GRECO-ROMAN

ACT

• The major division of a play.
• To perform by representing a character in a play.

ANTAGONIST

• The character of force opposing the main character in a play.

ANAGNORISIS

• The point in the plot especially of a tragedy at which the protagonist recognizes his or her or some other character's true identity or discovers the true nature of his or her own situation

ANTISTROPHE

• A returning movement in Greek choral dance exactly answering to a previous strophe.

ARISTOTLE

• Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and scientist born in Greece.
• He enrolled in Plato’s academy when he was 17.
• He wrote over 200 works and has influenced modern thoughts in science.

CATHARSIS

• The act or process of releasing a strong emotion, specifically in an art form.

CHARACTERIZATION

• Representation of a character’s qualities or peculiarities through dialogue, gesture, movement, costume and makeup.

CHORUS

• A group of singers and/or dancers in a show

COMEDY

• A play with a mixture of humor and pathos, that celebrates the eternal ironies and struggles of human existence, and ends happily.

COSTUME

• clothes worn by a person (particularly an actor) who is trying to look like a different person or thing.

DEUS EX MACHINA

• a character or thing that suddenly enters the story in a novel, play, movie, etc., and solves a problem that had previously seemed impossible to solve

DIALOGUE

• The things that are said by the characters in a story, movie, play, etc.

ECCYLEMA

• Classical Greek theatre, stage mechanism consisting of a low platform that rolled on wheels or revolved on an axis and could be pushed onstage to reveal an interior or some offstage scene

EPILOGUE

• A section or speech at the end of a book or play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion to what has happened

ETHOS

• The characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations

EXODUS

• A mass departure of people, especially emigrants

FATAL FLAW

• A literary device that can be defined as a trait in a character leading to his downfall and the character is often the hero of the literary piece.

HUBRIS

• Excessive pride or self-confidence.

LOGOS

• the Word of God, or principle of divine reason and creative order, identified in the Gospel of John with the second person of the Trinity incarnate in Jesus Christ.

MASK

• A covering for all or part of the face, worn as a disguise, or to amuse or terrify other people

MEDIA RES

• Latin for "into the middle of things."
• It usually describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle, usually at some crucial point in the action.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

• A situation in which a person thinks they are another person.

MYTHOLOGY

• A collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.

ODE

• A lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.

ORCHESTRA

• A group of instrumentalists, especially those playing classical music

PAEN

• A thing that expresses enthusiastic praise.

PAGEANT

• A public entertainment consisting of possession of people in elaborate colorful costumes, or an outdoor performance of a historical scene.

PATHOS

• The quality or power in actual life experience or in literature, music, speech, or other forms of expression.

PARADOS

• An elevation of earth behind a fortified place as a protection against attack from the rear.

POETICS

• Literary Cristian treating of the nature and laws of poetry.

PROLOUGE

• A preface or introduction.

PROSCENIUM

• The arch that separates a stage from the auditorium

PROTAGONIST

• The leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work.

PURIFICATION (CATHARSIS)

• To make pure; free from anything that debases, pollutes, adulterated, or contaminants

RECOGNITION

• The identification of something as having been previously seen, heard, known, etc.

REVERSAL (PERPETIA)

• A sudden reversal or fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative.

RITUAL

• An established or prescribed procedure for religious or other rite.

SCENE

• The place where some action or event occurs.

SETTING

• The surrounding or environment of anything.

SKENE

• A structure facing the audience and forming the background before which performances were given.

STAGE DIRECTION

• Am instruction written into the script of play, indicating stage actions, movement of performers, or production requirements.

STAGING

• The spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors in stage, the background, props, costumes, lighting, and sound effects.

STROPHE

• The part of an Ancient Greek choral ode sung by the chorus when moving from right to left.

THEME

• A unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., in a work of art.

THESPIS

• Flourished 6th century b.c., Greek poet.
• First person in the chorus to lead the characters

TRAGEDY

• A dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with serious or somber theme.
• Typically involving a great person destined to experience downfall or utter destruction, as through a character flaw of conflict with some overpowering force, such as fate or an unyielding society.

TRAGIC HERO

• A great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, of defeat.

TRILOGY

• A series of three plays, novels, operas, etc., that, although individually complete, are closely related in theme, sequence, or the like.

UNITIES

• The state of fact of being united or combined into one, as of the parts of a whole; unification.

FROM WHERE DID DRAMATIC LITERATIRE EVOLVE?

WHAT ARE THE CONVENTIONS AND STYLES OF CLASSICAL THEATER?

HOW IS CLASSICAL DRAMA SIMILAR TO OR DIFFERENT FROM OTHER DRAMA?

HOW IS DRAMA DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GENRES?