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
Scene 1
Act I
Act 2
Scene 2
Scene 3
Prologue
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•
•
•
•
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.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Plot
Diction/Language/Dialogue
Music/Rhythm
Theme
Spectacle
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
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•
•
•
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