Lesson 1

I have rewritten William Wordsworth's I wandered lonely as a cloud nine times now in an effort to learn it by heart, punctuation and spelling memorised as well. Also I enclose my glossary for all the idiots that actually care what I am up to bellow. This is part of my effort to prepare a very small booklet for myself for the last of the days prior to exams where all the crucial stuff shall be. I will add the glossary of poetic terms tomorrow and the prose terms day after that.

I am also reading Balzac and the Little Seamstress by Dai Sijie as I have finnished reading Call me Elizabeth by Dawn Annandale last night. I am reading something for pleasure purely to take my mind of the exams looming above my head. I am honestly surprised I haven't got a rainy cloud following me day and night.

I have all the good intentions of reviewing the book as soon as possible but I have a feeling it is going to be a while as I have to dedicate my mind entirely to my preparation for the exams. So far I have learned one poem out of seven. Not a bad start. Still the linguistic and literary terms are a large bite to swallow but as long as I understand them myself I shall be fine.

It is the bloody quotes that are killing me. I have to prepare a quality bagage of quotes for both English and Literature exams which are only one day apart! Whoever put that schedule together wants shooting.

I am off to have a cigarette. Enjoy the glossary...

Glossary (drama)

Amphitheatre: A circular structure with seats rising behind and above each other around a central open space or arena; originating in classical Greece, they are the first known specifically designated theatre spaces.

Apostrophe: a rhethorical convention in which the speaker either addresses a dead or absent person, or an inanimate object or abstraction. An apostrophe can also refer to a speaker's address to a particular member or section of the audience.

Anagnorisis: a scene of recognition or discovery.

Aside: a short speech spoken sotto voce to the audience or another character on stage, with the presumption that other characters cannot hear what is being said.

Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameters.

Chorus: group of male singers and dancers who took part in and commented on the action of the play, providing summary and narrative link. The name Chorus is also given to lyric or poetic sections of the play performed by the Chorus. In Elizabethan and modern drama the Chorus is usually a single actor.

Climax: the moment of crisis leading to denouement or resolution.

Denouement: the unravelling of the complications of the plot at the end of the play.

Dialogue: speech between characters in a play.

Enjamb(e)ment: where the sense of the poetry runs on from one line to the next. The ends of the run-on lines are not marked by any punctuation.

Exposition: information given at the beginning of a play that is needed in order to understand the action of the play.

Iambic pentameters: the basic metre of verse written in English, in which each line has five unstressed syllables and five stressed syllables arranged in pairs, as in: 'Put out the light, and then out out the light'.

Monologue: varieties include the Dramatic Monologue, which is a kind of poem in which the speaker addresses a silent audience, and the Soliloquy. Samuel Beckett's Not I, in which there is only one character, is also an example of monologue - an extended speech by a lone character.

Naturalism: naturalist drama of the late nineteenth-century emphasizes the roles of society, history and personality in determining the activities of its characters. It is often expressed as a conflict between the character and their environment; a style associated with the work of August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen in dramatic art, and rooted in the naturalistic novels of Emile Zola.

Oratory: the art of public speaking.

Performance: the interpretation and presentation of a dramatic text on stage by actors. Like many of the terms associated with drama, this is a term with a range of meanings.

Peripeteia: a reversal of fortune, a change in the state of affairs.

Proscenium arch: the name derives from the Greek work, skene. Originally skene referred to a building for actors changing at the back of the acting area in a Greek amphitheatre; it therefore implied a version of permanent sc(k)enery. Thus, proscenium denoted a space in front of the back scenery. Proscenium is now taken to mean the front opening of the stage and its surround is called proscenium arch.

Realism: theory of the real or representation of what the artist or audience broadly agree is true to life. This is one of the trickiest concepts in the analysis of art, performance or otherwise. Always remember that a play offers the representation of reality, not 'reality' itself.

Rhetoric: the art of using language, spoken or written, for persuasion. Rhetorical rules and figures of speech were formulated by classical writers and are still used today.

Soliloquy: a speech, usually quite lengthy, delivered by a character alone on stage.

Stage directions: notes incorporated in a script to indicate entrances and exits, movement, style of delivery, details or location, scenery and effects.

Stichomythia: dialogue of alternate single lines.

Wings: both the side areas of the stage and the painted, canvas covered flats masking that area and forming part of the set.