Asides in Shakespeare's Plays

What is it about?

The article discusses some cases of asides (in particular dialogical ones) and shows how Shakespeare uses such pragmatic strategies as to reproduce exchanges very similar to natural conversation.

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Why is it important?

Asides, added by modern editors as stage directions while absent from practically all printed editions before the eighteenth century, have been studied much less than soliloquies, if not completely ignored. This study focuses on this theatrical convention to show its centrality, especially in performance, to understand the relationships between characters.