Drama: Soliloquy, Aside, Stagecraft

This is Unit Fourteen of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one defined the two devices and worked Hamlet, Faustus and Sir Oliver's first aside. This part takes the aside's nature, stagecraft, the traps, and the procedure. Part one's governing idea was that a play cannot report a thought, so soliloquy and aside carry it on a convention of sincerity, and the stage directions decide who can hear. This part pays it off in a four-move procedure whose first move, reading the directions before and after, is the one most often skipped. First Sir Oliver's second aside, the aside as a running commentary that makes the audience a companion, why asides tend comic, and when they do not. Then stagecraft: what survives on the page, concealment as a generator of dramatic irony, properties, Hamlet's drawn sword, the play within a play, and disguise as irony arranged by costume. Then the four possible addressees, prologue and epilogue, and the exam's three items. Then four traps and the procedure. Last, the record at sixty-three omissions against a complete Hamlet with its directions intact, and the close of the drama band. By the end you will be able to read an aside's tone from content. To read stagecraft from the directions. To settle the addressee in two lines. To defeat four traps and run four moves. And to state the record and carry four things.

Four entries to start: Sir Oliver's second aside, the aside as a running commentary, why the device tends comic, and the serious aside that proves the tendency is not a rule.

Imitating his betters, debts included.

AIL 1326 "Has His Distresses, I Warrant, Like a Lord"

When the servant asks about discounting a bill, Sir Oliver asides that the man wants to raise money too and has his distresses like a lord, affecting creditors and duns. The joke is that a servant is imitating his betters, including their debts, and the aside supplies the joke.

The audience gains a companion.

AIL 1327 The Aside as a Running Commentary

A play full of asides gives the audience a companion who shares their view of events. Sheridan's comedy works partly by making the audience a party to judgments the characters on stage cannot make. That companionship is the device's social function, a shared judgment withheld on stage.

One hides the theatre, one enjoys it.

AIL 1328 Why Asides Tend Comic

The convention that nobody hears is transparently artificial, and artifice that everyone can see tends toward comedy. A soliloquy asks an audience to forget the theatre; an aside asks them to enjoy it. That is a real difference in what each device does; the artifice is visible on purpose.

Judge from content, not device.

AIL 1329 The Serious Aside

The tendency is not a rule. An aside can carry dread as easily as a joke, and in tragedy it often does, marking a character's private calculation in the middle of a public scene. Judge each from its content rather than from the device, a tendency and never a rule.

Seven entries on stagecraft: what survives on the printed page, concealment, properties, Hamlet's sword, the play within a play and why it is examined, and disguise.

What survives is the directions.

AIL 1330 Stagecraft

Stagecraft is the whole physical apparatus of a performance: entrances, positions, properties, costume, concealment. The glossary has no headword. On a printed page it survives only in the stage directions, which is why unit thirteen insisted they be read; read them as evidence.

One direction, a scene of irony.

AIL 1331 Concealment as a Device

Hiding a character on stage produces dramatic irony mechanically: someone hears what was not meant for them. Hamlet's soliloquy is overheard, and Sheridan's comedy turns on a man concealed behind a screen. One stage direction can set up a whole scene's irony; concealment generates the device.

A specified object is always significant.

AIL 1332 Properties

A property, or prop, is an object handled on stage. The glossary has no headword. A prop in a printed extract is always significant, because a writer who bothered to specify an object had a reason, and the reason is usually visible in what is said around it, in the nearby speech.

The weapon makes it physical.

AIL 1333 Hamlet's Sword

Unit thirteen's prayer scene carries the direction that Hamlet draws his sword. The object makes the deliberation physical: a man holding a drawn weapon and talking himself out of using it. Without the direction the speech reads as abstract, and the direction changes the speech.

A performance inside the performance.

AIL 1334 The Play Within a Play

A play within a play stages a performance inside the performance, letting characters watch something the audience also watches. The glossary has no headword. Hamlet uses one to test Claudius, which makes the device a plot instrument rather than an ornament, an instrument and not an ornament.

Three levels of knowing at once.

AIL 1335 Why It Is Examined

It stacks the layers of knowing that unit thirteen's device depends on: what the inner play shows, what the watching characters make of it, and what the audience makes of them. Three levels in one scene, and a question can ask about any of them; a question may target any level.

Irony arranged by costume.

AIL 1336 Disguise and Mistaken Identity

Disguise gives the audience knowledge the characters lack, which is dramatic irony arranged by costume. Twelfth Night, complete in the anchor, is built on it, and unit fifteen takes that play up. The device is comic in structure whatever tone it carries, and unit fifteen takes Twelfth Night.

Three entries on address and the exam: the four possible addressees of a speech, prologue and epilogue as the play speaking to the house, and the three shapes a question takes here.

Four possible addressees.

AIL 1337 Who a Speech Is Aimed At

Four possibilities: another character, the audience, nobody in particular, or the speaker. Establishing which is the first move on any dramatic extract, and the stage directions plus the pronouns will usually settle it within two lines, so settle it in the first two lines.

The play addressing the house.

AIL 1338 Prologue and Epilogue

A prologue opens a play by addressing the audience directly, and an epilogue closes it the same way. The glossary defines neither. Faustus has both, and a prologue is where a play may state its own theme, which makes it as quotable as a chorus; themes are often stated here.

Device, revelation, knowledge.

AIL 1339 What the Exam Asks Here

Three shapes appear: identify the device being used, say what the speech reveals about the speaker, and say what the audience knows that the characters on stage do not. All three are answerable from the printed extract, provided its stage directions are read along with the lines; the directions must be read.

Five entries on traps and procedure: a soliloquy treated as unreliable, directions ignored, an aside read as a reply, the famous passage answered from reputation, and then four moves for any speech.

Sincere is not the same as correct.

AIL 1340 Trap: Treating a Soliloquy as Unreliable

The convention is sincerity, so a character alone is generally telling the audience the truth as they see it. That is not the same as being right. Hamlet is sincere and may still be mistaken, and an option must distinguish honesty from accuracy; honesty and accuracy are different claims.

The direction carries the situation.

AIL 1341 Trap: Ignoring the Stage Directions

Hamlet's most famous speech is delivered to two hidden listeners, and a reader who skips the direction loses the scene's whole situation. Directions are printed for a reason and they carry as much information as the lines do, and skipping the direction loses the scene.

It looks like a reply and is not.

AIL 1342 Trap: Aside Read as Dialogue

An aside looks like a reply and is not one. Read as dialogue, Sir Oliver appears to insult a servant to his face, which reverses the scene's comedy and its politics. The bracket is small and it changes everything, a small bracket and a large difference.

Reputation is not the extract.

AIL 1343 Trap: The Famous Passage

A candidate who knows a speech by reputation answers from the reputation. To be or not to be is remembered as a meditation on suicide, and the printed extract also contains an argument about action, an overhearing, and a mixed metaphor readers dispute; the famous passage is the riskiest.

Directions, hearers, device, argument.

AIL 1344 A Procedure for a Speech

Read the directions before and after. Establish who can hear. Name the device. Then read the speech as an argument with steps, as units nine and thirteen did. Four moves, and the first is the one most often skipped; here the governing idea pays off, since the first move decides who can hear.

Six entries to close: eight more omissions for sixty-three, what the anchor gave instead, what to carry, three playwrights across three centuries, the drama band complete, and the handoff to Shakespeare.

Eight more, sixty-three in total.

AIL 1345 What the Glossary Left Out Here

Soliloquy, aside, monologue, stagecraft, property, play within a play, prologue and epilogue. Eight more, and the first two are the devices the band is built on. The running total across six units is sixty-three standard terms this anchor omits, and the first two are the band's core.

No vocabulary, but the whole text.

AIL 1346 What the Anchor Gave Instead

The complete text of Hamlet in five act files with the directions intact, which is what made the overhearing in part one findable at all. A source can omit the vocabulary and still supply the evidence, and this anchor does exactly that; the evidence was there to be read.

Four moves, two devices, one convention.

AIL 1347 What to Carry Forward

Carry the four-move procedure, the soliloquy and aside definitions, the sincerity convention with its limit, and the habit of reading stage directions first. Those handle any dramatic extract, and none of them requires having seen the play; no performance need have been seen.

Three writers, three centuries.

AIL 1348 Three Playwrights, Three Centuries

Marlowe in the fifteen nineties, Shakespeare around sixteen hundred, Sheridan in the seventeen seventies. Renaissance tragedy, Renaissance tragedy again, and a comedy of manners. The exam's drama band spans at least that range, and unit nineteen names two later playwrights whose texts this course does not hold.

Two units, the drama band covered.

AIL 1349 The Drama Band Complete

Two units have covered it: structure with dramatic irony, and the devices of direct address. What remains is Shakespeare specifically, which the next unit takes as an exam problem rather than as a new set of techniques; what remains is one author.

Next: Shakespeare as an exam problem.

AIL 1350 What the Next Unit Does

Shakespeare appears across the poetry, drama and Renaissance bands at once, so he is worth a unit of his own. The next one treats him as an exam problem: what a candidate is likely to be given, and which of the skills already built apply to it; one author, three bands at once.

That is the aside's nature, stagecraft, the addressee, the traps, the procedure and the record, with the governing idea paid off at the first move. You can read Sir Oliver's distresses like a lord, treat a run of asides as a companion for the audience, know why the visible artifice tends comic, and judge a serious aside from its content. You can read stagecraft from the directions that survive, see concealment generate irony, treat a specified prop as significant, feel Hamlet's drawn sword make his deliberation physical, and read the play within a play and disguise as stacked knowing. You can settle who a speech is aimed at in two lines, define prologue and epilogue, and name device, revelation and knowledge. You can keep sincere apart from correct, never skip a direction, never read an aside as a reply, and never answer from reputation, and you can run directions, hearers, device, argument. And you can state sixty-three omissions against a complete Hamlet with directions intact, carry four things, place three playwrights in three centuries, and close the drama band. Unit fifteen takes Shakespeare.