Aside

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience. By convention the audience understands that the character's speech is not heard by the other characters in the drama. An aside is usually a brief comment, rather than a long speech such as a monologue or soliloquy.

[edit] Origins

The aside has a long tradition that stretches back to the origins of drama; it is used in classical Athenian comedy. In these asides were part of a broader dimension of metatheatre in the Old comedy. The most important example of this is the parabasis; asides, however, punctuate many plays, often deflating and ironizing moments of tension. The device draws on the festive and communal occasion of the theatre.

Roman New Comedy continues the technique without, however, going so far in the direction of breaking the dramatic illusion. In the work of Plautus and Terence, the aside above all bears the burden of explaining motives that, in plays dominated by quick action and complicated, often hidden machinations, are often far from obvious. As important to note, the Roman model uses asides to develop character rather than break it. Although the device depends on the unrealistic convention that such asides, though vocalized, cannot be heard by other characters, they present some space for the representation of "interior" psychology. In addition, the device was a serviceable vehicle for dramatic irony; many of these asides still draw laughter in modern productions for that reason.

The rebirth of drama in Europe at the end of the medieval period saw a natural revival of the aside, derived not from emulation of classical models but rather from a recrudescence of similar theatrical conditions. The open staging of, for instance, the early Tudor interludes, and their festive occasions, were conducive to the same kind of metadramatic joking so common in Aristophanes. Early on, certain figures such as the Vice became strongly associated with the device; thus, already by the mid-1500s, the Vice as a character type appears to have been a crowd favorite, a protean and anarchic figure not bound by the rules that governed most of the other characters, and seemingly possessed of a special relationship with the audience.

As the Elizabethan drama developed, the aside changed in a manner similar to that it had undergone in the development of New Comedy; in this case, of course, the similarity is more clearly an instance of emulation, as is most clear in plays such as The Comedy of Errors that are revamped Roman stories. Strikingly, however, the syncretic Elizabethans did not confine the device to comedy. Indeed, some of the best-remembered instances of the device are from tragedies such as Hamlet and The Duchess of Malfi. In its tragic uses, the aside tends to highlight a mood of suspense or paranoia. One late play, James Shirley's The Cardinal, is conducted in asides for large stretches of the action.

Jacobean dramatists continued to employ the device, at times ironically: in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, a hapless judge is overheard making an aside, highlighting both the crowdedness of the stage at that point and the absurdity of a dramatic convention when viewed realistically.

The slow growth of a naturalistic impulse in European drama signalled an equally slow decline in the role available to the aside. While a similar device is still on occasion found in modern plays, it has not, and seems unlikely ever to, regain the ubiquity it had in Renaissance drama.

[edit] Examples

This technique is used by many playwrights, including Shakespeare. For instance, in the play Macbeth, Macbeth has the following aside:

“

Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits. The flighty purpose never is o'ertook Unless the deed go with it. From this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: The castle of Macduff I will surprise, Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; This deed I'll do before this purpose cool. But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen? Come, bring me where they are.

”

This technique was also utilized judiciously in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

[edit] References

Look up aside in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Glossary of Literary Terms, which mentions the aside
• Bevington, David (1962). From Mankind to Marlowe. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
• Cox, John D. and David Scott Kastan (Eds) (1997). A New History of English Drama. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Salingar, Leo (1972). Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.