Dramatic Terms & Irony Review

Stage Directions

A playwright's descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers (and actors) with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of a play. 

Setting

The time and place of a literary work that establish its context. The prologue of Romeo and Juliet establishes the narrative is set in Verona, Italy.

Props

Items or objects that appear on stage during a play.

Dialogue

The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names.

​Soliloquy

A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the character thinking aloud.  

Monologue

A lengthy single speech by a single character without another character's interruption or frequent response.

​Aside

Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience (breaking the "fourth wall", which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.

​Irony

A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature.

- In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean

-In situational irony, the opposite of what is expected occurs.

-In dramatic irony, a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters.