John Webster And The Elizabethan Drama (1916)

His most interesting characters are actors at heart. No other dramatist of his age maintains such an emphasis. He did not owe this interest to the fact that he was a player; rather, he became an actor because he already possessed that interest. His plays, with the possible exception of those of Moliere, are the most entirely suited to the theatre in the history of world drama. In the speech by Theseus on the nature of imagination, in A Midsummer NightБЂ™s Dream, there is an apparently fluent and straightforward passage (1715-1717): БЂ¦ the Poets penne Turnes them to shapes, and giues to ayery nothing, A locall habitation, and a name. But in the vocabulary of the Elizabethan drama БЂњshapeБЂ«was the name for the actorБЂ™s costume, БЂњhabitationБЂ«for his place upon the stage, and БЂњnameБЂ«for the scroll on the actorБЂ™s chest revealing his identity. When in his speech Hamlet adverts to БЂњthis goodly frame the Earth,БЂ«to this БЂњsterill PromontoryБЂ«and БЂњthis Maiesticall Roofe, fretted with golden fireБЂ«his audience would know that he was referring in turn to the walls of the theatre, to the bare stage, and to the roof of the pent-house above his head spangled with stars ...»