Shakespeare's Dramatic TransactionsShakespeare’s Dramatic Transactions uses conventions of performance criticism—staging and theatrical presentation—to analyze seven major Shakespearean tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard II, and Richard III. As scholars and readers increasingly question the theoretical models used to describe the concepts of “mimesis” and “representation,” this book describes how the actor’s stage presentation affects the actor’s representational role and the ways in which viewers experience Shakespearean tragedy. Michael Mooney draws on the work of East German critic Robert Weimann and his concept of figurenposition—the correlation between an actor’s stage location and the speech, action, and stylization associated with that position—to understand the actor/stage location relationship in Shakespeare’s plays. In his examination of the original staging of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Mooney looks at the traditional interplay between a downstage “place” and upstage “location” to describe the difference between non-illusionistic action (often staged near the audience) and the illusionistic, localized action that characterizes mimetic art. The innovative and insightful approach of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Transactions brings together the techniques of performance criticism and the traditional literary study of Shakespearean tragedy. In showing how the distinctions of stage location illuminate the interaction among language, representation, Mooney’s compelling argument enhances our understanding of Shakespeare and the theater. |
From inside the book
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Page ix
... reading the manuscript at various stages : Miriam Miller , Ira Clark , Jack Perlette , Raeburn Miller , Richard Katrovas , Jessica Munns , Marie Nelson , Sally Cole Mooney , Susan Krantz , and Michael Shapiro . Virginia and Herbert ...
... reading the manuscript at various stages : Miriam Miller , Ira Clark , Jack Perlette , Raeburn Miller , Richard Katrovas , Jessica Munns , Marie Nelson , Sally Cole Mooney , Susan Krantz , and Michael Shapiro . Virginia and Herbert ...
Page xiii
... readers that we can begin to write about authorial inten- tion and communal effect . The performance subtexts and interpretative lines I posit are derived , empirically , from the nature of the stage conventions and the differences in ...
... readers that we can begin to write about authorial inten- tion and communal effect . The performance subtexts and interpretative lines I posit are derived , empirically , from the nature of the stage conventions and the differences in ...
Page 3
... reading of the text , the drama of the English Renaissance could not . In fact , not until Jonson audaciously published his works in 1616 did the notion that a play was more than a script enter " popular " consciousness , though ...
... reading of the text , the drama of the English Renaissance could not . In fact , not until Jonson audaciously published his works in 1616 did the notion that a play was more than a script enter " popular " consciousness , though ...
Page 6
... readers still prefer to discuss Renaissance drama as an illusionistic and literary construct , they have not been able to come to terms with either the " affect " or the intention of theatrical performance . Indeed , what occurs on ...
... readers still prefer to discuss Renaissance drama as an illusionistic and literary construct , they have not been able to come to terms with either the " affect " or the intention of theatrical performance . Indeed , what occurs on ...
Page 7
... reader - response meth- odologies , we still tacitly " deny the possibility of authorial communica- tion or communal ... readers would agree that the most obvious difference separating drama from poetry and fiction is that drama is ...
... reader - response meth- odologies , we still tacitly " deny the possibility of authorial communica- tion or communal ... readers would agree that the most obvious difference separating drama from poetry and fiction is that drama is ...
Contents
1 | |
Figurenposition in Richard III | 23 |
III Engagement and Detachment in Richard II | 51 |
IV Representation and Privileged Knowledge in Hamlet | 77 |
V Location and Idiom in Othello | 104 |
VI Multiconsciousness in King Lear | 129 |
VII Voice and Multiple Awareness in Macbeth | 150 |
VIII Directing Sympathy in Antony and Cleopatra | 170 |
Notes | 193 |
Index | 217 |
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Common terms and phrases
action actor antic Antony and Cleopatra Antony's audience audience's awareness Banquo Bolingbroke Caesar Cambridge Cassio character choric Claudius Claudius's Clown critical death Desdemona dialogue downstage dramaturgy Edgar effect Elizabethan Enobarbus Enobarbus's eyes feel figure Figurenposition Figurenpositionen final Fulgens and Lucrece Gloucester Gloucester's Gorboduc grief Hamlet hand hath heart Iago Iago's idiom illusion illusionistic images King Lear lago language Lear's locus London lord lovers Macbeth Macduff Mack meaning ment mind mock moral murder nonillusionistic Ophelia Othello performance persona perspective platea play play's Polonius present privileged knowledge psychological Queen readers realistic Renaissance Renaissance drama representational response reveals rhetorical Richard Richard III role Romeo and Juliet Rossiter says scene sense Shake Shakespeare Shakespeare Survey Shakespearean Tragedy shifts soliloquy speaks speare's spectators speech stage suggests symbolic tators tells thanes theater theatrical thou thoughts throne Tillyard tion Tragedy Vice villain voice Weimann wordplay words York