This book shows that the sounds of the early modern stage do not only signify but are also significant. Sounds are weighted with meaning, offering a complex system of allusions. Playwrights such as Jonson and Shakespeare developed increasingly experimental soundscapes, from the storms of King Lear (1605) and Pericles (1607) to the explosive laboratory of The Alchemist (1610). Yet, sound is dependent on the subjectivity of listeners; this book is conscious of the complex relationship between sound as made and sound as heard. Sound effects should not resound from scene to scene without examination, any more than a pun can be reshaped in dialogue without acknowledgement of its shifting connotations. This book listens to sound as a rhetorical device, able to penetrate the ears and persuade the mind, to influence and to affect.
About the AuthorLaura Jayne Wright is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Newcastle University
Book InformationISBN 9781526159182
Author Laura Jayne WrightFormat Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Manchester University PressPublisher Manchester University Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 16mm