2 Hearing the night
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Laura Jayne Wright
Abstract
Chapter 2 turns from loud and brash sounds to the more tenuous, complex and even uncanny noises used increasingly after the turn of the seventeenth century, in parallel with the more regular use of indoor theatre space. With a focus on dark or ‘nocturnal’ scenes, this chapter is interested in the sounds of the supernatural, a study which might be traced as far back as Thomas De Quincey’s influential ‘On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth’ (1890), or more recently Frances Shirley’s Shakespeare’s Use of Off-Stage Sounds (1963). This chapter expands the focus of such works (which are solely interested in Shakespeare) and offers new arguments which draw on sensory studies and explore a particularly Jacobean scepticism towards the sense of hearing as evidence of the world around us. It also acknowledges recent performance-as-research as a method of engaging with the spatial element of sound. Tracing sourceless sounds heard from offstage, or ascribed multiple, contradictory sources by those onstage, this chapter examines the ‘nocturnal’ soundscapes of Macbeth (1606), The Duchess of Malfi (1613) and The Night-walker (1615, revised 1633). It concludes that the ‘spatial characteristics’ of sounds are integral to their capacity to unsettle an audience’s sense of what is true – even what is real – in a playhouse full of questionable noises.
Abstract
Chapter 2 turns from loud and brash sounds to the more tenuous, complex and even uncanny noises used increasingly after the turn of the seventeenth century, in parallel with the more regular use of indoor theatre space. With a focus on dark or ‘nocturnal’ scenes, this chapter is interested in the sounds of the supernatural, a study which might be traced as far back as Thomas De Quincey’s influential ‘On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth’ (1890), or more recently Frances Shirley’s Shakespeare’s Use of Off-Stage Sounds (1963). This chapter expands the focus of such works (which are solely interested in Shakespeare) and offers new arguments which draw on sensory studies and explore a particularly Jacobean scepticism towards the sense of hearing as evidence of the world around us. It also acknowledges recent performance-as-research as a method of engaging with the spatial element of sound. Tracing sourceless sounds heard from offstage, or ascribed multiple, contradictory sources by those onstage, this chapter examines the ‘nocturnal’ soundscapes of Macbeth (1606), The Duchess of Malfi (1613) and The Night-walker (1615, revised 1633). It concludes that the ‘spatial characteristics’ of sounds are integral to their capacity to unsettle an audience’s sense of what is true – even what is real – in a playhouse full of questionable noises.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- General editors' foreword viii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Conventions xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Soundgrams on stage 29
- 2 Hearing the night 73
- 3 The head and the (play)house 115
- 4 Unheard' and 'untold' 156
- Conclusion 200
- Select bibliography 208
- Index 224
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- General editors' foreword viii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Conventions xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Soundgrams on stage 29
- 2 Hearing the night 73
- 3 The head and the (play)house 115
- 4 Unheard' and 'untold' 156
- Conclusion 200
- Select bibliography 208
- Index 224
