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dumb show

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dumb show, a theatrical pantomime included as part of a drama, especially in Elizabethan works, from the middle of the 16th cent. well into the 17th cent. Whether presented as a spectacle, with music, or as a masque with the players as allegorical characters, the dumb show appeared as prologue, between the acts, or during the play itself. It usually either presaged the events of the play or interpreted them as a chorus does.
dumb show
a part of a play acted in pantomime, popular in early English drama


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Cadwallader's eyes, diverted from the churchyard, saw a good deal of dumb show which was not so intelligible to her as she could have desired, and could not repress the question, "Who is Mr.
Middlemarch by Eliot, George View in context
Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly.
Oliver Twist Or The Parish Boy's Progress by Dickens, Charles View in context
By these means he in time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to attract the dwarf's attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in dumb show, the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy.
The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens, Charles View in context
 
 
 
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