Melodrama vs Histrionic - What's the difference?
melodrama | histrionic |
(archaic, uncountable) A kind of drama having a musical accompaniment to intensify the effect of certain scenes.
(countable) A drama abounding in romantic sentiment and agonizing situations, with a musical accompaniment only in parts which are especially thrilling or pathetic. In opera, a passage in which the orchestra plays a somewhat descriptive accompaniment, while the actor speaks; as, the melodrama in the grave digging scene of Beethoven's "Fidelio".
* '>citation
(uncountable, figuratively, colloquial) Any situation or action which is blown out of proportion.
Of, or relating to actors or acting.
* {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
, title=
, chapter=2 Excessively dramatic or emotional, especially with the intention to draw attention.
* 1848 , , Oliver Goldsmith'' (review of John Forster, ''Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith''), ''The North British Review , Volume 9: May—August,
* 1990 , , The Great Terror: A Reassessment , 2008,
* 2009 , Peter Bondanella, A History of Italian Cinema ,
* 2010 , Joan Lachkar, How to Talk to a Borderline ,
* 2011 , Neel Burton, Psychiatry ,
As a noun melodrama
is a kind of drama having a musical accompaniment to intensify the effect of certain scenes.As an adjective histrionic is
of, or relating to actors or acting.melodrama
English
(wikipedia melodrama)Noun
Derived terms
* melodramatic * melodramatics * melodramatist * melodramatize ----histrionic
English
Alternative forms
* histrionick (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.}}
page 208,
- .
page 414,
- Trotsky's vanity, unlike Stalin's, was, practically speaking, frivolous. There was something more histrionic about it. He had shown himself no less ruthless than Stalin. Indeed, at the time of the Civil War, he had ordered executions on a greater scale than Stalin or anyone else.
page 220,
- This lens (known as a carello ottico'' in Italian and a ''travelling optique'' in French) is used sparingly but effectively in ''General Della Rovere during the important bombardment scene inside the prison, which introduces De Sica's most histrionic speech.
page 124,
- So, as he keeps her endlessly frustrated, she becomes more histrionic ; and as she projects her emotional, “dirty” parts onto him, he becomes more anal and compulsive.
page 138,
- A vicious circle may form in which the more rejected they feel the more histrionic' they become, and the more ' histrionic they become the more rejected they feel.