The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0690 Tuesday, 16 October 2007
From: Alan Dessen <
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Date: Friday, 12 Oct 2007 11:06:25 -0400
Subject: Pulpit in Julius Caesar
To follow up on David Evett's "speculation" (with which I concur), the
original question ("what would have been used to represent a pulpit on
the stage during the earliest performances of JULIUS CAESAR?") should be
preceded by a previous question: is the Folio stage direction ("Enter
Brutus and goes into the Pulpit, and Cassius, with the Plebeians" - TLN
1528-9) *theatrical* or *fictional* (these are Richard Hosley's
terms)? For an account of the distinction see the entry for "fictional
stage directions" in our 1999 *Dictionary of Stage Directions*. To
summarize, for Hosley fictional s.d.s "usually refer not to theatrical
structure or equipment but rather to dramatic fiction" whereas
theatrical directions "usually refer not to dramatic fiction but rather
to theatrical structure or equipment." Examples of the former are "on
shipboard," "within the prison," "enter the city" as opposed to
theatrical signals such as "within," "at another door," "scaffold thrust
out." The same onstage event can therefore be signaled by both "enter
above" and "enter upon the walls [of a city"], with the second locution
the fictional version of the first. The clearest theatrical signals are
practical directions about properties and personnel; in contrast, in
fictional directions a dramatist sometimes slips into a narrative,
descriptive style seemingly more suited to a reader facing a page than
an actor on the stage so as to conjure up a vivid image more appropriate
to a cinematic scene than an onstage effect at the Globe: "the Romans
are beat back to their Trenches" (*Coriolanus*, 523, 1.4.29), Jonas
"cast out of the Whale's belly upon the Stage" (*Looking Glass for
London*, 1460-1).
As with the pulpit, complications can arise when a reader today cannot
be certain if a direction is theatrical (and therefore calls for a
significant property such as a tomb or tree) or fictional (so that a
sense of a tomb, tavern, ship, or forest is to be generated by means of
language, costume, hand-held properties, or appropriate actions in
conjunction with the imagination of the playgoer). Such complications
are further compounded by the presence of an explicit or implicit *as
[if]*. For example, "Enter Sanders's young son, and another boy coming
from school" (*Warning for Fair Women*, F4r) may be merely a fictional
telling of the story, but if construed as "[as if] coming from school,"
the two boys could be dressed in distinctive costumes and carrying
books. A fictional signal such as "enter on the walls" requires only
that the figure enter above/aloft; other seemingly fictional signals
("coming from school," Jonas "[as if] out of the Whale's belly") may in
contrast convey some practical instructions albeit in an Elizabethan code.
As with the *trenches* in *Coriolanus*, the term *pulpit* does appear in
North's Plutarch but does not appear elsewhere in our database of 22,000
s.d.s. My educated guess is therefore that a playgoer in 1599 saw the
two orators in 3.1 placed above at a railing (David Evett's speculation)
with no special property needed. I freely admit that I have no pipeline
to Shakespeare's "intention" in this matter (if indeed he is the one
responsible for the Folio s.d.), but my conclusion is based on my
understanding of the theatrical practice of the time.
Alan Dessen
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