Drama

Elements of Drama

Act is a part of a play considered a major division

Scene is a subdivision of an act.

Exposition is the part of a book that sets the stage for the drama to follow: it introduces the theme, setting, characters, and circumstances at the story’s beginnings.

Conflict is the struggle within the plot between opposing forces.

Complication is the series of difficulties forming the central action in a narrative.

Climax is the highest point of the narrative. All actions build towards the climax.

Denouement is the unravelling of the plot in a play or story.

Peripeteia is the sudden reversal of fortune in a story, play or any narrative in which there is an observable change in direction. 

Characterization is the process of depicting characters and personality in a narrative so that the characters seem real.

Protagonist is the main character (the central or primary personal figure) of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify.

Antagonist is a character, group of characters, or an institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend.

Main Plot is the underlined or most prevalent idea of the story line.

Sub Plot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for the main plot.

Forms of Drama

Comedy in a literary form presents the misadventures of the characters as amusing rather than disastrous and provides a happy ending.

History in a novel has as its setting a period of history and that attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity (which is in some cases only apparent fidelity) to historical fact. The work may deal with actual historical personages...or it may contain a mixture of fictional and historical characters.

Tragedy is a form of art dealing with a serious or sombre theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, a fate of society, to downfall or destruction.

Romance or Chivalric Romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative depicting heroic or marvellous deeds, pageantry, romantic exploits, etc. in a historical or romantic setting. 

Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood. 

Theatre of the Absurd is a theatrical style originating in France in the late 1940's. It relies heavily on existential philosophy, and is a category for plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of playwrights from the late 1940s to the 1960s, as well as the theatre which has evolved from their work. It expresses the belief that, in a godless universe, human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and as its ultimate conclusion, silence.

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement.

Modern Drama speaks loudly and lucidly to multiple parties and can articulate struggle and redemption in a matter that makes it understandable to all in the modern society. Its revelancy is effective in real time.

Melodrama refers to a dramatic work which exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them. It is also used in scholarly and historical musical contexts to refer to dramas of the 18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action.

Features of Drama

Monologue is when the character may be speaking his or her thoughts aloud, directly addressing another character, or speaking to the audience, especially the former.

Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people.

Soliloquy is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters, and is delivered often when they are alone or think they are alone. 

Aside is a line spoken by an actor that the other characters on stage supposedly cannot hear. An aside usually shares the character's inner-thoughts with the audience.

Set is the setting in which the filming or acting of the story, play or literary work takes place.

Stage Directions are the directions given to the actors by the director. They involve physical movement by the actors on stage.

Stage Conventions deal with the engineering products tied to the story and how those ties affect the audience's response eg. costume, lighting, sound effects, stage position, backdrops and props.

Chorus is a homogenous, non-individualized group of performers, often in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action of the play or narrative.

Dramatic Unities are the three dramatic principles requiring limitation of the supposed times of a drama to that occupied in acting it or to a single day (unity of time), use of one scene throughout (unity of place), and concentration of the development of a single plot (unity of action). The principles are derived from a Renaissance interpretation of Aristotle's poetics. 

Disguise is to change the appearance or guise of so as to conceal identity or to mislead, as by means of deceptive garb. In a play, this would be able to assist in convincing the actor's role to the audience.

Literary Devices

Imagery  is used in literature to refer to descriptive language that evokes emotional responses.

Motif is any reoccuring element that has symbolic significance in a story. 

Symbolism is the art of using an object to represent something else. Symbolism is often times used in literature to provide meaning to the writing beyond what is actually being described.

Dramatic Irony is the device of giving the spectator an item of information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of (at least consciously), thus placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters.

Tragic Irony is a special category of dramatic irony. In tragic irony, the words and actions of the characters contradict the real situation, which the spectators fully realize. In other words, the incongruity created when the (tragic) significance of a character's speech or actions is revealed to the audience but unknown to the character concerned.

Juxtaposition is the placement of two things (usually abstract concepts, though it can refer to physical objects) near each other.

Literary Contexts

Social Context is the culture that s/he was educated and/or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom the person interacts.

Historical Context reflects the time in which something takes place or was created and how that influences how you interpret it. In other words, it is the events that took place around something through which you understand that thing.

Political Context reflects the environment in which something is produced indicating it's purpose or agenda

Religious Context is the setting of a spiritual nature which sets the tone or background of a particular scene/ event in a story, novel or novelette

Ethnic Context is the ethnicity/ethnic background of the main characters in a story.

Moral Context sets the tone of the ethical or philosophical tone of the story.

Intellectual Context gives the academic or educational background of the protagonist.

Cultural Context is the overriding values and mores of the main characters in the book/story.