The Five-Act Structure of Shakespeare's Plays

Newcomers to Shakespeare often ask: is it true that every one of Shakespeare's plays is divided into five acts? The answer: yes. 

But that's certainly not where the discussion should end. On the contrary, the five-act of Shakespeare's plays opens up a host of questions, stories, and interesting avenues for analysis.

Where did it come from?

First, who said that a play should have five acts? Some credit this structure to Aristotle in Poetics (c. 335 BCE). While Aristotle did comment on the breakdown of information in a play, he saw a threefold breakdown: beginning, middle, end. In the beginning, the conflict is set up; in the middle, the conflict occurs; in the end, the conflict is resolved. The expansion from a three-part into a five-act structure actually came from the Roman poet Horace, who wrote in Ars Poetica (10-8 BCE): "No play should be longer or shorter than five acts." For Horace, five acts was the perfect length to sufficiently develop and resolve the drama without boring the audience.

What are the five acts?

But the five-act structure did not survive from antiquity to today without some help. It found a patron in the 19th Century German novelist and playwright Gustav Freytag. In 1863, he developed the famous Freytag's Pyramid, which expands upon Aristotle and Horace to explain the function of each act in a five-act play. Here is how Freytag envisioned the five-act structure in his Technique of the Drama:

Each act has a clear function.

• Act I - The Introduction
• Act II - The Rise (Rising Action)
• Act III - The Climax
• Act IV - The Fall (Falling Action)
• Act V - The Denouement

The Five Acts in Action

Let's test out Freytag's Pyramid on two of Shakespeare's plays: Romeo and Juliet and King Lear.

Case Study #1: Romeo and Juliet

In Act I, we get an introduction to the play. We learn about the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues and we learn the allegiance of each of the characters. In Act I, Scene 5, Romeo and Juliet meet and discover that they are on opposite sides of the feud. We could consider this scene as the introduction, but it could also be the start of the rise.

In Act II, the action heats up. Romeo and Juliet declare their love for one another in the famous balcony scene (Act II, Scene 2). Romeo and Juliet are secretly married by Friar Laurence, with the Nurse's knowledge.

In Act III, the action comes to a climax. In Act III, Scene 1, Tybalt kills Mercutio; for revenge, Romeo kills Tybalt; as punishment, the Prince banishes Romeo. Juliet is dismayed and angry when she hears of the murder committed by her lover, but sends the Nurse to tell Romeo that she still loves him. Friar Laurence convinces Romeo to flee to Mantua temporarily. Meanwhile, Paris asks Lord Capulet for Juliet's hand in marriage, and Lord Capulet says yes. Juliet, of course, refuses.

In Act IV, the plot begins to unravel. Juliet visits Friar Laurence and says she would rather kill herself than marry Paris. Friar Laurence comes up with a plan: Juliet will take a potion to fake her own death; Friar Laurence will tell Romeo, who will meet Juliet at the Capulet family tomb. Juliet tells her father that she consents to the wedding and the Capulets prepare. But Juliet takes the potion in secret and the Nurse discovers her and believes she is dead. The Capulets take her body to the tomb.

In Act V, the action is wrapped up in a tragic ending. Romeo never gets Friar Laurence's message, so when he hears of Juliet's death, he believes it. He buys poison and heads to the Capulet tomb. There, he meets Paris, whom he does not recognize. The two men duel and Romeo kills Paris. At the sight of Juliet's body, Romeo takes the poison and dies. Friar Laurence arrives at the tomb just as Juliet is waking up. She sees her lover dead and uses his dagger to kill herself. The Prince, the Capulets, and Lord Montague all see the dead bodies in the tomb. We learn that Lady Montague has died of grief over her son's exile. Lord Capulet and Lord Montague agree to end the feud.

Case Study #2: King Lear

Act I sets up the rest of the play. Enraged at his youngest (and favorite) daughter, Cordelia, for refusing to flatter him, King Lear divides his kingdom between his two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan. Kent speaks up for Cordelia and is banished. We meet another family, the Gloucesters, and we learn that Edmund, the younger bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester, resents his older half-brother Edgar (Gloucester's legitimate son). With a false letter, Edmund tricks his father into believing that Edgar is plotting against him. Kent disguises himself and returns as a servant to Lear. Meanwhile, Lear moves in with Goneril and proves a very unpleasant house guest. He and Goneril get into a fight and Goneril throws him out. The Fool helps Lear to question his division of the kingdom, and he worries that he is going mad.

Act II, where the action continues, is made up of only two scenes. In Act II, Scene 1, Edmund continues his plot against Edgar and convinces Gloucester that Edgar is out to kill him. In Act II, Scene 2, the disguised Kent gets into a fight with Goneril's servant, Oswald, and is put in the stocks. When Lear finds out, he is enraged. Regan says that she will house her father, but not his knights. Once again, Lear gets into a fight with his daughter and is thrown out. A storm is coming. Meanwhile, Edgar plans to disguise himself as a madman.

The most climactic moments of the play––Lear's madness and the gouging out of Gloucester's eyes––come in Act III. And the two subplots––the problems in the families of Lear and Gloucester––come together. In Act III, Scene 2, Lear's sanity unravels as he cries "Blow winds and crack your cheeks!" at the brewing storm. Kent convinces Lear and the Fool to take shelter in a nearby hovel. The rest of the act alternates between scenes in the hovel and scenes at the house of Regan and Cornwall. Gloucester makes the mistake of telling Edmund that he sympathizes with Lear (III.3). The Fool discovers Poor Tom in the hovel and Lear takes a liking to the supposed madman; Gloucester arrives to take Lear, the Fool, Kent, and Poor Tom to shelter (III.4). Edmund tells Cornwall of Gloucester's loyalty to Lear and Cornwall makes him the Earl of Gloucester (III.5). Lear sets up a mock trial of Goneril and Regan, using his companions to play the parts (III.6). Regan and Cornwall confront Gloucester, who confesses to having sent Lear to safety in Dover. As punishment, Cornwall plucks out Gloucester's eyes. Cornwall reveals Edmund's betrayal of his father (III.7).

In Act IV, the action cascades to conclusion. Still in disguise, Edgar comes across his blinded father, who recognizes that he treated Edgar unfairly. Gloucester asks Poor Tom to lead him to the cliffs of Dover. Goneril's husband, Albany, sympathizes with the French invasion and Gloucester. We learn that Cornwall has died. Albany vows to revenge Gloucester's eyes. Cordelia has heard about her father's madness and is concerned. Edgar convinces Gloucester that they are at the top of a cliff; Gloucester tries to throw himself off the cliff. Edgar comes back as a stranger and convinces Gloucester not to attempt suicide again. Lear arrives and the two men recognize each other, though one is blind and the other is mad. Cordelia reunites with Lear, who begins regaining sanity.

In Act V, the tragic endings come. Edmund swears love to both Goneril and Regan. Goneril poisons Regan and promises to marry Edmund if he kills Albany. Meanwhile, Lear and Cordelia have been captured by the forces of Goneril and Regan. Edmund secretly orders for them to be killed. Albany arrests Edmund for treason. Hiding his face behind armor, Edgar challenges Edmund to a fight and wins. Edgar reveals his identity, and Edmund has a change of heart. We learn that Goneril has killed herself after confessing her crime. Edmund confesses that he ordered Lear's and Cordelia's deaths, then dies himself. Albany tries to interrupt the murders, but is too late. Lear arrives with Cordelia's body, then dies of heartbreak. Kent reveals his true identity. The play ends with Albany and Edgar tasked with ruling the kingdom.

Problems with the Five-Act Structure

But a strict interpretation of the five-act structure as Freytag's Pyramid is not always perfect. Let's take a look at where the acts don't exactly serve the function described in Freytag's Pyramid.

A Fault in Freytag's Pyramid

Freytag's Pyramid is one way to model the trajectory of a play; like all models, it is imperfect. One problem with his model––especially the symmetry of his diagram––is that it suggests that the ground state of a play does not change. Of course, that is not true. If the state before the play were the same as the state after the play, there would be no point in writing a play at all. So the dynamics must change over the course of the play. Some have developed an asymmetric version of Freytag's Pyramid, with flat lines representing ground states, to reflect this change.

Another Look at Case Study #2: King Lear

Let's take another look at King Lear. Above, we've provided a Freytag's Pyramid interpretation of the play. But, if you look closely, the information is not organized quite according to the Pyramid.

For example, Act II is not the "Rise" that Freytag described. Some might say that it is a continuation of Act I; some might say that it has less momentum than Act I. So perhaps Act II serves a purpose closer to that of an introduction.

And the denouement does not take place in all of Act V: the first two scenes of Act V, where Edmund pledges love to both Goneril and Regan (V.1) and Edgar takes care of his father (V.2) are better considered as part of the "Fall." The actual denouement does not take place until the very last scene of the play (V.3).

The Problem of Genre

When Freytag designed his Pyramid, he had one specific type of play in mind: the tragedy. So while the Pyramid may work well for plays like Romeo and Juliet, it often fails for comedies. For example, the climax in The Comedy of Errors––when Pinch tries to exorcise the Antipholus of Ephesus in prison––comes in Act IV, Scene 4. So, in The Comedy of Errors, the introduction and the rise are stretched: they take up three full acts and most of the fourth act. And the denouement is compressed: it comes in Act V, which is only one scene long. Perhaps the altered, asymmetric diagram of Freytag's Pyramid (where the line leading up to the climax is longer than the line leading down from the climax) fits the trajectory of a comedy better than the original, symmetric diagram.

The question of genre is further complicated when we considered the histories, the romances and the problem plays: these plays often have no clear climax, so applying Freytag's Pyramid can be very difficult. To read more about the different categories of Shakespeare's plays, see our featured post "Categorizing Shakespeare's Plays: Comedy, Tragedy, History, Romance, Problem Play."

Who Divided Shakespeare's Plays into Acts?

We cannot consider the five acts of Shakespeare's plays without considering this historical fact: Shakespeare himself did not divide his plays into five acts. In fact, he did not divide his plays at all––into acts or scenes. These divisions were made by the first editor of Shakespeare's plays, English dramatist and poet Nicholas Rowe, in 1709. So Shakespeare had died almost a century before Rowe wrote in these divisions.

Of course, that does not mean that the act and scene divisions are random or invalid. Rowe carefully read the plays and wrote in what made sense, based on which characters were on stage and where the action took place. So even though Shakespeare did not specifically break down his plays into the scenes and acts that we see today, it is quite possible that he envisioned them in these same chunks.