The Actor in History: A Study in Shakespearean Stage PoetryIn this book an eminent scholar considers the relation which Shakespeare establishes between the values of the supreme world of Elizabethan and Jacobean reality, that of the kings and soldiers at the top of the tree, and his own domain, the poetry of the theater. Ostensibly, that poetry emphasizes straightforwardly the values of the plot of the play --by his poetry, the king or soldier becomes more visible to us. The rhythms of his voice, the verbal images and innuendos, reinforce the man's kingship or soldiership. But at other times, what takes place is different. Starting from a shadowy identification of the character with his position in the play, the poetry begins to substitute its independent or nearly independent values--its power to charm and to threaten and expand the "meaning" of the actor vis-à-vis his role. The character we watch on the stage escapes into an area where the sensations with which his acting affects us come also directly from his histrionic relation to us. He becomes an actor as such and less an actor of Brutus or Antony or Coriolanus. We are all the more moved because we know that the histrionic is a representation of the reality of emotion, as definite and valid as impressionism is of the visual truth of the external world. In certain plays Shakespeare puts at variance our sense of the histrionic against the more usual values which we set upon political and military achievement. The fantasy of Richard II, for example, is his escape from the harshness of the historical circumstances that belittle his capacity; clothed in poetry and growing into the actual presentation of the actor who rendered the part, it dominates us to the devaluing of the winner in the plot's competition. |
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... Duke's bland assurance , " He is your husband on a pre - contract " ( MM IV.1.71 ) . But this legal fiction apparently did not save Juliet ( and Claudio ) from the Duke's censure , though the terms in which Claudio de- scribes his ...
... Duke's reforms , the action and characters are imme- diately headed , formally at least , for the lightest of light comedy . Not quite , however . For now the stage manager becomes human , and by all sorts of hints we are made to put ...
... Duke one sees an entirely new side of him - his power of imaginative fantasy . The story of the Duke's fictitious lechery is magnificently equipped with detail . The beggar with the garlic breath , the clack dish for money contributions ...
Contents
The Triumph of Fantasy | 13 |
The Actor in History | 37 |
Competitive Worlds | 61 |
Copyright | |
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References to this book
Greek and Roman Actors: Aspects of an Ancient Profession P. E. Easterling,Edith Hall Limited preview - 2002 |
Shakespeare’s Imagined Persons: The Psychology of Role-Playing and Acting P. Murray No preview available - 1996 |