dramatis personae
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Latin dramatis personae (literally “characters of the play”).
Noun
[edit]dramatis personae pl (normally plural, singular dramatis persona)
- The characters in a play or story; a list of them, usually arranged in order of first appearance, as protatic matter.
- 1945, Robert Frost, A Masque of Reason:
- (The Devil enters like a sapphire wasp
That flickers mica wings. He lifts a hand
To brush away a disrespectful smile.
Job’s wife sits up.)
Job’s Wife ➢ Well, if we aren’t all here.
Including me, the only Dramatis
Personae needed to enact the problem.
- 1981 December 15, Don Lessem, “Paperbacks ’81: Novelty items with soft covers”, in Richard M. Gaines, editor, The Boston Phoenix, volume X, number 50, Boston, Mass.: Boston Phoenix Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, section 7 (The Season: Part III), review of “THE DINOSAURS. By William Stout. […]”, page 16, column 5:
- Instead of a dramatis personae of species, The Dinosaurs uses its beasts to illustrate climate, daily life, movement, danger, even extinction. So we meet nesting hydrosaurs, a singing pair of parasaurolophi, a herd of treetop-browsing brontosaurs.
- 2015 February 18, Yanis Varoufakis, “Yanis Varoufakis: How I became an erratic Marxist”, in The Guardian[1], →ISSN:
- Marx created a narrative populated by workers, capitalists, officials and scientists who were history’s dramatis personae.
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]list of characters
|