage to reveal his or her private thoughts.
See example on notes
MONOLOGUE
An extended speech presented by an actor in a drama or narrative.
See example on notes
SHAKESPEAREAN SPEECH
RHETORICAL DEVICES
Used to make speech appeal to a person’s emotions and to make speech more convincing and memorable. (Antony’s funeral speech is full of rhetorical devices and appeals.)
• Repetition: the repeated use of words and sounds “Honorable men”
• Parallelism: repeated grammatical structures (pharses, clauses, compound parts) (EX: “Veni, vidi, vici “(I came, I saw, I conquered)- a comment reportedly written by the real Julius Caesar.
• Rhetorical Questions: questions that need no answer. “Did this in Caesar seam ambitious?”
IRONY
Contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality• Verbal- Discrepancy between what is said and what is meant. (EX: “But Brutus is an honorable man/So are they all, all honorable men " (Said with verbal irony since the audience knows only what has been told them, but Antony knows of the conspiracy.) • Situational- Contrast between what would seem appropriate and
what really happens, or when there is a contradiction between what we expect to happen and what really takes place. (EX: Caesar is going to stay home on his assassination day but Decius changes Caesar’s mind.) • Dramatic- When the audience or reader knows something that a
character in a narrative does not know. ( EX: The audience, knowing that Caesar will be assassinated watches him set out on the Ides of March.)
EXTENDED METAPHOR
A comparison made over many lines.
See notes for example
FORESHADOWING
The use of clues to hint at events that will occur later in a plot.
See notes for examples
PUN
Play on the multiple meanings of a word.
See notes for example