Elizabethan stage conventions and modern interpreters /
General Material Designation
[Book]
First Statement of Responsibility
Alan C. Dessen.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
New York :
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Cambridge University Press,
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
1984.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
xi, 190 pages ;
Dimensions
22 cm
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
"List of plays and editions": pages 181-185.
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 164-180) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Preface -- Note on texts and old spelling -- The arrow in Nessus: Elizabethan clues and modern detectives -- Interpreting stage directions -- The logic of this on the open stage -- Elizabethan darkness and modern lighting -- The logic of place and locale -- The logic of stage violence -- Theatrical metaphor: seeing and not-seeing -- Conclusion: Elizabethan playscripts and modern interpreters -- Notes -- List of plays and editions -- Index.
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
"Alan Dessen samples about four hundred play texts from the age of Shakespeare in order to recover the conventions of staging they reveal. in studying the stage settings, movements and emblems implicit in recurrent phrases and stage directions, he concludes that the Elizabethan audience, much less concerned with realism than many later generations have been, were used to receiving a kind of theatrical shorthand transmitted by the actors from the playwright. Professor Dessen draws attention to the implications of his findings for modern interpreters, addressing not only critics and teachers but also editors, actors and directors. He demonstrates that in many situations the 'logic' of the modern interpreter, for example, in his expectations of consistent characterisation, is in some way at odds with the original 'logic' of presentation, for example, in its acceptance of allegory and synecdoche. The rediscovery of the original logic illuminates for modern interpreters some of the most puzzling and awkward parts of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries." --Publisher description.
ACQUISITION INFORMATION NOTE
Terms of Availability
£17.50 : CIP rev.
PERSONAL NAME USED AS SUBJECT
Shakespeare, William,1564-1616-- Criticism and interpretation.