The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0433  Thursday, 2 March 2000.

From:           Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 1 Mar 2000 11:18:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 11.0423 Re: Taymor Titus
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0423 Re: Taymor Titus

In response to Jimmy Jung's query ("Is "ravished" a direction for the
actress or costume design?") here is what we can glean from stage
directions in other plays of the period.

Alan Dessen

ravished:  usually a fictional rather than a theatrical description, as
seen in "Enter the discontented Lord Antonio, whose wife the Duchess's
youngest son ravished; he Discovering the body of her dead to certain
Lords" (Revenger's Tragedy, C1v); best known is Lavinia's entrance in
Titus Andronicus "her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and
ravished" (E2r, 2.4.0); that ravished may have carried with it some
sense of how to implement the effect onstage is suggested by the as [if]
implicit in "Enter Merione (as newly ravished)" (Queen of Corinth, 17);
for the various figures who appear onstage after a rape the only
recurring detail is disheveled hair: "her garments loose, her hair
disheveled" (Unnatural Combat, 5.2.185), "loose haired, and weeping"
(Dick of Devonshire, 687 9), "her hair about her ears" (Swisser, 4.1.0).

[from Alan C. Dessen and Leslie Thomson, *A Dictionary of Stage
Directions in English Drama, 1580-1642*, Cambridge U.P., 1999]

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