4. CASE STUDIES: Literalised Dance in British Drama

After having approached the search for text-dance encounters in British litera- ture from a theoretical and typological perspective, I will now have a closer look at the historical dimension. Furthermore, by narrowing down the generic scope, I will examine literalised dance in British drama history. Due to the immense number of examples, a comprehensive history of literalised dance in British drama is nearly impossible and would not serve the research aim here, namely to discuss the ways and types of signification through dance in the text. Yet a look at some case studies will not only highlight certain periods and genres of drama history that use and produce literalised dance in their processes of signification, but also illustrate a paradox of this intermedial encounter: on the one hand, there is hardly any period or genre of drama from the Renaissance to Modernism that does not include dance either through intermedial reference or pluri­medial combination1. Thus parallel to dance history there is a seeming continuity also in literalised dance. Yet on the other hand, one cannot trace an unbroken line in the literary-historical development. Certain features of the intermedial encounter in drama emerge, re-emerge in variation later, and con- textualise with or are produced by certain literary- and/or cultural-historical phenomena. For example, dance in Jacobean and Caroline masques serves well to celebrate and demonstrate absolutist power. Thus the intermedial bond is here a product of the unison between cultural and literary expression. Simi- larly, the inclusion of dance in Fin de Siècle drama stands in context of and is preconditioned by the language scepticism in the late 19th and early 20th cen- tury. Although very different in contextualisation and realisation, these early and late examples share one aspect, namely the very close, mutually influencing relationship of text and movement in drama. In order to trace this wide variety of text-dance encounters in 19th century drama history, I begin my search by

1 Even closet dramas can include a simulated plurimedial incorporation of dance. 194 Dance and British Literature: An Intermedial Encounter looking back at early forms of this intermedial symbiosis. In the first part of this ‘pre-history’, I will concentrate on a form that foregrounds plurimediality, namely the Renaissance masque. In the second part, dealing with Restoration comedy and 18th century drama, intermedial reference to dance and thus cul- tural aspects will take the central position. However, it is important to note that both types of intermediality (plurimediality and intermedial reference) are mostly present.

4.1. Dance in British Drama from the Renaissance to the 18th Century

Dance is a popular pastime in 17th and 18th culture. Be it at court or around the village maypole, it is present on all levels of society and functions as a welcome means to express conditions as well as ideals of the time. Each century has its favourite dances at court. In the 16th century dancers show off their leaping steps in a ‘galliarde’, in the 17th century they ‘fly’ across the floor in a ‘courante’, and in the 18th century they ‘draw’ their ‘Mazy Z’s’ in a minuet (cf. Dahms 2001: 81; Brainard 2001: 59)2. With the rise of the bourgeoisie in the 18th century came the expansion of country dance culture in its “round”, “longways” and “square” formations that allowed playful social transgression and bonding ([cf.] Dahms 2001: 69)3. As the discussions on Shakespearean drama have shown earlier in the present study, the inclusion and interplay of dance in drama seems most self-evident in the Renaissance. The stage convention of embedding dance into the dramatic action and thus contributing to the work’s signification shows itself in its most extreme form of symbiosis in Jacobean and Caroline masques.

4.1.1. Plurimediality in Renaissance Masques— Dance as Allegory of Order: Jonson’s Hymenaei and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Jonson’s Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, Milton’s Comus Hardly any other form of Renaissance drama interweaves text, music and dance so intensely as the masques of Ben Jonson. Masques were court entertainments

2 The Renaissance is the time of great variety of dances, such as the ‘branle’, ‘pavane’, ‘tourdion’, ‘jig’, and ‘measure’ (cf. Brainard 2001: 59). See also Alan Brissenden’s glossary of Renaissance dances in his study on Shakespeare and the Dance (cf. 1981: 112-116). Jim Hoskins also enumerates and illus- trates (also in the literal sense) The Dances of Shakespeare (2005). 3 The country dance goes back to the 16th century in England and was noted down in its many var- iations as a common social practice by John Playford in his The English Dancing Master (1651) (cf. Dahms 2001: 69). For a characterisation of country dancing, see also Wood 1982: 120-122.