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Discoveries on the Early Modern Stage
  • Contexts and Conventions
  • Leslie Thomson
  • Published online:
    18 July 2018
    Print publication:
    19 July 2018
  • This study of the action of discovery as plot device, visual motif, and thematic trope on the early modern stage considers an important and popular performance convention in its cultural and religious contexts. Through close examination of a number of 'discoveries' taken from a wide range of early modern plays, Leslie Thomson traverses several related disciplines, including theatre history, literary analysis, art history, and the history of the religious practices that would have influenced Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Taking as its primary focus the performance of disguise-discoveries and discovery scenes, the analyses include considerations of how this particular device relates to genre, plot structure, language, imagery, themes, and the manipulation of playgoer expectations. With strong reference to the visual arts, and an appendix that addresses the problem of how and where discovery scenes were performed, Thomson offers an innovative perspective on the staging and meaning of early modern drama.

  • 2 - Shakespeare’s Life, Times and Stage

  • Edited by Peter Holland, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • Book:
    Shakespeare Survey
    Published online:
    28 March 2007
    Print publication:
    16 October 2003, pp 333-349

  • Summary

    Judging from the selection of books that have arrived for review this year, the practice of Shakespeare and related criticism is ever more diverse, seemingly without a clear direction, even miscellaneous. This is of course not altogether a bad thing, since the opportunities for new and innovative approaches are necessarily plentiful at such a time. Certainly ‘variety’ is the byword of this year’s review: variety in topics, in quality, in critical approach, and in the media discussed.

    The evidence of publishers’ lists and tables at conferences suggests that those planning to undertake studies of Shakespeare’s contemporaries might want to think twice before beginning a project without that magic name in its title. The same evidence also indicates that one publisher in particular is making a concerted effort to broaden the range of criticism on early modern subjects. Ashgate is noteworthy for both the quantity and quality of its offerings on a broad selection of such topics, a good example being Marlowe’s Soldiers: Rhetorics of Masculinity in the Age of the Armada, by Alan Shepard. It offers an ambitious treatment of all Marlowe’s plays; indeed, its scope is rather wider than the title and subtitle seem to advertise. Central to his argument is the idea that ‘under the stresses of war, counterfeiting the guise of a soldier in the streets could bring a death sentence, while in the theatre it could bring modest celebrity to a player and, in rare circumstances, wealth to shareholders.

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