I'm not sure that any of this is exactly a matter for research,
but...
aside from the problems already mentioned (performance, hierarchies
and embedded discrete verse structures, e.g. songs, etc.), the
typical problems I encounter mostly arise in connection with
texts that are either not quite drama or not quite texts of
drama:
o Accounts of public spectacles, with or without speeches, such as royal
processions, with semi-dramatic sections.
o Accounts of public events consisting mostly of alternating speeches
which are presented in a manner similar to that of drama texts, accounts
of trials or hearings, actual trial transcripts, accounts or transcripts
of public debates, committee and synod meetings, etc.
o Works of whatever kind, including the above but also accounts of
masques, etc., that slip back and forth between direct
quotation with speaker designations and narrative description,
some but not all of which is readily captured in <STAGE> tags,
often with a fuzzy ground of uncertain quotation/paraphrase in between.
o Staged dialogues that range from debates between actual persons
(though they may not have actually spoken thus) to debates between
typical persons (<SPEAKER>Paedobaptist:</SPEAKER>,
<SPEAKER>Papist:</SPEAKER>), to debates between allegorical figures
(<SPEAKER>Truth:</SPEAKER>). All of which may slip imperceptibly
into authorial speech.
pfs
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