Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Shakespeare and Five Acts: Studies in a Dramatic Convention
This study attempts to present the data relevant to the much-discussed question of five-act division and five-act plot structure in the Shakespear ean plays, and to draw the conclusions to which the data logically points. But Shakespearean drama cannot be studied successfully in vacuo; there fore this central question to which the study is addressed perforce subsumes questions concerning other dramatic literature, particularly the ancient Greek and Roman and the Elizabethan, of which the Shake spearean plays are an integral part. Did.the comedies of Terence and Plautus and the tragedies attributed to Seneca really have five-act divi sion? What is the background and meaning of Horace's statement in the Ars Poetica that a play should have no more nor less than five acts? How valid is Donatus' description, in his commentary on Terence's comedies, of how each should be divided into five acts? How sound is a recent thesis maintaining that Renaissance critics developed a formula for plot construction based on the five-act structure of Terence's Andria and that this formula was learned and applied by Shakespeare and other Elizabethans to the construction of their plays? Why are some of the playbooks published in the period of Shakespeare's theatrical career (roughly 1590 to 1610) not divided into five acts; why are others so divided? Did the authors of divided plays themselves make the act divisions, or were these done by the preparers of prompt-books and other transcripts? What does the difference respecting divisions and other data indicate about the theatrical practices in the period? Were there four pauses or suspensions of action on the stage to accord with the four divisions between the five acts? Were pauses or intervals between acts the practice of some theaters but not of others?
Above all, do the acts in a divided text - whether made by author, prompt-book, transcriber, or editor - coincide with parts or movements of the actual plot structure of the play? In short, is there typically in the Shakespearean plays a five-act structure? The study seeks the answers to these questions.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
