2. Feuds:
◦ How long has the feud been going on?
◦ What first started the problem?
◦ How does it affect the people involved?
◦ What happens if two people from feuding groups fall in
love?
Astrology: belief that a person’s character is
determined by the positions of the sun, moon, and
stars at the time of birth. Astrology is a belief that
there is a def. order in the way things are.
◦ How many people of your acquaintance read and believe
the horoscopes printed in newspapers and magazines?
◦ Why do people tend to believe or not believe in fate?
Young Love:
3. What is the place setting of the play?
What is the relationship between the two
households?
What does Shakespeare mean by “star-crossed
lovers”?
What happens to the lovers?
What is the subject matter of this place?
What does the chorus ask of the audience in the last
two line? Why?
What is the name of the poetic form which
Shakespeare uses for the Prologue?
How many lines are there? Mark the rhyming pattern.
Underline examples of poetic language.
4. Every Shakespearean tragedy is divided into
five acts and contains the following six
elements.
◦ Start point
◦ An initial exciting force
◦ Some kind of rising action
◦ A turning point
◦ Some kind of falling action
◦ An ending
5. Exposition: describes the mood and
conditions existing at the beginning of the
play. Time and place will be identified as well
as the main characters and their positions,
circumstances, and relationships to one
another.
Exciting Forces: Also sometimes called the
complication or initial incident, the exciting
force is what “gets things going”. The
exciting force thus begins the conflict which
will continue in the play.
6.
7. The series of events which lead up to the
climax of the play comprise the rising action.
These events provide a progressive intensity
of interest for the audience. The rising action
will involve more than one act.
The climax represents the turning point of
the play. From this point on, the
Shakespearean hero moves to his inevitable
end.
8. The falling action includes those events occuring
from the time of the climax up to the hero’s death.
The episodes will show both advances and declines in
the various forces acting upon the hero. Like the
rising action, the falling action will involve events in
more than one act.
The catastrophe concerns the necessary
consequences of the hero’s previous actions which
must be the hero’s death. The catastrophe will
characteristically be simple & brief.
9. Romeo & Juliet comes form a long tradition of
tragic love tales, dating back as early as
“Pyramus and Thisbe” in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses.
Shakespeare compressed the time elapsed
from months to days. Hasty decisions cause
the eventual tragedy of the lovers; the action
of the play is rushed throughout.
Watch for references to time.
