v
vagrancy was not a problem peculiar to Elizabethan England: Acts of Parliament forbidding the movement of beggars from one place to another date from 1388. But the situation was exacerbated by the suppression, in the 1530s and 1540s, of those religious houses which had hitherto provided poor relief. The resultant increase in the number of beggars led to a series of measures confirming the illegality of vagrancy and seeking to make individual parishes responsible for their own poor, culminating in the great Poor Law of 1601 which defined exactly how this responsibility should be established. This did little, however, to solve the problem and the seeking out, arrest, and removal of vagrants to their parish of ‘legal’ settlement remained a preoccupation of parish and borough officials for many years; hence Dogberry’s instruction to the watch to ‘comprehend all vagrom men’ (Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.32).
Robert Bearman
Valentine. (1) He is in love with Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but has to contend with his rivals Proteus and Thurio. (2) One of Titus’ kinsmen, he helps restrain Chiron and Demetrius, Titus Andronicus 5.3. (3) He is one of Orsino’s attendants in Act 1 of Twelfth Night.
Anne Button
Valeria brings news of the war to Volumnia and Virgilia, Coriolanus 1.3; joins in welcoming Coriolanus, 2.1; and accompanies the other women to the Volscian camp, 5.3.
Anne Button
Valerius, a Theban, tells Palamon and Arcite of Theseus’ campaign against Thebes, The Two Noble Kinsmen 1.2.
Anne Button
Valerius, Publius. He is mentioned in the Argument of The Rape of Lucrece.
Anne Button
Valk, Frederick (1901–56), German actor. Born in Hamburg of Portuguese-Jewish extraction, he became leading man of the German-speaking theatre in Prague, where he played many of Shakespeare’s protagonists. An actor of great emotional and physical power, he arrived in 1939 as a refugee in England, where on account of his guttural accent he was allowed to play only two of his Shakespearian roles—the outsiders Shylock and Othello. In 1955 he was invited to play Shylock at Stratford, Ontario, by Tyrone *Guthrie, who always regretted Valk never played Lear in Britain. He died suddenly at 55 shortly after playing his last Othello in Toronto.
Michael Jamieson
Valtemand (Voltimand) and Cornelius are sent with a message from Claudius to Norway, Hamlet 1.2.41, and bring a reply, 2.2.60–80.
Anne Button
Valverde, José María (1926–96). Spanish professor, poet, and translator of Shakespeare. He translated all the plays in prose (1967), but, unlike Luis *Astrana, he used natural, straightforward contemporary Spanish. He confessed that his were failed translations, as he should have rendered Shakespeare in verse, but did not have the time to do so.
A. Luis Pujante
Vanbrugh, Violet (1867–1942), British actress. In 1892 she understudied Ellen *Terry and played Anne Boleyn in Henry *Irving’s production of All Is True (Henry VIII) in which she later acted Queen Katherine with Beerbohm *Tree. Other strong parts were Lady Macbeth, and Mistress Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor, often with her sister Dame Irene Vanbrugh as Mistress Page. Like their brother Sir Kenneth Barnes, principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for 46 years, they greatly advanced the status of the acting profession.
Michael Jamieson
Variorum Shakespeare. The idea of a variorum edition that would include a full range of information about Shakespeare, his stage, as well as texts annotated with the ‘corrections and illustrations of various commentators’ (title page, 1803, 1813, 1821) grew out of the work of Dr *Johnson, George *Steevens, and Edmond *Malone. Dr Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare appeared in 1765 and provided a basis for the more scholarly edition by Steevens in 1773. This edition was reissued in ten volumes in 1773, and again in 1778–80, and 1785. A fourth edition, expanded to fifteen volumes, appeared in 1793, and this was followed in 1803 by a fifth edition in 21 volumes, revised and augmented by Isaac *Reed. This edition, which incorporated Malone’s final researches on the English stage and on the chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, is generally regarded as the first Variorum edition. Steevens disliked Shakespeare’s poems, and omitted them from editions under his sway, so that they do not appear in 1803 or in the reprint of this edition in 1813. The first full Variorum edition therefore is that of 1821, also in 21 volumes, sometimes called the Boswell–Malone edition, because James Boswell, the son of Dr Johnson’s biographer, oversaw it and relied on the superior text of Malone’s edition of 1790. The first volume contains prefaces from earlier editions, commendatory verses, and an essay on metre; the second, a life of Shakespeare and Malone’s reconsideration of the chronology of the plays; and the third presents an extended version of Malone’s history of the English stage. In the remaining volumes, the works are heavily annotated on the page, and for the first time dated in an order close to that now generally accepted. This edition provided a basis for later scholarly editions of Shakespeare, and for *Furness’s *New Variorum, begun in 1871.
R. A. Foakes
Varrius. (1) He is greeted by Duke Vincentio, Measure for Measure 4.5, and is present, 5.1 (mute part). (2) He delivers news to Pompey, Antony and Cleopatra 2.1.
Anne Button
Varro. (1) See Varro’s Servant. (2) See Varrus.
Varro’s Servant and Isidore’s Servant appear in Timon of Athens 2.2 to collect their masters’ debts from Timon. Two of Varro’s servants also try to claim debts, 3.4 (one of them is addressed by the name Varro).
Anne Button
Varrus (Varro) and Claudio are attendants who sleep as the ghost of Caesar appears to Brutus, Julius Caesar 4.2.
Anne Button
Vaughan, Sir Thomas. He is executed with Rivers and Gray, Richard III 3.3, and his ghost appears to Richard at *Bosworth, 5.5.
Anne Button
Vaughan Williams, Ralph (1872–1958), English composer. Vaughan Williams’s interest in placing his work in an English musical tradition traced particularly to the 16th century encouraged a lifelong engagement with Shakespeare. He set lyrics from the plays throughout his career (some, such as *‘Orpheus with his lute’, 1901, 1925, more than once), composed incidental music for Richard II and 1 Henry IV (1913), and dared to take on *Verdi by writing his own operatic treatment of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Sir John in Love (1924–8). Appropriately, one of his last film scores was for The England of Elizabeth (1955).
Irena Cholij
Vaux. (1) He brings Margaret the news that Cardinal Beaufort is dying, The First Part of the Contention (2 Henry VI) 3.2.372–82. (2) Sir Nicholas Vaux is put in charge of Buckingham before his execution, All Is True (Henry VIII) 2.1.
Anne Button
Venice, in Shakespeare’s day the pre-eminent city in Italy for commerce, arts, and politics, is the setting for much of The Merchant of Venice and Act 1 of Othello.
Anne Button
Venice, Duke of. (1) He presides over the court in The Merchant of Venice 4.1. (2) He presides over the senators who send Othello to Cyprus and acquits him of bewitching Desdemona, Othello 1.3.
Anne Button
ventage, the finger hole of a wind instrument (see Hamlet 3.2.345).
Jeremy Barlow
Ventidius (1) He is very grateful for Timon’s generosity, Timon of Athens 1.2, but refuses to help him later in the play. (2) He rejects Silius’ suggestion that he should continue his campaign in Parthia after defeating Pacorus, Antony and Cleopatra 3.1 (based on *Plutarch’s account of Publius Ventidius Bassus).
Anne Button
Venus and Adonis See centre section.
Verbruggen, Susannah (1667–1703), leading actress with *Betterton’s company. She was a comedienne and breeches role specialist. Her first husband, the actor William Mountfort, was murdered. Her second husband, John Verbruggen, played Cassius to Betterton’s Brutus in 1707.
Catherine Alexander
Verdi, Giuseppe (1813–1901), Italian composer. Verdi composed three Shakespearian operas, Macbeth (1847), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893), of which the last two are widely regarded as among the finest Shakespearian operas ever written. Verdi was attracted by the strong emotions and sense of drama in Shakespeare’s plays, with which he became acquainted through French and Italian verse and prose translations rather than through the stage. As early as 1843 he toyed with the idea of setting King Lear, but the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, for which he was to compose the opera, lacked the first-rate bass or baritone that Verdi would have required, and the idea was shelved.
Macbeth, Verdi’s first Shakespearian work, marks a departure in Verdi’s approach to opera. It was unusual at the time to set such a dark, tense subject with no love interest. Verdi was intensely involved in all aspects of the opera’s production. He worked closely with the librettist Francesco Maria Piave (some lines were added by Andrea Maffei), supervised the rigorous rehearsals, and paid much attention to such matters as the historical accuracy of the settings, the lighting, and the actions of the singers. The opera is in four acts and presents a concentrated version of Shakespeare’s play. It received its première at the Teatro della Pergola, Florence, on 14 March 1847, with Marianna Barbieri-Nini as the powerful Lady Macbeth, supported by Felice Varesi in the somewhat weaker role of Macbeth. The opera was an instant success. Many years later, at the request of Léon Escudier, Verdi revised the work for the Théâtre Lyrique, Paris (translated by Charles Nuitter and Alexandre Beaumont), where it was performed on 21 April 1865. The revisions include Lady Macbeth’s chilling aria ‘La luce langue’. The Paris performance was a failure, although this is the version generally staged today. The murderers’ chorus in the second act was parodied by Arthur *Sullivan in The Pirates of Penzance.
In 1850 Verdi again contemplated a King Lear opera. Despite a completed libretto by Antonio Somma a few years later (he had first worked on it with Salvatore Cammarano, who died in 1852) the project faltered once more. Verdi returned to it periodically for the rest of his life, but was unable to realize it as an opera. Around this time he was also offered a Hamlet libretto by Giulio Carcano and invited to compose a Tempest opera, both of which he declined.
Verdi’s final two masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff, were the result of inspired collaborations with the librettist Arrigo Boito. Otello, which received its première at La Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887, with Victor Maurel as Iago, Francesco Tamagno as Otello, and Romilda Pantaleone as Desdemona, was Verdi’s first new opera for fifteen years. It was a long time in preparation: the idea was first suggested in 1879 but most of the composing took place between 1884 and 1886. Boito reduced Shakespeare’s play from over 3,000 lines to 800, omitting the opening scene but otherwise following the original closely. Verdi’s response to the text was noticeably more Germanic than his previous works, with few set pieces, more use of through-composed techniques and leitmotifs, and a greater sensitivity to the text, resulting in a more complete fusion of music and drama than before. The opera was a resounding success, and is regarded today by some as Verdi’s most perfect opera. For the Paris première at the Théâtre de l’Opéra in 1894 Verdi added a *ballet scene to the third act, though this is rarely played today.
In Falstaff Verdi continued his move away from great singable tunes and rousing choruses to a more intricate, endless flow of music with virtuosic orchestral tone-colouring and almost symphonic development of musical material; the opera ends with a magnificent comic fugue. With Victor Maurel in the title role, Falstaff was first performed at La Scala on 9 February 1893 to the inevitable rapturous reception, though its musical style later puzzled its listeners. Based on The Merry Wives of Windsor, but also including material from both parts of Henry IV, it was the 80-year-old Verdi’s first comic opera for over 50 years. Unlike previous works, this opera was written not to a commission but simply out of fascination with the character of Falstaff. Verdi revised the opera extensively in March 1893 and January 1894 before its French première.
A reluctant Sir John is concealed in the buck-basket in Verdi’s final masterpiece, Falstaff (1893–4), based on The Merry Wives of Windsor. Gabriella Tucci as Mistress Ford, Regina Resnik as Mistress Quickly, Rosalind Elias as Mistress Page, and Anselmo Colzani as Falstaff, Metropolitan Opera, New York, 1964.
Irena Cholij
Vere, John de. See Oxford, Earl of.
Verges is the headborough (petty constable) who apprehends and interrogates Borachio and Conrad with Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing.
Anne Button
Vernon. (1) See Basset. (2) Sir Richard Vernon is one of the rebels in 1 Henry IV, condemned to death after the battle of Shrewsbury, 5.5.
Anne Button
Vernon, Elizabeth (fl. 1595), one of *Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, and the mistress of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of *Southampton. He married her in 1595, after she became pregnant, a covert marriage which angered Elizabeth, and earned them both a brief spell of imprisonment in the Fleet. Those who identify Southampton as the *Fair Youth of the Sonnets have sometimes considered Shakespeare’s poetic advice in favour of procreation as a contributory factor.
Stanley Wells
Verona, in northern Italy, is the scene of some of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and nearly all of Romeo and Juliet. Petruccio in The Taming of the Shrew is a gentleman of Verona.
Anne Button
Verona, Prince of. See Escalus, Prince of Verona.
Versification. See metre.
Vestris, Madame Elizabeth (1797–1856), English actress, dancer, singer, and manageress, who made her stage debut—in opera—with her first husband (Armand Vestris) in 1815. Her early successes were in ‘breeches’ parts (she excelled as Macheath) in which her renowned legs were displayed to advantage. In 1824 she appeared as Rosalind and Mistress Ford at Drury Lane, but it was not until she and her second husband Charles Mathews assumed the management of Covent Garden in 1839 that Shakespeare figured prominently in her career.
Their first choice was Love’s Labour’s Lost, not performed since Shakespeare’s time and, though there were cuts (little regretted in the comic scenes) and transpositions, it was by the standards of the day remarkably faithful to Shakespeare’s text. Madame Vestris was well suited to Rosaline, but the correct and gorgeous costumes and the imaginative stage arrangements—in both of which *Planché had a hand—attracted most attention and praise.
For A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1840) Planché prepared the acting version—nothing but Shakespeare—the historically accurate (Athenian) costumes, furnishings, and architecture and created—through the artistry of Thomas Grieve—a spell-binding finale. Few, least of all *Macready, would have expected Vestris to distinguish herself as a producer of Shakespeare, but she did so with influential effect.
Richard Foulkes
Vienna is the scene of Measure for Measure. Hamlet tells us that ‘The Mousetrap’ is ‘the image of a murder done in Vienna’ (Hamlet 3.2.227).
Anne Button
Vigny, Alfred de (1797–1863), French poet and dramatist. Vigny translated Othello, adapted The Merchant of Venice, and turned toward Shakespeare for inspiration in composing his own historical drama La Maréchale d’Ancre. Here Shakespeare’s histories were adopted as a model by a Romantic determined to place subjects from French national history onto the French stage. Presented at the *Comédie-Française in 1840, La Maréchale d’Ancre introduced audacious innovations into French theatre, unabashedly presenting the supernatural and using an unclassically complicated plot. Although Vigny’s pioneering spirit was a source of motivation for many playwrights of his time, his elaborate post-Shakespearian stage compositions drew disapproval from dramatic critics who found them too unwieldy for the French stage. In later life, he withdrew to what Sainte-Beuve famously called his tour d’ivoire (ivory tower).
Alice Clark
Vilar, Jean (1912–71), French actor and director. He founded the Avignon Festival (1947) and was first manager of the Théâtre National Populaire (1951), where he promoted a demanding art, after *Copeau, for vast audiences. He opened the Avignon Festival in the title role for Richard II’s French première (1947), and played Macbeth in 1953.
Isabelle Schwartz-Gastine
Vincentio (1) He is the father of Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew. (2) Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna in Measure for Measure, having resigned his power to Angelo, poses as ‘Friar Lodowick’ to observe ensuing events incognito.
Anne Button
viol, a bowed instrument in three main sizes held on the lap or between the legs, with six strings tuned similarly to the *lute, popular for domestic music-making in consort and with a fine surviving repertoire by *Byrd and others. In Italian called the viola da gamba, hence Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s ‘viol-de-gamboys’ in Twelfth Night 1.3.23.
Jeremy Barlow
Viola. See Twelfth Night.
Violenta, a friend of Widow Capilet, appears but does not speak in some editions of All’s Well That Ends Well 3.5.
Anne Button
violin. In Shakespeare’s time the violin had a lower status than now; it was played mainly by professionals for dance. See fiddler; rebec.
Jeremy Barlow
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) (70–19 bc) was the most famous Latin poet. He wrote *pastoral verse (Eclogues and Georgics) before embarking on his masterpiece, the Aeneid, a grand epic about the foundation of Rome and its culmination in the imperial pax Augusta. The poem was profoundly influenced by *Homer’s two epics. Shakespeare frequently echoes the first six books of the Aeneid, as in the painting of the siege of Troy in The Rape of Lucrece (Aeneid 1.456–93); and he boldly rewrites Aeneid 6.456–76 when in Antony and Cleopatra Antony refers to Dido and her Aeneas wanting troops to match his and Cleopatra’s.
René Weis
Virgilia, Coriolanus’ wife, accompanies the other women to the Voscian camp to appeal to him, Coriolanus 5.3.
Anne Button
Virginal(s), in Shakespeare’s time, the generic term for plucked string keyboard instruments, as ‘harpsichord’ is now; later it came to refer more specifically to the smaller rectangular-shaped instrument. ‘Virginalling’ (The Winter’s Tale 1.2.127) refers to the finger action in playing.
Jeremy Barlow
Visconti, Luchino (1906–76), Italian film and theatre director. His Shakespeare productions included As You Like It in Rome in 1948, designed in surrealist style by Salvador Dalí, and a lavish Troilus and Cressida in the Boboli Gardens in Florence in 1949, designed by Franco *Zeffirelli.
Dennis Kennedy
Vitez, Antoine (1930–90), French actor, translator (from Russian and Greek), director (Théâtre d’Ivry, 1972–81, Théâtre National de Chaillot, 1981–8, *Comédie-Française, 1988–90), drama teacher (Lecocq school of mime, Conservatoire National de Paris, 1968–81, and in the schools of drama he ran at Ivry and Chaillot), and theorist. He reappraised the musicality of the classical French *alexandrine and the use of sober sets. In his six-hour Hamlet (1982, Lepoutre’s translation), a passionate Claudius was Hamlet’s age, the unspecified costumes recalled *Craig and *Copeau, and the white setting offered a broken perspective full of dark corners.
Isabelle Schwartz-Gastine
vocabulary. A salient feature of 16th- and 17th-century English was the dramatic expansion of vocabulary which occurred in Shakespeare’s lifetime. It was manifested largely in two ways; first by the incorporation into English of words borrowed from foreign languages and secondly, by the creation, often by poets and dramatists, of numerous neologisms. This extraordinary increase in vocabulary provided Shakespeare with several artistic possibilities. Latinate diction, for example, enabled him to create a ‘grand style’ (as it was termed by rhetoricians) to characterize the language of royalty and the nobility, as exemplified in the speech of Ulysses. Its excessive use, on the other hand, enabled Shakespeare to satirize the speech of affected courtiers like Osric and Armado; while its misuse, when the speaker mistook either form or meaning, was derided, somewhat unkindly, in the speech of working men and women. The alternative source of lexical expansion was the creation of neologisms by various means such as by the addition of affixes to existing words, the use of a word in a different grammatical function, as in ‘to lip a wanton’ where a noun functions as a verb, and compounding two or more words to create new ones.
Vivian Salmon
volta, la, an energetic turning dance derived from the *cinquepace, disapproved of by some because the man had to hold the woman more closely than usual, in order to help her execute a high jump in each measure. References in Henry V 3.5.33 and Troilus and Cressida 4.5.87 imply that it was a fashionable accomplishment c.1600.
Jeremy Barlow
Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (1694–1778), French writer and philosopher. Voltaire epitomizes the academic attitude of the great majority of French playwrights and translators who hoped to make Shakespeare accessible to the French public by adapting his works to classical taste. Like most French authors, Voltaire takes a Pygmalion approach to the English playwright by breathing the spirit of the ‘grand siècle’ into the Renaissance model. Voltaire’s popularity as an Enlightenment playwright was partially due to the influence of Shakespearian drama. Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Othello served as blueprints for Voltaire’s most famous tragedies: La Mort de César (1743), Zaïre (1732), and Sémiramis (1748).
These three historical tragedies display the French taste for simplicity and respect for classical decorum, thus diverging greatly from the original Shakespearian model. The revolutionary objective of Voltaire’s dramatic project, founded on the tenets of historical realism, scarcely escaped the academic limitations of his age which necessitated radical changes in Shakespeare’s works, thus resulting in audacious expurgative measures and plagiarism. This rationalist reflex, typical of French authors and translators, highlights the attempt to submit Shakespeare’s plays to the antiquated taste of their forefathers.
In order to break free from the French tradition Voltaire looked to foreign theatre for inspiration. It was during his exile in London that he first tasted the stimulating effects of exotic local colour. The contrast of Christian and Islamic customs in Zaïre, of Babylonian traditions in Sémiramis, and the evocation of historical events such as the overthrow of the Roman Republic under Caesar in La Mort de César all testify to his desire to adapt themes from national history for the French stage.
Julius Caesar, which Voltaire reworked in alexandrines under the title of La Mort de César, amplifies the patriotic and republican spirit of the Roman Emperor. In this way Voltaire paid tribute to the moral and philosophical overtones of the Enlightenment thinkers. In the end, the 18th-century playwright and propagandist proved to be an inveterate defender of French theatrical traditions. Although he looked to Shakespeare for inspiration that would enable him to master monumental historical stage scenes, he remained, in fact, acutely attentive to the ‘bienséances’, thus diluting the powerful effects of theatrical realism by suppressing historical scenes of bloodshed, eliminating sub-plots such as love intrigues, and virtually suppressing feminine roles. In his later writings Voltaire considers the Shakespearian theatre, with its unclassical hospitality to onstage deaths, ‘barbaric’, and despite his various attempts to emulate Shakespeare he came to personify a hostile French classicism to generations of patriotic English bardolaters.
Alice Clark
Volumnia exults in her son’s military prowess and encourages his political ambitions, advising him to conceal his disdain for the plebians (Coriolanus 3.2) in order to become consul. After Coriolanus’ banishment and his defection to the Volsces, she leads his wife Virgilia, son Martius, and friend Valeria to intercede for the Romans, successfully appealing to his personal loyalties.
In the mid-18th century, a version of Shakespeare’s play, incorporating revisions made some years earlier by James Thomson and entitled Coriolanus; or, The Roman Matron, was produced by Thomas *Sheridan, its title signifying the prominence accorded to the role of Coriolanus’ mother. Volumnia remains one of the few major roles for older women in Shakespeare: great interpreters have included Edith *Evans, Irene *Worth, Barbara *Jefford, and Judi *Dench. Though in the 20th century a greater interest in the class politics of the play tended to diminish her importance, an increased awareness of gender issues emphasized her part in creating Coriolanus’ destructive and self-destructive masculinity. She sees him as her product—‘Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck’st it from me’ (3.2.129)—but, as Janet Adelman has influentially argued in her psychoanalytic reading of the play, having ‘fed’ his fantasies of omnipotence and uncompromising independence, it is she who asks him to give them up at the end of the play, resulting in his death.
Anne Button
Vortigern and Rowena. See forgery.
Voss, Johann Heinrich (1751–1826), German poet, translator of *Homer (1781). His metrical translation of Shakespeare’s complete plays (1818–29), undertaken in collaboration with his sons Heinrich and Abraham Voss, kept closer to the peculiarities of the original diction than that of A. W. *Schlegel, with which it competed.
Werner Habicht