Dictionary:
a·side (ə-sīd')  |
| Thesaurus: aside |
noun
| Literary Dictionary: aside |
aside, a short speech or remark spoken by a character in a drama, directed either to the audience or to another character, which by convention is supposed to be inaudible to the other characters on stage. See also soliloquy.
| Word Tutor: aside |
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
— Alexander Pope, Source: An Essay on Criticism, 1711, 1. 135
| Wikipedia: Aside |
An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience. By convention the audience understands that the character's speech is not heard by the other characters in the drama. An aside is usually a brief comment, rather than a long speech such as a monologue or soliloquy.
The aside has a long tradition that stretches back to the origins of drama; it is used in classical Athenian comedy. In these asides were part of a broader dimension of metatheatre in the Old comedy. The most important example of this is the parabasis; asides, however, punctuate many plays, often deflating and ironizing moments of tension. The device draws on the festive and communal occasion of the theatre.
Roman New Comedy continues the technique without, however, going so far in the direction of breaking the dramatic illusion. In the work of Plautus and Terence, the aside above all bears the burden of explaining motives that, in plays dominated by quick action and complicated, often hidden machinations, are often far from obvious. As important to note, the Roman model uses asides to develop character rather than break it. Although the device depends on the unrealistic convention that such asides, though vocalized, cannot be heard by other characters, they present some space for the representation of "interior" psychology. In addition, the device was a serviceable vehicle for dramatic irony; many of these asides still draw laughter in modern productions for that reason.
The rebirth of drama in Europe at the end of the medieval period saw a natural revival of the aside, derived not from emulation of classical models but rather from a recrudescence of similar theatrical conditions. The open staging of, for instance, the early Tudor interludes, and their festive occasions, were conducive to the same kind of metadramatic joking so common in Aristophanes. Early on, certain figures such as the Vice became strongly associated with the device; thus, already by the mid-1500s, the Vice as a character type appears to have been a crowd favorite, a protean and anarchic figure not bound by the rules that governed most of the other characters, and seemingly possessed of a special relationship with the audience.
As the Elizabethan drama developed, the aside changed in a manner similar to that it had undergone in the development of New Comedy; in this case, of course, the similarity is more clearly an instance of emulation, as is most clear in plays such as The Comedy of Errors that are revamped Roman stories. Strikingly, however, the syncretic Elizabethans did not confine the device to comedy. Indeed, some of the best-remembered instances of the device are from tragedies such as Hamlet and The Duchess of Malfi. In its tragic uses, the aside tends to highlight a mood of suspense or paranoia. One late play, James Shirley's The Cardinal, is conducted in asides for large stretches of the action.
Jacobean dramatists continued to employ the device, at times ironically: in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, a hapless judge is overheard making an aside, highlighting both the crowdedness of the stage at that point and the absurdity of a dramatic convention when viewed realistically.
The slow growth of a naturalistic impulse in European drama signalled an equally slow decline in the role available to the aside. While a similar device is still on occasion found in modern plays, it has not, and seems unlikely ever to, regain the ubiquity it had in Renaissance drama.
This technique is used by many playwrights, including Shakespeare. For instance, in the play Macbeth, Macbeth has the following aside:
| “ | Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits.
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook Unless the deed go with it. From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I'll do before this purpose cool. But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen? Come, bring me where they are. |
” |
This technique was also utilized judiciously in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
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Look up aside in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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| Translations: Aside |
Dansk (Danish)
adv. - til side, afsides, til siden
n. - sidespring, digression
idioms:
Nederlands (Dutch)
terzijde, opzij, terloopse opmerking, voor publiek bestemde opmerking van acteur
Français (French)
adv. - de côté, à l'écart, à part
n. - (Théât) aparté
idioms:
Deutsch (German)
adv. - beiseite, zur Seite
n. - (Theat.) Aparte, Nebeneffekt
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
adv. - πλάι, κατά μέρος, στη μπάντα, από τη μια πλευρά, (ουσ.) σκηνική αποστροφή, υπαινιγμός
idioms:
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
adv. - de lado, à parte, fora
idioms:
Русский (Russian)
около, рядом
idioms:
Español (Spanish)
adv. - aparte, al lado
n. - aparte
idioms:
Svenska (Swedish)
adv. - avsides, åt sidan
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
在旁边, 离开, 到旁边, 撇开, 旁白, 离题的话, 私语, 悄悄话
idioms:
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adv. - 在旁邊, 離開, 到旁邊, 撇開
n. - 旁白, 離題的話, 私語, 悄悄話
idioms:
한국어 (Korean)
adv. - 곁에, 벗어나, 간직해 두어
n. - 방백
idioms:
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 傍白, 脇台詞, 私語, 余談
adv. - わきへ, 脇に, 少し離れて
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(ظرف) جانبا, على انفراد
עברית (Hebrew)
adv. - הצידה, לצד, בצד, חוץ מ-
n. - הערה מקרית, דברים שאומר שחקן לקהל, לא לשחקנים אחרים על הבמה
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| Best of the Web: aside |
Some good "aside" pages on the web:
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Antonyms. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Aside". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
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