Abstract: Singing in Shakespeare
Songs in Shakespeare's plays are just one element of a whole array of discourses at the playwright's disposal In the title of this essay I've chosen the gerund form ‘singing' rather than the noun ‘songs', because whereas most studies focuses on the provenance, critical history, textual cruxes, and authenticity of the songs, and only to a small degree on their dramatic function, my primary interest is in the singing in the plays, i.e. the way in which the songs in the plays function dramatically.
And in my article I want to analyse the extraordinary range of dramatic uses of singing found in Shakespeare's plays.
