DOCSLIB.ORG

Fairies in Early Modern English Drama: Fictionality and Theatrical Landscapes, 1575-1615

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Fairies in Early Modern English Drama: Fictionality and Theatrical Landscapes, 1575-1615 Fairies in Early Modern English Drama: Fictionality and Theatrical Landscapes, 1575-1615 Kaitlyn Culliton Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for Doctorate of Philosophy School of English Trinity College Dublin 2019 Contents Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... v A Note on the Texts ..................................................................................................................................... v Approximate Composition Dates of Dramatic Works, 1575-1615 ....................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One: Elizabethan Entertainments, 1575-1591 ......................................................................... 52 Chapter Two: Early Modern English Stage Plays, 1588-1593 ............................................................ 122 Chapter Three: Demythologization and Composite Landscapes, 1595-1603 .................................... 172 Chapter Four: Counterfeit Fairies and Indoor Landscapes ............................................................... 235 Epilogue: The Afterlife of Fairies .......................................................................................................... 304 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 324 iii Summary This thesis demonstrates a change in the depiction of fairy characters in English dramatic works composed between 1575 and 1615. The Introduction begins by offering a background examination of the diverse manifestations of fairies in both folklore and mythology. Then, in order to examine the manner in which dramatic works uniquely engage with this complex network of fairy symbolism, I explain key concepts from narratology that can be re-appropriated to describe the ways that fictional worlds are constructed in theatrical contexts. I finish the Introduction with a discussion of landscape and its centrality to the formation of these fictional worlds. Chapter One examines three Elizabethan entertainments performed between 1575 and 1591: the entertainment at Woodstock (1575) by George Gascoigne, the entertainment at Norwich (1578) by Thomas Churchyard, Bernard Garter, and William Goldenham, and the entertainment at Elvetham (1591) by Thomas Watson and Nicolas Breton. I examine the manner in which these works integrate the fictional settings of the performances with the rural English countryside locations where their original performances physically took place. In Chapter Two, I examine four stage plays written between 1588 and 1593: John Lyly’s Galatea (1588), John Lyly’s Endymion (1588), Robert Greene’s The Scottish History of James the Fourth (1591), and the anonymous The Tragical History of Guy Earl of Warwick (1593). Each of these plays features fairy characters that appear in natural, outdoor, and non-urban landscapes, which had to be evoked in a relatively bare performance area. I further classify these landscapes into three subtypes, which I term the “forest landscape,” the “lapsed landscape,” and the “dreamscape.” I briefly point out that each of these landscape subtypes is also present in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. iv Chapter Three argues that William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), the anonymous The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll (1600), the anonymous The Mayde’s Metamorphosis (1600), and William Percy’s The Faery Pastorall (1603) are paradigmatic of changes occurring to the fairy character in many of the dramatic works composed in the late 1590s and early 1600s. The fairies in these dramatic works are not limited to a single setting, but instead interact with landscapes that conceptually feature elements of both indoor and outdoor spaces, what I term “composite landscapes.” I examine three types of composite landscapes operating within these plays: performative/real, microscopic/universal, and natural/domestic. Chapter Four identifies the appearance of the so-called counterfeit fairy figure in four plays composed after 1597: Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597), Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (1610), Robert Armin’s The Valiant Welshman (1612), and the anonymous The Honest Lawyer (1615). Increasingly embedded in the interior spaces of the urban household, this chapter identifies three types of metaphorical space within this sphere: the feminine, the erotic, and the commercial. I argue that the appearance of the counterfeit fairy indicates the increasing skepticism surrounding the credibility of the fairy figure. The Epilogue discusses the afterlife of the fairy figure in Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones’ masque Oberon the Faery Prince (1611). Noting the relative absence of the fairy figure from English dramatic works after 1615, I conclude by briefly outlining the remaining dramatic works in which fairies appear as characters between 1615 and the closing of the theaters in 1642. v Acknowledgements My gratitude goes, first and foremost, to my supervisor Dr. Ema Vyroubalova for her unwavering support and encouragement. I am sincerely grateful to the Trinity College Dublin Department of English for awarding me a studentship that has made this research possible. Thank you to the members of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies: Dr. Sarah Alyn-Stacey, Dr. Gregory Hulsman, and Joanna Poetz, for allowing me to organize the “Before Fairy Tales” lecture series; this was an invaluable source of information and inspiration. Thank you to the Trinity Travel Trust for the scholarship that allowed me to present at the Shakespeare 400 conference in Helsingør, Denmark in 2016 and to the Organizing Committee of Othello’s Island for the grant to present at the 2017 conference in Cyprus. To all of the members of the Trinity Medieval and Early Modern Writing Group and Quiche Appreciation Society, particularly to my co-founders Niall O'Suilleabhain and Eoghan Keane, thank you for your editing, insights, and distractions. I am also grateful to the wonderful library staff at Trinity College, who have been incredibly helpful both in acquiring needed resources and sharing their time and stories with me; thank you especially to Isolde Harper, Paul Doyle, and Anthony Carey. I have also been fortunate enough across my academic career to encounter an incredible group of scholars who have offered their time, guidance, and advice; I would especially like to thank Dr. Amanda Piesse, Dr. Emily O’Brien, Dr. Roze Hentschell, Dr. Barbara Sebek, and Dr. Shauna O’Brien for sharing their wisdom and enthusiasm. Over the past three years, I have been surrounded by a community whose support has allowed me to take opportunities for incredible growth, both academically and personally. Thank you to the Morans, who offered me a family in Ireland, and to those individuals whose friendship has followed me across continents, especially to Genevieve, Stephanie, Margie, Erin, Amanda, Rose, Joanna, and Mike. Finally, my gratitude goes to my amazing family—Mom, Dad, Sean, Elise, and Brendan—without whom this project would simply not be possible; I love you more than salt. For Joe Chacon v A Note on the Texts Unless otherwise stated, all scholarly references are taken from the following editions (listed alphabetically by author): Anonymous, The Mayde’s Metamorphosis, in The Complete Works of John Lyly, ed. Warwick Bond, vol. 3 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1902);1 Anonymous, The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll (1600; repr., London: Malone Society Oxford University Press, 1965); Armin, Robert, The Valiant Welshman, or, The true chronicle history of the life and valiant deeds of Caradoc the Great… (London, 1663) (available on EEBO, Wing 118:11); B. J., The tragical history, admirable atchievments and various events of Guy Earl of Warwick… (London, 1661) (available on EEBO, Wing 765:05); Dekker, Thomas, The Whore of Babylon, in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955); Dekker, Thomas, John Day, and William Haughton, The Spanish Moor’s Tragedy (Lust’s Dominion), in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961); Beaumont, Francis and John Fletcher, The Humorous Lieutenant, in The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon, ed. Cyrus Hoy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Greene, Robert, The Scottish History of James the Fourth, ed. J.A. Lavin, New Mermaids (London: Bouverie House, 1967); Lyly, John, Endymion, ed., David Bevington (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996); Lyly, John, Galatea, in Galatea and Midas, ed. George Hunter and David Bevington (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000); Percy, William, The Faery Pastorall, in 1 The authorship of this play has been contested since its publication in this collection. Because this edition remains one of the more reliable source texts, I have chosen to cite this edition while still treating the play as having unknown authorship. vi Robert Denzell Fenn, “William Percy’s Faery Pastorall: An Old Spelling Edition” (PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1997) (available on
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Relationship of the Dramatic Works of John Lyly to Later Elizabethan Comedies
    Durham E-Theses The relationship of the dramatic works of John Lyly to later Elizabethan comedies Gilbert, Christopher G. How to cite: Gilbert, Christopher G. (1965) The relationship of the dramatic works of John Lyly to later Elizabethan comedies, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9816/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 THE RELATIONSHIP OP THE DRAMATIC WORKS OP JOHN LYLY TO LATER ELIZABETHAN COMEDIES A Thesis Submitted in candidature for the degree of Master of Arts of the University of Durham by Christopher G. Gilbert 1965 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. DECLARATION I declare this work is the result of my independent investigation.
    [Show full text]
  • The History, Printing, and Editing of the Returne from Pernassus
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1-2009 The History, Printing, and Editing of The Returne from Pernassus Christopher A. Adams College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Recommended Citation Adams, Christopher A., "The History, Printing, and Editing of The Returne from Pernassus" (2009). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 237. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/237 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The History, Printing, and Editing of The Returne from Pernassus A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English from The College of William and Mary by Christopher A. Adams Accepted for____________________________ (Honors, High Honors, Highest Honors ) _________________________ ___________________________ Paula Blank , Director Monica Potkay , Committee Chair English Department English Department _________________________ ___________________________ Erin Minear George Greenia English Department Modern Language Department Williamsburg, VA December, 2008 1 The History, Printing, and Editing of The Returne from Pernassus 2 Dominus illuminatio mea -ceiling panels of Duke Humfrey’s Library, Oxford 3 Acknowledgments I am deeply indebted to my former adviser, Dr. R. Carter Hailey, for starting me on this pilgrimage with the Parnassus plays. He not only introduced me to the world of Parnassus , but also to the wider world of bibliography. Through his help and guidance I have discovered a fascinating field of research.
    [Show full text]
  • Erotic Language As Dramatic Action in Plays by Lyly and Shakespeare
    ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: EROTIC LANGUAGE AS DRAMATIC ACTION IN PLAYS BY LYLY AND SHAKESPEARE Gillian Knoll, Doctor of Philosophy, 2012 Dissertation directed by: Professor Theodore B. Leinwand Department of English This study closely examines the language of desire in the dramatic works of John Lyly and William Shakespeare, and argues that contemplative and analytical speeches about desire function as modes of action in their plays. Erotic speeches do more than express desire in a purely descriptive or perlocutionary capacity distinct from the action of the play—they incite, circulate, and create eros for characters, exposing audiences to the inner workings of the desiring mind and body. For many of Lyly’s and Shakespeare’s characters, words come to constitute erotic experience. My approach to dramatic language draws from the work of cognitive linguists such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson who argue that our basic conceptual system, according to which we think, speak, and act, is metaphorical in nature. My focus on primary metaphors, which are based on sensorimotor experience, foregrounds the interdependence of erotic language and early modern notions of embodiment. Since language, thought, and action are all subject to this embodied metaphorical system, conceptual metaphors allow Lyly and Shakespeare to dramatize the often invisible, paradoxical, and potentially unknowable experience of erotic desire. My understanding of language as dramatic action derives from a theory about the attribution of human motives that Kenneth Burke, in The Grammar of Motives (1945), called dramatism. Burke uses five key terms to address human motivation—Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose—and I in turn use each of these terms to make sense of erotic desire on the early modern stage.
    [Show full text]
  • The Plays of John Lyly Bachelor’S Diploma Thesis
    Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Petra Spurná The Plays of John Lyly Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. 2009 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature 2 Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Pavel Drábek, Ph.D. for his valuable guidance and advice. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................5 2. The Life of Johny Lyly...............................................................................................7 3. Lyly‟s Work..............................................................................................................12 3.1 Specific Conditions...........................................................................................12 3.2 Inventions..........................................................................................................14 4. The Plays...................................................................................................................18 4.1 Introduction to the Eight Plays..........................................................................18 4.2 Allegory.............................................................................................................25 4.3 Sapho and Phao.................................................................................................28
    [Show full text]
  • Lyly's <I>Midas</I> As an Allegory of Tyranny
    University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications -- Department of English English, Department of April 1972 Lyly's Midas as an Allegory of Tyranny Stephen S. Hilliard University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Hilliard, Stephen S., "Lyly's Midas as an Allegory of Tyranny" (1972). Faculty Publications -- Department of English. 4. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/englishfacpubs/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications -- Department of English by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. L YLY’ S M IDAS AS AN A LLEGORY OF T YRANNY grand tradition of Renaissance humanism, but his study, for all Lyly’s Midas as an Allegory of its historical insight, did not demonstrate the thematic 1 Tyranny* complexity that enriches Lyly’s plays. This article is intended to show that Lyly treated in his play Midas the nature of tyranny, a theme usually associated with the public theater. His use of alle‐ gory in depicting this theme is an informative example of the Stephen S. Hilliard Elizabethan use of the allegorical mode for dramatic purposes. Midas is perhaps “a model of elegant speech and a mirror of John Lyly’s Midas is structured in terms of traditional allegorizations of manners,” to use M. C. Bradbrook’s terms, but Lyly is deprived the Ovidian myth that represent Midas as an avaricious and ignorant of his due as an artist if the analysis of his plays is restricted to tyrant.
    [Show full text]
  • Simon Smith Music's Mobility
    University of Birmingham The many performance spaces for music at Jacobean indoor playhouses Smith, Simon DOI: 10.1017/9781316488768.003 License: Other (please specify with Rights Statement) Document Version Peer reviewed version Citation for published version (Harvard): Smith, S 2017, The many performance spaces for music at Jacobean indoor playhouses. in D Lindley & B Barclay (eds), Shakespeare, Music and Performance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 29-41. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316488768.003 Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal Publisher Rights Statement: This material has been published in revised form in Shakespeare, Music and Performance edited by Bill Barclay, David Lindley https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316488768.003. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re- distribution or re-use. © Cambridge University Press. General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. •Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. •Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. •User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of ‘fair dealing’ under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) •Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain.
    [Show full text]
  • Medical References in the Dramas of John Lyly
    MEDICAL REFERENCES IN THE DRAMAS OF JOHN LYLY By ALICE WILLCOX NEW YORK MONG the members of Lyly’s must be stopt, or puld out.”1 Most /yk dramatis personae there is often it was “puld out.” The third func­ yyk only one practitioner of tion of a barber, the one which added ™ medicine. This is Motto, the “surgeon” to his title, was to let blood barber-surgeon in “Midas.” Lyly rep­ and dress wounds. Lyly does not repre­ resents him primarily as a comic char­ sent Motto as performing these duties acter. He is, moreover, a stupid man, but Dello declares that his master is a easily outwitted by two court pages and “Barber and a Surgeon.”2 not beneath deliberately lying about his Lyly also makes a thrust at the ethics abilities in order to gain his ends. of the trade. Motto demands of Dello, The comic relief in “Midas” centers in return for all he has taught him, only in Motto’s struggle with Licio and Pe­ that he keep secret the plot to regain tulus, court pages, for possession of the the beard. Dello replies, “O sir, you golden beard which the barber shaved know I am a Barber, and cannot tittle from Midas’ chin. Petulus stole it. tattle, I am one of those whose tongues Motto, naturally, wants it back. He are swelde with silence.”3 But Licio hears Petulus complaining of the tooth­ knows better. He declares that “it is as ache to his friend Licio. When he is hard for a barber to keepe a secrete in certain Petulus can overhear him he his mouthe, as a burning coale in his discusses with his apprentice, Dello, a hand.”4 It is this very loquacity that remarkable cure he has performed on brings about Motto’s downfall.
    [Show full text]
  • Romeo at the Rose in 1598
    Issues in Review 149 66 Beeston is one of six men at the Red Bull named in an order for repair of the high- ways by the theatre, dated 3 October 1622; see Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 1.169 n.2. As he had managed Queen Anne’s Men there, and returned there with them after the 1617 riot, it appears that he owned, and continued to own, the theatre. 67 For ‘bifold appeal’ see discussion in Rutter, Work and Play, 110. 68 Exceptions include the Red Bull Revels’ Two Merry Milkmaids, at court in 1619/20, and Gramercy Wit in 1621; see Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, 1.173. Romeo at the Rose in 1598 In two plays of the Lord Admiral’s Men — Englishmen for My Money and The Two Angry Women of Abingdon — echoes of Romeo and Juliet appear.1 The first performances of Englishmen took place at the Rose in 1598. Two Angry Women is likely to have played at the same venue in the same year. What may these echoes tell us about the ethos and practices of the Lord Admiral’s Men, about the dramatists who wrote for them, and about the company’s place in the literary and dramatic milieu of the time? I want to argue that the presence of these echoes reveals a degree of inte- gration into urban literary fashion. And I will also suggest that some of the company’s playwrights exhibit the kind of knowing playfulness that was soon to characterize the repertory of the children’s companies and which was already shaping the satires and epigrams to reach print publication at this time.
    [Show full text]
  • Characters and Characterization in John Lyly's Endymion: the Man In
    International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences Vol-6, Issue-3; May-Jun, 2021 Journal Home Page Available: https://ijels.com/ Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels Peer-Reviewed Journal Characters and characterization in John Lyly’s Endymion: The Man in the Moone Mufeed Al-Abdullah Associate Professor, Jerash University, Jordan Received: 28 Mar 2021; Received in revised form: 01 May 2021; Accepted: 16 May 2021; Available online: 12 Jun 2021 ©2021 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Abstract— This paper studies the characters and the methods of characterization John Lyly uses in his euphuistic court play Endymion: The Man in the Moon (1591). The characters gather mythological, allegorical, and historical significance and are arranged in a hierarchy from the moon down to earth. The techniques the writer uses include the traditional methods of characterization through speech and action. And since the events in the play do not reach the level of a plot in the Aristotelian definition, which prevailed in the Renaissance, the writer underplays the method of character depiction through action. He, however,gives a lot of attention to portraying the characters through their utterance. This results from the fact that the characters spend most of the time talking about their attitudes, their relationships, and the few events that take place in the play. Lyly also uses the less traditional method of juxtaposition and social positioning. Juxtaposition is generated from the binary nature of Endymion and the crowd of antithetical pairs of characters that populate the drama.
    [Show full text]
  • Redating Pericles: a Re-Examination of Shakespeare’S
    REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY A THESIS IN Theatre Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by Michelle Elaine Stelting University of Missouri Kansas City December 2015 © 2015 MICHELLE ELAINE STELTING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED REDATING PERICLES: A RE-EXAMINATION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERICLES AS AN ELIZABETHAN PLAY Michelle Elaine Stelting, Candidate for the Master of Arts Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2015 ABSTRACT Pericles's apparent inferiority to Shakespeare’s mature works raises many questions for scholars. Was Shakespeare collaborating with an inferior playwright or playwrights? Did he allow so many corrupt printed versions of his works after 1604 out of indifference? Re-dating Pericles from the Jacobean to the Elizabethan era answers these questions and reveals previously unexamined connections between topical references in Pericles and events and personalities in the court of Elizabeth I: John Dee, Philip Sidney, Edward de Vere, and many others. The tournament impresas, alchemical symbolism of the story, and its lunar and astronomical imagery suggest Pericles was written long before 1608. Finally, Shakespeare’s focus on father-daughter relationships, and the importance of Marina, the daughter, as the heroine of the story, point to Pericles as written for a young girl. This thesis uses topical references, Shakespeare’s anachronisms, Shakespeare’s sources, stylometry and textual analysis, as well as Henslowe’s diary, the Stationers' Register, and other contemporary documentary evidence to determine whether there may have been versions of Pericles circulating before the accepted date of 1608.
    [Show full text]
  • Back to the Future: a Review of Comparative Studies in Shakespeare and the Commedia Dell'arte
    Issues in Review 227 Back to the Future: A Review of Comparative Studies in Shakespeare and the Commedia dell'Arte A wide-ranging, if admittedly not exhaustive, interpretive survey of compara- tive studies of Shakespeare and the commedia dell'arte, which this essay aims to provide, must include several important studies from the early twentieth century because their archival and bibliographic rigour makes them still use- ful points of departure for serious comparative study. Whereas the linear posi- tivistic source study (eg, ‘x influenced y’) that flourished in this early phase of comparative literature no longer compels us living in the age of inter- textuality, a transnational approach to Renaissance theatre should welcome archivally-documented accounts of actors crossing boundaries: the material encounters of international exchange. New work on the Shakespeare-arte question can weave together the archival and the intertextual, which has been richly redefined in recent years for the field of Renaissance drama by Louise George Clubb and other scholars.1 In giving some prolonged attention to early-twentieth-century scholars in the first half of this essay, I will pause over some of the foundational documents published in their studies as interpretive cruxes still meriting discussion. In my discussion of late-twentieth-century scholarship, I will acknowledge ties to the earlier work. Drawing from several late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century archival studies, such as Albert Feuillerat’s 1908 printed edition of documents from the
    [Show full text]
  • Dramatic Space and a Willingness to Let the Spectators Get Involved in the Play in Various Ways
    Space in Early Modern English Drama Allan Folkestad Space in Early Modern English Drama The Literary Dramaturgy of Space in the Comedies of John Lyly Doctoral Dissertation at the University of Agder University of Agder Faculty of Humanities and Pedagogy 2012 Abstract The present dissertation investigates the literary dramaturgy of space in the comedies of John Lyly (1564-1606), i.e. the ways in which various textual elements contribute to the establishment of both local settings and wider worlds within the plays. Previous readings of Lyly’s literary dramaturgy have tended to focus on the relationship between the stylistic device of the antithesis and the structure of the dramatic worlds, whereas I argue that deeper insight into the literary dramaturgical techniques of Lyly can be achieved by deploying the conceptual framework of semiotics of drama. Rather than comparing Lyly’s dramaturgy to that of Shakespeare, the dissertation adopts a historical perspective where Lyly’s dramatic oeuvre is examined on the background of the dramaturgy of a selection of middle and early sixteenth-century plays. In the final chapter, however, the perspective changes where Lyly’s only urban play, Mother Bombie, is compared to Shakepeare’s Comedy of Errors. Using lists of all the spatialising utterances in a play as my main analytic tool and then sorting these utterances according to certain parameters reveals that whwn compared to the somewhat mechanical declamatory quality of the spatialising utterances of earlier plays, Lyly’s literary dramaturgy of space unfolds more organically from the dialogue and is better integrated with aspects of characterisation. Moreover, to a higher degree than earlier playwrights Lyly allows minor characters to contribute significantly to the spatial dramaturgy of a play in their speeches.
    [Show full text]