Shakespeare introduces his play with a Prologue that is spoken by a Chorus. In Renaissance drama, the chorus was a single actor (an actor who would also play one of the other roles in the play). This is different from Classical Greek drama, where the chorus was a group of individuals often speaking in unison. However, like the chorus in Greek times, the chorus plays the crucial role of establishing the setting since Renaissance drama, like its Greek counterpart, was performed on a bare stage and the audience had to rely on their imagination to envision the locations where the action is performed. More importantly, and also like the Greek tragedies, the chorus also serves the function of providing foreshadowing. Audiences did not attend plays because they expected surprise endings. Rather, they attended because they wanted to see how the conflict develops and how the characters respond to that conflict.
In the first line of the prologue the Chorus informs the audience that the two families involved, the Montagues and the Capulets, are “both alike in dignity.” The word dignity refers to social status. The families are aristocratic and, therefore (according to English custom), honorable. Shakespeare, however, probably also intends an ironic meaning of the word as well. The two families are involved in a family feud, and being involved in such a feud brings no dignity and no honor with it.
The Chorus describes Romeo and Juliet as a “pair of star-crossed lovers” (line 6). He is indicating that their fate or destiny (from the astrological belief that everyone’s life is predetermined by the alignment of the planets and stars at the time of one’s birth) will be crossed. The word crossed here suggests that the lover’s fate will be afflicted or in conflict. He adds that their story will be piteous (line 7) and marked by their deaths (9).
Further, the Chorus informs the audience that the story is also about hate (indicated by the word rage in line 10). The hatred between the Montagues and the Capulets will end with the deaths of young Romeo and Juliet. Only an extremely violent and tragic circumstance is capable of ending the extremely foolish behavior of the two warring families.
Tragedy is typically marked by the fall of the protagonist. The fall is one from honor and status. Shakespeare, in a sense, alters the tradition in tragedy because the fall from honor happens to the parents, not the protagonists Romeo and Juliet. The parents’ fall has already started at the beginning of the tragedy (with their involvement in the feud), but that fall becomes complete with the loss of their children. Only with their children’s deaths do the parents realize just how foolishly and dishonorably they have been behaving throughout the course of their lives.
Romeo and Juliet
One other comment needs be said about the prologue. It is a sonnet. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter and having a fixed rhyme scheme. The prologue thus establishes the richly poetic nature of the entire play. Poetry is all about the expression of powerful emotion, and love is one of the most powerful emotions of all.
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