The Shakespearean Forest

Abstract

The Shakespearean Forest, Anne Barton's final book, uncovers the pervasive presence of woodland in early modern drama, revealing its persistent imaginative power. The collection is representative of the startling breadth of Barton's scholarship: ranging across plays by Shakespeare (including Titus Andronicus, As You Like It, Macbeth, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Timon of Athens) and his contemporaries (including Jonson, Dekker, Lyly, Massinger and Greene), it also considers court pageants, treatises on forestry and chronicle history. Barton's incisive literary analysis characteristically pays careful attention to the practicalities of performance, and is supplemented by numerous illustrations and a bibliographical essay exploring recent scholarship in the field. Prepared for publication by Hester Lees-Jeffries, featuring a Foreword by Adrian Poole and an Afterword by Peter Holland, the book explores the forest as a source of cultural and psychological fascination, embracing and illuminating its mysteriousness.

The Inconvenience of Stage Posts: Green World Locales at the Rose Theatre

“…Such evidence accords with the idea of Renaissance drama being, as Barton puts it, 'wedded … to visual spectacle, and the emblematic embodiment of ideas'. 23 In semiotic terms Barton's vision of green world locales has a higher degree of iconicity than Dessen's, property trees being more analogous than stage posts to real trees. 24 The use of posts for trees, a solution commonly proposed by open stage advocates, 25 is a particular area of scepticism for Barton.…”

“…28 Discussing Merry Wives, Barton expresses dissatisfaction with the idea that a stage post would have sufficed for Herne's Oak, and with minimalist productions that have the Windsor citizens tripping around an imaginary tree; she argues instead for a 'substantial property tree … probably carried on specially for Act 5'. 29 Her case rests on practical as well as aesthetic grounds: 'Nor does an inconveniently off-centre stage post make sense as focus for the play's long and crowded final section.' 30 I agree with Barton on the likely materiality of Herne's Oak, despite finding many arguments put forward by Dessen and others in favour of an open stage compelling.…”