Hearing Music's Words: Imagery in Shakespeare's Theatre
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- Speaker(s):
- Christopher Wilson (Hull) Chair: John Pitcher (Oxford)
- Event date:
- Thursday 18 March 2010
School of Advanced Study, University of London
- Description
-
As with most of Shakespeare’s musical imagery, a knowledge and understanding of contemporary practice and theory are implicit in our reception of his musical references. Many commentators and editors seek to situate Shakespeare’s metaphors and allusions in their theoretical contexts.
Consequently, there has been extensive discussion about Shakespeare’s ‘music of the spheres’, his Ovidian ‘Orpheus’, the neo-Platonic ethos of music, and much more. ‘Music in Shakespeare’ studies have been concerned with the performed songs, instrumental cues, music theory and philosophy, the significance of instruments, and the use of popular music. The extent to which Shakespeare invited his audience and readers to imagine the sound of music has not received comparable critical attention. This paper investigates aspects of Shakespeare’s use of music words intended to capture an experiential soundscape in the theatre of early modern England and beyond. It should be of interest to textual scholars, ‘groundlings’, theatre producers, and practitioners.