The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare

DIALOGUE

• The conversation between characters – Provides the substance of a play

• Can further the plot

• Provide clues about character or theme (indirect characterization)

• Heighten the overall dramatic effect

STAGE DIRECTIONS

• The written instructions that explain how to perform a play

• Stage directions contain crucial information that will help you visualize the action– Includes how the characters should look, speak,

move, and behave– Stage directions can also specify details of the

setting and scenery– Usually written in italics & within parentheses

Structure

Play

Act I Act 2

Scene 1 Scene 2 Scene 3

Prologue

• Establishes the setting

• Introduces main characters

• Explains background

• Introduces character’s main conflict

• Spoken by the chorus

Chorus

• During the Elizabethan era in England, the chorus was portrayed by one actor– Spoke the prologue and epilogue to the play– Spoke directly to the audience

Exposition

• Establishes the setting and the characters

• Introduces the conflict

Rising Action

• Consists of a series of complications

• These occur as the main characters take action to resolve their problems

Crisis

• Turning point

• Moment when a choice is made by the main character

• Determines the direction of the action

• Dramatic and tense moment when the forces of conflict come together

Falling Action

• Presents events that result from the action taken at the turning point

• Usually lock the characters deeper and deeper into disaster

Climax

• Occurs at the end of the play

• Usually ends in tragedy with the death of the main characters

• Play ends with the resolution immediately follows & ties up the loose ends of the play

Tragedy

• A play in which the main character suffers a downfall

• In most tragedies, the main characters are in some ways responsible for their downfall– Tragic hero– Tragic Flaw

Aristotle’s Six Elements of Tragedy

1. Plot

2. Diction/Language/Dialogue

3. Music/Rhythm

4. Theme

5. Spectacle

6. Character

Elements of Tragedy: Plot

• Plot: what happens in a play

Elements of Tragedy

• Diction/Language/Dialogue– The playwrights’ word choices and the actor’s

enunciation while delivering the lines

Elements of Tragedy

• Music/Rhythm

– Not music as we think of it, but rather the sound, rhythm, and melody of the speeches

Elements of Tragedy

• Theme:– What a play means, as opposed to what

happens

Elements of Tragedy

• Spectacle

– the scenery, costumes, and special effects in a play

Elements of Tragedy

• Character

– The person an actor represents in a play

Romeo and Juliet

• Romeo and Juliet is based on a long narrative poem by Arthur Brooke– Published in 1562– Based on popular Italian stories

Romeo and Juliet

• Romeo was a very young man

• Juliet was a 14-year-old girl

• They fall in love at first sight

• Caught up in an idealized, almost unreal, passionate love

• In-love with love

Star-crossed lovers

• Shakespeare presents Romeo and Juliet as “star-crossed lovers”

• Doomed to disaster by fate

• In Shakespeare’s time, they believed in astrology

• (Zodiac signs)

Fate

• More than mere victims of fate

• Romeo and Juliet make decisions that lead to their disaster