Military music in and its effects on Shakespeare’s plays: call, symbol and rhetoric

Abstract

This article examines the use of military music in, and its effects on, Shakespeare’s plays. Military music-primarily sounds of drum and trumpet which accompanies soldiers into battles-in Shakespeare’s plays has often been considered music to represent the splendor and power of the royal courts, or background sound effects to represent convincingly the progress of the battle. In fact, stage directions such as alarum, retreat or parley indicate that Shakespeare differentiated sounds made on a trumpet and/or drum into a call to arms, a cue for soldiers entering, and a call to retire or withdraw, well enough for theatrical demands. This was possible because both the playwright and his audience understood the function of military music which they could become familiar with military sounds through their acquaintance with the drilling of citizen soldiers at Miles End. In All’s Well That Ends Well, we also find that Shakespeare used a military drum to epitomize the emptiness of soldierly values evoked by the playas a whole. Hence, the principal motivation of this article is to consider why military music in general, and a military drum in particular, became a matter of great importance to Shakespeare. As many literary critics have demonstrated, off-stage military music was central to the audience’s imagination of warfare as the sound effects they generated. However, I want to take a step further and argue that military musicians’ physical engagement on stage was also important in this process. Consider King Lear, where the preparation for the battle between the French and the British army is represented by audio-visual effects: “Enter with a drummer and colours, Queen Cordelia, Gentlemen, and soldiers” (4.2.6.1-2) and “Enter with a drummer and colours, Edmund, Regan, Gentlemen, and soldiers” (4.6.77.1-2). Similarly in Julius Caesar, Brutus’ and Cassius’ troops meet on stage before the battle of Philippi with the sound of a drum: “Drum. Antony and Octavius march with their army. Drum within. Enter, marching, Brutus, Cassius, and their army ... Octavius’s and Antony’s army makes a stand” (5.1.20.1-6). If many of the audience were either well versed in military theories or familiar with the real world of warfare, the placing of military musicians on stage would have been immediately meaningful-a vital role in representing the battle discipline of troops. In other words, Shakespeare used military musicians to introduce a moment of anticipation and suspense with off-stage sound effects, while reinforcing the image of themselves as a key component in martial formation. In this way, the physical placing of military musicians on stage, accompanied by sound effects, could contribute significant meaning and has more value than its conventional function as a signal of the entrance of royalty or background sound effects. In addition to its theatrical and symbolic functions, military music in Shakespeare’s plays is used as the language of war and sexual desire as seen in All’s Well That Ends Well or Troilus and Cressida. As the long contest which involved the English against the Spanish (which lasted for over fifteen years), audio-visual images of the military became customary for ordinary people, including women. Under these circumstances, Shakespeare became to challenge the illusion of military values such as soldier’s honour and discipline set out in contemporary military books and manuals by using military music, a recurring symbol of war, rhetorically. Military music was valuable for its dramatic effect and functioned for the audience not only as an effective audio-visual accompaniment to the action but also as a means to interrogate the ideals of military action and explore the complexities of male-female relationships established by military language and imagery.