The Dramatic Effectiveness of Three Soliloquies in Romeo and Juliet

The Dramatic Effectiveness of Three Soliloquies in Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet was written in the early 19th century. The play was

written at the peak of William Shakespeare's work and is considered as

one of his most poetic plays. The choice of language is greatly varied

and can be very emotional. It creates a great atmosphere and a superb

play.

During the play, Shakespeare uses many long and emotional speeches.

These are called soliloquies. These soliloquies communicate with the

audience sometimes creating dramatic irony. The long soliloquies also

help to further the plot and they also include emotions of the

characters and information about them. The soliloquies also differ

from speeches in that during a soliloquy, there is usually only one

character on the stage and what is being said is mainly directed

towards the audience or to themselves, where as normal speeches can be

directed to many other characters.

In my essay the three soliloquies that I will be studying from Romeo

and Juliet are from:

§ Act 2 Scene 3

§ Act 4 Scene 3

§ Act 5 Scene 3.

The first soliloquy that I am going to study is from Act 2, Scene 3.

This soliloquy take place in Friar Lawrence's cell. This is the first

time that the audience meets Friar Lawrence in the play.

Friar Lawrence's soliloquy comments on the fact that everything has

some good, and all good can be abused and turned to bad.

Friar Lawrence begins by welcoming the morning and saying good bye to

the night that has just past.

"The grey - eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, Check' ring the

eastern clouds with streaks of light;" this short passage shows that
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dramatic tension. Making the audience waning to shout out to Romeo.

In my coursework essay I have commented on many points of all three of

the soliloquies that I chose. For each soliloquy I studied the

following; what has happened before the soliloquy, the content of the

speech, what I learnt from past or future events, what I learned about

the character, effectiveness of language and the dramatic

effectiveness of the speech. I think that all three soliloquies have

great meaning behind them and the each conveys different moods and

messages. They also affect the atmosphere of the play. I particularly

enjoyed Romeo's soliloquy as it had massive amounts of detail; there

was a great deal of feeling behind what was said. Overall all three

excellent in there own way and were a great pleasure to see as the

audience.