Who Hears in Shakespeare?

Shakespeare’s Auditory World, Stage and Screen

Edited by Laury Magnus and Walter W. Cannon - Contributions by David Bevington; Stephen Booth; Anthony Burton; Gayle Gaskill; Andrew Gurr; James Hirsh; Jennifer Holl; Bernice W. Kliman; Erin Minear; Nova Myhill; Phillipa Sheppard and Kathleen Kaplin Smith

This volume, examining the ways in which Shakespeare’s plays are designed for hearers as well as spectators, has been prompted by recent explorations of the auditory dimension of early modern drama by such scholars as Andrew Gurr, Bruce Smith, and James Hirsh. To look at the dynamics of hearing in Shakespeare’s plays involves a paradigm shift that changes how we understand virtually everything about them, from the architecture of the buildings, to playing spaces, to blocking, and to larger interpretative issues, including our understanding of character based on players’ responses to what they hear, mishear, or refuse to hear. Who Hears in Shakespeare? Auditory Worlds on Stageand Screen is comprised of three sections on Shakespeare’s texts and performance history: “The Poetics of Hearing and the Early Modern Stage”; “Metahearing: Hearing, Knowing, and Audiences, Onstage and Off”; and “Transhearing: Hearing, Whispering, Overhearing, and Eavesdropping in Film and Other Media.”

Chapters by noted scholars explore the complex reactions and interactions of onstage and offstage audiences and show how Shakespearean stagecraft, actualized on stage and adapted on screen, revolves around various situations and conventions of hearing—soliloquies,, asides, avesdropping, overhearing, and stage whispers. In short, Who Hears in Shakespeare? enunciates Shakespeare’s nuanced, powerful stagecraft of hearing. The volume ends with Stephen Booth’s afterword, his inspiring meditation on hearing that considers Shakespearean “audiences” and their responses to what they hear—or don’t hear—in Shakespeare’s plays.

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 313 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-61147-474-9 • Hardback • December 2011 • $121.00 • (£93.00)

978-1-61147-475-6 • eBook • November 2011 • $114.50 • (£88.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Drama, Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Literary Criticism / Shakespeare, Performing Arts / Theater / General, Performing Arts / Theater / Playwriting

Who Hears in Shakespeare?

Shakespeare’s Auditory World, Stage and Screen

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This volume, examining the ways in which Shakespeare’s plays are designed for hearers as well as spectators, has been prompted by recent explorations of the auditory dimension of early modern drama by such scholars as Andrew Gurr, Bruce Smith, and James Hirsh. To look at the dynamics of hearing in Shakespeare’s plays involves a paradigm shift that changes how we understand virtually everything about them, from the architecture of the buildings, to playing spaces, to blocking, and to larger interpretative issues, including our understanding of character based on players’ responses to what they hear, mishear, or refuse to hear. Who Hears in Shakespeare? Auditory Worlds on Stageand Screen is comprised of three sections on Shakespeare’s texts and performance history: “The Poetics of Hearing and the Early Modern Stage”; “Metahearing: Hearing, Knowing, and Audiences, Onstage and Off”; and “Transhearing: Hearing, Whispering, Overhearing, and Eavesdropping in Film and Other Media.”

Chapters by noted scholars explore the complex reactions and interactions of onstage and offstage audiences and show how Shakespearean stagecraft, actualized on stage and adapted on screen, revolves around various situations and conventions of hearing—soliloquies,, asides, avesdropping, overhearing, and stage whispers. In short, Who Hears in Shakespeare? enunciates Shakespeare’s nuanced, powerful stagecraft of hearing. The volume ends with Stephen Booth’s afterword, his inspiring meditation on hearing that considers Shakespearean “audiences” and their responses to what they hear—or don’t hear—in Shakespeare’s plays.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Pages: 313 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-61147-474-9 • Hardback • December 2011 • $121.00 • (£93.00)

978-1-61147-475-6 • eBook • November 2011 • $114.50 • (£88.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Drama, Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Literary Criticism / Shakespeare, Performing Arts / Theater / General, Performing Arts / Theater / Playwriting

Author

Laury Magnus is professor of humanities at the US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York. Her books include Lexical and Syntactic Repetition in Modern Poetry and her New Kittredge Editions of Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, and Measure forMeasure. Her essays and reviews appear in The Shakespeare Newsletter, Literature and Film Quarterly, Connotations, Assays, and College Literature. Her chapter on “Shakespeare on Film and Television” appears in The Oxford Handbook to Shakespeare.

Walter W. Cannon is professor of English at Central College in Pella, Iowa, where he teaches early modern literature, including Shakespeare and his contemporaries. His essays and reviews have appeared in The Upstart Crow, Theatre History Studies, and Cahiers Élisabéthains. His chapter “The Poetics of Indoor Spaces” appears in Inside Shakespeare: Essays on the Blackfriars Stage.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Laury Magnus and Walter W. Cannon
Part I. The Poetics of Hearing and the Early Modern Stage
Chapter 1: Why Was the Globe Round? by Andrew Gurr
Chapter 2: Guarded, Unguarded, and Unguardable Speech in late Renaissance Drama by James Chapter 3: Hearing Complexity: Speech, Reticence, and the Construction of Character by Walter . Cannon
Chapter 4: “if this be worth your hearing”: Theorizing Gossip on Shakespeare’s Stage by Jennifer Holl
Part II. Metahearing: Hearing, Knowing, and Audiences, Onstage and Off
Chapter 5: Mimetic Hearing and Meta-hearing in Hamlet by Laury Magnus
Chapter 6: Hearing and Overhearing in The Tempest by David Bevington
Chapter 7: Asides and Multiple Audiences in The Merchant of Venice by Anthony Burton
Chapter 8: “And Now Behold the Meaning”: Audience, Interpretation, and Translation in All’s Well That Ends Well and Henry V by Kathleen Kalpin Smith
Chapter 9: Hearing Power in Measure for Measure by Bernice W. Kliman,
Chapter 10: “Hark, a word in your ear”: Whispers, Asides, and Interpretation in Troilus and Cressida by Nova Myhill
Part III. Transhearing: Hearing, Overhearing, Whispering, and Eavesdropping in Film and Other Media
Chapter 11: “Mutes or Audience to this Act”: Eavesdroppers in Branagh’s Shakespeare Films by Philippa Sheppard
Chapter 12: Overhearing Malvolio for Pleasure or Pity: The Letter Scene and the Dark House Scene in Twelfth Night on Stage and Screen by Gayle Gaski
Chapter 13: “But Mark His Gesture”: Hearing and Seeing in Othello’s Eavesdropping Scene by Erin Minear
Afterword: Who Doesn’t Listen in Shakespeare? by Stephen Booth

Reviews

Who Hears in Shakespeare presents a varied and engaging collection on the generalized area of hearing, mishearing, and overhearing in Shakespeare as performed by both the on-stage and the theatrical audiences. The capaciousness of the subject allows for a great variety of approaches, as the contributions of the two editors demonstrate.

The late and very much lamented Bernice Kliman explores the multiplicity of choices presented by Measure for Measure, both in terms of the text and the staging. The intelligence, learning, and wise evaluation of this article are what we had learned to expect from Bernice.

— The Shakespeare Newsletter