ABSTRACT
In most tragic actions the audience's catharsis is something that can be more aptly described as a sense of 'woe' or 'pity' for a character whose grasp on reality is shown to be in some way deficient. As we watch a misguided protagonist come to grief under the lamentable circumstances that tragedies usually depict, we feel a wrenching disparity between our own observations and those of the focal figure. We should now be in a position to return to the questions posed at the outset. What 'happens' in Romeo and Juliet, Do the lovers succumb to forces beyond their control, Do they somehow triumph over the circumstances arrayed against them and emerge as martyrs, as unblemished agents of redemption, and or do they 'fall in love' in some ethical and theological sense that would have been meaningful to an audience familiar with Augustine and Boethius.
