he theater (which of course can include improvisatory theater) is equally relevant to the questions I have raised with respect to the visual arts and music, though in some ways it is a kind of in-between case. Though a play submits to a satisfactory private reading, those whose exposure to it has been primarily in the context of literary studies may need reminding that the printed test of a play does not have the same sensory effect as its actualization in performance. In that particular instance, a better analogy for the literary text is musical notation, except that to a reader without musical training, a musical score may be nothing more than hieroglyphics. That need not prevent that same reader, however, from taking pleasure in the music she or he hears. For the record, although musicians (and perhaps especially conductors, for whom it is a necessity) may study a score, and may derive a simulacrum of its sound simply through the printed notation, I have never met a professional musician who openly confessed to any joys of curling up by the fireside of an evening with a musical score.
[Return to review.]
Bibliography
Coombs. David Sweeney. Reading with the Senses in Victorian Literature and Science. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2019. xi + 224 pages.
Last modified 19 September 2020