Talking in asides in Shakespeare’s plays
Only in the first Quarto of The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and in that of Pericles (1609) can
the stage direction “aside” be found. Nevertheless it is abundantly present in modern editions of Shakespearean plays, starting
from Shakespeare’s first editors in the eighteenth century. Scholars have defined various categories for this particular
theatrical convention (monological, ad spectatores, and dialogical), among which this article investigates the
dialogical aside and the pragmatic strategies it involves, when dialogue becomes circumspect, so as not to be caught by other
onstage bystanders. Following the results of a preliminary quantitative search, the plays analysed in detail are The
Tempest, Henry VI, Part 3, and Antony and Cleopatra.
Article outline
- 1.Preliminary definition(s) of aside
- 2.Which aside?
- 3.How many dialogical asides?
- 4.Intriguing plots
- 5.The pragmatics of verbal exchanges in dialogical asides
- 5.1“Asides to” in The Tempest at various interactional levels
- 5.2Potential intriguers in Henry VI, Part 3
- 5.3What happens in Antony and Cleopatra
- 6.Conclusion
- Notes
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References