Shakespearean Entrances

by Ichikawa, Mariko

• ISBN13: 9780333984062
• ISBN10: 0333984064
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-12-13
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

Summary

Shakespearean Entrances offers a systematic study of entrances and exits on the Shakespearean stage. Elizabethan playwrights and players not only routinely handled these movements but they also used them to bring about various effects. Through analyzing the surviving play-texts, the author attempts to identify the unspoken but standard rules that lay behind the minimal and conventionalized stage directions 'Enter' and 'Exit'/'Exeunt'. The findings provide means by which to recover effects and meanings that the original audience would have appreciated.

Author Biography

Mariko Ichikawa is Professor at the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, University of Tohoku, Japan.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	viii
Acknowledgements	ix
Note on Texts and Old Spelling; System of Dating; and List of Abbreviations	xi
Studying Entrances and Exits	1	(20)
Interrupted Exits and Their Implications	21	(12)
Time Allowed for Exits	33	(11)
Speeches around Entrances and Exits	44	(12)
Overlapping Exits and Entrances	56	(17)
The Use of Stage Doors	73	(17)
`Passing over the Stage'	90	(12)
The Central Opening	102	(16)
Alternative Possibilities	118	(15)
Conclusion: The Meanings of `Enter' and `Exit'/`Exeunt'	133	(17)
Appendixes
1 Instances of Each Pattern (A, A+, B, Ca, Cb, Cc)	138	(7)
2 Instances Fulfilling Each Condition (1--6)	145	(5)
Notes	150	(30)
Bibliography	180	(13)
Index	193