Aristotelian Analysis


I. Plot

  1. Covering the action of the play (not the meaning) describe the significant part of the plot.
  2. Inciting incident – what gets the whole story moving – it disrupts the stasis of the world of the play
  3. Beginning Exposition – what do we need to know to understand the story.
  4. Complications – disruptions that prevent the easy accomplishment of the goal of the central character (that characters “sufferings”); the pressures on the story.
  5. Crisis – the moment leading to the climax
  6. Climax – the highest point of action where the maximum is at stake; a moment of discover and recognition
  7. Reversal – the downward fall of the action.
  8. Resolution – the final creation of a new stasis
  9. Intensive – cause and effect; Extensive – a series of episodes and parallel stories

II. Character

  1. Larger than life
  2. Unique
  3. Like us (the audience)
  4. Stock characters – soap operas, melodramas, sit coms
  5. Non-human

III. Idea (Thought)

  1. Stated by the characters in plain words
  2. From the action; not the interpretation
  3. Comparison to themes of the author’s other works
  4. Comparison of themes by other authors of the time period
  5. Comparison of themes of plays with similar actions

IV. Language

  1. Special words
  2. Vocabulary
  3. Jargon
  4. Vocabulary of what time – the author’s, the periods, the audience’s

V. Music/Sound

  1. Not just background music and sound effects
  2. Characters voices
  3. Accents, dialects, presentational, realistic
  4. Social implications – when King’s enter trumpets sound
  5. How was the play originally performed; theatrical style of period dictates certain sounds

VI. Spectacle

  1. Environment of the play – what did the theatre look like
  2. Setting, Costumes
  3. Entrances, exits
  4. Could the audience see, hear
  5. How did the actors move