RT Article
T1 By the Shallow Rivers of Babylon: Musical Mashups and the Sound of Lost Music in The Merry Wives of Windsor
JF Renaissance and reformation
VO 47
IS 4
SP 121
OP 141
A1 Wylde, Jacqueline
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1925145174
AB InThe Merry Wives of Windsor, there is a humorous sound-based musical moment in act 3, scene 1 that no longer resonates with contemporary audiences; the sounds evoked in the text and intended for performance on the stage have become obsolete. This article begins by investigating the original sounds and meanings of the sonic moment in the play, exploring what they would have sounded like and what they meant to an Elizabethan audience. It then turns to three twentieth- and twenty-first-century productions that have contended with this outdated sonic moment in funny, memorable, and very different ways, asking how new productions can harness new sounds to capture old meanings.
K1 Christopher Marlowe
K1 English Metrical Psalms
K1 The Merry Wives of Windsor
K1 The Whole Book of Psalms
K1 William Shakespeare
DO 10.33137/rr.v47i4.45374