The Voice of Elizabethan Stage Directions: The Evolution of a Theatrical Code by Linda McJannet (review)

Abstract

anxiety about who is sending what to whom. All of this could have been usefully analysedto shedlight on the workingsof a lively transcriptionalculture. Instead, however, we are offered what is described rather disconcertinglyas 'a brief though not entirely factual biography' (p. xxiv). What analysisthere is of the style and content of the lettersis somewhat dated. The editorsarekeen to show, for example, that Ralegh was no atheist:that 'neitherhere nor elsewherein the letters do we meet up with the atheist leanings with which he has been credited' (p. lvi). This is carried over into the annotations to the letters themselves, where, for example, S. R. Gardiner is given as the authority on Prince Henry's marriage prospects (p. 32 ) and the editorial comment to a letter to Queen Anne reads:'Or was he playing on a woman's sympathy?' (p. 329). There are also, unfortunately,inaccuracies and inconsistenciesin the notes and index. So, for example, TheHistoryof the World was published in I614, not 1611 (p. 319), whilst Ralegh's letter of advice to his son is not indexed alongside other letters connected with him. One footnote to the famous letters connected with Ralegh's disgraceof 1592has him underhouse arrestin earlyJune, anotherhas the Queen unawareof the secretmarriageuntilthe end ofJuly. Having said that, this is a fascinating volume and one which is quite clearly a labour of love, and it has much to offer anyone seeking a more detailed understandingof the languages and practices of Elizabethan patronage networks. Generally, the critical apparatus is useful and provides valuable contexts for the letters,particularlyfor those, the vastmajority,which are concerned with financial, legal, ornavaltechnicalities.Althoughthereisa wistfulcomment in theintroduction that 'SirWalter'sown papers,which must have been considerable,have never been found' (p. xxx), Latham and Youingshave given usplenty to be gettingon with. REGENT'S PARK COLLEGE, OXFORD ANNA BEER TheVoice of Elizabethan StageDirections.TheEvolution of a Theatrical Code. By LINDA MCJANNET. Cranbury, NJ: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses. I999. 240 pp. /32. TheVoice ofElizabethan Stage Directions persuasivelychallenges our perception of the function of stage directions in early modern drama. The author's intention is to discoverpatternsof evolution in the code of directions, and to achieve her goal she selects a sample of about fifty play-texts, both manuscript and printed, of the Elizabethan,Jacobean, and Caroline ages (collectivelyreferredto as 'Elizabethan'). She takes into account historical plays connected with the activities of the men's professional companies, bringing to the foreground their idiosyncraticvisual and verbal features,which are ratherdifferentfrom those characterizingthe academic drama and the plays written specifically for the boys' companies. Revealing instances from medieval and early Tudor theatricaltexts are 'cited to highlight by contrastthe particularconventions of the laterperiod' (p. 30). The study is divided into two main parts: the first deals principally with the scrutiny of the page layout of play-texts by discussing the codes adopted to distinguishdirectionsand speech prefixesfrom dialogue. The second partanalyses the grammaticaland rhetoricalfeaturesof directions,devoting particularattention to the differentways in which differentaspects of stage action are signalled.As far as page design is concerned the author argues that, as time passed, visual conventions aimed at differentiatingdirectionsfrom the dramaticdialogue became increasingly elaborate. In the first stages of the evolution of this visual code, directions worked almost as glosses on the dialogue, but finally the plays printed anxiety about who is sending what to whom. All of this could have been usefully analysedto shedlight on the workingsof a lively transcriptionalculture. Instead, however, we are offered what is described rather disconcertinglyas 'a brief though not entirely factual biography' (p. xxiv). What analysisthere is of the style and content of the lettersis somewhat dated. The editorsarekeen to show, for example, that Ralegh was no atheist:that 'neitherhere nor elsewherein the letters do we meet up with the atheist leanings with which he has been credited' (p. lvi). This is carried over into the annotations to the letters themselves, where, for example, S. R. Gardiner is given as the authority on Prince Henry's marriage prospects (p. 32 ) and the editorial comment to a letter to Queen Anne reads:'Or was he playing on a woman's sympathy?' (p. 329). There are also, unfortunately,inaccuracies and inconsistenciesin the notes and index...