In tomorrow's lesson, we will be exploring the extent to which the play is a comedy or a tragedy. Please feel free to make notes on the following and bring them to the lesson to help you progress through the SOLO stages.
First we need to define both types of play. The words 'tragedy' and 'comedy' have very specific meanings in theatrical terms, so before the lesson tomorrow, you should acquaint yourself with what the terms meant to a Shakespearean audience:
Tragedy.
This is a type of play that was first performed in Athens in Ancient Greece. The philosopher Aristotle studied tragic plays, and outlined the features of a good Tragedy. Read this description, then decide the extent to which we can apply the terms hamartia, catastrophe, hubris, anagnorisis, peripeteia and catharsis to Romeo and Juliet.
Comedy.
According to Aristotle, tragedy came from the efforts of poets to present men as 'nobler,' or 'better' than they are in real life. Comedy, on the other hand, shows a 'lower type' of person, and reveals humans to be worse than they are in average. In 16th Century English theatre, a 'Comedy' was not necessarily a laugh-out-loud funny play. Instead, a Comedy was a play that filled the criteria given here.
To what extent is Romeo and Juliet a Comedy? What comic elements are present in Romeo and Juliet? What function do they perform?
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