“Follow the noise so far as we have quarter”: sound and the early modern stage
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This thesis seeks to examine the use of sound on (and often, off-) the early modern stage. While its initial – and primary – focus is sound effects, it also explores the definition of sound itself, according to early modern understandings of the acoustic world to be found in medical manuals, sermons, and academic drama. It develops previous work on sound, such as that by Bruce Smith, Wes Folkerth, and Gina Bloom, while putting pressure on the methodologies used to understand so intangible an effect. Moreover, while existing critical studies favour Shakespeare, this thesis also hears the sounds of non-canonical plays. Chapter One explores sound effects as “soundbites” (sonic memes) and shows that sound effects can act as an allusion or create nostalgia for older plays. Chapter Two examines Jacobean drama in the light of Schaeffer’s term, ‘acousmatic’ (as used and reconsidered by Brian Kane). It shows that Jacobean playwrights concealed the sources of sound effects in order to create a frightening and uncanny atmosphere on stage. Chapter Three explores the plays of Ben Jonson and their representation of sound and the body, moving between speech and noise, lungs and instruments. It concludes that Jonson’s attempts to define and control sound while making use of sound effects are contradictory. Chapter Four suggests that Shakespeare’s use of sound was often verbal, as “phonographic” (or narrated) sound. It offers readings of “ekphrastic” speeches which describe and conjure sound that is not performed. This thesis concludes that not only are sound effects an integral unit of early modern play texts, but that attention to their use can offer fresh readings and new understandings of such plays. Blending theatre history and sensory studies, this thesis recaptures the sound of early modern drama and hears the early modern stage amidst its considerable noise.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.028 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.005 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".