Scenic Form in Shakespeare

This study focuses attentionon a vital but neglected aspect of Shakespeare’s work as a dramatist: the invention and shaping of scenes. Jones opens with a description of Shakespeare’s legendary mastery of scenic organization, and goes on to cover related topics concerning scenes and sequence. Included are the presentation of time (with a critical scrutiny of the double-time theory); the use of a two-part structure, with the implications this has for the meaning of the plays; and the ways in which Shakespeare evolves new scenic occasions largely out of his earlier work. The book closes with a detailed examination of four of Shakespeare’s tragedies.