Shakespearean Terminology - Weebly



Shakespearean Terminology Definitions

Stage Terms

Doubling: The common practice of having one actor play multiple roles, so that a play with a large cast of characters might be performed by a relatively small company.

Dumb shows: Mimed scenes performed before a play (or before each act), summarizing or foreshadowing the plot. Dumb shows were popular in early Elizabethan drama, but although they already seemed old-fashioned in Shakespeare’s time, they were employed by writers up to the 1640s.

Gallery: Covered seating areas surrounding the open yard of the public amphitheaters. There were three levels of galleries at the Globe; admission to these seats cost an extra penny (in addition to the basic admission fee of one penny to the yard), and seating in the higher galleries another penny yet. In indoor theaters such as Blackfriars, where there was no standing room, gallery seating was less expensive than seating in the pit; indeed, seats nearest the stage were the most expensive.

Groundlings: Audience members who paid the minimum price of admission (one penny) to stand in the yard of the open-air theaters; also referred to as “understanders.”

Heavens: Canopied roof over the stage in the open-air theaters, protecting the players and their costumes from rain. The “heavens” would be brightly decorated with sun, moon, and stars, and perhaps the signs of the zodiac.

Jig: A song-and-dance performance by the clown and other members of the company at the conclusion of a play. These performances were frequently bawdy and were officially banned in 1612.

Part: The character played by an actor. In Shakespeare’s theater, actors were given a roll of paper called a “part,” containing all of the speeches and all of the cues belonging to their character. The term “role,” synonymous with “part,” is derived from such rolls of paper.

Patrons: Important nobles and members of the royal family under whose protection the theatrical companies of London operated players not in the service of patrons were punishable as vagabonds. The companies were referred to as their patrons’ “Men” or “servants.” Thus the name of the company to which Shakespeare belonged for most of his career was first the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, then was changed to the King’s Men in 1603, when James I became their patron.

Pit: The area in front of the stage in indoor theaters such as Blackfriars, where the most expensive and prestigious bench seating was to be had.

Repertory: The stock of plays a company had ready for performance at a given time. Companies generally performed a different play each day, often more than a dozen plays in a month and more than thirty in the course of the season.

Textual Terms

Canonical: Of an author, the writings generally accepted as authentic. In the case of Shakespeare’s dramatic works, only two plays that are not among the thirty-six plays contained in the First Folio, Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen, have won widespread acceptance into the Shakespearean canon. (This sense of “canonical” should not be confused with the use of “the canon” to denote the entire body of literary works, including but not limited to Shakespeare’s, that have traditionally been regarded as fit objects of admiration and study.)

Catchword: A word printed below the text at the bottom of a page, matching the first word on the following page. The catchword enabled the printer to keep the pages in their proper sequence. Where the catchword fails to match the word at the top of the next page, there is reason to suspect that something has been lost or misplaced.

Conflation: A version of a play created by combining readings from more than one substantive edition. Since the early eighteenth century, for example, most versions of King Lear and of several other plays by Shakespeare have been conflations of quarto and First Folio texts.

Dramatis personae: A list of the characters appearing in the play. In the First Folio such lists were printed at the end of some but not all of the plays. The editor Nicholas Rowe (1709) first provided lists of dramatis personae for all of Shakespeare’s dramatic works.

Tiring-house: The players’ dressing (attiring) room, a structure located at the back of the stage and connected to the stage by two or more doors in the frons scenae (the wall at the stage’s rear).

Folio: A book-making format in which each large sheet of paper is folded once, making two leaves (four pages front and back). This format produced large volumes, generally handsome and expensive. The First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays was printed in 1623.

Octavo: A book-making format in which each large sheet of paper is folded three times, making eight leaves (sixteen pages front and back). Only one of Shakespeare’s plays, Richard Duke of York (3 Henry VI, 1595) was published in octavo format.

Quarto: A book-making format in which each large sheet of paper is folded twice, making four leaves (eight pages front and back). Quarto volumes were smaller and less expensive than books printed in the folio format.

Promptbook: A manuscript of a play (either foul papers or fair copy) annotated and adapted for performance by the theatrical company. The promptbook incorporated stage directions, notes on properties and special effects, and revisions, sometimes including those required by the Master of the Revels. Promptbooks are usually identifiable by the replacement of characters’ names with actors’ names.

Licensing: By an order of 1581, new plays could not be performed until they had received a license from the Master of the Revels. A separate license, granted by the Court of High Commission, was required for publication, though in practice plays were often printed without license. From 1610, the Master of the Revels had the authority to license plays for publication as well as for performance.

Stage direction (s.d.): The part of the text that is not spoken by any character but that indicates actions to be performed onstage:

• Exit: indicates the departure of a single actor from the stage

• Exeunt: indicates the departure of more than one actor from the stage

• Manet: indicates that a single actor remains onstage

• Manent: indicates that more than one actor remains onstage.

• Aside: Lines accompanied by this stage direction are spoken so as not to be heard by the others on stage.

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