• Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations

    Author(s):
    Kendra Leonard (see profile)
    Date:
    2009
    Group(s):
    LLC Shakespeare, MS Opera and Musical Performance, MS Screen Arts and Culture, TC Popular Culture, TC Women’s and Gender Studies
    Subject(s):
    British literature, Drama, Mass media--Study and teaching, Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
    Item Type:
    Book
    Tag(s):
    adaptation, film, madness, music, Shakespeare, Early modern studies, Film studies, Media studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6H89Z
    Abstract:
    Shakespeare's three political tragedies―Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear―have numerously been presented or adapted on film. These three plays all involve the recurring trope of madness, which, as constructed by Shakespeare, provided a wider canvas on which to detail those materials that could not be otherwise expressed: sexual desire and expectation, political unrest, and, ultimately, truth, as excavated by characters so afflicted. Music has long been associated with madness, and was often used as an audible symptom of a victim's disassociation from their surroundings and societal rules, as well as their loss of self-control. In Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations, Kendra Preston Leonard examines the use of music in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. Whether discussing contemporary source materials, such as songs, verses, or rhymes specified by Shakespeare in his plays, or music composed specifically for a film and original to the director's or composer's interpretations, Leonard shows how the changing social and scholarly attitudes towards the plays, their characters, and the conditions that fall under the general catch-all of "madness" have led to a wide range of musical accompaniments, signifiers, and incarnations of the afflictions displayed by Shakespeare's characters. Focusing on the most widely distributed and viewed adaptations of these plays for the cinema, each chapter presents the musical treatment of individual Shakespearean characters afflicted with or feigning madness: Hamlet, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, King Lear, and Edgar. The book offers analysis and interpretation of the music used to underscore, belie, or otherwise inform or invoke the characters' states of mind, providing a fascinating indication of culture and society, as well as the thoughts and ideas of individual directors, composers, and actors. A bibliography, index, and appendix listing Shakespeare's film adaptations help complete this fascinating volume.
    Notes:
    This is the full text of my 2009 book, Shakespeare, Madness, and Music: Scoring Insanity in Cinematic Adaptations.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book     Show details
    Publisher:
    Scarecrow Publishing
    Pub. Date:
    2009
    ISBN:
    978-0810869462
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    4 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial
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