Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lee, James
• Lee, Jason

Titel

Shakespeare’s Tragic Social Network; or Why All the World’s a Stage

Ist Teil von

• Digital humanities quarterly, 2017-01, Vol.11 (2)

Ort / Verlag

Providence

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We propose that network visualization is a digital humanities method that can “explore” and “negotiate” the space between text and performance in the study of Shakespeare. The networks developed in this project use the language of Shakespearean plays to trace the relationships between characters in space, in effect, translating the literary text into a web of spatial relations, which are difficult to perceive solely in the act of reading. Our analysis presents a particular method of network visualization, and also demonstrates how this technique can be used as a critical tool to revise our understanding of social disorder in Shakespearean tragedy. We therefore propose a dual scope for this paper. At a methodological level, we argue that network visualization is a way to infer staging and the “blocking” of theatrical space from the language of the playtext. In our case study, we show how this technique can be used as a form of Shakespearean literary criticism deploying this method to reframe the larger question of social disorder in his tragedies. The network visualizations used in this analysis serve as a stable and reproducible way, beyond any single performance, to delineate how the language of Shakespeare’s plays structures the relationships of characters in space. This study represents the beginning of a digital method that aims to bridge text and performance in the study of Shakespeare by reading the dramatic text for the linguistic codes that organize the space of the stage.