SEDERI Yearbook ISSN: 1135-7789
[email protected] Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies España Amelang, David J. From directions to descriptions: Reading the theatrical Nebentext in Ben Jonson’s Workes as an authorial outlet SEDERI Yearbook, núm. 27, 2017, pp. 7-26 Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies Valladolid, España Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=333553631001 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative From directions to descriptions: Reading the theatrical Nebentext in Ben Jonson’s Workes as an authorial outlet David J. Amelang Freie Universität Berlin, Germany ABSTRACT This article explores how certain dramatists in early modern England and in Spain, specifically Ben Jonson and Miguel de Cervantes (with much more emphasis on the former), pursued authority over texts by claiming as their own a new realm which had not been available—or, more accurately, as prominently available—to playwrights before: the stage directions in printed plays. The way both these playwrights and/or their publishers dealt with the transcription of stage directions provides perhaps the clearest example of a theatrical convention translated into the realm of readership. KEYWORDS: William Shakespeare; Ben Jonson; Lope de Vega; Miguel de Cervantes;