castles,cloisters,& cairns

 The cover of The Pericopes of Henry II, an illuminated medieval manuscript. (via studyblue.com)

The Pericopes of Henry II (Munich, Bavarian State Library, Clm 4452) is a luxurious medieval illuminated manuscript made for Henry II, the last Ottonian Holy Roman Emperor, made c. 1002 – 1012 AD. The manuscript, which is lavishly illuminated, is a product of the Liuthar circle of illuminators, who were working in the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau, which housed a scriptorium and artists’ workshop that has a claim to having been the largest and artistically most influential in Europe during the late 10th and early 11th centuries.

there are 3 ½ spaces in shakespeare: the private, domestic world in the center of the house (juliet’s bedroom, gertrude’s closet); the formal world of ceremony at the front of the house; the liminal facade or boundary outside the house (juliet’s balcony etc); and the outside world of reversals and magic, which is either the woods (as you like it) or a city street at night (merchant). sh uses the facade with two doors at the back of the stage to suggest another world beyond that onstage; for example, the conversation btwn macduff and the macbeths that takes place just outside the room where duncan has been murdered, or the scene in hamlet when the people are clamoring at the doors, about to burst in and murder the king at any moment. the space beyond the doors can represent the outside or inside, and the scene can change instantaneously based on the groupings of actors or a line that informs the audience of the setting.