SOURCE: Davidson, Clifford. “Iconography and Some Problems of Terminology in the Study of the Drama and Theater of the Renaissance.” Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 29 (1986-87): 7-14.

In the following essay, Davidson proposes that in the context of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, the term iconography may pertain to every visual aspect of a stage production. He also maintains that whereas Protestant iconoclasts of the period deplored the potential deceptiveness of visual images, Shakespeare and his contemporaries exploited the visual images of the Renaissance to enrich their plays.

Peter M. Daly, in an important essay entitled “Shakespeare and the Emblem: The Use of Evidence and Analogy in Establishing Iconographic and Emblematic Effects in the Plays,” which deserves to be much better known, has provided some intelligent cautions concerning the use of terms such as “iconographic,” “iconological,” “iconic,” and “emblematic” in the discussion of dramatic literature.¹ While it is...