Penning My Annotated Bibliography

My current research interest is music in Shakespeare, with an emphasis on how the musical element changes the atmosphere and meanings of various scenes. The plays I am focusing on are Twelfth Night, the Tempest, and the Merchant of Venice. My thesis will most likely deal with how the songs in Twelfth change the meaning of the play.

1) Wilson, Christopher, and Michelangelo Calore. Music in Shakespeare: A Dictionary. London: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005. Print.

I found this dictionary at the humanities reference desk on the fifth floor. It includes musical terms as they were used during the Elizabethan era and how they are implemented in Shakespeare's plays. Reading the introduction and a couple of articles helped me to realize that the musical terms, references, and environment were very different in Shakespeare's time than in our own. This supports my original idea that the musical references in Shakespeare require research and interpretation for a modern audience to fully understand it.

2) Greenblatt, Stephen ed. The Norton Shakespeare. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997. Print.

This resource was kindly provided by Rosemary (thanks!) and it includes an interesting article about music in Shakespeare. One of the points it makes that helps to develop my ideas is that it claims a widespread musical literacy among Elizabethans. Shakespeare's audience would understand the nuance meanings of the 300+ musical terms that he employs in his plays. This increases the likelihood that Shakespeare implanted the theme of music and the songs and consort music in his plays for specific reasons, intending to tie them into the overall work, because his audience would understand what he was doing.

3) Holzknecht, Karl J. Backgrounds of Shakespeare's Play. New York: American Book Company, 1950. Print.

I found this resource when I was looking up Shakespeare A to Z in the library. Unfortunately, A to Z was not in its proper location but I did find this little book. One of sections dealt with music. It made the interesting observation that the music created effects that otherwise would have been difficult without it. It notes that the music at the beginning of Twelfth Night helps to lend it a sentimental mood, the supernatural events in many of the plays feature music etc.

4) Dobson, Michael, and Stanley Wells. The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. 1st ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Print

I found this originally online but I also came across it in the library and read it more in depth. One unique statement I found in it was when it described the various meanings that Elizabethans had for musical instruments. For example flutes and recorders symbolize death and transfiguration. Horns are used for the hunt, trumpets for heralding royalty, but cornets are for dignitaries that are not high enough in rank to merit trumpets. Therefore, whenever Shaekspeare talks about a certain instrument or requires one for a part of a play there is a very specific connotation that is linked with it.

5) Wells, Stanley, and Gary Taylor. William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Print

I found this in the library at the reference section. Mostly it is just a lot of footnotes comparing various editions of Shakepeare's work. It does have interesting introductions to the plays however. I looked up the one for Twelfth Night and, in describing when the play was most likely written, it mentioned how some of the songs were taken from Robert Jone's First Book of Songs or Airs that was published in 1600. Although I have not researched this work yet, I plan to do so, and hopefully gleam so more insights into Shakespeare's plays from the songs and melodies that were potentially used in them. Interesting lead from an unlikely place. :)