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