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This book re-examines early modern musical culture to suggest how music shapes meaning in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. Listening; 2. Looking; 3. Imagining; 4. Remembering; Coda.
About the author
Simon Smith is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and the Department of English Literature, University of Birmingham. He has published widely on music in Shakespeare and early modern drama, and co-edited The Senses in Early Modern England, 1558–1660 (with Jackie Watson and Amy Kenny, 2015). His theatre-historical research informed the design of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe and he has provided historical music research - and occasionally musical direction - for many productions including Twelfth Night and Richard III at Shakespeare's Globe in 2012, The Tragedie of Cleopatra in 2013 at University College London and Wolf Hall on the BBC in 2015.
Summary
This book investigates the dramatic role of music in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Drawing on Smith's unusual combination of gifts as a musician and literary critic, this investigation offers scholars and students of literature, history and music new views on Jacobean drama and early modern musical culture.
