The Function of Music in Shakespeare’s Romances

Abstract

ritics have frequently commented on the importance Shakespeare gives to music in his plays, but they vary considerably in their approach to the problem. earlier critics tend to assign a social cause, and stress the place of music in Renaissance society.' On the other hand, more modern critics see the music as a specifically dramatic device. There are numerous studies of this kind, ranging from Richmond Noble's discussion of the use of song for revealing character or furthering the plot2 to Caroline Spurgeon's comments on the musical imagery.3 Some, like Edward J. Dent,4 describe the instruments Shakespeare must have required for certain scenes or effects, while John H. Long attempts to trace the actual music used or to suggest substitutes suitable for contemporary performance.5 But until quite recently there has been insufficient attention given to Shakespeare's relation to the complex musical ideology of his time. Because the Romances incorporate so much of this philosophy, a survey of some of the basic concepts is a necessary preface to any consideration of the plays themselves. In the compendia of Renaissance thought, music played a vital role. As J. M. Nosworthy explains it, The place of music in the Elizabethan scheme of things [was] ... not simply as a diversion but as an act of faith, and as something no less essential to the overall pattern than the concepts of degree, the body politic, the elements and humours, and the like.7 This cosmological view was based to a considerable extent on concepts derived from the Greek philosophers, notably Pythagoras and Plato, and later syncretized by Boethius and the Christian philosophers. Pythagoras was especially influential. As a result of his experiments in applying mathematical principles to music, he formulated the fundamental notion of perfect and imperfect consonance. To him also should be attributed the theory of the music of the spheres. Closely related to these concepts was the tripartite division of music formulated by Boethius in the early sixth century, but accepted as canonical well into the sixteenth. According to his scheme, there were three branches of music: