Abstract
For many early modern playgoers, music was not a peripheral feature of commercial drama, but a chief attraction of the theatres sometimes even the primary motivation for playgoing. This chapter explores early evidence of musically interested playgoers and their engagements with practical musical performance at venues like the Globe and Blackfriars. It works with a range of examples before taking The Merchant of Venice as an extended test case in the early modern relationship between drama and music. Through these materials, the chapter offers three core propositions about playhouse engagements with music during Shakespeares working life. The first is that musical experience was in itself a significant and widely acknowledged incentive for playgoing that can be traced across the textual record. The second is that playgoers regularly encountered music as an integral element of a plays dramaturgy, and so their musical experiences need to be understood in the context of their wider engagements with drama.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music |
Editors | Christopher R. Wilson, Mervyn Cooke |
Place of Publication | Oxford |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Chapter | 10 |
Pages | 315-335 |
Number of pages | 21 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780190945145 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 May 2022 |
Publication series
Name | Oxford Handbooks |
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Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Oxford University Press 2022. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Merchant of Venice
- William Shakespeare
- audience culture
- delight
- drama
- early modern theatres
- music
- musical compulsion
- popular culture
- sound studies
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Arts and Humanities