Shakespearean Design

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Considering such matters as the pictorial sensibility of the Elizabethans, the notion of the sister arts, and the Renaissance concern for proportion in all forms of art, Mark Rose suggests an approach to Shakespearean structure based upon spatial form. Taking the stage-clearance scene as Shakespeare’s structural unit, Rose examines representative scenes to demonstrate their symmetry and to suggest how, in Shakespeare, form is inseparable from meaning. He offers a scene-by-scene structural analysis of Hamlet, indicating how his approach, which takes account of the nonverbal as well as the verbal elements in the drama, can be particularly useful in the classroom. In the final chapters he examines plays as a whole, showing how they are designed on the same formal principles as individual scenes.