Romeo and Juliet Notes

Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet Notes

Tragedy
  • Definition: A drama where the main character has an unhappy or disastrous ending, usually caused by fate and/or a tragic flaw.
Background
  • Written by William Shakespeare.
  • Based on the poem Romeus and Juliet, which is based on an Italian play Julieta y Romeo.
  • Setting: Verona, Italy in the 1500s; also, the town of Mantua.
Structure and Language
  • Mostly written in blank verse (meter but no rhyme).
  • Iambic pentameter.
  • Main characters usually have unhappy or disastrous endings (Romeo and Juliet both die).
Elements of Shakespeare's Writing
  • Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Usually spoken by important/wealthy characters.
  • Prose: Regular speech without patterns. Spoken by lower-class characters (peasants, servants, cooks, etc.).
  • Shakespeare's plays: Divided into five acts, each act divided into scenes, and each scene divided into lines.
Citing Shakespeare
  • Act.Scene.Line
  • Example: (I.ii.35) - Act 1, Scene 2, Line 35
Comic Relief
  • Definition: An amusing scene, incident, or speech introduced into serious or tragic elements to provide temporary relief from tension or intensify dramatic action.
  • Often included due to women in the audience needing a break from the seriousness.
  • Said by minor characters (servants, soldiers, etc.) to add goofiness; not said by main characters.
Puns
  • Play on words exploiting different meanings of a word.
  • Examples:
    • Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Monologue
  • When one character is saying a speech on stage with other characters on stage intended for other characters or the audience to hear.
  • Mom giving you a lecture.
Soliloquy
  • When one character is alone on stage saying a speech.
  • The character reveals his inner thoughts or plans.
  • Not intended for anyone else to hear.
  • Solo Equi, like a solo singer on stage.
Aside
  • When a character says something to another character, himself, or the audience that's not intended for all characters to hear.
  • Intended for one other character, himself, or the audience.
Literary Terms
  • Dramatic Irony: When the audience knows something that the characters do not.
  • Foil: Opposites to emphasize the traits of characters (e.g., Brutus vs. Cassius).
  • Oxymoron: Two contradictory words next to each other (e.g., jumbo shrimp, seriously funny).
    • Purpose: To create an effect by juxtaposing contradictory terms, adding complexity, irony, and humor.
  • Paradox: A statement that seems to contradict itself but is actually true.
    • Example 1: Less is more (substitute with too many patterns).
    • Example 2: This hurts me more than it hurts you (parent disciplining child).
    • Paradoxes are related to the idea of duality.