| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this thesis is twofold:
1. To investigate the cultural significance of Shakespearean theatre music with specific focus on the use of boys voices on the stage, depictions of the supernatural world, and musical representations of death.
2. To re-examine the origins and early circulation of Shakespeare s songs, applying a rigorous method of stemmatic analysis to shed light on their earliest forms.
In chapter 1 I examine the role of Elizabethan and Jacobean child companies in raising the musical profile of early modern English drama, concluding that the child companies greatest legacy was the musical tradition associated with their indoor performances, a tradition which was inherited by the adults after their demise. An overview of child company activity and the reasons for their dissolution is followed by an interpretation of Hamlet s Little Eyases passage (II.ii), where I draw on the musical associations of the term means as key to understanding the passage as a comment on the revival of the child companies. A comparison of the notated pitch of boy songs in child and adult company repertoire demonstrates that boy songs of the adult companies were notated at a higher pitch than those of the child companies. There follows an account of the clues that can be glimpsed in both adult- and child-company play texts to understanding the implications for theatrical companies of vocal pitch and voice change in boys. A discussion about boy apprenticeship in Shakespeare s own company is followed by a reflection on the musical consequences of the adults usurpation of the children s indoor playing space.
In chapters 2 and 3 I examine the origins and early circulation of Shakespeare s songs. All known manuscript and printed sources for the earliest versions of those songs are collated in appendix 2.1, which serves as a point of reference for both chapters. Chapter 2 commences with a survey of the secondary literature concerning the classification of Shakespeare s songs as popular , formal etc., and an overview of early modern manuscript and print culture. In the main body of the chapter, I explore Shakespeare s use of pre-existing, popular songs as a hierarchization device whereby he portrays characters as being drunk, clowns, mad, or the butt of jokes. Chapter 3 consists of case studies of the circulation of six of Shakespeare s songs which do not appear to have pre-dated their plays. Using the text-critical method, I trace the relationships between early sources of text and music, concluding that songs ostensibly penned by Shakespeare circulated with textual stability, while songs whose origins are more complex or which had affiliations with plays outside of Shakespeare s canon have less consistent textual traditions.
In chapter 4 I examine the musical aspects of Shakespeare s supernatural and magical characters, namely fairies, witches and The Tempest s Ariel. Placing Shakespeare s characters within their wider cultural context, I conclude that specific musical effects came to be associated with those different types of being: shifting metre with fairies, daring harmonies within a stable , incantatory rhythm for magic songs, and harmonic and structural disorder for witches. Chapter 5 posits Shakespeare s musical treatment of death as a reflection of the changing cultural and religious landscape of early modern England. A study of the distribution of the words knell , bell and plague throughout Shakespeare s plays reveals a correlation with plague outbreaks in England. Finally, a survey of the dramatic use of such musical devices as knells, dead marches and dirges leads to the conclusion that at a time when the use of music to mourn and bury the dead was under curtailment, it continued to be used unreservedly on the stage. | en |
