========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 12:14:04 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0001 New Year's Greetings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0001. January, 1, 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, January 1, 1994 Subject: New Year's Greetings Dear SHAKSPEReans, I wish you all the best for this New Year. Much has happened on this conference in 1993, and we have much to look forward to in 1994. SHAKSPER was founded on July 16, 1990, by Ken Steele and a group of thirteen or so interested Shakespeareans (including myself), many of whom had met at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America in Philadelphia. I became SHAKSPER's coeditor in February 1992 and editor in June of 1992. Despite the July founding date, our year begins with January 1, so we are now entering our fifth year as the above header indicates. One of the things that has happened to SHAKSPER this past year is that it has grown. We currently have 462 members from Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Canada and the United States. The SHAKSPER FileServer contains a file -- SHAKSPER MEMBERS -- that lists all of SHAKSPER's member in alphabetical order by node. I will send in a moment that file out to all our members. It is essentially a directory of the membership and can be used to search for the e-mail address of any of SHAKSPER's members. If you are interested in learning more about our members, you can examine the Biography files. If you would like to get copies of all the SHAKSPER Member Biographies, you should send a one-line mail message (without a subject line) to LISTSERV@utoronto.bitnet, reading "GET BIOGRAFY PACKAGE SHAKSPER." The second major SHAKSPERean happening of 1993 was the quality and the amount of the discussions. In 1993, there were 978 digests, and these digests generally contained contributions of many members. To give you an idea of how much was discussed this year, here are the numbers for our past three years: in 1990, there were 142 digests; in 1991, 336; in 1992, 407. Something is clearly happening here. The FileSever also contains files recounting our past discussions. Yesterday, I brought the 1994 Index up-to-date. If you would be interested in obtaining a copy, send a one-line mail message to LISTSERV@utoronto.bitnet, reading "GET DISCUSS INDEX_4 SHAKSPER." I have been delighted with SHAKSPER in 1993, and I look with great anticipation to our discussions of 1994. I know full well that it is the membership that makes SHAKSPER the interesting community it is. Currently, we are Shakespearean textual scholars and bibliographers, editors and critics, but we are also professors and high school teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, actors, poets, playwrights, theatre professionals, librarians, computer scientists, and interested bystanders. This variety is essential to the success of this conference. Again, best wishes for the New Year to you all. Hardy M. Cook Editor of SHAKSPER ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 12:18:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0002 The SHAKSPER Membership List Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0002. Saturday, 1 January 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, January 1, 1994 Subject: The SHAKSPER Membership List Shakespeare Electronic Conference -- Members 1/1/94 SOLLER.LARRY@a1.pc.maricopa.edu Larry S. Soller EGAX0020@AC.DAL.CA Julie Traves EGAX0021@AC.DAL.CA Christine Stoddard ilion@AC.DAL.CA Joanne Merriam lilith@AC.DAL.CA Debra Power mafeking@AC.DAL.CA Sean Lawrence pcone@AC.DAL.CA Michael Steven Kohn aaziz@ACAD.BRYANT.EDU Afdhel Aziz jtjbm@ACAD1.ALASKA.EDU Jan Maas ftlss@ACAD3.ALASKA.EDU Linda Shenk alan.young@ACADIAU.CA Alan R. Young banks@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU Andrew Banks lupo@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU Grady Matthew Lupo nqb1621@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU Nava Bromberger PEACOCK@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU Kenneth J. Peacock wongr@ACFCLUSTER.NYU.EDU Raphael Wong sbennett@ACS.UCALGARY.CA Susan Bennett riggio@ADS.TRINCOLL.EDU Milla Riggio bfkelly@AFTERLIFE.NCSC.MIL Blair Kelly R1AMF@AKRONVM Antonia Forster R1NR@AKRONVM Nicholas Ranson FFJL@ALASKA Janis Lull CCRUPI@ALBION Charles Crupi PJL02@ALBANYDH2 Patrick J. Lawlor srwelch@ALEX.STKATE.EDU Susan Welch OTTENHOFF@ALMA.EDU John Ottenhoff M_WILLIAMS@am.atd.cra.com.au Mark Williams HDCHICKERING@AMHERST Howell D. Chickering gziegler@AMHERST.EDU Georgianna Ziegler jerager@AMHERST.EDU John Rager BERSON@anagram.com Thomas A. Berson kmccoy@ANDY.BGSU.EDU Kenneth McCoy nmyers@ANDY.BGSU.EDU Norman J. Myers rshield@ANDY.BGSU.EDU Ronald E. Shields strophius@AOL.COM Rick Jones LIEBLER@APOLLO.MONTCLAIR.EDU Naomi Liebler traherne@ARIEL.UCS.UNIMELB.EDU.AU Richard D. Jordan ATJXB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU Jean R. Brink psdlit@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Peter S. Donaldson koelke@ATSS.CALSTATELA.EDU Kent Oelke RELIHAN@AUDUCVAX Constance C. Relihan green@AUGSBURG.EDU Douglas Green ENYOUNGBERG@AUGUSTANA.EDU Karin Youngberg cohen@AUVAX1.ADELPHI.EDU Lance Cohen lpotter@BACH.UDEL.EDU Lois D. Potter UDLE031@BAY.CC.KCL.AC.UK Stephen Roy Miller BB07873@BINGVAXA Christopher T. Dill SOLON@BEACH.CSULB.EDU Todd Allaria SCHALK@beattie.uct.ac.za David Schalkwyk bennett@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Alexandra G. Bennett lav@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU John Lavagnino HMCook@BOE00.MINC.UMD.EDU Hardy M. Cook civic@BOSSHOG.ARTS.UWO.CA Chris Ivic ekelemen@BRAHMS.UDEL.EDU Erick R. Kelemen jhalio@BRAHMS.UDEL.EDU Jay L. Halio PVASILE@BRAHMS.UDEL.EDU Pamela A. Vasile ELAINE@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU Elaine Brennan JPETER@BUCKNELL.EDU Jean Peterson QUARK@BUCSF.BU.EDU Paul Fu, Jr. cdaly@CA.DCU.IE Charlie Daly campionj@CAB.MRS.UMN.EDU Jeremiah Campion EMER@CALVIN.EDU Cheryl Forbes wderoche@CAP.GWU.EDU William DeRoche ckendall@CARL.ORG Chris Kendall cfrey@CARSON.U.WASHINGTON.EDU Charles H. Frey IDA@CASBAH.ACNS.NWU.EDU Michael P. Ida mwarren@CATS.UCSC.EDU Michael Warren s148880@CC.GETTYSBURG.EDU Mary S. Johnson tblackb1@CC.SWARTHMORE.EDU Tom Blackburn bonniem@CC1.UCA.EDU Bonnie Melchior jlynch@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU John Lynch PRACKIN@CCAT.SAS.UPENN.EDU Phyllis Rackin SABINSON@CCVAX.UNICAMP.BR Eric M. Sabinson cannonw@CENTRAL.EDU Walter W. Cannon RMOYER@charlie.usd.edu Ronald L. Moyer ejc@CHEM.UCLA.EDU Eddie Carrington IAN_B@chemcrys.ca.ac.uk Ian Bruno whiter@CITADEL.EDU Robert A. White du821@CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU George Diez tcbowden@CLOVIS.FELTON.CA.US Tim Bowden rmburns@CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU Robert M. Burns JWHITE@CMSUVMB D. Jerry White leosborn@COLBY.EDU Laurie E. Osborne 100013.1162@COMPUSERVE.COM Philip Ormond 71222.472@COMPUSERVE.COM Douglas Rutledge 74166.3213@COMPUSERVE.COM Edna Zwick Boris 76645.3610@COMPUSERVE.COM Beverly Jacobson gchew@CONGO.NCSA.UIUC.EDU Gregory Chew LHT@CORNELLA.CIT.CORNELL.EDU Nate Johnson JOSEPH_R_SCOTESES@cpsnet2.cps.edu Joseph Scoteses jrichard@CS-ACAD-LAN.LAKEHEADU.CA John Michael Richardson BOLSEN@CS.UMR.EDU Brian Olsen dunne-bob@CS.YALE.EDU Bob Dunne 94dota@CUA.EDU Gabrielle Lynne Dota MCCARTHY@CUAVAXA William J. McCarthy EHPEARLMAN@CUDENVER E.H. Pearlman ldf2@CUNIXA.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Leah D. Frank SURCC@CUNYVM Steven Urkowitz BOSS@CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU Judith E. Boss Michael.Clark@CYBER.WIDENER.EDU Michael Clark r1rmz@dax.cc.uakron.edu Ra'eda Zietoon denning@DECUS.ORG Bill Denning HAYNESR@delphi.com Robert Haynes TERRYPUNDIAK@delphi.com Terry Pundiak MUNKELT@DMSWWU1A Marga Munkelt JAE@DRYCAS Jae Walker hardin_aasand@DSU1.DSU.NODAK.EDU Hardin Aasand D.C.Greer@DURHAM.AC.UK David C. Greer ocoreng@DURRAS.ANU.EDU.AU Robert F. O'Connor milleraa@DUVM.OCS.DREXEL.EDU Amy Miller cinnamon@EAGLE.MIT.EDU Sharon Cinnamon drummond@EAGLE.SANGAMON.EDU Shelli Drummond mcfad@ELEARN.EDU.YORKU.CA David W. McFadden katy@ENG.SUN.COM Katy Dickinson ian@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Ian Lancashire jgerstel@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Jena Gerstel KWEST@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Katherine West lthomson@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Leslie Thomson pcolling@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Philip Collington pseary@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Peter Seary WARKENT@EPAS.UTORONTO.CA Germaine Warkentin rose@ESKIMO.COM Rose McManus jpollard@EWU.EDU Jacqueline Anne Pollard asponberg@EXODUS.VALPO.EDU Arvid F. Sponberg jpaul@EXODUS.VALPO.EDU John Steven Paul gaojeng@FAC.ANU.EDU.AU Jie Gao DLG8X@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU David L. Gants ifm5u@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU Ian F. Macinnes jll6f@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU Joseph Lawrence Lyle LHB6V@FARADAY.CLAS.VIRGINIA.EDU Laura Hayes Burchard WIT_AKH@flo.org Anthony Korotko Hatch stevem@FMCD27.NSC.COM Steve Metsker jd1@FORTH.STIRLING.AC.UK John Drakakis ELI16@FRMOP22 Centre d'Etudes Elisabethaines jaym@SED.STEL.COM Jay Minnix eliason@GACVX1.GAC.EDU Eric Eliason fister@GACVX1.GAC.EDU Barbara Fister RASTLEY@GALLUA Russell Astley dudaj%union.decnet@GAR.UNION.EDU Jean Graca NYHOFF@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU Jeffrey L. Nyhoff e.palmer@GENIE.GEIS.COM Emily Palmer scharris@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU Susan Harris srquick@GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU Sterling Quick john.c.mucci@GTE.SPRINT.COM John C. Mucci gale0011@GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU Richard Gale owen0041@GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU Norman Owens enriquezj@GUVAX Jon Enriquez schaefej@GUVAX James F. Schaefer NEUMAN@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU Michael Neuman WILDER@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU Jim Wilderotter LIDH@GUVM Todd M. Lidh dweller@GVSU.EDU Ronald Dwelle DAGRIER@GWUVM.GWU.EDU David Alan Grier JORDAN@HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU Nancy S. Reinhardt M.CONRICK@hbs.gu.edu.au Michael Conrick cranem/en@HERMES.BC.EDU Mary Thomas Crane DORENKAMP@HLYCROSS John H. Dorenkamp HWHALL@HLYCROSS Helen Whall jbc4m@HOLMES.ACC.VIRGINIA.EDU John B. Carr COX@HOPE John D. Cox rrCJ511695@HOPE James Calahan EMERSON@HOPE.CIT.HOPE.EDU Derek Emerson merians@HP800.LASALLE.EDU Linda E. Merians ENGMIK@HUM.AAU.DK Michael Skovmand 21798RAR@IBM.CL.MSU.EDU Randal Robinson rww@IBUKI.COM Richard Weyhrauch bont@IEEEPUB.ORG Tom Bontrager mavx@IF1.UFRGS.ANRS.BR Marta Ramos Oliveria S3CALLAH@ILSTU James Callahan MATROJN@INDSVAX1.INDSTATE.EDU Brian L. Fane ARASLEY@INDYVAX Alicia Rasley IWKI500@INDYVAX.IUPUI.EDU Dawn Wilhite whitel@IRIS.UNCG.EDU Laurie White edelnantj@ISCSVAX.UNI.EDU Jay Edelnant FRIEDMANM1@jaguar.uofs.edu Michael Friedman LOUGHLIN@jane.cs.fredonia.edu Tom Loughlin ZAROBILA@JCVAXA.JCU.EDU Charles Zarobila scottp@JESTER.USASK.CA Peter Scott maura@JHUNIX.HCF.JHU.EDU Maura LoMonico FAC_AMIL@JMUVAX Ann E. Miller STU_PALO@JMUVAX1 Paul A. Lord alc@JOE.ALB.EDU Al Cacicedo payers@KEAN.UCS.MUN.CA Peter Ayers DKOVACS@KENTVM.KENT.EDU Diane Kovacs sreid@KENTVM.KENT.EDU S. Reid g.beattie@KILO.UWS.EDU.AU Gordon Beattie JONGSOOK@KRSNUCC1 Jongsook Lee ANTHONY@KRSOGANG Anthony Teague ENGXW878@KSUVXA.KENT.EDU Cassandra Whittington enjg@KUDU.RU.AC.ZA John Gouws jbangham@KUDZU.WIN.NET Jerald Bangham NEURINGER@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU Charles Neuringer LJ#4@LAFAYACS James Lusardi SI#0@LAFAYACS Ian Smith SJ#3@LAFAYACS June Schlueter WS#1@LAFAYACS Suzanne R. Westfall SCHNEIDB@LAWRENCE Ben Ross Schneider, Jr. dh05@LEHIGH.EDU David Hawkes orgel@LELAND.STANFORD.EDU Stephen Orgel NOVELLI@LEMOYNE Cornelius Novelli celineg@LIB.RPSLMC.EDU Celine T. Gura swearingen@LIBLAN.UAMS.EDU David Swearingen pgallagh@LIFE.JSC.NASA.GOV Patricia E. Gallagher STDNCOGA@LMUACAD Steven S. Vrooman STDNTVQA@LMUACAD Danielle Stagg nwalker@LYNX.DAC.NORTHEASTERN.EDU Nina Walker jason.stokes@M.CC.UTAH.EDU Jason Stokes Thomas.H.Luxon@MAC.DARTMOUTH.EDU Tom Luxon tmartin@MACE.CC.PURDUE.EDU Thomas L. Martin geuridge@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU Gareth Euridge jrogers@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU Judith K. Rogers ncouch@MAGUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU Nena Couch nmiller@MAGNUS.ACD.OHIO-STATE.EDU Nancy W. Miller achapman@MAIL.SAS.UPENN.EDU Alison Chapman dpacheco@MATH.MACALSTR.EDU David Pacheco carnegie@matai.vuw.ac.nz David Carnegie MC9628@MCLINK.IT Franceso Sforza 0003786240@MCIMAIL.COM Vinton G. Cerf 0003963467@MCIMAIL.COM Edward Dotson 0006155953@MCIMAIL.COM Eric Baum 0006382926@MCIMAIL.COM Jeff Zinn ifcj211@MCL.CC.UTEXAS.EDU William Gelber HAMMOND@MCMAIL.CIS.MCMASTER.CA Anthony Hammond moylek@MCMAIL.CIS.MCMASTER.CA Kenneth Moyle OSTOVICH@MCMAIL.CIS.MCMASTER.CA Helen Ostovich davist@MERCURY.UMIS.UPENN.EDU Tad Davis CENG@merlin.hood.edu Cora Louise Eng 924lindsey@MERLIN.NLU.EDU Mary-Katie Lindsey dcollins@MICRO.WCMO.EDU David G. Collins DIANAH@MIDD Dianah E. Henderson sethg@MIKI.LCS.MIT.EDU Seth Gordon callum@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU Robert Callum smithsb@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU Shawn Smith C562611@MIZZOU1 Woody Hood C619263@MIZZOU1.MISSOURI.EDU Grover Smittle JOHNST67@MMC Donald Johnson krothwel@MOOSE.UVM.EDU Kenneth S. Rothwell lschnell@MOOSE.UVM.EDU Lisa Schnell pneal@MOOSE.UVM.EDU Patrick Neal coline@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA John M. Edgecombe gjones@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA Gordon Jones lvecchi@MORGAN.UCS.MUN.CA Linda Vecchi katetens@MSU.EDU Kristan Tetens LEWIS@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU Piers Lewis urwmullin@MSUVX1.MEMST.EDU Robert W. Mullin kay.stockholder@MTSG.UBC.CA Kay Stockholder LSEAMANS@mu2.millersv.edu Lynne Seamans B7HL@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA Marc Plamondon BB7M@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA Hirsh Schipper BHFF@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA Stacy Derezinski IN45@MUSICB.MCGILL.CA Ann M. Cox mlomonico@NASSTRACT.NYUED.FRED.ORG Mike LoMonico DIVHMF1@NCCVAX.WVNET.EDU Terry Ann Craig H594@NEMOMUS Tonya Kreuger LL61@NEMOMUS Arnold Preussner ijkern@NETCOM.COM Iver Kern IZZYOM8@mvs.oac.ucla.edu Tom Davey sandona@NIMUE.HOOD.EDU Mark Sandona TB0DJK9@NIU David J. Knauer TB0WPW1@NIU William Proctor Williams TJ0AJS1@NIU Anne J. Spencer JURBAN@NORDEN1.COM Joseph Urban MarinMueller@NWU.EDU Martin Mueller neuhaus@NWZ.UNI-MUENSTER.DE H. J. Neuhaus dkodmur@OCF.BERKELEY.EDU Daniel Kodmur FGORFAIN@OCVAXA.CC.OBERLIN.EDU Phyllis Gorfain mr_ca_cbu@OHIO.GOV Charleton B. Underwood s.a.rae@OPEN.AC.UK Simon Rae JFORSE@opie.bgsu.edu James H. Forse CEDELMAN@orca.saas.ac.cowan.edu.au Charles Edelman kychin@OREAD.CC.UKANS.EDU Kung-yu Chin jch@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU John Harrison flail@OWLNET.RICE.EDU John Salisbury FLANNAGA@OUACCVMB Roy Flannagan lsfoll@PCAD-ML.ACTX.EDU Scott Foll tehodges@PCAD-ML.ACTX.EDU Thomas E. Hodges sinowitz@PILOT.NJIN.NET Jonah Sinowitz BXP7@PO.CWRU.EDU Brain Pedaci PDJ2@PO.CWRU.EDU Peter D. Junger TGB2@PO.CWRU.EDU Thomas G. Bishop traister@POBOX.UPENN.EDU Daniel Traister ZKELLOGG@PORTLAND Zip Kellogg rabrams@PORTLAND.MAINE.EDU Rick Abrams EN02@PRIMEB.DUNDEE.AC.UK R.J.C. Watt p00968@PSILINK.COM Martin Green BCJ@PSUVM Kevin Berland SAS14@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Stephen A. Schrum SHERSHOW@PUB2.BU.EDU Scott Shershow GODOT@PURCCVM Shawn Smith 3NDS3@QUCDN.QUEENSU.CA David Slonosky BURKE@RCKHRST1 Robert R. Burke abuttery@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU Amy Buttery rebecca@REALITY.SAS.UPENN.EDU Rebecca W. Bushnell Knapp@REED.EDU Robert S. Knapp SKURA@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU Meredith Anne Skura AXNNCE@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU Tony Naturale SDMGLA@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU Stanley D. McKenzie MOH@RNB.DTC.HP.COM David Moh EJMASO@ROOT.INDSTATE.EDU Tom Derrick rlstrick@RS6000.CMP.ILSTU.EDU Ronald Strickland TOM@SAILFISH.CSE.FAU.EDU Thomas Horton cmazer@SAS.UPENN.EDU Cary M. Mazer jodonnel@SAS.UPENN.EDU James O'Donnell jsaeger@SAS.UPENN.EDU James P. Saeger swerner@SAS.UPENN.EDU Sarah Werner budra@SFU.CA Paul Budra hudgens@SILVER.SDSMT.EDU Michael Thomas Hudgens GR4302@SIUCVMB Jeff Taylor GA0708@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU Herbert S. Donow CLARY@SMCVAX F. Nicholas Clary knowles@smhs.cutler.com Denis Knowles SHAKESPR@SMITH SHAKSPEReans at Smith BSAJDAK@SMITH.SMITH.EDU Bruce T. Sajdak MACDONALD@SMITH.SMITH.EDU Ron Macdonald FEINMAN@SNYBKSAC Richard Feinman WOLF@SNYCORVA Janet S. Wolf KLIMANB@SNYFARVA Bernice W. Kliman HOLBERMA@SNYPOTVA Stanley M. Holberg mjmiller@SPARTAN.AC.BROCKU.CA Mary Jane Miller jmassa@SPONSORED-PROG-PO.DSP.UIOWA.EDU John S. Massa widmann@SPOT.COLORADO.EDU R L Widmann kille001@STAFF.TC.UMN.EDU Tony Killeen HF.CHL@STANFORD Charles R. Lyons mckeague@STAT.FSU.EDU Ian McKeague pinnow@STOLAF.EDU Timothy Dayne Pinnow IRWINKE@STORM.CS.ORST.EDU Keith Irwin dondiego@STUDNET.MSU.EDU Catherine Don Diego katiyret@STUDENT.MSU.EDU Ryan Latourette mdaaron@STUDENTS.WISC.EDU Melissa D. Aaron EBEDGERT@SUADMIN Ellen Edgerton willaims_r@SUNYBROOME.EDU Roberta Williams flfm@SUNYIT.EDU Louis Mazzucco marjorie@SUN490.FDU.EDU Harry Keyishian marjorie@SUN490.FDU.EDU Marjorie Keyishian KELARSON@SUVM Kenneth E. Larson LDDENNO@SUVM Kathryn Barbour CR06@SWTEXAS Clifford J. Ronan WKEMP@S850.MWC.EDU William Kemp HAWKES@taff.cardiff.ac.uk Terence Hawkes HNISHINO@tanset.cc.u-tokyo.ac.jp Haruo Nishinoh ROBITAI@tarleton.edu Marilyn Robitaille ETRIB@TEMPLEVM Evelyn Tribble MELISSAA@TENET.EDU Melissa McMillian-Cunningham JAMESS@tiger.hsc.edu James Schiffer abartisc@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU Caesarea Abartis andersonj@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU James B. Anderson jhibbard@TIGGER.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU Jack H. Hibbard HTHIMMESH@tiny.computing.csbsju.edu Hilary D. Thimmesh dglassco@TRENTU.CA David Glassco wug@TRITON.DSTO.GOV.AU Wolf Getto saup@TROI.CC.ROCHESTER.EDU Karen Saupe zurko@TUXEDO.ENET.DEC.COM Mary Ellen Zurko SCUT024@TWNMOE10 David Steelman fld@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Leo Daugherty flevy@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fritz Levy hoblitj@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Jason Edward Hoblit suburton@U.WASHINGTON.EDU M. S. Burton u63495@UICVM.UIC.EDU Michael Dobson mgaray@UOFT02.UTOLEDO.EDU Michael Garay V428HA6E@UBVMS Geoffrey T. Wilson V181HKZP@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Tracey Sedinger godshawl@UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU William Leigh Godshalk mckennji@UCBEH.SAN.UC.EDU James McKenna proehl@UCIS.VILL.EDU Geoffrey Proehl ccaagie@UCL.AC.UK Gabriel Egan noraj@UCLINK.BERKLEY.EDU Nora M. Johnson HASENFRA@UCONNVM Bob Hasenfratz JACOBUS@UCONNVM Lee A. Jacobus hyulee@UCS.INDIANA.EDU Hyun Seok Lee JANEY@UCS.INDIANA.EDU John T. Aney cdesmet@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Christy Desmet fteague@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Fran Teague pstewart@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Patricia Stewart omalley@UHUNIX.UHCC.HAWAII.EDU Lurana O'Malley csp07321@UKANVM Cheryl Pace RWILLIS@UKANVAX Ron Willis ENG013@ukcc.uky.edu Joan Hartwig CAVITT01@ULKYVM Chet Vittitow C0SUTT01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Catherine Sutton 94dtribb@ULTRIX.UOR.EDU Damon Tribble Cynthia_L_Wimmer@umail.umd.edu Cynthia L. Wimmer Kent_CARTWRIGHT@UMAIL.UMD.EDU Kent Cartwright Victoria_PLAZA@UMAIL.UMD.EDU Victoria Plaza KNOLAN@umiami.ir.miami.edu Kimberly Nolan MENGELBE@umiami.ir.miami.edu Malvina Engelberg curtisp@UMONCTON.CA Paul Curtis stsmart@UMSLVMA Terence Martin INKSHED@UNB.CA James A. Reither ROWAN@UNB.CA Don Rowan RSPACEK@UNB.CA Richard A. M. Spacek ETBJR@UNC.OIT.UNC.EDU Edward T. Bonahue EGERTON@UNCMVS.OIT.UNC.EDU Katy Egerton MOSLEY@UNCMVS.OIT.UNC.EDU George Mosley D_LANIER@UNHH.UNH.EDU Douglas Lanier D_RICHMAN@UNHH.UNH.EDU David Richman stap@UNIXG.UBC.CA Paul G. Stanwood CBHW23@UPVAX.ULSTER.AC.UK M.W.A. (Wilf) Smith MAIL_KIERNAN@UQVAX.CC.UQ.OZ.AU Adrian Kiernander iqm150@URIACC.URI.EDU Judy Williamson Hudson kln101@URIACC.URI.EDU Mathilda M. Hills SV0S35@ursa.calvin.edu Sarah Vos CREAMER@URVAX.URICH.EDU Kevin J.T. Creamer russell@URVAX.URICH.EDU Anthony Russell SCHWARTZ@URVAX.URICH.EDU Louis Schwartz engler@URZ.UNIBAS.CH Balz Engler MKRAKOVS@US.ORACLE.COM Marina Krakovsky campbell@USDCSV.ACUSD.EDU Gardner Campbell ULB6@USOUTHAL David K. Sauer IVAD@UTMARTN Daniel Farris Pigg mwebster@UTXVMS.CC.UTEXAS.EDU Mark J. Webster tmacdon@UVA386.SCHOOLS.VIRGINIA.EDU Tim MacDonald HAG@UVMVM.UVM.EDU Hope Greenberg BEST@UVVM.UVIC.CA Michael Best werstine@UWOVAX.UWO.CA Paul Werstine morton@UWPG02.UWINNIPEG.CA Mark Morton motley@UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU Michael Mullin froud@VAX.LIBRARY.UTORONTO.CA Margot Froud romab@VAX.OX.AC.UK Roma Bhattacharjea ARCHIVE@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Lou Burnard STUART@VAX.OXFORD.AC.UK Stuart D. Lee GW2@VAXB.YORK.AC.UK Geoffrey Wall FOSTER@VAXSAR.VASSAR.EDU Donald W. Foster FAC_JLFUNSTO@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Jay Funston fac_mdhawtho@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Mark D. Hawthorne FAC_RCOHEN@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Ralph Alan Cohen mewilcox@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU Matt Wilcox STU_DEFRYDRY@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU David Frydrychowski engl_le@VAX1.UTULSA.EDU Lars Engle ESEDDON@VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA Elizabeth Seddon PECHTER@VAX2.CONCORDIA.CA Ed Pechter ENG1683@VAX2.QUEENS-BELFAST.AC.UK John Manning JLH5651@VENUS.TAMU.EDU James L. Harner JLH5651@VENUS.TAMU.EDU Harrison Meserole shand@VENUS.YORKU.CA Skip Shand KKM7M@VIRGINIA Karen Kates Marshall HARRAWOO@violet.berkeley.edu Michael Harrawood f24113@VM.BIU.AC.IL Alan Rosen ANNAL@VM.TEMPLE.EDU Annalisa Castaldo V796CF05@VM.TEMPLE.EDU Jeff Pence V796CF06@VM.TEMPLE.EDU Rodney R. Mader CADMADGE@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Madge Grant Brochet ugu00279@VM.UOGUELPH.CA Shirley Senoff hart@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU Michael S. Hart D.A.Bank@VME.GLASGOW.AC.UK David A. Bank DENKEN@VMS.CIS.PITT.EDU Dennis Kennedy JRJST7@VMS.CIT.PITT.EDU Jeremy R. Jacobs R1NR@VM1.CC.UAKRON.EDU Nicholas Ranson DS001451@VM1.NODAK.EDU Ray Wheeler LSCHWART@VM1.NODAK.EDU Larry Schwartz UD006866@VM1.NODAK.EDU Richard F. Hampsten hfirek@VDOE386.VAK12ED.EDU Hilve Firek cpb@VTF.IDX.COM Christopher P. Bowen CHESHIRE@VTVM1 Linda Anderson TSC@VX.CIS.UMN.EDU Thomas Clayton slatterys@VXC.OCIS.UNCWIL.EDU Susan Slattery ravens@WAM.UMD.EDU Brian Sobus rzimmer@WATER1.ENV.GOV.BC.CA Rodney Zimmerman zane95@WHARTON.UPENN.EDU Ed Zane GRACE.E.ASPINALL@WILLIAMS.EDU Grace E. Aspinall msharpston@WORLDBANK.ORG Michael Sharpston wk00367@WORLDLINK.COM Timothy Evans MATSUBA@WRITER.YORKU.CA Stephen Matsuba massi@WSUVM2.CSC.WSU.EDU J. M. Massi MCNAMAR@WVNVM Gregory McNamara DEAN@zodiac.rutgers.edu Ann C. Dean ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jan 1994 12:24:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0003 Re: Subjectivity in *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0003. Saturday, 1 January 1994. From: Michael Sharpston Date: Thursday, 30 Dec 1993 21:18:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 4.0907 Subjectivity in *Hamlet* In relation to Julie Travers' original query (SHK 4.0907), and also some subsequent contributions, I should like to suggest the following framework: a) The Environment How People Perceive that Environment (to themselves) b) Language to Express Oneself (inner purpose predominates..speaker can even be alone) Language to Communicate (focus on recipient) c) Meaning of a Communication as Perceived by Recipient "Subjectivity" may perhaps be better understood in these different contexts. If I have just come from Sweden in winter I may perceive a certain outdoor temperature as warmer than would someone from northern Brazil: this is (a). It is not at all the same as Polonius and courtier fiction (with the focus on pleasing the recipient, Language to communicate, (b)). Conditioned social/ gender expectations in a person would seem to me nearer to (a). Vacillation, muddy language, to an audience implies that the speaker is using Language to Communicate, in this case to Deceive. (I thought Sean Lawrence's posting [SHK 4.0918] was excellent: "poisoned cowardice"). Lastly, people tend themselves to believe what they say. Related I think is the "authoritative ambiguity" to which Robert Burke refers [also SHK 4.0918], with the scope it offers not fully to acknowledge one's own evil intent. Positively lastly: Happy New Year to Everyone! Thanks to our kind editor Hardy, and to all of you whose contributions I so much enjoyed reading. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Jan 1994 10:19:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0004 Re: Shylock and Usury Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0004. Sunday, 2 January 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 01 Jan 1994 17:06:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 4.0975 Shylock and Usury To Hirsh Schipper: You may wish to read Richard A. Levin's LOVE AND SOCIETY IN SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY, chapters 2 and 3, for another view of Shylock and the Christian society of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. And you may wish to ask yourself how Antonio makes his money, and how Bassanio gets his money. Are they admirable members of the community? What products do they "make"? Happy New Year (one of them, anyway), Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Jan 1994 10:22:46 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0005 Re: Patriarchies and Matriarchies Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0005. Sunday, 2 January 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 01 Jan 1994 17:16:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 4.0976 Re: Patriarchies and Matriarchies To Melissa Aaron: I surely hope that you are correct in your assessments. For me, it is counterintuitive that women were all doormats before 1964 - or whatever date you may wish to establish. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese certainly indicates that women were not wimps before the 20th century. Perhaps it is "male history" that creates "patriarchies." Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 08:15:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0006 Re: Women Writers Project Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0006. Monday, 3 January 1994. From: Nancy W Miller Date: Sunday, 2 Jan 94 16:28:01 EST Subject: Re: SHK 4.0965 Q: Women Writers Project Al, The Brown University Women Writers Project can be reached through Elaine Brennan at Brown. If you can get in touch with her (a very busy woman!), she's very gracious and informative about the Project. They're currently working out the software bugs and are planning a text-base to which one subscribes. I'm not sure about what's available on-line now, but they have quite a list of works on paper. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 06:59:14 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0008 Shakespeare's Illness Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0008. Tuesday, 4 January 1994. From: Hirch Schipper Date: Monday, 03 Jan 94 21:12:16 EST Subject: SHAKESPEARE'S ILLNESS Thanks to William Godshalk for calling attention to Levin's book in regards to Syhlock and the Christian society. Indeed the origin of and the stimulus for my writing stemmed from the Merchant. However, I have just finished Ian Wilson's "Shakespeare : The Evidence" and would not have ended the article as I did. From consideration of Shakespeare's signatures on the Belott-Mountjoie deposition, the Blackfriars Gatehouse conveyance and mortgage, and his will, the deduction is made that he suffered of scrivener's palsy or writer's cramp. As a physician, I know something about that condition which is psychosomatic and occurs in younger persons. To me the writing appears to be of a person suffering of Parkinson's disease. This condition is much more common than writer's palsy, is a progressive degenerative neurological disease, occuring often in persons of late middle age, and also determines a blank facies as we see on Shakespeare's mortuary sculpture. The condition is slowly and unrelentingly progressive, is subjective in that patients know that they are ill, and thus are often impressed to make their wills. The illness could well have started to afflict Shakespeare before he wrote his last play, Henry VIII, in association with John Fletcher, perhaps to releive him of the difficulties of writing. Shakespeare's diagnosis was immersed in the general category of senility and debility. It makes no difference whether he had writer's cramp or Parkinson's, although the former would not affect his general condition. Still, it is sad to contemplate that possibly Shakespeare's life was cut short at the height of his abilities by Parkinson's disease. Happy new year Hirsh ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 07:05:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0009 The Renaissance Bookshelf (Was Sh and Ancient World) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0009. Tuesday, 4 January 1994. From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 03 Jan 1994 22:47:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Renaissance Bookshelf Dear Ms. Rackin, Touche--though Ann Jennalie Cook's PRIVILEGED PLAYGOERS makes the argument that quite a few of them would have had the means to afford books. Whether they actually did have them, well, how can we know? My comment, however, refered to writers, not readers, and came especially in reference to Ben Jonson. Jonson's obsession with the classics is an extreme case, but I still think it's not out of line to presume that the *educated* Elizabethan bought and bound and studied works that were the currency of educated and priveleged discourse. Do I presume too much? (Loved your STAGES OF HISTORY, by the way.) Yours, James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 06:48:58 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0007 Re: "Oberon" Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0007. Tuesday, 4 January 1994. From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Monday, 3 Jan 94 17:47:36 -0500 Subject: Info on "Oberon" Video Many thanks to Fritz Levy for his kind words. Since he has more or less cued me to do so, and I hate to miss a cue, I am reposting the availability part of the notice I posted some months back. At present the videotape is available in US format only (i.e. no PAL for the U.K., Australia etc. Ask in enough numbers though and it may be given...). Cheers, Tom >For more information about the videotape of Oberon, contact the Department of >Music, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106-7105, phone 216- >368-2400. > >VHS videocassette of OBERON: $ 62.50 >Shipping and handling: $ 3.00 >Credit Card Surcharge: $ 2.50 > > __________________________________________________________________ > >Order Form > >I would like to order ________ copy/copies of the videocassette of OBERON. >Enclosed is my check or moeny order (Payable to: CWRU) for $65.50 per >videocassette. > >Or charge my credit card $68.00 per videocassette. > > > Name ______________________________________________________ > > Address ____________________________________________________ > > City ____________________________________ State ______ Zip _____ > > Telephone ___________________________________________________ > > Visa/MC/Disc________________________________ Exp. Date ________ > > Signature (required for credit card sales) ________________________ > > Send this form completed with your check or money order to: > > OBERON Video, Department of Music, CWRU, Cleveland OH 44106-7105. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jan 1994 07:24:34 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0010 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0010. Wednesday, 5 January 1994. From: Jon Enriquez Date: Tuesday, 04 Jan 1994 11:26:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 4.0972 E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Regarding Michael Sharpton's comment about E-mail as a thin communication medium: Yes, e-mail is thinner than, say, conversation. But irony, which he cites as an example of something that can't be indicated electronically, is about the worst possible example. There *is* a way to indicate irony; it is :). I prefer ;) because it is sassier and easier (slightly) to type. There are of course many other examples of emotional expression: :( unhappiness :P disgust :-< disapproval Anyway. E-mail users have developed conventions for expressing emotions because they felt the need to do so. My use of asterisks in the previous paragraph is another example of an e-mail idiom. If people wish to communicate with a limited set of characters, they find a way to do so. While I'm unfamiliar with masque, I suggest that if it is a thin medium and if practitioners want to make it thicker (which is debatable), they would adopt conventions as we have in e-mail, or for that matter spoken and written language. Some might argue that Shakespeare limited himself too much by using the rigidity of blank verse for the bulk of his dialogue; I would respond that in using that form to evoke a variety of emotions and effects, he did rather well. :) Jon Enriquez The Graduate School Georgetown University ENRIQUEZJ@guvax (Bitnet) ENRIQUEZJ@guvax.georgetown.edu (Internet) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Jan 1994 07:28:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0011 Re: The Renaissance Bookshelf Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0011. Wednesday, 5 January 1994. From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Tuesday, 4 Jan 1994 12:34:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: The Renaissance Bookshelf (Was Sh and Ancient World) Dear Mr. McKenna, Of course, what you say makes good sense. I'm sorry if my response seemed dismissive: I think it had more to do with my congenital aversion to what Allon White called "The Dismal Sacred Word" than to anything you wrote. Have you seen White's essay? The full title is "'The Dismal Sacred Word':Academic Language and the Social Reproduction of Seriousness," and it's reprinted in *Carnival, Hysteria, and Writing* (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1993). On the question of the likely levels of literacy/illiteracy among the playgoers, have you seen Andrew Gurr's discussion on pp. 54-56 in the 1988 paperback edition of *Playgoing in Shakespeare's London*? And his Appendix I, "Playgoers 1567-1642"? Happy new year! Phyllis Rackin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 16:47:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0012 Re: Shakespeare's Illness Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0012. Thursday, 6 January 1994. From: David Richman Date: Wednesday, 5 Jan 1994 9:41:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare's Illness It is interesting and disturbing to learn of Shakespeare's possible Parkinson's disease. I suppose this is one of the many things about the playwright that we will never know with certainty. Eugene O'Neill did suffer from Parkinson's disease, and he was physically unable to write during the last ten years of his life. His last play, *A Moon for the Misbegotten*, was completed in 1943, and he died in 1953. His letters wrench the heart (at least, they wrenched my heart) in their description of the mental and spiritual agony his condition caused him. Might Shakespeare have known something of the same agony? David Richman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Jan 1994 20:58:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0013 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0013. Thursday, 6 January 1994. (1) From: Tom Davey Date: Wednesday, 05 Jan 94 20:47 PST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0010 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (2) From: Michael Sharpston Date: Thursday, 06 Jan 1994 17:07:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0010 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Davey Date: Wednesday, 05 Jan 94 20:47 PST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0010 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Jon Enriquez agrees with Michael Sharpston that e-mail is a "thin communication medium," but that tonal and emotional shadings can be conveyed by the so-called "emoticons" like ;) (irony) and :-< (disapproval). I'm afraid I disagree. Irony and far subtler nuances have flourished in printed discourse for centuries without recourse to special typographical signals or graphical heighteners. Before penning this note, I consulted the work of one of the supreme ironists in the language, Edward Gibbon, and I failed to find a single emoticon. Just bare type and the occasional scathing quotation marks, the same "thin" tools I have available here in cyberspace. The real point to be made about e-mail as a medium, I think, is that we generally dash off our notes spontaneously and with the same lack of forethought with which we speak. But whereas we rely on tone of voice and body language to save our conversation from being misinterpreted, we have no such auxiliaries for e-mail--hence our anxiety the medium somehow lacks expressive power. Not so. If we treated e-mail for what it is, writing, instead of the textual equivalent of a message left on an answering machine (the polished contributions to this list are emphatically excepted), there might be gains for both communication and literacy all around. As I tell my students, regarding emoticons, just say no. Tom Davey Department of English, UC Los Angeles izzyom8@mvs.oac.ucla.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sharpston Date: Thursday, 06 Jan 1994 17:07:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0010 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? I liked Jon Enriquez' comment, but it also showed me that my earlier posting suffered from ellipsis. First, E-mail. All those faces which he documents so well show very clearly the disadvantages of 'standard' E-mail -- no body language, no tone of voice and so on. He is completely correct that with 'augmented' E-mail people can and do find ways around this problem. Post augmentation, the medium is significantly less 'thin'. Second, the comparison I was trying to make with say Ben Johnson and his masques. If WE (NOT the people of the time) try to understand when irony is and is not intended, we are in some ways confronted with a problem similar to that of unaugmented E-mail and irony. Ben Johnson and his original audience are dead. We cannot experience live body language to US, (although we might possibly be able to read reports of body language at the time to others). We cannot hear a tone of voice, see and interpret a cock of the eye. We are not a member of King James' court... We have certain records (the text, a tradition about it), some knowledge of a context... But still there is a relatively 'thin' communication medium between Ben Johnson and us. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 17:04:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0016 Graduate Student Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0016. Friday, 7 January 1994. From: James McKenna Date: Friday, 07 Jan 1994 13:38:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: grad conference announcement Graduate Student Conference _____ __________ _____READING MONSTERS, READING CULTURE__________ The graduate students of the University of Cincinnati Department of English are hosting a conference on literature and culture for graduate students. The conference will be on the main campus in Cincinnati, on Saturday, April 16, 1994. Deadline for submissions is February 28. _____Brief Guidelines___________________________ Critical and creative works of approximately 8-10 pages, pertaining to the conference theme, may be submitted. Critical essays must be accompanied by an abstract of 250 words or less. All submissions should include a cover sheet containing your name, affiliation, address, phone, e-mail address, and title of your work. Send two copies of submissions, including abstract and cover sheet, to: Lisa Udel Department of English, ML69 248 McMicken Hall University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221 (513) 556-5924 For more information, write or call Lisa Udel at the address and phone number above, or send a note to James McKenna, mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 17:00:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0015 Re: Paraphrase Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0015. Friday, 7 January 1994. From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 07 Jan 1994 12:43:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 4.0961 Re: Paraphrase Dear Nate Johnson: Your comments about paraphrase and translation (back before the holidays) are well taken. Let me see if I can make a coherent response. Translation first, then back to paraphrase: I supposed I could argue that the issue of translation was my own red herring, but I believe the questions raised by translation are central to any discussion of the interpretation of language in the drama, if only because our English-speaking stages and classrooms are filled with works written in Greek, French, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian.... How do we teach these works? Only as receptacles of ideas? If we did, any old translation or paraphrase or precis would do. But if you are like me, you expend some effort looking for "good" translations, ones that read as artfully rich English _and_ that capture (as judged by the authority of your own knowledge or the advice of others whose opinions you trust) as many of the nuances of the other language as possible. I'm currently reading Burton Raffel's essay, "On Translating Horace," in his poetic translation of the *Ars Poetica*. He describes his task as a dichotomous one. The translator is not to create _de novo_, or _ex nihilo_: he must first master the original, know it as nearly as possible as its original creator knew it, linguistically and culturally, inside and out.... If he is not certain of a passage, he must return to it, over and over, until be becomes certain, until all fuzziness disappears. [Note how much this sounds like the Olivier quote I cited before: "I'd rather have run the scene eight times than have wasted that time in chattering away about abstractions. An actor gets the right thing by doing it over and over."] But once he has this in his bones, "[t]he translator must turn his back on the original, then, in order to be ultimately loyal to it," in order to make it like in another language for a specific time and place. The translator reworking an original into a "parallel" text in another language is therefore doing something quite different from the befuddled sophomore, put on the spot in class, trying to explain what a difficult passage means. Others can expand on this much better than I. But I think I can justify considering all the English language texts I deal with _as_ English texts, _all_ of which are difficult to interpret. So having these English texts to interpret, why not paraphrase? I could give an outrageous example I saved from the "Doonesbury" comic strip for May 16, 1979. (Quoting it will take up less space than paraphrase:) - "See Rick, in its way, mellow-speak is a remarkably economical dialect. What Dr. Asher has done is reduce language to only its most essential components. Here, I'll show you. Give me a line to translate." - "How about this... 'The moon like a flower in heaven's high bower, with silent delight sits and smiles on the night." - "William Blake, Right? Okay, let's see... In mellow-speak, that would be... 'Oh, wow, look at the moon.'" - "Duane, we've got to talk" I'm note sure most of us with initials after our names, let alone our undergraduate students, are much above the "Oh, wow, look at the moon" stage on a first reading -- and maybe that _is_ a valid synopsis for a first reading. But if there we are to have a deeper intellectual and emotional understanding of a work of literature (including the drama), we must quickly get to an appreciation of exactly how that work works: both God and the Devil are in the details of the language. My bias toward an extreme position on this matter comes from having received all my degrees in Theatre Arts, and from having had to resist every step of the way the method (actually "The Method") by which actors and directors in the U.S. are _*explicitly taught*_ (how much more boldly can I state it in email?) that paraphrase is sufficient for performance, that "the lines" are simply what you have to have memorized by run-through, and that "love of the language," if it exists, simply means that an actor envys John Gielgud the sound of his voice. There are exceptions, notably Richard Hornby, whose books "Script Into Performance" and "The End of Acting: A Radical View" address this problem directly with both example (the former) and healthy polemic (the latter), but for the most part, theatre people view the workings and details of language as irrelevant. (Ask me sometime about the reaction I got in 1981 when I proposed to incorporate psycholinguistics into my dissertation research.) As my colleague, Jon Enriquez, put it, "I want to die" may be a valid paraphrase in September, but by December, "To be or not to be" should have a more direct, and richer, meaning. Yours ever in medias res, Jim Schaefer Graduate School Georgetown University schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Jan 1994 16:53:14 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0014 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0014. Friday, 7 January 1994. (1)From: Vint Cerf <0003786240@mcimail.com> Date: Thursday, 6 Jan 94 23:00 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0013 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (2)From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 07 Jan 1994 09:59:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0013 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Vint Cerf <0003786240@mcimail.com> Date: Thursday, 6 Jan 94 23:00 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0013 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Just a brief thought on the nature of email communication. As with ALL forms of communication, one has to establish some kind of context for the communication to "make sense." In spoken discourse, one has various auxiliary tools to apply to establish context: tone of voice and, if visual information is also available, then body language as well. If one is familiar with the local (physical, temporal) context, irony and other subleties may be conveyed by relying on this shared knowledge. Absent such sharing, the communication is prone to misinterpretation or other communication disorders. A hypertext/hypermedia Shakespeare would be a lovely contribution if, where special implications should be noted, one can be diverted to a tutorial segment which helps you establish the context in which the special meaning is evident. Vint Cerf (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 07 Jan 1994 09:59:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0013 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? I agree with Tom Davey that the central issue with e-mail is not that the resources to embed irony and other emotions are not there, but rather that we fail to treat e-mail as a serious form of writing. After all, it is easy to type REPLY and dash off a note that is not well thought out, forgetting that (in this case) 450 people are going to read it, and that it will be archived in a computer in Toronto. You will remember that when Bosie's father threatened to publish Oscar Wilde's amorous letters, the latter replied that he always wrote for publication. He was, in part, whistling in the dark, but Virginia Woolf wrote both prolifically and with careful thought to even the most casual correspondence. She was always dashing off notes for the morning mail, expecting a reply by lunch, with a RETURN reply often sent off in the afternoon. While only invitations to dinner or sarcastic commentary on the previous night's revels, we now read and value these occasional communications for their delightful writing. Few of us take that much care with our words. (Have you noticed, for example. how e-mail paragraphs tend to ramble and run on? ...) A few years ago, I did some freelance computer consulting, for which I was compensated with two reams of 100% cotton writing paper. The next opportunity, I may ask for a Mont Blanc pen, and abandon electrons altogether. Until then, I'm going down the hall and confront Jon Enriquez about those ridiculous "emoticons." Jim Schaefer Graduate School Georgetown University schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 19:05:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0017 Re: Thinness Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0017. Sunday, 9 January 1994. (1) From: James McKenna Date: Saturday, 08 Jan 1994 14:23:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: thin (2) From: James McKenna Date: Saturday, 08 Jan 1994 14:29:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: thin Ben (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Saturday, 08 Jan 1994 14:23:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: thin Hear, hear, Mr. Schaefer! Blast those "ridiculous emoticannes." From the CHICAGO MANUAL: "Skillfully prepared for, an ironic meaning seldom eludes the reader even though quotation marks [or smilies] are not used" (6.68). An occasional deft touch--or moment of restraint--are preferable to wanton encryption. In Louis B Mayer's words, include me out. P.S. I'm slowly getting the knack of the Waterman I received last year as a gift. Writing was never so delicious! James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Saturday, 08 Jan 1994 14:29:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: thin Ben In reply to Michael Sharpston's comment on the thin transmission of masques, I wonder whether we face thinness or blessed perspective. The James Joyce industry continues full-speed ahead despite the large amount of information we have on Joyce and his world. In dealing with Jonson, do we lack information--or disinformation? In other words, because we know less, can we know more? James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Jan 1994 19:14:50 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0018 Model for Multimedia Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0018. Sunday, 9 January 1994. From: Mathilda M. Hills Date: Sunday, 09 Jan 94 16:43:47 EST Subject: Model for Multimedia Shakespeare A CD-ROM based multimedia novella for the MacIntosh, reviewed in the November 1993 *Computer Gaming World*, pp. 36-38, looks as if it might serve as a model for multimedia Shakespeare. The reviewer, Maxwell Eden, writes, *The Madness of Roland* . . . offers a dynamic medium for interpreting the written word, while exposing the intriguing tapestry of medieval knights, sorcery and romance to an entirely new, computer literate and mature audience. Combining an electronic book format with elements of a movie, *The Madness of Roland* is a pastiche of technology, interwoven with a rich use of language, classical works of art and contemporary images. . . . Primarily text-based, *Roland* is creatively embellished . . . featuring QuickTime video (which lets the Macintosh play back movies like a VCR), original film and music, 256-color graphics, . . .animation, sound effects plus character narration performed by actors. This sounds too good to be true. It is available from Compton's New Media at 800/862-2206. (I have no commercial interest in the product or the company.) Remembering last year that fellow SHAKSPERian Michael Best was engaged in a multimedia Shakespeare project, I thought this item would be of interest. Mathilda Hills, University of Rhode Island KLN101@uriacc.uri.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 06:54:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0019 Reading the Sonnets Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0019. Monday, 10 January 1994. From: Blair Kelly III Date: Sunday, 9 Jan 1994 19:48:53 -0500 Subject: Recommendations on how to read the Sonnets I would appreciate comments from people with more experience than I about reading the Sonnets. The Washington Shakespeare Reading Group meets approximately once a fortnight and reads in an evening one of the plays of the Bard (with each member reading a different character). I thought it might be interesting instead of reading a play to read some or all of the Sonnets. Is this a good idea? Do you have a preferred order, or ones you omit when teaching? Any recommendations on how to proceed would be welcome. By the way if any SHAKSPEReans in the Washington, DC, area would like to join us, our upcoming readings are: Sat 22 Jan Troilus and Cressida Fri 4 Feb Measure for Measure Sat 26 Feb Othello Our meetings begin promptly at 7:30 pm in the basement of the Palisades Community Church, 5200 Cathedral Avenue, NW. --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil Secretary, Washington Shakespeare Reading Group ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 07:05:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0020 Re: Thinness Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0020. Monday, 10 January 1994. (1) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 09 Jan 94 21:02:25 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0014 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 09 Jan 1994 21:49:13 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0017 Re: Thinness (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 09 Jan 94 21:02:25 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0014 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? ----------hmmmmm--------a thin communication medium. Seems like what we used to call "a script." Seems like those old players used to have their writers sit down with them and read the scripts out loud, all the way through, maybe to avoid confusion in the distribution system when all networks were down. One way to thicken communication, whether face-to-face or in the thin atmosphere of scripted transmission, is to offer a quizzical "hey, wha'?" And then the script writer tries again, louder, or clearer, or different. Sometimes we call that second shot "revision." Or sometimes, without the listeners' prompts, we can think of it as a recursive or redundant style, as the writer or speaker listens to herself and goes back over the same ground. You might like to look at a neatly scripted instance: the line where the gravedigger scans the thin medium of Yorick's skull, trying to find its wit. It and its context appear three different ways in Q1, Q2 and F HAMLET, and I'd argue that we'd get a "thicker" experience of HAMLET if editors would think to lay these redundancies out for us to see . But that would be asking editors to open up multiple possibilities where they instead feel obliged to present straight and narrowly unambiguous text, authoritative text. Ah, well. Joy of the New Year to all, Steve Urthickowitz SURCC@CUNYVM (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 09 Jan 1994 21:49:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0017 Re: Thinness Jim McKenna reminds me of Walker Percy. Need we be reminded that we are all Lost in the Cosmos, and that the person we know best in this world remains the primary mystery for us? If we were to live inside Jonson's skin, inside Joyce's brain, what would we know that we don't already know? The question is only one half rhetorical. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 07:09:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0021 Re: Model for Multimedia Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0021. Monday, 10 January 1994. From: Tom Davey Date: Sunday, 09 Jan 94 21:45 PST Subject: SHK 5.0018 Model for Multimedia Shakespeare >A CD-ROM based multimedia novella for the MacIntosh, reviewed in the >November 1993 *Computer Gaming World*, pp. 36-38, looks as if it might >serve as a model for multimedia Shakespeare. The Compton's product indeed sounds very interesting, but I think that the period for modeling has ended. Shakespeare multimedia is already here. I've been fortunate enough to see a demo of the Voyager Company's _MacBeth_, and it's a stunner. The product will be unveiled at a Macintosh trade show this month. The Voyager CD-ROM contains a complete Quicktime film of the play (a supposedly excellent ITV production from the '70's; I don't know it), generous additional clips from the Welles, Kurosawa, and Polanski films, and the complete New Cambridge version of the play, edited by UCLA's Al Braunmuller. The entire text of the print edition, including the critical apparatus, is included and reincarnated with comprehensive hypertext (i.e., links between the text and video, stills, maps, etc.) Braunmuller has even added a bit more material for the Voyager edition. A "dramaturgical apparatus" is also included, with various performance aids. This was put together by UCLA drama faculty. And there's karaoke, enabling viewers to speak lines along with the films as the text scrolls on the screen. In short, it's rich product. I should note that I am a graduate student in the English department at UCLA, so take that into account when evaluating my enthusiasm. As a side note, I already own a "multimedia MacBeth," this one from IBM's Multimedia Publishing Studio. It's a poor product, in my opinion, and I don't recommend it. If you have a chance to see the Voyager _MacBeth_, though, leap at it. Macintosh only, alas. The Voyager personnel at the demo asked us academics, rather plaintively, whom we thought the audience (i.e., market) might be for this product. They have little idea how well this might sell or how it might be used. This list, I imagine, will have plenty of ideas on that score. Tom Davey Department of English, UC Los Angeles izzyom8@mvs.oac.ucla.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 08:23:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0022 Re: Reading the Sonnets Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0022. Tuesday, 11 January 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Monday, 10 Jan 1994 07:53 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0019 Reading the Sonnets (2) From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 10 Jan 1994 23:53:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: sonnets (3) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, January 11, 1994 Subj: Reading the Sonnets (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Monday, 10 Jan 1994 07:53 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0019 Reading the Sonnets Simon Callow has a wonderful section on his one-man Sonnets show in *Being an Actor*. (Benedict Nightingale, I believe it was, thought Callow's performance uninteresting, observed that perhaps it would have been more interesting if Callow had performed the poems with a ferret down his trousers!) Best of luck with your reading (and beware of critics bearing ferrets). Skip Shand (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 10 Jan 1994 23:53:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: sonnets I wouldn't skip any of them, and I think it's valuable to read a smattering of other Elizabethan sonneteers for context. Spenser's AMORETTI are very accessible, as are many of Sidney's sonnets and songs from ASTROPHIL AND STELLA. (The Musicians of Swanne Alley have recorded Elizabethan settings of a few of Sidney's songs--recording title: AS I WENT TO WALSINGHAM). Michael Drayton and Barnabe Barnes can give you an earthier view of things. For an edition of the sonnets, Stephen Booth's *heavily* annotated edition is great for a conversation starter (SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. Yale, 1977). Read the notes for each sonnet first, then read the sonnet itself. Mmmm-mmm. Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, January 11, 1994 Subject: Reading the Sonnets I would encourage you to read the sonnets in the order they were originally published in 1609. Having said this, you might, nevertheless, consider beginning with Sonnet 144: TWo loues I haue of comfort and di|spaire, Which like two |spirits do |sugie{|st} me {|st}ill, The better angell is a man right faire: The wor|ser |spirit a woman collour'd il. To win me |soone to hell my femall euill, Tempteth my better angel from my {|si}ght, And would corrupt my |saint to be a diuel: Wooing his purity with her fowle pride. And whether that my angel be turn'd {fi}nde, Su|spe{ct} I may,yet not dire{ct}ly tell, But being both from me both to each friend, I ge{|s|s}e one angel in an others hel. Yet this {|sh}al I nere know but liue in doubt, Till my bad angel {fi}re my good one out. I should also point out that the sonnets are often used as exercise pieces by Shakespearean actors. For further information on this point, see Barton's *Playing Shakespeare*, a book I mentioned in the discussion of Reading, Seeing, Hearing . . . Shakespeare. In "Chapter Six: Using the Sonnets," Barton writes (or speaks, since the book is based on a Channel Four, London Weekend Television series), ". . . sonnets can be excellent exercise pieces for actors. Most of the textual and verbal points that come up in working on the plays appear in the sonnets in concentrated form." Finally, Caedmon has a set of two audio cassettes (CPN 241) of John Gielgud reading most of the 154 sonnets, which are well worth a listen or two or three or . . . ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 08:26:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0023 TSL Reviews Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0023. Tuesday, 11 January 1994. From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 10 Jan 1994 09:29:12 -0600 (CST) Subject: [TLS Reviews] A recent issue of TLS (12/24/93) contains reviews that should be of interest to the readers of this list. I was particularly struck by Eric Sams' discussion of the palaeographic evidence for a scrivener- Shakespeare; is there a palaeographer in the house? And would the textual revisionists care to comment on Brian Vickers' arguments against the textual authority of the First Quarto in his review of the the Holderness-Loughrey edition of *The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark*? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 08:32:10 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0024. Tuesday, 11 January 1994. From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Monday, 10 Jan 1994 10:08:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0014 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Granted, face to face communication or even written communication in a shared and understood community context allows those who are communicating to convey subtleties that seem to be lacking in e-mail. However, there seems to be another facet to e-mail that no one has mentioned and so I'd like to ask whether this is simply my own perception or whether it does indeed reflect communication *over the wires*: Not only does e-mail seem to be easily misinterpreted, it seems to be misinterpreted negatively. Several people in this forum have mentioned that SHAKSPER doesn't suffer the flames that many other groups do. That implies that other groups do suffer from this--and I would obviously agree. Does e-mail lend itself to caustic or defensive interpretation leading to aggresive response? If so, why? And if so, what are the pedagogical implications? Is it the nature of this particular beastie or a reflection of our own general culture? Questions relating to this medium, how we use it and how it alters us, fascinate me and I hope no one minds their being posted to this forum. Any comments? ---------------- Hope Greenberg Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 12:32:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0026. Wednesday, 12 January 1994. From: Michael Best Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 94 09:48:05 PST Subject: Hypertext Shakespeare A comment on hypertext editions of Shakespeare: the Voyager *Macbeth* sounds as if it will be a great start, and I for one plan to learn from it. I expect (hope) that there will soon be as many CD ROM texts of the plays to choose from as there are in the world of conventional print -- and that each will have its particular flavour and audience. My own hypertext edition (of *Romeo and Juliet*) is starting slowly thanks to the demands of upgrading the earlier program *Shakespeare's Life and Times* to CD ROM. (Lots of unfun getting permission to use various colour graphics, not to mention the hassle of finding the right person to get permission for video clips.) One result of my wrestling with other people's copyright is that my edition will not have copyright restrictions on material I generate. I also plan to make it more scholar-oriented than the Voyager, with tools that will allow users to create their own text from the variants (are you listening Steve Textowics?) and add their own links and notes as they work. Some time ago I asked for a wish-list of features in a hypertext Shakespeare from the SHAKSPER subscribers -- and got only a few responses. Any more? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 12:30:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0025 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0025. Wednesday, 12 January 1994. (1) From: Tom Loughlin Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 10:34:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 94 11:55:53 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (3) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 12:34:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (4) From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 94 13:50:26 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (5) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 19:55:03 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (6) From: Vint Cerf <0003786240@mcimail.com> Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 94 05:33 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Loughlin Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 10:34:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? > Not only does e-mail seem to be easily misinterpreted, it seems to be > misinterpreted negatively. Several people in this forum have mentioned > that SHAKSPER doesn't suffer the flames that many other groups do. That > implies that other groups do suffer from this--and I would obviously > agree. Does e-mail lend itself to caustic or defensive interpretation > leading to aggresive response? If so, why? And if so, what are the > pedagogical implications? Is it the nature of this particular beastie or a > reflection of our own general culture? > > Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu My own personal experience with this medium is that, because of the fact that at this point in time access to the Internet, while growing, is not widespread, and that you need to be fairly computer-literate to function within the medium, it has a tendency to attract intellectually aggressive personalities, people who like to get out on the "cutting edge," if you will. They would be the kind of people who would cause a stir no matter what environment they would find themselves in. Some lists are a great deal more assertive than others, depending on the nature of the list. SHAKSPER happens to be a fairly mild list in terms of flame wars, but get on a political list or a sports list and see the difference. And, of course, some people catch the flow of a list and temper themselves accordingly. This list, for example, is IMHO populated mostly with literature/scholar types, while I approach WS almost exclusively from the theatrical side. I think old Willy would be horrified if he came back today and saw the volumes of stuff written *about* him vrs. the few, mostly shabby, times he's produced on stage. I think he'd like to take a torch to the whole volume of works on his plays and say, "Stop writing about them! Just do them!" But of course, being the polite, collegial person that I am deep down in my heart, I respect the fact that this list tends to the literary and don't try to upset the apple cart too often. This also helps to keep flame wars from bursting out too often on the better lists, like this one. I assume, given the temperments and opinions expressed recently on this list, no emoticons are necessary. I'd like to take this opportunity to beg forgiveness for my silliness in using them in the past. How foolish it was of me to think that some inane little graphic could possibly help me to express myself better. How immature I was to ever possibly imagine that a few little strokes of my keyboard, rendering such pale little ASCII graphics, could replace or enhance my pitiful words. I most humbly ask my august colleagues on this list who were subjected to my use of these ridiculous characters in the past to please, please forgive me. Tom Loughlin loughlin@jane.cs.fredonia.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 94 11:55:53 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Hope Greenberg raises a number of interesting questions; I have nothing like definitive answers, but I do offer the following comments. First, an e-mail message on a discussion list is read by literally hundreds (thousands on some lists) of people. If even a tiny percentage of those people misinterpret a remark, the possibility of a "flame" is fairly high. I have seen this phenomenon not infrequently on other lists: two or three flames may seem like a lot (certainly to the recipient), but may well represent less than one tenth of one per cent of the people who read the original message. The problem is exacerbated on e-mail because we are generally alone when we read messages. If we are enraged by something in a speech to an audience of 1000, chances are we'll sputter to our friends in the lobby after the speech is over: and they'll have the opportunity to say, "I don't think s/he meant x; I think s/he meant that not x isn't always true", or whatever. And of course the responders are more often those who disagree profoundly: few of us want to read (or write) a host of messages of the sort, "John Doe makes an excellent point", unless that assertion is followed by either a "but" or further elaboration. Secondly, the means of responding to e-mail is immediately at hand when we receive the original message. We don't have to go home, to find the writing pad, etc. If we're at the screen, we're also at the keyboard, and the "return" button is readily at hand. So sober contemplation is no longer a structural requirement. Thirdly, e-mail is in many ways anonymous. Of all the folks on the SHAKSPER list, I can recall ever meeting only two in person: and neither of them are close friends (fine people, both, but our paths have seldom crossed). It's easier to flame a faceless screenname than a real person. I saw an example of this a few weeks ago on another list. I was just plain scorched by someone I've never met. I subsequently received a private message from a friend of his (whom I have never met, but with whom I've had a number of e-mail and telephone conversations): she apologized on his behalf, agreed that the question I had asked was indeed legitimate, and asked me not to let on to him that she had sided with me on this issue. In other words, she was unwilling to state publicly that she even disagreed with her friend. And, frankly, we all have that tendency. Finally, while only Hardy Cook knows how many messages he zaps before they're read by the multitudes, the mere fact that this list is moderated suggests that the concept of prior restraint may not be an exclusively journalistic phenomenon. And, of course, it takes a little more effort to subscribe to SHAKSPER than most lists. Plus, of course, we're all such thoughtful and sensitive people... Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 12:34:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? TO: Hope Greenberg Your question about email ethics is interesting. Here's an amateur sociologist's thoughts: I don't think that the "flaming" aspects of email are unique to this medium -- people have long grabbed virtriolic pens to dash off angry letters to editors of newspapers or magazines. But many of those are never mailed and fewer still get published -- and even those are subject to editing. Email, like talk radio, is generally unedited, and is even easier to get onto than talk radio (which, by the by, I cannot abide). It requires little forethought to use, and provides no opportunity for the cautious afterthought that might overtake one while sealing an envelop or driving (no one walks anymore) to the P.O. There are also virtually no social restraints on the isolated individual in front of the terminal: if you see a text that angers you, there is no individual physically evident behind it to soften your raw reaction, and no roomful of bystanders to keep you in line with social pressure (or physical restraint). If having my say is important to me, I can have it, and by gawd, everyone else better look out! As a result, we wind up with a "virtual reality donnybrook": hand-to-hand combat with no one there! Another case of an adrenalin rush with no physical stimulus or reaction -- some biologists think this is a major problem with modern life. Why aren't SKAKSPERian emailer's more vitriolic? Maybe we watch less television. Maybe from the Bard we've learned to keep an ironic distance from our anger. Maybe we're a kinder and gentler breed. Maybe we are more careful with our words. Maybe we're polite to a fault. Maybe we're afraid for our reputations! Here we are discussing the means of discussing Shakespeare. Is this a post-modern dialogue? Have we had fun yet? Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 94 13:50:26 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Dear Hope, I share your curiosity. SCREEN-L had a flamer on political correctness that seems to have resulted in silence from some of the most interesting voices- a [self-imposed] silence of some months. Perhaps this "thin medium" is too easy to use. It lends itself to late night impulsiveness, lacks the nuance of intonation, inflection, body language and in many cases the over-all context provided by long aquaintance. Yet it can be printed out - given permanent form so that no-one can claim that he/she "didn't really say that". Finally, deliberately or inadvertently [ I have seen both, I think], exchanges like these are given weight by public distribution creating camps or sides. This is the only electronic conference I read in which people tend to measure their words, write careful, often graceful prose, and regularly greet and say farewell to each other. Is Shakespeare, even on e-mail, some sort of Arnoldian touch-stone for courtesy? Regards, Mary Jane. Mary Jane Miller mjmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 19:55:03 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? Just a quick, thin, note Hope. You might note that the opposite is also true. Not only do we tend to attack people we don't see more readily (a parallel to Hamlet stabbing Polonius behind the arras?) but also we tend to help people we have never met very readily. Look at the SHAKSPERians who jump at every request for bibliographic references or other information! If I remember correctly, there was an article in a backissue of compuserve magazine (I know, I went over briefly to the dark side of privately-owned networks) about a fellow doing a Ph.D. in sociology on how people communicate on lists. Best of luck, Sean Lawrence MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Vint Cerf <0003786240@mcimail.com> Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 94 05:33 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0024 Re: E-Mail: A Thin Communication Medium? See Connections by Sara Kiesler and Lee Sproull (MIT Press, I think, 1990??). They make the point that informal discourse in written form often seems far more assertive than the same oral communication. Thinks look/feel/sound far more absolute in the written form. So anything which might be interpreted as criticism takes on an extre measure of impact because of its written form. It's a serious problem. Experienced email users have learned to recognize when a discussion has gotten out of hand and to find a face-to-face or at least mouth-to-ear mode of communication. Vint ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 12:45:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0029 Q: The Passage of Time in *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0029. Wednesday, 12 January 1994. From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994 08:45:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Time in *Hamlet*] Does anyone know of important studies within the past ten years on the subject of the passage of time in HAMLET? There is an undergraduate senior who is eager to benefit from our combined readings. Thank you. Nick Clary clary@smcvax.smcvt.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 12:41:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0028 CFP: American Society for Theatre Research 1994 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0028. Wednesday, 12 January 1994. From: Dennis Kennedy Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 17:56 EST Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS - ASTR 1994 CALL FOR PAPERS **************** ANNUAL MEETING 1994 American Society for Theatre Research and Theatre Library Association New York City 18-20 November 1994 Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts CUNY Graduate Center and Milford Plaza Hotel ****************************************************************************** "THEATRE IN CRISIS / THEATRE OF CRISIS" The 1994 ASTR/TLA Annual Meeting will take up the topic of theatre and crisis. Papers are invited on theatrical practices in a state of crisis and on performances that represent or illustrate crisis. While theatre and performance seem in crisis at the present moment in much of the world, the conference also seeks plenary and seminar papers that investigate the crises of other times and places. In addition, papers may focus on the theoretical or historiographical aspects of the concept of crisis. PLENARY SESSION TOPICS might include (but are not limited to) issues such as historical or contemporary crises in playwriting, acting, directing, design, or criticism; crises in the representation of the body, gender, race, class, or nationality; crises relating to finance, subsidy, theatrical unions, employment, or training; political and cultural contexts of crisis; substitutes and surrogates deriving from and challenging theatre (film, tv, performance art, stand-up comedy, Tanztheater, etc.); the drama of crisis; national theatrical traditions in crisis; minorities or marginalized groups in performance (e.g., gay and lesbian theatre, race-specific theatre); theatre in the Third World; theatre in the former socialist states; performance spaces as negotiations of crisis; and philosophic, methodological, or historiographic investigations of crisis as an idea or metaphor. Proposals (2-3 pages) or short papers relevant to the conference theme should arrive (in 3 copies) by 4 April 1994, mailed to: Professor Dennis Kennedy Department of Theatre Arts University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Notification will be in early June 1994 Program Committee for 1994 Annual Meeting: Sally Banes, University of Wisconsin-Madison Marvin Carlson, City University of New York Sue-Ellen Case, University of California, Riverside Dennis Kennedy, University of Pittsburgh (chair) David Kuhns, Washington University, St. Louis Thomas Postlewait, Indiana University Sheila Stowell, University of Victoria DETAILS OF SEMINARS FOLLOW Please note that all presenters must be members of ASTR ****************************************************************************** ASTR SEMINARS Seminars provide an opportunity for extended discussion of specific issues in an intimate setting. Each seminar will last two hours and 15 minutes and will include approximately seven participants. The participants will prepare short papers or position statements by 1 October 1994, which will be distributed to the other seminarians prior to the meeting. Proposals of 1-2 pages should be sent by 5 April 1994 to individual seminar leaders; please submit one proposal only. Notification will be in early 1 June 1994. SEMINAR 1: PERFORMANCE ART: A PERMANENT CRISIS IN THE THEATRE Performance art exists at the boundary of theatre for the purpose of challenging the very existence of that boundary. How does it contest the gap between theatre and life, and between drama and its other? Does it afford a place at the margin for those already marginalized by way of race, class, and gender? Does it articulate alterity? Does it destabilize hegemonic discourse? What is the history of performance art, and what is its current status? Professor Sally Banes Dance Program, Lathrop Hall, 1050 University Avenue, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 53706 SEMINAR 2:INTER/MULTICULTURIST BORROWING AS FLASHPOINT OF CRISIS Western theatre has long borrowed from non-western (primarily Asian and Indian) performance, and vice-versa. Is such western borrowing, in the past and in the present, another instance of Orientalism, in Said's sense D the theatrical staging of another culture in order to reduce it to a mystified, often feminized object that only strengthens the identity of western culture? Can the theatre respond without hegemony to the call for a multicultural "celebration of difference"? What are the epistemological terms and political effects of cross-borrowing? Professor Sarah Bryant-Bertail School of Theatre, DX 20, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98177 SEMINAR 3: THE PROFESSION IN CRISIS Is there a crisis today in the profession of theatre history, theory, and criticism, and if so, what has brought it about and what results arise from it? What is or should be the goal, the concern, the organization of academic theatre? Does the academic theatre as it is organized in North America (particularly when it includes both the study and practice of theatre) provide a special locus of power and authority? Is academic theatre a unique site for the study of performance, representation, text, and theory? How successfully does the structure of academic societies, conferences, and publishing serve the needs of the profession? Has the growth of a more specialized theoretical vocabulary created a serious problem in the profession? Professor Marvin Carlson Theatre Program, CUNY Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York NY 10036 SEMINAR 4: THEATRE 2000: THE CHALLENGE OF TECHNOLOGY TO THE STAGE With the oncoming reality of cyberspace, what is the challenge to "live" performance in the future? How can we reimagine the body, sexuality, set design, audience (virtual communities), and performance itself in the present or in the future? How can "differences" be maintained? Similarly, from the vantage point of the late twentieth century, how can we reconfigure our critical perspective on the past D radically alter how we view the history of the body, the stage, and performance? Professor Sue-Ellen Case Department of English, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA 19081 SEMINAR 5: THE CRISIS IN FEMINIST/POLITICAL THEATRE IN THE U.S. Recently Erika Munk has suggested that an unbridgeable split exists between academe and "the world," and that little feminist (or political) theatre has been produced in the U.S. since the last generation of feminist playwrights. Can theatre within the academy provide a site for feminist/activist work, or is there a "narrowness" and "insularity" (Munk) about academe that precludes a political project? Is the academy (and most professional theatre) a site of such bourgeois privilege that it renders the political a form of "radical chic"? Can academic theatre be anything but pedagogical? Can a pedagogical theatre function subversively? Can feminist theatre, in any context, provide a space for counter-hegemonic, or politically just, work on race, sexuality, or class? Or does feminist theatre, by definition, privilege gender/sexism in ways that consign issues of racism, heterosexism, and class privilege to secondary status? Professor Kate Davy Dean's Office, School of Fine Arts, University of California, Irvine CA 92717 SEMINAR 6: CULTURAL IDENTITY AND CRISIS This seminar hopes to examine how the theatrical medium has been used to confront issues of cultural identity and/in periods of cultural crisis. How has the theatre been a voice for emerging marginalized minorities struggling with issues of cultural identity? How has the theatre helped previously disenfranchised groups to define themselves as well as their cultural, political, and social agendas? How has the theatre served to reclaim and reformulate cultural images that were previously determined by the dominant culture? Professor Harry J. Elam, Jr. Department of Drama, Mem. Aud. 144, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305 SEMINAR 7: THE CRISIS OF OR FOR THE AUDIENCE Often in moments of cultural shift, audience response patterns have helped to signal the existence and nature of a crisis. How has audience behavior contributed to performance that defines moments of historical crisis? How have the aesthetic, social, political, economic, or moral conditions of audiences affected notions of crisis within and without the theatre? How have audiences formed by "real-life" contexts outside of the theatre (in political demonstrations, for example) performed crisis? Proposals on any period are welcome, as well as those that attempt to define the problems, or propose models for the analysis of, audience "performance." Professor David F. Kuhns Performing Arts Department, Washington University, St. Louis MO 63130-4899 SEMINAR 8: THEATRE AND THE CRISIS OF A FIN-DE-SIECLE How has the theatre reflected, anticipated, or responded to the perceived crisis of a fin-de-siecle? What are the larger social and cultural implications of a century's (or millennium's) close, as well as the manner in which such disturbances have been registered by a broadly defined theatre community? Proposals on theatre, drama, and performance at our own fin-de- siecle are welcome, and considerations of parallel issues in the 1890s, 1790s, 1690s, 1590s, 1490s, or 1390s. Professors Sheila Stowell and Joel Kaplan c/o Department of Theatre, P.O. Box 1700, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., CANADA V8W 2Y2 SEMINAR 9: MACRO-HISTORY OR MICRO-HISTORIES The growing awareness and recognition of multicultural theatrical practices and performance traditions has encouraged nationally, regionally, linguistically, and culturally focused discourse as the "Eurocentric- Aristotlean" model breaks down. But no current historiographic discourse seems adequate to address issues of general theatrical performance or its history. Is it possible to develop a theoretical framework large enough and flexible enough to accommodate the various micro-histories and support an overarching macro-history? Or is theatre historiography necessarily limited by historians' culturally defined perspectives? Is general and comparative history possible or even desirable? Or are historical studies more properly to be conceived as discreet discourses for discreet communities? Professor Ronald Vince Department of Drama, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., CANADA L8S 4L9 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Jan 1994 12:36:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0027 Re: Reading the Sonnets Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0027. Wednesday, 12 January 1994. From: Gardner Campbell Date: Tuesday, 11 Jan 1994 12:13:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0022 Re: Reading the Sonnets There's also a splendid two-cassette recording on Argo of Richard Pasco reading the complete sonnets; highly recommended. (Pasco is my nominee for poetry-reader-laureate--you should hear how he reads Hopkins' "Felix Randal.") Gardner Campbell University of San Diego Campbell@teetot.acusd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 15:19:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0030 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0030. Thursday, 13 January 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994 14:11:40 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare (2) From: Martin Zacks Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994 11:33:40 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994 14:11:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare I suspect that the main reason Michael Best got only a few responses to his request for a wish-list of hypertext features is that most of us know next to nothing about what hypertext is. That certainly includes me. I know only what I saw demonstrated at last year's SAA meeting in Atlanta. I seem to remember some discussion on SHAKSPER about a session devoted to hypertext at this year's SAA meeting in Albuquerque. Has such a session materialized, at least in the form of a definite plan? If so, I'd be grateful to hear about it, and I suspect other network users would be interested too. John Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zacks Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994 11:33:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare My own readings of the plays are greatly enhanced by a concordance at my desk. I don't know if that would be practical on hypertext, but I find it nearly indispenable for a serious reading. Also, I try to find a book on the play in performance, to give me some guide as to the various business that wouldn't be apparent in just the text. Stage direction or how a particular production handled a scene or character helps my understanding and enjoyment of the play. I believe that Voyager works only on Macs, will this CD-Rom be available for DOS? Good luck, Martin Zacks ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 15:29:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0031 Uses of Electronic Texts: Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0031. Thursday, 13 January 1994. From: Michael Sharpston Date: Wednesday, 12 Jan 1994 20:44:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Uses of Electronic Texts: Conference Just in case this would interest SHAKSPERians, and has not been brought to their attention already. I have no commercial or other connection with this event. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [Posted to several different lists--please forgive any duplication] Conference Announcement LITERARY TEXTS IN AN ELECTRONIC AGE: SCHOLARLY IMPLICATIONS AND LIBRARY SERVICES 31st Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing April 10-12, 1994 Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Electronic technologies are not replacing the book so much as they are changing its form and its role in scholarship. Rising interest in electronic texts is evident in the development of new computational approaches to the study of literature, the appearance of electronic text centers on university campuses, and an expanding publishing industry in electronic books. This conference will examine the role of electronic texts in the humanities and the implications of these technologies for libraries. Conference speakers will discuss this latest development in the human pursuit of the literary arts from a variety of perspectives, including the production and acquisition of electronic texts, strategies for storage and dissemination, software for the retrieval and analysis of electronic texts, problems of bibliographic control and intellectual property, and publishing trends. Offered in conjunction with the conference is an optional preconference workshop in the practical use of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) in the organization of electronic texts for interchange and research. Conducting the workshop will be C.M. Sperberg-McQueen, an editor of the recently released Guidelines for Text Encoding and Interchange, a text- representation standard based on SGML syntax. Who should attend: This conference will be of interest to librarians, academic computing staff, publishers and distributors of electronic texts, and humanities scholars interested in the possibilities of electronic texts. PROGRAM SUNDAY, APRIL 10 11am-5pm Registration 1-4:30pm Preconference Workshop on using Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) C. M. Sperberg-McQueen Editor, Text Encoding Initiative University of Illinois at Chicago 5-6:30pm Reception 6:30-7:30pm Dinner 8pm Keynote Address (Lincoln Hall Theater) AUTHORS AND READERS IN AN AGE OF ELECTRONIC TEXTS Jay David Bolter Professor School of Literature, Communication, & Culture Georgia Institute of Technology MONDAY, APRIL 11 8-9:30am ELECTRONIC TEXTS IN THE HUMANITIES: A COMING OF AGE Susan Hockey Director Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities Rutgers and Princeton Universities THE TEXT ENCODING INITIATIVE: ELECTRONIC TEXT MARKUP FOR RESEARCH C. M. Sperberg-McQueen Editor, Text Encoding Initiative University of Illinois at Chicago 9:30-10am Break 10-11:30am ELECTRONIC TEXTS AND MULTIMEDIA IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES: A VIEW FROM THE FRONT LINE Anita Lowry Head, Information Arcade, Main Library University of Iowa HUMANIZING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: CULTURAL EVOLUTION AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF ELECTRONIC TEXT PROCESSING Mark Tyler Day Associate Librarian Indiana University 11:30am-1pm Lunch (on your own) 1-2:30pm COHABITING WITH COPYRIGHT IN AN ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENT Mary Brandt Jensen Director, Law Library Professor, School of Law University of South Dakota STANDARDS, INTERCONNECTIONS, AND THE NONPROFIT DOMAINS Michael Jensen Electronic Media Manager University of Nebraska Press 3-5pm Software Demonstrations 5-7pm Dinner (on your own) 7-9pm Software Demonstrations Tuesday, April 12 8-9:30am THE FEASIBILITY OF WIDE-AREA TEXTUAL ANALYSIS SYSTEMS IN LIBRARIES: A PRACTICAL ANALYSIS John Price-Wilkin Information Management Coordinator Alderman Library, University of Virginia THE SCHOLAR AND HIS LIBRARY IN THE COMPUTER AGE James W. Marchand Professor Department of Germanic Languages and Literature University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 9:30-10am Break 10-11:30am THE CHALLENGES OF ELECTRONIC TEXTS IN THE LIBRARY: BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL AND ACCESS Rebecca Guenther Network Development and MARC Standards Office Library of Congress PROJECT GUTENBERG: TRYING TO GIVE AWAY A TRILLION ETEXTS BY THE END OF 2001 Michael S. Hart, Professor of Electronic Text Executive Director of Project Gutenberg Etext Illinois Benedictine College 11:30am-1pm Lunch (on your own) 1-2:30pm DURKHEIM'S IMPERATIVE: THE ROLE OF HUMANITIES FACULTY IN THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES REVOLUTION Robert A. Jones Professor, Department of Sociology University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign THE MATERIALITY OF THE BOOK: ANOTHER TURN OF THE SCREW Terry Belanger University Professor, University of Virginia GENERAL INFORMATION Location: Except as noted, all conference events will take place in the Illini Union on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1401 W. Green St., Urbana, Illinois. Registration and Fees: The fee for the conference is $340 ($380 after March 11, 1994), which includes the Sunday night dinner, refreshments, and a copy of the Clinic proceedings. Registration for the optional SGML workshop is $40. Registration is limited, and early registration is recommended. A limited number of reduced-fee registrations are available for those who might otherwise be unable to attend; for consideration, submit a written request by March 11, 1994. Transportation: Champaign-Urbana is served by TWA, Midway Express, American Eagle, and Northwest Commuter. AMTRAK service is available from Chicago and points south. Champaign is located 135 miles south of Chicago on Interstate routes 72, 74, and 57. Accommodations: Rooms have been allocated for participants at the hotels listed below. Participants must make their own reservations, and should do so before March 9, 1994. Please indicate that you are attending the library data processing conference. Illini Union University Inn 1401 W. Green St. 302 E. John St. Urbana, IL 61801 Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 333-1241 (217) 352-8132 Single: $54 + tax Single: $54 + tax Double: $62 + tax Double: $61 + tax Continuing Education Units: Participants will earn 1.1 CEU for attending this meeting. Refunds: Refunds will be made if you find that you cannot attend and you notify us in writing by March 16, 1994. You must cancel your own hotel reservations. IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE CLINIC, PLEASE CALL (800) 982-0914 OR (217) 333-2973, OR SEND YOUR QUESTION VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL TO DPC@ALEXIA.LIS.UIUC.EDU. --------------REGISTRATION FORM------CUT HERE-------------------- Literary Texts in an Electronic Age: Scholarly Implications and Library Services 31st Annual Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing April 10-12, 1994 Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Registration Form Name ____________________________________________________________ Title____________________________________________________________ Organization Name________________________________________________ Business Address_________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Phone Number (___)_______________________________________________ Email address____________________________________________________ Registration Fees: $340 ($380 after March 11) ________ $40 SGML workshop ________ TOTAL FEES ________ Method of Payment: __Check enclosed (make payable to GSLIS/University of Illinois) __Charge to credit card __Visa __MasterCard Card #___________________________Exp. date_______ Signature________________________________________ Any special needs (access, meals, etc.)?_________________________ _________________________________________________________________ If there are issues you are especially interested in, or if you have particular questions about the topics that will be addressed at this conference, please write them below. We will pass them along to the speakers. _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ You may register by mail by sending this form to the address below, by phone (217-333-2973 or 800-982-0914), by fax (217-244-3302), or by electronic mail (dpc@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science Library and Information Science Building 501 E. Daniel St. Champaign, Illinois 61820-6212 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Jan 1994 15:33:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0032 Call for Seminars -- SAA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0032. Thursday, 13 January 1994. From: Georgianna Ziegler Date: Thursday, 13 Jan 1994 10:00:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Call for Seminars - SAA The Program Committee of the Shakespeare Association of America would like suggestions for seminars for the 1995 annual meeting. Place: Chicago, Illinois Dates: 23-25 March, 1995 The Committee will be meeting at this year's conference in Albuquerque to set the program for 1995. We like to have about 30 proposals for seminars and 10 or so for panels to choose from. Please send your ideas in the form of a paragraph describing the focus of the seminar and what you would expect from participants, as well as the names of one or two seminar leaders to any of the following committee members: Georgianna Ziegler, Chair Folger Shakespeare Library 201 East Capitol St., SE Washington, DC 20003 gziegler@amherst.edu Margo Hendricks Department of English U C at Santa Cruz Cowell College Santa Cruz, CA 95064 margo@macmail.ucsc.edu Skip Shand Department of English Glendon College 2275 Bayview Road Toronto, ON M4N 3M6 Canada shand@VENUS.YORKU.CA Please e-mail any of us if you have questions before sending in your proposals! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 10:38:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0033 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0033. Friday, 14 January 1994. From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 13 Jan 1994 23:33:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: hypershakspeare Concerning wishes for hypertext Shakespeare, two come to mind: availability for DOS--I can't learn to like what I can't get onscreen--and heavy bibliography. How about instant bibliography for every major action, scene, passage? This could include parallel texts by other authors or possible sources for various aspects of the text in question. It could also include recognition of parallels in the author's other works and interrelations between parts of the text. (If this last option were available right now for J.J.'s ULYSSES, I'd buy it--or would I? What happens to a literary work when it disembowels itself with the push of a button?) Anyway, another idea is a well-designed display of variants that--if possible--allows both reading of text and examination of variants: Split screens, maybe? or interlining in a different color? (I did something like that in Pagemaker with an OE text [DREAM OF THE ROOD], and I found it very valuable.) Finally, I've got a vague interest in statistical studies to find variations that indicate revision, shared authorship, etc. Is it even practical to build functions in that would both be accessible to mathematical morons like myself and be effective in reliable statistical searches? Finally, finally, who does the edition? the selection of bibliography? all the apparatus that is the point of hypertext? I'd want to know that the scholarship is first-rank before I'd spend the time to learn to use a complex tool. Even as I suggest these ideas, I still wonder whether we do ourselves any favors by committing to electrotexts. I just don't buy the argument that tools are value-neutral. Nevertheless, the possibilities are interesting...if unnerving. I remain impenitently skeptical. James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Jan 1994 10:43:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0034. Friday, 14 January 1994. From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 14 Jan 94 09:45:44 EST Subject: sack The following are serious requests for information from a serious undergraduate class (well, okay, quasi-serious).... Does anybody have a receipe for Falstaff sack? This is from a serious young (hope-to-get-rich) micro-brewer who is able to try to replicate it and, if successful, to try to peddle it on the (local) open market through a "brew-pub." Falstaff Fizz... or whatever. And, does anyone know of "sack" being sold at micro-breweries or brew-pubs anywhere? And a more-scholarly question (well, okay, more quasi-scholarly...). How are we to take Falstaff's love? Is it like the love of south-dakota 3.2% beer (drink-all-night-pee-like-a-fountain-but-never-get-drunk) or is is more like Mad-Dog 20/20 (drink-and-puke-drink-and-puke-red-veins-on-the-cheeks-massacre -the-liver)? Thirty-three undergraduates await your response with baited (well...,quasi-beery) breath. Cheers, Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu at Internet) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 10:51:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0035 Re: Hypertext and Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0035. Saturday, 15 January 1994. (1) From: Michael Best Date: Friday, 14 Jan 94 09:18:33 PST Subj: Hypertext and Shakespeare (2) From: Michael Sharpston Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 20:42:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0033 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Friday, 14 Jan 94 09:18:33 PST Subject: Hypertext and Shakespeare John Cox makes the very reasonable request that the concept of hypertext be explained if those of us interested in it are to get any useful response (input? feedback?) from the network. Remembering that in the thin medium of email, I for one don't often read past the third screenful, here goes: Hypertext is the result of the power that the computer gives us to make multiple lateral links between linear texts. Thus, for example, the computer makes it possible for us to make continuous links between a play and its source, so that at any time the reader can examine what Shakespeare may have been using as he wrote. The "text" that is linked can also be a sound, a graphic image, or a video clip. Links can also be made directly between the various supporting materials independent of the basic text, so that the result is a network of links. In a well-designed hypertext environment users can make their own links and add their own material to that provided I plan to produce a hypertext eedition of *Romeo and Juliet*. Though my preferred platform, and still the best for multimedia, is the Macintosh, I am designing the material in a sufficiently generalized way that it will be possible to "port" it to Windows if there is interest/funding. Here is the current list of tools I plan to make available. Texts (which can be viewed in parallel or separately) * The Bad Quarto (Q1) } * The Good Quarto (Q2) } electronic texts * The Folio (F) } * (Ideally) the Good Quarto text in graphic form. * An edited modern-spelling text. * The capacity for users to create their own version of the text. Related material * Sources, analogues, linked to the text. * Contemporary historical material (suggestions welcome) Scholarly apparatus * Detailed hypertext "footnotes" as usual in a scholarly edition. The footnotes will in turn be linked to background or critical material. * A concordance of the text, with each word linked to each of its occurrences. * An extensive bibliography, accessible by context-sensitive links from both text and supporting material, of both critical discussions and related works that deal with historical and social issues of the time. * Index with automatic links, and all the powerful "find" and "search" capabilities of the computer. Critical commentary * Hypertext would most effectively offer links between contrasting or differing critical reactions to specific lines, though the ability to link a passage to passages that in various ways are similar is effectively a critical exercise. My own bias would be to offer ways for the user to explore parallels (and to create links where he or she perceived parallels) rather than to expatiate upon them. * An extensive anthology of critical commentary. * The stage history, complete with graphics and QuickTime video clips where available. Research tools in addition to the concordance and bibliography * Users will be able to create their own notes, hypertext links, bibliographical entries and so on, and will have the choice of making these available to others. * All material in the program generated specifically for the edition, and therefore copyright free, will be available (via a tool for cutting and pasting) for teaching or scholarly use. That's it so far. Comments and suggestions are welcome. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sharpston Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 20:42:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0033 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare Further to James McKenna and hypertext Shakespeare, I would like to solicit the knowledge and assistance of everyone on the fundamental issue of authoring/ arranging text for use in a hypertext system. By and large, for "hypertext" read "hypermedia" if you wish and where appropriate, (non-text media might certainly add a helpful dimension to Martin Zacks' "play in performance"). I was very taken by Vint Cerf's remark that hypertext could help supply context for an electronic communication, (indeed more or less context at the option of the reader), and hence help to deal with my notorious "thin communication" issue. I also believe that (a) the burgeoning mega-success of Internet (b) the apparent very significant success on Internet of Mosaic, a hypertexty interface to Internet, will combine to lead to more stuff being published in hypertexty form. Hypertext has been around in the computer world for a while (and quite pop ever since Macintosh Hypercard), but I think it has so far been for rather niche uses. Internet/ Mosaic may drive much broader currency of the concept. I have concerns. Yes indeed as James McKenna says, how good is it for a work of literature to disembowel itself on request. (Although Mishnah, commentary of the Fathers, on the Koran, whatever, is hardly as new as hypertext). My concerns are based on a good deal of ignorance but go as follows: (a) Hypertext rather deprives one of the structure provided by long linear sections of text. Is it true that with hypertext you cannot build on an assumption of growing knowledge on the part of your reader, as you would in a standard book, proceeding through the chapters with the reader? (b) And how to avoid aimless wandering by a reader, "lost in hyperspace"? (c) Or superficiality brought about by soundbite snippets of text, so that even an accumulation of them do not achieve what a solid chunk of text could achieve? (d) A Japanese acqaintance told me that he tended when reading to jump from kanji to kanji, half-ignoring the more wispy kana. I have heard somewhere (credibly or not) that readers may do something the same with hypertext, going from one highlighted word to the next and half-ignoring the rest of the text. (Click on the highlighted word and it summons up more information about that item). Some SHAKSPERians (including yours truly) might not be very happy at the prospect of their prose being treated in this cavalier fashion. Can anyone help me on all this? Last but not least an important disclaimer. None of the views expressed here are those of my employer. They are the uncertain musings of a searcher for assistance. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 10:56:24 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0036 CFP: CATH 1994 Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0036. Saturday, 15 January 1994. From: Stuart Lee Date: Friday, 14 Jan 94 16:32 GMT Subject: CATH '94 Conference: Call for Papers ***************************************************************************** CATH '94 "COURSEWARE IN ACTION" Computers and Teaching in the Humanities Glasgow University 9 - 12th September, 1994 CALL FOR PAPERS CATH is the annual forum of the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Textual Studies and the Office for Humanities Communication. It provides an opportunity for those using computers in humanities teaching and research to discuss new developments, achievements, and methods in the field. The theme of this year's conference is "Courseware in Action". Papers are welcomed which concentrate on the practical applications of courseware in the classroom. In particular submissions are invited on the following topics: -courseware development -practical issues pertaining to the implementation of CAL in the classroom -evaluation procedures We would especially welcome papers from those new to the subject of humanities computing. The conference will be made up of a series of sessions. Each session will last 90 minutes and will include three papers. Submissions are invited for individual papers (lasting 20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions) or for entire sessions. Furthermore, if you would like to organise a workshop presentation, or classroon simulation, then please contact the organisers directly for more information [It is expected that each workshop or simulation will last approximately two hours]. During the conference there will also be a software fair. If you would like to show material at this, then please contact the organisers as soon as possible to discuss hardware and software requirements. Format of Submissions 1) All submissions (paper or electronic) should begin with the following inforamtion: TITLE: Title of paper AUTHOR(S): Names of authors AFFILIATION: Of author(s) CONTACT ADDRESS: Full postal address E-MAIL: Electronic mail address of main author (for contact), followed by other authors (if any) FAX NUMBER: Of main author PHONE NUMBER: Of main author 2) Length: -Individual papers: abstracts should be 300 - 500 words. -Sessions: The proposer should submit a statement of approximately 300 - 500 words describing the overall topic, and also include abstracts of 300 - 500 words for each of the papers in the session. 3) Guidelines for Electronic Submission of Abstracts: These should be plain ASCII files, not word-processor files, and should not contain TAB characters or soft hyphens. Paragraphs should be separated by blank lines. Headings and subheadings should be on separate lines and be numbered. Footnotes should not be included and endnotes only where absolutely necessary. References should be given at the end. Choose a simple markup scheme for accents and other characters which cannot be transmitted by electronic mail and include an explanation of the scheme after the title information and before the start of the text. Electronic submissions should be sent to: CATH94@VAX.OX.AC.UK with the subject line " Submission for CATH94". 4) Paper submissions: Submissions should be typed or printed on one side of the paper only, with ample margins. Two copies should be sent to the organisers. 5)Deadline for submission of abstracts or workshop proposals: Tuesday March 1st All enquiries and submissions should be directed to: CATH 94 Centre for Humanities Computing Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6N UK Telephone: 0865-273221 Fax: 0865-273221 E-Mail: CATH94@VAX.OX.AC.UK ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 11:02:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0037 Q: Margaret Anglin and Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0037. Saturday, 15 January 1994. From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 14 Jan 94 13:35:34 -0500 Subject: Margaret Anglin and Shakespeare During the 1913-14 season, Margaret Anglin, a popular American actress toured to 65 US and Canadian cities with a repertorie of four Shakespeare Plays--AYLI, 12TH NIGHT, SHREW and ANTONY & CLEOPATRA. The shows were designed by Livingston Platt, and the tour gave North Americans their first view of a professional production of Shakespeare designed in "the new manner--i.e. new stagecraft." I'm looking for any sources of information about this tour. I am particularly interested in finding out possible sources for photographs, renderings, sketches, etc. of Platt's designs. (I have a photograph of A&C set). I have extensive reviews and commentary on both the performances and the designs from every New-York based critic from Walter Prichard Eaton to William Winter, and getting New York newspaper reviews shouldn't be difficult. I've written about Anglin's Greek tragedy revivals and know a good bit about her background. I know John Le Vay's biography of Anglin. I've several pictures of Anglin in costume for various roles. What I need, in addition to pictorial sources for Platt's designs is some idea of the cities to which this reportorie toured. Any help would be appreciated. Norman Myers Professor Theatre Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 419/372-7173 nmyers@andy.bgsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 11:14:19 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0039 Re: The Passage of Time in *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0039. Saturday, 15 January 1994. From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 1994 08:28:13 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0029 Q: The Passage of Time in *Hamlet* Harley Granville-Barker says, as I remember, that the play ignores time until Act V because that's what Hamlet is doing. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 11:10:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0038 Re: Sack Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0038. Saturday, 15 January 1994. (1) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 14:18:26 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Sack (2) From: Tom Blackburn Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 14:32:36 +0000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack (3) From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 1994 00:35:52 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 14:18:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Sack I hope Ronald Dwelle's beer-drinking undergraduates won't be excessively disappointed, but sack is a wine (and thus not brewed at all), specifically any of a number of strong, dry (sack is a variant of _sec_, "dry") wines imported to England from Spain or the Canary Islands. I believe it was a "fortified" wine, like sherry or madeira, that is, a wine whose alcoholic strength has been increased beyond the limit of simple fermentation by the admixture of a brandy distilled from the wine itself. Falstaff's "If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked" suggests that sack was too _sec_ for some English tastes and thus sweetened at the table in the way the less enlightened of us sweeten coffee. And isn't there still some sort of booze marketed under the redundant name "Dry Sack," packaged in burlap as an allusion to the kind of sack that has absolutely nothing to do with the name of Falstaff's favorite tipple? Cheers anyway, Ron Macdonald (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Blackburn Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 14:32:36 +0000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack Ron, You would have to inquire at a winery not a brewery for Falstaff's favorite potable. "Sack" is fundamentally Sherry (note the still available brand "Dry Sack," though what Falstaff drank was probably not very dry). Cheers, Tom Blackburn (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 1994 00:35:52 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack I always thought 'sack' was not beer but sherry--like the Dry Sack currently available at your local liquor store. Am I wrong? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 15:00:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0040 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0040. Sunday, 16 January 1994. (1) From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 94 13:11:27 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare (2) From: Dennis Kennedy Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 1994 12:28 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0035 Re: Hypertext and Shakespeare (3) From: Vint Cerf <0003786240@mcimail.com> Date: Sunday, 16 Jan 94 10:53 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0035 Re: Hypertext and Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 94 13:11:27 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0026 Hypertext Shakespeare For Michael Best, a wish-list item: perhaps a file of promptbooks available in libraries and archives? Randy McLeod has generated a geographical finding-list from the play-by-play Shattuck PROMPTBOOKS volume. The hypertext imagination grows by leaps and un-bounds . . . Thank you for your labors. Urk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dennis Kennedy Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 1994 12:28 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0035 Re: Hypertext and Shakespeare Bookworm Elctronic Publications of Nashville is producing a CD-Rom hypertext edition of four popular Shakespeare plays, called The Shakespeare Quartet. Intended for classroom and other pedogogic use, it will include R&J, MSD, Hamlet, and Tempest in the Globe texts. The engine, as they call it, will allow the reader to call up textual and interpretative commentary, biblio- graphic assistance, and performance history with pictures - all by highlighting the lines at issue, or by referring to more general or thematic issues relevant to the plays. Its list price, I believe, will be about $50. I know of this because they have leased the electronic rights to my book, Looking at Shakespeare, for the pictures and performance commentary. I know that other scholars have been involved as well. But I have not yet seen the final product, so can make no comment on its value. It will work in both Mac and MS/DOS environments. Whether or not you agree with the value of electronic-based study, I suspect this kind of project will be used quite heavily in the future. Dennis Kennedy, University of Pittsburgh Theatre Arts (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Vint Cerf <0003786240@mcimail.com> Date: Sunday, 16 Jan 94 10:53 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0035 Re: Hypertext and Shakespeare Michael, Your questions are good ones. On the whole, it seems to me that one can readily abuse almost any medium, hypertext included. One can also take traditional book formats and totally abuse them by producing a completely disorganized rendering of some particular topic. One can produce a hypertext which can be read linearly, but which lends itself to appeal to ancillary information if the reader is so inclined. Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, for example, is published in a hypertext format by Voyager Press. There are no special clues for hypertext links visible, but one can click on any word and may be vectored off to a link (usually to a rendering and sound recording of a particular dinosaur). I think there is enough flexibility in the concept of hypertext to allow an author to make the links as apparent or a subtle as he or she desires. One could even turn on or off the markings, classify them and render only those the reader desires, etc. Vint ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Jan 1994 15:07:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0041 Re: Sack Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0041. Sunday, 16 January 1994. (1) From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 94 16:30:48 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0038 Re: Sack (2) From: Dennis Kennedy Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 13:49 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Saturday, 15 Jan 94 16:30:48 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0038 Re: Sack The only advice I can offer the beer-drinking undergraduates longing for Falstaffian swill is a visit to Auckland, New Zealand. In the middle of downtown is a small pub called the Shakespeare Tavern, which brews a variety of potions under its own roof. Among the more potable of its offerings are: "Hamlet Pilsener", "King Lear Old Ale", and a particularly nice "Falstaff Stout"! Happy guzzling, Tom Bishop (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dennis Kennedy Date: Friday, 14 Jan 1994 13:49 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack To Ron Dwelle: Sack is not a beer but a fortified wine originating in Spain and the Canaries in the early 16th century, with some relationship to sherry. The name derives from Latin siccus (as in French sec), meaning dry. No doubt your local vintner, Tony Parise, could tell you more. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 09:10:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0042 *Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0042. Tuesday, 18 January 1994. From: Blair Kelly III Date: Monday, 17 Jan 1994 19:31:45 -0500 Subject: Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet I highly recommend to all SHAKSPEReans in the Washington, DC area the play *Good Night, Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet* performed by the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company until 13 February. This play, by Ann-Marie MacDonald, is hilariously funny as well as being a feast for lovers of the language of the Bard. The acting by the cast of five is just excellent. Naturally the play concerns Shakespeare's works of Othello and Romeo and Juliet, but to say much more will give too much away. Suffice it to say that I came away yesterday with new insights into the characters of Desdemona and Juliet. I hope to find time in my busy schedule to see the performance again, (something I rarely do) --- it is that good. Wolly Mammoth's box office is 202-393-3939. (I have no financial connection with Wolly Mammoth.) --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil ========================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 10:11:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0044 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare at the SAA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0044. Wednesday, 19 January 1994. (1) From: Michael Mullin Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 02:12:48 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0030 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare (2) From: Michael Mullin Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 02:11:41 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0031 Uses of Electronic Texts: Conference (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Mullin Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 02:12:48 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0030 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare >Dear Colleagues John Cox, Martin Zacks, and Others Please stay tuned. For the SAA meetings, I'm working to set up a demonstation using the prototype CD-ROM *OUR SHAKESPEARES: SHAKESPEARE ACROSS CULTURES* which I've developed at the University of Illinois. It features video clips paired with text. The demo takes about 15 minutes, plus Q & A. As it will not be on the program proper, I'm hoping to slot it into a time at the end of the seminars on Friday or Saturday. I'll check with Nancy Hodge and then make arrangements. Watch this space. Michael Mullin (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Mullin Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 02:11:41 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0031 Uses of Electronic Texts: Conference >To second an earlier reference to this conference via Michael Sharpston, I add the minor footnote that *OUR SHAKESPEARES: SHAKESPEARE ACROSS CULTURES* will be one of the interactive CD-ROMS featured on the Monday sessions. Later that week at the Shakespeare Association Meetings in Albuquerque I'm making arrangements for a repeat of this demo. It is off-program and informal--late in the afternoon post-seminar and pre-dinner/reception. Brief and to the point. Please email me to sign up--and to let me know whether I'm to put it in my hotel room or elsewhere. About a dozen people had said earlier that they'd be interested, in response to a SHAKSPER announcement. Michael Mullin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 12:22:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions [SHAKSPEReans, This posting is being resent because of a problem with LISTSERV at the University of Toronto. --HMC] Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0043. Wednesday, 19 January 1994. (1) From: Nancy W Miller Date: Tuesday, 18 Jan 94 14:17:29 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack (2) From: Edward T Bonahue Date: Tuesday, 18 Jan 94 17:33 EST Subj: sack (3) From: Nate Johnson Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 94 03:09:20 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0041 Re: Sack (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nancy W Miller Date: Tuesday, 18 Jan 94 14:17:29 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0034 Q: Falstaff's Sack Sack is wine, not beer. Nice idea, but you may be better off opting for "Sir Toby's Ale." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward T Bonahue Date: Tuesday, 18 Jan 94 17:33 EST Subject: sack I seem to recall that in _My Own Private Idaho_ the Falstaff-type character and his band of homeless waifs were quaffing something called "Falstaff Beer," which a friend of mine from the West Coast swears comes from a microbrewery somewhere in Washington or Oregon. Ed Bonahue (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nate Johnson Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 94 03:09:20 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0041 Re: Sack Sack was sweetened, fortified wine, yes, but I'm convinced that a modern Falstaff would be a beer-drinker. Oregon Brewing Company in Newport, Oregon, markets a "Shakespeare Stout" (oh, so very stout) which the bottle adequately describes as "Ebony in color with a rich creamy head, an earthy flavor that comes from oats, and a mellow chocolate aftertaste." In all their beers, Oregon Brewing promises no chemicals and at least 60 pounds of malt per barrel. Just happened to have a bottle handy... What was the status of the beer-brewing industry in Elizabethan England? Did one exist? Were foreign brews familiar to English tongues? What part *does* beer play in Shakespeare? I heard rumors a while back of archaeologists' efforts to reproduce mead. The first efforts were reportedly *not* tasty. My heartfelt good wishes to all earnest microbrewers out there, Shakespeareans or no... --Nate Johnson [I was given a bottle of Shakespeare Stout over the holidays, and I concur completely with Nate's accessment of it. Hummmmmmm. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:39:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0045 Re: Hypertext Shakespeare at SAA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0045. Thursday, 20 January 1994. From: John Cox Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 14:28:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hypertext at Albuquerque I appreciate Michael Mullin's initiative regarding Hypertext at the Shakespeare Assocation meeting in Albuquerque. To my mind, a meeting room is preferable to a hotel room, because it can accommodate drop-ins better. If an announcement about the meeting is made on the network, many people are likely to come who wouldn't necessarily indicate an interest in advance. John Cox [Editor's Note: Several messages expressing an interest in attending Michael Mullin's demonstration and associated discussion of hypertext have been forwarded directly to him. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:43:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0046 Q: 1993 Essays or Books on Shakespeare's History Plays Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0046. Thursday, 20 January 1994. From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 15:09:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: query I'm trying to compile a list of the ten best essays and/or sections of books on Shakespeare's English history plays published during the year 1993. All suggestions for candidates will be much appreciated. Phyllis Rackin prackin@mail.sas.upenn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:52:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0048 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0048. Thursday, 20 January 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 17:27:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ohio Shakespeare Conference OHIO SHAKESPEARE CONFERENCE. March 3-5. University of Cincinnati. The Planning Committee is about two weeks behind schedule - and catching up quickly. Invitations to the Conference will be sent out in the next few days, and I will be posting an annoucement on SHAKSPER over the coming weekend. I apologize for delays caused by snow, cold, and human error. Letters are in the mail, but I have no idea where the mail is. Thank you for your patience. Bill Godshalk Secretary, 1994 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Department of English University of Cincinnati 45221-0069 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 10:05:53 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0050 Re: Verse Speaking and Peter Hall Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0050. Thursday, 20 January 1994. From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 1994 11:44 Subject: Re: Verse Speaking and Peter Hall I am new to the list and came across Bill Gelber's query about Peter Hall's methods of teaching verse speaking while browsing through last December's log file. I don't think anyone mentioned Tirzah Lowen's recent book, _Peter Hall Directs Antony and Cleopatra_ (London: Methuen, 1990), which has a chapter (Language: 'Content and Stucture are Indivisible') on precisely this. Ken Meaney University of Joensuu, Finland meaney@joyl.joensuu.fi or meaney@finujo.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 10:02:52 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0049 Marriage of Claudius and Gertrude Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0049. Thursday, 20 January 1994. From: David Scott Wilson Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 94 17:42:08 CST Subject: Marriage of Claudius and Gertrude after Hamlet, Sr.'s Death < Not just the Tiv, but also under the old Mosaic law, this < would have been the thing to do. The underlying human concept < is that you should look after your dead brother's progeny, < (even create them for him -- see Genesis 38:8, "And Judah said < unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise < up seed to thy brother".) The Tiv and at one stage the Jews < believed you should look after your brother's wife and progeny < by marrying your brother's wife. For more on Levirate marriage < see Deut 25:5-10, and Ruth 4. And it was still a current < enough concept in Jesus' time for it to be a way of devising < a trick question: "Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, < having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise < up seed unto his brother". (Matthew 22:24. Similarly Mark 12:19). < And Shakespeare and his audience would have been well aware < of all this, because life was more Bible-centered in those days. But would they have considered it opposite? Hamlet, Sr. did not "die, having no children": he had, as we all know, Hamlet. More relevant to Shakespeare and his audience, I should think, would have been Henry's marriage with his dead brother's wife, Katherine, in 1509: the union (which had been otherwise disbarred for consanguinity) was made possible only by a special dispensation from the pope, and even then Henry had scruples; which scruples, real or feigned, eventually torpedoed the royal marriage and made way for Anne Boleyn. (Or does this bear repeating? I'm a Romanticist trying to move over, and new at this.) David Scott Wilson-Okamura Graduate Student, English (University of Chicago) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:50:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0047 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0047. Thursday, 20 January 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 17:18:17 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions (2) From: Nancy W Miller Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 94 18:26:11 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 1994 17:18:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions To Nate Johnson's question about beer, I gather that ale was more popular than beer. Queen Elizabeth apparently couldn't leave home without it. There are stories that she flew into a dreadful rage when her ale became too sweet because of the warm weather. When local brewers couldn't satisfy her taste, she's command that London brewers come out into the provinces to brew her a barrel of the good stuff. And to shift realities, Christopher Sly had a taste for small ale. Eleanour Rummyng's tunning was apparently for the women of her community, saith John Skelton, Laureate. And I've drunk Falstaff beer, but I haven't seen it lately. There was a picture of Santa Claus on the label - I think. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nancy W Miller Date: Wednesday, 19 Jan 94 18:26:11 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions Re: beer in Elizabethan England: Judging from 17th century conduct books and household guides, brewing was a standard domestic skill for the early modern housewife (along with cooking, preserving, needlework, and physic). I can't speak for commercial brewing, but certainly homebrewing was widespread. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 09:24:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0051 *Skinhead Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0051. Friday, 21 January 1994. From: Daniel Traister Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 10:18:13 EST Subject: Forwarding an item re *Hamlet* I am forwarding the following message about a version of *Hamlet* originally posted on ExLibris, the rare book and manuscript librarians' bulletin board, by Peter Graham (a Sidney scholar who is also Big in Systems at the Rutgers library and the Lord High Executioner of ExLibris itself). It will surely interest SHAKSPER readers. Forwarded message: Posted-Date: Wed, 19 Jan 1994 23:50:54 EST From: Peter Graham Subject: Skinhead Hamlet A "Skinhead Hamlet" is available via ftp to you if you want. It is about 8 screens long, contains language some adults might find unacceptable, and is funny. Following is the URL to the file which I've placed on my machine (presently spinning merrily for a day on its own as Rutgers is closed Thurs- day due to weather and energy emergencies; in fact I should have shut it off when I left): ftp://aultnis.rutgers.edu/.pub/texts/hamlet (or) ftp://128.6.54.10/.pub/texts/hamlet Peter Graham psgraham@gandalf.rutgers.edu Rutgers University Libraries 169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)932-5908; fax (908)932-5888 * * * * * Sight unseen, I have already figured out the plot's premise, and it sounds to me like a must read: Hamlet, star of the Wittenberg tract team, is brutally assaulted by a crowd of tonsured "skinheads," &c. Since I either cannot or do not know how to ftp, I have written Peter for instructions and will either send them OR the text itself to SHAKSPER when he replies, sometime during this cold and dreary day here in the geolog- ically stable east, site of the Great Reading (PA) Earthquake of January 15, 1994 (4.5 on the Richter scale in case you missed it while the news focussed on the two-days-later Other One). Dan Traister Special Collections Van Pelt-Dietrich Library University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104-6206 215 898 7088 215 898 0559 (fax) traister@pobox.upenn.edu [I have gotten the file by ftp and added it to the SHAKSPER Filserver as SKINHEAD HAMLET. WARNING: the vocabulary is dominated by the proverbial four-letter word. If you would like a copy of SKINHEAD HAMLET, send this one-line e-mail message GET SKINHEAD HAMLET SHAKSPER to LISTSERVer: LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 09:55:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0052. Friday, 21 January 1994. (1) From: Michael Dobson Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 09:46:22 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions (2) From: Michael Best Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 08:43:10 PST Subj: Ale (Big or Small), Beer, Sack . . . (3) From: William Kemp Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 22:02:32 EST Subj: Falstaff beer (4) From: Leo Daugherty Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 03:17:07 -0800 (PST) Subj: Sack, etc. (5) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Friday, January 21, 1994 Subj: Falstaff Beer (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 09:46:22 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0043 Re: Sack, Ale, and Stout with Some Questions re: Beer and Shakespeare England, thank God, is a country which doesn't *need* to import beer, and I know of no references to beer imports before the glorious rise of the Dublin stout industry in the mid 18th century. The beer which Falstaff *could* have ordered at the Boar's Head was 'brown bastard', a rich ale, as distinct from the 'small beer' which most households brewed themselves in part as a means of disinfecting and re-flavouring the water. It was very low in alcohol, pallid, and insipid in flavour, a perfectly acceptable soft drink for children -- the Renaissance equivalent of Budweiser. Mead, incidentally, is still commercially available in Britain, and as long as you have confidence in your dentist and don't mind the idea of alcoholic Lucozade isn't bad. The other crucial connection between Shakespeare and beer is the posthumous patronage of Flowers' brewery of Stratford, which funded the building of the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and remains a patron of the RSC. Flowers' bitter is now distributed nationally by one of the big conglomerates -- I think Whitbread -- and continues to bear a portrait of the Bard on its beermats. Merrie Englande at L1.50 a pint (or am I lagging behind inflation?). On Shakespeare's involvement in the modern drink-marketing business, see Graham Holderness and Bryan Loughrey's piece 'Shakespearean Features' (which reproduces both the Flowers' trademark and the version of the Chandos portrait used on Tesco dry sherry bottles -- at least Tesco know their sack!), published in Jean Marsden's anthology *The Appropriation of Shakespeare* (1991). [not to be confused, incidentally, with Brian Vickers' recent rewrite of the Dunciad, which adopted a similar title]. Michael Dobson (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 08:43:10 PST Subject: Ale (Big or Small), Beer, Sack . . . Gervase Maarkham's *The English Housewife* (1516) lists usable recipes for March ale (the strongest), ale, small ale (made from the second infusion of the malt) and that newcomer beer (with its trendy new additive hops). It devotes a whole chapter to the care (read adulteration) of wines, including sack. My edition of Markham (1986) is still available from McGill-Queens Press. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Kemp Date: Thursday, 20 Jan 94 22:02:32 EST Subject: Falstaff beer Edward Bonahue mentions seeing Falstaff beer in "My Own Private Idaho," and William Godshalk testifies to having drunk it. He also recalls that the picture on the can resembled Santa Claus. It did. Falstaff was a low-priced beer widely available (at least in the South) during my youth (the 50's and 60's). The bearded guy on the can did indeed look a lot like Santa. Was the stuff in "My Own Private Idaho" authentic or a directorial fabrication? There's no Falstaff beer in Virginia. Is it still around in other parts of the country? I cannot believe I am writing this note. A week of cancelled classes and staying inside must have driven me batty. Bill Kemp Mary Washington College Fredericksburg, Va. wkemp@s850.mwc.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leo Daugherty Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 03:17:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sack, etc. There used to be a terrific cheap beer called Falstaff. It was sold in Kentucky and Ohio (at least), had a picture of Fat Jack on the label, amd was absolutely delicious to the unschooled fratrat palate. Presuming we've not run too far off the rails or otherwise afield here -- this is, after all, a "spinoff" --, does anybody know if it's still around? Leo Daugherty The Evergreen State College (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Friday, January 21, 1994 Subject: Falstaff Beer As a homebrewer, or at least I was before I returned to changing diapers four months ago, I have purchased "overrun" bottle caps. One such cap, which tops the last of a June 1992 Brown Ale, is labeled "88 Falstaff Light." I had always assumed that "overrun" implied that the caps were labeled but the company went out of business, and I have, thus, assumed, rightly or wrongly, that Falstaff beers were potables of the past. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Jan 1994 10:08:08 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0053 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0053. Saturday, 22 January 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 10:20:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) (2) From: John Cox Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 10:31:49 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) (3) From: Chris Kendall Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 09:15:49 -0700 (MST) Subj: Falstaff in Idaho (4) From: Celine Gura Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 11:38:12 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) (5) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 21 Jan 94 13:25:27 EST Subj: Scholarship in the Streets (6) From: Peter D. Junger Date: Friday, 21 Jan 94 13:23:23 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 10:20:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) I had sent this message privately to Edward Bonahue, but since others have the same memories, this may jog them further: Growing up in Missouri/Illinois 40-odd yrs ago, there was a Falstaff Beer sold regionally that had this radio jingle: Falstaff Beer, best beer anywhere Falstaff Beer, brewed with special care Smooth and golden, bright and clear America's premium quality beer Step right up, the time is here for Bright, refreshing Falstaff. A bowdlerized, sanitized Falstaff if ever there was one! I never tasted it, mind you -- my father and grandfather drank Griesedek Brothers while playing pinochle and horseshoes. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 10:31:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) Chicago used to have a Falstaff Brewery. It was on the south side, just north of the Skyway. Its large brick towers were painted to resemble cans of Falstaff beer, and its logo was "This family brews beer better." The brewery was long since purchased by a larger company and closed down. One can still see remnants of the logo, however, as well as some of paint on one of the towers. I don't know if any other Falstaff beers were brewed elsewhere, but given patents and copyrights (or whatever), I doubt it. John Cox (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 09:15:49 -0700 (MST) Subject: Falstaff in Idaho In Idaho in the 50's Falstaff was as well known a beer as any I remember from that time. Long after it disappeared from the shelves, and generic beer made its debut, I noticed that one of those white cans bore the legend "Falstaff Brewery" on the side. -- Chris Kendall ckendall@carl.org (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Celine Gura Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 11:38:12 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) Greetings: For all those out there that are wondering if Falstaff beer is still around I suggest you call Beer Across America which is located in Barrington Illinois. Beer Across America is a distributor of microbrewery beer from all over the U.S. and would probably know if it is possible to still obtain the Falstaff brew. 1-800-854-2337. Celine Gura (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 21 Jan 94 13:25:27 EST Subject: Scholarship in the Streets Following this morning's SHAKSPER post, I stopped in at the neigbhorhood quick-stop to get a pre-fab sandwich for lunch. They had "Falstaff" beer on special. As noted, the bottle has a depiction of a santa-claus/falstaff-like fat man on it. The clerk told me that Falstaff beer has gone through numerous permutations in recent years, with either the brewery or the name being sold & re-sold. It is now the store's "low-end" (i.e., cheapest) beer. Not content to proceed theoretically, I bought a bottle and opened it. The aroma, I think, was reminiscent of Mistress Quickly's underwear. In taste, the beer was much like what Trinculo and Caliban found themselves standing in. (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter D. Junger Date: Friday, 21 Jan 94 13:23:23 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0052 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) Wasn't there another cheap beer called JAX? (which sounds sort of Shakespearean) Peter D. Junger Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cleveland, OH Internet: JUNGER@SAMSARA.LAW.CWRU.Edu -- Bitnet: JUNGER@CWRU ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Jan 1994 10:21:36 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0055 Q: *MND* and *Lear* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0055. Saturday, 22 January 1994. From: Julie Traves Date: Saturday, 22 Jan 1994 11:09:07 -0400 Subject: *MSND* and *King Lear* I am currently working on a paper for my fourth year honours paper. The topic will be something approximating how both *Lear* and *MSND* examine the idea of "seeing feeling*, how each play explores the necessity of nature and a system of meaning which grows from it and how this meaning is thwarted by society. In *Lear* this seems to be at issue in Lear's struggle between his role as king (a social role which destroys him) and man (and father). In *MSND* this is explored through the relationship between dreams and life (similar to art and life in *Hamlet*?) and how this affects the lovers (natural or social behaviour?). This is just a skeletal plan and I haven't fully fleshed out my ideas but I would be interested in any comments and also in any information on books or articles written on *Lear*/*MSND* comparisons (also anything which might link these two plays to *The Tempest*. Whew! Thanks a lot. Julie Traves Dalhousie University ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Jan 1994 10:16:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0054 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0054. Saturday, 22 January 1994. (1) From: John Lavagnino Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 11:36 EST Subj: Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* (2) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 18:49:19 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0051 *Skinhead Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Lavagnino Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 11:36 EST Subject: Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Since it doesn't seem to be mentioned in the file, it should be recorded that the author of the Skinhead Hamlet is Richard Curtis (best known as one of the authors of the Black Adder TV series, which plays some other games with our man's writings). I've heard that one place to find this text (besides the SHAKSPER list) is in the Faber Book of Parodies. John Lavagnino Department of English, Brandeis University [Thanks, it will be so noted in a revised copy of the file. --HMC] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Friday, 21 Jan 1994 18:49:19 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0051 *Skinhead Hamlet* >[I have gotten the file by ftp and added it to the SHAKSPER Filserver as >SKINHEAD HAMLET. WARNING: the vocabulary is dominated by the proverbial >four-letter word. If you would like a copy of SKINHEAD HAMLET, send this >one-line e-mail message GET SKINHEAD HAMLET SHAKSPER to LISTSERVer: >LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET. --HMC] > I saw this a few Christmasses ago in London as part of a lunchtime show that included Doggs Hamlet and Thurber's Macbeth Murder Mystery. The same week I saw "The Complete Works" by the Reduced Shakespeare Co. I've just returned from the first Christmas in London where I saw no Shakespeare. I did see the best production of a Moliere play I've ever seen which is some compensation. Jerry Bangham Internet: jbangham@kudzu.win.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 12:11:20 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0056 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0056. Sunday, 23 January 1994. From: Michael Dobson Date: Saturday, 22 Jan 94 14:50:57 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0054 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* re: Skinhead Hamlet I am interested to see interest rekindling in this fugitive text, which I have just reluctantly excluded from the 'Shakespeare: Adaptations' section of the forthcoming revised *Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature*; interested, too, to learn that it has been revived fairly recently. Students of the play's stage history may be interested to learn that Dr. Nicola Watson, now of Northwestern, was shortly after her arrival at Harvard in 1985 invited to a supper party where, with the encouragement of Joseph Brodsky, Derek Walcott and considerable quantities of wine, she was induced to give a one-woman reading of the entire text. Michael Dobson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 06:20:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0057 Q: Shakespeare in Boston Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0057. Monday, 24 January 1994. From: Amy Buttery Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 1994 12:44:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare Performances in Boston? I'm teaching a course in Shakespeare this term and wondering if anyone knows of any productions of Shakespeare planned for the Boston area between Feb and May. The ART productions of Henry IV (1 and 2) are over with now. Thanks. Amy Buttery Framingham State College abuttery@ecn.mass.edu (You can respond to me privately unless you think it would be of interest to the list.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 06:27:12 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0058 Re: *Skinhead Hamelt* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0058. Monday, 24 January 1994. (1) From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 94 14:08:01 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0056 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* (2) From: Tom Clayton Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 1994 21:36:55 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0051 *Skinhead Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 94 14:08:01 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0056 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* At Yale a number of years ago, the *Skinhead Hamlet* was used very successfully as a nonce street theater "trailer" for a production of its precursor. I have occasionally offered it to my more advanced undergraduates as an exercise in close reading. -- Tom Bishop "Poor Tom's a-cold." Dept of English Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106.(tgb2@po.cwru.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Clayton Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 1994 21:36:55 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0051 *Skinhead Hamlet* *The Skinhead Hamlet* sounds like the one by Richard Curtis printed in *Not 1982 (Faber) and reprinted in *The Faber Book of Parodies*, ed. Simon Brett (1984). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 06:31:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0059 Re: *MND* and *Lear* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0059. Monday, 24 January 1994. From: Cliff Ronan Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 1994 13:39 CST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0055 Q: *MND* and *Lear* Good luck, Julie. Besides the dichotomies that you instance (nature vs. nurture, and family/state/society vs. the individual), there is the continuity/similarity of a movement from a flawed civilization into a nature that is nightmarish and, in the case of *MSND*, downright hallucinogenic. The old orthodoxy tended to suggest that the trip into the wilds in *King Lear* was simply tragic, while that in *MSDN* led to comic reintegration and redemption of the self. What do you think? Cliff Ronan Southwest Texas State ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 06:36:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0060 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0060. Monday, 24 January 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 23 Jan 1994 16:49:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ohio Shakespeare Conference Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 3-5, 1994 University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Scheduled Keynote Speakers: H.R. Coursen, Globe Centre, London "Shame on Television: Henry V" Barbara Freedman, St. John's University "Counting Shame: Displaced Abjection, Lines of Alliance, and Popular Protest in Early Modern England" Gail Paster, George Washington University "Heat-Seeking Missiles: Shakespeare, Shame, and the Caloric Economy" Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Duke University "Shame in the Cybernetic Fold: Reading Silvan Tompkins" Paul Yachnin, University of British Columbia "The Eye of Shame" The University of Cincinnati invites you to explore "Shakespeare and the Senses of Shame," the theme of the 1994 Ohio Shakespeare Conference. For three days we will pursue shame as an issue for characters, writers, performers, and audiences, through nine full sessions plus five keynote speakers. In addition there will be two panel discussions to explore the issues of shame fully and openly. The Conference fee of $145 includes registration, two continental breakfasts, two buffet lunches, and the Saturday banquet. The elegant four-diamond Cincinnatian Hotel has made a group of rooms available at $95 per night. Please call soon as these rooms will only be available for a limited time. Conference At A Glance Thursday, March 3 12-1:30 "Cultures of Shame" Chair: Piers Lewis, Metropolitan State, St. Paul Lars Engle, University of Tulsa: "'I am that I am': Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Economy of Shame" Leslie Taylor, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale: "Private Guilt and Public Shame: Social Dynamics in Much Ado" Lisa S. Starks, East Texas University: "The Erotics of Shame: Hyper-Masculinity, Male Masochism, and Circulations of Sexuality in Antony and Cleopatra" 1:45-3:15 "The Shakespearean Audience" Chair: Edmund Taft,Marshall University Jessica Slights, McGill University: "The Shame of Unsinewed Bodies" Tracey Sedinger, SUNY Buffalo: "Shamefastness: The (Anti-)Theatrical Virtue" Vandana Gavaskar, Ohio State University: "Acting and Theater of the Body in Coriolanus" 3:30-5 "Civilization and Sorrow: Tragedy's Shameful Responses" Chair: To Be Announned David George, Urbana University "Old and Guilty, Young and Sensitive: The Generation Gap in Hamlet" Val Antcliffe, University of Cincinnati: "A Shameful Violation of the Body Politic: Titus Andronicus as Classical Commentary on English History" Wendy Hites, Chapman University and Timothy Mullen, University of Wales: "Antony's Claim to Shame" 5:15-6:30 Keynote: Barbara Freedman Friday, March 4 8-9 Continental breakfast in conference room 9-10:30 "The Wisdom of the Body" Chair: Ernest H. Johansson, Ohio University Catherine Belling, SUNY Stony Brook: "'Blood Untainted': Shakespeare and the Blush" Patrick Murphy, SUNY Oswego: "Revising the Amorous Code: Blushing in Venus and Adonis" Pamela Brown,Columbia University: "Hot, Shameful Shakespeare-Sized Tears: The Embarrassments of a Female Spectator" 10:45-12 Keynote: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 12-1 Buffet Lunchat the Phoenix in conference room 1:15- 2:45 "Shame and the Problems of Comedy" Chair: D.S. Hassan, Central State University Timothy D. Gould, Metropolitan University, Denver: "Disfiguring Words _ Rituals of Shame and Methods of Philosophy" Lori Haslem, LeMoyne College: "Tongue-Tied (Wo)Men and Embarrassment in Much Ado and Winter's Tale" Tom Bishop, Case Western University: "Theaters of Shame in The Winter's Tale" 3-4:30 "Shame and Gender Identity" Chair: James M. Hall, University of Cincinnati Mary Ellen Lamb, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale: "Creativity and Shamelessness in the Bottom - Titania Episode" S.L. Yentzer, University of Georgia: "Othello andAbjection: The Psychology of Shame" Burton Hatlen, University of Maine: "The'Noble Thing' and the 'Boy of Tears': Coriolanus and the Embarrassments of Identity" 4:45- 5:30 Keynote: Gail Paster 5:30-6:15 Mid-Conference Panel Discussion Saturday, March 5 8-9 Continental Breakfast in Conference Room 9-10:30 "Shakespeare in Performance" Chair:Y. S. Baines, University of Cincinnati Barry Gaines, University of New Mexico: "Hamlet at Elsinore, 1937:Guthrie, Olivier, and Theatrical Intimacy" Jamie Smith, University of Texas at Austin "The Humanization of the Shrew: Katherine in Twentieth-Century Production" Lauren Shohet, Brown University: "Branagh's Much Ado and the Mirror of Shame" 10:45-12 H.R. Coursen, Globe Centre, London Respondent: Eva Beasley McManus, Ohio Northern University 12-1 Buffet lunch at the Phoenix in the conference room 1:15-2:45 "Psychological Perspectives on Shame" Chair: Beth Ash,University of Cincinnati Phil Collington, University of Toronto: "'Gored with Menelaus' horn': Shame and Rage in Troilus and Cressida" David Willbern, SUNY Buffalo: "Shock Treatments: The Cases of Titania and Isabella" Donald Hedrick, Kansas State University: "Shameless Performance: Deep Bawdy and Stigmaphilia in Dream, or Bottom, Butoh, and Butthead" 3-4:30 "The Contagion of Shame: The Caseof Othello" Chair: Louis A. De Catur, Ursinus College Marie L. Franklin,Georgia Southern University: "Sin, Sex, Shame: True Confessions in Othello and Hamlet" Joyce Green MacDonald, University of Kentucky: "Othello Burlesques and the Crisis of Whiteness" Jon Rossini, Duke University: "Power and Vulnerability: Iago's Double-Edged Shame" 4:45_5:30 Keynote: Paul Yachnin 5:30_6:15 Concluding Panel Discussion Cash Bar at Cincinnatian Conference Banquet at Phoenix Transportation To Cincinnati, Delta is the airline of choice. From the Cincinnati Airport, limousine service is regularly available to downtown. Look for the Jetport Express bus. The Conference Hotel The Cincinnatian, a four-star, four-diamond preferred hotel, is located in downtown Cincinnati at the corner of 6th and Vine _ about twenty minutes from the airport. As a small but elegant European-style hotel with excellent rooms, it provides the perfect venue for continuing discussions initiated at the Conference. The Cricket, a convivial lounge in the hotel atrium, offers a light menu of sandwiches and salads, while the Palace Restaurant, also located in the hotel, is one of Cincinnati's finest. The Cincinnatian's French Second Empire exterior and spectacular 108-year-old walnut and marble staircase have gained it a place on the National Register of Historic Places. For reservations, please call 1-800-942-9000 (outside Ohio) and 1-800-332-2020 (Ohio). Ask for the special Ohio Shakespeare Conference rate of $95 per night. The Cincinnatian is holding our block of rooms only until February 10. The Conference (812 Race Street) The Phoenix, a few minutes' walk from the Cincinnatian, at Garfield Place and Race Street, is the site of the Conference. One of Cincinnati's most beautiful, elegant, and architecturally significant Victorian buildings (a National Historic Landmark), the Phoenix contains the most up-to-date conference facilities. The Restaurant at the Phoenix, known for its innovative cuisine, will provide the continental breakfasts, the buffet lunches, and the Conference banquet. Dining The Cincinnatian and the Phoenix are in the heart of Cincinnati's well-known restaurant district. You may dine on the Ohio River at Mike Fink's or Crockett's. From the Top of the Crown, you may have your meal high above the city while watching the lights gleam from the river. If you prefer French cuisine, you may wish to sample the Maisonette. Arnold's has atmosphere that may be cut with a knife. There are many more. Our advice is to make early reservations at the restaurant of your choice for dinners on Thursday and Friday.Make your hotel reservations as early as possible, because Cincinnati will host several very large conventions at the same time as ours. Questions? Call William Godshalk (513-281-5927) or Jonathan Kamholtz (513-861-9527 or 513-556-4427). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conference Registration Name:__________________________________________________________________________ Address:_______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Academic Afffiliation:_________________________________________________________ Registration Fee: $145 (The fee includes two breakfasts, two lunches, Conference Banquet and Conference Publication) ________Total Enclosed. Make checks payable to: University of Cincinnati Mail to: Ohio Shakespeare Conference Division of Continuing Education M.L. #146 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 45221-0146 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 12:08:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0061 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0061. Tuesday, 25 January 1994. From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Monday, 24 Jan 94 12:21:07 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0058 Re: *Skinhead Hamelt* And then there was the "real" skinhead Hamlet by the London Theatre Group directed by Steven Berkoff at the Roundhouse in May of 1980. Cast of 9, all in black, with pins in noses and nails in clothing [no Poor Tom though] most of it shouted at over-proof volume. I wanted to leave at the interval but my husband [we were on our honeymoon] made me stay until the end. He thought would happen. It didn't. I must admit, though, that the 20 or so Skinheads from the neighbourhood (?) seemed to love it. but I also wonder what they made of the note on flyer/ one page programme, which I have in front of me - "please leave the building quietly - this is a residential area". Mary Jane Miller, Dept. of Film Studies, Dramatic and Visual Arts, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. e-mail: mjmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 12:10:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0062 Re: Beer and Ale Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0062. Tuesday, 25 January 1994. From: Jean Peterson Date: Monday, 24 Jan 1994 14:06:32 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0053 Re: Ale and Beer (Especially Falstaff's) >Wasn't there another cheap beer called JAX? (which sounds sort of >Shakespearean) > >Peter D. Junger JAX beer is a local brew that originates in New Orleans; the JAX Brewery and its glorious red neon is a scenic highlight of Jackson Square (from whence, incidentally, "the ball drops" at midnight on New Year's Eve). I would guess that the name comes more from the Andrew Jackson-connection than the Shakespearean, but who knows? Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 19:53:13 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0063 Re: Beer and Ale Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0063. Wednesday, 26 January 1994. (1) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 25 Jan 94 14:08:10 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0062 Re: Beer and Ale (2) From: Edmund L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 25 Jan 1994 20:48:49 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0062 Re: Beer and Ale (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 25 Jan 94 14:08:10 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0062 Re: Beer and Ale >JAX beer is a local brew that originates in New Orleans; the JAX Brewery and >its glorious red neon is a scenic highlight of Jackson Square (from whence, >incidentally, "the ball drops" at midnight on New Year's Eve). I would guess >that the name comes more from the Andrew Jackson-connection than the >Shakespearean, but who knows? > >Jean Peterson >Bucknell University Yes, JAX does come from Andrew Jackson. The Jackson Brewing Company no longer operates; it's been turned into yet another trendy-yuppy conglomeration of stores. Norman Myers Bowling Green State University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edmund L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 25 Jan 1994 20:48:49 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0062 Re: Beer and Ale >re: Jax beer. Had it. Dynamite stuff. I tad hoppy but the body is smooth and head firm. I can compare it to Yuengling lager and possibly Henry Weinhardts Special Reserve. Definitly American. If you can get it try Mateen Triple. It's Belgian, STRONG and tastes reminiscent of wine. Avoid Icehouse Brew. Trust me. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 19:56:13 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0064 Q: Shakespeare's Reading Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0064. Wednesday, 26 January 1994. From: E. H. Pearlman Date: Tuesday, 25 Jan 1994 20:49:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare's Reading Does anyone know if there is a bibliography of all the books known to Shakespeare. I don't mean major sources that can be found in Bullough-- I mean all the books from which he gleaned even a phrase or a reference-- such as might be compiled if one read all the notes to all the plays. Thanks to SHAKSPERians for your guidance. E. Pearlman pearlman.cua.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 10:00:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0065 Re: Shakespeare's Reading Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0065. Friday, 28 January 1994. From: Martin Mueller Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 94 20:54:03 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0064 Q: Shakespeare's Reading >Does anyone know if there is a bibliography of all the books known to >Shakespeare. I don't mean major sources that can be found in Bullough. If one made a bibliography of all contemporary sources referred to in either Baldwin's *William Shakespeere's Small Latin and Less Greek* and Bullough's *Narrative and Dramatic Sources* one would have a pretty complete list of the books left traces in Shakespeare's plays. Martin Mueller Professor of English and Classics Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 60208 martinmueller@nwu.edu 708-864-3496 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 10:04:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0066 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0066. Friday, 28 January 1994. From: Wimmiam Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 1994 22:23:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0061 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Jim McKenna has been passing copies of SHINHEAD HAMLET around our department, and I haven't laughed as hard in months as I did upon first looking into SKINHEAD HAMLET. Of course, you have to know Q2 or F or one of the composite texts (note how I try to sidestep controversy) to get the humor, but the play is essentially in tact. I was, however, waiting for Hamlet to get attacked by the tract (sic) team. Today in class we began writing the SKINHEAD OTHELLO. We got one scene down to one ob-scene line. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 10:07:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0067 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0067. Friday, 28 January 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 1994 22:38:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0060 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Regarding a graduate student rate for the Ohio Shakespeare Conference, the answer to those of you who asked is: yes. The graduate student rate is $50.00 and includes the two lunches. That rate does not include the Conference banquet or the breakfasts. So, no doughnuts or steak! (There are plenty of excellent restaurants near the Phoenix, where the Conference is being held. We'll have a list with commentary.) Yours, Bill Godshalk Secretary, 1994 Ohio Shakespeare Conference ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 10:17:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0068 Re: Beer and Ale Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0068. Friday, 28 January 1994. (1) From: Jon Enriquez Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 1994 18:16:47 -0500 (EST) Subj: Beer, ale, potables (2) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 28 Jan 94 10:03 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0063 Re: Beer and Ale (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Enriquez Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 1994 18:16:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Beer, ale, potables Because I have a textual fetish, I ran to the library to look up references to beer and other beverages in the Harvard Concordance. I found six references to beer, and all of them used "small beer," literally meaning 'weak beer' and figuratively meaning 'trifles, items of no consequence.' I suppose that to Shakespeare's characters, anyway, beer was small beer... There are many references to sack, most of them in the Falstaff plays. In sheer numbers, there are almost as many references to sack as to wine. I don't remember what I found about ale (I did this three days ago), but I don't have any notes on it. Beer was discovered thousands of years ago by the old Sumerians. They treated it as a staple, and some believe that in Sumerian culture it antedates bread. It was certainly used as bread was, i.e. as a major source of carbohydrates and nutrients. Of course, their recipes are considerably different from ours; apparently Sumerian beer included honey, raisins, and other things that are totally alien to the brewers of Jax, Falstaff, Rainier, Iron City, and Narragansett. On a marginally related note: Does anyone know whether the Harvard concordance, or any other, is available on gopher? Jon Enriquez The Graduate School Georgetown University ENRIQUEZJ@guvax (Bitnet) ENRIQUEZJ@guvax.georgetown.edu (Internet) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 28 Jan 94 10:03 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0063 Re: Beer and Ale In Britain the only drink is Real Ale (join the Campaign for Real Ale, or CAMRA!). Most of the rest is Euro-fizz and rots the socks. T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 16:08:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0060 Re: Women Writer's Project Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0069. Saturday, 29 January 1994. From: Mathilda M. Hills Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 94 12:47:13 EST Subject: Women Writers' Project Elaine Brennan, formerly with the Women Writers' Project, informs me that the person to contact is Allen Renear: allen_renear@brown,edu Good luck. Mathilda Hills ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 16:19:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0071 Q: *Goodnight Desdemona* Allusion Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0071. Saturday, 29 January 1994. From: Michael Sharpston Date: Friday, 28 Jan 1994 21:39:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Help on "Goodnight Desdemona" Allusion A humble request for help with an allusion in "Goodnight Desdemona": (Blair Kelly -- thanks for recommending the Washington production, which is indeed excellent). Something about having heads I think down one's front, and bleeding green blood. The green blood is certainly a reference to the green ink the spinster university teacher used, but what is all this about the heads?? Thanks in advance. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 16:25:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0072 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0072. Saturday, 29 January 1994. From: Robert O'Connor Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 11:48:55 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0066 Re: *Skinhead Hamlet* Hey, Bill! >Today in class we began writing the SKINHEAD OTHELLO. We got one scene down to >one ob-scene line. Can we see the finished result? The Skinhead Hamlet has been causing more than a few chuckles here, too. Rob O'Connor ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 16:12:04 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0070 Re: *MND* and *Lear* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0070. Saturday, 29 January 1994. From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 28 Jan 94 9:55 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0055 Q: *MND* and *Lear* Dear Julie Traves, Your project seems to me to rest on a huge assumption: that the 20th century sense of a gap between someone's social role and their 'real' private individual 'self' would have been shared by an early modern audience. There are no universal human experiences, and you're in danger of draining away something rather important. It used to be called history. No cigar. Terence Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Jan 1994 16:29:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0073 Q: Stage Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0073. Saturday, 29 January 1994. From: Christopher Daigle <866141@academic.stu.StThomasU.ca> Date: Friday, 28 Jan 1994 17:10:54 AST Subject: Stage productions of The Bard's plays Dear SHAKSPEReans, I am planning to direct either "Comedy of Errors" or "Much Ado About Nothing" in the late fall of this year. Could anyone please offer suggestions as to which male roles could easily be adapted into female ones. Thank You, Chris Daigle Theatre St. Thomas CHRIS DAIGLE St.Thomas University Fredericton, N.B., Canada Email 866141@StThomasU.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 15:13:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0074 Re: *MND*, *Lear*, and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0074. Sunday, 30 January 1994. (1) From: Richard Jordan Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 11:14:35 +1100 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0070 Re: *MND* and *Lear* (2) From: Martin Mueller Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 94 20:33:46 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0070 Re: *MND* and *Lear* (3) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 23:49:03 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0055 Q: *MND* and *Lear* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Jordan Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 11:14:35 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0070 Re: *MND* and *Lear* > Your project seems to me to rest on a huge assumption: that the 20th century > sense of a gap between someone's social role and their 'real' private > individual 'self' would have been shared by an early modern audience. There > are no universal human experiences, and you're in danger of draining away > something rather important. It used to be called history. No cigar. > > Terence Hawkes "No universal human experiences"? Try birth, death, and defecation for starters (and they start a lot)? "History, said Emerson, is the shadow of a man." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 94 20:33:46 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0070 Re: *MND* and *Lear* "There are no universal human experiences." So writes Terence Hawkes reflecting a current dogma. But in so barren a form, the statement that there are no universal human experiences probably lays no greater claim to our attention than its opposite that there are only universal human experiences. Human beings have not been around for very long and will not be around forever. They are extraordinarily adaptive and transformational animals (and have understood themselves as such, e.g. the ode on man in Sophocles' Antigone). But the extraordinary diversity and divergence of cultural and historical experience is interpretable only with reference to the enabling and boundary conditions that the physical world and evolutionary history have established for human beings wherever and whenever they exist. It has been fashionable of late to think of these conditions as a negligible substratum of our lives, and I recall reading somewhere that it is the prfessional malpractice of anthropologists to exaggerate the otherness of strange culture. It is probably the case that we can never hit the rock bottom of human nature in an unmediated fashion, because human experience is always and everywhere mediated through culture and history, and culture and history are always and everywhere different. But their difference is a difference within a frame, and from this perspective the award of "no cigars' to folks who want to compare deep resemblances between cultures is as naive as the desire to the same thing everywhere. Martin Mueller Professor of English and Classics Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 60208 martinmueller@nwu.edu 708-864-3496 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 23:49:03 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0055 Q: *MND* and *Lear* Isn't there also a problem with your assumption that the early moderns did not sense a gap between one's social and "natural" self? If so, certain things make no sense. Edmund's speech on his motivations and natural abilities in King Lear seems to rest on the assumption that his social role doesn't quite match the honour deserved by his natural worth. Morgan's description of his "sons" in Cymbeline as princes even though not raised as such seems like a demonstration of "natural" personal essence. Going a little further afield, one could mention how Sir Torre is "naturally" a knight, having been sired by a knight, despite being raised by a cow-herd, in Malory's tale of "Torre and Pellinor." Certain qualities are recognized in the natural or "wild" man in Spenser's *Fairie Queene.* The wild man (I don't think he has a name, or much to do with *Iron John*, incidentally) in book five is probably the best example, but there are other examples of noble savages, striding powerfully through the pages of literature in the centuries before Rousseau. Not all of these examples may seem immediately relevant, but the very idea of a noble savage is ironic, and suggests that the person who lacks social position may still be of significant worth, unjustly unacknowledged by society. Your point though is well taken, Terence, in asserting that the division between the natural and social realms is considerably different in the early modern period from our own post- romanticist notions. It might be more useful, Julie, to look at how conceptions of "nature" are constructed and re-constructed in both plays. In *Lear*, for instance, the word nature undergoes some interesting shifts from the natural obedience demanded of his daughters (a social nature, or divine providence) to the nature of the wren that "does it in my sight" (or something like that). A similar, but (in my mind at least) much more positive, shift takes place in MND between the demand for natural obedience to one's father, to the natural world where anything is possible as long as Puck and Oberon keep interfering. Perhaps more important is the shift between the call for natural loyalty and the acceptance of the natural love of the couples. Anyway, I've babbled far too long now, but the point is that neither accepting our post-romantic division of social and natural selves utterly, nor dissolving any such division in historical relativism is likely to yield very interesting results. Good luck, Sean Lawrence. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 15:26:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0075 Rs: Beer; Stage Productions; *Goodnight* Allusion Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0075. Sunday, 30 January 1994. (1) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 94 17:38 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0068 Re: Beer and Ale (2) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 21:01:15 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0073 Q: Stage Productions (3) From: Skip Shand Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 22:47 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0071 Q: *Goodnight Desdemona* Allusion (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 94 17:38 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0068 Re: Beer and Ale I am fully in agreement with Professor Hawks' views about USA beer, I wish I could as fully agree with his critical views. William Proctor Williams Department of English Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 21:01:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0073 Q: Stage Productions Have you thought of keeping the roles male even though the actors aren't? I played Antonio in an amateur production of Much Ado last year in a beard and male costume and had a great time doing it. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Saturday, 29 Jan 1994 22:47 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0071 Q: *Goodnight Desdemona* Allusion Sounds like Othello's story of the singing beast in Antioch (2.2): Three heads grew from the shouldersof the beast. On one the hair was black as ebony, The other crown was curled angel fair, The third head wore a scarlet cap of wool, That ended in a foolish bauble bright. The heads are presumably Desdemona, Juliet, and Constance. I don't remember anything scripted about having heads down one's front--though you do hear funny things from the stage every once in awhile. The script is published by Coach House Press, Toronto (1990). Skip Shand ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Jan 1994 15:29:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0076 Q: Romantic Lists Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0076. Sunday, 30 January 1994. From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 11:00:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Romantic Lists? I have been bragging about the vast knowledge of the participants on SHAKSPER, so now one of my colleagues has asked me to put out a query. Does anyone know of a good list for the European Romantics or for 19th Century French literature? Just how specific do most of these electronic conferences get? Could she find a list just for Goethe, or Baudelaire? Any help or suggestion will be appreciated. Thanks, Kimberly Nolan University of Miami knolan@umiami.ir.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 22:19:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0077 New Online Theatre Journal Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0077. Monday, 31 January 1994. From: David Reifsnyder Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 10:01:07 -0700 (MST) Subject: New Journal PRESS RELEASE PUBLICATION PLANS ANNOUNCED FOR FIRST ONLINE THEATRE JOURNAL THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL (T.P.I) Boulder, CO USA -- Publication plans were announced today for the first theatre journal to be completely assembled and delivered electronically. The new quarterly will be called THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL, and will provide international theatre scholars and practitioners with a source of information on theatre history, theory, criticism, and dramaturgy that can be accessed by computer with the ease and economy of a simple telephone call. With a few computer keystrokes, T.P.I will be available for downloading onto computer storage media for archiving, for transfer directly into other documents, or for printing. The unique advantages of the electronic medium will allow for fast and simple article submission procedures, and it is anticipated that when immediacy of access is combined with the international scope of communications already extant through Internet, T.P.I will be able to provide a source of reviews of worldwide theatre productions that will be unmatched for timeliness. T.P.I will be a juried publication aiming for the highest standards of academic quality. THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL will be edited by two doctoral students at the University of Colorado - Boulder. David Reifsnyder holds an M.A. in theatre from Penn State University with a B.A. from Wheaton College. He has experience as an actor, director and professional company manager with an academic specialization in dramatic theory and criticism. E. James Zeiger is a member of Actors' Equity Association who has extensive production experience as an actor, director, stage-manager, and designer. His academic specialty is American theatre history. Mr. Zeiger holds an M.A. in theatre from the University of Colorado with a B.A. from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. The Board of Advisors of THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL is chaired by Dr. James Symons, currently chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado - Boulder and past president of ATHE. The advisory committee will also include Dr. Carole Brandt, chair of the Department of Theatre at Penn State University and current president of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and Richard Devin, the producing artistic director of the Colorado Shakespeare Fesitval. Margery Fernald, a practicing attorney who is also a doctoral candidate in theatre at C.U. will serve as legal counsel. Richard Rinkelstein, a well-known set designer, will be the publisher of T.P.I and will make the journal available to readers via the facilities of his computer bulletin board service, THEATRELYNX. THEATRELYNX has served the theatre community on an ever-expanding basis since October of 1991. Mr. Finkelstein will be responsible for all technical matters related to the electronic assembly and distribution of the journal. In addition to the journal itself, the editors of T.P.I will assemble a database of performance reviews from around the world that will afford readers instant access to information about productions they may be researching or planning to attend. Those reviews judged to meet the highest academic and schloarly standards will be featured in subsequent issues of T.P.I. An e-mailbox will also be established within THEATRELYNX to facilitate communications with the staff of T.P.I. The inaugural edition of THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL is planned for release on March 31, 1994 with the second issue to be dated June 30. See the following statement of editorial purpose for further information regarding submissions. The publication's initial call for papers will be issued later this month. THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL Statement of Editorial Purpose and Requirements for Submission EDITORIAL PURPOSE: To provide international theatre scholars and practitioners with a quarterly journal devoted to history, theory, criticism, reviews and dramaturgy that takes advantage of the immediacy of assembly and economy of delivery made possible by computer technology. The journal will contain articles of high academic quality usually focussing upon a central theme or related group of topics. The journal's secondary purposes include functioning as a central electronic source for dramaturgical and bibliographic information and for timely reviews of international theatrical productions. SPECIAL FEATURES: Editorials, bibliographies, play reviews, interviews, and transcriptions of discussions conducted using the unique capabilities of a worldwide computer network. The scope of subject matter to be kept as open-ended as possible so as to embrace adjacent areas of interest when appropriate, including discussions of the entire range of theatrical praxis, i.e. acting/directing methodology and design theory and criticism. INTENDED AUDIENCE: Theatre scholars and professional practitioners worldwide. SUBMISSIONS: Articles may only be submitted as eletronic text, using one of three methods: 1. Upload via the THEATRELYNX BBS at the University of Colorado - Boulder (303-492-4782) after January 24, 1994. New Users wishing information may log in with the command or may follow the instructions to become a regular user of THEATRELYNX. Initial questions should be directed to the sysop, Richard Finkelstein. 2. Upload via e-mail to the editors: David Reifsnyder (reifsnyd@ucsu.Colorado.EDU) or Jim Zeiger (zeigere@ucsu.Colorado.EDU). This option is currently online and operating. 3. Mail submissions on floppy disc (any format, Mac or PC): THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL Department of Theatre and Dance Campus Box 261 University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0261 USA Voice: 303-492-7355 Floppy discs will not be returned. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Free of charge. Available by download through THEATRELYNX. Technical questions should be directed to the sysop, Richard Finkelstein. Delivery via telnet and gopher systems is expected to be available shortly. STYLE REQUIREMENTS: Articles should conform to the standards established by the Modern Language Association Handbook for Writers of Research Papers using parenthetical notation with an accompanying Works Cited, or endnotes with the note references enclosed in parenthesis. Due to the unique requirements of the electronic medium, footnotes will not be accepted. Preferred upload format is ASCII, but any Mac or PC format may be used. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 22:29:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0078 Re: Romantics Lists Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0078. Monday, 31 January 1994. (1) From: Mary-Katie Lindsey <924LINDSEY@MERLIN.NLU.EDU> Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 14:41:43 -0600 (CST) Subj: Romantics list (2) From: Daniel Traister Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 19:42:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0076 Q: Romantic Lists (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary-Katie Lindsey <924LINDSEY@MERLIN.NLU.EDU> Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 14:41:43 -0600 (CST) Subject: Romantics list There is indeed one -- NASSR -- North American Society for the Study of Romanticism. It is on English Romanticism. I do not know about French lit of the c19 or on Baudelaire. The address is: NASSR-L For members of the North American Society for the Study of ROmanticism. Scholarly discussions of Romantic literature. listserv@wvnvm.wvnet.edu listserv@wvnvm -- BITnet address If those don't work, send to dcstewa@wvnvm.bitnet (David C. Stewart) Since the description doesn't specifically say that it is only about English Romanticism, I could be mistaken. Certainly it seems as if all Romantic literature could be discussed. (I hope so.) If you are interested in more addresses, I recommend Eric Braun's _Internet Directory_; it seems to me to be the most complete bibliographic sourse on Net discussion lists. I got mine at Waldenbooks for about $25 (whew!). If you would like for me to look up any other addresses, please ask; I am glad to do so for anyone. Cheers, Mary-Katie 924lindsey@merlin.nlu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Traister Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 19:42:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0076 Q: Romantic Lists Kimberly Nolan, with a Miami e-mail address, asks: > I have been bragging about the vast knowledge of the participants on > SHAKSPER, so now one of my colleagues has asked me to put out a query. > Does anyone know of a good list for the European Romantics or for > 19th Century French literature? Just how specific do most of these > electronic conferences get? Could she find a list just for Goethe, or > Baudelaire? Any help or suggestion will be appreciated. While there is no special reason to assume that a list of Shakespearians will know the answer(s) to such a query, there is *every* reason to assume that someone in your own library's reference department *will* know it/them. I heartily recommend that you seek out Nora Jane Quinlan at your library. If she does not know how to answer this question herself, she will know someone at Miami who does. In any case, someone in that Department is also likely to be willing to introduce you to a gopher and thus to a kind of gateway to e-lists. The only excuse for posting so specific a reply to the entire list, need I add, is that, while the names of the resource people will obviously differ at other institutions, there is almost invariably someone in *your* library whose *business* it is to know how to answer just this sort of question. And they *are* resources whom it is occasionally worth meeting. Dan Traister, Special Collections Van Pelt-Dietrich Library University of Pennsylvania traister@pobox.upenn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 22:47:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0080 Re: Gender Switching in Stage Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0080. Monday, 31 January 1994. (1) From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 22:04:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Gender Switching (2) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Monday, 31 Jan 94 10:19:34 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0073 Q: Stage Productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 22:04:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Gender Switching Dear Chris Daigle, ADO's Don John the bastard is a good candidate. His use of Hero becomes even uglier--and just what is the relationship between Don Joanne and her minions, Borachio and Conrad? In CE, either the father of the Antipholi or the Duke of Ephesus would probably work. The rest of the characters seem a lot of effort or not significant enough in reversal. Thanks for some fun speculation! James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Monday, 31 Jan 94 10:19:34 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0073 Q: Stage Productions I directed a "Shoestring Shakespeare" production of COE last year. Shoestring Shakespeare means that we do the plays in a small room and strip the production of most of the "necessary" trimmings so as to focus on the text. I was faced with the typical problem of more women auditioning than men. After casting the sets of twins, Adriana, Luciana, Abbess., Egeon, Duke, Courtesan, I found I had several women and only one man left of those deemed sufficiently adept. So I had these people play "everybody else". Women played Angelo, the first and second merchant (same actress), Guard and Luce and Headsman (same actress) and Dr. Pinch's attendants (Angelo and Second Merchant). It seemed to work well, and nobody assumed any particular comment was being made by having women play those male roles. Of course it all depends on what you want to do. I suppose in MND, for instance, you could make quite a comment by having Bottom played by a woman. Norman Myers Bowling Green State University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 22:45:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0079 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0079. Monday, 31 January 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 16:52:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0074 Re: *MND*, *Lear*, and the Human Condition Richard Jordan and Sean Lawrence seem to be right on target. Of course, there are universal human experiences. Let's try hunger for one; the experience of a beating heart for another. Terence, do you know any humans who don't get hungry when deprived of food, or who do not have a heart (no metaphors, please)? Shakespeare's kings are constantly alluding to the different between their social identities as KING and their private selves, e.g., Richard II and Henry V. It's part of the tension in the histories plays. The only way we understand each other in a culture and across cultures is by shared experiences. In fact, that's how we understand the needs of other mammals, e.g., cats and dogs. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 22:58:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0081 Qs: Suggested Order for Reading; Bianca Bait Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0081. Monday, 31 January 1994. (1) From: Blair Kelly III Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 18:30:57 -0500 Subj: Suggested order in which to read plays? (2) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Monday, 31 Jan 94 09:43:32 EST Subj: Bianca Bait (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Blair Kelly III Date: Sunday, 30 Jan 1994 18:30:57 -0500 Subject: Suggested order in which to read plays? Later this year the Washington Shakespeare Reading Group will finish its second cycle of reading the works of William Shakespeare. I would like to solicit suggestions from SHAKSPEReans on possible orders in which we might read our third cycle. Our first cycle was random order, our second cycle was in rough order in which the plays were written. Obviously, in the interests of variety, we would like to mix the histories, comedies, and tragedies, but other than that restriction, anything goes! Besides suggested orders for the entire canon, possible orders for subsets are also welcome - for example, read the history plays in order of the historical time line (although in the interests of variety, I would have to schedule some comedies and tragedies among the histories). And for any SHAKSPEReans who will be in the Washingon DC area, you are cordially invited to join us for a reading. Here is our upcoming schedule: Friday 4 Feb Measure for Measure Saturday 26 Feb Othello Friday 11 Mar All's Well that End's Well Friday 25 Mar Timon of Athens Friday 8 Apr Macbeth We meet in Memorial Hall of the Palisades Community Church, 5200 Cathedral Avenue NW, Washington DC, and begin promptly at 7:30 pm. --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil Secretary, Washington Shakespeare Reading Group (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Monday, 31 Jan 94 09:43:32 EST Subject: Bianca Bait I'm seeking historical/cultural info. How are we to regard Baptista's offering of Kate & Bianca, particularly the requirement that Kate be married off before the suitors can get at Bianca? In Shakespeare's day, would this have been thought of only as a ludicrous, farcical proposition? Or is this more an exaggeration of rights and duties that Baptista would have had? If so, are these "legal" rights and duties, or moral compunctions for a father in his position? Is Baptista a pure Elizabethan or would the audience have thought him Italian/continental for making this proposition? Does the absence of a mother affect the situation? Related, how are we to take the dowery difference--Petruchio takes in but Lucentio/Hortension/Gremio have to put out? (same questions as paragraph 2). (If this has all been clearly addressed in print and I've simply overlooked it, please point me the way.) Thanks in advance. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 10:21:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0082 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0082. Wednesday, 2 February 1994. (1) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 1 Feb 94 10:43 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0079 Re: The Human Condition (2) From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 01 Feb 94 17:15:00 GMT Subj: SHK 5.0079 Re: The Human Condition (3) From: Michael Sharpston Date: Tuesday, 01 Feb 1994 20:39:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0074 Re: *MND*, *Lear*, and the Human Condition (4) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 2 Feb 94 11:21:47 SAST-2 Subj: The Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 1 Feb 94 10:43 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0079 Re: The Human Condition Dear Bill Godshalk, Hunger -- yes, but hunger for what? There's no such think as free-floating trans-historical 'hunger'. Like all human experiences, it takes place within a specific culture at a specific time and place, and thus aligns itself with and is defined by specific notions of 'food'. You know as well as I do that what some cultures regard as 'food' is classified as 'inedible' by others. You also know that food is hedged about by all sorts of culture- specific prohibitions, inhibitions, desires and hatreds whose roots are in religious, political, economic commitments and beliefs -- some carrying the implication that hunger is a good thing, others that it is not. What you call 'hunger' is such a complex, variable, politically and religiously sensitive entity that it's surely unwise to assign a simple and universal 'meaning' to it. To do so is to drain away history, culture, political and social development and difference in pursuit of an arid 'sameness' whose own political commitments strike me as at least questionable. No doubt much of the above applies equally to defecation, a matter raised by another correspondent. My withers remain unwrung. Terry Hawkes (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 01 Feb 94 17:15:00 GMT Subject: SHK 5.0079 Re: The Human Condition On the question of "universal experience", Messrs Jordan, Lawrence and Godshalk seem to be confusing two things: (i) biological "facts" which have to do simply with the physiological operations of the organism- which aligns Bill Godshalk with "the needs of other mammals, e.g., cats and dogs"- and (ii) social and cultural experience which is mediated through language and which is historical and geographical. The latter cannot be reduced to some kind of quasi-physical fact which is true for all cultures at all times. So, when Terry Hawkes talks about there being no such thing as universal experience, it is in the context, surely, of literary representations of experience which are themselves culturally specific, AND which carry with them an affective power. The assumption that everybody else's experience is the same as that of Godshalk, Lawrence and Jordan, proposes, it would seem, a global community all of whose members, despite superficial differences, are characterized by their commitment to the same things! The politics of this position are quite fascinating. I think Edward Said called a version of it "orientalism". My response to their claim is simply: "Think so still, presumptuous, till experience change thy mind"! A happy Chinese New Year Bill John Drakakis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sharpston Date: Tuesday, 01 Feb 1994 20:39:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0074 Re: *MND*, *Lear*, and the Human Condition When I read Martin Mueller (SHK 5.0074) and "it is the professional malpractice of anthropologists to exaggerate the otherness of strange cultures", I was drawn to think of "Shakespeare in the Bush", Laura Bohannon, and my own earlier comments. By the way, I have been educated by those who have pointed out the relevant and special marital practices of Henry VIII in comparison to those in "Hamlet". There can of course be multiple resonances to a situation as archetypal as Hamlet, Gertrude, and Claudius. As Martin Mueller pointed out, it is doing an injustice to human beings if one does not accept both the universality and the individuality of their experience. Between individuals, across cultures, across time. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 2 Feb 94 11:21:47 SAST-2 Subject: The Human Condition We seem to have the same argument every month or so. In a post sent in October and again in a summarized form in November I suggested that the notions of an unchanging human condition verses radical historical and cultural incommensurability are false and debilitating alternatives. The issue is the way in which different historical periods and cultures instantiate relatively or eternally constant aspects of human behaviour as concepts or meanings. Looking at the issue in this way we see both change and constancy: but we don't make the mistake of assuming that a condition (even one as apparently incorrible as birth, death, hunger or defecation) is identical to a meaning. The facts of all these things may be the same but their significance may change. For example, compare them as *concepts* in the leafy suburbs I am fortunate enough to live in and the squatter camps a few kilometers away: what does hunger or cold mean to me and my children compared to the street kids, and how does the concept of defecation differ in a house with water-borne sewage and a shack with no toilet facilities whatsoever? Marx said: "Man must eat before he can think" (or something of that sort.) Is this true? Why don't we eat the locusts that destroy our crops? So, please let's stop confusing concepts and things, and let's stop preventing historical enquiry with dogmatic notions that there can be no points of conceptual contact across historical periods. (Sorry, I've had a bad holiday period, and thought I'd set SHAKsper to MAIL again to relax!) David Schalkwyk University of Cape Town ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Feb 1994 10:27:19 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0083 Books at Virginia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0083. Wednesday, 2 February 1994. From: Terry Belanger Date: Tuesday, 1 Feb 1994 23:39:52 -0500 Subject: [Books at Virginia] Subscribers to SHAKSPER may be particularly interested in one or more of the following 5-day non-credit courses offered this coming summer at BOOKS AT VIRGINIA: RARE BOOK SCHOOL 1994 (RBS): 21 HISTORY OF THE PRINTED BOOK. The production and impact of the printed book in the West since the 15th century. The transition from MS to printed book; technical and stylistic aspects of book production (paper, ink, type, presswork, illustration, binding); the professions of authorship, printing, and publishing; changing patterns of book distribution; the book as an economic, social, and cultural force. Aimed at those who have had little or no previous formal exposure to this field. Instructors: Alice Schreyer and Peter M. VanWingen. (18-22 July) 22 EUROPEAN DECORATIVE BOOKBINDING. An historical survey of decorative bookbinding in England and on the European Continent, concentrating on the period 1500-1800, but with examples drawn from the late 7th century to the late 20th century. Topics include: the emergence and development of various decorative techniques and styles; readership and collecting; the history of bookbinding in a wider historical context; the pitfalls and possibilities of binding research. Enrollment in this course is limited to those who have taken Nicholas Pickwoad's RBS course (see below, no. 43). Instructor: Mirjam Foot. (18-22 July) 36 ELECTRONIC FORMATS IN A RARE BOOKS ENVIRONMENT. Taking advantage of Alderman Library's computer instruction facilities, this course will provide practical training in the conversion of printed records to electronic formats. The course's emphasis will be on the character-based SGML texts, but it will also discuss image formats and strategies for making resources available on the Internet. Instructor: John Price-Wilkin. (25-29 July) 43 EUROPEAN BOOKBINDING, 1500-1800. How bookbinding in the post- medieval period developed to meet the demands placed on it by the growth of printing: techniques and materials employed to meet these demands; the development of temporary bindings (eg pamphlets and publishers' bindings); the emergence of structures usually associated with volume production in the 19th century; the development of decoration; the dating of undecorated bindings; the identification of national and local binding styles. Instructor: Nicholas Pickwoad. (1-5 August) 46 INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC TEXTS. An introductory exploration of the range of research, preservation, and pedagogical tasks that can be performed with electronic texts. Topics include: finding and evaluating commercial and other e-texts; the creation of e-texts through OCR scanning and other methods; introduction to SGML tagging; introduction to text analysis tools; the management and use of online texts and related network resources. The course assumes familiarity with e-mail and basic computer skills such as word-processing, but no previous experience with electronic texts. Instructor: David Seaman. (1-5 August) 52 TYPE, LETTERING, AND CALLIGRAPHY, 1450-1830. The development of the major formal and informal book hands, the dominant printing types of each period, and their interrelationship. Topics include: the Gothic hands; humanistic script; the Renaissance inscriptional capital; Garamond and the spread of the Aldine Roman; calligraphy from the chancery italic to the English round hand; the neoclassical book and its typography; and early commercial typography. Instructor: James Mosley. (8-12 August) 54 INTRODUCTION TO DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY. Introduction to the physical examination and description of books, especially of the period 1550-1875. The course is designed both for those with little or no prior exposure to this subject and for those with some general knowledge of the field who wish to be presented with a systematic discussion of the elements of physical description (format, collation, signings, pagination, paper, type, illustrations and other inserts, and binding). A major part of the course will consist of small, closely-supervised laboratory sessions in which students will gain practice in determining format and collation. Instructors: Terry Belanger and David Ferris. (8- 12 August) A total of 28 5-day courses will be offered on subjects ranging from the identification of illustration processes to collecting travel literature. TERRY BELANGER founded RBS in 1983 at Columbia University, where he had various positions in the School of Library Service. Since 1992, he has been University Professor and Honorary Curator of Special Collections at the University of Virginia. DAVID FERRIS is Curator of Rare Books at the Harvard University Law School Library, where one of his interests is the descriptive bibliography of early printed books. He has been connected with RBS since 1986 and its Associate Director since 1990. MIRJAM FOOT is Director of Collections and Preservation in The British Library. She is the author of many books and articles on the history of bookbinding, including STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF BOOKBINDING (1993) and (with Howard Nixon) THE HISTORY OF DECORATED BOOKBINDING in England (1992). JAMES MOSLEY is Librarian of the St Bride Printing Library in London, the largest library of its kind in the English- speaking world. He has lectured widely in the United States on typographical subjects. He was Founding Editor of the JOURNAL OF THE PRINTING HISTORICAL SOCIETY. NICHOLAS PICKWOAD recently became Conservator at the Harvard University Library. He was formerly Adviser for Book Conservation to the National Trust in the United Kingdom. This will be the 14th time he has taught this celebrated course in RBS. JOHN PRICE-WILKIN is Systems Librarian for Information Services at the University of Virginia, before which he was Data Services Librarian at the University of Michigan, where he pioneered the provision of campus-wide electronic access to literary and linguistic texts. ALICE SCHREYER is Curator of Special Collections at the University of Chicago. She is the author of THE HISTORY OF BOOKS: A GUIDE TO SELECTED RESOURCES IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (1987). From 1988-93 she was Editor of RARE BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP, a journal published by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and she is a past chair of the ACRL's Rare Books & Manuscripts Section. DAVID SEAMAN is Coordinator of the Electronic Text Center at the Alderman Library, University of Virginia. He is the co- compiler (with John Kidd) of THE ELECTRONIC JOYCE. He lectures frequently on the use of electronic texts in the humanities. PETER M. VanWINGEN is Specialist for the Book Arts in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, where he has been concerned with many aspects of the history of the book. He is a past chair of the Rare Books & Manuscripts Section of ACRL and former President of the American Printing History Association. The tuition for each RBS course is $525. Low-cost, air- conditioned dormitory housing will be offered on the Grounds of the University, and nearby hotel accommodation is readily available. Students are encouraged to take advantage of RBS's housing to arrive a few days before their course, or stay a few days later, in order to give themselves (and their families) a better chance to explore the Charlottesville area, which includes many sites of historic interest as well as various vacation attractions. For a copy of the RBS 1994 Expanded Course Descriptions sheet (providing further details about the courses offered this year) and an application form, write, fax, email, or telephone Rare Book School, 114 Alderman Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2498: fax 804/924-8824; e-mail books@virginia.edu; telephone 804/924-8851. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 07:31:43 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0084 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0084. Thursday, 3 February 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 18:01:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0082 Re: The Human Condition (2) From: Geoffrey T Wilson Date: Wednesday, 2 Feb 94 23:46:16 EST Subj: Re: The Human Condition (3) From: Jeff Zinn <0006382926@mcimail.com> Date: Wednesday, 2 Feb 94 22:19 EST Subj: [The Human Condition] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 18:01:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0082 Re: The Human Condition Dear Terence Hawkes, I wrote about the experience of hunger. Yes, hunger must be experienced by an animal in the body. I am talking about an experience that we label hunger. Hunger can not be free floating because it is a human experience and must be experienced by a human. You are quite right. If you agree that certain physiological events may be experienced by any human, we don't have a quarrel. I said nothing about the "meaning" of hunger, nor the literary expression of hunger. I think Norm Holland is correct when he emphasizes the physical, sensory basis on all experience. We can understand each other because we all have bodies. Animals experience hunger - they may and can experience hunger - outside of any cultural context. An animal that has been almost utterly isolated from its genetic kind will (I submit; I know this an article of faith.) experience hunger as a physical event. So I believe there are experiences that all humans share. That's all. No big whoop. I believe you will be able to see this. Yours, Bill Godshalk P.S. David Schalkwyc is, of course, the voice of reason. He's right. We have this same fight every other month. (David, I owe you an e-mail, but I got side tracked reading Thomas Pavel's FICTIONAL WORLDS, which covers a lot of the turf we were treading.) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geoffrey T Wilson Date: Wednesday, 2 Feb 94 23:46:16 EST Subject: Re: The Human Condition As I understand the arguments of Joan Copjec and other Lacanian theorists, a *universal* subject must be posited in order to implement democracy: a population has to be reducible to a field of identical, homogeneous elements irrespective of individual cultural determinations before we can begin to think of equality, human rights, and enfranchisement. This necessary universalization is in danger of being obscured in the cultural relativism of Hawkes and Drakakis. The universal subject, however, cannot be based on empirical characteristics or some notion of "lived experience" like that articulated by Godshalk. It must be held in a state of nonpredication, existing exactly of nothing, a void. For once any culturally specific characteristics are assigned, people are excluded. By the way, the subject as void (or "subject of the unconscious") is precisely that which Lacan finds to be a function of the signifier. All people have always been "submitted to the signifier," so we can argue with historical rigor for a universal subject. It just can't be given characteristics. Geoffrey Wilson Dept. of English SUNY at Buffalo gwilson@acsu.buffalo.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Zinn <0006382926@mcimail.com> Date: Wednesday, 2 Feb 94 22:19 EST Subject: [The Human Condition] In Response to Schalkwyk, Godshalk, Jordan, Lawrence, etc. Ernest Becker in "Escape From Evil" draws on the works of anthropologist A.M. Hocart to make his very persuasive case that all cultures, yes *all*, respond to the fact of death with various strategies that deny death by establishing some form of immortality narrative. These strategies may take as many different forms as there are cultures - or people on the planet - but they function *universally* to endow the individual, and by extension the entire culture she/he populates, with a sense of purpose and worth. I think that at the center of all characters in plays can be found an immortality narrative that is being formed or changed or defended. Jeff Zinn 6382926@MCIMAIL.COM ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 07:38:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare; Shakespeare Ban Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0085. Thursday, 3 February 1994. (1) From: Nicholas Clary Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 14:52:54 -0500 (EST) Subj: Comic Book Shakespeare (2) From: Chris Kendall Date: Wednesday, 2 Feb 1994 20:50:27 -0700 (MST) Subj: Occupied Germany (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Clary Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 14:52:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Comic Book Shakespeare In my seminar on Text Transmission/Transformation, a student has taken a particular interest in comic-book Shakespeare. Beyond the Classic Comics version of HAMLET, does anyone know of more recent comic-book versions of this play and where copies might be purchased. Thanks, Nick Clary clary@smcvax.smcvt.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Wednesday, 2 Feb 1994 20:50:27 -0700 (MST) Subject: Occupied Germany Recently, in our discussion of Shakespeare and Politics, mention was made of the banning of Shakespeare in occupied Germany. I have been searching for references to this event, ideally some kind of historical record of how and by whom the decision was made, though any kind of reference would be welcome. Can anyone help? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 07:44:52 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0086 Re: Vickers's Review; Shakespeare's Reading Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0086. Thursday, 3 February 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 20:04:13 -0500 (EST) Subj: Brian Vickers and Q1 (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 19:49:17 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0064 Q: Shakespeare's Reading (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 20:04:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Brian Vickers and Q1 Some while ago, someone (I can't remember who) asked about Vickers' review of the Holderness and Loughrey edition of the first quarto HAMLET. There's an interesting reply by Evert Sprinchorn (Dept. of Drama, Vassar) in TLS 21 Jan. 1994, p. 15. He points out a major problem with the theory of memorial reconstruction: actors generally have superior memories. He gives a good deal of evidence to substantiate this claim. If Q1 were indeed a version of the Q2 script, it could not have been the product of memorial reconstruction by actors. Actors would have done a much better job. So says Evert Sprichorn. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Feb 1994 19:49:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0064 Q: Shakespeare's Reading Elihu, You probably know Henry Anders, SHAKESPEARE'S BOOKS, who tried to do what you asked for, but didn't. It's a start. Are you proposing a joint project for the network? Or are you looking for a contract? I'll bet Garland would be interested. You can write to Phyllis Korper at Garland. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 11:35:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0090 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0090. Friday, 4 February 1994. (1) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Thursday, 3 Feb 1994 23:32:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0084 Re: The Human Condition (2) From: Richard Jordan Date: Friday, 4 Feb 1994 23:49:53 +1100 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0082 Re: The Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Thursday, 3 Feb 1994 23:32:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0084 Re: The Human Condition Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. Good night, ladies and gents, Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Jordan Date: Friday, 4 Feb 1994 23:49:53 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0082 Re: The Human Condition Terence Hawkes writes: "What you call 'hunger' is such a complex, variable, politically and religiously sensitive entity that it's surely unwise to assign a simple and universal 'meaning' to it." The grounds of this debate have now been shifted in a rather deceptive way. Mr. Hawkes original claim was that there were no universal human experiences and that to claim otherwise was to ignore " history". In the face of several claims based on the universality of human biological necessities (all of which have social and individual consequences), Mr. Hawkes now speaks only of his objections to assigning universal "meanings" to such experiences. To say that there are universal human experiences, and to say that individuals and societies attribute different meanings to these experiences, is to say two different things which are not necessarily contradictory. Beyond that, the acknowledgement that there are SOCIAL meanings of experiences admits the possibility of the majority of individuals in a given society not only sharing experiences, but also placing the same significance on those experiences. It is also possible, and even demonstrable, that one society can in some cases see the same meaning in a human experience as its neighbor, in spite of other cultural differences between them. In other words, there ARE universal human experiences AND there can be a concensus about the significance of these experiences within and between different social groups. That such a concensus may not be universal is quite true, but this particular truth does not therefore discredit the study of that which is universal and shared in history and society. At best, it cautions us against making unqualified generalizations. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 11:38:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0091 Q: Herbs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0091. Friday, 4 February 1994. From: Roy Flannagan Date: Friday,4 February 94, 10:11:56 EST Subject: [Query: Herbs] A query, please, on behalf of a graduate student: What is the best recent source of information on Shakespeare and herbal lore, plant lore, medicinal plants, herbal poisons, homeopathic remedies? Thanks from him and me. Roy Flannagan Ohio University ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 11:25:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0088 Re: *Goodnight* Allusion; Shakespeare Ban Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0088. Friday, 4 February 1994. (1) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Thursday, 03 Feb 94 08:22:32 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0071 Q: *Goodnight Desdemona* Allusion (2) From: Michael Harrawood Date: Thursday, 3 Feb 1994 10:37:18 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare; Shakespeare Ban (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Thursday, 03 Feb 94 08:22:32 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0071 Q: *Goodnight Desdemona* Allusion A somewhat late response to Michael's question about heads. Although I haven't seen *Goodnight Desdemona*, could it be a reference to the lines from *Othello* ? "And men whose heads did grow beneath their shoulders". 1.2, I believe, it's from the scene where Desdemona explains how Othello won her love with stories of his life. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Harrawood Date: Thursday, 3 Feb 1994 10:37:18 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare; Shakespeare Ban This is a message to Chris Kendall, re Shakespeare and Nazi Germany. I've never posted here before, so I hope it comes through. Chris. It might be fun to have your class watch Mephisto and to discuss the production of Hamlet they are working on at the end of that film. I did this a few years back with a 1B class here at Berkeley, and then showed them the Mel Gibson Hamlet, with special emphasis on the issue of overhearing and surviellance. I told my students that the Gibson Hamlet was the same versiou they were doing in Mephisto. This, naturally, provoked a lot of hot discussion and a few really good papers. Anyway, this is not really a historical record but it may help. Michael Harrawood ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 11:31:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0089 Teaching Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0089. Friday, 4 February 1994. From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 03 Feb 94 20:30:20 EST Subject: Teaching Shakespeare I'd like to recommend Peter Reynolds, PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO TEACHING SHAKESPEARE (Oxford University Press, 1991). Though I stripped down many of the introductory exercises to shorter and simpler forms that I could feel comfortable with, the physically active ways of engaging students with language through movement simply lit up my class yesterday. We were all bouncing and breathing through a sonnet, twenty different ways, till one final low voiced recitation came alive with a roomful of voices, together. Then I jumped to an introduction to Taming of the Shrew, working from another volume that comes from the same gang of educational hot-wirers. This was Michael Fynes-Clinton and Perry Mills CAMBRIDGE SCHOOLS SHAKESPEARE edition of SHREW (Cambridge UP 1992). They suggest having students work in groups to invent staging for the opening action. How about a leap through the classroom doorway, shoulder roll, "I'll pheeze you," and an angry hostess standing erect over the supine Sly? Drama being an art of significant juxtaposition. Even though I've done this kind of stuff before, going through the workshops with Peggy OBrien and the RSC folks, every time it is a leap of faith. Reynolds "Practical Approaches . . . " got me launched this time. Have other people noticed that Meredith Anne Skura's SHAKESPEARE THE ACTOR AND THE PURPOSES OF PLAYING outlines some of the anxieties and glories of teaching as a performing art? Another question: is there a convenient mail-order source for the British TV standard BBC-TV/TIME LIFE Shakespeare plays? I still balk at buying them at $100 a pop when they were on sale a few years back in England for about L-7. Ever, Urk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 11:18:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0087 Re: Comic Book Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0087. Friday, 4 February 1994. (1) From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 03 Feb 94 14:25:18 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare; Shakespeare Ban (2) From: Karen Saupe Date: Friday, 04 Feb 1994 09:12:14 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 03 Feb 94 14:25:18 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare; Shakespeare Ban I have several comic book Shakespeare plays. Macbeth: The Folio Edition illus. by Von (NY: Workman, 1982). Twelfth Night, illus. John H. Howard (Ln: Oval Projects/Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985). Same pub also has Othello illus. by Oscar Zarate, King Lear illus. by Ian Pollock. As best I can tell, Workman started the series, then Oval Projects picked it up. The Macbeth is very nice, rather trad. illus w/ the text being the first folio unabridged. The TN has a more interesting illustration style, which works well. I like the Lear but have heard folks say they hate it. Addresses: Workman Pub. 1 West 39th Street, NY, NY 10018 (as of 1982) Oval Projects, 335 Kennington Rd, Ln SE11 4QE I also have MND, but it's at home so I can't provide illustrator info. And a student showed me a very nicely done original story about Shakespeare in the Shadow Man series(?). (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karen Saupe Date: Friday, 04 Feb 1994 09:12:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0085 Qs: Comic Book Shakespeare I don't think they've done Hamlet yet, but Workman Publishing has at least three comic-book plays: Othello, illustrated by Oscar Zarak (1983); Macbeth, by Von (1982); and King Lear, by Ian Pollock (1984). Full texts, great illustrations. The Folger bookstore has them; I don't know where else they might be available. (Has anyone ever used one of these as a classroom text, I wonder?) Karen Saupe University of Rochester -- saup@troi.cc.rochester.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 21:17:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0092 Re: Herbs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0092. Saturday, 5 February 1994. (1) From: Michael Dobson Date: Friday, 04 Feb 94 10:47:41 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0091 Q: Herbs (2) From: John Mucci Date: Friday, 4 Feb 94 16:48:25-0500 Subj: Herbs and The Bard (3) From: John Cox Date: Friday, 04 Feb 1994 15:28:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0091 Q: Herbs (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Friday, 04 Feb 94 10:47:41 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0091 Q: Herbs Re: Herbs In response to Roy Flannagan's request for a good 'recent' study of herbs in Shakespeare, let me suggest Eleanour Sinclair Rohde's "Shakespeare's Wild Flowers, Fairy Lore, Gardens, Herbs, Gatherers of Simples and Bee Lore", published by the Medici Society in 1935. Compared to the plays of Shakespeare it is certainly recent, and it may help his graduate student learn a style of prose accessible to people outside the MLA. Also it has lovely pictures. Michael Dobson (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Friday, 4 Feb 94 16:48:25-0500 Subject: Herbs and The Bard A very complete but little known book is by Adelma Grenier Simmons entitled, "Plants of Shakespeare," which has each of the plants, herbs in particular, mentioned in the plays, described as to its medicinal or culinary properties, along with the passages from the plays in which each appears. A plan for a "Shakespeare Garden" is included for those interested in taking the trouble to raise one. It is published by Caprilands Private Press in Coventry, CT, and may be ordered from there. The price is less than $5, I believe. The subtitle of the book is Plans for a Shakespeare Garden; Herbal Plant Quotations from Shakespeare; Herbs of Shakespeare; Botanists of Shakespeare's Day. Ms Simmons is a noted authority on horticulture, and herbs in particular. John Mucci GTE VisNet (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Friday, 04 Feb 1994 15:28:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0091 Q: Herbs Charlotte Otten's book is the best on flora. I don't remember the title. John Cox ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 21:29:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0093 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0093. Saturday, 5 February 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Gorfain Date: Friday, 04 Feb 1994 17:24:47 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0090 Re: The Human Condition (2) From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 05 Feb 1994 12:35:06 -0600 (CST) Subj: Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Gorfain Date: Friday, 04 Feb 1994 17:24:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0090 Re: The Human Condition I am grateful for the cogent and concise treatment Richard Jordan has offered for the vexing question of human universals. The difference between common experiences, inevitable human problems (of the death of others and one's own; distributions of wealth and goods; inheritance; kinship and non-marriageable partners; explanations for unjust suffering) and the ways those experiences are interpreted and evaluated, or the ways the problems are solved, not only provide ways to study the particular ways that persons and societies differ in regular ways, but also ways to compare them. The ways prestige attaches to particular activities, actors, or things can be as significant in "meaning" as is interpretation. I think the issue is really in how the claims of "universals" have been used ethnocentrically, ideologically, and smugly to mystify and celebrate values held by a cer- tain group dominating the discourse about meaning. So, once again, the issue is not the binary one of are there, or aren't there universals; but as R.J. shows, the multiplicity of ways that claims about universals are used, or the multiplicity of responses to particular common experiences. But that multiplicity need not lead to sloppy pluralism, but to rigorous comparison in historical, cultural terms. Gosh, I wish I were as clear as R.J. But, without editing, here are my thoughts. Classes start up again soon, so I will go back to lurking, I fear. Cheers, Phyllis Gorfain, Oberlin College. fgorfain@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 05 Feb 1994 12:35:06 -0600 (CST) Subject: Human Condition Listening to the arguments back and forth on this endlessly contested and contestable question, I wonder what's at stake. It sounds like a political or moral argument in disguise--politics by other means, so to speak. Is it? And the pragmatist in me asks: what practical difference might it make in the way we teach--*Lear* for example-- how or where we come down (if we come down at all) on 'universality'? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 21:44:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0094. Saturday, 5 February 1994. From: Tom Jensen Date: Friday, 4 Feb 94 10:03:18 MST Subject: Query for VHS Video of BBC Shakespeare, *Chimes at Midnight* I'm very interested in aquiring personal copies on VHS of some of the BBC productions, particularly the 3 parts of *Henry VI*. I know that University libraries often have complete sets; does anyone know if they're available for private purchase and if so from whom? I'm also interested in Orson Wells' wonderful, uneven version of Henry IV parts 1 and 2 on VHS. Does anyone have any suggestions there? Thanks. Thomas Jensen Evans & Sutherland ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 21:50:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0095 Re: Comic Book Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0095. Saturday, 5 February 1994. From: Hilve A. Firek Date: Friday, 4 Feb 94 17:47:52 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0087 Re: Comic Book Shakespeare I have the Classics Illustrated comic book of _Hamlet_. I believe the more pretentious title, though, is graphic novel. The illustrations are fantastic. ISBN 0-425-12026-0. The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, NY, NY 10016. -- Hilve Firek, hfirek@vdoe386.vak12ed.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 21:54:52 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0096 CFP: Theatre.Perspectives.International Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0096. Saturday, 5 February 1994. From: David Reifsnyder Date: Saturday, 5 Feb 1994 00:02:39 -0700 (MST) Subject: Call For Papers CALL FOR PAPERS and PERFORMANCE REVIEWS THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL (T.P.I) invites submission of papers in the areas of theatre history, theory, criticism, and dramaturgy from theatre scholars and practitioners worldwide. Subject matter for the premiere issue of T.P.I will include all areas. The editors aim to present a representative sampling of current thought on a wide variety of topics, but will choose articles according to the quality of research presented and the manner of presentation. Writers of articles not used in this first issue may be asked for permission to hold their paper for inclusion in later editions. It is intended to keep the scope of T.P.I as open-ended as possible in order to include significant articles on the entire range of theatrical praxis, i.e. acting/directing methodology and design theory and criticism. One of the most exciting features of T.P.I is expected to be the publication of timely and meaningful reviews of productions seen around the world. Again, the quality of content and presentation will be of paramount importance, but it is intended that T.P.I eventually serve as an online clearing house of production reviews. A database will be established in conjunction with the THEATRELYNX BBS through which the entire catalogue of criticism can be accessed. Those reviews that represent the finest journalism and that address the most important new productions will be published in succeeding issues of T.P.I Timeliness is the key, as it is expected that readers will soon be able to get critical information on productions worldwide on a nearly next-day basis. SUBMISSIONS: Articles may only be submitted in electronic format, using one of three methods: 1. Upload via the THEATRELYNX BBS at the University of Colorado - Boulder (303-492-4782) after January 24, 1994. New users wishing information may log in with the command or may follow the instructions to become a regular user of THEATRELYNX. Initial questions should be directed to the sysop, Richard Finkelstein. 2. Upload via e-mail to the editors: David Reifsnyder (reifsnyd@ucsu.Colorado.EDU) or Jim Zeiger (zeigere@ucsu.Colorado.EDU). This option is now online and operating. 3. Mail submissions on floppy disc (any format, Mac or PC): THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL Department of Theatre and Dance Campus Box 261 University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0261 Voice: 303-492-7355 Floppy discs will not be returned. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 08:28:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0098 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0098. Monday, 7 February 1994. From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 7 Feb 1994 12:35:13 +1000 (EST) Subject: The Human Condition This is my first foray, so forgive me if I get the tone wrong. My initial reaction to the 'universality' debate was to cheer on the critics of Terence Hawkes, but this may have been irritation at the glib 'alterity' claims which are typical of a certain kind of Cultural Studies. But I've become increasingly uncomfortable at the certainty with which Richard Jordan et al have been asserting, contra Hawkes, a clear and absolute distinction between human experiences and the cultural meanings attributed to them by particular societies. Surely experience - even biolgical experience - is itself determined, to some extent, by its cultural meaning. Hunger, to continue with that example, may well be experienced differently by people for whom hunger has a redemptive meaning than by people for whom it is simply a state of painful deprivation. And how can one doubt that orgasm will be experienced differently if you believe each one shortens your life-span than if you think of it as a healthy release of tension? One has only to read the work of people like Marcel Mauss and Norbert Elias or, more recently, Peter Brown (The Body in History) and Thomas Laqueur (Making Sex) to see that physical experiences, and not just their cultural meanings, are indeed not universal. Of course, this doesn't warrant the Hawkesian assumption that they will always, or necessarily, or even usually, be different in different cultures. To that extent I agree with Jordan. Experiences *and* their meanings may well be substantially the same across different cultures. To assert otherwise is itself a universalising statement. Patrick Buckridge. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 08:24:46 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0097 Re: *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0097. Monday, 7 February 1994. (1) From: Janis Lull Date: Saturday, 05 Feb 1994 18:47:20 -0900 Subj: Re: Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 6 Feb 1994 06:39 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos (3) From: Milla Riggio Date: Monday, 07 Feb 1994 07:35:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Janis Lull Date: Saturday, 05 Feb 1994 18:47:20 -0900 Subject: Re: Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Anyone interested in a videotape of Wells's *Chimes at Midnight* should NOT buy it from Commedia Dell'Arte of Manorhaven, NY. The sound is very poor and as the catalog warns, all sales are final. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 6 Feb 1994 06:39 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Two valuable sources for tracking down videotapes are *Shakespeare on Screen* by Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer, and the *Index* for the 17-year publication of *The Shakespeare on Film Newsletter,* now incorporated into *The Shakespeare Bulletin,* which makes available the *Index* as well as the complete run of issues of *SFNL*. *S on S* is available from Neal-Schuman Publishers in New York, and *The Shakespeare Bulletin* can be reached through James Lusardi and June Schlueter, Editors, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042. Bernice W. Kliman (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Monday, 07 Feb 1994 07:35:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos To Thomas Jensen: Orson Welles' production of Chimes at Midnight is easily available on video. I bought it last year, but have the copy in my office and can't tell you now where I got it (others will do this, I feel sure). But I must warn you that obtaining it is at best a mixed blessing; the quality of the film and especially the sound track is so poor that you should be prepared to stand by the monitor and "translate" almost all that is said in the film. I understand that there are quarrels among those who own the rights to the film that have so far prevented the kind of restoration that Othello received. Until that happens, you may be better off to turnoff the sound and treat the video like a silent film! If no one else provides the purchasing information, I'll gather it later this week. Best, Milla Riggio ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 08:31:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0099 Re: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0099. Tuesday, 8 February 1994. (1) From: Tad Davis Date: Monday, 7 Feb 1994 09:46:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0097 Re: *Chimes at Midnight* Videos (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 7 Feb 1994 09:46:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Monday, 7 Feb 1994 09:46:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0097 Re: *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Milla Riggio writes: > But I must warn you that obtaining it is at best a mixed blessing; > the quality of the film and especially the sound track is so poor that > you should be prepared to stand by the monitor and "translate" almost > all that is said in the film. I've had this same problem with all of Welles' Shakespeare films. It was a perennial problem for him; operating on low budgets across several continents, the sound quality was always the first to go. I found this to be true of the restored Othello as well, and it seriously hampered my enjoyment of that film. The complete text of the screenplay for Chimes is available, with photographs, notes, introduction, interviews, and many absorbing essays; edited by Bridget Gellert Lyons, Rutgers University Press, 1988. I recommend it highly. (This is where I first read Welles' opinion of Olivier's Henry V: "a bunch of people in fancy armor riding around a golf course.") Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 7 Feb 1994 09:46:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0094 Q: BBC and *Chimes at Midnight* Videos Dear Tom Jensen, For the BBC Shakespeare Plays, try Ambrose Video Publishing, 381 Park Ave.So. #1601, New York NY 10016. Call 800-526-4663. For Orson Welles, CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, I think Facets Video, 1517 West Fullerton, Chicago, IL 60614 is a good bet. There are of course dozens of other dealers spewing out catalogs. Everything I say is subject to correction, since the market shifts and changes exasperatingly from one month to the next. Ken Rothwell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 08:39:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0100 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0100. Tuesday, 8 February 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 07 Feb 1994 21:56:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0098 Re: The Human Condition I think we can agree with Pat Buckridge that not all human experiences are experienced by all humans. Men do not get pregnant, for example. But all live humans experience a beating heart. And I think we can be skeptical about an assertion that we all experience a beating heart in the same way. But we all have the experience, or we'd be dead. That's all, but it's a place to begin building a bridge out to other humans, eh? Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 07:22:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0101. Wednesday, 9 February 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 08 Feb 1994 12:56:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0100 Re: The Human Condition I had insomnia last night, and I remembered someone asking what was at stake in the Great Debate over the Human Condition. Since I couldn't sleep, I thought about that question, and I now think that the possibility of understanding is a stake. If someone from another culture comes to my office and says, "I hurt," and explains why, I think I can understand. I have experienced life and I know what it is to hurt. Those of us who reject Terence Hawkes's position do so because we want to establish a common ground for understanding. Hawkes would seem to be saying that we can only understand others who share our culture, and I'm not sure how narrowly he describes "culture." Is it possible that I just do not understand this Welshman and his Dragon? And if we cannot understand across cultures, we surely cannot understand across history. Shakespeare is doubly distanced from us by both time and by a different modus vivendi. And if we take this cultural isolationism one step further, we realize that each of us is subjectively isolated. The brain beneath the skull stands in absolute isolation. How can I understand what you feel, what you say? I reject this isolationist point of view because I believe that we can understand Shakespeare's plays. We may not live the way Shakespeare lived, but we can understand how and why a human could and would live as Shakespeare lived. Of course, Mr. Hawkes will tell me that I am totally deluded, totally determined by my culture into believing that I can understand. But since he is also caught inside his culture, completely time-bound, as myopic as the next scholar, how can he KNOW this? No, I'll keep arguing that we do have a basis in human experience for understanding each other and for the humans that have come before us. We eat and have eaten; we copulate and have copulated; and we die. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 08:06:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0102 Another Landmark for SHAKSPER Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0102. Wednesday, 9 February 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Wednesday, February 9, 1994 Subject: Another Landmark for SHAKSPER Dear SHAKSPEReans, On October 3, 1993, I announced that SHAKSPER's membership had passed the 400 mark. I am pleased to announce today that as of Friday, February 4, 1994, SHAKSPER has more than 500 members. This phenomenal growth reflects the vitality of our conference. With this growth comes new ideas, new questions, and new perspectives from which we all benefit. On the administrative side, however, more members can mean more work for me as your editor and for the University of Toronto's LISTSERV Maintainer, Steve Younker, to whom we all owe an enormous debt. To reduce the number of error messages that are sent to me and to Steve Younker, it particularly important that if you are going to be away from your accounts for an extended period that you use the NOMAIL option and that if your account is going to become inactive that you SIGNOFF at that address. I have every expectation that SHAKSPER will continue to grow and thrive. Below you will find the current version of the SHAKSPER Announcement, which you can download to share with colleagues and friends who may be interested in joining us. Let me close by thanking all of you for making SHAKSPER the exciting international conference it is. Thanks, Hardy M. Cook Editor ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` S H A K S P E R: The Global Electronic Shakespeare Conference SHAKSPER is the international electronic conference for Shakespearean researchers, instructors, students, and those who share their academic interests and concerns. It currently involves more than 500 SHAKSPEReans (many of whom are prominent scholars), from Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Canada and the United States. SHAKSPER has been mentioned in *Canadian Humanities Computing*, *REACH*, the *Shakespeare Bulletin*, the *Shakespeare Newsletter*, the *SAA Bulletin*, *Cahiers Elisabethaines*, *Shakespeare Jahrbuch*, a NCTE volume on teaching Shakespeare, *Shakespeare Quarterly*, and many more places. Like the national and international Shakespeare Association conferences, SHAKSPER offers announcements and bulletins, scholarly papers, and the formal exchange of ideas -- but SHAKSPER also offers ongoing opportunities for spontaneous informal discussion, eavesdropping, peer review, and a fresh sense of worldwide scholarly community. Furthermore, all these benefits are yours without any travel or expense, beyond whatever you or your institution may have to pay for electronic mail itself. The SHAKSPER Fileserver offers conference papers and abstracts, an International Directory of Shakespeare Institutes, biographies of conference members, and a variety of announcements and bibliographies. Members of a number of seminars at the upcoming Shakespeare Association of America Conference will find their colleagues ready to share papers, comments, and strategies in advance. The daily SHAKSPER digests are organized by subject for the reader's convenience, based on the model of the Bitnet seminar HUMANIST. Conference announcements, Shakespeare Association bulletins, member notes and queries, book and theatre reviews, textual debate, discussion of lecture strategies -- SHAKSPER has already logged all this and much more. (And although computer technology plays an obvious role in the medium of discussion, it does not dominate the actual content of SHAKSPER's discussion.) Technically, SHAKSPER is a Listserv "list" running under VM/CMS on an IBM 4381 at the University of Toronto, Canada. It is known as on NetNorth/CAnet in Canada; Bitnet in the United States, South America and Asia; EARN in Europe, Africa, and Asia; ANSP in Brazil; and GULFNET in the Arabian Peninsula. The list editor, Hardy M. Cook, is an Associate Professor of English at Bowie State University in Maryland, and can be contacted at or . No academic qualifications are required for membership in SHAKSPER, and anyone interested in English Literature, the Renaissance, or Drama is welcome to join us. Write to the editor, or issue the command "TELL LISTSERV@utoronto SUB SHAKSPER firstname lastname," and you will receive a more detailed information file with further instructions for becoming a SHAKSPERean. (SHAKSPER is not open to automatic subscription, but no one is refused.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 07:22:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0103 Re: The Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0103. Thursday, 10 February 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 09 Feb 1994 09:59:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition (2) From: David McFadden Date: Wednesday, 9 Feb 1994 12:55:37 -0500 Subj: Insomnia (3) From: Nina Walker Date: Wednesday, 9 Feb 1994 12:58:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 09 Feb 1994 09:59:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition Bill: You've been going out on a limb the past few days and taking the fire on behalf of a lot of your fellow humanists. I, for one, am grateful, and will stick my neck out, too. I know that there is a strong case to be made that we are all (each of us) different from one another and that the specific quality of those differences is worth study. But it is easier to see differences than to see similarities (the old cognitive question: how do we know that that straight-backed wooden thing in the library and that overstuffed ugly green thing in the livingroom are both "chairs"?). The object of our study should be (yes, I know that is a prescriptive statement) how we forge a society out these many differences: what do we share in common (heartbeat, death, etc.) and (here is where the study of differences comes in) what can we learn about life from the responses of others to those common experiences -- responses that may be completely different from our own, or that may be similar, but so much better stated than our own halting efforts. Perhaps it takes a leap of faith to be a humanist these days (or ever); if so, _credo_. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (202) 687-4478 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David McFadden Date: Wednesday, 9 Feb 1994 12:55:37 -0500 Subject: Insomnia Bill Godshalk: Good heavens, sir, I hope your insomnia wasn't induced by the Great Absolute Debate. I should think the opposite would be the case, for one of the several Great Absolutes in the human condition is that the Great Absolute Debate is deadly boring. To allow it to keep you awake at night would be playing right into the hands of these young whippersnappers who are forever going around moaning and groaning and weeping and wailing that there are no absolutes. It's positively evil, it is, the way they are allowed to go around like that, trying their utmost to upset our complacency, with their chains, leather jackets, tattoos, shaved heads and their fake airs of Wagnerian romanticism. Doesn't Martin Amis have a good go at these guys in one of his recent novels? Well, they're not going to upset my complacency. If I lose sleep it'll be for a better reason than that, for it's axiomatic that there are absolutes in the human condition, and beyond that, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an absolute idiot. David W. McFadden (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nina Walker Date: Wednesday, 9 Feb 1994 12:58:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition Finally, it seems to me, Mr. Godshalk hits the point, driven to it by Piers Lewis's pertinent question. Let me add to it by submitting 1) Without universal experience none of us would be reading Shakespeare; 2) Without universal experience Shakespeare would not have written (or perhaps could not have written.) Before you ignore these large assumptions Mr. Hawkes, please answer me this: Why do YOU read Shakespeare? What do you expect to gain? Why would you teach Shakespeare? Using your logic, what good could students possibly gain from the study? Beyond that, why would anyone bother with anthropology and, since you appear to be its champion, history? Sincerely, Nina Walker ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 07:35:20 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0104 Universality Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0104. Thursday, 10 February 1994. From: Michael Sharpston Date: Wednesday, 09 Feb 1994 13:26:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Universality: Changes in What is Perceived I am taking the liberty of submitting a cross-posting from Arthurnet. In the debate on universality, perhaps my error, but I did not see mention of the fact that different ages can perceive the same material (King Arthur, Hamlet) differently, and that this can have the effect of *preserving* the topicality and relevance of such material. I remember being struck by how literary criticism of Hamlet in particular tends to tell one more about the critic than the character in Shakespeare (Bernard Shaw and TS Eliot come to mind in this connection, but that is from memory). So is the universality of Shakespeare (for the faithful) somehow illusory? Or do different facets of the jewel catch the eye of different beholders? Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: hck1@cornell.edu (Lisa Cameron Krakowka) Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 19:34:00 EST Subject: Re: American Arthuriana >Mark writes: >The more important question, it seems to me, is why Arthur and not >Charlemagne or Robin Hood or Siegfried. My own view is that Arthur's >actions can admit of a variety of motives, so that his personality can be >varied to suit the particular time of the writer. Thus, Geoffrey wanted >a military leader, and Arthur fit the bill; T. H. White wanted a >pacifist, and Arthur fit the bill. But his actions remained essentially >the same. He is a great expression of the culture of a society. Even >Marion Bradley's book reflects her own time more than Arthur's own. I'm convinced that Arthur's longevity is directly related to exactly this. He has a unique ability to span the ages and suit the societal needs of the times. He's a chameleon of sorts...yet the truly wonderful part of the legends is that they are "set" (the stories are already defined) but they too have this ability to span the ages. Here's this hero who's dated back to the (approximate) 5th century, but his problems are the same as those we're having today..we can relate to them very easily. They and he appeal to the common human psyche above and beyond cultural/societal differences related to the time of publication. Just my two cents... Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 07:40:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0105 The Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0105. Thursday, 10 February 1994. From: Robert Knapp Date: Wednesday, 9 Feb 94 16:00:53 U Subject: The Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference The Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference Reed College, Portland OR 18-19 March 1994 beating the bounds: the formation and interaction of the disciplines in early modern europe Plenary Speakers: Lorraine Daston Professor of History and History of Science Department of History, University of Chicago "Curiosity in Modern Science" Lorraine Helms San Francisco Clown School A True History of Shakespeare's English Chronicles, with Various Reflections on Theatre, Scholarship, Memory, and Lament, and including A New Play, Never Before Presented, of Queen Margaret Thomas Laqueur Professor of History Department of History, University of California at Berkeley `And none else of name': Remembering the Dead from Shakespeare to the Great War For registration information, please contact: Robert S. Knapp Department of English Reed College Portland, OR 97202 FAX 503-777-7769 knapp@reed.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 07:46:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0106 Psychotic Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0106. Thursday, 10 February 1994. From: Robert F. O'Connor Date: Thursday, 10 Feb 1994 10:32:15 +1000 Subject: Psychotic Macbeth Dear SHAKSPEReans, John Bell, formerly of the RSC, now runs a privately-funded group, the Bell Shakespeare Company, here in Australia. Over the past few years they have toured extensively, usually performing three plays in repertory. This year they are performing 'The Taming of the Shrew' and 'Macbeth'. , the common theme being the issue of marriage. In a recent interview, Bell - who will be playing Macbeth - stated that he was: "researching serial killers and sex murderers because I think those things are very much part of _Macbeth_ . . . I have been struck by the number of couples, men and women teams, who have engaged in serial killing, perversion and ambitious takeovers because of the impotence of the marriage, a relationship that is hollow at its centre." I have read a number of psychoanalytic critiques of 'Macbeth' lately, and I can certainly see the connections that could be established between serial killers or sex offenders and the sexual violence in the play, but I can't help but think that this kind of approach over-psychologises Macbeth's motivations - as did a local production I saw last year which drastically reduced the appearances of the Weird Sisters. I would like to know what other SHAKSPEReans think of Bell's proposition, or if similar approaches have been tried in recent productions overseas. ta Robert F. O'Connor ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 09:48:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0107. Friday, 11 February 1994. (1) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Thursday, 10 Feb 94 13:58:06 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0100 Re: The Human Condition (2) From: Gareth M. Euridge Date: Thursday, 10 Feb 94 12:25:34 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0103 Re: The Human Condition (3) From: Jeffery Taylor Date: Thursday, 10 February 1994, 11:23:25 CST Subj: Universals (4) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 10:35 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition (5) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 11:55 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0103 Re: The Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Thursday, 10 Feb 94 13:58:06 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0100 Re: The Human Condition > I think we can agree with Pat Buckridge that not all human experiences are > experienced by all humans. Men do not get pregnant, for example. But all live > humans experience a beating heart. And I think we can be skeptical about an > assertion that we all experience a beating heart in the same way. But we all > have the experience, or we'd be dead. > > That's all, but it's a place to begin building a bridge out to other humans, > eh? > > Bill Godshalk > Bill, You (and others) might be interested in the following remark from Wittgenstein, who is usually credited with starting all this relativist rot in the first place (see E. Gellner, for example): "The common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by which we interpret an unknown language", _Philosophical Investigations_, 206. David Schalkwyk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gareth M. Euridge Date: Thursday, 10 Feb 94 12:25:34 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0103 Re: The Human Condition I know that there is such a thing as universality, the human condition, because The Ohio State Univ. bulletin tells me it exists - the blurb for intro to Shakespeare informs me that I am supposed to teach/convey/transmit it to undergrads, but, more seriously, and perhaps more pedagogically relevantly, does not that human condition also change dependent upon our ages? For example, as a child I seem to remember that "hunger," in all its various possible constructs, was a far more pressing "reality" to me then than now. But, more than this, I find it increasingly hard to understand what my students (18-20 yrs) find most interesting, most recognizable, in Shakespeare. I have little time for the gushings of Romeojulietesque love, and yet find, say, sonnet 138 a far more telling representation of human experience, the complexities of our relationships with others. My students, however, seem to respond to the former far more readily than they do to the latter, which perhaps understandably, leaves them perplexed, confused, and uninterested. Can I "understand" Lear, for example, when I am in my twenties, or must I perhaps wait until I too share his age, live in the construct of that age? (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeffery Taylor Date: Thursday, 10 February 1994, 11:23:25 CST Subject: Universals No need for anger here. There simply are NO UNIVERSALS to human experience. Anyone who believes that there are has not thoroughly examined the Mulitcultural / Cultural Relativist position. All human experience is mediated by cultural meanings and is embedded in context. For humanist to ignore these assertions without examining the evidence is silly. Idealists have been arguing for Universals for 2500 years to no avail. Why can't we be interested in Shakespeare without the existence of universals?? Idealists do usually just get angry when their positions are attacked rather than showing real arguments. This is not religion here folks; this is academics. If you are going to militate against Popper, Douglas and Geertz please arm yourselves first with weapons more powerful than arrogant insistance. I challenge anyone (on or off the list) to come up with ONE instance of Universal human experience. The beauty of Shakespeare is in the works themselves, not some Universal appeal. We can fear the resplendent divergence of humanity or we can enjoy it. But why fear the lack of formal systems in our lives when we can enjoy the creative processes of existence instead? Jefferey Taylor Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 10:35 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0101 Re: The Human Condition I'm sorry if my remarks have caused Bill Godshalk to have insomnia. Oddly enough, his tend to have quite a different effect on me. >>If someone from another culture comes to my office and says, "I hurt," and explains why, I think I can understand. I have experienced life and I know what it is to hurt.<< Gosh, Bill. Of course, we post-modernists simply curl our lips and tell them we never change grades. Feelin' no pain-- T. Hawkes (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 11:55 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0103 Re: The Human Condition Dear Nina Walker: >>Mr. Hawkes, please answer me this: Why do YOU read Shakespeare? What do you expect to gain? Why would you teach Shakespeare? Using your logic, what good could students possibly gain from the study? Beyond that, why would anyone bother with anthropology and, since you appear to be its champion, history?<<< 1. He'd probably do the same for me. 2. Riches, fame. A new CD player would be nice. 3. Because he couldn't spell, or punctuate, and hadn't read most of the authors on the National Curriculum. Bit of a disgrace, really. 4. Using my logic, not a lot. How's yours doing? 5. Well, call me a sentimental old baggage, Nina, but both subjects do offer to tell us a bit about (I wonder if you're ready for this?) the DIFFERENCES between folk. Actually, so (I just KNOW you're not ready for this, but we champions brook no delays) does the study of SHAKESPEARE. PS I need a good grade. T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 09:55:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0108 Theater Guide Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0108. Friday, 11 February 1994. From: Daniel Traister Date: Thursday, 10 Feb 1994 12:05:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcing New Theater Guide (NOTE: This message is being cross-posted. Apologies for duplications) *ANNOUNCING* ___________________________________________________________________ _Guide to Theater Resources on the Internet_ By Deborah A. Torres and Martha Vander Kolk School of Information and Library Studies University of Michigan ___________________________________________________________________ The guide, which is about 47K, is available in the following ways: anonymous FTP: host: una.hh.lib.umich.edu path: /inetdirsstacks/theater:torresmjvk Gopher: via U. Minnesota list of gophers menu: North America/USA/Michigan/Clearinghouse of Subject-Oriented Resource Guides/All Guides or Guides on the Humanities/Theater; D.Torres, M. Vander Kolk Gopher .link file: Name=Clearinghouse of Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides (UMich) Type=1 Port=70 Path=1/inetdirs Host=una.hh.lib.umich.edu Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for WWW/Mosaic: http://http2.sils.umich.edu/~lou/chhome.html or gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/00/inetdirsstacks/theater%3atorresmjvk This guide is the product of a course entitled _Internet: Resource Discovery and Organization_ taught by Dr. Joseph W. Janes and Louis Rosenfeld, Ph.D. student of the School of Information and Library Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Students in the course were instructed in Internet tool usage and resource discovery approaches with the goal of creating ASCII text guides identifying and evaluating the quality of the resources in specific subject areas. Some of these guides will be available as HTML documents as well. Comments and feedback regarding this guide are welcome. Both Deb and Martha will be away for a week during the Holidays, so there may be a delay in responding to e-mail sent during this period. Another guide to theater resources we like to mention is: __________________________________________________________________ Ken McCoy's _Guide to Internet Resources in Theatre and Peformance Studies_ Ken's guide also is available in the Clearinghouse of Subject-Oriented Resource Guides. _________________________________________________________________ Thank you to all of you in cyberspace who helped us with this project. ***************************************************************** Deborah A. Torres | sils.theater.project@umich.edu Martha Vander Kolk | sils.theater.project@umich.edu School of Information and Library Studies University of Michigan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 11:47:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0110 Spinoffs Again Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0110. Saturday, 12 February 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 13:30 EDT Subj: Spin-offs Again (!) (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 12:55:43 -0600 Subj: SPINOFF BIBLIO (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 13:30 EDT Subject: Spin-offs Again (!) This is to announce three new spin-offs by one of our own, David McFadden, who has three new poems in the current issue of *The Malahat Review* 105 (Dec.93): "Timon of Athens", "Much Ado About Nothing", and "Blue Angel" (much Marlene, of course, but much Sonnet 32, too). Nifty poems. I took the "Much Ado" poem into my closing class on the play yesterday, read it to the class a few times, and let it open up corners of the play we hadn't been right into. My students liked the poem a lot, and they were fascinated to listen to a poet reading the play and reading the film and talking about a need for the "imaginative bower" at the centre of comedy, the place "Where Don John, a man of few words, Can freeze our hearts and kill our love." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 12:55:43 -0600 Subject: SPINOFF BIBLIO Here are a few things that could be added: under the Henriad: the director of *My Own Private Idaho* is Gus Van Sant Kenneth Branagh, *Henry V* (screen adaptation, London: Chatto & Windus, 1989) under Macbeth: the director of *Men of Respect* is William Riley under The Merchant of Venice: two related novels are Faye Kellerman, *The Quality of Mercy* (Ballantine Books, 1989) Erica Jong, *Serenissima* (Houghton Mifflin, 1987) Much Ado About Nothing Kenneth Branagh, *Much Ado About Nothing* (screenplay, introduction, and notes; New York & London: Norton, 1993) under Miscellaneous: Anthony Burgess, *Nothing Like the Sun* (novel, Ballantine Books, 1965) Cowell, Stephanie, *Nicholas Cooke* (novel, 1993) Regards, Chris Gordon/English, University of Minnesota [The SPINOFF BIBLIO file has been updated based upon the information in these two posting. If David or Skip would send me the names of the individual poems, I will make a separate entry for each. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 11:51:52 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0111 TDR: The Journal of Performance Studies Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0111. Saturday, 12 February 1994. From: Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 13:27:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcement - TDR: the journal of performance studies Dear listowner: we thought your subscribers would be interested in knowing about the latest issue of TDR. If you agree, please post the following announcement to your list. Thanks. ...you probably heard of us, but when is the last time you read... __________________________________________________________________ ________________ _____________ _____________ /_______________/| /____________ \ /____________ \ |||||||||||||||||/ |||||||||||||\ \ |||||||||||||\ \ |||| | |||| | |||\ \ |||| | |||\ \ |||| | |||| | |||\ \ |||| |______||||/ |||| | |||| | |||| | ||||/______||||/ |||| | |||| | ||||/ |||||||||||||\ \ |||| | |||| |______||||/ |||| | ||||\ \ |||| | ||||/______||||/ |||| | ||||\ \ ||||/ ||||||||||||||/ ||||/ ||||\/ __________________________________________________________________ The Journal of Performance Studies T140 (Winter 1993) TDR is the only journal that explores the diverse world of performance with an emphasis on the intercultural, interdisciplinary and experimental. It covers theater, dance, entertainment, media, sports, aesthetics of everyday life, politics, games, play, and ritual. TDR is edited by Richard Schechner of the Department of Performance Studies, New York University, and published quarterly by MIT Press. Now, TDR has joined the Internet community! The TDR_FORUM: on the discussion list Perform-L, you can participate in a forum that will focus the the latest issue with both contributing authors and fellow readers. See instructions below. You can browse through a sample article on the Electronic Newsstand. You can subscribe through MIT or the Electronic Newsstand. See directions below. Check out our table of contents: ------------------------------------------------------------------- // In this issue (T140 - Winter 1993) \\ ---------------------------------------- - Towards the 21st Century - TDR Comment by Richard Schechner (editor) - Performing the Texts of Virtual Reality and Interactive Fiction - by J. Yellowlees Douglas - Magister Macintosh: Shuffled Notes on Hypertext Writing - by Richard Gess - The Word Becomes You: interview with Anna Deavere Smith - by Carol Martin - Anna Deavere Smith: Acting as Incorporation - by Richard Schechner - Shapiro and Shaliko: Techniques of Testimony - by Richard Kramer - Shaliko in Pictures, Shapiro in Words - by Leonardo Shapiro - Leaving Town Up and Down - by Leonardo Shapiro - Babilonia in Buenos Aires: An Interview with Javier Grosman - by Elzbieta Szoka - Operation Mallfinger: Invisible Theatre in a Popular Context - by Jonathan M. Gray - Casting the Audience - By Natalie Crohn Schmitt - Happenings in Europe in the '60s - by Gunter Berghaus - Book review essays by Richard Trousdell, Edith Turner, and David J. DeRose Each TDR issue is provocative in content, with photographs, artwork, and scripts illustrating every article. The journal, founded in 1955, is 7 x 10, and a 184 pages per issue. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- // Join our electronic TDR_Forum on Perform-L \\ ------------------------------------------------ We invite you to join us in a discussion of the latest issue of TDR, featuring an article by Richard Gess - "Magister Macintosh: Shuffled Notes on Hypertext Writing." Meet the author and fellow subscribers. To subscribe to perform-l, send e-mail to: mailserv@acfcluster.nyu.edu, no subject, the only message being "sub perform-l yourrealname". To download Gess's artictle via anonymous ftp: ftp acfcluster.nyu.edu, cd perform get tdrgess.txt. quit To get Gess's article via e-mail: Send e-mail to: mailserv@acfcluster.nyu.edu Leave subject blank Put only one line in the letter: send [anonymous.perform]tdrgess.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- // Come browse and subscribe \\ ------------------------------- 1. The Electronic Newsstand You can browse through an article from our latest issue on the Electronic Newsstand. On Gopher, go to: massachusetts/MIT/Interesting Sites to Explore/Electronic Newsstand/all titles/TDR:The Drama Review/ To subscribe to TDR through the Electronic Newsstand, send your name and address to: the_drama_review@enews.com. Or call: 1-800-40-ENEWS. 2. MIT Press Online You can explore the MIT Press Online Catalogue and obtain subscription information: telnet techinfo.mit.edu. Choose: Around MIT/MIT Press/ journals/arts/. Through Gopher go to: USA/massachusetts/ MIT. To subscribe to TDR through MIT, send e-mail to: journals-orders@mit.edu. MIT Press Journals, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1399 USA. Tel: 617/253-2889 Fax: 617/258-6779. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 11:33:53 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0109 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0109. Saturday, 12 February 1994. (1) From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 9:22:34 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (2) From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 10:38:13 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 12:42:18 -0600 Subj: the human condition et al. (4) From: Gardner Campbell Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 15:29:33 -0800 (PST) Subj: Humanity again (5) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 18:16 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (6) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 20:46:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 9:22:34 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition > No need for anger here. There simply are NO UNIVERSALS to > human experience. Anyone who believes that there are has not > thoroughly examined the Multicultural / Cultural Relativist > position . . . > For humanists to ignore these assertions without examining the > evidence is silly. Idealists have been arguing for Universals > for 2500 years to no avail . . . > Idealists do usually just get angry when their positions > are attacked rather than showing real arguments. This is not > religion here folks; this is academics. If you are going to > militate against Popper, Douglas and Geertz please arm > yourselves first with weapons more powerful than arrogant > insistence . . . No need for anger here. There simply ARE UNIVERSALS. Anyone who believes otherwise has not thoroughly examined the Idealist position. For Cultural Relativists to ignore these assertions without examining the evidence is silly. If you are going to militate against 2,500 years of Idealism please arm yourself first with weapons more powerful than the mere invocation of names like *Popper, Douglas and Geertz.* Yours humbly, David Wilson-Okamura (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 10:38:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition As I read Jefferey Taylor's contribution to this debate, I began to behave rather like a sports fan, saying "right on" and even lifting a clenched fist in the spirit of comradeship his denial of universals evoked--until I got to the dread phrase "The beauty of Shakespeare is in the works themselves, not some Universal appeal" Suddenly, I felt as if I were experiencing a time warp, transported to an earlier generation, where the only possible argument against TIMELESS beauty was indeed the appeal to the FORMAL beauties of "the work." How did this anachronism manage to sneak into a debate that is being waged on a totally different terrain? Barbara Simerka Davidson College (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 12:42:18 -0600 Subject: the human condition et al. Well, it certainly is delightful to jump into the middle of this discussion. As a new member of the conference, passionate lover of Shakespeare, supporter of the possibility that we have much in common as human beings as well as significant differences, I find it energizing to hear everyone talking about these issues. I have become rather tired of those who desperately want to ignore our common humanity and label us all very careful (I have only half-facetiously suggested that I have a t-shirt made that reads: female, politically incorrect feminist, Catholic by birth, Jew by choice, Taoist by inclination, Polish-American, working class origin, advanced degree in English literature to make sure everyone knows precisely who I am). But most of the time I don't think about these varied aspects of my self, though I certainly respond to life out of them and their interactions. The older I get, the more I want to bridge differences, learn from them, and share the many things I believe we do have in common. It's a pleasure to meet you all. Chris Gordon, English, University of Minnesota (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gardner Campbell Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 15:29:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humanity again In reply to Professor Hawkes, I cannot see how differences can be perceived at all, much less said to matter (aside from the possibility of conning gullible students into subsidizing my CD habit), unless *shared* experience exists. *Shared* experience. Can we talk about that, instead of about universals? As several folks have rightly noted, talk about universals is, in one way or another, an expression of dogma. Now, of course, one's dogma may actually be true--one can hope that belief is belief in *something*, and not simply a delusion--but leave that question aside for the moment. Instead, can we talk about *shared* experience, not "universal experience"? *Shared* experience may not be "universal," and the meaning or significance ascribed to shared experience may not *itself* be shared (though there's nothing to say it *cannot* be, or probably *won't* be, or certainly has never been); the fundamental question, however, is not "can we know infallibly?" but "can we know at all?" That is, whether any experiences are or can be universal (and I'm not saying what I think about *that*, just now anyway), *are* there such things as non-trivial *shared* experiences? And if there are, how can we know them? And if not, how do we know *anything*? And if there are, and we can know them--by inferring and studying difference, mind you, as much as we infer and study similarity-- how may we attend to them and assess their importance to our own lives in all our communities, intellectual, academic, political, religious, familial, etc.? Two more thoughts in this insufferably abstract post. The claim that there are NO universals is of course itself a universalist claim. Easy point. Nevertheless: is Professor Hawkes willing to assert that there is no such thing as *shared experience*, that every identity forms itself in absolute experiential isolation? The final thought. If there is no such thing as shared experience, if our own lives have absolutely nothing in common with anyone else's in Jacobean London--let alone in our classrooms, our homes, or our political alliances--then what in the world do the poor actors do when they walk out on a stage and utter lines? What of the *actors*? Never mind the writers and readers. If there is no significant shared experience, why be an actor? *How* be an actor? And why should an audience pay good money to see people gamely (or gullibly) sustain the illusion of spoken, witnessed, lived community? Enough, or too much. Gardner Campbell Campbell@teetot.acusd.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Friday, 11 Feb 94 18:16 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Well, it is good to see Terry H. laying about with both hands, and it is tough on those who would bring order out of chaos, but would it not be helpful if we adopted, at least in Shakespeare studies, two rules? RULE ONE: There are NO rules. RULE TWO: Anyone who disagrees must construct and defend RULE ONE. I hope this helps; I can't see how it could hurt. William Proctor Williams Department of English Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 11 Feb 1994 20:46:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0107 Re: Universals and the Human Condition One more shot in the Great Debate. I forgot about breathing. I'll bet ya that all live humans breathe. So breathing is a universal experience among living humans. Of course, as far as I know, rocks don't breathe, so "universal" is really the wrong word. Yes, quite wrong. But there are common human experiences. I find it counterintuitive to think otherwise. If we do not have common experiences, then the category of "human" must be thrown out. Your friend, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 13:39:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0112. Sunday, 13 February 1994. (1) From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 12 Feb 1994 20:00:07 +0100 Subj: NO RULES!!!! (?) (2) From: Jefferey Taylor Date: Saturday, 12 February 1994, 23:51:36 CST Subj: Breathing Universals, Expelling Singularities (3) From: Piers Lewis Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 1994 10:31:03 -0600 (CST) Subj: human condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 12 Feb 1994 20:00:07 +0100 Subject: NO RULES!!!! (?) Dear all, I am really grateful to WP Williams for the gust of fresh air which he brought into the 'universal' v/ 'idio(t?)syncratic' controversy that's been raging on this list for some time. Dogmaticism had never been a feature of this list's discussions until Prof T Hawkes joined in, and this may be considered as THE novelty which his provocations introduced amongst us. One may prefer healthier provocations and innovations... But let me try to be more positive than the late discussions have been I am back to SHAKSPER after about four months, and I am discovering an unpleasant atmosphere of ideological denunciation. Never before to my knowledge had anyone insulted another member of this list before T. Hawkes did so a few days ago in response to exarcerbated list-fellows who did not deserve contempt for disagreeing with him (nor anyone for disagreeing with anyone else in a democratic intellectual context, unless the existence of dictatorships should be a cause for behaving as if there were no such thing as democracy and toleration). If cultural relativism is anything to go by, as a French Professor of 17th-century English political ideas, Paris-born, working near the Mediterranean sea, of working-class origin and holding university degrees, a heterosexual socialist voter and practicing Catholic, whisky tippler and pipe-smoker, only 9 years old in 1968, what should my position be if those contradictory determinations were to impose anything on me? I was brought up in the state-schools of France, where the main principle of education is what we term 'laiciti', viz. ideological, political and religious neutrality, so that everyone can go to the same school, be a citizen of the republic and choose his/her ideas and beliefs according to his/her conscience in due respect for other people's beliefs, whether they were citizens of the same country, members of the same 'race' or not. We never have any 'assemblies', salute to the colours, religious services or even religious education in the curriculum. And we fare none the worse for it! All political parties (except the National Front of course) favour 'Integration' against communitarianism. I wish members of this list became more addicted to the spirit of 'laiciti', as they seeemed to be some time ago. It is important to debate theoretical matters in connection with literary works, but please let us not confuse this SHAKSPER list with a political forum. There is enough politics in the Shakespearean texts to fight with without adding our present disagreements. As we shall disagree anyway, let us disagree on something that we are 'here' to discuss. I also discovered today in a post that 'text' could be perceived by some as a reactionary concept, as if a descriptive concept could be ideologically connotated, or a methodological approach morally objectionable. Text as textual scholars study it or as the structuralists and formalists study it and theorize it are two different things, and they are legitimate objects, since there are people who produce intelligent and fruitful research with them, and which they are as free to study as any person to sow roses or potatoes in their garden if they've got one, or eat flesh, eggs or fish on Fridays or avoid pork meat. Be tolerant of each other's work and opinions, or this list is likely to become some folk's battlefield or exclusive hunting ground, as in feudal days. Feudal priviledges were abolished in my country on August 4th 1789, so let's not do as if academic thought was not free from them. Sense of humour seems to have been replaced by irony and sarcasm: this is not my conception of intellectual debate; I'm sure others share this view. Last 2 points: I was told that UNESCO (one more universalist thinggum some will say) declares 1995 'year of toleration'; I agree that those 'years of something' are nothing very efficient. Let's give it more serious thought than UNESCO ever will: if there are countries and parties and journals where toleration is a word without substance, let's hope that our list(s) won't become the same because of the sheer silence of those who dare not oppose the overbearing intolerance of a few people. A last thing: REMEMBER SALMAN, and keep wondering every day what you've done for him, and if you've done nothing to promote toleration, you missed something. Terence Hawkes: you CAN & MUST voice your ideas but why insult people when they react? Why invite violent provocation with violent provocation? Strong ideas deserve debate, but don't require hammering if there's some truth in them; persuasion's the thing. Remember Salman next time you drink somebody's health: February 14th (I'm writing this on the 12th) is the 5th anniversary of the fatwa, so let's not make it legitimate by excommunicating each other. And as my Montpellier colleague Francois Rabelais would have said in the 1530-s: buvez frais (drink your wine --or ale, or milk-- cool...). Yours for all that, Luc **************************************************** *Luc Borot * *Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines * *Universite Paul Valery * *Montpellier (France) * **************************************************** (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jefferey Taylor Date: Saturday, 12 February 1994, 23:51:36 CST Subject: Breathing Universals, Expelling Singularities I'll admit I was feeling devious the other day in my rant against idealism and universals, and thanks to David Wilson-Okamura for supplying the correct response (which was half my point after all.) We must have a dialogue, even if just in non-sound bites between us. For example, Barbara Simerka points out that saying the beauty of Shakespeare is in the work itself could be read as an appeal to formalism. But I rather intended it as nominalism or pragmatism: Aureolus says "omnis res est se ipsa singularis et per nihil aliud"-- "everything is individual by virture of itself and by nothing else." (Panofsky's trans.) Shakespeare's work is what it is, not a reflection of a great universal spirit. What beauty one finds in it has to do with one's own context, and, obviously, many people find no beauty in Shakespeare at all, and there's no reason why they should. I do. Yes, we can have shared experience, and need to in order to have meaning in experience, but that does not mean that meaning, then, bubbles up from a universal source. If you look hard enough you can find human beings who have very little in common with you or anyone else that might be reading this off a computer screen. With apologies to Dr. Godshalk, let me suggest that an appeal to common biology, such as breathing or pain, is an often tried but flawed appeal. For one, there are people who are very different from the rest of the world who live and breathe in places where we would not be able to breathe well enough to live. But more important, the appeal to biology ignores the observation that the meanings we attach to experience are determined by our contexts and choices. A breath is not a singular, universal thing: first breath, last breath, a gasp of joy or fear, or gassed in a damp fox-hole or on a campus in protest, or the smell of a rose by any name. But let me choose pain for a thought experiement: three people of similar biology experience similar damage to their noses is three different contexts. The first woman is having her nose pierced by a friend for esthetic reasons in a flat in NY. The second woman is having her nose pierced by a shaman who is thereby initiating her into adulthood for which moment she has been preparing all her life and fasting these past three days. The third woman is being assaulted by a lunatic jabbing a pin in her nose at a bus stop. The similarity of signals from the pain receptors of these three individuals is trivial, the context and attached meanings are what the experience really is for each of them. When I breathe I usually take no note of it and so it does not fall in the realm of meaningful experience. If I focus on my respiration, I'll probably construct it as my blood receiving oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide, something that I don't believe Shakespeare had in mind when using the word 'breath.' And I am finally out of e-breath. Jefferey Taylor Southern Illinois University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 1994 10:31:03 -0600 (CST) Subject: human condition Remember Alice's conversation with Humpty Dumpty in THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS? Humpty Dumpty has been taking satisfaction in the fact that every year you have 364 opportunities for un-birthday presents, "and only ONE for birthday presents." And he adds: "There's glory for you." "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you'!" "But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-- that's all." If reality is 'socially constructed,' as they say, so's language. And Humpty Dumpty is correct. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 13:42:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0113 Ohio Shakespeare Conference -- Hotel Rooms Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0113. Sunday, 13 February 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 12 Feb 1994 22:44:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ohio Shakespeare Conference - Hotel Rooms The Ohio Shakespeare Conference (March 3-5) Our block of rooms at the Cincinnatian Hotel has now been made available to the general public, and March 3 is sold out. I have been informed that the Westin Hotel (1-800-228-3000) still has rooms available. The Cincinnati Terrace Hilton (1-513-381-4000) did have some rooms at $75 last week. Also the Omni Netherland Plaza (1-800-843-6664) may have some rooms. But if you wish to attend the Conference and if you wish to stay in downtown Cincinnati, you must act quickly. The Cincinnati Wine Festival (with an influx of California wine makers) begins on March 3. And rooms are going fast. On the morning of February 11, the Cincinnatian still had 25 rooms available for March 3. By this afternoon (February 12), they were gone. I'm glad I made my reservations early! Bill Godshalk Secretary, 1994 Ohio Shakespeare Conference PS If you do need help finding a room, you can call me at 513-281-5927, and I'll do my best. I was able to help someone this afternoon. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 08:29:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0114 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0114. Monday, 14 February 1994. (1) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 94 18:52 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 1994 22:04:40 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (3) From: Nate Johnson Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 02:06:29 -0500 Subj: [Universals Discussion] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 94 18:52 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition All my words mean +exactly+ what I say they mean. Anyone who disagrees is looking for a fat lip! I find this discussion of the "Human Condition" pointless. What is Human? What is the Condition? Who cares? We all get up in the morning and, if we are lucky, go in to teach our Shakespeare classes; if we are unlucky we go in to teach our Comp. classes. Can we, at least, live in the real world rather than the rather exclusive world that Mr. Hawkes lives in. Have a nice day!! William Proctor Williams Department of English Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 1994 22:04:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition I have a question. If all human experience is culture specific and culture relative, how is the worldwide study of science possible? If any and all human observations are culture specific, how can any interpretation be falsified? Francis Crick in THE ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS seems to be saying that all human brains work in the same way. If brains can be observed working in the same way, the varying thoughts that we humans have are all generated in the same way. Why emphasize different cultures? Why not emphasize the similarities of the human brain? In fact, why don't we get back to discussing the texts (I risk being called a right-wing pig by the Dragon Son of Mona), the texts, I say, of Shakespeare? I just got done reading The Wells/Taylor MACBETH, with interpolations from Middleton. Or, did Shakespeare write the songs which Middleton later adapted for THE WITCH? Anybody want to discuss? Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nate Johnson Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 02:06:29 -0500 Subject: [Universals Discussion] I find the universal vs. not discussions, Luc Borot's passionate plea for dispassion included, really very entertaining. What are 500 people doing on this list and why do tempers run so high over a writer who's been dead for hundreds of years? The very existence of this ongoing discussion seems, in itself, worth taking into account. Two little bits of cultural flotsam keep popping into my head whenever I read my SHAKSPER e-mail these days. First, Bob Dylan's line: "It ain't no use talkin' to me / It's just the same as talkin' to you." Second, the great controversy in physics, "It's a wave!" "No, stupid, it's a particle..." "No, it's a wave!" --Nate Johnson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 08:37:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0115 Salman Rushdie Anniversary Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0115. Monday, 14 February 1994. From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 13 Feb 1994 13:56:30 +0100 Subject: Salman Rushdie [This posting appeared on SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing" .] >THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS BEING ISSUED FEBRUARY 14, 1994, THE >FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FATWA AGAINST SALMAN RUSHDIE. LIBRARIES >AND BOOK STORES WILL BE DISTRIBUTING COPIES OF THE STATEMENT TO >THEIR PATRONS. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE COPIES TO DISTRIBUTE, >PLEASE CONTACT THE OFFICE FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM OF THE AMERICAN >LIBRARY ASSOCIATION AT U24803@UICVM.UIC.EDU OR 1-800/545-2433 X4223. > >On February 14, 1989, the religious leader of one country issued >a death threat against a citizen of another country. Five years >later Salman Rushdie is still a man with no fixed address. > >The novel that provoked the death sentence, The Satanic Verses, >continues to be available in bookstores and libraries throughout >the United States and many other countries. But Rushdie is in >hiding, still writing nearly every day, making public >appearances on occasion - but effectively under threat, marked >as with an incandescent X on his chest and back. > >His novel is a cultural epic and so is the controversy. It >involves the anger of Britain's immigrants from Pakistan, India >and other countries. It bears strongly on the American >tradition of free expression. It includes riots and >book-burnings. It has involved mullahs, presidents, >demonstrators, diplomats -- and a murdered Japanese translator, >Hitoshi Igarashi. And it is linked to the continuing impact of >world Islam on the consciousness of the West. > >Now the world has grown smaller around this man. He is >distanced from the people who have nourished his work and >severed from the very texture of spontaneous life, the tumult of >voices and noises, the random scenes that represent the one >luxury writers thought they could take for granted. > >Not any more. > >He is alive, yes, but the principle of free expression, the >democratic shout, is far less audible than it was five years ago >-- before the death edict tightened the binds between language >and religious dogma. > >In a real sense Rushdie has become a messenger between readers >and writers. He reminds us all how sensitive and precious this >collaboration is, how deeply dependant on individual thought and >free choice. Every book carries the burden of giving offense. >But there is an intimate contract between the two participants, >a joint effort of mind and heart that allows for thoughtful >differences and that thrives on the prospect of understanding >and conciliation. > >This is where the spirit of Rushdie lives, in the narrow passage >between the writer who works in solitude and the reader whose >own living space or park bench or plane seat is "the little room >of literature" -- in Rushdie's own phrase - - the place that >will not be completely open until all marked writers are free >people again. > >What can we do? We can think about him. Try to imagine his >life. Write it in our minds as if it were the most unlikely >fiction. > >And we can hope that our government and others will exert due >pressure to return Salman Rushdie -- and all other threatened >writers -- to the world. His world and ours. More than ever it >is one place, and a shadow stretches where a man used to stand. > > >This statement is endorsed by > >THE RUSHDIE DEFENSE COMMITTEE USA > >a coalition of the major literary and civil liberties groups in >the U.S. that campaigns for the rescinding of the Iranian decree >calling for the death of Salman Rushdie and all those associated >with his novel The Satanic Verses, and for the withdrawal of the >bounty on Rushdie's head. > >COMMITTEE MEMBERS ARE American Booksellers Association, American >Booksellers Association Foundation for Free Expression, American >Library Association, Association of American Publishers, >Association of Author's Representatives, Author's Guild, The >Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, Dramatists Guild, >Feminists for Free Expression, International Writer's Center, >Human Rights Watch, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, The >Literary Network, National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, >National Coalition Against Censorship, National Writers Union, >PEN American Center, PEN Center USA West, Washington Institute >of Writers > >CO-CHAIRS Louis Begley & Ambassador Nicholas Veliotes >COORDINATOR Siobhan Dowd > >THIS STATEMENT IS ALSO SUPPORTED BY, American Institute of >Graphic Arts, Poetry Society of America > >IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SUPPORTING THE COMMITTEE'S WORK, PLEASE >WRITE TO, Rushdie Defense Committee, PEN American Center, 568 >Broadway, Suite 401, New York, NY 10012 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 08:44:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0116 Miscellaneous Questions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0116. Monday, 14 February 1994. From: Nate Johnson Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 02:19:50 -0500 Subject: Miscellaneous Questions 1. Does anyone know anything about the (anonymous?) poem "Much adoe about somethinge / or / rather much adoe about Nothinge"? It's manuscript 1706 in the Cambridge University Library (available on microfilm). Judging by the handwriting, it's mid to late 17th century. The poem begins "What have I heere a ladie Poet found / an other Sappho or Semproma..." It's quite a long poem and I'm wondering if it has been edited or transcribed before and whether anyone has ideas on who the author might be. 2. Can anyone recommend a "good" (well-written and well-thought-out) *negative* review of Branagh's *Much Ado*? I want to give my Freshman seminar one positive and one negative review. 3. I'm going to teach the "Text vs. Performance" debate as part of the same seminar and I'd like suggestions on accessible, well-written essays advocating each side. We will, of course, complicate the distinction a little, but that will come later... Any suggestions, sent either to the list or directly to me, will be appreciated! --Nate Johnson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 08:07:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0117. Tuesday, 15 February 1994. (1) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 10:29:10 -0400 Subj: Another posting on universals, hopefully the last. (2) From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 09:00:37 -0600 (CST) Subj: [Re: Universals and the Human Condition] (3) From: Richard Jordan Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 22:28:25 +1100 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 10:29:10 -0400 Subject: Another posting on universals, hopefully the last. To all and sundry: Thank god for the voices of reason on this list, piping in from Montpellier and elsewhere. Whether or not there are universals, is universally difficult to determine. Hey, there's one! Seriously, whether we can understand Shakespeare's ideas because we all derive from the same essential seed of Adam or mind of God, or because those of us claim to have some inkling of Shakespeare, however vague, just construct things in similar ways is more or less irrelevant to our appreciation of the text. The point is that we get some sort of resonance, so that we can comprehend the ideas and emotions being evoked, but which is nevertheless subversive, or at any rate different, enough to cause us thought, as it probably was for the original audience itself. I like to think that the Shakespeare-beyond- all-other-Shakespeares (to forego the usual debate about constructions of the authorial presence) probably wanted it that way. Over the years, SHAKSPER has given me some hope for electronic text as a medium. While in most other forums, the loudest, most obnoxious people tend to dominate, we have a tradition of mutual acceptance and 'laiciti', as Luc would put it, "fair play" as George Orwell would put it, or "sitting together at the table of brotherhood" as Martin Luther King, Jr., would put it. The fact that such compromise, give and take, what you will, exists in our virtual, though nevertheless very real, community is a good omen for the future of true communication, despite whatever limits are imposed by the medium. Furthermore, it borders on a damn necessity in our age of multiculturalism and global awareness. Naive as it may seem, I tend to think the world would become a better place if it would learn more from our ideal little republic of letters. Naive but sincere, I remain, Yours virtually, Sean Lawrence. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 09:00:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: [Re: Universals and the Human Condition] Thank you, Luc Borot, for that eloquent, lucid and surprisingly gentle reproof to Terence Hawkes. Mr. Hawkes likes to play the mischievous wit, it seems, and may not know how nasty he sounds. Thank you also for reminding us of the sufferings of Salman Rushdie-- and how little we in the U.S. have done in this matter is worse than that of any other western nation, for reasons that are probably related to the decline of civility you have noted in our list, which, perhaps, will be temporary because of your fine letter. Piers Lewis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Jordan Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 22:28:25 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0112 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Jefferey Taylor writes: "there are people who are very different from the rest of the world who live and breathe in places where we would not be able to breathe well enough to live. But more important, the appeal to biology ignores the observation that the meanings we attach to experience are determined by our contexts and choices." In _The Merchant of Venice_, Shylock asks Solanio and Salerio a series of questions, at the opening of Act 3: "Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed: If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?" Shylock's questions address the same problem which we are considering in our current debate: i.e. are there any universal human qualities, experiences and/or values that transcend cultural differences? Shylock's questions may be hypocritical, as his treatment of Christians seems mainly to focus on the last shared characteristic he mentions, revenge. Or Shakespeare may be directing these questions ironically toward members of his audience, some of whom would have seriously regarded Jews as devils rather than human beings (see Joshua Trachtenberg, _The Devil and the Jews_,1943). Nevertheless, it is possible, and valuable, to take these questions in a straightforward way. If we do so, the answer implied by the responses of Jefferey Taylor and other supporters of absolute cultural relativity is No, a Jew's pain is not necessarily the same thing as a ChristianUs pain. Carried to its logical extreme, this becomes: A Jew's death is not necessarily the same thing as a Christian's death. Luc Borot has made a valuable contribution in calling attention to the ethical aspects of this argument, which have so far been ignored. The denial of the universal in human experience is repugnant to logic and to biological science but also to ethics. It is repugnant to logic, because if the human race has no universal characteristics, there is no human race; if a class has no universal defining characteristics it is not a class. Absolute cultural relativism could claim the existence of different and alien races, but not of a human race. The basis of such claims as have been made here for universal human experience within the sphere of biology seems to me important and telling; and it is understandable that the supporters of relativity are not generally prepared to admit biological universality, since if we all share significant biological experiences, then it is quite possible that the social and personal consequences of those experiences might also have universal aspects to them. But, to paraphrase a noted author, Death is death, in spite of all controversy. Place a corpse before a Christian, a Jew, and an atheist, and they may well disagree about the meaning of death, but only a madman or a mystic among them would deny the fact of the biological end of life. All men are mortal is the classical major premise that makes us all one UNIVERSAL human race (and miraculous exceptions simply prove the rule). But the ethical consequences of denying universal humanity are horrendous. If, as some of us here have claimed, there are only shared experiences and values, but no universal ones, then it becomes possible to conceive of the existence of two societies (or of two individuals) with no shared qualities, i.e. with NO shared humanity If you find, or believe you have found, a society or an individual where there exists nothing in common with yourself, then -- as someone else in this discussion has already claimed -- there are no rules. If there are no universal human experiences or values linking us, then the persecution of aliens CANNOT be attacked ethically on the basis of a shared humanity; for there would be no such thing. For a Nazi to kill a Jew as an alien intruder in German society would be as justifiable as for a farmer to kill a fox in his hen house. The Jap, the Hun -- these caricatures have been the products of war propaganda machines which have aimed to make it possible to pull the trigger on the alien enemy without the guilt that would accompany doing the same thing to a human being whose humanity we believed we shared; they have succeeded because they have effectively eliminated the belief in universal human qualities in the enemy. As for the practical consequences of this debate, the value of which has been questioned, I would say two things: 1. Usefulness in the classroom is not a valid test of truth or value; this world is full of interesting things that have no pedagogic use (thank God!). 2. If you want to read _Lear_ as if its images of death, age, love, parent-child relationships, etc have no universal significance, no one will stop you, but why you would waste your time on a play about one silly old man who buggered up his life so badly is beyond me. Finally, to those who have posted angry messages claiming to be bored by this discussion: the Del key in most mail and news services deletes messages at the point after the subject heading has been listed but before the message is read. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 08:24:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0118 Rs: Middleton's Mac.; Psycho Mac.; Poem; Review Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0118. Tuesday, 15 February 1994. (1) From: James McKenna Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 00:27:21 -0500 (EST) Subj: Middleton's Macbeth (2) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 10:58:31 -0600 (CST) Subj: Bell's Psychotic Macbeth (3) From: Nancy W. Miller Date: Monday, 14 Feb 94 10:04:23 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0116 Miscellaneous Questions (4) From: Michael Skovmand Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 94 09:25:51 MET Subj: Re: SHK 5.0116 Miscellaneous Questions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 00:27:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Middleton's Macbeth I'll bite: Do songs usually appear in Middleton's recognized plays? If rarely, then we may have a pattern--that is, songs often appear in Sh's plays, so it seems likely that Middleton was engaging in his (according to Taylor and Wells) favorite activity of putting Sh to work for his own ends. Mack mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 10:58:31 -0600 (CST) Subject: Bell's Psychotic Macbeth I know that there is no practical way to rank the relative quality of various interpretive emphases, but it seems to me that casting *Macbeth* in the light of current "social crisis" obsessions is not only trivializing, but represents chrono- and cultural centrism with a vengeance. If Lear's and Macbeth's are simply examples of Dysfunctional Families, the public can get their curiousities satisfied much more directly from Oprah or Donahue. Personally, I believe that Tragedy as an art form must be ACHIEVED by an audience (as an act of interpretation), rather than its being an inherent quality of the work, and the possibility of that achievement is undermined by the production's pointing too blatantly toward pathologies (even Mary Bess Campbell's fine, old-fashioned humours theories). The audience is simply let off the hook by being invited to attribute the terrors of existence to a few "abnormal" types. What tragic proportions can we attribute to a couple who may have averted their "problems" through a timely visit to the marriage counselor? But look at the METAPHYSICAL questions raised by the Macbeths' deeds. Lady Macbeth's madness may be given its current psychological label, but the significance of that madness is that she has struck through the fabric of cultural meaning to catch a glimpse of a world of mere animal competition, mere breeding, bleeding and dying, in her attempt, ironically, to clothe herself and her husband in more substantial robes of cultural significance. Her obsessive washing is an attempt to eradicate the stain of mortality (very like the little hand in Hawthorne's "The Birthmark") and its link with empty linear time ("Tomorrow and tomorrow") that she glimpsed in the bleeding carcass of what had once been a KING. Similarly, I take Macbeth's obsession to be a magnificently magnified version of EVERY culture (speaking of a likely shared value): the attempt to give this existence meaning by linking it with some invisible cosmic plan or pattern. Hasn't he committed a cosmically significant crime? Hasn't he been promised a MIRACULOUS retribution for that crime? Are these Halloween effects and prophetic quibbles all he is going to see of the face of that avenging God? I mean, if you were going to be assured once and for all that what humans do to one another matters somewhere beyond this existence, wouldn't you be tempted to force this fugitive, peek-a-boo God into a clear manifestation of himself? Such acts, I submit, are not simply the result of psychic maladjustment, but one form of the continuing human quest to track down (in a kind of reversal of THE HOUND OF HEAVEN) that slippery old deity. To my mind, this is a project of true tragic proportions. Lonnie Durham U.of Minn. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nancy W. Miller Date: Monday, 14 Feb 94 10:04:23 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0116 Miscellaneous Questions Can Nate Johnson give me more info about the "much ado" poem? In particular, who is this lady poet it appears to be praising? Which microfilm is it on (not U of M if it's a ms.?) Thanks in advance. Nancy W. Miller nmiller@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Skovmand Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 94 09:25:51 MET Subject: Re: SHK 5.0116 Miscellaneous Questions re: negative review of Branagh's Much Ado: Richard Corliss, Time Magazine, May 10 1993. Michael Skovmand Dep't of English U. Of Aarhus Denmark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 14:08:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0119 1992 World Shakespeare Bibliography Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0119. Tuesday, 15 February 1994. From: James Harner Date: Monday, 14 Feb 1994 9:45:15 -0600 (CST) Subject: 1992 World Shakespeare Bibliography The +World Shakespeare Bibliography+ for 1992 is now at the printer. Thanks to hard-working group of international contributors, a superb office staff, and two new 486/66 computers, we have trimmed some four months off the annual production schedule. Work on the 1993 volume is well along. As usual, I want to encourage all SHAKSPER subscribers to send along copies of--or at least a citation for--their essays (scholarly and popular), reviews of books or productions, electronic media, books, and other. SHAKSPEReans will also be interested to learn planning is well along for an augmented CD-ROM cumulation of the annual volumes. (Eventually, the project will encompass 1900-present.) I hope to have a trial disk (covering at least 1990-92--and perhaps a few earlier years) ready by the end of 1994 (and at a price that individual users can easily afford). Right now, I am planning to have a hypertext-linked product that will run in the Windows environment. I would certainly welcome suggestions from SHAKSPER subscribers about features they would like to see incorporated into the CD-ROM package. Jim Harner (jlh5651@venus.tamu.edu) Editor, World Shakespeare Bibliography ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 10:42:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0120 Re: Psychotic *Macbeth* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0120 Wednesday, 20 February 1994. From: Ron Macdonald Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 10:46:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE SHK 5.0118: Psycho Mac Let me offer strong agreement with Lonnie Durham's protest against the dysfunctional tragic protagonist. The audience is, indeed, "let off the hook by being invited to atrribute the terrors of existence to a few `abnormal' types." An older version, making reductive use of a distorted Aristotelianism, identifies the hero's "flaw"-- always a moral failing-- to explain his regrettable but, after all, wholly avoidable demise. Oedipus, you see, was culpably angry, or proud, or guilty of one or more of the other Seven Deadly Sins, and, by way of punishment, the gods drove him to unspeakable deeds. And quite right they were, too. Luckily, forewarned is forearmed, so we can rest easy. And so a genuinely appalling text, one which affords an authentic glimpse of the abyss, is neatly contained by being rendered as a sort of Attic Poor Richard. Or Poor Tom, for that matter: "Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend" (_King Lear_, III.iv.96-98). Edgar as Tom 'o Bedlam suggests a regimen of clean living as a straightforward fix for human suffering, while all around him rage catastrophic events that resist any fix whatever. Shakespeare arranges to internalize traditional good counsel not that we may follow it, but that we may see how utterly impotent it is in the face of the experience the play serves up. A similar strategy is evident (less successfully, perhaps) in _Romeo and Juliet_, where Friar Lawrence, who has a fresh solution every time fate provides another twist, may be a way of internalizing in order to dismiss the attitude that finds in tragedy missed opportunities and botched stratagems that better handled would have avoided the deplorable mess tragic protagonist tend to make of things. There may be at least some justice (there is certainly no sense) in the surprisingly wide-spread and durable notion that the tragedy of the young lovers can be blamed on the Friar. My favorite instance comes from Nancy Mitford's character Uncle Matthew in _The Pursuit of Love_. This is the man, remember, who claims to have read only one book in his life, _White Fang_, and found it so terribly good that any other would be more or less bound to let him down. He is taken at one point to a provincial production of _Romeo and Juliet_ by his wife and daughter, and Fanny, a niece and the novel's narrator reports: It was not a success. He cried copiously, and went into a furious rage because it ended badly. "All the fault of that damned padre," he kept saying on the way home, still wiping his eyes. "That fella, what's 'is name, Romeo, might have known a blasted papist would mess up the whole thing. Silly old fool of a nurse too, I bet she was an R.C., dismal old bitch." As an antidote, an observation of Stephen Booth's: "Theories of the nature of tragedy are more important to us than theories of the nature of other things because theories of tragedy keep us from facing tragedy itself." --Ron Macdonald ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 10:51:34 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0121 Qs: Kingship; The Duke in MM Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0121 Wednesday, 20 February 1994. (1) From: Chantal Payette Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 11:06:11 EST Subj: question on kingship (2) From: Michael Sharpston Date: Sunday, 06 Feb 1994 13:25:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Duke in "Measure for Measure"; Bobby Ray Inman (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chantal Payette Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 11:06:11 EST Subject: question on kingship Hi, This is my first posting to this list, so I am a bit nervous. I would really appreciate it if someone, anyone, could give me a few hints or ideas concerning kingship and authority in any of or all of - Macbeth - Edward II - Richard III - King Lear What I am doing is research on the aspects of Kingship within one of these plays and it's comparison to historical reality. I haven't exactly created a proper thesis yet (if anyone has any ideas?;)) but I am working on it. I think perhaps after acquiring some concrete information through research, the thesis would become clearer. Thanks very much, Chantal Payette ITS Robarts Library University of Toronto chantal@vax.library.utoronto.ca (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sharpston Date: Sunday, 06 Feb 1994 13:25:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Duke in "Measure for Measure"; Bobby Ray Inman Courtesy of Blair Kelly III, I have just been at a reading of Measure for Measure. I was struck by the Duke's sentiments in the following passage: No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape: back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? Act III Sc ii ll. 200-203 and also this other passage, where to my perception there is no connection to the immediate context: O place and greatness! millions of false eyes Are stuck upon thee: volumes of report Run with these false and most contrarious quests Upon thy doings: thousand escapes of wit Make thee the father of their idle dream, And rack thee in their fancies! Act IV Sc i ll. 61-66 Clearly, Lucio has got to the Duke with his comments. I could not help hearing echoes of Bobby Ray Inman. I must admit that I had not realized previously that The Washington Post was very likely one of Shakespeare's key sources, almost up there with Holinshed. Does anyone know of a good and convincing character analysis of the Duke? My thanks in advance. Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org (The views expressed here, especially in regard to Shakespeare's sources, are strictly my own, and do not reflect those of my employer). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 11:11:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0122 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0122 Wednesday, 20 February 1994. (1) From: Jefferey Taylor Date: Tuesday, 15 February 1994, 10:52:04 CST Subj: Sorry to keep it going, but... (2) From: Barbara Simerka Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 15:54:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (3) From: Michael Dobson Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 94 17:27:07 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (4) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 23:40:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition (5) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 15:26:32 +1000 (EST) Subj: Ethics and the Human Condition (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jefferey Taylor Date: Tuesday, 15 February 1994, 10:52:04 CST Subject: Sorry to keep it going, but... I'm sorry to keep this argument about Universals going, but I cannot sit still while Relativism is accused of the being the source of all bigotry and racism. Quite to the contrary, it is the Idealism of Plato that insists that since we are all the same I can easily judge whether you are an Alpha Beta Gamma or Delta and therefore can decide what fate you deserve. It is Idealism that insists Rushdie must die. It is Idealism that has been the enemy of democracy and open discourse since its beginning. As soon as one claims that they can identify Universals they can claim that they have the knowledge to decide who is good and who is bad, whose ideas reflect the Universal good and whose are trash. Yes we can get something we call scientific truth by limiting our focus--that's why it's science and not the humanitities. Publically demonstrable probability is science, by the pragmatist definition (which has been the foundation for science this century!) If there are Universals, then why haven't we been able to agree on Shakespeare these past centuries in the same way we come to agree on science?? ALSO: if we are going to discuss and deliberate then there will be intolerance, ideology, anger, and so on. These things are part of our lives and need not lead to terrible crimes. At the risk of quoting a rational empiricist, Mills did say that truth emerges from the clash of adverse ideas. And clash I will with anyone who wants to blame pragmatism and multiculturalism for the crimes of Idealism. I've had enough of this debate too--it stinks of the Eurocentrism that has been and remains the heavy handed and arrogant defender of Plato's elitism and those who still "pray in the dark in the Sciences' church" (P. Hammill). Jefferey Taylor Southern Illinois University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Simerka Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 15:54:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition The ethical considerations Richard Jordan rightly emphasizes, as well as the notes of harmony from Luc Borot and Sean Lawrence are valid reasons to argue towards the existence of universals. However, the problem always remains, if we emphasize the shared experience, if we homogenize experience, then there is the risk of marginalization, of exclusion. Perhaps a continual debate of this subject is beneficial, (despite the fact that some readers are tired of this and certainly the discussion need not continue HERE ad infinitum) in order to avoid the extremes that result from "settling" the issue in favor of either term, universalism or relativism. Barbara Simerka (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 94 17:27:07 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition Dear SHAKSPER -- Nobody is keener than I am to see this particular debate peter out, and one reason for its unhelpfulness is the fact, pace various recent contributors, that it is *ethically* empty -- it is just as possible to commit atrocities in the name of Universal Human Truth as it is to do so in the name of cultural particularity. Aesthetically, however, it seems to be far easier to be po-faced and self-righteous on behalf of universals; in face of a looming and censoring totality of disapproval, can I just say that I'd rather be insulted by Terence Hawkes than praised by some of his adversaries any day of the week? Michael Dobson (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 1994 23:40:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0117 Re: Universals and the Human Condition To whom it may concern: I would like to share Sean Lawrence's optimism. It's nice to think of ourselves sitting at our keyboards like Arthur's knights at a round table of open-minded camaraderie. And on many subjects, of course, the optimism is not misplaced. On matters of fact, of reference, and of local interpretation this list serves an invaluable function. However, I also think it obvious that the perspective by now associated with Terence Hawkes-- and in some ways any point concerned with almost any branch of contemporary theory--is not given so tolerant a hearing. To be sure, as several netters (a lexicographical colleague of mine tuned me into that term) have pointed out, Mr. Hawkes is not the most temperate of e-mailers and seems to revel in the flames he invites. But even when it is not Mr. Hawkes who posts a historicist note, the reactions are pretty violent--and, irony of ironies, the vehemence of the response tends to be attributed to the historicist, who is then chastised for troubling the limpid stream of our discourse. Again as several netters have noticed, the vehemence of the dialogue gives away the quasi-religious character of the controversy. What is "at stake" in this argument is the very possibility of TRUTH, and as Milton says, the wars of truth are always hard fought. As I see it, the issue is not a dead cert on either side of the question. A few days ago, Jeffrey Taylor referred us to the nominalist/realist controversy. Surely that tells us that we will not, and perhaps in principle no one ever will resolve the issue. Certainly a medium such as e-mail seems to me incapable of adding much to the question. I for one have decided to delete unread any further postings headed "universal" or "human condition." Praying for nature's first green, Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 15:26:32 +1000 (EST) Subject: Ethics and the Human Condition Two points in this unending but fascinating discussion: 1. Richard Jordan writes that 'the ethical consequences of denying universal humanity are horrendous'. It could as easily be maintained that the consequences of insisting upon it are at least equally horrendous. Two consequences follow inexorably from the attempt to ground non-injurious behaviour towards others in 'shared experiences and values'. The first is that it provides no grounds for not engaging in injurious behaviour towards those others (e.g.non-human species) with whom (presumably) there can be no such common experiences and values. I am not as comfortable as he is with the farmer and the fox example, but I can't really see why, using his ethical framework, he would object to the killing of whales, dolphins or African elephants (though I'm sure he does). The second consequence is that non-injurious behaviour towards other human beings is thereby made hostage to the NON-discovery of scientifically undeniable biological differences between groups. Whether one is prepared to say that such discoveries have already been made or not - and I have no opinion on this question - it is plainly an everpresent, even imminent, possibility that such evidence of significant differences WILL be found. What will Richard Jordan do then? Adopt the usual old humanist strategy of declaring that science - the troublesome areas of it anyway - is irrelevant to human values? The only logical alternative would be to say that no ethical imperatives exist between the groups thus differentiated. The way out of this univiting dilemma, I suggest, is to base ethically sensitive interaction between individuals and species on something other than actually shared characteristics. Like respect for difference and a recognition of shared *interests*. Maybe Gene Roddenberry had it right all those decades ago with the Prime Imperative! 2. I suppose it's a matter of taste, but I thought Terence Hawkes's reply to his tormentors was very funny, and Luc Borot's reaction a bit pious. I know humour can be an instrument of aggression and all that, but it would be a great pity if people came to feel they couldn't engage in a bit of light-hearted banter over the electronic airwaves without calling down such heavy artillery on themselves. (Sorry about the metaphor). And what does any of this have to do with teaching Shakespeare? Perhaps quite a lot. I neither read nor teach Shakespeare for the 'human values' to be found there, but because it's great writing. I happen to think that an ability to appreciate (nay, love) great writing - to have a sense of what's great about it - is a genuinely valuable item of cultural capital which I can (sometimes) pass on to (some) students. And the apprehension of greatness seems to me to involve not just the recognition of shared experiences or values in the writing (you can get that in the editorial of your preferred newspaper) OR in the newness and strangeness of the language AND the ethics AND the politics - but in a fusion (or maybe a dialectic) of both. Nothing very profound there, but at least it's a rationale that doesn't actively encourage students to pretend to 'spontaneities' they don't really feel, but can learn. Patrick Buckridge Griffith University, Brisbane. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 11:22:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0123 Re: Negative *Ado* Review Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0123 Wednesday, 20 February 1994. From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Tuesday, 15 Feb 94 22:47:48 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0116 Miscellaneous Questions Nate Johnson: For a good negative review of Branagh's *Much Ado* see Richard Ryan, "Much Ado About Branagh," *Commentary* (October 1993): 52-55. --Diana Akers Rhoads ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 08:59:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0124 CATH 1994: Reminder Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0124. Thursday, 17 February 1994. From: Stuart Lee Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 94 15:23 GMT Subject: CATH 94 : Reminder Just a reminder that the deadline for the Call for Papers for CATH 94 is nearly at hand. If you have any questions please contact the organisors below. Stuart Lee **************** CATH '94 "COURSEWARE IN ACTION" Computers and Teaching in the Humanities Glasgow University 9 - 12th September, 1994 CALL FOR PAPERS CATH is the annual forum of the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Textual Studies and the Office for Humanities Communication. It provides an opportunity for those using computers in humanities teaching and research to discuss new developments, achievements, and methods in the field. The theme of this year's conference is "Courseware in Action". Papers are welcomed which concentrate on the practical applications of courseware in the classroom. In particular submissions are invited on the following topics: -courseware development -practical issues pertaining to the implementation of CAL in the classroom -evaluation procedures We would especially welcome papers from those new to the subject of humanities computing. The conference will be made up of a series of sessions. Each session will last 90 minutes and will include three papers. Submissions are invited for individual papers (lasting 20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions) or for entire sessions. Furthermore, if you would like to organise a workshop presentation, or classroom simulation, then please contact the organisers directly for more information [It is expected that each workshop or simulation will last approximately two hours]. During the conference there will also be a software fair. If you would like to show material at this, then please contact the organisers as soon as possible to discuss hardware and software requirements. Format of Submissions 1) All submissions (paper or electronic) should begin with the following information: TITLE: Title of paper AUTHOR(S): Names of authors AFFILIATION: Of author(s) CONTACT ADDRESS: Full postal address E-MAIL: Electronic mail address of main author (for contact), followed by other authors (if any) FAX NUMBER: Of main author PHONE NUMBER: Of main author 2) Length: -Individual papers: abstracts should be 300 - 500 words. -Sessions: The proposer should submit a statement of approximately 300 - 500 words describing the overall topic, and also include abstracts of 300 - 500 words for each of the papers in the session. 3) Guidelines for Electronic Submission of Abstracts: These should be plain ASCII files, not word-processor files, and should not contain TAB characters or soft hyphens. Paragraphs should be separated by blank lines. Headings and subheadings should be on separate lines and be numbered. Footnotes should not be included and endnotes only where absolutely necessary. References should be given at the end. Choose a simple markup scheme for accents and other characters which cannot be transmitted by electronic mail and include an explanation of the scheme after the title information and before the start of the text. Electronic submissions should be sent to: CATH94@VAX.OX.AC.UK with the subject line " Submission for CATH94". 4) Paper submissions: Submissions should be typed or printed on one side of the paper only, with ample margins. Two copies should be sent to the organisers. 5)Deadline for submission of abstracts or workshop proposals: Tuesday March 1st All enquiries and submissions should be directed to: CATH 94 Centre for Humanities Computing Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6N UK Telephone: 0865-273221 Fax: 0865-273221 E-Mail: CATH94@VAX.OX.AC.UK ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 09:20:33 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0126 Re: Negative *Ado* Reviews Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0126. Thursday, 17 February 1994. From: Luc Borot Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 22:38:59 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0123 Re: Negative *Ado* Review I remember that we were rather divided last Spring when the film was opening in our respective countries at the time of the Cannes festival; by digging in the logbooks of SHAKSPER for the months of May to June or July, there may be a series of spirited and contradictory argument about the film. I think I remember the main grudge was the US star-casting (but can 'Batman' and 'Dracula' be coutercasted, when they are there because they 'were' Batman and Dracula? I wish they had been coutercasted, like Robert Stevens as Falstaff in 1+2H4 by Adrian Noble at the RST some years ago: he was swell --because he had to look swollen--). Yours as ever, and I hope I'm not called 'pious' by some because I recommended you all to get yourselves a fresh drink of wine to avoid getting angry! I hope Terence Hawkes will agree that Prohibition WAS an ABSOLUTE Bad Thing with all the requisite idealistic capitals. And we'll agree around a cup and everything will be fine; I hope we shall prove him right by not drinking the same stuff because our metabolisms don't agree and we were not brought up (or didn't bring ourselves up) to the same slushing habits. The cup's the thing, and whatever's in it, the drinking together is what matters. Let's conclude it by making a joke of a serious matter, knowing that like all sensitive and intelligent people, we are able to get too angry about ideas because they are not mere abstractions to us but condition lots of other things, and that we must be careful about each other's sensibilities. It may be the thing most to observe in a state of complete freedom of speech. The main drawback with e-mail is that it doesn't carry humour and jest through as the voice does. Add to this my poor control of Igngliche... OOOps! sorry: I've been pious again... Luc **************************************************** *Luc Borot * * * *Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines * *Universite Paul Valery * *Montpellier (France) * **************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 09:17:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0125 Re: Friar Lawrence; Duke Vincentio; Kingship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0125. Thursday, 17 February 1994. (1) From: Michael Dobson Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 94 13:02:11 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0120 Re: Psychotic *Macbeth* (2) From: Robert Burke Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 21:25:07 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0120 Re: Psychotic *Macbeth* (3) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 94 14:57 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0121 Qs: Kingship; The Duke in MM (4) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 23:09:07 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0121 Qs: Kingship; The Duke in MM (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 94 13:02:11 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0120 Re: Psychotic *Macbeth* Dear SHAKSPER -- Re: Friar Laurence, Vincentio, &c. With all due respect to Ron MacDonald, whose contribution on this subject I greatly admired, is Uncle Matthew *completely* wrong about Friar Laurence? I was cast in the role once years ago, and was of course determined to make sure no-one in the audience was in any doubt that the Friar was *the* crucial figure of the play -- and I was surprised at how much rope the text allowed me to hang myself with. Unlike that insignificant twit Romeo, for example, the Friar actually gets to *converse* with Juliet in the tomb, and it takes only a modicum of coarse acting to make this the emotional climax of the play -- the Friar gibbering in terror, Juliet resolutely taking charge, an embrace which grotesquely parodies Romeo's farewell, &c&c -- not a dry eye in the house. Not a placid critic, mind, but some sacrifices have to be made for Art. This brings me to the recent query about Duke Vincentio in M for M, holes & corners & all, another hooded role which only really seems to work when played by a wholly unself-critical actor who loves the sound of his own voice and genuinely thinks the Duke is the hero of the piece. The only Duke I ever saw who seemed absolutely made for the part was Daniel Massey (c.1984 at the RSC, with Juliet Stevenson as Isabella) -- minimum self-knowledge, maximum self-congratulation. Anyone contemplating a production in the Chicago area? Offers welcome. Michael Dobson (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Burke Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 21:25:07 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0120 Re: Psychotic *Macbeth* When Ron McDonald points to the Friar's bumbling, he strikes a responsive chord in me. Years ago I had the chance to play Friar Lawrence in a local Kansas City production. I had to worry about how to present his lines to Romeo, and later to Juliet. When I realized that he was clutching at straws, trying the first thing that came to mind, I felt I had found the clue. Is that why the nurse, who may be an R. C. bitch, stands in awe of the Friar's learning -- is Shakespeare having some fun here, and can we????? (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 94 14:57 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0121 Qs: Kingship; The Duke in MM The two speeches in MM that Michael Sharpston mentions are treated at some length by Gary Taylor and John Jowett in their +Shakespeare Reshaped+ (I think that is the correct title?) (1993). William Proctor Williams Department of English Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 16 Feb 1994 23:09:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0121 Qs: Kingship; The Duke in MM Chantal Payette and Michael Sharpston will perhaps get us back to talking about Shakespeare and the 16th/17th centuries. I'm not sure what you are up to, Chantal, but you might begin looking at studies of Shakespeare's history plays. Are you interested in how Shakespeare uses his historical sources, or how his plays seem to reflect contemporary (i.e., early modern) English or European history? Or both? Or none of the above? Now, the Duke in MEASURE FOR MEASURE (whose name is never spoken in the play), has he ever been satisfactorily explained? I used to think that I could explain him using the concepts of freedom and restraint (1.2.117ff.). The Duke begins in restraint: "I'll privily away. I love the people,/But do not like to stage me to their eyes" (67-68). To begin, he watches. About the middle of the play, he begins to act, and by the end he is staging himself - and chasing Isabella. That's a quick sketch of my youthful description. Now I'd say there's much more to him. Lucio does get under his skin, and strangely the Duke seems tohave to ask Escalus about himself. As a kind of reality check? Ego boost? And later he (the Duke) asks the provost why he (the Duke) didn't take care of the Barnardine problem. Shouldn't the Duke know why? What's going on here? In other words, I think there are many questions about the Duke and his actions. What about Mariana for example? When she sees him coming dressed as the friar, she says, "Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice/Hath often stilled by brawling discontent" (4.1.8-9, Wells and Taylor, ed.). So, he dresses up like a friar fairly often and sneaks out to the moated grange, where he offers comfort to Mariana. And now he wants to get her into bed with Angelo and marry her off. Now, when I dress up in my friar's habit to visit young ladies, I'm up to no good; I admit it. And so I'm suspicious of this Duke who likes to dress up (and watch, too)! (My wife just asked, "It's all a fake. You aren't a friar?") Is Mariana pregnant? Is the shy Duke the father? Does Mariana really love Angelo inspite of her torrid affair with the Friar/Duke? And will the Duke be able to win the love of the very moral little nun, better known as Isabella? What's really going on in Vienna? I'll answer these questions and more in my next iunstallment of "The Underside of the Duke, or Steaming on the Danube." Yours, Bill Godshalk (PS I am not an idealist. I'm a relativist. Humans are relative to evolution on this planet, in this solar system. And humans make culture; culture does NOT make humans. I'm also an atheist. I do not believe that Culture is God.) PPS Hey, Al Cacicedo! Did I fake you out? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Feb 1994 09:23:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0127 Re: Universals and Science Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0127. Thursday, 17 February 1994. From: Joanne Merriam Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 00:52:28 -0400 Subject: Universals and Science Much as I weary of this discussion's annoying dualism and ideological entrenchment, and hesitant as I am to add fuel to the flames, I couldn't let J.Taylor's comment about science pass. He said: "Yes we can get something we call scientific truth by limiting our focus - that's why it's science and not the humanities." I would argue that "scientific truth" is not arrived at by limiting our focus (or only temporarily), any more than narrowing down a thesis topic implies that "artistic truth" is narrow.... but perhaps that is beside the point. What really bothered me about this statement was, that it seemed to dismiss scientific truth as irrelevant to the arguement at hand, while I believe it is very relevant indeed. If it is true that we are simply ruled by chemicals (or, actually, ruled by chemicals in an extremely complicated way) then it would follow that, since we are all ruled by the same chemicals and the same processes, physical reality must cut across cultural boundaries. Perhaps this does *not* mean that there are any universal human truths; I don't know. But it is, at least a starting point. I think if we hope to come to any kind of an answer about these Great Questions, we can't start out by ignoring huge chunks of knowledge. Does anybody know if the Elizabethans would have seen the sciences and the humanities as such separate disciplines as we tend to? It seems to me that math and music were commonly paired subjects.... Joanne Merriam (ilion@ac.dal.ca) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 12:31:10 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0128 Star Trek Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0128. Friday, 18 February 1994. From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 10:16:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Star Trek Just a quick Note. The members of Star Fleet are governed by the Prime Directive. Followers of the "Next Generation" and Patrick Stewart will no doubt remember that the P.D. has been violated--most recently by Pual Sorvino as a scientist studying a culture in the "early stages of development" who were living on a dying planet. Sorvino did "trick" the crew into preserving this culture, but ultimately Picard seemed to approve the act. Now--what all of this has to do with Shakespeare studies is another question entirely. Live Long and Prosper, Kimberly Nolan Univ. of Miami ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 13:56:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0129 Duke Vincentio; Psycho Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0129. Friday, 18 February 1994. (1) From: Terry Craig Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 10:15:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Duke in MM (2) From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 10:28:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: macpsychbeth (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terry Craig Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 10:15:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Duke in MM Daniel Massey has written an essay about playing the Duke. It's in *Players of Shakespeare 2* published by Cambridge UP. Cheers to all and thanks to Luc-- Terry Craig (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 10:28:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: macpsychbeth The psycho Macbeth does diminish consideration of the horrors of the world. It also puts a wall between us and Macbeth. I think this is unnecessary. (I want to note, however, that RICHARD III does overtly what we're supposing MACBETH to do. Macbeth is, like Richard of Gloucester, a career soldier with little to do in "this piping time of peace." However, unlike Richard, whose conscience seems atrophied almost nothing, Macbeth has a very active conscience.) It seems consistent with the text to view Macbeth and Banquo in similar light--both voice the existence of unacted horrors within them. Yet Macbeth is cursed with someone who encourages him to bring those horrors into the world. How different is that from each of us? And how nearly might that describe the birth of much of the world's horror. See also Marlowe's analysis of Kurtz in HEART OF DARKNESS. James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 14:02:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0130 [was 5.130] Re: Universals Discussion Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0130. Friday, 18 February 1994. From: Rick Jones Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 94 14:28:07 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0122 The topic that won't die. I confess to being profoundly ambivalent toward this whole "universals" debate. I'm intrigued by the topic and believe a number of interesting and provocative points have been made from a wide range of perspectives. Of course, since I personally pay essentially by the word for e-mail received (whether I read it or not), this is growing into an expensive -- and increasingly tedious -- habit. Still, there is more to be said, and I for one am willing to prolong the topic's inevitable death throes. First of all, as several people have mentioned, to assert that there are no universals is itself a profoundly universalist position. This leads me to wonder whether the chart we use to locate our respective positions with respect to this issue ought to be not a simple yes/no, or even a spectrum, but rather a circle. Towards one point on the circle converge the two universals, universal human experience and complete cultural determination. Moving away from that point in either direction, we enter more ambivalent (and, for me, more fruitful) ground of "mostly x, but some y". Second, I'd like to suggest a way out of the yes/no dilemma about universal human experience. To me, it is counter-intuitive to suggest that we share nothing universal. That is to say, there is such a thing as universal human experience. But (dare I say this?) the experience of the experience is probably (inevitably?) culturally influenced (determined?). In other words, pain and hunger exist for everyone, but how I interpret those concepts is different than it would be for someone from a different heritage than mine. So what I *believe* pain to be isn't what other folks *believe* it to be. BTW, isn't interpretation what we, as scholars/actors/directors/whatever, DO? Third, didn't we have a discussion a few weeks ago about why the SHAKSPER list is more "civilized" than many others? Hmmm... Fourth, to everyone of whatever ideological stripe who insists on employing reductio ad absurdum arguments with which to show the alleged fallacies of a competing point of view: We're not buying. Get a life. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 14:05:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0131 Q: *King Lear*: 1.4 Business Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0131. Friday, 18 February 1994. From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Thursday, 17 Feb 1994 14:31:55 GMT-6 Subject: *King Lear*: 1.4 BUSINESS In *King Lear* 1.4 after Kent-in-disguise has answered Lear's "Dost thou know me, fellow?" with "No...," when does Kent "recognize" this old man as king? That is, at what point and by what business does the actor convey to Lear that he now sees him as king rather than as anonymous old man? Kozintsev, Elliott, Miller, and Brook understandably take liberties in their movie versions of *KL*, but what do the RSC or others consider traditional business for this part of the scene? I have considered the following: having Kent kneel at his line "Authority." seems effective. Or what about having Kent kneel at that later moment when Lear asks Oswald, "...who am I, sir?" perhaps while throwing back his cape or hood and revealing for the first time some regal attire? Then as Oswald dawdles in his response, the kneeling Kent is conveniently placed for the "tripping up." Or am I foolishly snagged on this need-to-kneel notion? Folks, I apologize if my questions replay previous discussions on SHAKSPER. If they do, do you recall the date? Or an article or book you might suggest? Thanks, Tom Hodges English Department Amarillo College Amarillo, Texas 79178 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 14:10:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0132 Roman Plays at UCLA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0132. Friday, 18 February 1994. From: Martin Zacks Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 09:36:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Roman Plays at UCLA Let me pass on to those who may be in Los Angeles on February 25, information on a Shakespeare symposium: Shakespeare's Roman Plays. A Symposium Friday, February 25, 1994. Melnitz Theater (Room 1409), UCLA. Sponsored by the Center for Medieval & Renasissance Studies, UCLA Schedule Morning Registration The Politics of Restoration Revision of Shakespeare Richard Kroll, UC Irvine The Verbal & the Visual in Titus Andronicus Brian Gibbons, University of Munster High Roman Fashion Michael Warren, UC Santa Cruz Afternoon Inventing, Arranging, & Delivering the Memory of Caesar with Style Lawrence Green, USC Performing the Roman Plays Michael Hackett, UCLA Discussion & preview of a forthcoming production of Titus Andronicus Alissa Welsch, UCLA For further information call the Center at (310) 825-1880 I have found this yearly symposium to be informative and well run. In the past five years they have presented some great papers, particularly on Measure for Measure and Midsummer Night's Dream. Martin Zacks lalalib@class.org ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 14:29:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0133 Psycho Macbeth; Parting Shot (Universals) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0133. Saturday, 19 February 1994. (1) From: Gardner Campbell Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 13:38:59 -0800 (PST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0129 Duke Vincentio; Psycho Macbeth (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 23:12:18 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0129 Duke Vincentio; Psycho Macbeth (3) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 23:52:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Parting shot (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gardner Campbell Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 13:38:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0129 Duke Vincentio; Psycho Macbeth I too dislike a psycho Macbeth, which is why I find the Nicol Williamson/ BBC *Macbeth* nearly unendurable. Could it be that Macbeth's troubles with the subjunctive, in all its rhetorical/metaphysical/psychic ramifications, are at the heart of him? I find I.vii.1-2 uncanny, revealing, and profoundly troubling (for Macbeth and for me) in this regard. Gardner Campbell Campbell@teetot.acusd.edu University of San Diego (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 23:12:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0129 Duke Vincentio; Psycho Macbeth I think Jim McKenna is correct about Banquo, who is also dreaming about the Weird Sisters in his spare time. But had Banquo been married to the nameless Lady, would he have turned into a serial murderer? I have me doubts. Macbeth is a dark and brooding man from the beginning of the play, and he likes "unseaming" other warriors. He's a poetic sociopath. Banquo seems more open, and he has a son. Macbeth has no children. Now, if Macbeth is psychotic, does that fact diminish the horror of the play? Not for me. I find serial murderers genuinely horrifying - and puzzling. Most murderers do not find murder compelling. They do it once, and never do it again. Rehabilitating murderers is probably a waste of our money. But serial murderers ARE different, and the series initiated by Macbeth when he kills Duncan (or Macdonwald) is progressive. Each murder is different, and each less rational, more puzzling. Macbeth may not be the standard "tragic hero," but maybe Shakespeare was really writing a gangster play, looking at events from the point of view of, say, a Claudius. Of course, Claudius is the usual kind of murderer. Hamlet forces him into attempting a second murder, etc. I'm not at all sure that a tragic hero has to have "universal" (that bad word, again) appeal. Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 23:52:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Parting shot To Bill Godshalk: Bullseye! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 14:41:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0134 Re: Star Trek Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0134. Saturday, 19 February 1994. (1) From: Gardner Campbell Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 13:52:57 -0800 (PST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0128 Star Trek (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 22:05:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0128 Star Trek (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gardner Campbell Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 13:52:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0128 Star Trek And speaking of *Star Trek: The Next Generation*: Does the title "To Thine Own Self" qualify an episode as an Official SHAKSPER spinoff? I thought the episode especially interesting in light of our recent discussions of identity, universals, alterity, and cultural determinism. In my ready room, Gardner Campbell U. of San Diego Campbell@teetot.acusd.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 22:05:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0128 Star Trek Kimberly Nolan, What are your coordinates in the galaxy? Your star date? I think I know exactly what your message was about. J.-L. Picard ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 14:48:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0135 The Oxford Editors and *MM* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0135. Saturday, 19 February 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 22:55:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Oxford Editors and MEASURE FOR MEASURE I would not send anyone to the Oxford editors (Jowett and Taylor) as the first place to go. Jowett's edition of MEASURE FOR MEASURE is a unique blend of conservative and radical, as if the entire Oxford COMPLETE WORKS, ed. Wells and Taylor. I have a bone to pick with Jowett. Back in 1972 in SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY 23, I published a little note, "'The Devil's Horn': Appearance and Reality," explaining two lines in MEASURE FOR MEASURE (II.iv.16-17): "Let's write good Angell on the Deuills horne/'Tis not the Deuills Crest." This is the Folio version, the only authority for this play. I explained the lines in the following words: "Angelo concludes that he will write 'good Angel' (i.e. his own appearance of goodness, his 'gravity') on the 'devil's horn' (i.e. his evil sexual desires for Isabel). Form and place (the illusion of good) will conceal the reality of his evil; and the people will be deceived into believing (contrary to fact) that the 'devil's horn' is not the 'devil's crest.' Those deluded by false seeming will genuinely believe that evil is not evil. This explanation, which is Warburton's and Johnson's, gains support in the rest of the play" (204). I spend, in the note, more time explaining "devil's horn" and "devil's crest." However, I submit that the above passage is a reasonable and adequate explanation of the lines. Jowett in WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A TEXTUAL COMPANION (p. 471, s.v. 2.4.17/936) says that the Folio version "lends itself to no convincing gloss." I take that to mean that he rejects my "gloss" without naming me. If Jowett finds my explanation unconvincing, he should explain why. He simply says that "editors' attempts to explain 2.4.16-17/935-6 are contorted and contradictory" (471). Since I was not commenting as an editor, is my little note on the passage excluded? I realize that this is a minor point, but Mr. Jowett's edition is built on a series of similar judgments, it seems to me. In any case, I would be interested in your judgment of this little controversy, a controversy that I thought I had laid to rest twenty-two years ago! Ah, the vanity of human suppositions! Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Feb 1994 14:54:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0136 Re: *Lear*: 1.4 Business Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0136. Saturday, 19 February 1994. From: Martin Zacks Date: Friday, 18 Feb 1994 21:18:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tom Hodges and Lear I don't think there is a problem with Kent ever seeing Lear as an anonymous old man. His entry is with horns, knights and attendants, and he begins giving orders with his first line. Lear immediately asks five or six questions of Kent, and with his knights surrounding Kent, this could almost be in the form an interrogation. My own view is that Kent's answers should mimic his standing up to Lear in 1.1 and instead of kneeling, just bowing his head at the point of "authority" would be enough. Or even look Lear straight in the eye when he says authority. It's a long time between "authority" and tripping Oswald. I picture it more effective to have the circle of Lear's knights either freeze or back off at Lear's striking of Oswald. Then before Oswald can do anthing, have Kent rush towards him and trip him. Thanks for the opportunity to give you my ideas on the scene. Life provides too few opportunities to direct Lear. Martin Zacks lalalib@class.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 08:41:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0137 Interviews Requested Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0137. Monday, 21 February 1994. From: J. Scott Kemp Date: Saturday, Feb 19 17:34:05 1994 Subject: Help Requested! Dear Colleagues, I am researching how lit lists have changed the way our discipline discusses, and therefore, learns about English/Literature. Can you point me to publications, e-mail texts, or offer your own writings on the subject for consideration? **Would you permit me to interview you about your experiences?** Please respond to: scott@micronet.wcu.edu ASAP as my deadline is May 1! I know that you value this medium as an important part of your on-going development/education/instruction, and that is specifically what this research is designed to get at. Sincerest thanks, J. Scott Kemp Western Carolina University scott@micronet.wcu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 08:49:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0138 Qs: Shakespeare on Gopher; *Ado* Video Availability Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0138. Monday, 21 February 1994. (1) From: Michael S. Hart Date: Saturday, 19 Feb 94 17:32:49 CST Subj: Shakespeare on Gopher (2) From: Jim Swan Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 1994 21:56:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Branagh's *Much Ado* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael S. Hart Date: Saturday, 19 Feb 94 17:32:49 CST Subject: Shakespeare on Gopher Would any of you be kind enough to identify the paper source from which was taken the Shakespeare on Gopher at upenn.edu. We have succeeded in getting someone at upenn.edu to send us the files, and now we need to do the copyright work necessary to prove the files are indeed in the Public Domain. We are also working on many of the other materials at upenn.edu, if any of you happen to have knowledge pertaining them. Thanks, Michael S. Hart (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Swan Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 1994 21:56:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Branagh's *Much Ado* Is there any word about when Branagh's *Much Ado* will appear in the video stores? I'm teaching the play in two weeks and would very much like to use the movie. Jim Swan (SUNY/Buffalo) projim@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 08:57:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0139 Re: Psycho Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0139. Monday, 21 February 1994. (1) From: Brian Pedaci Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 94 18:34:56 -0500 Subj: re: SHK 5.0133 Psycho Macbeth (2) From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 1994 19:39:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: macpsychbeth redux (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Pedaci Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 94 18:34:56 -0500 Subject: re: SHK 5.0133 Psycho Macbeth Just to throw another monkey wrench into the works, does anyone else find it problematical to assume that modern psychoanalytic diagnoses are counter to Shakespeare's wishes when he casts a great many of them under the influence of "humors" which are beyond their control? How does an Elizabethan understanding of melancholy correspond to a modern diagnosis of depression? Or choler and, say, sociopathic behavior? I do not presume to know enough to make the connections, but it seems a worthy consideration when dealing with the question of Elizabethan psyches... --Brian Pedaci (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 1994 19:39:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: macpsychbeth redux Okay, right. Serial murderers are horrifying; I erred to imply that they were not. I meant, though, that thinking Macbeth a psychotic reduces our idea of horror in the world to the belief that it is something that psychotics do, not what ordinary people do when circumstances are right--or very, very wrong. Yes, Dr. Godshalk, Macbeth and Banquo are different men, and it is unlikely that Banquo would have gone Macbeth's road--for the reasons you specified. It is the mechanics of the mind that I am concerned with, though, and I think the text presses us to see that evil is not just evil men with evil thoughts. It is the thoughts that many--all--of us have taking root in a mind and being acted out. Hence Lady Macbeth's incitement. Yes, Macbeth seems fond of legal killing and his murder spree is only a change of venue. But, again, perhaps we can avoid the psychotic approach by recognizing that soldiering is still an honored profession, despite all our pacifistic posturing. We continue to train millions of men to murder in one set of circumstances, and we then hope they behave civilly in others. Is Macbeth one of those who became confused? My point overall is to keep Macbeth solidly in the realm of common experience, so that his destruction does not drift toward becoming a macabre decoration. Yours till the hurly-burly's done, James McKenna mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 09:02:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0140 Rs: Parting Shot; Oxford Editors Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0140. Monday, 21 February 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 19 Feb 1994 20:32:20 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0133 Psycho Macbeth; Parting Shot (Universals) (2) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 94 12:37 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0135 The Oxford Editors and *MM* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 19 Feb 1994 20:32:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0133 Psycho Macbeth; Parting Shot (Universals) To Al Cacicedo: Is bullseye a euphemism? Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 94 12:37 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0135 The Oxford Editors and *MM* I think that no one could believe that I have ever been a supporter of the New Oxford Shakespeare. It simply gets too many things wrong. I am also, by and large, a supporter of many of the things William Godshalk stands for and expresses. But, that good old Shakespearean "but", Taylor and Jowett's +Shakespeare Reshaped+ is a first-rate piece of scholarship and I could no more dimiss it out of hand than I could W.G.'s article in +SQ+ in 1972. We need, on this list and in our profession, much more light and much less heat. Or so I believe. William Proctor Williams TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 10:10:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0141 "Much Ado About Something" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0141. Monday, 21 February 1994. From: Nate Johnson Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 94 02:05:33 EDT Subject: "Much adoe about somethinge" Here's more information on the "Much Ado About Something" poem in belated response to Nancy Miller. I think I may have mis-cited the manuscript in my original posting. Let me take this chance to repeat my request for information about the poem. Much adoe about somethinge or rather much adoe about Nothinge What have I heere a ladie Poet found another Sappho or Semproma and native (borne) upon our Brytish ground: another rare Divine fulcoma. Tis so, I see it witnest with myne Ieys and her sweete straynes with myne doe Sympathize Well met then ladie in th'accrostick measure Ile tread it with yow (if yow please) a space and think (if youle beleeve me) Europes treasure t'a Citizen could yeelde no greater grace then lett him kisse your hands, but in ??? on whome the Muses every minnet weight It's a long poem, taking up around 30 leaves, and I haven't read the whole thing through yet. The reference to "th'accrostick measure" is the only clue I've found so far as to the possible identity of the addressee. Are there any "ladie poets" in the 17th century by the name of "Wiatt" or something close? There's a list of names and birthdates in the same manuscript, but no Wiatt. Here's a more complete citation for the manuscript and film: Sloane MS 1708, British Library Film: Britains Literary Heritage series Harvester Microform British Literary Manuscripts for the British Library, London. Series One: The English Renaissance: Literature from the Tudor Period to the Restoration c. 1500-c.1700 Part One: Manuscripts selected from Sloane MSS 20-3943 and Additional MSS 4128-10305 Reel Six At Cornell, it's Cornell University Libraries Film 5903, Reel 6. That might be useful for interlibrary loan. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 10:14:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0142 Q: Graduate Assistants and Workloads Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0142. Monday, 21 February 1994. From: Jim Swan Date: Sunday, 20 Feb 1994 21:59:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Teaching Assistants and Workload This isn't directly relevant to the focus of the LIST, but for any of us who teach graduate students it's important: The Graduate Student Employees Union (GSEU) won recognition last year as the the bargaining unit for teaching assistants in the SUNY system. A contract has just been ratified and, in response, some administrators are acting vindictively and punitively. As if to say, "OK, so you won--now we're going to show you what it means." The war zone is *workload*, which the contract defines as 20 hours per week. In most units within the Faculty of Arts & Letters at SUNY/Buffalo (where I serve as Associate Dean for Graduate Programs), the tradition has been that a TA wholly responsible for a class (English Composition, Beginning Spanish, Art Studio) fulfills the obligation of the assistantship. Now there's a move to quantify everything and to say that teaching a class takes less than 20 hours, that a TA will have other duties as well. Personally, I find this repugnant--it's Taylorism on the march, and it has no place in graduate education. To bolster my argument I need information, and I would be grateful if you would answer a few questions: 1) At your institution, what are the duties of a TA? How are they defined? Are they quantified by the hour? Or by the course? 2) Are your teaching assistants unionized? 3) What is the _net_ annual stipend paid to a full-time TA? That is, net of fees, tuition, health insurance, etc. Some institutions pay good stipends but then require students to pay for mandatory health insurance. In fact, does your campus supply health insurance, or do students have to pay for it? 4) Is workload a war zone for faculty too? Are your faculty unionized? I really need answers to the first question--it's the crucial one. If you have figures for the third one, so much the better. But don't hesitate to reply if you can't answer the third question. Please circulate this message as widely as possible--to colleagues, to other LISTs, wherever. Thanks. Jim Swan English Department 306 Samuel Clemens Hall State University of New York Buffalo, NY 14260 Office: (716) 645-2711 E-mail: projim@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 11:09:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0144 Re: Psycho Macbeth From: BOE::HMCOOK "Hardy M. Cook" 22-FEB-1994 11:06:40.76 To: MX%UT CC: HMCOOK Subj: SHK 5.0144 Re: Psycho Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0144. Tuesday, 22 February 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 09:17:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0139 Re: Psycho Macbeth (2) From: Kenneth M. McKay Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 11:09:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0139 Re: Psycho Macbeth (3) From: Terence Martin Date: Monday, 21 Feb 94 14:25:32 CST Subj: Macbeth (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 09:17:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0139 Re: Psycho Macbeth Brian Pedici's query about psychoanalytical interpretations of MACBETH and the humors theory of Shakespeare's time intrigues me. As one who has long kept a copy of Burton's ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY at bedside to cheer himself up on cold winter nights in the North Country, I feel a fatal urge to respond. What we have in humor theory and in modern psychological jargon is simply a different set of labels for the same problems. As I see it the one is no less or more silly than the other. Personkind seeks reassurance in the face of ultimate catastrophe and must come up with these explanations of (I don't want to say it) THE HUMAN CONDITION. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth M. McKay Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 11:09:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0139 Re: Psycho Macbeth I am ill at these numbers, having, among other excuses, only just tuned in to SHAKSPER, but I am puzzled by the suggestion that Macbeth be kept within the common domain by recognizing him, possibly, as one who has become confused re differences between sanctioned and unsanctioned killing. What of Lady Macbeth? I don't recall any suggestion that she had been in a position to become morally confused in this way. But I am more concerned with the idea that Macbeth is or should be in the "common domain." Common?--yes, in the sense of being commonly accessible (Even as the experience realized in Sonnet 129 --a paradigm of tragedy--is commonly accessible or intelligible), but, journalists' patter apart, the experience of Macbeth as tragedy is not "common" or ordinary. It seems to me that to assimilate Macbeth to ordinary contemporary mass experience ("another casualty of war") denies the distinctiveness of the tragedy from which its significance is inseparable. The lust of Sonnet 129 is immediately accessible, but, as realized in the sonnet, it is also distinct from the "common domain": ordinary lust may be informed by the sonnet, but the lust of the sonnet has behind it something other than bad toilet training, bad parenting, repression, inadequate penal systems, poor role models, and the influence of the contemporary entertainment industry. OK, that's enough for a first time! Ken McKay kmckay@spartan.ac.BrockU.CA (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Martin Date: Monday, 21 Feb 94 14:25:32 CST Subject: Macbeth I completely agree with James McKenna's comments that seeing Macbeth as some kind of pschotic nut limits the value of the character. All too often psycho babble enables people to avoid recognizing their own relationship to the evil in this world, now or in Shakespeare's day. Terence Martin UM - St. Louis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 11:39:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0145. Tuesday, 22 February 1994. From: Mary-katie Lindsey <924LINDSEY@MERLIN.NLU.EDU> Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 15:22:20 -0600 (CST) Subject: Desperately Seeking Ophelia and Gertrude Hullo All -- I am doing my paper this semester on feminist criticism of Gertrude and Ophelia in Hamlet, and have found much. However, any suggestions are welcome. A couple of questions: 1. Besides Millais' Siddal portrayal of Ophelia, one by Burne-Jones I think (Ophelia dressed in white, wearing a crown of twigs, picking up sticks, a circular picture), and one by another c19 artist of the play-within-a-play, do the rest of y'all know of any other pictorial representation of the two women? This would be most helpful. 2. How has character critical thought changed? I looked at Robinson's Hamlet bibliography and saw that much, if not all of the criticism there was dependent on the two women's relationships to others -- rarely ever were they evaluated as independent figures, strong, weak, merciful, victimized, etc. They were always depicted as someone's wife, someone's daughter, etc. How did this come about? What has been done along this thread? I mean, of depicting them and writing about them as themselves as women, not just as hangers-on or dependents to the men. 3. I am going to write about Ophelia and Gertrude as acting out the more negative aspects of Jungian archetypes -- the negative, I-don't-wanna-grow-up Kore, Persephone, Hera, etc., intertwining this with discussions of how they have been victimized by dysfunctional views of female sexuality (motherhood only), as well as how their actions contribute to their unbecoming and their undoing physically and psychologically. Has anything been done remotely on any or all of these threads? Thanx to everyone. If anyone wants a more precise labelling of the portraits and painters, I will be glad to supply the names, dates, etc. Cheers, Mary-katie 924lindsey@merlin.nlu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 13:09:25 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0143 Re: *Ado* Video Availability From: BOE::HMCOOK "Hardy M. Cook" 22-FEB-1994 11:09:16.05 To: MX%"Shaksper@utoronto.bitnet" CC: HMCOOK Subj: SHK 5.0143 Re: *Ado* Video Availability From: BOE::HMCOOK "Hardy M. Cook" 22-FEB-1994 10:48:34.15 To: MX%UT CC: HMCOOK Subj: SHK 5.0143 Re: *Ado* Video Availability Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0143. Tuesday, 22 February 1994. (1) From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 09:15:15 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Q: *Ado* Video Availability (2) From: Paul Budra Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 08:41:29 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: *Ado* Video Availability (3) From: A.G. Bennett Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 16:35 EDT Subj: Re: *Ado* Video Availability (4) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Monday, 21 Feb 94 13:37:11 -0500 Subj: Re: *Ado* Video Availability (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 09:15:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Q: *Ado* Video Availability In response to Jim Swan's question about the Branagh *Much Ado*--my video store has the release date listed as 2/26 which should provide enough time for screening and a lesson plan! Kimbrely Nolan Univ. of Miami (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Budra Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 08:41:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: *Ado* Video Availability The Branagh _Much Ado_ is being released on March 2nd up here in Canada. The guy at my local store says he can order copies for around $20. Not a bad deal. Paul Budra SFU (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A.G. Bennett Date: Monday, 21 Feb 1994 16:35 EDT Subject: Re: *Ado* Video Availability As far as I know, _Much Ado_ will apear in video stores on March 2 (and I'll be the first in line here to get a copy!). Hope you manage to get it on time! Cheers, Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Monday, 21 Feb 94 13:37:11 -0500 Subject: Re: *Ado* Video Availability Our local video store promises it about 3/2 NM ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 07:11:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0146 [was 4.0146] Re: Ophelia and Gertrude Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 146. Wednesday, 23 February 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 12:52:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude (2) From: Michael Dobson Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 94 12:10:07 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude (3) From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 19:59:45 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude (4) From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 20:10:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 12:52:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude Ms. Lindsey: While it may seem unfair that much has been written about Hamlet as an "individual" while little has been written about Ophelia or Gertrude except as they exist in relationship to others, my own view is that all that Hamlet exegesis is itself misguided: drama is, at its core, about relationships. Attempts to slice a character out of his or her context within a play and to stand that character up as an independent psychological entity serves only to create a "counter-character," a separate creation only distantly related to that of the playwright. We want to identify with these characters, but the farther we extrapolate from their text, the more our pictures of them become merely self-portraits. It is only through the _interactions_ of these individual characters (not "individuals) that they come alive: we come to know them _through_ those same interactions. Gertrude Stein caught it exactly in her essay, "Plays": I came to think that since each one is that one and that there are a number of them each one being that one, the only way to express this thing each one being that one and there being a number of them knowing each other was in a play. If we remove them from that nest of interactions, they cease to exist. Hamlet is no less than "chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son" -- but also, no more. (Which suggests what I think about attempts to psychoanalyze him or Lady Macbeth or Lear.) Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 94 12:10:07 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude Re: Ophelia and Gertrude In response to Marie-Katie Lindsey's query about Gertrude and Ophelia, reluctant as I am to aid and abet a Jungian reading of anything, there are interesting portraits of Ophelia -- both visual and literary -- in Mary Cowden-Clarke's *Girlhoods of Shakespeare's Heroines* (the date of which I have scandalously forgotten -- c.1870). There is some useful criticism in Marianne Novy's anthology *Women's Re-Visions of Shakespeare* (c.1990). (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 19:59:45 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude Reply to: Desperately Seeking Ophelia and Gertrude Mary Katie, You ask in your first question about other portraits of your two case-studies, and here are my suggestions: I think there was a discussion some months ago (or about a year ago) on this list concerning the portraits. If there is a possibility to search the texts of the logbooks of SHAKSPER (HARDY THIS IS A QUESTION TO YOU FOR US ALL!!) you might obtain the information. I personally can't remember the answers that were given then. I know of a literary version, Brecht's "Ertrunkene Maegdchen" (the drowned maid) is an echo to other German poems on the Ophelia theme, in close connection with the pictorial versions. I can try to look them up in one of my old student-days German poetry anthologies if you're interested. As regards your second question, which ends on the problem of male domination or dependency, there was an interesting scenic treatment of it at the RST in Stratford last Spring, dir. Adrian Noble, starring K Brannagh, Joanne Pearce as Ophelia and Jane Lapotaire as Gertrude. In an interview with Brannagh, I obtained the interesting answer that their interpretation of the Hamlet- Ophelia relationship for that particular production was that they had got seriously involved sexually. There is a reciprocal relationship in that case and no H>O domination. That Gertrude is dominated by Claudius is obvious at the beginning, but here retreat into devotion after the death of Polonius marks a strong breach and a kind of independence of spirit, in its own kind of course, and not very active. As regards your 3rd query, I would like to remind you that the best portrayals of dramatic characters are their theatrical embodiments on a stage. Nothing can go beyond this: that's what they were meant for in the first place. I hope this helps. Nb 44 (Oct 93) of *Cahiers Elisabethains* includes several papers around *Hamlet* performance criticism, started in a Folger seminar of 1993 by Jean-Marie Maguin and Lois Potter. One of the contributors is Ann J. Cook; I apologize to the others I don't remember just now. Yours, Luc [To Luc et al.: LISTSERV does have a Database Function; unfortunately, I have not as yet figured out how to use it. Instead, I suggest that you first search the Discussion Indexes, which are organized by year (DISCUSS INDEX_1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Then you can either ordered appropriate logs from LISTSERV with the GET command or read the logs on the University of Toronto's GOPHER server (VM) and mail desired logs to yourself. By the way, SHAKSPER's logs are now organized by weeks of the month. Thus SHAKSPER LOG9402D, the current log, contains the discusion of the fourth week of February 1994. --HMC] (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 20:10:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude First, you may wish to look at Julia Dietrich's HAMLET bibliography, too. Second, check Herbert R. Coursen's THE COMPENSATORY PSYCHE: A JUMGIAN APPROACH TO SHAKESPEARE. Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 07:16:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0147 [was 4.0147] Re: *King Lear*: 1.4 Business Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 147. Wednesday, 23 February 1994. From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 14:18:55 GMT-6 Subject: *KING LEAR* 1.4 BUSINESS Thanks to you, Martin Zacks, for your suggestions on the business in the opening lines of 1.4 in *LEAR*. I can see it; I like it. Have you seen how the RSC handle this part? Having seen only one live performance of *LEAR*, I am at the mercy of the movie makers, books, and my own guesses. My main misgiving to surrounding Lear with retainers or other trappings of nobility at this point is that in such a context Kent may seem fawning and Lear naive. The Granada *LEAR* with Olivier strikes me that way--Lear, nobly dressed, is led into the hall on horseback. So when he asks Kent standing below, "Dost thou know me, fellow?" the question seems superfluous, for although Kent might pretend not to know this old man's name, he could not as an Elizabethan mistake his social standing. Then when Kent claims to see in the old man's face "authority," Kent seems patently obsequious and Lear a bit dotty. In contrast to these unflattering images, Kenneth Muir in his Penguin Critical Study of *KING LEAR* says that these early lines "...show both men at their best--the employment of Service by Authority. This helps restore our respect for the king...." (61) I wonder how this initial exchange would play if Lear, instead of being surrounded by knights and attendants, were isolated downstage with Kent. Nevertheless, I particularly like your point that Kent in this part of 1.4 "mimic his standing up to Lear in 1.1." And, yes, one rarely gets the chance to direct *LEAR*, except of course when one teaches the play to a class and can suggest business that complements the text. In my case, I am seldom sure that I have it just right. Thanks again for your good help. Tom Hodges Amarillo, Texas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 07:25:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0148 [was 4.0148] Re: Oxford Editors and MM Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 148. Wednesday, 23 February 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 22 Feb 1994 20:22:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0140 Oxford Editors Reply to William Proctor Williams: My basic point was that someone beginning a study of MM might not want to begin with the arguments in SHAKESPEARE RESHAPED - which I was reading a week or two ago. Obviously Jowett, Taylor, and Wells have done much to heat up the debate over Shakespeare's text. But as my colleague Y. S. Bains keeps telling me, the Oxford editors simply ignore what they do not wish to confront. Personally, I find Taylor's work very helpful - to argue against. By the way, I realize that Wells does not have his name on SHAKESPEARE RESHAPED. I wish I could be more specific about the book, but I seem to have mislaid my copy. The older I get the more this mislaying business seems to happen. When I can't find my computer, I'll really be in trouble. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 08:30:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0149 Re: Universals and Science Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0149. Thursday, 24 February 1994. From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 23 Feb 94 08:03:56 -0600 Subject: Re: Much ado about universals and science My sense of it (being trained in 19th & 20th century, and a mere passionate amateur in the Renaissance) is that that the distinctions we make between the humanties and the sciences were much less clear then; there was much less to know (in theory, anyway) and people who thrived on learning wanted to know as much about everything as they could. (For a wonderful picture of this world, see Stephanie Cowell's recent novel *Nicholas Cooke.*) One of today's great tragedies, I think, is that disciplines have become so discipline-bound. While I know a number of scientists who enjoy literature, the reverse is less true. Since I was persuaded as a young woman that women didn't do science, here I am in literature, but find myself reading books about science all the time (currently the wonderful *Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos* about recent and contemporary cosmology--and those cosmologists go at one another with as much vigor and delight as members of this conference.) And just for the record, in case folks don't know this, the video release date of *Much Ado* is March 2. (I read the review in the October 1993 *Commentary* that was mentioned recently; whew! nasty, brutish, and long--and I disagreed with nearly every word.) And special to Luc at Montpellier: I'll crush a cup of wine with you anytime! Chris Gordon English/University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 08:35:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0150 Re: Ophelia and Gertrude Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0150. Thursday, 24 February 1994. From: Stanley Holberg Date: Wednesday, 23 Feb 94 11:46 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude On the discussion group VICTORIA (19th-century British Culture and Society--victoria@iubvm.bitnet) there have been a lot of postings these days about pictorial representations of Ophelia in that period. Perhaps you know somebody who has a file containing these messages. --Stanley Holberg holberma@snypotva.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 08:40:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0151 Announcement: Student Essay Contest Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0151. Thursday, 24 February 1994. From: Date: Thursday, 24 Feb 1994 01:54:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcement: TDR student essay contest __________________________________________________________________ ________________ _____________ _____________ /_______________/| /____________ \ /____________ \ |||||||||||||||||/ |||||||||||||\ \ |||||||||||||\ \ |||| | |||| | |||\ \ |||| | |||\ \ |||| | |||| | |||\ \ |||| |______||||/ |||| | |||| | |||| | ||||/______||||/ |||| | |||| | ||||/ |||||||||||||\ \ |||| | |||| |______||||/ |||| | ||||\ \ |||| | ||||/______||||/ |||| | ||||\ \ ||||/ ||||||||||||||/ ||||/ ||||\/ __________________________________________________________________ The Journal of Performance Studies ENTER TDR'S 5TH ANNUAL STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST -- $500 TO THE WINNER -- TDR's Student Essay Winner will be published in TDR (along with a profile of the winner's department). Essays may be on any subject related to performance, but feel free to explore the boundaries of performance as well. Entries should be in English, unbound, and 15-30 double-spaced typed manuscript pages. Send 3 copies to: TDR Student Essay Contest, Tisch School of the Arts/NYU, 721 Broadway, 6th floor, NY, NY 10003, USA. DEADLINE: MARCH 31, 1994 The winner will be announced in Fall 1994. For questions call (212) 998-1626 or e-mail beana@acfcluster.nyu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 08:45:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0152 Re: *King Lear*: 1.4 Business Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0152. Friday, 25 February 1994. From: David Bank Date: Thursday, 24 Feb 94 19:00:09 GMT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0131 Q: *King Lear*: 1.4 Business I'm puzzled by Tom Hodges problem with *KL* 1.4. Not only is there no need for Kent to kneel to Lear at this point; I imagine that doing so would confuse or distract the audience's understanding of what is really going on. Kent has returned to Lear after banishment, in disguise. He is going to watch over the old fool like an earthly Providence, who in disguise Followed his enemy king, and did him service Improper for a slave. (5.iii.219-221) The *disguise* part of Kent's heroic love for Lear must, I think, be complemented by an *affected distance*. Kent 'doesn't know' Lear either by acquaintance or as the King (1.iv.20). Kent at this point discards the manners of the courtier and adopts what Cornwall is later to call "a saucy roughness" - i.e. bluntness, directness amounting at times to insolence, the manner of a landless man for hire. The exchanges in 1.iv. between Kent and Lear should simply be played as a 'master and servant' discourse. The ironies of "Authority" at 1.iv. 30 otherwise get squashed flat. David Bank University of Glasgow ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 08:58:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0154 Re: *Ado* Video Availability Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0154. Friday, 25 February 1994. From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Thursday, 24 Feb 1994 21:11:49 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Much Ado Video Since I am eager to get a copy of the "Much Ado About Nothing" video (and was not aware it was due out until the other day), I decided to stop by my local Blockbuster Video and find out when and how much. It is indeed due out next week (they already have up posters for it), but unfortunately the list price is $95. I'm sure it will come down, but not for at least six months. Patricia Gallagher ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Feb 1994 08:55:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0153 Q: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0153. Friday, 25 February 1994. From: Hilary Rowland Date: Thursday, 24 Feb 94 15:27:09 EST Subject: Hooked on Shakespeare In the course of the most recent Universals/Human Condition debate, the question of literary representations and cultural specificity was markedly and frequently raised. I noticed, in addition,that several SHAKSPERians mentioned (however briefly) their early training in Shakespeare studies. These plays hold meaning for us in terms of personal exposure as well as in relation to our cultural positions. My own introduction to Shakespeare was playing Titania in the fourth grade. I can still recite Helena's "Lo! she is one of this confederacy" having been carefully coached by my father for the audition. Surely participating so intensely at an early age has played a role in my continuing interest in these plays. I would be curious to learn of the introductory experiences of other SHAKSPERians. Hilary Rowland ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 16:08:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0155 Re: First Times with Shakespeare (Introductory Experiences) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0155. Saturday, 26 February 1994. (1) From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 10:45:44 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0153 Q: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare (3) From: Terence Martin Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 12:08:43 CST Subj: Introductory Experience (4) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 13:18:55 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0153 Q: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare (5) From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 14:52:30 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 10:45:44 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0153 Q: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare My first Shakespearean production was also MND. My mother was an actress and when a production came to town, she decided to take my sister (age 3) and me (age 4) to see it. We were carefully prepared for it (or so goes the family story) and enjoyed it thoroughly. In the taxi on the way home, however, a major battle erupted because both of us thought Bottom was the best stuffed animal we had ever seen and wanted to claim him as a future husband. I have no memory of this episode, but when I directed MND a couple of years ago I did cast my husband as Bottom--just to be on the safe side. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Martin Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 12:08:43 CST Subject: Introductory Experience Ms. Rowland does indeed have an interesting point. What is it that sparks such universal (oops!)and personally powerful interest in Shakespeare's work? In my own case, that first intense experience came from a school organized trip to a local cinema to see Olivier's *Henry V*. At age twelve, I expected nothing more than an afternoon away from the classroom; instead I became totally immersed in the film which allowed free rein to my imagination. On any future occasion, I knew I would be sure to be there on Saint Crispin's Day. Though the then recent atmosphere of World War II was doubtless influential and while I may now have a more jaundiced and critical view of that production, I will never forget its stimulus to my later enjoyment of Shakespeare. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 13:18:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0153 Q: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare I owe my getting "hooked" on Shakespeare not only to the bard himself, but to Professor Kay Stanton at California State University, Fullerton, who helped to make the printed page come alive for me when I was an undergraduate. Patricia Palermo ppalermo@drew.drew.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 14:52:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare I discovered Shakespeare when I was about 11 years old. My mother had an old, brown collected works with Shakespeare's picture embossed on the cover that she'd used in high school--this has always puzzled me, since she went to a vocational high school. I guess our educational system *has* gone down since then! =-) Though this book had not a single gloss on any word, my young imagination sucked it up like a sponge, and I spent many happy hours memorizing speeches and acting them out in front of the mirror. (My father was an actor, so I had the bug.) When I mentioned this story to a high school class I was visiting, one voice popped up from the back and said, "Dr. Earthman, were you a nerd?" Yes, I guess I was. The wonderful end to this story is that the tattered copy of this book sat on my desk at school for many years, with the binding in shreds, the cover attached only by a small thread. My husband asked one day if he could borrow the book to do a little reading, but he secretly took it to a custom book bindery and had it lovingly restored. I don't know how much this book was worth in 1937, but it is priceless to me now. Elise Earthman San Francisco State ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 16:24:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0156 Qs: Household Words; *Temp.* Problem; Third Man in *Mac.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0156. Saturday, 26 February 1994. (1) From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 08:48:39 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: Household Words (2) From: Chris Daigle <866141@academic.stu.StThomasU.ca> Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 13:11:09 AST Subj: Problems with performing "The Tempest" (3) From: Herbert Donow Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 12:31:18 CST Subj: Macbeth and the murderers (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 08:48:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Household Words My first posting to this list: Hello to you all. I wonder if someone can give me a suggestion on where to look for a list of phrases that Shakespeare originated that have come into common use in our language--so common that we have no inkling of the source. As a teacher of Shakespeare to those who have little or no interest in him, I try to make a case for how much Shakespeare they know without knowing it, and I'd love to have a list of expressions to dazzle them with. If there is no such collected source, I'd be delighted to receive private e-mail notes on your personal favorites. Thanks so much. Elise Earthman English/San Francisco State (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Daigle <866141@academic.stu.StThomasU.ca> Date: Friday, 25 Feb 1994 13:11:09 AST Subject: Problems with performing "The Tempest" I've been reading through the Tempest and I want to do it for the Fall production at my university. However, the vanishing banquet scene has got me boggled. I want to do the play in the round and I am curious if any one has seen this play done in the round and if so how was this scene done. I was thinking of doing a blackout and when the lights come back up the people are either asleep or frozen...I'm not sure. Any suggestions would be appreciated... Chris Daigle St.Thomas University Fredericton, N.B., Canada Email 866141@StThomasU.ca (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Herbert Donow Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 12:31:18 CST Subject: Macbeth and the murderers A former graduate student called me the other night and asked me what I thought about the addition of a third murderer in III.iii. We talked, among other things, about the plausibility of Macbeth himself being the newcomer. What have you playgoers observed in the treatment of that scene. Truthfully, I have never paid it any heed so I can't remember what I have seen over the years. Herb Donow Southern Illinois University at Carbondale ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Feb 1994 16:37:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0157 Rs: *Ado* Availability; Ophelia and Gertrude Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0157. Saturday, 26 February 1994. (1) From: Jorge Diez Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 17:05:56 PST Subj: re: SHK 5.0154 Re: *Ado* Video Availability (2) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 94 08:29:26 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jorge Diez Date: Friday, 25 Feb 94 17:05:56 PST Subject: re: SHK 5.0154 Re: *Ado* Video Availability WRT the "Much Ado" release for home video, note that it will also be out in the laser disc format for 34.95. Ah, but here's the rub...they say there is no mention of widescreen or letterbox. Here's hoping they're wrong... J.L.Diez (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 94 08:29:26 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.01445 Q: Ophelia and Gertrude For a VERY early comment on the possibilities of Ophelia and her nearly momma in law, I'd suggest a quick look at the 1603 First Quarto text of HAMLET. Whoever was responsible for the text (a piratical actor? Shakespeare herself? Nostradamus? Franco Zefferelli?) we have a deliciously different configuration of forces, actions, and language circulating around these two women. I have a few broad outlines of the alternatives in Gertrude's role in "Five Women Eleven Ways: Changing Images of Shakespearean Characters in the Earliest Texts" in W. Habic ht, et al., IMAGES OF SHAKESPEARE (1988). Good hunting, Herne the Urquartowitz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 08:40:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0158 Re: First Times with Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0158. Monday, 28 February 1994. From: Rick Jones Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 94 18:28:58 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0155 Re: First Times with Shakespeare I couldn't say what my first experience with Shakespeare was, but I do remember a sophomore English class in high school. We were reading _Macbeth_ aloud; I "played" Banquo. What I remember most is the simple fact that no 15-year-old on earth can say the words "Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly!" without feeling like an utter ass. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 08:51:27 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0159 Re: Hosehold Words Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0159. Monday, 28 February 1994. (1) From: Leslie Thomson Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 1994 20:25:05 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 Household Words; (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 11:47:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 Household Words; (3) From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 19:18:49 -0500 (EST) Subj: household words (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Thomson Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 1994 20:25:05 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 Household Words; Regarding Shakespearean phrases that have become part of the language: Recently a non-academic friend gave me Richard Lederer's *The Miracle of Language* which has a chapter titled "A Man of Fire-New Words" giving an extensive list and commentary on just such phrases. The chapter is very short and could easily be photocopied and distributed to students (if copyright didn't exist, that is). I hope this helps. Regards, Leslie Thomson U of Toronto (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 11:47:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 Household Words; Ms. Earthman: One source for finding popularized phrases from Shakespeare is Bartlett's. The recent edition (16th) ed. by Justin Kaplan devotes pages 163-226 to quotes that have become part of the "common culture." Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 19:18:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: household words Ms. Earthman, BARTLETT'S FAMILAR QUOTATIONS should give you more of these than you can stand. James McKenna Univ of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 11:53:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0162 Anthony Bacon Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0162. Monday, 28 February 1994. From: William Robinson Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 12:15:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Anthony Bacon is Shakespeare According to the Greek legend, the Phoenix is a lone beautiful bird, the only one of its kind. It is said to live for nearly five hundred years where it then begins to build a nest of dry sticks and twigs while at the same time singing a melodious dirge. When completed it then flaps its wings furiously setting the nest on fire. Resting on top of the burning pile it slowly consumes itself into ashes. It then rises from the ashes a new bird equally alone and unique to live for another five hundred years. The bird not only represents immortality but also an individual who stands apart from the rest, a person of rare qualities. In the play Cymbeline we find that Shakespeare was truly aware of this when he compared Imogen with the Phoenix: If she be furnished with a mind so rare, She is alone the Arabian bird. I,vi. Not only was Shakespeare aware of the symbolism behind the bird but throughout Europe the comparison and significants comes up in the literature of the time. There is an interesting comparison made in a poem written to Anthony Bacon anonymously by some European. It has survived the centuries by being packed away in a bundle of correspondence written by and to Anthony Bacon and is now safely housed at Lambeth Library in London: A. anglais phenix de celeste origine, (English phoenix of celestrial origin) N. Ne pour orner et la terre et les cieus: (Born to adorn the earth and the heavens) T. Ton renom bruit jusques aux envieux: (Thy renown clamours down even to the jealous) H. Honneur te sert, et vertu te domine: (Honorable you serve and virtually you dominate) O. Ornement seul de sagesse et doctrine, (Ornament of wisdom and doctrine) I. Jour, et clairte de tout coeur genereux: (light and clarity to all generous hearts) N. Nous ne scaurions regarder de nos yeux (When we no longer look at you with our eyes) E. Eternite qui devant toi chemine. (you will still walk though eternity) B. Bacon fior di virtu, raro e perfetto A. Animo pronto, angelico intelletto, C. Chiaro lume d'honor e caritade, O. Ornamento e belta di nostra etade, N. Natural real di fidelta pieno E. Essempio d'ogni bon sempre sereno. So this anonymous European thought Mr Bacon was a man who like the Phoenix, had a mind so rare and perfect, that there was no other like him. O Anthony! O thou Arabian bird! Anthony and Cleoprata III,ii. The above is an excerpt from one of several unpublished articles that I have written centering around the life of Anthony Bacon. I am submitting it to this forum for possible discussion in the hopes of getting more information. So far the only sources loaded with information on the subject have consisted of several books: du Maurier, Daphne, Golden Lads (which opened the door) Strachey, Lytton, Elizabeth and Essex Birch, Thomas, Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Spedding, James, The Life and Letters of Francis Bacon By far the most important discovery for me has been Anthony Bacon's correspondence, which is housed in 16 volumes in the Lambeth Palace Library in London. Luckily someone saw fit to put the entire contents on microfilm in distribute it to several libraries throughout the United States. This information has provided me with some interesting parallelisms with the Shakespeare plays and has stimulated me to proceed further. Unfortunately much of the correspondence is written in old english, latin, french, spanish and in some instances in cipher. Anthony Bacon was well versed in several languages having spent 12 years of his life living in Europe gathering intelligence for Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State under Queen Elizabeth. Hooking up to Shaksper I hope will be a godsend to me and anybody who has any information on Anthony Bacon please contact me. Equally so anybody that wants to add pro or con to this discussion, come on in the waters fine. Until next time William A Robinson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 11:58:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0163 Re: Psycho Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0163. Monday, 28 February 1994. From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 18:54:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: macpsychbeth and th'expense of spirit Thanks Mr. McKay for the reminder of classical ideas of tragedy: right! I'm off the beam to present Macbeth as Everyman. With Willy Loman 350 years in the future, Shakespeare is not writing from a modern perspective but from a modified classical one. But even that aside, does classical tragedy present characters who are truly other than ourselves? One of the blessed byproducts of psychoanalysis is the discovery that these high characters often reside within us. We say that explicitly now, but might it be that the Renaissance was aware that extreme behaviors are not so much other than normal as extremes, normality stretched by obsession and circumstance? I ask that as a real question. In reading comedies of humors, I can see types constructed that are clearly just what they are; not distortions but oddities. Yet such oddities are the staple of television today. Comedy of humors is more alive now than it was then. The existence of truly unhuman characters is not evidence that there is no awareness of the link between godlike ambition and human frailty. You are right to call me on the Everyman slant: that's taking the point too far. But Renaissance writing demonstrates that writers, at least, if not most people, were interested in the question of whether enormities were the actions of a bizarre few or the acting out of common passions by unfortunates. Finally, on Sonnet 129: Why do you pick this one as an example of outlandish behavior? Do I reveal too much about myself? It seems to me that this very hyperbole is the core of the Renaissance megalomaniac: a familiar passion, commonly unacted or mostly suppressed or acted in a very small sphere, expanded onto a stage of nations and kings. What thinkest'ou? James McKenna University of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 10:58:41 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0160 Re: The Third Murderer in *Macbeth* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0160. Monday, 28 February 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 1994 21:24:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 Third Man in *Mac.* (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 11:46:21 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 Third Man in *Mac.* (3) From: Milla Riggio Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 08:18:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 Third Man in *Mac.* (4) From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 14:33:59 -0500 Subj: 3rd murderer in *Macbeth* (5) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Monday, February 28, 1994 Subj: The Third Murderer (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 1994 21:24:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 Third Man in *Mac.* The Three murderers Herb, It just popped into my head (again) that the three murderers are the three witches; I mean the same actors. I've heard the idea of Macbeth as the third murderer debated, and the refutation seemed good. If Macbeth had been at the murder scene, he would know that Fleance had escaped. He wouldn't be surprised when he is told at the banquet scene. For me, that rules out Macbeth. I like the addition of the third murderer because we don't know why Macbeth sent him (or her?). I'm sure that some textual scholars will argue that in the "original, long version" this is all accounted for. I have argued, and I think I will still argue, that MACBETH is not a play revised by what's his face. I forgot Middleton's name for a moment. The play is structurally perfect as it is. OTHELLO also lacks a subplot of any great status. And, Jim McKenna, here we have another example of off stage scheming that is not explained to the audience. We auditors remained puzzled and quarrel over what's going on. We remain ignorant. Was the third murderer Seyton - as is sometimes suggested? The insidious Rosse? Malcolm who has sneaked back to get rid of a potential competitor? Perhaps Lady sneaks out for a little fun? Does Shakespeare always tell his audience what's going on? What about the Paulina/Hermione plot? Paranoid Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 1994 11:46:21 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 Third Man in *Mac.* Hi, It seems a little unnecessary to suggest that the third murderer is Macbeth himself. Wouldn't the other two recognize him? Granted, of course, there are any number of disguises in Shakespeare that baffle credulity, and it was night . . . By the way, the BBC production has the third murderer off the other two before walking off stage (or off camera). I think they used Seyton as third murderer. Good luck, Sean Lawrence MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 08:18:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 Third Man in *Mac.* On the third murderer in Macboth: One filmmaker (is it Polanski?) brings a sinsiter Ross in as the third murderer, in a role he carries throughout the play. Milla Riggio (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 14:33:59 -0500 Subject: 3rd murderer in *Macbeth* Herb, I can refer you to the excellent analysis of Polanski's film treatment of this question, by two of my Montpellier colleagues, Patricia Dorval and Jean-Marie Maguin, in their paper "Playing on Things as well as Words: Antanaclasis on Screen and Stage", which they read at the first conference of the European Society for the Study of English in 1991, and which was published in *Cahiers Elisabethains* nb42 (Oct 92), pp.57-63 (esp. see 59-60). It is a very subtle and close analysis of the devices and semantic structures involved. hope it helps Luc (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Monday, February 28, 1994 Subject: The Third Murderer In the Plummer-Jackson *Macbeth* of several years back (as with a number of other productions I've seen) the Third Man (strains of Reed-Welles film) is the conflated, omnipresent henchman -- Seyton. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 11:47:25 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0161 Re: Staging *The Tempest* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0161. Monday, 28 February 1994. (1) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 1994 19:16:34 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 *Tempest* Problem (2) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 94 11:31:34 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0156 Staging The Tempest (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Saturday, 26 Feb 1994 19:16:34 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 *Tempest* Problem >I've been reading through the Tempest and I want to do it for the Fall >production at my university. However, the vanishing banquet scene has got me >boggled. I want to do the play in the round and I am curious if any one has >seen this play done in the round and if so how was this scene done. I saw the scene at Stratford Ont, but don't remember how it was staged. One possibility would be a platform that could be carried on stage that had some kind of a flip top and a flash box. You might just have "spirits" come in and whisk the stuff away, again with lights, smoke etc. Jerry Bangham jbangham@kudzu.win.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Sunday, 27 Feb 94 11:31:34 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0156 Staging The Tempest To Chris Daigle, Before you get tied up in the logistics of blocking, you might ask some more fundamental questions about magic and theatre and audiences in the play. What--to borrow a concept from Alan Dessen--does it mean to see or not to see something? What can Prospero see that the other Italians can't (e.g. Ariel)? What does he see that we in the audience can or cannot? Find a theatre conventon that helps you to establish how seeing works vis-a-vis magic, and you can throw away the strobe lights, blackouts, fairy dust and trap doors. Have fun. Cary M. Mazer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 13:43:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0164 Qs: Co-Author; Most Popular; Prospero; *Dream* Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0164. Tuesday, 1 March 1994. (1) From: Gerhard Rempel Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 05:52:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Co-author sought (2) From: Don Rowan Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 10:01:35 AST Subj: Shakespeare's Most Popular Play? (3) From: Joan Hartwig Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 11:43:26 EST Subj: Colonizer Prospero (4) From: Charles Edelman Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 94 13:06:00 EST Subj: Reinhardt-Dieterle 'Dream' (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gerhard Rempel Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 05:52:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Co-author sought My dean, Burton Porter, has asked me to send this query for a co-author out on the net. He has a contract to write an English Composition text from a critical- thinking perspective. He would like to have a co-author with experience in teaching composition from that viewpoint. His own field is philosophy. If interested, please reply to me and I will convey the information to him, or contact him by snail-mail: Dean Burton Porter School of Arts and Sciences Western New England College Springfield, Ma 01119 Thanks. Gerhard Rempel GRempel@WNEC/Western New England College, Springfield, Ma 01119. USA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Rowan Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 10:01:35 AST Subject: Shakespeare's Most Popular Play? I am interested in the opinion of any one of you as to which is Shakespeare's most popular play? On what parameters could one make a judgement? My guess is *MND*. Don Rowan rowan@unb.ca (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joan Hartwig Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 11:43:26 EST Subject: Colonizer Prospero A colleague in the German department has heard of a recent scholarly discussion on Prospero as the "first colonizer." Does anyone know what this is and where to find it? Thanks, Joan (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Edelman Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 94 13:06:00 EST Subject: Reinhardt-Dieterle 'Dream' If anyone knows a source (purchase) for a video of the Reinhardt-Dieterle film of 'Midsummer Night's Dream' (which featured J. Cagney as Bottom) I would be pleased to know of it. Thanks, Charles Edelman, Edith Cowan University, Australia EMAIL: C.Edelman@cowan.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 13:51:27 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0165 Re: First Times with Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0165. Tuesday, 1 March 1994. (1) From: Hilary Thimmesh Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 10:12:59 -0600 (CST) Subj: first times (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 11:03:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0158 Re: First Times with Shakespeare (3) From: Kevin Berland Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 16:43 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0158 Re: First Times with Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hilary Thimmesh Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 10:12:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: first times As a college freshman I played Osric--a role I spent the rest of my college years living down--and served as a sort of stage manager for a student pro- duction of *Hamlet*. The only excuse for attempting the play was that Hamlet had been reincarnated as a sophomore at St. John's that year. Gerry Potter was tall, dark, introspective, intellectual, and he had the voice to go with the role. When it was all over I was hooked on Shakespeare's language forever. Hilary Thimmesh (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 11:03:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0158 Re: First Times with Shakespeare "I an itchy palm?" is just as bad as "Fly, Fleance," and did nothing to endear _my_ high school class to Shakespeare. I got hooked in the summer of 68 when the senior member of the English Dept. at Beloit, the late Bernie Morrissey, let a doctoral student who was on a temporary appointment teach "his" Shakespeare course. Somehow I never finished a single play, but she got me hooked on digging into the language. Her name was Alison Sulloway. If anyone knows where she may have wound up, I'd appreciate a private mail note. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (202) 687-4478 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kevin Berland Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 16:43 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0158 Re: First Times with Shakespeare In grade 11 in Regina, we had a new teacher, Miss Thorfinsson, who seemed to be a promising target for classroom tormenting. She fooled us all. We were issued bowdlerized copies of Macbeth, and she spent the first class dictating the passages (the Porter, Lady M's "my woman's breasts," &c.) the schoolbook publishers had suppressed. What a great human being! What a brave woman. Inspiring, no? Nobody messed with Miss T. (This was in 1963, by the way...) -- Kevin Berland ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 14:12:41 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0168. Tuesday, 1 March 1994. From: Antony Hammond Date: Tuesday, 1 Mar 1994 11:26:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hamlet Q1 [The following letter was sent to the TLS by SHASKPERean Anthony Hammond, who invites your comments. --HMC] The Editor, Times Literary Supplement. Sir, I write not to disprove what Professor Sprinchorn says about the first quarto of Hamlet (Letters, 21 January), but to query the kind of evidence he offers. Nonetheless I heartily endorse his defence of the actor: the `incompetent actor' was always too easy a target for critics of a fundamentally literary persuasion; like the incompetent, careless compositor, the botching actor is probably a figment of the imagination. To be sure, actors have trained memories; but the evidence Professor Sprinchorn adduces, being often anecdotal, and mainly nineteenth-century, cannot decide the question of what might or might not have been the situation in the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. He says for instance that when actors dry they do not make up words, but rely on the prompter. How much actual prompting the bookholder did in the Elizabethan-Jacobean period remains a matter of opinion, but evidence from a performance of Shaw can hardly be considered conclusive. He says that when actors memorize they neither invent nor paraphrase, they do not depart from the script. I have documented cases indicating that even professional actors are liable to two kinds of memorial error: the first when a line has been mislearned, which then remains fixed in memory (and is very hard to correct); the other, momentary lapses of memory in the course of a single performance. Both of these can lead to the kind of improvisation which scholars have observed in some of the `bad quartos'. The best account of these kinds of memorial error is perhaps still D.L. Patrick's, in his Textual History of Richard III (1936). The still generally-accepted view, that the text of the first quarto of that play originated in a collective memorial re-creation by most members of the Chamberlain's Men, makes Richard III the best test-case against which the vagaries of the other `bad quartos' may be assessed. It is very accurate; any director whose cast managed as well would probably be very contented; but it still differs verbally hundreds of times from the text of the play in the First Folio. The quarto of Richard III is a very different document from the Hamlet Q1; the view that their differences reflect the circumstances under which their reports were created is not unreasonable. If indeed the latter derived from a report being made by actors no longer in the Company's employ, who were perhaps no longer performing the play in repertory, and who had not been major participants in the original production anyway, a number of factors which Professor Sprinchorn fails to contemplate become relevant. The Elizabethan acting company, with several plays in repertory at the same time, new works constantly being rehearsed and put into production whilst older ones were dropped, must have been one of the most severe tests of the actor's ability to memorize and to retain in memory that has ever obtained. How much time could a hired man spend hanging around near the entrance to memorize other actors' performances? We don't know, of course; but once again, I have some documentary evidence that while the ability to memorize in this casual way is highly variable, few if any actors will retain verbatim the verbal detail of scenes in which they are not participants. At any event, it will not do for Professor Sprinchorn to exonerate the actor at the expense of the dramatist. To suppose that Hamlet Q1 fairly represents the work of a highly competent professional dramatist (to put it no higher) is at least as problematical as any scenario that lays the responsibility for that quarto at the door of an actor or actors unknown. It has, unfortunately, again become fashionable in the current critical climate to try to explain the `bad quartos' as authorial drafts; but to paraphrase Professor Sprinchorn, competent professional dramatists don't write rubbish, let alone allow it to be put into production, any more than competent professional actors habitually mangle their lines. ANTONY HAMMOND Department of Drama, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 14:01:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0166 Rs: Household Words; Psycho Macbeth; Third Murderer Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0166. Tuesday, 1 March 1994. (1) From: James Harner Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 11:36:29 -0600 (CST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0159 Re: Household Words (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 15:26:52 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0163 Re: Psycho Macbeth (3) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 15:52:08 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0160 Re: The Third Murderer in *Macbeth* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 11:36:29 -0600 (CST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0159 Re: Household Words You might also consult two books by Charles A. Norrington: +Shakespeare, the Bible, Milton, and Others in Our Daily Conversation+. Victoria, Australia: Privately Printed, 1989. +Shakespeare's "Mirror up to Nature" with Highlights in Full: A Companion Booklet to Shakespeare, the Bible, Milton, and Others in Our Daily Conversation. Peterborough, Australia: Privately Printed, 1991. Jim Harner (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 28 Feb 94 15:26:52 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0163 Re: Psycho Macbeth It strikes me that James McKenna's suggestion that Renaissance audiences shared with our own age the idea that extremes in behavior represent extremes rather than abnormalities relies rather too heavily on democratic values. The Renaissance conception of "degree" (qv. Agamemnon in _TC_, and even more explicit in the plays of Lyly and Peele), makes such identifications more difficult: tragic heroes are explicitly Not Like Us, and attempting to transgress one's proper station is very much frowned upon. Neo-classical critics misread Aristotle into saying that tragedy is the province of kings. I'd argue further that the monarchy is upheld in Elizabethan plays in part by reinforcing the idea that kings may be like us in some ways, but are ultimately Not Like Us. Even a play like _Cambyses_, in which a tyrant runs wild, suggests ultimately that only God's justice can legitimately remove a duly installed monarch (bad monarchs exist, but are God's means of punishing a wicked kingdom). Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ would be a better known, though less explicit, example. And it is surely not coincidental that all the "bad monarchs" are removed by time or distance from the present day: Richard III is about as close as we get to a recent, English, real-life bad guy. And guess whose grandfather deposed him? I should also note that some of the most interesting recent work in classical studies centers on the inherent conflict between the tragic hero and the self-consciously (if not actually) democratic society in which the plays were performed. None of this means that Shakespeare necessarily bought into all the myths of his age... just that he was certainly constrained by them, at least to some extent. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 15:52:08 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0160 Re: The Third Murderer in *Macbeth* This belies my ignorance, but why is Ross so insidious? He always seems to me to be just a reasonably good man, in a rough stuation, and usually delivering messages for others. Though, of course, the role of courier might indicate a deep cowardice, unwilling to assume any ideas of his own. Cheerio, Sean Lawrence. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 14:06:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0167 Anthony Bacon (con't) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0167. Tuesday, 1 March 1994. From: William Robinson Date: Monday, 28 Feb 1994 21:53:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Intelligence gathering In September 1595 Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland received leave to travel abroad from England to France and Italy. For his journey and for his personal guidance a manuscript of `Profitable Instructions' was drawn up. When it was printed in 1633 it was assigned to Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex. James Spedding argues in his `Life and Letters of Francis Bacon' that the true author of the manuscript was indeed none other than Bacon himself. Spedding then procedes to show a mental relationship between the manuscript and some of the acknowledged writings of Francis Bacon. The manuscript was indeed written by Bacon, Anthony Bacon, older brother to Francis, who at the time was secretary to the Earl of Essex, and responsible for receiving and sending intelligence reports over much of Europe through a network of spies. Because of his twleve years abroad Anthony had managed to set up and operate one of the most sophistacated spy networks and upon his return to England in 1592, he offered his services to Essex. From this point the Earl began to climb the stairway to power. Their rivals couldn't match them in their ability to seek and find valuable imformation which Essex presented to Elizabeth and her council. As a result he was offered a seat in the Privy Council. Anthony's philosophy is spelled out in the opening paragraph: I hold it for a principle in the course of intelligence of state, not to discourage men of mean sufficiency from writing unto me, though I had at the same time very able advertisers; for either they sent me some matter which the other had omitted, or made it clearer by delivering the circumstances, or if the added nothing, yet they confirmed that which coming single I might have doubted. This rule therefore I have presented to others.... For the sake of comparison lets look at this same idea dramatised in the play Othello: Duke. There's no composition in the news That gives them credit. First Senator. Indeed, they are disporportioned. My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. Duke. and mine a hundred forty. Second Senate. And mine two hundred. But though they jump not on a just accompt- As in these cases where they aim reports `Tis oft with differences-yet do they all confirm A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus. Duke. Nay, it is possible enough to judgement. I do not so secure me in the error, But the main article I do approve In fearful sense. Indeed anybody who has studied the plays cannot help but notice the stready stream of references to intelligence gathering. In Richard III we see Hastings urging the fellow back to court and telling him not to worry for `nothing can proceed that toucheth us where of I shall not have intelligence.' Again in Midsummer Night's Dream we find Helena following Hermia into the woods where she feels that `for this intelligence if I have thanks it is a dear expense.' In King John we find the King complaining about his mother's lack of knowledge about an approaching army: O, where hath our intelligence been drunk? Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care, That such an army could be drawn in France And she not hear of it? One might call it a coincidence but the more we look into the plays the more we begin to see the naturalness in which Shakespeare talks about gathering intelligence. Again in The Merry Wives of Windsor we see Ford commenting on the fact that Falstaff is in his house with his wife, `In my house I am sure he is: my intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable." and further on Falstaff is warned by the same method, `You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page; gives intelligence of Ford's approach....' In the sixteen century the method of gathering intelligence was time consuming, cumbersome and dangerous. Agents were enlisted from all parts of Europe, their job was to gather as much information and send it back to their source by trusted messengers or courtiers. It's interesting to note how much this is incorporated into the plays. William Robinson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 07:40:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0169 Re: Q1 of *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0169. Wednesday, 2 March 1994. (1) From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 94 20:50:57 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* (2) From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 94 07:01:28 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 94 20:50:57 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* Though competent actors and competent playwrights only rarely produce rubbish, even extremely competent and professional critics have been known to spout and print and defend all sorts of refuse that after a year, or a generation, or a century eventually gets recognized and usually forgotten. The smart and hardworking folks who brought us memorial reconstruction and tales of pirates in the playhouse were, alas, blowing smoke. By design or by accident, they all all all without exception from Sir Walter Greg down to the latest innovators in the gang misrepresented their data, hid or ignored or didn't notice contradictory evidence, and built card houses suspended upon gossamer visions. I encourage the SHAKSPER members to examine Patrick's work on RICHARD III, and then I ask that you look at an essay of mine that painstakingly teases out the sweet nothings that are wrapped in Patrick's tangles of imagined derivations: "Reconsidering the Relationship of Q and F Richard III," ENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE 16 (1986), 442-66. In it I take a while to demonstrate just how D.L.Patrick and Antony Hammond read texts and declare passages un-Shakespearean according to bizarre, extremely personal, and theatrically maladroit literary values. One of the odd aspects of Shakespearean textual studies is how essays that challenge the fundamental paradigms of editing get marginalized unto invisibility. Arguments such as my "Reconsidering . . ." piece and others I've done, adding up to a lot of pages of detailed grinding away at evidence,get dismissed cavalierly in a sentence or a subordinated clause. "We are not convinced . . ." Hey, Tony! Why not, the next time you propound that a line, a speech, a theatrical entry or exit, or a scene is "rubbish," why not try reading it out loud, or with some actors? I did. It's a lot of fun. Go ahead. F'rinstance, Tony, ask Patrick Stewart about how terrible Q1 HAMLET is. When we worked over parallel passages from Q1, Q2 and F with Jean-Luc and five trekking ACTER actors who had been playing the play, their jaws dropped open with surprise and DELIGHT over the treasures of theatricality labelled so stupidly and swept out of sight as rubbish. "Eeegh, feh! that's just another of those enthusiastic amateurs. What do they know. They convince only themselves . . ." Phuiy. Uh oh. This irritability is only appropriate to discussions of universals. Sorry, out there. The editorial/textual types are snarling. Get the kiddies inside; this may turn ugly. Urk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 94 07:01:28 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* I think it is somewhere in Peter Hall's Diaries (1983), but I seem to recall that Hall narrates that Ralph Richardson had periods when he lost the thread and reverted to delivering lines that were Shakespearean but from other plays. And I think Hall advised the other members of the cast to wait until he recovered and then go on as usual, because the audience generally wouldn't even recognize that he had jumped the points. [I've tried to find the anecdote quickly in my copy, but I can't locate it] My point: Anthony H is right that there are more ways to handle a memory loss than relying on a prompter; improvisation is one, and apparently a silent switch to another, perhaps situationally similar part, is a second way. Cheers. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 07:57:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0170 Rs: Ross; First Times; Most Popular; *MND* Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0170. Wednesday, 2 March 1994. (1) From: Jean Peterson Date: Tuesday, 1 Mar 1994 16:53:39 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0166 [Re: Ross] (2) From: Robert White Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 1994 17:22:38 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: First Times with Shakespeare (3) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 1994 16:56:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0164 Most Popular (4) From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Tuesday, 1 Mar 1994 21:08:21 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: *MND* on video (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Tuesday, 1 Mar 1994 16:53:39 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0166 [Re: Ross] RE: Sean Lawrence's query about Ross (i.e., is Ross indeed insidious?). I think there is a tendency for directorial choices to enter the cultural "life" of a playtext with surprising tenacity: Polanski's choices create a whole tradition of sinister Rosses, and it becomes an assumption that the part must be played in this way (his only questionable action, as far as I recall, is misguidedly reassuring Lady Macduff that all will be well; this could be played as simple bad judgement--judgement as bad, in fact, as Macduff's). I know I've seen entirely too many stage Mercutios who aped John McInery in the Zeffirelli film--copying not only stage business, but vocal patterns and even appearance. Which is why SHAKESPERIANS living near Washington D.C. must betake themselves to the Shakespeare Theater to catch Barry Kyle's *Romeo and Juliet*--a fresh, original, inspired and utterly exhilarating staging! Jean Peterson Bucknell University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert White Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 1994 17:22:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: First Times with Shakespeare I am struck with the number of respondents who have stated or implied that memorization was an important element of their first significant encounter with Shakespeare. For me, it was a twelfth-grade assignment to memorize certain passages from _Macbeth_; and to this day when the "Tomorrow and tomorrow" lines ring in my mind, they enchant me. For other respondents, a more or less successful debut on stage did the trick. Memorization is out of fashion as a teaching method these days, but I wonder if we might be missing the boat by abandoning it altogether. I know of no better way to get students to absorb the rhythms and beauty of language. I wonder how many SHAKSPERians require memory work of their students and how successful they've been with this approach. Robert A. White, The Citadel WHITER@CITADEL.EDU (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 1994 16:56:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0164 Most Popular Don Rowan asks which of Shakespeare's plays might be the most popular. If the number of words written about a given play are any evidence of its popularity, then _Hamlet_ wins hands down. Patricia Palermo ppalermo@drew.drew.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Tuesday, 1 Mar 1994 21:08:21 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: *MND* on video According to "Shakespeare on Screen" by Rothwell & Melzer, there is a video of the 1935 "Midsummer Night's Dream" available for sale from Warner Brothers (price $19.95). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 08:00:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0171 Q: Housing in England Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0171. Wednesday, 2 March 1994. From: Nancy W Miller Date: Tuesday, 1 Mar 94 20:25:58 EST Subject: Housing in England Greetings! I'd like to ask for advice from other list members. My husband and I will be going to England this summer (probably August-September) to do some research at the Bodleian and the British Library, and we will be on a very tight budget. Can anyone suggest where to go for inexpensive housing in or near (or between) London or Oxford? The ideal situation would be to find someone interested in doing a home-exchange, but dormitories and spare rooms for temporary let would be fine. Please respond to me personally. Nancy W. Miller nmiller@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 10:07:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0172. Wednesday, 2 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 1994 22:47:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Prospero, the Colonial (2) From: Hardy M. Cook | Date: Wednesday, March 2, 1994 Subj: Prospero and Colonialism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 01 Mar 1994 22:47:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Prospero, the Colonial Joan Hartwig, I'm not going to help you much, because I think there's a whole literature on Prospero as a colonist. I seem to remember murmuring something about that twenty years ago, and nowdays it's a flourishing industry. I admit that I don't know who said that Prospero was the FIRST colonist. Cheers, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook | Date: Wednesday, March 2, 1994 Subject: Prospero and Colonialism As a start, I would recommend the following on the subject of colonialism and *The Tempest*: Barker, Francis and Peter Hulme. "'Nymphs and reapers heavily vanish': The Discoursive Con-texts of *The Tempest*. In *Alternative Shakespeares*. Ed. John Drakakis. Brown, Paul E. "'This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine': *The Tempest* and the Discourse of Colonialism." In *Political Shakespeare*. Eds. Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore. Cartelli, Thomas. "Prospero in Africa: *The Tempest* as Colonialist Text and Pretext." In *Shakespeare Reproduced*. Eds. Howard and O'Connor. and McDonald, Russ. "Reading *The Tempest.*" In *The Tempest and After*. SS 43: 1991 as an alternative reading. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 10:41:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0173 Trial of Hamlet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0173. Wednesday, 2 March 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Wednesday, March 2, 1994 Subject: "Trial of Hamlet" [FYI: The following appeared in *The Washington Post*, Saturday, February 26, 1994. --HMC] Backstage: "To Be or Not to Be Guilty" By: Kara Swisher and Joe Brown Since the world's best-known ditherer could never decide, it's time to bring in a higher authority. Shakespeare's troubled Prince of Denmark will finally get his day in court--literally--when Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy presides over the "Trial of Hamlet" next month. As part of this year's dinner party of the Shakespeare Theatre's Lawyer's Committee on March 17, Kennedy will preside over a jury trial--litigated by top-flight Washington attorneys--to determine whether Hamlet was insane when he murdered Polonius. The idea came from Kennedy, who is a big Shakespeare buff. Sources working on the trial said he spends much of his minimal free time these days orchestrating the event, and many lower-level lawyers around town are busy researching the insanity defense. "Hamlet is really caught in a coil of fascinating and deeply conflicted emotions, and his most interesting riddle is his deeper motivation," says Kennedy about his favorite Shakespearean tragic figure. "We learn more about ourselves if we learn about Hamlet." Hamlet's murder of Polonius was selected for the trial, he says, because "perhaps there are some better legal defenses to the other murders that he commits." Maryland law will be used in the trial, which will take place over about three hours in one of the rooms at the Supreme Court, where the fund-raising dinner will also be held. The jury will be selected from the 170 guests, who are local lawyers who support the Bard and his local theatrical venue. And considering the White House's own propensity for intrigues, perhaps it's not surprising that three of the six lawyers chosen for the case have served as counsels for Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton. Since there's no doubt that Hamlet did in fact kill Polonius, says Kennedy, the only question is his state of mind. So the only "record" used will be the text of the play and the only witnesses will be competing psychiatrists (a more modern twist). "Hamlet will not testify, because an actor would have too much control over how the thing comes out, with inflections, intonations and mood," says Kennedy. "Anyway, we already have one of the best transcripts around from one of the world's most famous writers." Who, by the way, also scripted the line, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." But, Kennedy promises, that won't be held against Hamlet. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 11:38:50 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0174 Re: Q1 of *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0174. Thursday, 3 March 1994. (1) From: E.P. WERSTINE Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 94 11:08:18 EDT Subj: HamletQ1 (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 23:20:08 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E.P. WERSTINE Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 94 11:08:18 EDT Subject: HamletQ1 In friendly reply to Professors Sprinchorn and Hammond, I want to observe how their exchange seems to reproduce a debate that has been going on between advocates of memorial construction and advocates of authorial revision for a good part of this century without bringing us to any resolution. For Professor Sprinchorn, the improbability of "rogue" actors' having produced the so-called "bad quartos" is somehow to be understood as an indication that they originate with the dramatist (This well-travelled road is one that my friend Steve Urkowitz also goes down in his article on Richard III). Professor Hammond's well- founded scepticism about any authorial origin for the "bad quartos" leads him back to endorsing memorial reconstruction. It is hard (for me, at least) to see why in either case the inadequacy of one theory should be thought to compensate for the inadequacy of the other. It seems useful of Professor Hammond to introduce the quarto of Richard III into the debate along with the Hamlet "bad quarto." The vast qualitative difference between the two texts has long been recognized, and this difference tells against any theorist who wants to apply the same narrative of origin of both. Any single theory that attributes the same origin to such different texts could be used to account for the origin of just about anything else as well. Any suggestion that both originated with the same "author" comes up against Foucault's observation in "What is an Author?" that ever since St. Jerome western civilization has been constructing its authors according to the assumption that "if among several books attributed to an author one is inferior to the others, it must be withdrawn from the list of the author's works (the author is therefore defined as a constant level of value)." To suggest, then, that the same author wrote Hamlet Q1 and QRichard III is simply to use the word author in an unintelligible way. On the other hand, the theory of memorial construction by an actor or actors runs up against the historical fact that no one even talked about such a possibility until a little over a century ago. It's entirely the product of late nineteenth-century ingenuity (like that of Richard Grant White ca. 1881) and didn't gain wide assent until well into this century. There is not a scrap of even anecdotal evidence for such actorly practice in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. (We have plenty of stories of the memorial reconstruction of speeches and sermons by auditors, though.) Why are Shakespeareans still so firmly attached to such ill-founded theories? Cheers, Paul Werstine |(2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 23:20:08 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0168 Q1 of *Hamlet* Surely the same pressures that placed burdens on an actor's memory would also place burdens on a script-writers writing style. Shakespeare no doubt felt the need to produce new plays if only to have new material in a world where plays suffered a rate of attrition on par with that of Hollywood action flicks. Back in the 1940s, when the need for large numbers of films was even more gruelling, competent professional script-writers often wrote absolute rubbish, and competent actors put in terribly performances, if only to get out another film before the competition. While I'd hate to border on conspiracy theories of authorship, maybe the brilliance of some of these plays arose when they were changed, after an attempt in production. Needless to say, it wouldn't be printed until the script was (more or less) settled. In the meantime, a discourse would take place between script-writer, audience, political factors, actors, physical limitations of the Globe theatre, and so on. It seems that Shakespeare wasn't absolutely loathe to borrow other men's material, or work within a group. If we imagine him stealing a plot line from Hollinshed (or Kyd, some think, in the case of Hamlet), fiddling with it, trying it (at least in rehearsal), then adjusting it in line with any number of factors and probably some help (Thomas More was written by a group, after all) we might be a little nearer to appreciating Shakespeare as a human like ourselves, having to think things through, rather than a minor deity presenting us with a perfect creation. Just a few thoughts, Sean Lawrence (AC.DAL.CA) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 16:42:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0175 Re: *MND* Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0175. Thursday, 3 March 1994. From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 10:58:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0164 *Dream* Video C. Edelman: The Reinhardt version of MNN is listed for $19.98 (American) in the Viewfinder's Catalogue of Uncommon Video-- Toll Free Phone Number 800-342-3342 Fax # 708-869-1710 I don't know how these work from Australia. The address is PO Box 1665 Evanston Ill 60204-1665. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 16:49:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0176 Re: Ross Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0176. Thursday, 3 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 12:19:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0166 Third Murderer (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 20:10:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0170 Ross (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 12:19:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0166 Third Murderer All this talk about the Third Murderer compels me to cite my analysis of the role of that mysterious figure in the Polanksi MACBETH, though I recognize that citing one's own publications may be either unethical or a sign of desperation. Using the theories of M.F. Libby, a Victorian schoomaster, Polanski and Kenneth Tynan made Ross (I think it's Rosse in the Folio) into a key figure in the play. As played by John Stride, he comes across as cynical, manipulative, sinister (all of the above), a minor league Iago. If anyone's interested, the full story is in K.S. Rothwell, "Roman Polanski's MACBETH: The 'Privileging' of Ross," THE CEA CRITIC, 46.1&2 (Fall & Winter 1983-84): 50-55. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 20:10:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0170 Ross Regarding Ross, I think there is an article, much older than Polanski, that argues that Ross(e) is the true villain. After all, Ross is always there. As I recall, the article is listed some place in Muir's footnotes (Arden). But I couldn't find it by glancing through. Sorry about that. Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 16:57:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0177 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0177. Thursday, 3 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 12:27:08 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 20:18:57 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 12:27:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism Let's add to the list, one of the very latest contributions: Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan, SHAKESPEARE'S CALIBAN: A CULTURAL HISTORY. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 20:18:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism In 1964, I was Peter Alexander's graduate assistant, and I remember that he used to insist that THE TEMPEST was a reflection of William Strachey's account of a shipwreck on the Bermudas, and that the Virginia Company stands behind the play. Isn't it only a little step to suggesting that Prospero is a colonist? Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 17:04:13 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0178 Re: First Times with Shakspeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0178. Thursday, 3 March 1994. (1) From: Chris Kendall Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 10:53:06 -0700 (MST) Subj: First times (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 16:05:36 -0600 Subj: Re: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 10:53:06 -0700 (MST) Subject: First times From my early high-school days, my father and I would play a game involving quotes from Shakespeare. One of us would quote a passage and the other would have to name the play. Extra points were awarded for character, act, scene, addressee, etc. This game went on for years, that is until I got better at it than he, then it sort of fell out of favor. Funny, I think the same thing happened with chess. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 16:05:36 -0600 Subject: Re: Introductory Experiences with Shakespeare I remember watching Shakespearean productions on that amazing new invention, television, in the 1950s, but was most memorably introduced to the playwright in my sophomore year in high school when we read *Julius Caeser*. This was before the public school I attended discovered I was bright and put me into college prep courses, so my class was a very mixed bag. Our amazing teacher, Daniel Przybylowski, managed to get ALL of us involved with an astonishing array of teaching skills that I envy to this day. My love affair has continued ever since, and I introduced my children to Will with a production of *Romeo and Juliet* which they saw when they were 7 and 5 years old. They're still hooked now at the advanced ages of 14 and 12. In fact, daughter Jane played a small part in and served as assistant director for her middle school's production of *R and J* last year. We also trekked to Chicago from the Twin Cities four years ago this spring to see Kenneth Branagh's company perform *A Midsummer Night's Dream* and *King Lear* (with Emma Thompson as the fool!). Terrific shows, both of them! And, as with other languages, children seems to have much less difficulty attuning their ears to Elizabethan English than college age students or adults. --Chris Gordon, English, U of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 17:08:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0179 [was 4.0179] Re: Lit List Questionaire Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0179. Thursday, 3 March 1994. From: J. Scott Kemp Date: Wednesday, Mar 2 12:00:28 1994 Subject: Lit List Questionnnaire Thanks to all those who are participating in the study on "How Literary/ English Lists are changing the way we discuss/learn about English/Literature" Unfortunately, I have scraped the master list of those to send the "Questionnaire" to before I got them all sent out. If you sent a message to me volunteering to answer the questionnaire and have not yet received it to your e-mail box, or would be interested in having your opinions and experiences with Lit Lists weighed into the study PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE send a message to my box, saying: Send Questionnaire To: scott@micronet.wcu.edu I am sorry for my clumsiness in junking the names. In anticipation, John Scott Kemp scott@micronet.wcu.edu P.S. Include your e-mail address. Thanx. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 17:12:28 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0180 Re: Anthony Bacon Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0180. Thursday, 3 March 1994. From: Sean Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 02 Mar 1994 23:02:40 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0167 Anthony Bacon (con't) But if intelligence gathering required such a large apparatus and commitment of manpower, one would think that a lot of people would get to know about it, though not in any particular level of detail. One might also explain the large numbers of occurrences of the word "intelligence" in Shakespeare's drama by reference to the fact that it might not have been meant as specifically as it is now. If we use "intelligence officer" or "intelligence leak," these days, it's a rather specialized use. On the other hand, Shakespeare might just be using it as the first word that came to hand to indicate knowledge or information. Just a thought, Sean Lawrence (MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:08:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0181 TPI Subscriptions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0181. Friday, 4 March 1994. From: David Reifsnyder Date: Wednesday, 2 Mar 1994 23:57:47 -0700 (MST) Subject: Theatre.Perspectives.International Subscriptions Many thanks to all of you who have expressed an interest in subscribing to T.P.I., the new electronic journal dedicated to exploring the changing nature of theatre around the world as it happens. In order to facilitate the subscription and distribution process we have established a listserv to allow you to automatically subscribe yourselves. The first issue will hit the 'Net on March 31 and will include, along with many other things, an extensive discussion with Anatoly Smeliansky, Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theatre and head of their actor training program, on Stanislavski, Chekhov, the M.A.T., and the future of theatre in Russia. To subscribe, send a message to listserv@lists.Colorado.EDU Leave the subject line blank and send the message subscribe tpi Questions concerning the journal should be addressed to Dave Reifsnyder (reifsnyd@ucsu.Colorado.EDU) or Jim Zeiger (zeigere@ucsu.Colorado.EDU) See you down the line - Dave Reifsnyder Editor T.P.I. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:31:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0183 London Flat for Rent Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0183. Friday, 4 March 1994. From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Thursday, 03 Mar 94 12:31:26 EST Subject: London Flat for Rent I have a two-bedroom flat in Islington (NE London), fully furnished, fully Americanized. I would like to rent it from August 15, 1994, through to the end of the year, December 31, 1994. Please contact me at TBER@SLUMUS.BITNET for futher details. Thanks, Thomas L. Berger, St. Lawrence University TBER@SLUMUS.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:24:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0182 Transmission of the Quartos (Was Q1 of *Ham.*) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0182. Friday, 4 March 1994. (1) From: Charles Frey Date: Thursday, 3 Mar 1994 09:21:01 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0169 Re: Q1 of *Hamlet* (2) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 03 Mar 94 22:30:24 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0174 Re: Q1 of *Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Frey Date: Thursday, 3 Mar 1994 09:21:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0169 Re: Q1 of *Hamlet* I don't see why irked wits need turn things ugly, but I guess it's common that they do. As one of the uninformed but interested, I'd appreciate a posting from a relatively neutral authority telling us how to obtain a balanced view of this debate over memorial reconstruction. Is the volume edited by Thomas Clayton and titled _The Hamlet First Published (Q1, 1603): Origin, Form, Intertextualities_ (1992) the latest and best word? Should we look at work by Lois Potter, Kathleen Irace, and others cited in _SQ_ Bibliographies? Has anyone played with the notion that what might be memorial reconstruction could occasionally offer phonetic spelling (as in, for example, Mistress Quickly's "tashan contigian" of the _Henry V_ Quarto), spelling that might aid in reconstructing Elizabethan pronunciations? (If "tashan" was how a memorial reconstructor _heard_ what we _see_ in our texts as "tertian," then that could say something about who may or may not have pronounced or heard the medial "r" or how broadly the "e" sound was sounded in that particular case?) Charles Frey (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 03 Mar 94 22:30:24 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0174 Re: Q1 of *Hamlet* In a grumpy reply to Paul Werstine, I find his benign equilibrium between weighing the memorial reconstruction case and the possibilities of authorial revision a mark of astounding literary and theatrical obtuseness. Two issues: First, the Patrick/Hammond stuff on RICHARD III, and second, the sleight-of-hand effort to dismiss authorial revision by re-defining the word author according to everyone's favorite lexicographer, M. Foucault. Patrick supports a weak hypothesis with foolish misreadings of texts and sources. He stupidly uses, for example, a 19th century SHAKESPEARE'S HOLINSHED instead of a complete modern text or an original edition in order to claim that Shakespeare couldn't have been responsible for Q1 Richard III. Hammond whoops and cheers his man Patrick, even though he knows, or should know, that Patrick 's house of cards floats on smoke. Werstine looks at the few very ugly spots in the "bad" quartos and finds them so contagious that they disqualify the rest of those scripts from further consideration. Since St. Foulcault has declared that an "author" can't be responsible for "good" and "bad" writings, then the "bad" quartos couldn't have been generated in any part by our "good" Shakespeare. What ever happened to the possibility that a single manuscript that could have been brought to a printer might have lots of neatly written pages and a few blotchy uglies? But the big problem that Werstine's Olympian posture effectively hides is that so much of the "bad" quarto texts are so good but different. Okay. Let's say that the critters responsible for Q1 Marry Wives, or Q1 Hamlet, or Q1 Richard are NOT authors. Say they are monkeys setting type in those print shops in St.Paul's. Wow! Those are some terriffic monkeys, 'cause they manage Shakespearean vocabulary, Shakespearean sources, Shakespearean theatrical stage movement, Shakespearean characterizations . . . frequently in ways that professional actors and directors find piquantly different but quite as stageworthy as THE AUTHOR. The current debate is not the same old debate. The thundering wizards get revealed more quickly for the flatulent poseurs they have always been. Critics now more often look at and benefit from the alternative texts of the multiple-text plays. Just because Paul Werstine can't embrace one of those happy old texts, it doesn't mean that those texts aren't fertile sources of delight for students, scholars and actors. Show your students the monkeys' version of Juliet entering Friar Lawrence's cell to embrace Romeo, and then show them "the author's" version. They'll learn more about how a scene is constructed than if you show them only a modern edited text. (She doesn't embrace Romeo in the 1599 text.) Werstine is sounding like an investment counselor: be prudent, stay away from those frivolities. I'm peddling whimsy, irresponsible leaping into UNAUTHORIZED documents!!! See yez all in Albuquerque, St.Alburquequitz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 10:36:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0184 Anthony Bacon (con't) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0184. Friday, 4 March 1994. From: William Robinson Date: Thursday, 03 Mar 1994 18:06:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: First Heir First Appeal to the Reading Public April 18,1593 Richard Field, the printer, obtained a license for the publication of VENUS AND ADONIS, with a dedication to Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton. The Earl was twenty years old and the handsomest man at Court. "But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather..." This dedication to Southampton has over the centuries thrown scholars off the path. The author of the poem was actually warning the young Earl to beware of the ills of Queen Elizabeth. The timing was perfect: Southampton was heralded as the most handsome Courtier in Elizabeth's Court. The author was more than aware of the dangers, being a victum himself, 16 years ago at his father's estate when the Queen paid a visit. He knew from personal experience the Queen's fascination for younger men and her desire to indulge herself in her emotions. Concerning Queen Elizabeth: The gossip of the court, as reported by Ben Jonson to Drummond of Hawthornden, held that "she had a membrane on her which made her incapable of man, though for her delight she tried many.... A French surgeon undertook to cut it, yet fear stayed her." Table Talk from Ben Jonson to Leigh Hunt-J.C. Thornton Elizabeth enjoyed perennial adulation and savored it insatiably. Lords ruined themselves to entertain her: masques and pageants allegorized her glory; poets smothered her with sonnets and dedications; musicians strummed her praise. A madrigal celebrated her eyes as war-subduing orbs, and her breast as "that fair hill where virtue dwells and sacred skill." Raleigh told her that she walked like Venus, hunted like Diana, rode like Alexander,sang like an angel, and played like Orpheus. She almost believed it. She was as vain as if all the merits of her England were the blessed fruit of her mothering; and to a degree they were. Distrustful of her physical charms, she robed herself in costly dresses, varying them almost every day; at her death she left two thousand. She wore jewelry in her hair, on her arms and wrists and ears and growns; when a bishop reproved her love of finery she had him warned not to touch on that subject again, lest he reach heaven aforetime.... Her manners could be alarming. She cuffed or fondled courtiers, even foreign emissaries. The Age of Reason-Wil Durant pg.11 In England, moreover, we have to note the very important fact that, precisely at the time when the Renaissance began to bear literary fruit, the throne was ocucupied by a woman, and one who, without possessing any delicate literary sense or refined artistic taste, was interested in the intellectual movement. Vain, and inclined to secret gallantries, she demanded, and received, incessant homage, for the most part in extravagant mythological terms, from the ablest of her subjects- from Sidney, from Spencer, from Raleigh- and was determined, in short, that the whole literature of the time should turn towards her as its central point. Shakespeare was the only great poet of the period who absolutely declined to comply with this demand. William Shakespeare- Georg Brandes Anthony Bacon, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Seal, and older brother to the famous philosopher Francis, was the author of the poem. How do I know? Entirely by comparison and conjecture utilizing his letters that have survived the centuries, and the plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare. I could not understand how it were possible that a man, however gifted with the intuition of genius, could have written what was attributed to Shakespeare, unless he had been in touch with the great affairs of state, behind the scenes of political life, and also intimate with all the social courtesies, and refinements of thought, which in Shakespeare's time were only to be met in the highest circles. Prince Otto von Bismarck The character of the man is best seen in his writings. Nicholas Rowe Fiction never lies; it reveals the writer totally. V.S. Naipaul The most prodigious wit that ever I knew of my nation and of this side of the sea is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another. Sir Tobie Matthew to Francis Bacon Although Anthony did not publish Venus and Adonis until the spring of 1593, when he was 35 years old, the poem must certainly have been conceived and written ten years earlier while he was in France. The influence of Ronsard and the Pleiades shows throughout the poem. Still there is a character in language -as in handwriting- which it is hardly possible to disguise. Little tricks of thought, like tricks of the hand -peculiarities of which the writer is unconscious, -are perceptible by the reader. Spedding, Bacons' Works IX pg.5 I commend you to your own content- He that commends me to my own content commends me to the thing I cannot get. Comedy of Errors i,2,32 Valor and Virtue The composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good king. All's Well i,l,218 ...how much in heart I have always honored your virtue and valour. Anthony Bacon to Lord Willougby The principal motive of his coming hither was to make his eyes no lesse happy and contented with the light of as so noble an object the beames of whose valour and virtue shined throughout all Christendome. Anthony Bacon to the Earl of Essex His virtue shinning uppon others Heat them and they retort that heat again. Troilus and Cresada ii,3,100 His brandished sword did blind men with his beams; His arms spread wider then a dragon's wings; His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,... Henry VI pt1. To be continued: ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 11:06:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0185 Re: First Times with Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0185. Friday, 4 March 1994. (1) From: Larry Schwartz Date: Thursday, 03 Mar 94 18:01:33 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0178 Re: First Times with Shakspeare (2) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Friday, March 4, 1994 Subj: First Times with Shakespeare and the Nature of Memory (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Schwartz Date: Thursday, 03 Mar 94 18:01:33 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0178 Re: First Times with Shakspeare o.k., i wanna play, too... 1) very dim memory of a black-and-white image of someone wrapped in what looked like ivy, jumping up and down on the tv screen saying "the monster, the monster!" turns out it was richard burton as caliban in a production of "the tempest." this is available on videocassette now, too. 2) 6th grade (which puts me at about 11 years old), and a production of MND, and i played puck with a pair of wings made out of coat hangers covered in aluminum foil. out of such things are stage legends born, and i'm still waiting... ls. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Friday, March 4, 1994 Subject: First Times with Shakespeare and the Nature of Memory I have difficulty remembering my very first encounter with Shakespeare. I remember summers in South Carolina at my grandmother's house, exploring the single play volumes in her bookshelf and trying to memorize "To be, or not to be" on the front porch in the heat of the afternoon. I must have been ten then, but I also recall an earlier Sunday afternoon during the Golden Age of Television watching Olivier's *Richard III*. Could that have been the 1956 US television premere? I have no doubt about seeing this, with clear images close to forty years after the fact of Olivier's opening snake-like posture while delivering "Now is the winter of our discontent" and the "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" -- the rolling crown and the thorn bush. Yet I also vaguely remember a *1 Henry IV* -- could it have been on a Hallmark show. There are no striking images here and no knowledge even if such a made-for-television version ever really was broadcast. Such is memory. In junior high, there was the obligatory memorizing of "Friends, Romans, Countrymen . . ." In high school, I recall an *As You Like It* at Baltimore's fledgling Center State (after it moved from its 160-seat, small arena stage in a converted row house across from the Lyric Theater to a converted movie house on North Avenue) and *The Tempest* at Goucher College before it became co-ed (a production that gendered Ariel female for me for the longest time). The stuff of memory -- the stuff of dreams. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 10:29:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0186 Re: Vanishing Banquet in *The Tempest* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0186. Saturday, 5 March 1994. From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 4 Mar 1994 10:57:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tempest Vanishing Banquet Cary Mazer raises the necessary questions about who can see what in this play: "The tune of our catch played by the picture of nobody." If the lords can't see the spirits (unless the spirits--Ariel's harpy-- wish to be seen) let the audience delight in watching the spirits whisk away the banquet.) Years ago, I acted in a production of *The Tempest*, in the round, in which the banquet was snatched away by invisible (to the lords) spirits. As a rule, I seek solutions that don't involve high tech. The great American scenographer (his term) Robert Edmund Jones used to say that elaborate scenic production was a sign of low vitality in the theatre. David Richman University of New Hampshire ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 10:34:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0187 Re: Ross and Paulina Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0187. Saturday, 5 March 1994. From: Janet S. Wolf Date: Friday, 04 Mar 1994 12:01:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Ross and Paulina The suggestion that Ross is a time server is made by Muir in the Arden Edition in the notes to II, iv, 40. Muir cites a work by Chambers. The Old Man's speech could be an ironic blessing on those who would make "friends of foes" for the sake of saving their own skins. Ross's presence at Macbeth's coronation is a sign of his time serving, Macduff's absence a sign of his disaffection from Macbeth. Muir seems to accept this view, because when Ross appears in IV, ii, Muir calls him a time server in the notes to line 1. In the notes to IV, iii, 160, he refers to Ross as "a collaborator," citing R. Walker. I also want to comment on something said by Bill Godshalk in regard to the unsolved mystery of the third murderer. He writes "Does Shakespeare always tell his audience what's going on" What about the Paulina/Hermione plot?" My answer to the first question would be no, but I don't think Paulina is a good example. Hasn't Shakespeare pretty much told us what was going on there? In V, ii, the Second Gentleman tells us that Paulina has been visiting the sculptor's "removed house" two or three times a day since Hermione's death. Why couldn't Paulina stage a fake funeral for Hermione, take her to the sculptor's house, and wait for Leontes' reformation to give Hermione back to him (more than he deserves, but that's another issue)? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 10:46:19 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0188 Re: First Times with Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0188. Saturday, 5 March 1994. (1) From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Friday, 4 Mar 1994 12:17:35 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: First Times with Shakespeare (2) From: Michael Sharpston Date: Friday, 04 Mar 1994 21:37:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0185 Re: First Times with Shakespeare (3) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 04 Mar 1994 18:54 ET Subj: First time with Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Friday, 4 Mar 1994 12:17:35 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: First Times with Shakespeare I was about 14 years old. I had just been accepted in a local parochial high school, and was sent my first summer reading list (We had a list of about 15 books we were required to read over the summer). #1 on the list, was "Romeo and Juliet". Oh, how I complained! I told my mother I didn't want to read it because "that guy talks funny!" My mother, bless her, shooed me into the bedroom, with her complete works of Shakespeare, and some advice: Read it aloud; you might just like it. Well, I did; and by senior year, I was in a class devoted entirely to Shakespeare. The teacher, Alan Ryan, was just wonderful. He introduced us to "King Lear" and "Henry IV, Part I". He taught "Hamlet" and took us to a local production of it. If anyone in my academic career could be called the inspiration, Mr. Ryan is the one. Patricia Gallagher (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sharpston Date: Friday, 04 Mar 1994 21:37:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0185 Re: First Times with Shakespeare Jumping on some unfortunate grown-up's back as an imp in the Tempest, in colonial Tanganyika. About ten years later, back in England, endless replaying of a tape of Gielgud as Hamlet in the evenings in the changing rooms of the medieval buildings that were (roughly) 'high' school. And to endorse Chris Gordon's point about children and language, I used to come out of RST, Stratford-on-Avon, unable to speak anything except blank verse for some minutes after the end of the show (no claims about the quality of the blank verse!). Michael Sharpston msharpston@worldbank.org (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 04 Mar 1994 18:54 ET Subject: First time with Shakespeare My first brush with Shakespeare was relatively late -- 9th grade. We read Romeo and Juliet in class, which was dull, until the teacher said she would play Zeffirelli's movie for us. Then we were all excited (living as we did in an area not known for its Shakespearean live theater, ahem). The big day arrived and we all settled down to watch, but! alas, the movie was on one of those early "laserdiscs" (this was circa 1983) from RCA and it started SKIPPING! Right when Romeo was about to kill Tybalt. Talk about Shakespearus interruptus. We were annoyed because we were getting into it (nobody had bothered to tell us that Leonard Whiting couldn't speak the verse properly). End of film. But, you really can't get a feel for Shakespeare unless you see it performed live, or actually participate, and that didn't happen for me until the following year, when my English teacher (who, in retrospect, seemed right out of DEAD POETS SOCIETY) was teaching *Julius Caesar*. (Yes, I realize that it's the law in the U.S. school system to teach *JC* in >ninth< grade, but like I said, this guy was an eccentric.) We were sitting there, pretty bored, when the fire alarm bell went off. Suddenly inspired, my teacher told us to grab our books and run outside to the circular driveway in front of the school. There, in front of the entire school (which had been evacuated for the fire drill), we put on an impromptu performance of Act III, scene ii. One of my fondest high school memories. Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University ebedgert@suadmin.syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 11:06:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0189 Re: Most Popular Play Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0189. Saturday, 5 March 1994. From: Blair Kelly III Date: Friday, 4 Mar 1994 22:10:16 -0500 Subject: Most popular Don Rowan asks which of Shakespeare's plays might be the most popular. While I can not give a definitive answer, I can offer the following data points. From 1988-1991 I had the good fortune to live in England. While some of my compatriots got to know Britain by visiting pubs or touring castles, my way of seeing Britain was to attend Shakespeare plays. I tried to see as many as possible - in Stratford (naturally), London, regional theater, the Edinburgh Festival (oh how I miss you!) - if I heard about a Shakespeare performance, I tried to see it. Undoubtably there were some that I missed. Anyway here is the list of plays that I saw and a count of the number of productions that I attended. 11 Macbeth 9 Twelfth Night 8 Taming of the Shrew 6 Hamlet 5 King Lear 5 Midsummer Night's Dream 5 Much Ado About Nothing 5 Richard III 4 As You Like It 4 Romeo and Juliet 4 Tempest 3 Comedy of Errors 3 Love's Labour's Lost 3 Winter's Tale 2 Coriolanus 2 Cymbeline 2 Julius Caesar 2 Measure for Measure 2 Merchant of Venice 2 Othello 2 Pericles 2 Timon of Athens 2 Two Gentlemen of Verona 1 All's Well That Ends Well 1 Anthony and Cleopatra 1 Henry IV, Part 1 1 Henry IV, Part 2 1 Henry VI, Part 1 1 Edward IV (Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3) 1 King John 1 Richard II 1 Troilus and Cressida With a bit of help from my diary I can remember something memorable about each one. I have often wondered if the distribution would be vastly different for a similar experiment performed on this side of the Atlantic. So looking again in my diary, for a period of approximately the same length (1991-1994) here is the list of plays that I saw in the Baltimore-Washington area and the number of productions. 5 Romeo and Juliet 4 Hamlet 4 Twelfth Night 3 As You Like It 3 Macbeth 3 Midsummer Night's Dream 2 Anthony and Cleopatra 2 Comedy of Errors 2 Much Ado About Nothing 2 Tempest 1 Coriolanus 1 Henry V 1 Julius Caesar 1 King Lear 1 Love's Labour's Lost 1 Measure for Measure 1 Merry Wives of Windsor 1 Midsummer Nights Dream 1 Othello 1 Pericles 1 Richard II 1 Richard III 1 Taming of the Shrew 1 Tempest 1 The Merchant of Venice 1 Two Gentlemen of Verona A totally unscientific comparison. And yes, I admit it ... I am a Shakespeare groupie! --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 11:14:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0190 Anthony Bacon (cont) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0190. Saturday, 5 March 1994. From: William Robinson Date: Saturday, 05 Mar 1994 10:02:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: 1st Heir pt.2 Sitting back in the coach Anthony thought how important it was for him to be separated from his writings. First of all he was involved with receiving intelleigence from all parts of Europe and as secretary to the Earl of Essex he had to remain in the shadows. He couldn't afford to draw any attention to himself. Secondly there was his mother, Lady Ann Bacon, who liked to busy herself in other people's business. Thirdly and most importantly, there was the Queen; she mustn't connect him with the poem, which was allegory of what occurred over 14 years ago between them. It was insignificant to the Queen but to Anthony it shaped his future. Even as the sun with golden-colored face Had ta'en his last look at the purple hills, White-faced Beth, Queen of the mighty English race, Returned from the hunt, having shown her skill. To the manor she returnth guiding her steed, Surrounded by her Courtiers of food she felt a need. It was spring 1577, Bess was 44, and had ruled England for 19 years. Traveling on Summer sojorn, visiting her subjects, she planned a visit to her Lord Keeper of the Seal, Nicholas Bacon, Anthony's father. Nicholas just completed the gallery at his Gorhambury home, and with great pride wanted to show it off. Arriving with her entourage she was to spend the next few days. Nicholas, Lord Keeper of the Seal, waited By the entrance as his Queen came into view. At his side stood his wife who never hesitated To speak her mind reguardless of whom too. But to the Queen she held her tongue under lock For fear that what she said might put her in the stock. Anthony was summoned home from Gray's Inn and was expected to help with entertaining his Queen. Anthony wanted nothing to do with the whole thing. But his father ordered him to attend and for the last two years beginning with his refusal to marry Dowsabel they have been fighting nonstop. That was why his brother, Francis was now in France at the Court of King Henry instead of Anthony. He was paying the price of being rebellious and suffering the consequences. It was the custom during the summer months for the Queen to travel around her realm staying with her nobility. Each visit drained the host, with each trying to outdo the other. Days and days of preparation went into this visit throwing each household in turmoil. But if the Queen wasn't suitably entertained it could prove very costly, casting one out of favor. It was dog eat dog. The first day was exciting. When the Queen arrived a big feast was prepared and waiting. Afterwards everyone went hunting through the forest surrounding Gorhambury. At nightfall another big meal was served this time with much wine. As the Queen retired for the evening she requested a private audience with young Anthony. He was to accompany her and perform on his lute. It was a request he couldn't turn down. The candlelight cast shadows across the room playing on the tapestry creating the illusion of movement and giving more reality to the picture. It was an arras of Venus, the goddess of love embracing in her arms the beautiful but reluctant Adonis. The myth as told by Ovid the great Roman poet, tells how Venus fell in love with the youthful Adonis who unfortunately just wanted to hunt the wild boar. After many unsucessful attempts and tired of being constantly shunned, Venus explodes in rage. Through her anger she lets him slip away to pursue his hunt and is consequently killed by the animal. The arras shows Venus trying to kiss Adonis on the cheek as he is looking away at a boar running towards the woods. Sir Nicholas went to a lot of trouble obtaining the arras. He even suffered the wrath of his wife who found the tapestry disgusting and pagan in the eyes of her Lord. His loyalty to the Queen won out, knowing that Elizabeth would find favor in the arras and enjoy as it was intended. In his zest to please he didn't realize the tangled web he wove for his son. Elizabeth always enjoyed perennial devotion and savored it to the fulness of her existence, whereas many Lords ruined themselves entertaining her. She sought out this type of flattery, wallowed in it, and a man was promoted or demoted by his flattery to her. Strange times. So on the first day after an afternoon of hunting and a superb feast, Anthony found himself alone playing his lute for the Queen. As the music drifted through the chamber and the shadows dranced on the wall, the Queen's emotions focused on the young man of 19. The queen enjoyed the company of young men after since she came to power, the very same year Anthony came to life in 1558. Their paths crossed many times over the years at many state functions. But it has been in the last couple of hours that the queen visibly took notice of this attractive man of 19. In 19 years she had the occassion to flirt with many and the rumors never stopped. The legend grew of the Virgin Queen. "Young Anthony, you play the lute beautifully," Bess spoke softly shifting her position closer. "Are the songs pleasing to you," replied Anthony confident of his abilities and equally aware of the closeness of the Queen. "Good music always pleases me, and I'm excited with your talent. But you must be tired of playing, come share a glass of wine with me,"she said in a soft but equally commanding voice that wouldn't take no for an answer. Putting down the lute Anthony got up slowly and walked over to the Queen. Time seemed to slow down making Anthony acutely aware of his surroundings. He starred into the Queen's eyes and what he saw frightened him. She appeared as a lifesized doll, her face heavily painted white possibly to hide the lines of age. Her smiled revealed teeth yellow and black, another indication of her age and of her desire for sweet meats. To Anthony she was far removed from the face of Venus smiling back in the tapestry. Trained since birth for the role of Courtier he had to hide his true emotions. He was fully aware of the gossip of Court and of all the women in England this one was to be feared. He knew what she was capable of doing to those who displeased her. Anthony who was by nature rebellious was warned by his father to be on his best behavior and to try with all his abilities to please his Queen. He felt helpless for the first time in his life and was being sucked into a vortex without any control. He felt detached from his body as if he was hovering above looking down on some scene from a play. She extended her hand with the wine and bid him to drink deep. She could sense his nervousness and it only excited her more. "Sit down beside me, don't be shy I won't bite you," she laughed grabing his sweaty hand and gently pulling him down next to her. "My lady we...." before he could finish the Queen kissed him on the lips to quiet him. He didn't know what to do, he was limp. Here was the Queen throwing her arms around him and forcefully kissing his face and neck. He couldn't respond, feeling her hot breath, hearing her urging him to relax. "You don't have to be afraid, young Anthony, enjoy this moment." Anthony tried to relax, he knew it was useless to try and resist. Slowly she caressed him. "I see that there is some life in you after all, open your eyes and look at me," the Queen whispered as she moved her hands over him, exploring his body. Opening his eyes he felt sick inside. The thought terrified him and he could sense her passion turning to rage. Nobody likes to be rejected especially the Queen. Anthony by not responding made the Queen feel humilated. Her right hand reached up and slapped Anthony across the face. She spat in his face and called him names. She accussed him of being less than a man, of being half dead and went on and on. He wanted to run, to hide, to escape, but there was no where to go. He felt a stranger in his own home. In a few years this experience would come hauntingly back to him and he would write about it in a poem: `Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone, Well painted idol, image dull and dead, Statue contending but the eye alone, Thing like a man, but of no women bred! Thou art no man, though of man's complexion, For men will kiss ever by their own direction.' The above is a fictionalized account of what might have happened between Anthony and the Queen. It is worth noting that when Anthony returned from France in 1592 he was requested over and over to appear in Court to meet with the Queen. For the next twelve years he refused to comply by pleading ill. Up to his death in 1601 he never appeared once in Court to meet with her. For what reason did he refuse and what were the ramifications of his refusual? To be continued. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:43:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0192 [was 5,0192] Actor's Memory Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0192. Saturday, 5 March 1994. From: Joanne Merriam Date: Saturday, 05 Mar 1994 15:53:47 -0400 Subject: Re: actor's memory Just a short frivolous comment... (not meant to imply any kind of opinion on my part). I just finished reading Huck Finn, and came across a part I had forgotten: the scene where the Duke (or maybe the King, I can't remember now) tries to reconstruct Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech. It's very funny; perhaps Twain was making some kind of comment about actors' ability to memorize, as well. Joanne Merriam ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:58:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0194 Re: Most Popular of the Plays Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0194. Sunday, 6 March 1994. From: Lance Cohen Date: Saturday, 05 Mar 1994 16:45:17 EST Subject: Popularity of the Plays Concerning the popularity of Shakespearean plays, Gerald Eades Bentley suggests >...Slightly more than half his dramatic work had never been printed before his death (169). > _Richard II_ was one of Shakespeare's more popular plays; and before his death it had been more than four times reprinted (175). > _Richard III_ was even more popular with readers than _Richard II_ (175), > The first eight plays of Shakespeare to appear in print did not seem to their publishers apt to derive any advantage from the display of his name (177). Bentley, Gerald Eades. _Shakespeare: A Biographical Handbook_. Third Printing. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1964. Lance Cohen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 09:02:41 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0195 Noh and Shakespeare: Australian Lecture Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0195. Sunday, 6 March 1994. From: Gordon Beattie Date: Sunday, 6 Mar 1994 09:53:28 +1000 Subject: visit to Australia Professor Kuniyoshi Munakata from Shizuoka University, Japan will visit the Theatre Department at the University of Western Sydney Nepean, Australia to give a Lecture Demonstration on Noh and Shakespeare on Monday 7 March at 1pm at the Kingswood Campus. Visitors welcome phone Lexie 047 36 0646 for details. Gordon Beattie Senior Lecturer Head of Theatre email g.beattie@nepean.uws.edu.au UWS Nepean PO Box 10, Kingswood phone (047)360 280 NSW 2747 Australia fax (047)360 464 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:38:48 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0191 Re: Stage Productions (Male and Female Roles) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0191. Saturday, 5 March 1994. From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Saturday, 05 Mar 1994 11:32:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0073 Q: Stage Productions Dear Chris Daigle, I know that this response to your question is late, but since your productions won't be until next fall, I thought I'd write anyway. I've just directed *Much Ado*, and though our production doesn't turn male roles into female roles, we found that the following parts worked well with women in them: Verges, Conrade, Antonio, the boy. Ralph Cohen, JMU and SSE ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:54:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0193 Public Domain Etext Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0193. Sunday, 6 March 1994. From: Michael S. Hart Date: Saturday, 05 Mar 94 14:48:55 CST Subject: Public Domain Bard Etext Project Gutenberg has finally managed to get a copy of the CCAT Gopher Shakespeare which appears to restrict the number of lines, scenes, acts, or plays one can get at one time, and we should like to release it in a more easy to use format. This was done without any assistance or cooperation from CCAT, CCAT = Center of the Computer Analysis of Texts. Of course, we should prefer to work WITH archives and experts of this sort, rather than to have to appear to be providing their works to the public in a manner that might be described as working against them. Again, of course, we would prefer to work WITH the people of the SHAKSPER Discussion Group, of which my father and myself were charter members, rather than to have it appear that we went behind your backs to prove the authenticity and copyright status of the works in question. So far, we have been unable to prove that ANY of the Shakespeare Etexts appearing on the nets are in the Public Domain, while we have found the opposite to be true in the case of some major institutions of higher education. Therefore, we ask once again for your cooperation in finding paper editions which match ANY of the Etext editions available, the CCAT Etext particularly, since we just spent quite some time downloading it piece by piece, and then reassembling it into useful formats. If, of course, your goal is to keep the Bard away from the masses, silence, which has been the previous response, would be totally appropriate. However, I would hope you would choose not to continue hiding your light under a bushel. Thank you, Michael S. Hart, ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 09:06:12 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0196. Sunday, 6 March 1994. From: James McKenna Date: Saturday, 05 Mar 1994 23:32:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Urk's fumings Dear Steven Urkowitz, Just a baseless note, but are you trying to claim _all_ the variant texts as somehow authorial? I'm game, but it just doesn't seem likely. Not that I want to keep the bard's texts unitary and inviolate, but the publishing world of Renaissance London was a dicey place . . . wasn't it? Or are we talking about all the texts being actual playtexts, that is, texts of actual performed plays? Now that sounds sound to me. If the physical text was the play, and variation for different audiences and seasons is a reasonable assumption, then it makes perfect sense that many, many texts could all be, for example, "Hamlet." In fact, "Hamlet" as we know it gradually evaporates into a fog punctuated by memorable lines and passages that do not vary. What Shakespeare actually wrote becomes less and less accessible as we factor in the likelihood that changes were made to texts as necessary, over and over again. "Shakespeare" moves from author to locus, about which great stuff circulates. It seems to me that the problem is not whether plays are actual playtexts, but who wrote them. In the art world, no one has a problem accepting that works from this and later eras often come from "the studio of," not just from a single artist's brush. I am notnotnotnotnotnotnot opening the authoriship question, which is just a shell game, but suggesting a smudgy idea that I'm sure is well developed elsewhere: maybe we should be thinking about "The Lord Chamberlain's Men's plays," rather than Shakespeare's. Deferentially, James McKenna University of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 11:35:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0198 Re: Prospero, Caliban, and Postcolonialism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0198. Monday, 7 March 1994. From: Melissa Aaron Date: Sunday, 6 Mar 1994 17:20:54 +0200 Subject: Prospero, Caliban and Postcolonialism I can't remember if someone has mentioned Stephen Greenblatt's essay "Learning to Curse," in the book of the same title (Routledge, 1990). Probably. A personal favorite is Stephen Orgel's "Shakespeare and the Cannibals" in *Cannibal, Witches and Divorce: Estranging the Renaissance* ed. M. Garber Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 1987. Happy reading. Melissa Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 11:28:14 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0197 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0197. Monday, 7 March 1994. (1) From: Antony Hammond Date: Sunday, 6 Mar 1994 15:01:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Q1 of *Hamlet* (2) From: E. P. Werstine Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 22:01:20 EDT Subj: Q1 of Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Antony Hammond Date: Sunday, 6 Mar 1994 15:01:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Q1 of *Hamlet* I had hoped to hear some more comments from SHAKSPERians before returning briefly to the fray, but lest Urkowitz think his bovver-boy style of aggro has wholly abashed me, I'd better say something. Well, mildly be it then, mildly. First I should apologize for not making myself clearer about Patrick. What I should have said was that IF a memorial reconstruction should exist, then Patrick offers the clearest theoretical categorization of the kind of variants we might expect it to manifest. Actually, I myself am a little surprised that the "collective reconstruction" theory of Richard III Q1 has had such a long run. Whether Urkowitz or Patrick be right about this particular text is not relevant to the point of my original letter. I think it surprising that so much has been written about memorial reconstruction without either much historical evidence for the practice or without serious experimental test. As for the first, Paul Werstine is right in saying that there is no historical evidence that actors undertook such things, but he of course is aware of Heywood's complaints that some of his plays were published from texts "coppied onely by the eare", and the celebrated phrase in the First Folio about "stolne, and surreptitious copies" must mean SOMETHING. As for the second, Gary Taylor reports a test he tried with one of the minor actors from an RSC production of Henry V (see Wells and Taylor, Moderninzing Shakespeare's Spelling etc, p. 132n). In this it emerges that the actor was able to reconstruct quite well other players' parts, but in his own part created some substitutions and an interpolation. Taylor also refers to an experiment by Betty Shapin, written up in MLR in 1944. I have not seen this, but Taylor criticizes its design. Does anyone know of any other attempts to put the memorial theory to the test? I ask because I myself am in the middle of such an experiment at present. Because I am working on the text of Pericles, whose quarto seems to have been regarded as memorial by everyone who has worked on the play except myself and my co-editor, I thought it high time to put Patrick's hypotheses to the best (though still imperfect and obviously inconclusive) test I could contrive. It would be premature to describe this experiment, but the fact that it was in progress, among other things, prompted me to attempt to reply to Professor Sprinchorn's letter. The point of my letter was to challenge Professor Sprinchorn's statement that actors retain an immaculate conception of their parts. As we all know, even celebrated professionals err. On the night I saw the 1979 RSC production of Richard III, instead of `And brief, good mother, for I am in haste' (4.4.167), Alan Howard said `And hasty, mother, [pause] for I soon must go', a classic case of substitution, in Patrick's terminology. This is one of many possible examples from my own theatre-going experience; every one of us is surely bound to remember similar things. Nicholas Ranson's note reminds us of another possibility. Perhaps inevitably, even Paul Werstine thought I was defending the theory of memorial reconstruction. But once again, that was not meant to be the point of my letter: rather, I wanted to point out what I took to be the weaknesses in Professor Sprinchorn's case against it. Those weaknesses certainly do not prove the case FOR it. Werstine is also right that the theory of memorial reconstruction is a Johnny-come-lately in Shakespearian scholarship, but since the practice is documented in the eighteenth century, and since theatre is one of the most conservative of all art-forms, and (further!) since memorial reconstruction of sermons in the Jacobean period is documented, and even if you don't believe Heywood, it doesn't seem so impossible, applied to plays, as to justify declaring that it never could have happened. As for Urkowitz's opinions: they are unchallengable, as all expressions of opinion must be. I don't think the interests of SHAKSPERians will be served by my attempting a tedious defence of my conclusions about Richard III. In any event, Urkowitz can take heart: that edition is due to be superseded by the Arden 3 version before the end of the decade, and between that, and the Oxford and Cambridge editions, I am sure that the views he puts forward in his article will be treated with respect. However, the conditions of proof which Urkowitz demands for the demonstration of memorial reconstruction are so stringent that, like demonstrations of the existence of God, they are unlikely to be met. Urkowitz also keeps telling us that people find interest and pleasure in reading and acting the "bad" quartos. Why on earth should this surprise us? Almost any theatrical script can be a source of interest and pleasure. That does not ipso facto make it a Shakespearian script any more than it makes Gershwin Mozart because Kiri te Kanawa sings both with evident enjoyment. Mild enough? Antony Hammond (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. P. Werstine Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 22:01:20 EDT Subject: Q1 of Hamlet Steve Urkowtiz has taken the discussion of the First Quarto of Richard III initiated by Tony Hammond as some kind of insult to his own work with the result that he misreads and misrepresents my e-note on the topic in the oddest way. He somehow thinks I have no use for and see no value in any of the texts that he wants to champion--the Quarto of Merry Wives, the First Quarto of Hamlet, or the Quarto of Richard III. But my note explicitly drew attention to the "vast qualitative difference long recognized" between the Quarto of Richard III and the First Quarto of Hamlet--a difference I could hardly observe if I saw no value in either. He also has me talking of "'good' Shakespeare" when the word "Shakespeare" never appears in my note. Perhaps someone less vitriolic could address the issue? In the meantime, at the risk of irking Steve, it might be worth pointing out that the "treasures of theatricality" that today's actors have been able, according to Steve, to produce from their use of the so-called "bad quartos" as scripts does not necessarily tell us anything about the origins of these quartos. To quote Nietzsche this time, rather than poor Foucault: "There is no set of maxims more important for an historian than this: that the actual causes of a thing's origin and its eventual uses, the manner of its incorporation into a system of purposes, are worlds apart; that everything that exists, no matter what its origin, is periodically reinterpreted . . . in terms of fresh intentions." Cheers, Paul Werstine ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 10:09:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0202. Tuesday, 8 March 1994. From: Michael Dobson Date: Monday, 07 Mar 94 15:08:01 CST Subject: [Imagining Gloriana] Dear Shaksper, As members of this list who heard me speak on the *Shakespeare and the Construction of the Author* panel at last year's SAA conference will know, I am in the process of co-writing a book, with Nicola Watson, called *Imagining Gloriana: British Nationalism and the Cult of Elizabeth I, 1603- 1990*. Such members will also know that I am especially interested in fantasies linking Elizabeth with Shakespeare and his canon -- no matter how misogynistic, pornographic, ahistorical or just plain dumb such fantasies may be. It is thus my sad duty to read the material sent to this list by William Robinson in full, and to ask him whether he composes it himself or, if not, where he is getting it from. While I am at it, may I ask fellow SHAKspeareans to let me know of any other bizarre fictional representations of Elizabeth which they may have run into, especially those involving Shakespeare? I already feel as though I've had the lot, but there are probably many more yet... Many thanks --- Michael Dobson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 09:59:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0200 Belott Suit Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0200. Tuesday, 8 March 1994. From: Timothy Bowden Date: Monday, 07 Mar 94 20:51:31 PST Subject: Belott Suit I feel like trying a notion again I've brought up before without result, but there's always the chance someone with a direct interest in the affair has joined us in the meanwhile. It concerns the Belott suit of 1612 over the failure by Christopher Mountjoy, the father of the bride, to live up to a promise of dowry supposedly made during the time when Shakespeare was a residence in the house, about 1602. What struck me was how closely the mission impressed upon the poet in this instance resembled that undertaken in the first 126 of the Sonnets. In what I thought would be a fairly comprehensive study of the chronicles of Bard scholarship, Schoenbaum's _Shakespeare's Lives_, there's the merest mention of Mountjoy. I'd like to see more. This thought must have occurred to many since the discovery of the court documents in 1910, and I would be grateful were anyone to cite where in print it might have been taken up. To begin, I understand the depositions are stored at the University of Nebraska, and I just wonder if they are available via electronic retrieval. Much obliged for any contributions to the topic, either on the list or in private mail. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 10:05:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0201 [was 0SHK 5.201] Re: Ohio Shakespeare Conference; Transmission of Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0201. Tuesday, 8 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 06 Mar 1994 21:44:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Ohio Shakespeare Conference (2) From: Timothy Bowden Date: Monday, 07 Mar 94 09:58:04 PST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 06 Mar 1994 21:44:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Ohio Shakespeare Conference I want to thank all the participants in the Conference. I hope you had a wonderful time. I did - good papers, good talk, and conviviality. Thanks. Yours, Bill Godshalk PS Remember to send your abstracts of Eva McManus, Department of English, Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH 45810. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden Date: Monday, 07 Mar 94 09:58:04 PST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos > From: James McKenna > It seems to me that the problem is not whether plays are actual playtexts, bu > who wrote them. In the art world, no one has a problem accepting that works > from this and later eras often come from "the studio of," not just from a > single artist's brush. I am notnotnotnotnotnotnot opening the authoriship > question, which is just a shell game, but suggesting a smudgy idea that I'm > sure is well developed elsewhere: maybe we should be thinking about "The Lord > Chamberlain's Men's plays," rather than Shakespeare's. I have often noted how vociferous is the defense by the Stratfordists, with good reason, and then we all segue into a line-count in _King Henry VII_ of Bard possibles, certainties, doubtfuls. At least the thought of a concert of hands on the tiller is more acceptable than the idea of noble ghostwriters... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 10:20:24 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0203. Tuesday, 8 March 1994. (1) From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Monday, 7 Mar 94 13:05:26 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0187 Re: Paulina (2) From: Robert O'Connor Date: Tuesday, 8 Mar 1994 09:14:02 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0195 Noh and Shakespeare: Australian Lecture (3) From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 08 Mar 1994 10:38:14 -0500 (EST) Subj: *The Tempest* and colonialism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Monday, 7 Mar 94 13:05:26 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0187 Re: Paulina RE Paulina. I don't think Hermione is an object to be 'given' to anyone. I have always heard in the subtext of the reiterated pleas from Paulina to Hermione ( and directed the scene this way) a range of emotions: it's time! don't be afraid! heve you changed your mind? "Dear life redeems you" - there is something/someone to come alive for. I think even Paulina is not sure that Hermione will find the strength of will or the love to "Bequeath to death [her]numbness" - that even Paulina is in suspense about her decision by the end of 'redeems you' V,iii, 98-104. It seems to me that it is not only Leontes who must be ready for redemption but Hermione, like Prospero, must become ready [ off stage in this case] to redeem and be redeemed. P.S. I've never seen the play done well? Has anyone seen a good production? The Brian Bedford at Stratford completely confused several experienced playgoers of my aquaintance - they had not read the play first and the production was incoherent. Mary Jane Miller (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor Date: Tuesday, 8 Mar 1994 09:14:02 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0195 Noh and Shakespeare: Australian Lecture In response to Gordon Beattie's message, Professor Kuniyoshi Munakata gave a demonstration of part of his Noh adaptation of *Hamlet* at the recent Australia and New Zealand Shakespeare Association Conference in Perth. I would recommend it to anyone who can get to UWS. Rob O'Connor (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 08 Mar 1994 10:38:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: *The Tempest* and colonialism Jonathan Bate says that William Hazlitt originated the colonialist inter- pretation of *The Tempest*, in an 1818 response to a lecture by Coleridge. See Bate, *Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre, Criticism, 1730-1830* (Oxford, 1989), pp. 144 and 178-79. John Cox ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 09:50:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0199 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0199. Wednesday, 9 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 06 Mar 1994 21:38:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0182 Transmission of the Quartos (Was Q1 of *Ham.*) (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 7 Mar 1994 16:26:33 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 07 Mar 1994 23:04:17 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (4) From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 08 Mar 1994 08:23:07 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0197 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (5) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Monday, 07 Mar 94 23:45:15 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 06 Mar 1994 21:38:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0182 Transmission of the Quartos (Was Q1 of *Ham.*) I just want to cheer Steve Urkowitz on. Authorial revision is just as good a story as any of the other stories that bibliographers make up in an attempt to account for the very few facts that we have. And Steve's style is in itself a pleasure to read. Has anyone ever seen an annotated quarto? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 7 Mar 1994 16:26:33 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos >It seems to me that the problem is not whether plays are actual playtexts, but >who wrote them. In the art world, no one has a problem accepting that works >from this and later eras often come from "the studio of," not just from a >single artist's brush. I am notnotnotnotnotnotnot opening the authorship >question, which is just a shell game, but suggesting a smudgy idea that I'm >sure is well developed elsewhere: maybe we should be thinking about "The Lord >Chamberlain's Men's plays," rather than Shakespeare's. > >Deferentially, > >James McKenna I love this idea--makes perfect sense to me. Indeed, we really don't know whether Hamlet's black costume (for example) was suggested by Shakespeare, Burbage, or some other member of the Globe Company. A parallel example of this cooperative effort at work is in the *Magic Flute,* by W.A. Mozart. Schikaneder, the librettist and first Papageno, claimed credit for the notorious "Pa-pa-pa" duet, and said that Mozart's original idea was not so good. Mozart, in fact, according to Schickaneder, pretty much jumped up and down yelling "that's great!" Generations of music critics have assumed that Schickaneder was lying or stretching the truth, because he was a mere actor-manager and Mozart the great genius (despite Schickaneder's sensitive portrayal of Hamlet). Once we can come up with a theoretical model or models that can comprehend collaborative multi- "authorship," it won't be necessary to have such a reductive point of view. Melissa Aaron (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 07 Mar 1994 23:04:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos "Shakespeare becomes a locus about which great stuff circulates." Does this stuff circulate like water or air? Hot air perhaps? Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 08 Mar 1994 08:23:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0197 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Coincidental with the discussion about quartos on this network is a parallel discussion in TLS. Brian Vickers has been defending memorial reconstruction as an explanation of the quartos (or some of them). Graham Holderness and Bryan Loughrey have a long response to him in TLS 2/4/94, p. 15. The discus- sion continues in TLS 2/11/94. If I had to judge between the two discussions, I would say I have learned more from the one on SHAKSPER than the one in TLS, but then I have a lot to learn. John Cox (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Monday, 07 Mar 94 23:45:15 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0196 Re: Transmission of the Quartos What's behind those funny-looking early printed versions? I don't know for sure. But somewhere back there were theatrically imaginative creatures whose products, those documents, repay close examination. Whenever I've looked at a particular passage that an editor has called "rubbish" or "nonsense" in as a way of dismissing it from consideration, I've found that the editorial judgment rather than the text at hand was at fault. But, then again, I have this perceptual problem. I've worked with actors and singers, finding ways for them to make sense out of initially opaque texts. When I tried to explain how a Q1 passage might work for an actor, David Bevington said (very gently), "Well, Steve, you could produce an emotionally compelling performance of the telephone directory." Ah, well. Try reading the texts without knowing who wrote them. As ever, Steve Urkowitz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 10:23:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0204. Tuesday, 8 March 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman" Date: Monday, 7 Mar 94 20:28:51 CST Subject: Welsh in 1H4 I just saw my first live production of 1 Henry IV, and having studied a bit of Welsh several years ago, I was curious to see how they would handle the Welsh scene, where Glendower and Lady Mortimer are speaking Welsh and Lady Mortimer sings a Welsh song; I knew that the text of the play merely says "the Lady speaks in Welsh" and so forth. Well, my Welsh is rusty and was never that good to begin with, but the actors playing Glendower and Lady M were clearly speaking real Welsh, and saying appropriate things. I did some research afterwards and found that Welsh boy actors were fairly common in Shakespeare's London, and that other plays of the time often have bits of Welsh in them. The 1936 Variorum edition of 1 Henry IV gives an English translation of Welsh lines that someone (I forget who) had written, but I gather that in the 18th and 19th centuries the Welsh scene was usually eliminated entirely. Aparently the Welsh scene has been done with authentic Welsh in British productions with Welsh actors in the cast --- for instance, the 1951 Stratford production with Richard Burton as Hal and Hugh Griffith as Glendower, with the latter writing out Welsh dialogue for Lady Mortimer. What I wanted to ask (in my roundabout way) is, how has this scene been treated in recent productions, especially American ones, that SHAKSPEReans have either seen or acted in? Is it cut entirely? Altered in some way so that Glendower and Lady M don't have to actually speak Welsh? Done with authentic Welsh? If the latter, what do the characters say in their Welsh dialogue? I'm curious about this. Either respond to me directly or to the list; if I get a significant number of direct responses I may post a summary. Thanks, Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 14:55:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0204 Re: *The Tempest* and Colonialism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0205. Thursday, 10 March 1994. (1) From: Chris Ivic Date: Tuesday, 8 Mar 1994 21:37:33 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism (2) From: Roberta Williams Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 13:15:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: Robert Hayden and *The Tempest* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Ivic Date: Tuesday, 8 Mar 1994 21:37:33 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0172 Re: Prospero, *The Tempest*, and Colonialism You may also want to look at Eric Cheyfitz's _The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan_. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roberta Williams Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 13:15:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Robert Hayden and *The Tempest* In the light of recent discussions of the colonialist interpretation of *The Tempest*, I thought people might be interested in Robert Hayden's use of this in the poem "Middle Passage." Echoing the art/magic motif of the play, Hayden depicts slave traders as evil magicians/bad artists whose magic turns everything into its horrifying opposite. Fred Fetrow's article, "`Middle Passage': Robert Hayden's Anti-Epic," in the June 1979 issue of *CLA Journal*, might also be of interest. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 15:20:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0206 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0206. Thursday, 10 March 1994. (1) From: Robert S. Cohen Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 10:18:41 -0800 (PST) Subj: Urkowitz and then some (2) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 94 16:22:23 EST Subj: Quartos: short, good, bad, deformed, and annotated (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 18:00:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: To the great Variety of Readers. (4) From: Leslie Thomson Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 19:42:47 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0199 Re: annotated quartos (5) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 10:18:06 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0199 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert S. Cohen Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 10:18:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Urkowitz and then some In selecting readings from variant Q and F versions, modern text editors often choose on the basis of their own aesthetic preferences, which tend towards an archaic "literariness," I find. For example: although *Othello* Q1 generally employs the word "if" where F1 has the quainter "an," Q1 sometimes uses "an" where F1 goes with "if." Yet IN BOTH SITUATIONS modern text editors will read "an." I can see no reason for this except to make readers hate Shakespeare. Or at least to become dependent on footnotes, which is much the same thing. It certainly makes theatre audiences confused. In any event, it's not the authority of one 17th century text over the other that determines the modern reading, but the editor's own aesthetic preference - which tends towards what looks good on the page rather than what sounds best on the stage. Q1 also uses "has" in lieu of the F1 "hath" a number of times, but modern editors go with the Folio in these cases: despite the fact that "has" better propels the dramatic flow, and seems to have been coming into use in Shakespeare's own playhouse, if not in the foul papers themselves. Likewise, the prenuptial scene (II.v.) in *R&J* is more theatrically effective, I believe, in the "debased" Q1 than in the "accepted" Q2: it is certainly more passionate, juvenile, and funny, which stands in wonderfully poignant contrast with the tragic events that follow. Thus, if we must make variant-selection decisions in the absence of clear historical proof of authorial preference, let's at least decide with as sharp an eye on the stage as on the page. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 94 16:22:23 EST Subject: Quartos: short, good, bad, deformed, and annotated Well, no, I haven't seen an annotated quarto, but before you go off an annotate one yourself, give yourself a lot more room than you would, judging by extant quartos. Uncut, and there is an uncut TNK at Illinois, the margins are very ample indeed. Maybe the short texts are the good texts, the acting texts that made it through, somehow. The long texts, like Folio H5, are boilerplates from which you construct a production. Ask Ralph Cohen whether the SSE MERCHANT for the Montgomery AL, Jewish Country Club was the same MERCHANT that played for the kids at NEW MEXICO MILITARY ACADEMY. Gimme a break! Tom Berger St. Lawrence Univ. Canton, NY 13617 TBER@SLUMUS.BITNET (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 18:00:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: To the great Variety of Readers. We have all been asked to reconsider the words of Heminge(s) and Condell, and so last night I reread A3 in the Hinman Folio. Using Heminge and Condell to argue for memorial reconstruction seems problematic: "you are abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious impostors, that expos'd [published?] them. . . ." In context, this statement seems to refer to all the quartos, and the preface to the second state of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (1609) seems to indicate that it may have been set from one of these stolen copies. As far as I know, no one has sugg ested that T&C is a memorial reconstruction. Please correct my ignorance if I am wrong. No one can be absolutely sure how copies were surreptitiously stolen. At the Red Bull, playscripts were kept in the theatre - as I recall. If you wanted to steal a play, would you send someone with a good memory, or someone with a good jimmy? If you are going to be unscrupulous, why not do it right? Heminge and Condell also make a strong suggestion that the Folio was set from Shakespeare's papers: "wee haue scarse receiued from him a blot in his papers." Did they really believe this? If it happens to be true, that the Folio was set from Shakespeare's papers, Shakespearean textual scholarship has to be rewritten. In any case, I would not like to base an argument for anything on "To the great Variety of Readers." Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Thomson Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 19:42:47 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0199 Re: annotated quartos To answer the question, "has anybody seen an annotated quarto?": Yes. There is a theatrically annotated quarto of *A Looking-Glass for London and England* at the U of Chicago libraries; its existence has been known since 1931; the annotations probably predate the closing of the theatres. In July 1992 Bill Long and I found a substantial fragment of the first quarto of *Two Merry Milkmaids* at the Folger; it had been there 10 years, with no attention paid--not trendy? For those interested, I will be showing slides of same at the SAA meeting in Albuquerque, on a panel with Bill Long and Alan Dessen. On the Thursday from 1:30 to 2:30--come and see something real and rare! Regards, Leslie Thomson U of Toronto (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 10:18:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0199 Re: Transmission of the Quartos I would like to ask Steve Urkowitz for clarification. What do you mean "try reading the texts without knowing who wrote them"? Is this an injunction or a warning? I personally do not spend a whole lot of time thinking about the personality of the author, in our case Shakespeare. But at the same time I don't like to reify people into "locuses of circulation." Sure, artists collaborate, and we know that 16th-17th century playwrights collaborated on playscripts. We can guess that Renaissance playscripts had to be revised in production; some things just may not work on stage, and the actors start making suggestions. Bill Harmon used to call this the Procedural Esthetic. We all know about Max Perkins. But there has to be something there BEFORE the actors and the editors and the critics can begin their work. There had to be a Thomas Wolfe before Max Perkins could "construct" OF TIME AND THE RIVER. Will Shakespeare used to go home early from the pub, get a candle from his landlady, and spend hours - alone - writing. That's not a very exciting picture of the artist. But I believe that that's how these texts came into being. There was a point of origin. You may call this the BIG PEN theory. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 17:51:28 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0208 Imagining Glorianan Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0208. Thursday, 10 March 1994. From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 16:11:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana It seems to me that Queen Elizabeth has become a magnet for misogynist fantasies in respectable academic criticism as well, where she also appears as a jealous, aging coquette, desperate for male erotic attention, and the object of her male subjects' secret contempt and resentment. Although the discourse of serious scholarship requires that these fantasies be presented as historical facts and documented with carefully chosen quotations from early modern texts, they seem to me to be equally anachronistic, equally the products of our own cultural moment rather than that of the world they purport to describe. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 17:38:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0207. Thursday, 10 March 1994. (1) From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 15:15:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism (2) From: A. G. Bennett Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 17:04 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism (3) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 22:35:18 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Winter's Tale in performance (4) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 94 09:27:09 EST Subj: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 15:15:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism The posting by Mary Ann Miller about productions of THE WINTER"S TALE reminded me on this snowy day in Connecticut that I am scheduled to be the dramaturg for a student production of this play next fall. And I would welcome, privately if that seems to be in the best interests of the list, any suggestions for A) critical and interpretive essays on the play, B) staging problems you know about or have seen demonstrated and whatever solutions you can come up with or have seen tried, C) production ideas you've seen that worked and ones that did not. And whatever else seems to be pertinent to the beginning stages of dramaturgical research. Don't be afraid to be obvious! (I.e., never assume knowledge on the part of your hearer!) Our director's basic staging idea seems to me to be very interesting: he wants to build the first part of the play around a large, marblized central pillar which will reverse to become a Wagnerian tree in the pastoral section and which, reversed again, will contain Hermione's statue at the end. This is as far as we've gotten and again, I welcome commentary. Many thanks in advance. Best, Milla Riggio P.S. I forgot to include my address. You can write me EITHER at Milla.Riggio@Mail.Trincoll.Edu (my preferred private e-mail address) - or - the address I use for SHAKESPER, which is Riggio@ads.Trincoll.edu. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A. G. Bennett Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 1994 17:04 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism In answer to Mary Jane Miller's question of productions of _The Winter's Tale_ (my favourite play of all, I'll admit), I saw a production at Stratford (Ont.) several years ago, which wasn't bad-- but it wasn't particularly memorable, either. However, John Barton and the RSC do a simply stunning staging of Hermione's descent at the end of the eighth tape of the _Playing Shakespeare_ series, which I've just had the good fortune to see again last week. The episode is their workshop on "Passion and Coolness," and the scene is beautifully done-- the sense of wonder which is integral to that moment comes through brilliantly. Amazing what they can do with 3 actors, a box (for Hermione's pedestal), and a blanket (that Hermione drapes over her body toga-like)! By the way-- Partick Stewart is Leontes, Lisa Harrow is Hermione, but I can't remember for the life of me who plays Paulina (with just the right amount of suspense, too). Cheers, Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 22:35:18 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Winter's Tale in performance In response to Mary Jane Miller's query if anyone had seen a good production of Winter's Tale, I must reply "yes." The 1982 RSC production featuring Patrick Stewart as Leontes and Gemma Jones as Hermoine opened my eyes to this play in a way that has not been equaled since. The production was directed by Ronald Eyre and originated the year previous at Stratford. I saw it during its run as part of the first Barbican season {that featured T Nunn's ace Henry IV, pts I and II}. Patrick STewart's performance was amazing. In an interview I did with him later that year, he told me that he had researched the disease that caused Leontes' jealousy and also found that he had to physically separate himself from the rest of the company during the long break the character has off stage. He also had found he had to remain in costume and "in character"---he tried showering and napping once in Stratford and found the result to his concentration disasterous. Gemma Jones' Hermoine was a study in quiet, but powerful nobility. Her speeched during the trial scene impressed me with their calm determination against Leontes' ragings. As to whether she showed herself ready for redemption, I honestly can't remember. I do remember enjoying Sheila Hancock's performance as Paulina. She proved a good match for Stewart. I cannot use the same praise to discuss the RSC's next attempt at the play during 85/86 with Jeremy Irons as Leontes. THey chose to double Hermoine/ Perdita and much of the focus on the last scene was diverted to the "party-trick" nature of it. Oh dear, I have gone on for my first foray into SHAKSPER land. Hope this is helpful. Elizabeth W.B. Schmitt, University of North Texas E2E3SCHM@vaxb.acs.unt.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 94 09:27:09 EST Subject: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism Mary Jane Miller asks if anyone has seen a good production of WT. Last year our college theater department did it, and of course I assigned the play to my students and forced them to go see it. Mind you, all this in spite of my conviction that the play is sloppy, poorly wrought, and only tangentially Shakespearean (talk about your quarto authors!). Surprise. It was a typical college/amateurish production. But, it was quite moving, almost as though there had been a great spirit behind the written lines. And not just for me--a hypercritical college audience was hushed and awed at the final statue-coming-to-life. Amazing. As one of my students said, "I cried, in spite of myself." I can assure all of you that this was not great acting--the kind that can bring a telephone directory to life. (The bear was also superb.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 19:31:48 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0209 Re: Welsh in *1H4* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0209. Thursday, 10 March 1994. (1) From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 11:11:17 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* (2) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 11:29:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* (3) From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 12:09:07 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* (4) From: Michael Dobson Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 94 11:29:05 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 11:11:17 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* >What I wanted to ask (in my roundabout way) is, how has this scene >been treated in recent productions, especially American ones, that >SHAKSPEReans have either seen or acted in? Is it cut entirely? Altered >in some way so that Glendower and Lady M don't have to actually speak >Welsh? Done with authentic Welsh? If the latter, what do the characters >say in their Welsh dialogue? I'm curious about this. Response to D.Kathman's question would be of interest to many of us, I'm sure (it certainly is to me), and I would encourage that response be shared via the network. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 11:29:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* I believe the Shakespearean company that performed `The Wars of the Roses' a few years ago (Michael Pendleton et al) did the Welsh scene in Welsh. Helen Ostovich (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 12:09:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* I don't know what Dave Kathman means by "recent productions," but I saw a *1 Henry IV* at Stratford Ontario in the early 60s in which the lady spoke something I couldn't understand; I assume it was Welsh. I saw the play again at the Ashland, Oregon, Festival in 1988, and I don't remember what they did which leads me to think that they may have cut the speech entirely. You might check the BBC (videotape) version as part of your sample as well. John Cox (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 94 11:29:05 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* English had only been made the official language of 'England' (ie. England & Wales) under Henry VIII; in a way what is surprising is that the text of HIV doesn't spell out the Welsh in the same way that HV spells out its French -- doubtless a reflection of the relative social status of the 2 languages. Even before its big revival from the 1960s onwards, Welsh has always remained a major living language in Britain, so I very much doubt whether there has ever been a native production of HIV that has risked trying to get by on completely cod Welsh for that scene -- but I may be wrong, and would be interested to hear of it. I'd also be curious to learn how -- and indeed why -- this play gets performed in the US; never mind how the Welsh sounds, what do they do with words like 'Shrewsbury'? Michael Dobson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 19:39:14 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0210 MLA Teaching Through Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0210. Thursday, 10 March 1994. From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 09 Mar 1994 15:28:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: [MLA Teaching Through Performance] About the MLA Teaching Through Performance Book. I am in the midst of processing responses; it's terrifically exciting. We've set some kind of MLA record for responses overall and particularly for those wanting to contribute essays to teh book. This fact will force me to disappoint some interested persons and it's slowing the process down a little, since I'm trying to construct a book that will be genuinely useful but not just a workbook. I'm also going to propose to the MLA that the book be accompanied by an MS-Dos diskette that will contain much of the quite wonderful material that was submitted to me in the way of syllabi, course descriptions, exercises, and so forth -- all completely acknowledged by name and academic affiliation. That in itself, if the MLA agrees, could make the book really valuable to the teacher (and really give each of you a copyright claim, if such is important, for your teaching exercises as well as your essays). All this is by of saying thank you in a preliminary way and to tell you that each of you who responded can count on hearing from me within the next few weeks about the shape of the book and the fate of your contr4ibutions and suggestions. Meanwhile, if you simply want to know whether your response reached me and what its preliminary status is, please write me at Riggio@ads.trincoll.edu to ask. Once more, thanks to all of you and to Hardy and the list for helping to propel this project beautifully through its initial stage! Best, Milla Riggio P.S. the diskette suggestion came from a member of the Lois Potter/Lena Orlin Teaching Shakespeare through Performance Institute in which I participated at the Folger Library all last year and twice this year. Such collaborative suggestions are in the main what has made this project so far take a shape that appears almost intelligible! The book itself grew out of this institute and will partly enshrine the work we did there, but it has happily grown far beyond the limits of its genesis. Again, thanks! --M.R. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 06:53:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0211 Antioxonianism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0211. Friday, 11 March 1994. From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 9 Mar 94 17:41:19 EST Subject: antioxonianism The once was an earl named DeVere, Whose behavior was markedly queer. Although he was dead He got out of his bed And drafted a play called "King Lear." Mordax Fife ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 07:27:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0212 Job Announcement: English Department Head Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0212. Friday, 11 March 1994. From: Search Committee Date: Monday, 7 Mar 94 13:45:00 CDT Subject: Position Announcement - English Department Head Please excuse the multiple posting if you receive more than one of these postings. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Position: Associate or Full Professor of English and Head, Department of English. 1994-1995 Academic Year. Date of Appointment: August 24, 1994 Salary: $45,378 to $54,200 for nine months, plus attractive University fringe benefits. Full-time summer session assignment with additional salary is normally provided for department heads at the same rate of pay. Responsibilities: Provide direction and leadership and carry out administrative responsibilities for a department of approximately 20 faulty members. The department head normally assumes a one-half time teaching load. Administrative responsibilities include management of departmental budgets, curricula, scheduling, and personnel, as well as advising and other duties. Qualifications: Ph.D. in English, credentials commensurate with those of an associate or full professor. Interest in innovative teaching techniques, especially those using technological advances, and in research. Significant and effective experience in teaching on the university level. Relevent experience in administration and curriculum development preferred. The University: Angelo State University, San Angelo, Texas, is a highly-rated regional university. The University is fully accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award degrees at the associate, bachelor's, and master's levels. Apply to: Dr. E. James Holland, Dean College of Liberal and Fine Arts and Chairman of the Search Committee, Angelo State University, San Angelo, TX 76909 Deadline: Deadline is open but may be closed at any time after April 1, 1994. Women and minority scholars are especially urged to apply. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 07:33:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0213 Q: Apparel Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0213. Friday, 11 March 1994. From: Daniel Traister Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 17:39:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Elizabethan Acts of Apparel and cases of conduct literature [This posting originally appeared on RENAIS-L. Please respond directly to Theresa Sherman at SLNZC@CC.USU.EDU] Hi. I'm a graduate student in History writing my thesis on the Elizabethan Acts of Apparel (sumptuary laws). One aspect of my thesis will discuss the moral issues surrounding extravagent dress. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions regarding sixteenth century cases of conduct literature that deal with abuse of apparel that I should look at. I've already read Phillip Stubbes _Anatomie of Abuses_, something by William Averell and Charles Bansley (the titles escape me at the moment), and William Harrison's _Description of England_ (the section on the dress of the English). I know people on this list are a little touchy right now about simple requests for information, but I am one of the few people at my university studying this time period (the department has a mostly American West emphasis) and I have very few resources for information to turn to. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Theresa Sherman Utah State University SLNZC@CC.USU.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 07:40:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0214 PSFG of ATHE Call Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0214. Friday, 11 March 1994. From: Cynthia Wimmer Date: Sunday, 06 Mar 94 23:45 EST Subject: PSFG of ATHE Call Are you interested in Performance Studies? Are you a member of ATHE? If so, please read and respond to the following message. The executive committee of ATHE's Performance Studies Focus Group has recently become aware that ATHE's official list of members of our group is incomplete. We are attempting to compile a complete list in order to assure that all of you who wish to be part of the Performance Studies Focus Group will be on our mailing list before we mail out our spring newsletter and that you will also be registered as part of this group in ATHE's records. If you are an ATHE member, there is no additional cost for joining this focus group, nor does joining this focus group affect your membership in any other focus group; membership simply registers your interest in performance studies and places you on our mailing list so you will receive information pertinent to our participation in ATHE and its annual conference and in other related activities. (If you are not an ATHE member yet, but wish to join, I'll be glad to tell you how to receive membership information.) Whether you think you are already registered with ATHE as a member of this focus group or you are deciding today to join this focus group, we need to hear from you. Simply send me an e-mail at CM74@umail.umd.edu subject line: PSFG OF ATHE and give me your name, address, and institutional affiliation. I'll be sure you are on our list of members, and you'll receive our spring newsletter with a postcard to send to ATHE c/o THEatre SERVICE to register your membership with them. If you want to know more, read on--- Who are we? The Performance Studies Focus Group - seeks to widen our vision of performance, studying it not only as art but as part of historical, social, political and cultural processes. - combines approaches from the social sciences, critical theory, historio- graphy, and the arts regarding expressive behavior, the arts and culture; - promotes creative dialogue between the theories and practices of diverse cultures worldwide; - facilitates the lively exchange of ideas; promotes collaboration and collegiality. At this year's ATHE conference in Chicago, July 27-30, we are the primary sponsors of five panels: - Performing Communities/Community Performance - Performance Studies: Research, Methodology and Publishing - Performing Objects - Contested Identities: Performance as Discourse on Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality - (De)Signing Women: The Real, the Virtuoso, the Drag [Other focus groups have indicated their interest in PS by cosponsoring these panels.] We are also co-hosting a reception/party with TDR. In addition, we are cosponsoring twenty-two panels (acronyms for primary focus group sponsors are in brackets): - American Noh-How: Japanese Techniques, American Directors [AAP] - Cannibalizing the Self: The Voracious "Feminine" in Japanese Theatre [AAP] - Between the Indigenous and the Western Avant-Garde: Environmental Staging in Contemporary Asian Performance [AAP] - Storytelling as Homespun Entree to Acting [AP] - Design and the Multicultural/Diverse Performance [DT] - Analogue Theatre Meets Digital Production: "Star Odyssey" on the Las Vegas Strip [DT] - Passing in Performance: Subversion in Race, Gender and Sexual Identities [LGT] - Religion as a Performative Act [RT] - The Medieval Impulse in Contemporary Performance [RT] - Spirituality: Theatre and the North American West [RT] - Conversions: Secular Spaces/Sacred Sites [RT] - Absence(s) and Presence(s): (Re)constructing the Holocaust in Tadeusz Rozewicz's THE TRAP [TASC] - Taking on the Right: Political Theatre in the United States in the 1930's, 1960's and 1990's [TASC] - Community Performance: Necessary Theatre Where You Live and Work [TASC] - Tactility and Vision: Ocularcentrism and the Body [TC] - Performance as Methodology: Speaking from the Body [TC] - Contemporary Russian Theatre: Classics, Commerce and the Avant-Garde [TH] - 20th Century Directors [TH] - Cultural Crossroads: Native American Theatre, Drama & Performance [TH] - The Methodological Moment: Experiments in Theatre Studies [WT] - Medical Sightseeing: Excursions through the Female Body [WT] - Subverting Public Programming: A Workshop [WT] As you can see from these panel titles, performance studies is a vibrant, eclectic field. I personally find the field fascinating, elastic enough to allow me to pursue many of my diverse interests. And teaching my course "Performance Theory and Drama" at the University of Maryland at College Park is certainly one of the most exciting ventures of my academic career. I hope you'll be part of the Performance Studies Focus Group. Send me an e- mail and you'll get the spring newsletter with a postcard to send to ATHE. Or if you wish, though you will not receive our spring newsletter because we won't have your name and address, you can register with ATHE as a member of the focus group by writing directly to: ATHE c/o THEatre SERVICE P.O. Box 15282 Evansville, IN 47716-0282 Of course, you can also contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for your interest. Sincerely, Cynthia Wimmer for PSFG executive committee: Sally Harrison-Pepper Lee Krahenbuhl <71542.2426@CompuServe.COM> Gary Maciag Sharon Mazer Richard Schechner Rebecca Schneider Nathan Stucky Cynthia Wimmer ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 07:53:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0215 Re: Paulina and *WT* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0215. Friday, 11 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 21:19:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* (2) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 15:06:20 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism (3) From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 94 17:59:26 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 21:19:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* I'd like to say a word for Dan Seltzer's production of WT at the Loeb in Cambridge. I've lost my playbill, but this production has to be thirty years old. Dan played Leontes, and the final scene with the descent of Hermione was magical. (I'm not sure if Dan was also the director. He may have been.) Antigonus was not chased by a bear. He spoke in the shadows stage front. All of a sudden as he speaks a spectral bear looms over him from behind - eight feet of bear perhaps. As the bear closes in, Antigonus oblivious, the lights go out and I believe there was a scream in the dark. I still remember it as a very effective scene. The sheep shearing scene was a bit tedious for my taste. I suppose the dancing was well done, but I wanted to get on with it! But, all in all, it was a truly memorable production - for me. Yours (reminiscing), Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 15:06:20 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism >P.S. I've never seen the play [Winter's Tale] done well? Has anyone >seen a good production? The Brian Bedford at Stratford completely >confused several >experienced playgoers of my aquaintance - they had not read the play first >and the production was incoherent. > I think I was in a fairly good production (by college standards) directed by Charles McGaw at Ohio State back in the late 50's. The first show I ever saw at Stratford, Ont., not many years later was a fine Winter's Tale with Douglas Rain as Autolicus. A few summers back I saw a not bad production in Regent's Park. I wish my experience with all of the Bard's works was this consistantly positive. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 94 17:59:26 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* > [Patrick Stewart] told me that he had researched the disease that caused > Leontes' jealousy. What _was_ the disease that caused Leontes' jealousy? (For my own part, I "explain" the jealousy as just one more instance of the mystery of wickedness, the reasonless obliquity of sin.) Yours faithfully, David Scott Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 09:46:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0216 Re: Imagining Gloriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0216. Friday, 11 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 20:39:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0208 Imagining Gloriana (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 11:20:45 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana (3) From: Richard Shaw Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 22:32:09 U Subj: RE: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 20:39:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0208 Imagining Gloriana To Phyllis Rackin, The problem you describe is the problem of historicizing. If the historicists are correct, it is impossible for us to break out of our historical moment. If it was impossible for Shakespeare and Marlowe and Jonson, it's equally impossible for me and thee. Herb Coursen recurrently points out to me how a production is historically located, and then insists that we must historicize. All we do by historicizing is add another layer of 20th century to the past. And, Phyllis, you will have to admit that the picture of Gloriana that you describe is also the picture given us by historians like Carolly Erickson who I suppose is not a misogynist nor a dupe. At least, that's how I remember Erickson's description of Elizabeth. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 11:20:45 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana Michael, The first that comes to my mind is of dubious origin, as it is, if one may call it so, 'quoted' by Victor Hugo in his *Shakespeare* which was prefaced to his son's translations of Shakespeare. At one stage, he enumerates events that were taking place at dates supposed to be those when Bill was writing his plays. When he comes to 1603, he says that Henry IV of France said on hearing of the death of Queen Bess "elle etait vierge comme je suis catholique", but with Hugo never mentioning his sources, it may be totally apocryphal. To read Hugo's vision of Shakespeare-As-Romantic-Genius properly, one must bear in mind that in all the lineage of Prophets and Geniuses from The-Mythology, The-Bible and AAAArt, the only name missing, but permanently praetermitted by Hugo is Hugo himself, who obviously writes on Shakespeare to feel in good company with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Dante and folk of that ilk. I hope this is not in excess or does not duplicate your material. Yours, Luc (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Shaw Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 22:32:09 U Subject: RE: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana You might try the Italian playwright Dario Fo's "Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman." Elizabeth suspects all of Shakespeare's characters are talking about her. Most of the references are, of course, to Italian politics, but there is an American version! It is published in Theater, 1987. There is a "letter" prologue to Ronald Regan, "I know you are a sophisticated man of theatre who understands the use of allegory ... so I don't want you to leap to any false conclusions about possible parallels ... just because my play is about an aging leader who tends to get confused and forgetful (and on and on with non-parallels to) dying of your hair, face lifting, and "don't let anyone try to convince you that Elizabeth's love for horses has anything to do with your image as a galloping cowboy. ... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 09:54:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0217 Welsh in *1H4*; Annotated Quarto Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0217. Friday, 11 March 1994. (1) From: Tom Loughlin Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 19:25:54 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 20:57:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Annotated Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Loughlin Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 19:25:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* In last summer's production of 1h4 at the American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI, the Welsh scene was left intact and the actors spoke what I assume to be Welsh. There was even a Welsh song beautifully sung by Glendower's daughter. I think, in this day and age, any self-respecting Shakespearean actor in this country will break their butt to learn the Welsh. I played Sir Hugh Evans last summer in MWW and listened to Welsh tapes until my ears fell off to pull the dialect off. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 10 Mar 1994 20:57:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Annotated Quartos To Tom Berger, You seem to forget the Rosenbach-Bodmer copy of TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, which I have not seen, but which Kenneth Palmer reports to be uncut and with a width of 6 inches. He says there would have been plenty of room for a collator/annotator to scribble in the margins. But, Tom, we cannot immediately translate possibility into reality without firm evidence. Can we? Should we? Just because a quarto has wide margins doesn't mean that collators/annotators filled those margins with lines of poetry and stage directions. (I wish they had!) Yes, Leslie Thomson has told us that some quartos were used as promptbooks - and these indeed had stage directions added. But Leslie will tell us all about this in Albuquerque. Till then, I remain, Sir, your humble seminarian, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:29:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0218 Re: Paulina and *WT* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0218. Saturday, 12 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 08:39:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* (2) From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 94 09:02:23 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 08:39:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0207 Re: Paulina and *WT* I share Alex Bennet's enthusiasm for the WT statue scene in the Barton "Playing Shakespeare" series. I was bowled over by it myself. I believe that Paulina is played by Sinead Cusack. It's the 8th tape in the series and available from Films for the Humanities in Princeton, NJ, or was anyway. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 94 09:02:23 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0203 Re: Paulina; Noh Lecture; Colonialism The RSC production of 1987(?) at Stratford with Jeremy Irons and Penny Downie as Hermione was pretty straight forward: my students loved the nylon bear with the electric blue eyes which was flown on wires and then collapsed on top of Antigonus as he defended the child Perdita--yes, it's not in the text but it played well and is consistent with one view of A's character. The setting was French Empire, and the costumes the same. The second half had Leontes in a wheelchair throughout, until he rises at the incredible living statue scene/moment: we liked the clumsy symbolism of his being literally in Paulina's hands throughout the second part, since she wheeled him everywhere. It was a Terry Hands production, set by Gerald Howland, costumes (great ones) by Alexander Reid. Hands also worked on the lighting. But Oh! that bear . . . backstage, we met it and it was something like 40' long and 25' wide: awesome. Finally, Jeremy Irons as L. was a surprise: a clear, not strong, but gallery reaching voice with precise enunciation, whose every syllable reached us. Oh yes: nearly forgot: Time was flown on a wire to, a gay old geezer who set the theme of reconciliation which the production reached for: no complicated readings here. I think it got lukewarm critical appraisal: we loved it. Cheers. Nick Ranson. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:43:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0219 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0219. Saturday, 12 March 1994. (1) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 10:20:43 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0206 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (2) From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:46:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0199 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 10:20:43 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0206 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Robert Cohen writes: >Thus, if we must make variant-selection decisions in the absence of clear >historical proof of authorial preference, let's at least decide with as >sharp an eye on the stage as on the page. I coudn't agree more with Cohen's statement; however, I am somewhat confused by his suggestion that one should always choose what modern editors consider the simplest choice for the audience when considering performance. As an actor, I find the diverging quarto and folio texts a godsend (or maybe that should be a bardsend). To be able to choose "if" instead of "an" because it happens to have the correct aural sound for that moment in the play is wonderfully liberating in a creative sense. In other words, I now find myself with the option of choosing which word will flow better given this particular production and my particular conception of the character. And why in the world does "have" make action flow more easily than "hath"? If I were quite angry at another character, I would much rather have the wonderful fricative sound of the hard "th" than the more difficult to punch through "v." So I agree to keeping an eye to the performance of the text, but that does not mean all performances have in common one "best" solution. Timothy Dayne Pinnow pinnow@stolaf.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:46:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0199 Re: Transmission of the Quartos I agree with John Cox and others--these discussions are instructive. Is it possible that we are (perhaps unintentionally) squeezing two questions into one? Here is an amateurish attempt at separating the questions: 1. What is the origin of these so-called bad Quartos of *Hamlet*, *R and J* and *MWW*? An actor's memory (faulty or otherwise?) Many hands and brains in the theatrical company (One of which hands and brains perhaps belonging to old what's-his-name?) 2. Questions of origin aside, are these quartos worth reading, studying, publishing, or producing? I do not presume to suggest a reply to 1 above, but to 2 I suggest that these quartos are indeed worth reading and acting on the stage. Like Steve Urkowitz, I have worked with student and professional actors on these texts, and we have learned much. (See my article on the *King Lear* Quarto in rehearsal and performance in a 1986 Autumn Shakespeare Quarterly.) Whether these quartos were "written" by what's-his-name or not, no one benefits when words like "rubbish" are applied to them, and no one benefits when essays about their theatrical dimensions are excluded from the pages of SQ and its respectable sisters. Let us open these pages to all sorts of discourse, just as SHAKSPER bless it is open to all sorts of discourse. Two cheers for civility, and a third cheer for good humor! David Richman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:51:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0220 Re: Imagining Gloriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0220. Saturday, 12 March 1994. (1) From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:17:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana (2) From: Michael Dobson Date: Friday, 11 Mar 94 17:21:47 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0208 Imagining Gloriana (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:17:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0202 Imagining Gloriana Open letter to Michael Dobson on *Imagining Gloriana* Project: I assume you are dealing with the 1953 Benjamin Britten opera *Gloriana*? The opera got, and still gets, mixed reviews. In Maxwell Anderson's play, *Elizabeth the Queen* Shakespeare and his company are hauled before the Privy Council over the *Richard II* and Essex flap. There is also a weird and ingenious time-travel fantasy, first published in 1963, called *No Great Magic* by Fritz Leiber, about Elizabeth, the execution of Mary Stuart, and a deliberately anachronistic performance of *Macbeth*. Leiber is a gifted fantasist whose father was a gifted Shakespearean actor. Cheers--I will enjoy reading your book when it comes out. David Richman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Friday, 11 Mar 94 17:21:47 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0208 Imagining Gloriana Many thanks to all who have contributed on this topic so far, especially Phyllis Rackin, with whom we are in strong agreement: anyone wishing to understand the full resonances of Louis Montrose on *Midsummer Night's Dream* in the 1980s, for example, needs to read Robert Bly as much as Shakespeare! Luc Borot needn't apologize for the apocryphal nature of the anecdotes he points out -- the more apocryphal the better. It's what Elizabeth gets used to *mean* rather than what 'really happened.' So any further fantasies about Elizabeth are very welcome, so long as you don't mind having us analyse them! Any Simon Formans out there? Tell all -- Michael Dobson & Nicola Watson ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 13:00:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0221 Re: Welsh in *1H4* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0221. Saturday, 12 March 1994. (1) From: Jean Peterson Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 16:08:55 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0209 Re: Welsh in *1H4* (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 18:04:07 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 16:08:55 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0209 Re: Welsh in *1H4* >I believe the Shakespearean company that performed `The Wars of the >Roses' a few years ago (Michael Pendleton et al) did the Welsh scene in >Welsh. > >Helen Ostovich I recall the details of that production (The English Shakespeare Company, which Pendleton co-directed with Michael Bogdanov; I believe *the wars of the roses* played during the '88-'89 season); the scene was quite well-handled. A soft, gauzy, white drape fell from the flyspace (to cover the rigid metal catwalks that formed the set for the rest of the play), and a white fur rug was on the ground, for Mortimer to loll on during the Lady's Welsh song. There was a rather suggestive vaginal shape to the the white backdrop (shades of Gertrude's bed in Olivier's filmed *Hamlet*!) Lady Mortimer was a sexy red-haired wench, throwing herself on Mortimer & weeping passionately, pouring out her incomprehensible words with frantic intensity--so that the audience shared Mortimer's frustrated desire to understand her. She played a harp during her song--a real celtic fantasy! Glendower was properly dominating, pseudo-mystical, and full of himself. In short, the directors conceived of Wales in contradistinction to the "machismo" of the English warrior ethic--a soft, seductive, foreign, feminine space, dominated by women, sorcerers, magic, music, and theatrical spectacle. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 18:04:07 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0204 Welsh in *1H4* I actually performed this scene as Lady Mortimer, and indeed the "lady spoke in Welsh." This was some years ago, in a May Week production of 1 Henry IV at Caius in Cambridge. The director decided that my character was a violent Welsh nationalist, and had lines written accordingly. For example: "how long have you Lords of March been oppressing us over the borders? You'd have thought you guys would have learned how to speak Welsh by now!" If I may say so, it didn't really work. Since the audience didn't speak Welsh either, I had to be openly contemptuous of Mortimer, which meant that he had to be an idiot. I've always suspected that if there's a point to the scene, it's that love only lasts between people who can't understand each other at all. ( Side note: I later married the Lord Mortimer from this production.) The New York Outdoor Production in the late Seventies/early Eighties also used Welsh, and the effect was very good. Melissa Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 13:17:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals; Renaissance Bookshelf; First Times Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0222. Saturday, 12 March 1994. (1) From: Ben Ross Schneider Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:36:30 -0600 (CST) Subj: Tempest *and* Universals (2) From: Ben Ross Schneider Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:37:44 -0600 (CST) Subj: Elizabethan Bookshelves (3) From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 94 07:11:48 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0178 Re: First Times with Shakspeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Ross Schneider Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:36:30 -0600 (CST) Subject: Tempest *and* Universals Thank you, Terence, for letting us know in no uncertain terms, exactly where you stand. Many of us seem to be in the process of finding out. And all you are going to get for your plain dealing is the following attack. You said: >>Well, call me a sentimental old baggage, Nina, but [anthropology and history] do offer to tell us a bit about (I wonder if you're ready for this) the DIFFERENCES between folk. Actually, so (I just KNOW you're not ready for this, but we champions brook no delays) does the study of SHAKESPEARE.<<< I am READY for that statement. I TOTALLY agree that history and anthropology make a huge difference, even that they are necessary for any sound reading of Shakespeare, but I don't think you are ready for what I'm going to say next: Cultural materialists (new historicists, postmodernists, postcolonialists) don't really have much if any regard for cultural differences. In fact they are the worst idealist-universalists you will find anywhere. I will make my case in terms of recent Tempest criticism. Beside the studies by Greenblatt, Orgel, Brown, Hulme, and Cartelli already cited on SHAKSPER, we also have the following postcolonial essays on The Tempest: Curt Breight, "'Treason doth never Prosper': The Tempest and the Discourse of Treason," Shakespeare Quarterly 41(1990): 1-28.lein Eric Cheyfetz, The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from The Tempest to Tarzan (New York: Oxford UP, 1991). Stephen J. Greenblatt, "Martial Law in the Land of Cockaigne." Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Berkeley: U of California P, 1988). Lorie Jerrell Leininger, "Cracking the Code of The Tempest," Shakespeare: Contemporary Critical Approaches, ed. Harry Garvin (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell UP, 1980), 121-131. Stephen Orgel, "Introduction," The Tempest, The Oxford Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1987), 1-87. In addition to Russ MacDonald's rebuttal of the postcolonial approach, already mentioned, there is Meredith Skura's thoroughgoing demonstration that the play has very little in common with the colonial discourse available to Shakesapeare: "Discourse and the lndividual: The Case of Colonialism in The Tempest," Shakespeare Quarterly 40(Spring 1989): 42-69. Stripped of all its theoretical gobbledegook, what these postcolonial analysese of The Tempest come down to is that Caliban is a good guy and Prospero is a bad guy. The Tempest doesn't like this a bit, and a sensitive ear can hear it screaming in agony. I can, anyhow. You see, what really happens in The Tempest is that Prospero reforms, breaks his magic wand and adopts an entirely different method of administration. It's clear as anything. He stops being an imperialist. So the deconstructionists have to ignore the climax of the play and rewrite the last act. Why? You would think that cultural materialists would settle for Shakespeare being a racist, classist, sexist, imperialist, which he is, strictly speaking. But no, these critics want the text to support their politics. In order to do this they tacitly assume the position that Shakespeare is not for an age but for all time; he had the same attitude toward race, class, and gender as we do, and so he undermines the conventiuonal surface of his plays. Or if it's not that Shakespeare is like us, it's that the class, gender, race struggle is always going on in history, so it must be going on in the play. I'd say that the belief in a universal ongoing and palpable contestation of the status quo in all ages and cultures is fairly idealistic, don't you think? This is The Human Condition. It would be a tactical mistake for political critics to throw out Shakespeare on the grounds that he is a hopeless bigot. Therefore critics on the left recruit him for their side by using the fallacy of universality, imposing an anachronistic postmodern ideology on his works. If you object to this they throw the genius argument at you. Being omniscient, he sensed the tensions in his society and let them seep into his plays under the cover of statist propaganda. But that's another universalist argument. Nobody ever heard of a Marxist analysis of society until capitalism created the society and Marx discovered its basic laws. I eagerly await your response. I'm sure it will be pithy and leave me swaying in the breeze. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu See also my remarks under >>Renaissance Bookshelf<<. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Ross Schneider Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 14:37:44 -0600 (CST) Subject: Elizabethan Bookshelves James McKenna urges Mr Budra to read Seneca's plays and Cicero's works for style. Phyllis Rackin doubts that Shakespeare's audience had any bookshelves to speak of. JM: I think that Seneca's moral works and Cicero' De Officiis are even more important. PR: I still need to read Gurr's work on S's audiences, but I think the jury is still out on Ann Jennalie Cook's findings, which agree with mine. What are we to make of Ruth Kelso's monumental works, Doctrine for the lady of the Renaissance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956) and The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1964)? These works comprise almost 1500 titles, about one-third in English. And Professor Kelso does not include classical moral- ists in their own or modern languages, which greatly increase that number. In her second book she summarizes her findings as follows: >>the bulk of all that these treatises contain is made up of commonplaces, culled mostly from the ancients, whose names besprinkle the pages of all writers. . . . There is plenty of evidence that these same commonplaces were not of mere academic interest, for the letters, speeches, and fiction of the time are full of the same ideas and rules for conduct.<< Professor Kelso's list of those ancients most commonly cited in these books is very short, consisting solely of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca. Booksellers don't print all these conduct books just for the good of humanity. There must be a demand. As we know we are dealing with a period of great social mobility, in which S participates. I suggest that new and aspiring gentlemen and ladies comprise the market, and that they also comprise the market for plays. I note that Prof. Robert J Fehrenbach at Wm and Mary (rjf@aardvark.cc.wm.edu) is building a database of the contents of Private Libraries in Renaissance England from lists in wills, deeds, and other sources. So we are eventually going to know what's on those shelves. I'm betting that we'll find a lot of Cicero and Seneca, in translation or boiled down into conduct books. My article on MV in the SHAKSPER fileserver or in Restoration 17 (Fall, 1993) gives more details on this topic. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 94 07:11:48 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0178 Re: First Times with Shakspeare I decided I wanted to read and study Shakespeare for life after seeing Olivier's Richard III in 1953. It was simply the most exciting thing I had ever seen on film. Even being made to play Lady Macduff in an all boy's school production of Macbeth did not long sour me, even though my voice had long left the treble register. I also had an English (subject) master who read aloud a lot: I enjoyed the histrionics of it all, and he had us practice too. Nick Ranson ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 13:21:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0223 Reduced Shakespeare at the Folger Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0223. Saturday, 12 March 1994. From: Jon Enriquez Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 10:06:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Reduced Shakespeare at the Folger Alert to all Washington, DC-area SHAKSPEReans: the Reduced Shakespeare Company comes to the Folger Theater April 17-23. This is unquestionably the funniest Bard parody I've ever seen, and possibly the funniest live theater of any kind. The "Reduced" in their name means that they perform the entire corpus in two acts with three actors. And they do it justice. If you go, be sure to clap loud & long, because the "encores" alone are almost worth the price of admission. Call the Folger at 202-544-7077 for tickets & showtimes. Jon Enriquez ENRIQUEZJ@guvax (Bitnet) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 13:28:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0224 Re: Apparel; Antioxonianism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0224. Saturday, 12 March 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 08:26:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0213 Q: Apparel (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 21:46:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0211 Antioxonianism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 08:26:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0213 Q: Apparel On Elizabethan sumptuary laws, have a look at Frank Whigham's *Ambition and Privilege: The Social Tropes of Elizabethan Courtesy Theory* (U of Califor- nia P, 1984). John Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 11 Mar 1994 21:46:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0211 Antioxonianism Okay, Who is Nordax Fife? I know: the person who rhymes "DeVere" with "queer" and "Lear." Could it be David Evett, perchance? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 22:40:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0225 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0225. Monday, 14 March 1994. (1) From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 1994 20:32:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: locus-pocus (2) From: Tad Davis Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 1994 08:33:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0219 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (3) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Monday, 14 Mar 94 11:12:09 EST Subj: Annotated Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 1994 20:32:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: locus-pocus I seem to have drawn some fire for my "locus of circulation" comment, and I'd like to elaborate briefly, since I stand by it (so far). The locus is in our minds, as a point of reference--something like the scrap of Foucault that showed up here several days back. We have this "Shakespeare" that is in the thick of a body or remarkable drama, and we choose to identify him as the author of every word and point. Revisions aside, and even putting aside changes that Shakespeare might have had a hand in or approved, can we imagine that the plays have no discrete author, but are the product of massive reworking of scripts originally supplied by one William Shakespeare? Of course, the quartos will differ from each other and the folio. If texts are more than a few performances apart, they may differ substantially. Our idea of the fixed text was barely formed in Jacobean London; many texts on the same story might pass as the same story. Note the careless manner in which plays are noted in the Stationer's Register--hardly evidence for an interest in textual stability. Maybe a tip from OE studies might help. Oral-formulaic theory is not quite appropriate, but the underlying idea that a story remains itself even though it is always in flux seems to be operating here. We may be blinded by our obsession with difference, where the similarities might be what count. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 1994 08:33:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0219 Re: Transmission of the Quartos I just developed a new theory for transmission of the Quartos which reconciles all opposing viewpoints. My theory is that Shakespeare himself created the "bad" quartos to sell to the printer when his tankard was running dry. Having sold the original to the company, he had to do it from memory. Being an actor in the company himself, he naturally remembered some parts better than others. And being an author, he couldn't resist the temptation to try to improve things here and there along the way. And being a shareholder in the company, he never told the others about it, making believe he was as angry about it as they were. Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Monday, 14 Mar 94 11:12:09 EST Subject: Annotated Quartos To: Bill Godshalk Yes, the large quarto of T&C in Genevea too. What I was trying to say, as my students tell me, was that if you are going to try out the annotated scheme yourself, give yourself more room that you would imagine you need by looking say, at Allen and Muir's facsimiles. But no, I don't really buy the annotated quarto copy theory any more than I buy a number of others. But it needs to be considered in each case. I think, too, that one should consider quarto copy consulted when the MS got too tough to follow. This I think obtains for F1 Henry V, with someone consulting Q3 H5, 1619, a book printed by Jaggard for Pavier. What is scary is Q2 TITUS, which until Q1 was discovered was thought to be pretty good stuff but which fudged a scene, or part of a scene, because it was using a damaged copy of Q1 as its copy. GB Evans discusses this briefly in the text note to TA in his Riverside. Read it and weep. Tom Berger ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 23:30:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0226 Re: Gloriana; PD Etexts; Oxford; Leontes' Disease Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0226. Monday, 14 March 1994. (1) From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 94 17:12:37 -0500 Subj: Imagining Gloriana (2) From: Tom Davey Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 94 12:19 PST Subj: SHK 5.0193 Public Domain Etext (3) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 14 Mar 1994 11:51:40 +1000 (EST) Subj: Anti-antioxonianism (4) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 1994 23:06:27 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Leontes' disease (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 94 17:12:37 -0500 Subject: Imagining Gloriana Has anyone mentioned Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda" in response to this? Gloriana comes off particularly poorly in that one, though she gets some pretty ringing lines. It appears Jolly Robin Dudley was in love with Mary Stuart along. Hell hath no fury like a Virgin Queen scorned! ("Io l'abborro! Ei non fa che rammentarla!" Grrr!) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Davey Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 94 12:19 PST Subject: SHK 5.0193 Public Domain Etext > . . . and we should like to release it in a more easy to use format. If Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg is listening, may I make a suggestion for the format? I find the current Project Gutenberg Shakspeare difficult to use because the whole canon is contained in one seamless text file of (if memory serves) over 1.5Mb in size. There are many word processors that cannot load a file of that size; almost none can manipulate it efficiently. To use the Project Gutenberg Shakespeare, then, requires one to manually break the huge file into chunks beforehand--most tedious. Why not assemble the etext canon by PKZIP-ping together 42 or so separate files, one file for each play, poem, and the sonnets? We can UNZIP this file at home and then easily access the text we need, each individual work taking less than 200k. > If, of course, your goal is to keep the Bard away from the masses, silence, > which has been the previous response, would be totally appropriate. The silence on this list in response to this message itself is indeed interesting. I have a feeling there's some history here I don't know about. In addition to his several more provocative claims, Michael Hart's message raises juicy issues about public domain e-editions and their usefulness. I'd love to post my thoughts, but I won't take up SHAKSPERean's time if the debate is too contentious or already exhausted. Tom Davey UCLA (izzyom8@mvs.oac.ucla.edu) [EDITOR'S NOTE: To try to head off any conspiracy theories, there is NO past history here. The silence appears to me to be because NO SHAKSPERean has answers to the questions that Michael Hart has raised. SHAKSPER itself has NO connection with any of the available Shakespeares on GOPHER, and I know of NO SHAKSPEReans who have such connections. There are four public domain texts available on the SHAKSPER Fileserver (two versions of an early edition of my transcription of the Q1609 SONNETS; an F1 *Henry VIII* and a Cornmarket *Errors* both by Thomas Horton). I hope to announce soon how the SHAKSPER Fileserver will be used to distribute public-domain, old-spelling, electronic editions of the quartos and the First Folio, but those interested will have to wait a little longer. Finally, for the past two years, I have been preparing an electronic edition for the public domain (even though I have been approached by a commercial vendor) and am in NO way trying to keep Shakespeare from the masses or anyone else. --HMC] (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 14 Mar 1994 11:51:40 +1000 (EST) Subject: Anti-antioxonianism I'm a little puzzled. Why is David Evett writing limericks against phantom opponents? As long as I've been part of this conference - only a couple of months, but I've read some back files - the only mention made of Edward De Vere has been a forlorn request for information about a Boston debate, which was never answered (or if it was I missed it). Is the 'Oxford theory'to be understood as a sort of Manuel to the Basil Fawlty of Orthodoxy, always there to be cuffed when you can't think of anything better to do? Anyway, since the issue has been raised, could David remind me just what is the overwhelming evidence that *King Lear* could not have been written and performed before 1604? In prose if possible. (Any other information on the current state of play on the Shakespeare/Oxford front in North America would also be appreciated, but perhaps David is not the person to ask for this!) Patrick Buckridge Brisbane, Australia. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Sunday, 13 Mar 1994 23:06:27 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Leontes' disease In reponse to David Scott Wilson-Okamura's query about the disease that caused Leontes' jealousy, I have found Patrick Stewart's response. Please be aware that this was an interview that I did 12 years ago while on JYA. Listening to my tape, I was very much in my "salad days" of scholarship. I had asked him if he believed Leontes was merely paranoid. He replied that his research about the character had led him to the conclusion that through Leontes Shakespeare is chronicling" a specific kind of depressive illness. He didn't know about it; he didn't have a name for it [note P.S. never gave me the name for it either]. A very specific, detailed depressive illness that has a "fixed delusion syndrome."One branch of this kind of illness is suspicion of one's wife. It's commonplace and it follows exactly the pattern of Leontes. Absolutely the same. Including, always, unless it's spotted, the person will always attempt to murder the 'guilty' one...which Leontes does. Yes, he kills her. He doesn't actually directly cause her death, but he is the reason for it. And there always follows a long, long, severe depression which can last..16 years." Patrick Stewart "discovered" this illness during his research of the charcter which coincided with his just having played a consultant psychiatrist for the previous 18 months. He also told me that his conclusions were confirmed at a WT seminar which featured a Dr. Pardle (?) a consultant psychiatrist/ Shakespeare scholar. Sorry I can't be more specific as to the order's name. Thanks for giving me an excuse to listen to my interview tape again.{It's got great stuff on his HIV, too.} Elizabeth Schmitt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 23:35:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0227 Writing Company Catalog Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0227. Monday, 14 March 1994. From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Saturday, 12 Mar 1994 14:14:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Writing Company Catalog Today's mail included a useful catalog of Shakespeareana from THE WRITING COMPANY. For those who are at a loss to locate videos, discs, software programs, etc. there are an impressive range and variety of material. For example, the Branagh ADO is listed on VHS cassette for $79.50. The entire BBC series, including the losers and the winners, for a mere $2500.00, which is an excellent buy. Many "educational" items are offered, though it's not always clear when these are newly minted and when they are recyclings of 16mm Humanities programs from the 60's. There needs some day to be a standard videographic description for clarification. Anyway, nearly everyone will find this publication useful. Write The Writing Company. 10200 Jefferson Blvd., Room K1, PO Box 802, Culver City CA 90232-0802. Call 800-421-4246. FAX 310-839-2249. In California I guess you call 310-839-2436. (It just occurred to me that maybe this company mailed its catalog to the entire SAA membership list. If so, I apologize for cluttering up your e-mail!) :-( Ken Rothwell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 22:50:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0228 Gobbledegook Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0228. Tuesday, 15 March 1994. From: Al Cacicedo Date: Monday, 14 Mar 1994 23:43:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Gobbledegook Kurt Vonnegut says that a Christianity stripped of all its theoretical gobbledegook boils down to the following: "Don't mess around with people who have friends in high places." Sometimes gobbledegook turns out to be pretty important. With submission, Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 22:58:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0229 Re: Leontes' Disease Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0229. Tuesday, 15 March 1994. (1) From: Jimmy Carrillo Date: Monday, 14 Mar 94 23:41:05 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0226 Re: Leontes' Disease (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 09:02:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0226 Re: Leontes' Disease (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jimmy Carrillo Date: Monday, 14 Mar 94 23:41:05 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0226 Re: Leontes' Disease I found much value in the interview done by Elizabeth Schmitt on Patrick Stewart. Being a social worker, I'm quite familiar with many a green-eyed lunacies that certainly can tear families apart in the ugliest ways. I'd like to expand on my social worker's perspective on Shakespeare, but first, I must admit that I was rather dumbfounded on the last comment written by Ms. Schmitt regarding "HIV." Did you mean to say that Patrick Stewart is an HIV victim? Don't want to make this sound like an attempt to gossip monger; I'd just like some clarification, and as a social worker, I'll admit, I'm curious to know. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 09:02:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0226 Re: Leontes' Disease Elizabeth Schmitt's interesting note on Leontes' "disease" reminds me of an unpublished paper that I wrote two decades ago. In it I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Leontes may or may not have been suffering from what Robert Burton labels "choler adust." It's a malady that also afflicts Pandosto in Robert Greene's THE TRIUMPH OF TIME, characterized by a "hairbrain disposition." Victims are susceptible to being "apt to quarrel . . . furious, impatient of discourse, stiff, irrefragable and prodigious in their tenents; and if they be moved, most violent, outrageous, ready to disgrace, provoke any, to kill themselves and others." There's more but this is enough for e-mail. Ken Rothwell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 23:06:31 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0230 Re: *The Tempest* and Universals Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0230. Tuesday, 15 March 1994. (1) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 19:04:54 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals (2) From: William Russell Mayes Date: Tueday, 15 Mar 1994 09:45:48 -0500 Subj: Re: Tempest & Universals (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 19:04:54 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals Ben Ross Schneider's sensitive ear tells him, and us, that "what really happens in The Tempest is that Prospero reforms, breaks his magic wand and adopts an entirely different method of administration. It's clear as anything." My ear, perhaps less sensitive and certainly working from Stephen Orgel's edition, fails to detect any moment at which Prospero actually breaks his staff, though of course he talks about it, as he talks a great deal about liberating Ariel. But where is Ben Ross Schneider's sensitive ear when Prospero, in his last speech of the play before the epilogue, charges Ariel to organise "calm seas, auspicious gales,/and sail so expeditious that shall catch/ Your royal fleet far off."? To my ear this is precisely the same meterological magic, though in a more temperate form, that he practices at the beginning of the play. Admittedly he ends the speech: "Then to the elements be free, and fare thou well", but Ariel's heard all this before, including at the very start of Act V when he points out to Prospero that the time is "[o]n the sixth hour, at which time, my lord, you said our work should cease." My ear tells me that if Prospero is still giving orders to Ariel in the last speech of the play he has neither broken his magic wand nor adopted an entirely different method of administration. So who is ignoring the climax of the play and rewiting the last act? Adrian Kiernander Department of Theatre Studies The University of New England Armidale, NSW 2351 AUSTRALIA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Russell Mayes Date: Tueday, 15 Mar 1994 09:45:48 -0500 Subject: Re: Tempest & Universals I have been uneasy about entering this debate, but as it does interest me, I thought I'd chime in with a few thoughts about Ben Ross Schneider's recent post. In that message, he states that it is "clear as anything" that Prospero reforms at the end of the play, ceases to be an imperialist, and becomes another type of administrator (what type is not clear). I would not deny any of this, but I think this argument, like many of the others in this debate, misses some of the (dare I use the phrase?) rich ambiguities in Shakespeare's texts. Yes, Prospero does say he will give up his magic, but to read the entire play in light of this late incident is to do violence to the previous acts (this, at least, is where I hear the text in pain). In _Lear_ when Edmund says "I mean to do some good" and sends men to prevent the execution of Lear and Cordelia, does that mean he is reformed? Or does the fact that it comes too late mean he is unreformed? I don't have an answer, and I think the text intentionally fails to supply one. Let me put this in the context of _The Tempest_. No matter what we think about Prospero's moral standing at the end of the play, the question of Caliban still looms large in the final scene. What does the phrase "this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine" mean? What sort of reward does Prospero have in mind in his final address to Caliban? Is Prospero going to take Caliban with him? If so, it seems Caliban would at worst be ripe for exploitation by more savvy Stephanos and Triculos, at best he would be a monstrosity, an outcast in any society. Is Prospero going to let Caliban stay on the island? It would seem to be rightfully his, but he has been infinitely changed by Prospero and Miranda (not to mention S & T). In either case it is difficult for me to imagine Caliban happy. And that is how a Romance is supposed to end. My point here is that we must keep the personal histories of the characters in mind when making a reading of the final act. I think Cultural Materialists et al can and do make interesting, useful additions to our understanding of these plays. Whether or not Shakespeare and his company knew the works of the explorers and colonialists seems less interesting to me than the fact that members of their audience may have. I think historicists work is at its most interesting when it reveals meanings that were available to consumers of the work of art, whether the author intended them or not. Well, I have gone on much longer than I intended. I look forward to responses. W. Russ Mayes Jr. University of Virginia wrm2b@faraday.clas.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 23:22:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0231 Imagining Gloriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0231. Tuesday, 15 March 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 07:50:12 -0600 Subj: Imagining Gloriana (2) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 09:46:21 -0500 (EST) Subj: Imagining Gloriana (3) From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 94 22:59:01 EST Subj: imagining gloriana (5.5.0202) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 07:50:12 -0600 Subject: Imagining Gloriana Greetings to Michael Dobson and all and sundry interested in this topic. Faye Kellerman's novel *The Quality of Mercy* imagines an Elizabeth who has an erotic interest in young women as well as young men; the central character in the story, Rebecca Lopez (daughter of the Queen's physician) is presented to the queen and then expected to bed with her. It's quite a scene. The novel itself is very nicely done, I think. Chris Gordon, English, University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 09:46:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Imagining Gloriana To Michael Dobson To add to the list of operas on Elizabeth, I might suggest the operas on Elizabeth by Donizetti (not only"Maria Stuarda", but also "Elisabetha") and, believe it or not, Rossini. Robert Ward, an American composer associated with Duke University, wrote an opera on Walter Ralegh in the 1980s, which had a hefty part for Elizabeth (no Shakespeare, though). In terms of novels, definitely add Michael Moorcock's *Gloriana* to your list. Moorcock is a very daring (and prolific!) fantasy and science fiction writer (his award-winning time travel novel on Christ, *Behold the Man*, nearly started fights in my class when I taught it several years ago). This novel is a comic and sexy retelling of Spenser's Faerie Queene, with bits of gothic romance and literary in-jokes tossed in for good measure (no Shakespeare, as I recall). Doesn't QE make a cameo appearance in Leon Rooke's very entertaining *Shakespeare's Dog*? Might you make your list of Elizabeth spinoffs available to those on the SHAKSPER list? I know my students in the sixteenth century poetry course would enjoy sampling these. Sincerely, Douglas Lanier University of New Hampshire (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 94 22:59:01 EST Subject: imagining gloriana (5.5.0202) One of the more amusing imaginings of Elizabeth occurs in , by Caryl Brahms and F. J. Simon, which works rather as though the authors had taken the Elizabethan section of <1066 and All That> as the inspiration for a short novel. The book presents Shakespeare as a harassed and hard-working man of the theater who keeps sitting down to write a new play, putting "Loves Labours Wonne" at the top of page and then being distracted, often by Bacon wanting a little editorial help with some essays he's trying to write. A plausible explanation for the bed-mystery is offered, among many other delights. Bess places a higher value on his advice than she does on that of most of her grand advisors. One of the more interesting occurs in a recent fantasy by Mary Gentle, -postmodern work in the sense in which that term is applied to architecture, which reimagines an early modern England in which both magic and technology are farther advanced than in the history we know. In this book, more C17 than C16 in its costumes and furnishings and specific historical allusions, the figure of Elizabeth is at it were distributed between two characters, a red-headed (female) scholar/soldier who has a hard time choosing between acting and contemplating, healing and wounding, and a beleaguered queen Carola who has dark curly hair like Gloriana's Stuart successors but personality traits closer to those we associate with Elizabeth. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 23:52:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0232 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0232. Tuesday, 15 March 1994. (1) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 94 10:13:19 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0225 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (2) From: Thomas Clayton Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 08:25:50 -0600 (CST) Subj: Q1 _Hamlet_ (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 19:55:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0225 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 94 10:13:19 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0225 Re: Transmission of the Quartos I am anything but an expert on issues of transmission of text, but if a humble theatre geek might interpose a comment... James McKenna mentions that "our idea of the fixed text was barely formed in Jacobean London". True enough. But it may be worth noting that modern playwrights don't necessarily believe in a fixed text, either. A few examples off the top of my head: Yeats's _The Countess Cathleen_ was published in 1892, *radically* revised and re-published in 1897, first performed in 1899, re-published with significant changes in 1900 (whether the performance text was the 1897 or 1900 version -- or neither -- is a matter of some debate), re-published again with even more changes several years later. Camus' _Le Malentendu_ was radically revised (and IMHO signficantly improved) between the mid-'40s original and a 1959 re-write. The changes are profound enough that when I directed the show several years ago, I considered it worth my time to translate the revised version, since the only available English translation was of the earlier text. Both Peter Nichols's _[A Day in the Death of] Joe Egg_ and Peter Shaffer's _Lettice and Lovage_ show slight changes between the officially "published" editions and the "acting editions" available from Samuel French (or DPS, or whoever it is who holds the rights). Indeed, what is fascinating about these texts (and I'm sure many others, as well) is that if everyone follows the rules, the play-going and play-reading audiences will necessarily, by law, be confronted with different texts. I realize that this doesn't tell us much about differences between various editions of Shakespeare, but it does begin to suggest, I think, that ALL of our assumptions must be re-examined. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Clayton Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 08:25:50 -0600 (CST) Subject: Q1 _Hamlet_ In SHK 5.0182, "Re: Q1 of _*Hamlet_," Charles Frey wrote that he would "appreciate a posting from a relatively neutral authority telling us how to obtain a balanced view of this debate over memorial reconstruction. Is the volume edited by Thomas Clayton and titled _The "Hamlet" First Published (Q1, 1603): Origins, Form, Intertextualities_ (1992) the latest and best word?" etc. As the editor, I scarcely qualify as even a "_relatively_ neutral authority," but I am prompted by the question to say a few things about the volume, in case anyone is interested, partly because Q1 is of interest on a number of accounts not necessarily related directly to the question whether memorial reconstruction played a part in its coming to be as it is. The contributors' abbreviated working title was _Q1 Now!_ Here and now I use "_Q1 Then_." _Q1 Then_ was intended to be informative, argumentative, suggestive, provocative, even imaginative, but _not_ "definitive," in treating Q1 _Hamlet_ from a number of perspectives. Steve Urkowitz wrote of it here about a year ago (SHK 4.0215 R: "Q1 _Hamlet_ Texts for the Stage," 4 April 1993) that "a dozen fresh- baked articles about Q1 appear in Tom Clayton, THE HAMLET FIRST PUBLISHED (Delaware 1992): tasty bits on casting, staging, history, textual analysis by a variety of critical practitioners all over the map. One by me [Steve], too." Like _The Division of the Kingdoms: Shakespeare's Two Versions of "King Lear"_ edited by Gary Taylor and Michael Warren (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1983), _Q1 Then_ began with papers written for a seminar held at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America: _Division_ (1983) SAA 1980, _Q1 Then_ (1992) SAA 1988. The world of difference between the two is due in part to the limited lights--if you insist, low wattage--of the editor of _Q1 Then_, no doubt, but a number of the differences were designed, too; in any case the essays speak very well for themselves, as the work of a strong group of contributors. The overall difference was stressed in the first sentence of the Preface of _Q1 Then_, with the requisite and regulation allusion to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (who aptly was "not Prince Hamlet"): "This is not _The Division of the Kingdoms_ nor was meant to be..." (15). _Q1 Then_ contains strong scholarly disagreements, even 180- degree opposition, quite deliberately not resolved. While coming into being, _Division_ became more or less homogeneous, not in editing out idiosyncrasies but in contributors' being encouraged to write in, in some degree, the means and markers of a synoptic complementarity, each of the essays arguing from its (author's) own perspective for the conclusion that F _King Lear_ (1623) represented a revision of the play as presented in Q1 _King Lear_ (1608). As a contributor to _Division_ ("'Is this the promis'd end?' Revision in the Role of the King"), I think it is fair to say that all contributors held approximately the same hypothesis, that _King Lear_ did indeed show signs of revision (wherever one went from that very general position), but not necessarily in the same way or to the same degree--_partly_ because not all con- tributors characteristically _see_ anything in exactly the same way. For my part, I moved from some skepticism to becoming convinced in the course of my research that there was more telling evidence of revision than I had previously recognized; but by the end whatever remained of my doubts was vestigial in expression, because _Division_ was finally not _about_ doubts or circumspection but about demonstrated and argued-for revision. With _Q1 Then_ I decided early on that a collection of essays expressing very different, even opposing, views would have value, whether in a postmodern climate where it should be quite at home with _The Protean Self_ (see Robert Jay Lifton's book on _Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation_), or a pre-postmodern, where settled orthodoxies almost always need some shaking up and discontinuities help unsettle. How to arrange this "diversity" of essays? Categories of some kind are always within reach, but they don't always facilitate grasp. Experimenting with various arrangements, I noticed that alphabetical-by-author produced some striking and illuminating juxtapositions of more than one kind. George Hibbard vs. Kathleen Irace on the descent and relative chronology, Sidney Thomas vs. Steve Urkowitz on the literary qualities and inferable provenance, would obviously link in almost any scheme; but a sequence that would not is the alphabetically determined one of Scott McMillin on the pragmatics of casting, followed by Giorgio Melchiori on Q2 _Hamlet_ as literary drama, Marga Munkelt on the vagaries of editors' use of Q1, and Marvin Rosenberg on Victorian attempts at staging Q1. Likewise with the three--not in isolation but as a set--of Bryan Loughrey's interview with persons of the theatre associated with two recent Q1 productions (as noted here in SEC, Loughrey has been defending in the _TLS_ his and Graham Holderness's edition of Q1), Janis Lull's consideration of Q1 in its sociocultural context, and Philip MGuire's critical comparison of three textual "Fortinbrases"--not all the same or spelt so. Leaving Alan C. Dessen standing at the head with "Weighing the Options in Q1 _Hamlet_." It seemed to me that by the relationship and contrast between these essays, the life as well as the range and complexity of the enterprise of scholarly enquiry on an apparently finite bibliographical subject emerged both instructively and interestingly, and that Q1 was the livelier and more familiar for it -- admittedly still in need of "definitive" identification (hence last year's discussion of Q1 and the current one here). And I hoped that readers would notice not only the limitations most perspectives, and selections of evidence and method, have alone and as such (and how we also find what we wish to find), but the value individually and collectively of their differences, all tending toward the completion of a larger picture but _not_ in every case of the same design or even valence. Or, you may say, since a better arrangement didn't suggest itself, the alphabetical one would do as well and, all things considered, better. Because each author was to have his or her own say in his or her own way, substantially, I had to decide what to do about major disagreements and differences of conclusion, whether to say nothing and let them emerge in the reading or call attention to them in some way. I rejected a system of cross references as gratuitously imposing a grid upon the essays, and provided, instead, not abstracts but a one-paragraph "condensed representation" of each of "The Twelve Essays in Brief" that "stresses major points of theme, argument, conclusion, assertion, and, in general, position, quoting extensively and trying to maintain a ratio of resemblance to the whole, while leaving comparison of argument and conclusion--which must be seen in full to be fairly assessed--to the reader" (53). I don't deny that the result may have been in many or even all cases regrettable, but I _did_ give serious thought to as many aspects of _Q1 Then_ as I recognized as requiring it, and accordingly did what I did for one or more reasons. Thought as well as labor even went into my introductory essay, "_Hamlet_'s Ghost." But not enough of the right bibliographical kind of attention, I admit, went into the proof-reading at two points consequently requiring an errata insert to clarify. On those sites of contestation idiocy was victorious, and to all the contributors I owe apologies as necessary and one more expression of heartfelt thanks for their contributions and their cooperation as we made our way together through the press. Joanne Merriam mentions "Hamlet's Soliloquy" in _Huckleberry Finn_; in _Q1 Then_ it is one of two epigraphs and headed "Memorial Reconstruction of 'Hamlet's Soliloquy,'" etc. (11-13). Cheers, Tom Clayton _________________________________________________________________________ THE "HAMLET" FIRST PUBLISHED (Q1, 1603): ORIGINS, FORM, INTERTEXTUALITIES Table of Contents The _Hamlet_ First Published (Q1, 1603) [title page] ........ [5] Dedication .................................................. [7] Table of Contents ........................................... [9] Epigraphs .................................................. [11] List of Contributors ....................................... [14] Preface ...................................................... 15 Acknowledgments .............................................. 19 Introduction: _Hamlet_'s Ghost THOMAS CLAYTON ........................................... 21 The Twelve Essays in Brief ................................... 53 Weighing the Options in _Hamlet_ Q1 ALAN C. DESSEN ........................................... 65 The Chronology of the Three Substantive Texts of Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ G. R. HIBBARD ............................................ 79 Origins and Agents of Q1 _Hamlet_: Evidence from a New Recons- truction KATHLEEN IRACE ........................................... 90 Q1 in Recent Performance: An Interview BRYAN LOUGHREY .......................................... 123 Forgetting _Hamlet_: The First Quarto and the Folio JANIS LULL .............................................. 137 Which Fortinbras, Which _Hamlet_? PHILIP C. MCGUIRE ....................................... 151 Casting the _Hamlet_ Quartos: Longer is Smaller SCOTT MCMILLIN .......................................... 179 _Hamlet_: The Acting Version and the Wiser Sort GIORGIO MELCHIORI ....................................... 195 Traditions of Emendation in _Hamlet_: The Handling of the First Quarto MARGA MUNKELT ........................................... 211 The First English Staging of _Hamlet_ Q1 MARVIN ROSENBERG ........................................ 241 _Hamlet_ Q1: First Version or Bad Quarto? SIDNEY THOMAS ........................................... 249 Back to Basics: Thinking about the _Hamlet_ First Quarto STEVEN URKOWITZ ......................................... 257 Works Cited ................................................. 292 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 19:55:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0225 Re: Transmission of the Quartos To Tom Berger regarding TROILUS AND CRESSIDA: Yes, and what if Roberts did print a quarto of TROILUS in 1603? What if it was a very limited printing and every copy has been lost? And what if Q1 was set from this Ur-quarto? And, okay, copy for F TROILUS may have been a scribal transcription that merged manuscript material and Q1 into a coherent document from which the compositors might set type. The scribe in many cases faithfully followed Q1. Was the scribe following a theatrically annotated quarto? Or was he using a quarto to make sense of a difficult manuscript? I suppose he could have been doing both. In any case, I think you and I agree that copy for F TROILUS shows signs of BEING a manuscript and having been influenced by the printed form of Q1. Have I said that clearly? If I say too much more I won't have a thing to say in Albuquerque. I guess I can always go motorcycling on the desert. Yeah, that sounds right. Yours, riding to live, living to ride, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 00:00:48 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0233 Q: Sources for Videotapes Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0233. Tuesday, 15 March 1994. From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 94 11:52:56 EST Subject: videotapes I need to get a videotape of JOE MACBETH. Where do I go, whom do I do I phone to make this happen. I wouldn't mind getting a copy of STRANGE BREW. Nor would I mind a copy of LOVE BREWED IN AN AFRICAN POT, an African version of ROMEO AND JULIET. HELP!!! Thanks, Tom Berger ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 06:07:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0234 Private Libraries in Renaissance England Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0234. Thursday, 17 March 1994. From: Pricilla Finley Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 94 22:11:44 EST Subject: Private Libraries in Renaissance England The first three volumes of the ^Private Libraries in Renaissance England^ series compiled by R. J. Fehrenbach and E. S. Leedham-Green are now in print. The volumes now available describe lists of books owned by gentry, clergy, and professional academics (many are derived from wills or lists of books appraised as parts of estates) and are annotated with title, author(s), STC status, publication data, cost or appraised value, language, and location. Although the electronic database is not yet (to my knowledge) available, I believe that the editor will search the database-in-progress if you write with an inquiry; more information about this can be found in volume 3. They are available in hardcover for $25. each. In the U.S. they may be ordered from Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, LNG-99, SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. voice (607) 777-6758 , fax (607) 777-2408. Adam Matthews Publications distributes them overseas. The typesetting is exquisite. Priscilla Finley (compositor P, volume 3.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 06:12:04 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0235 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0235. Thursday, 17 March 1994. From: Tad Davis Date: Tuesday, 15 Mar 1994 23:39:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0200 Belott Suit A belated reply.... The Mountjoy depositions can be found in full in an article by Charles Wallace (and possibly Hulda Wallace too -- I don't have my photocopy at hand), published in Nebraska University Studies, volume x (1910), pages 261-360. It makes fascinating reading. I believe Schoenbaum's "Documents and Allusions" book also includes selections. But it's still worth digging up the original article and reading the whole thing; it vibrates with a musty but unmistakable sense of life. (May I take this opportunity to thank Georgiana Ziegler for her help in locating this information? On a couple of occasions at Penn, she generously helped an amateur sleuth trying to find background material for a playwriting project....) For whatever reason, the reconstruction of this episode that made the strongest impression on me is the one in Russell Fraser's "Shakespeare: the Later Years." There must have been SOMETHING going on. Shakespeare was called by Belott, specifically to give testimony supporting Belott's side of the case. But at the last moment, at the crucial interrogatory, he blanked out -- couldn't remember how much was promised, or when it was supposed to be paid. Belott must have been mightily disappointed. Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 06:35:25 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0236 Re: Imagining Gloriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0236. Thursday, 17 March 1994. (1) From: John Collick Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 20:56:23 JST Subj: Gloriana (2) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 10:24:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Imagining Gloriana (3) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 10:28:21 EST Subj: Imagining Gloriana (4) From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 11:22:19 -0500 Subj: pop culture elizabeth (5) From: Michael Dobson Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 13:40:51 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0231 Imagining Gloriana (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Collick Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 20:56:23 JST Subject: Gloriana Michael Moorcock wrote a novel called _Gloriana or the unfulfill'd queen_ which was published in the late 70's, I think. It was done as a tribute to Mervyn Peake and Moorcock used a similarly ornate style. Set in an alternate Renaissance England it concentrated on political intrigue in a London dominated by 'Queen Gloriana's' huge (by implication, infinite) castle. Again, the representation of Gloriana was misogynist - she spent a substantial amount of time wandering the castle looking for sexual fulfilment. If memory serves me right she eventually found it with Essex! John Collick School of Literature Waseda University Tokyo Melmoth2@twics.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 10:24:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Imagining Gloriana Has George Garrett's _The Succession: A Novel of Elizabeth and James_ been contributed to Michael Dobson's and Nicola Watson's list? As the title suggests, the novel has to do with Gloriana's very late and altogether mortal phase. While I'm at it, I might as well mention Garrett's other two Elizabethan/Jacobean novels, _The Death of the Fox_ about Raleigh, and the splendid _Entered From the Sun_ about the death of Christopher Marlowe. These on general principles and as great reads. --Ron Macdonald (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 10:28:21 EST Subject: Imagining Gloriana Correction to my earlier note: the Mary Gentle novel involving Queen Carola is entitled ; is fun, too, but less evidently affected by images of Liz I. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 11:22:19 -0500 Subject: pop culture elizabeth Didn't the *Black Adder* comedy team (Rowan Atkinson, Rick [I believe] Mayo et al) do a hilarious series of Elizabeth skits with none other than Miranda Richardson as the imperious Imperialess? Bawdy and funny. Perhaps other memories are better than mine. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 13:40:51 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0231 Imagining Gloriana Many further thanks to all recent contributors on this topic: the Leon Rooke text is one we hadn't come upon. In reply to Douglas Lanier's suggestion that Dr Watson & I should make our bibliography of Elizabeth spinoffs available on the list, I'm afraid that since it already runs to many many pages our leisure does not serve to type it all into a machine, so he will just have to buy the book when it's finished and published. Meanwhile, thanks, and back to Patricia Finney's *Firedrake's Eye*, an attempt to do a pish-tushery *Day of the Jackal* starring Philip Sidney.. Michael Dobson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:08:34 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0237 Re: Leontes' Disease Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0237. Thursday, 17 March 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 09:36:04 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0229 Re: Leontes' Disease (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 22:27:47 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0229 Re: Leontes' Disease (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 09:36:04 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0229 Re: Leontes' Disease Dante calls what Ken Rothwell calls choler adust by the adjective *bizarro*, the source for our word *bizarre*. In my youth we called such a person as Leontes a guy who has a wild hair. E.L.Epstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 22:27:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0229 Re: Leontes' Disease Possibly Leontes hears Hermione tell Polixenes: Th'offences we have made you do, we'll answer, If you first sinned with us, and that with us You did continue fault, and that you slipped not With any but with us. (WT 1.2.85-88, Wells and Taylor with an added comma) If Leontes hears the "we" as the royal "we" and not a plural, he hears his wife admitting her sin with Polixenes. She is nine months pregnant, and Polixenes says at the beginning of the scene that he's been in Sicily nine months. No, I think Leontes does not some reasons for fearing his wife's chastity. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:21:34 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0238 Qs: Interships; European Video Sources Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0238. Thursday, 17 March 1994. (1) From: Danielle Stagg Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 00:28:40 PST Subj: Internships (2) From: Michael Skovmand Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 12:42:57 MET Subj: Re: SHK 5.0227 Writing Company Catalog (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Danielle Stagg Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 00:28:40 PST Subject: Internships Greetings, I don't know how appropriate this is considering the scholarly nature of this list, but I have a request. I am looking for job opportunities this summer outside of the Los Angeles area, either paid or unpaid--internship or research assistant positions. I won't include a resume or anything here (THAT would not be appropriate); suffice it to say that I am an English major interested in MANY different facets of literary studies and that I am in my third year of studies, planning to go on to grad school. Though I would imagine that most of these positions would be offered to students within your own departments, I am interested in finding out what is available--if there are any positions available, where they are, and the procedures involved in applying. If you have any such information, or any place I would be able to find this information (what materials our limited library does have are unfortunately quite out-of-date), please email me at DSTAGG@STDNTMAIL.LMU.EDU (Internet) or STDNTVQA@LMUACAD (Bitnet) Thank you for your time. Danielle Stagg Loyola Marymount University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Skovmand Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 12:42:57 MET Subject: Re: SHK 5.0227 Writing Company Catalog In response to Kenneth Rothwell's note on the Writing Company Catalogue: How about us Europeans? Does anyone know where to buy PAL versions of the 37 - play BBC oeuvre , separately or collectively? I contacted the BBC recently on this matter, they sent me their catalogue and told me that only the dozen or so plays listed in their catalogue were available. Are all 37 plays only for sale in America, or have I been misinformed? Michael Skovmand Dep't of English University of Aarhus 8000 Aarhus C Denmark ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:26:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0239. Thursday, 17 March 1994. From: James McKenna Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 09:05:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ambiguity? In William Russel Mayes's recent posting, he mentions that Edmund's "reform" and the end of LEAR is deliberately ambiguous. Thinking textually, I don't have a problem with this belief, but lately (probably thanks to Steve Urkowitz) I've become more inclined to return to my more callow wonderings about what really went on at the Globe. It occurs to me that, with the playwright in residence, there would be little opportunity for ambiguity; the players could simply ask Will. This begins to create a split between the text as a physical document and the text as the acted play. If we are going to speak about the physical text, I think we need to acknowledge that lacunae and ambiguities may be the result of stage business firmly decided upon in the playwright's mind. That is, the plays aren't born ambiguous but acquire ambiguity as time passes. Has anyone worked on a production of a modern play with the playwright around to direct? Tell me, am I off the beam entirely? partly? Can this idea square with my idea of last week, that the plays have no fixed author but are the product of constant rewriting? I think so. Each production had to make sense to a new audience and in a new context, and would do so with a combination of textual revision and acting. Until the play is revived by new actors or by old ones with faulty memories, there is no need for ambiguity in our thinking about it. All that to say that I'm not sure we can talk about deliberate ambiguity unless we're talking about ambiguity introduced for political reasons. "Ahhh," you say, "but it's ALL for political reasons . . . ." Are we getting anywhere? James McKenna University of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:33:46 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0240 Re: Textual Transmission Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0240. Thursday, 17 March 1994. (1) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 09:57:47 EST Subj: Textual Transmission (2) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 12:58:18 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0232 Re: Transmission of the Quartos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 09:57:47 EST Subject: Textual Transmission I may have come in late on this. I trust at the beginning someone asked all of us to read, or at least to glance at, Philip Gaskell's FROM WRITER TO READER: STUDIES IN EDITORIAL METHOD (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978). Some lovely stuff on Stoppard. Regards, Tom Berger (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 12:58:18 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0232 Re: Transmission of the Quartos Rick Jones's mention of the revisions of modern plays puts me in mind of the status of the printed text in modern South African drama. Much so-called "black" theatre operates with no text at all: simply reasonably agreed limits of subject-matter and plot. The opening scene of Athol Fugard, Wintston Ntshona and John Kani's _Sizwe Bansi is Dead_ is elaborated from the whatever is in the newspaper on the day of the performance. There are no formal limits on the actor on what to say, how to say it, or for how long to say it. So, what takes up about fifteen lines in the OUP edition (of necessity, using an arbitrary newspaper) is no more than an indication of what the actor is supposed to do. I've seen those "fifteen lines" take up forty minutes of playing time, before the "play proper" begins. But then, there is no "play proper" of _Sizwe Bansi_. The Oxford text is a transcript of a particular performance at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Irony of ironies! Because that performance would have differed radically from a performance in the Space Theatre in Cape Town (where the play was first performed), or a township venue in Port Elizabeth, even with regard to the sections after the "newspaper improvisation" at the beginning. These venues and audiences would have engendered differences in the relationship between English/Afrikaans and the black vernaculars (the play is, like all others in the genre, multi-lingual), but also in the presentation of character and event, jokes shared with the audience, gestures of political solidarity and satire and so on. At the same time, because the printed text came after the play, each night's performance would have been different. Now that the Oxford text is available, of course, a performance of the play is much more stable from one moment to the next, although the factors mentioned still play some role in changing performing practice--especially the political, racial and linguistic composition of the audience. What I'm saying goes for all South African plays of this genre: Mtwa and Ngema's _Woza Albert_ (Methuen), perhaps also familiar to play-goers in London and New York, was constructed in exactly the same way, with the printed text merely being one arbitrary record of a myriad of performances and performance conditions. When my students complain about studying the Middle Ages and the Renaissance I often suggest that in some ways they are closer to them than Europeans or North Americans are. David Schalkwyk English Department University of Cape Town Private Bag Rondebosch 7700 South Africa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:45:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0241 Re: Welsh; Gobbledegook; *The Tempest* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0241. Thursday, 17 March 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 11:11:34 -0600 Subj: Welsh in 1H4 (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 22:17:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0228 Gobbledegook (3) From: Joan Hartwig Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 22:32:42 EST Subj: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 11:11:34 -0600 Subject: Welsh in 1H4 In response to Dave Kathman's question, an anecdote: the English department at the University of Minnesota celebrated Shakespeare throughout the 1993-94 academic year, culminating in a 12-hour marathon reading from Will's works on (naturally) April 23. People read in at least twelve different languages, one young man programmed his Macintosh powerbook to recite "To be or not to be," etc. The only full-length play was an all-female reading of 1 Henry IV (in which, among other things, I fulfilled a long term desire to play Hal). We put out bulletins to everyone we could think of to glean some genuine Welsh language for the Welsh scene and kept coming up empty. The day itself came, we were all having a great time, and the scene arrived. The friend who played Glendower got to the crucial place and simply said, "Welsh, Welsh, Welsh," which--this being a fairly informal and lively occasion--got a wonderful laugh from the audience; then I (double cast as Lady Mortimer) responded in Welsh and (according to one member of the audience, I was too busy to notice) everyone--including most of the cast--was stunned. How did I do it? You'll love this. I had a recording of the soundtrack from the film of Anouilh's *Becket*, in which Sian Phillips as Gwendolyn sings a Welsh song. I transliterated it as best I could, jumbled up the words, and--voila!--had a few faux Welsh sentences to make Lady Mortimer just a bit more authentic. It was great fun. And now I want to LEARN WELSH! --Chris Gordon, English, University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 22:17:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0228 Gobbledegook Al Cacicedo, I love Vonnegut's cynicism, and his remarks on religion bring joy to my heart. But if you are trying to prove that context is important, you have succeeded. What's going on, eh? Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joan Hartwig Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 94 22:32:42 EST Subject: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals I am not quite sure how to respond in form. First, thanks to all who have responded to the Prospero-Colonialism question. My colleague in the German department is grateful and values the information. Second, to Adrian Kiernander. I am puzzled by the scepticism about Prospero's liberation of Ariel. Are we to ignore the Epilogue which in Prospero's person states "Now my charms are all o'erthrown, / And what strength I have's mine own, / Which is most faint"? I have always believed that Prospero "abjures his rough magic" and breaks his staff and drowns his book. Why shouldn't I believe this? Is the "climax of the play" in Prospero's "last speech" where he is still asking Ariel to help the sailing group out to sea or does it come earlier when he understands that he must not (more than cannot) control all actions? There are many actions in Shakespeare's plays that Shakespeare does not allow the audience to witness, especially final actions. All the characters get to go off and tell each other about them, but we are not able to follow. Without responding fully to W. Russ Mayes Jr. in his argument, I would like to support him with a view that is given to actors: "Don't play the end in the beginning." It's helpful in reading Shakespeare and would be in living, if one were not so inclined as is Lady Macbeth in feeling "now / The future in the instant." I have much to say in behalf of Ben Schneider, but it will require-- dare I say--time in the future? Best regards, Joan Hartwig ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 07:50:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0242 Shakespearean Insults Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0242. Thursday, 17 March 1994. From: Sharon Cinnamon Date: Wednesday, 16 Mar 1994 14:11:48 -0100 Subject: Shakespearean Insults Thought you might all get a kick out of this. Fire away. Sharon Cinnamon (Cinnamon@mit.edu) CREATE YOUR OWN SHAKESPEAREAN INSULTS by Jerry Maguire, who teaches English at Center Grove High School in Greenwood, Indiana. Combine one word from each of the three columns below, preface with "Thou" and thus shalt thou have the perfect insult. Let thyself go--mix and match to find a barb worthy of the Bard! Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 artless base-court apple-john bawdy bat-fowling baggage beslubbering beef-witted barnacle bootless beetle-headed bladder churlish boil-brained boar-pig cockered clapper-clawed bugbear clouted clay-brained bum-bailey craven common-kissing canker-blossom currish crook-pated clack-dish dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb droning doghearted codpiece errant dread-bolted death-token fawning earth-vexing dewberry fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker goatish fly-bitten fustilarian gorbellied folly-fallen giglet impertinent fool-born gudgeon infectious full-gorged haggard jarring guts-griping harpy loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger mangled hell-hated jolthead mewling idle-headed lewdster paunchy ill-breeding lout pribbling ill-nurtured maggot-pie puking knotty-pated malt-worm puny milk-livered mammet quailing motley-minded measle rank onion-eyed minnow reeky plume-plucked miscreant roguish pottle-deep moldwarp ruttish pox-marked mumble-news saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg spongy rude-growing pignut surly rump-fed puttock tottering shard-borne pumpion unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane vain spur-galled scut venomed swag-bellied skainsmate villainous tardy-gaited strumpet warped tickle-brained varlot wayward toad-spotted vassal weedy unchin-snouted whey-face yeasty weather-bitten wagtail ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 09:39:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0243 New on the SHAKSPER FileServer: DEATHBED SCENES Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0243. Thursday, 17 March 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook or . ******************************************************************************* "Remembering Death: Deathbed Scenes in Shakespeare's Plays and the Visual Tradition" By David Evett Death in its various forms is a frequent visitor to the Shakespearean scene. Old Mors is much more common in tragedy and history than in comedy, of course, but his osseous figure is not unknown even there--consider the arrival of Marcade at the end of Love's Labour's Lost, Jaques' moralizing on the dying deer in As You Like It, or the pretended death of Hero in Much Ado About Nothing--, and he celebrates a real or imagined triumph in each of the romances. Such a common motif has naturally drawn scholarly and critical attention, and in addition to hundreds of local references in books and articles on the genres already mentioned, on particular plays, on particular characters and scenes, there have been several substantial studies of the topic, although, oddly enough, no book-length treatment of death in Shakespeare has yet appeared. [1. The foundation text is Theodore Spencer, Death and Elizabethan Tragedy (1936), which digests a diligent survey of many plays into a lucid and graceful outline of the principal categories under which early modern playwrights handled the topic. Spencer's wide-ranging model apparently influenced the design of more recent and more specialized treatments which nonetheless look at early modern English drama generally rather than Shakespeare in particular. These include Roger Stilling's investigation of the close relation of Love and Death in Renaissance Tregedy (1976). Phoebe S. Spinrad has looked at the particular moment when the cold hand falls on the living shoulder, The Summons of Death on the Medieval and Renaissance Stage (1987), and Michael Cameron Andrews has surveyed the living mouth's response by looking particularly at final speeches from dying mouths and at speeches about the final moments of life, The Action of Our Death (1989). Arnold Stein, The House of Death (1986), although its particular applications concentrate on 17th-century non-dramatic works, has useful introductory materials.] It must be noted, however, that none of them has any pictures: despite a few references to visual materials, they are logocentric. That is natural enough, for despite the labors provoked by the renewed interest in Shakespeare on the stage over the last couple of decades, we cannot know much about the actual physical presentation of Shakespearean death scenes in his own time. Yet the theater is a visual as well as a verbal medium; successful playwrights necessarily have strong visual imaginations. In fact, study of the visual as well as the verbal traditions and conventions for the representation of death turns out to illuminate and invigorate all the Shakespearean death scenes, and although the argument that follows necessarily concentrates on what survives to us of the Shakespearean construction of death--that is, the text--it will, I hope, become clear that the visual element is continuously active in and behind the scene. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 07:35:48 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0246 Q: List on Post-Colonial Writings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0246. Friday, 18 March 1994. From: Lars Engle Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 08:19:33 CST Subject: Request for information Does anyone know of a list on post-colonial writing in English? Our special collections curator here at Tulsa wants to get in touch with such a list to alert it to our acquisition of V.S. Naipaul's papers, and I said I'd ask you all. Please reply to me directly (since I doubt this is of general interest to SHAKSPER): ENGL_LE@VAX1.utulsa.edu Thanks, Lars Engle ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 07:20:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0244 Re: Imagining Gloriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0244. Friday, 18 March 1994. (1) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 08:45:02 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0236 Re: Imagining Gloriana (2) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 17:59:16 -0500 (CDT) Subj: imagining gloriana (3) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 17:59:34 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0236 Re: Imagining Gloriana (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 08:45:02 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0236 Re: Imagining Gloriana Then, of course, there's always Shaw's "Dark Lady of the Sonnets." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 17:59:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: imagining gloriana Three video additions: 1)Yes it was Miranda Richardson as Eliz.I in Blackadder II.She particularly enjoyed handing out death warrants to those not bringing her a present; 2)Quentin Crisp in Orlando--the aging queen [you fill in the wry comments here]; 3) Glenda Jackson in Elizabeth R, perhaps the most constant image of EI that I carry around with me [the autographed picture of Glenda Jackson in full garb on my desk not withstanding] She also played the queen in Mary, Queen of Scots, the film w/Vanessa Redgrave in the title role. Queenly regards from E3, Elizabeth W.B. Schmitt (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 17:59:34 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0236 Re: Imagining Gloriana The Blackadder series is Blackadder II, and Miranda Richardson does do Q. Elizabeth. Elizabeth in this version has a Sloane Ranger diction, keeps demanding "prezzies," and is sexually ravenous--"Hurry up, I want to go on to the reception so I can get squiffy and seduce somebody." Highly recommended. See also Jane Austen's *History of England*, in which the much-maligned Liz comes off rather badly, and the novel by (oh goodness, forget the name) *She was Nice to Mice*. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 07:32:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0245 Re: Ambiguity? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0245. Friday, 18 March 1994. (1) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 8:50:56 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? (2) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 16:00:40 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 8:50:56 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? James McKenna is right to remind us that Shakespeare was there in the playhouse (on stage, playing a role, in all probability) when the plays were first performed. But we all mustn't assume that this puts an end to the possibilities of ambiguities, unsolved mysteries, and authorial collaboration. To give two modern instances. Pinter is notoriously insistent on maintaining authorial silence about the meanings of the ambiguities that are deliberately sprinkled through his plays, whether he is collaborating with a director (e.g. Peter Hall), directing the play himself, or even acting in them. Joyce Carol Oates may not be silent in rehearsals of her plays, but she welcomes actors and directors finding their own paths and discovering things that she didn't imagine were in the script, and doesn't really care (she claims) if the production goes off on a direction that she, as author, hardly "intended." She's quoted as saying, in the February _American Theatre_, "I am the most agreeable of playwrights. To be any more agreeable, I would have to be posthumous." Cary Mazer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 16:00:40 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? James McKenna writes: >It occurs to me that, with the playwright in residence, there would be little >opportunity for ambiguity; the players could simply ask Will. I've just posted a message about South African theatre and this issue. In these cases either the playwrights were the actors or the playwright helped to workshop the production with the actors, changing it with them to suit particular performing conditions. The question of asking Atholl, or Barney, or Percy, or Winston simply doesn't arise, at least as it is meant here. Which means that the concept of "ambiguity" is inappropriate here. They weren't literary critics trying to determine the meaning of the play. > This begins to create a split between the text as a physical document and the > text as the acted play. If we are going to speak about the physical text, I > think we need to acknowledge that lacunae and ambiguities may be the result of > stage business firmly decided upon in the playwright's mind. That is, the > plays aren't born ambiguous but acquire ambiguity as time passes. This process is again very different from the South African plays: first, because "stage business" is something enacted communally, not a fixed set of instructions "in the playwright's" mind. Second, "ambiguity" (if one wants to call it that, I'd prefer the idea of improvising or performance as family resemblance) is something that is relatively fixed once the text appears in print *as a record of a single (unrepresentative?) performance.* Perhaps we need to think of the notion of play as performance and its relationship to text, actor, and playwright completely differently in the light of this practice? > Has anyone worked on a production of a modern play with the playwright around > to direct? Tell me, am I off the beam entirely? partly? Ask anyone who has worked with Fugard. If what he says in his notebooks is true then there is no notion of his having things in mind which actors *have* to do, at least as far as his collaborative plays are concerned. Rather its a process of mutual exploration and experimentation, even *after* the first, second, third, nights, and so on. > Can this idea square with my idea of last week, that the plays have no fixed > author but are the product of constant rewriting? I think so. Each > production had to make sense to a new audience and in a new context, and > would do so with a combination of textual revision and acting. Until the > play is revived by new actors or by old ones with faulty memories, there is > no need for ambiguity in our thinking about it. This is exactly what happens in the theatre I'm talking about. Though I'm still not sure what role the concept of ambiguity is playing here. Of course, whether renaissance stage practices bear any relation to those in Apartheid South Africa is a question that still has to be settled. David Schalkwyk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 07:50:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0247 Re: Videos; Welsh; Leontes; *Tempest*; P. Stewart Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0247. Friday, 18 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 08:52:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0238 European Video Sources (2) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 16:53 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0241 Re: Welsh (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 11:53:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0237 Re: Leontes' Disease (4) From: Ben Ross Schneider Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 12:00:52 -0600 (CST) Subj: tempest & universals (5) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 17:36:44 -0500 (CDT) Subj: PSTEWART Clarification (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 08:52:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0238 European Video Sources Dear Michael Skovmand, It's hard enough to keep up with domestice outlets for Shakespeare videos without taking on the European market as well. I suggest, however, that Kathy Grant's AS YOU LIKE IT (BUFVC: London, 1992) offers some answers to your question. That failing, try inquiring directly to the British Universities Film and Video Council, 55 Greek St., London, WIV 5LR, England. Call 071-734-3687, or FAX 071-287 3914. Perhaps some day somewhere there'll be a central office where this kind of information can all be systematically assembled and kept up to date. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 94 16:53 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0241 Re: Welsh Dear Christine Mack Gordon, >>The friend who played Glendower got to the crucial place and simply said, "Welsh, Welsh, Welsh," which--this being a fairly informal and lively occasion--got a wonderful laugh from the audience<< I bet. But perhaps your friend was wiser than he or she knew? The term *Welsh* comes from the Old English *Waelisc* or *Wilisc*, which means *foreign* or, more significantly, *not English* -a revealing name to attach to any nation and one which perhaps tells us quite a lot about the project at stake in these plays. Think of the similar denigration of French at the end of Henry V. Not that there's anything *political* about all this, of course. Your friend from foreign parts, Cymru am Byth, T. Hawkes (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 11:53:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0237 Re: Leontes' Disease Correction: I wanted to say that Leontes DOES have some reason for his jealousy. Given the shame of cuckoldry and Leontes' perhaps elevated sense of family honor, I don't have to use medical terms to account for his behavior. He doesn't have to hunt for motives. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Ross Schneider Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 12:00:52 -0600 (CST) Subject: tempest & universals To Adrian Kiernander: I defer to Joan Hartwig (17 March) who argues exactly as I would. Why is it so necessary that Prospero be a liar? Who has put these disturbing ambiguities in the text? Shakespeare? Tensions in early modern England? Postcolonial critics? To James McKenna: I agree that players will remove ambiguities by means of business and characterization. A mystified audience isn't going to be much entertained. I would add that Edmund's questionable deathbed reform is not really analogous to Prospero's deliberate, willed reversal of behavior, in the midst of his career, motivated by Ariel's revelation of his true character. But Edm is a better person than the rest of the villainous gang in *Lear*: he deals plainly with himself; the others rationalize. A forthright villain: "Nature be thou my goddess." Quite a likeable fellow when you get to know him. Comparatively speaking. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Thursday, 17 Mar 1994 17:36:44 -0500 (CDT) Subject: PSTEWART Clarification Responding to Jimmy Carrillo and all who may have similarly gasped. When I wrote HIV, I was referring to Henry IV. Patrick Stewart played the king in the RSC production of Parts I and II that season. I suppose in this day and age one needs now abbreviate the play as H4. So no rumours [which hath a 1000 tongues] on this one. At last check he was healthy, no doubt wealthy, wise, and still as talented as ever. Elizabeth Schmitt P.S.A recent catalogue [QPBC} advertised a video of Antony and Cleopatra featuring Patrick Stewart. Any one seen this one? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 16:26:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0248. Saturday, 19 March 1994. (1) From: Edward Dotson <0003963467@mcimail.com> Date: Friday, 18 Mar 94 16:10 EST Subj: Hey Nonny Nonny (2) From: Simon Morgan-Russell Date: Friday, 18 Mar 1994 13:00:42 EST Subj: "A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Dotson <0003963467@mcimail.com> Date: Friday, 18 Mar 94 16:10 EST Subject: Hey Nonny Nonny This layman would like to know what the phrase 'Hey nonny nonny' is supposed to mean. I read Much Ado after seeing the film and the glossary for the text did not define it. Thanks for the help. Edward Dotson 3963467@mcimail.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Simon Morgan-Russell Date: Friday, 18 Mar 1994 13:00:42 EST Subject: "A Frog He Would A-Wooing Go" Some time ago I was told that the English nickname for the French--"frog"--had its origin in a French suitor to Elizabeth, and that the English nursery ryhme "A frog he would a-wooing go" told the story of the failed courtship more explicitly. Paging through Jonson's conversations with Drummond, I encountered Jonson's reference to the physician of "Monsieur," glossed as Henri III's brother, Francis, duc d'Alencon, and I wondered if he is the suitor in question. Apparently, I was informed, the suitor resembled a frog--though in what ways, I don't know! Can anyone out there clear this up? And can anyone gloss the nursery rhyme? I don't know whether it's restricted to English children, so I'll provide a stanza (though I've never seen it in a textual form), which goes something like this: A frog he would a-wooing go Hey-ho, says Roly, Whether his mother would let him or no With a Roly, Poly, Gammon and Spinach Hey-ho, says Anthony Roly. This may be the chorus? Who was Anthony Roly? Rather a bizarre inquiry, but it has piqued my curiosity. Simon Morgan-Russell SR09@LEHIGH.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 16:35:41 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0249 Re: Ambiguity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0249. Saturday, 19 March 1994. (1) From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 18 Mar 1994 14:30:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 11:46:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0245 Re: Ambiguity? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 18 Mar 1994 14:30:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0239 Ambiguity? It occurs to me that, in addition to looking at the contemporary stage, an examination of current film is also a good place to examine the question of ambiguity within works where the author has some control over the representation. If ambiguity can be found in films, especially those where the writer is also the director (ie Woody Allen, Oliver Stone, etc. etc) that might be an indication that it could also be present in the original stagings of Lear. Barbara Simerka Davidson College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 11:46:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0245 Re: Ambiguity? As an actor presently playing Michael in Frank McGuinness' "Someone Who'' Watch Over Me" at the Centaur in Montreal and present as witness at last year's unfortunate Stratford Ontario season, I think you are so right on so many points, particularly when I consider what has so often happened in Radio Drama in Canada when the playright has been present and also when not. It doesn't actually make much difference. To look at the scripts as the exist in archives and compare them to the performances is to look at two worlds. We CHANGE what we don't like, can't say, has been ungiftedly written possible, we create climactic patterns of which the author was often unaware. When the author is in the booth, of course, it does become a collaboratve occasion of which usually THE ONLY RECORD IS THE PERFORMANCE AS RECORDED, not altered on the page. With Shakespeare, of course, we have the awful problem of dogmatism exacerbated by the set and understandably canonised rhythms which are normally the ultimate guide along with phonetic structure and texture. I think radio drama is a reasonable analogy from which to consider the "problem". In any case, actors have to make what we so loosely call "choices" and go with one meaning or another, although there are of course instances in which a kind of neutral delivery of notoriously ambiguous lines will hit an audience with the interpretation they desire or even imagine they hear. Listen to Wolfit's "Look there. . ." on his Caedmon Lear extracts. The South African question is of utter fascination, but I cannot yet contribute to its richness. Harry Hill ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 16:41:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0250 Re: RSC *Ant.* with P. Stewart Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0250. Saturday, 19 March 1994. (1) From: Martin Zacks Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 09:39:17 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0247 P. Stewart (2) From: Michael Cohen Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 11:10:32 -0800 (PST) Subj: PSTEWART and ANT. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zacks Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 09:39:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0247 P. Stewart The RSC Antony & Cleopatra can be had through Critic's Choice, (800) 367-7765. The price is about $20. The only fault I find in an otherwise memorable Enobarbus, is the mass of hair they've piled about Patrick Stewart's face and head. Martin Zacks lalalib@comp.org (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Cohen Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 11:10:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: PSTEWART and ANT. We have a copy of the Patrick Stewart Antony and Cleopatra to which Elizabeth Schmitt refers in a recent posting. Stewart plays Enobarbus, and, in my wife's words, "steals the show." Richard Johnson is Antony and Janet Suzman is Cleopatra. It was produced in 1974, staged for television by Trevor Nunn, and directed by Jon Scoffield. It has a bit of a video flavor (cute dissolves and montages and some electronic effects), but it is an effective performance and well worth checking out. I believe it is available for $19.95 (US). Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. Lymond@netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 16:44:50 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0251 Renaissance Theatre Company's *Rom.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0251. Saturday, 19 March 1994. From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 15:04 ET Subject: Renaissance *R&J* The Renaissance Theatre Company's radio production of *Romeo and Juliet* has made it to U.S. shores on CD and cassette (it was last year's broadcast; this year's will be/has been *King Lear*). They are allegedly out to do uncut performances of the entire canon on radio, at the rate of one per year, which should have them wrapping it up, oh, around 2028 or so. So far I really don't know what to make of this series. These productions ought to be more exciting than they actually are, what with the all-star casts, and while they're not bad, they're not all good, either. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the *R&J*, which seems better than the *Hamlet* production of 1992. Those who are looking for Cutting-Edge Critical Interpretation of these plays had better look elsewhere, but if you can swallow a Romeo and Juliet in their early 30's (Kenneth Branagh and Samantha Bond), a Mercutio in his mid-50's (Derek Jacobi) and other assorted grownups playing teenagers, this production occasionally produces some interesting turns. I thought Branagh would be very silly as Romeo, but he plays Romeo without a whole lot of pretension, an impulsive teenager with bouts of lucidity, so I was pleasantly surprised. Wish I could say the same for Samantha Bond's Juliet, who in the U.K. press seemed to get better reviews for playing her as world-weary and painfully mature, than Branagh did for playing his part with at least a little foolish passion. (I always got the impression that Juliet was a little more worldly than her Romeo, but this is ridiculous.) A very ambitious program for Renaissance, but I still don't think it can be anything more than an interesting series of rough drafts, as long as they're going to record the plays uncut without any real directorial vision. (Shades of the BBC-TV series...) It is, however, an approach that seems very well suited to the comedies, and the actors' clarity of speech and meaning in these productions are impressive. I would hope that their 1995 project will be something along the lines of *AYLI* or *Love's Labour's Lost*. Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University ebedgert@suadmin.syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 10:06:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0252 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; A Frog; Welsh; Glorianna Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0252. Sunday, 20 March 1994. (1) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 17:50:37 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; A FROG . . . (2) From: Joan Hartwig Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 94 19:06:12 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." (3) From: Michael Dobson Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 94 17:19:10 CST Subj: Re: Videos; Welsh; Leontes; *Tempest*; P. Stewart (4) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 94 00:07:16 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0244 Re: Imagining Gloriana (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 17:50:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; A FROG . .. In response to Edward Dotson's query about the meaning of "hey nonny nonny": I always thought that such lines were simply nonsense syllables used to round out song meter, rather like the "doo-wops" of the 1950's, or the Beatles' "yeah yeah yeah's." Anyone else? Patricia Palermo (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joan Hartwig Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 94 19:06:12 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." To Edward Dotson: in English and Scottish Balladry, "hey, nonny, nonny" is called a "nonsense phrase." It isn't supposed to mean anything. To Simon Morgan-Russell: the definitive essay on the frog/toad emblem and its particular application to the suit of the Duc d'Alencon for Queen Elizabeth's hand in marriage is by Doris Adler, "Imaginary Toads in Real Gardens," ELR, 11 (1981): 238 and passim. The terms "frog" and "toad" were interchangeable during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Delighted you asked, Joan Hartwig (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dobson Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 94 17:19:10 CST Subject: Re: Videos; Welsh; Leontes; *Tempest*; P. Stewart Further thanks to all those who have shown further evidence to our publisher of the vast potential market for *Imagining Gloriana*, in which we solemnly promise to reproduce everyone's favourite pin-ups of Glenda Jackson (the sort of Gloriana one can *vote* for!), Bette Davis, Quentin Crisp, &c &c with the most searching analytical captions yet seen -- a must for every cultural materialist coffee table. Meanwhile a last antiquarian note on the Welsh in HIVi -- although I stick to my earlier guess that no British production of the Welsh scene would ever have dared to try to fob off the punters with cod Welsh, it is perfectly true that throughout the 18th century (expect for a few isolated productions) that part of the scene was simply cut. So was the rest of it, usually. The sort of token Welshman the London stage could tolerate from Britain's National Poet was Fluellen, the Max Boyce of the 1590s. Heigh ho. P.S. Rik Mayall Michael Pennington Michael Dobson (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 94 00:07:16 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0244 Re: Imagining Gloriana I can't remember the parameters of the "Imagining Gloriana" original request, but I just remembered one of the madrigals from the celebratory publication of pieces dedicated to the Queen: THE TRIUMPHS OF ORIANA. Many, I think, or maybe all, ended with the words, "Long live fair Oriana." There's one particularly wonderful piece from this collection in THE ELIZABETHAN SONGBOOK. But I can't find my copy, and I'm afraid I may even have the title of this modern songbook wrong. As ever, Steve Urkowitz SURCC@CUNYVM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 10:17:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0253 Re: Macbeth and Leontes; P. Stewart; RTC's *Rom.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0253. Sunday, 20 March 1994. (1) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 16:41:59 -0600 (CST) Subj: Psycho Macbeth, Leontes, etc. (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 18:05:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0247 P. Stewart (3) From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 1994 09:01:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0251 Renaissance Theatre Company's *Rom.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 16:41:59 -0600 (CST) Subject: Psycho Macbeth, Leontes, etc. I was tempted to respond to BG's parting remarks on Macbeth as a serial killer not with *BULLSEYE* as someone else did, but with a word very near that, but the fact is, we all work in different ways to give our readings the weight and dignity that we feel such a revered author deserves. In that respect, W.S. is something of a mandala. Here's my own rationale, though, for resisting these pathological descriptions of motive: I find these interpretations tainted not only with Protestant literalism, but with modernist Literary Realist assumptions. Here--in Macbeth and Leontes--we have two characters who act in strict accordance with well-known symptoms brought on by disordered imaginations brought on by what?--chemical imbalance?, infantile sexual abuse? Whatever it is, it is an inert datum. It has no meaning beyond itself, except that such accidents happen randomly in nature all the time. Some readers are thrilled by such correspondences between fiction and REAL LIFE because of a misplaced reverence for what they perceive as experiential truth. The tendency, though, is toward fundamentalist reduction: the Bible is great because it is historical FACT. But the interpretive habits of SH. and his contemporaries were still fully allegorical. Yes, Leontes is full of jealousy and sexual nausea just as Hamlet is, and for similar reasons: the women central to their lives are engines of TIME, of generation, birth and death, as against the timeless, non-heterosexual paradise of boyhood described by Polixenes before he and his friend were drawn into the fallen world by the women who were to become their wives. Of course it is sick to want to stop time (or even to make it run backward), but that is a sickness we all share, especially in the tragic mode, where the rage to overcome the past is represented as more guilty than the rage to preserve it. All I'm saying, I guess, is that I'm for any interpretation that can lead elegantly and productively into the great traditional topoi. If you can do that with pathology, fine. But if it is simply in the name of realist causality or interpretive fundamentalism, hoh-hum. Cheers, everybody. Lonnie Durham durha001@maroon.tc.umn.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Saturday, 19 Mar 1994 18:05:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0247 P. Stewart TO: Elizabeth Schmitt SUBJECT: Gasping -- TWICE! So here we've been having a trans-world conversation about textual ambiguity -- in the abstract -- when a real-world example tripped up many of us -- completely unawares! I hope someone out there is a friend of a friend of Patrick Stewart, and can pass this story along! Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (202) 687-4478 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 1994 09:01:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0251 Renaissance Theatre Company's *Rom.* "All Star Casts" do not productions make, I'm afraid. They work best in music, in chamber ensembles. The key word, of course, is that: ensemble. It worked with Olivier's Granada LEAR where so many well-known faces brought their own backgrounds to the roles which of course became an ineluctable part of OUR interpretation. The OLD MAN, for instance, was the celebrated Esmond Knight--for a while president of British Actors' Equity and the only totally blind actor to be a success. But what do we want? Jacobi playing one of the dazzling parts in his mid-fifties? So? These plays are not mirror-naturalism. At least Jacobi is capable (as you rightly point out) of uttering the lines with clarity and intelligent emphasis and focus, thereby creating a Mercutio out of the playwright's score he is working from. But I do hope the star system never dies. The performers, as I said, bring what we know of themselves to the parts: Olivier's Lear was to a certain extent Olivier, thus providing us with what Arthur Koestler described as the perfect theatrical response. ("The Act of Creation", 1963?) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 10:20:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0254 Q: Email Address: John Roe Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0254. Sunday, 20 March 1994. From: Leo Daugherty Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 1994 02:29:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: email address query Hardy said it would be okay if I queried SHAKSPEReans to see if anybody has at hand, or knows how to get, an email address for John Roe. (He's Lecturer, Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, he did the New Cambridge ed. of THE POEMS in 1992, and I need to ask him a bibliographical question.) Please reply to me privately. Thanks. Leo Daugherty fld@u.washington.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 08:15:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0256. Monday, 21 March 1994. From: Blair Kelly III Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 1994 21:31:11 -0500 Subject: A few good men? At the recent meeting of the Washington Shakespeare Reading Group I was challanged by one of the members to name the "good" guys in Shakespeare's plays (bit players excluded). There are obvious "good" ladies (for example, Cordelia), but where are the "good" gentlemen? (Another member suggested Frier Lawrence, but I had to point out that some people believe he is the cause of all the mischief in R&J.) Who am I forgetting? Are "bad" boys just more interesting? --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 08:12:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0255 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0255. Monday, 21 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 13:27:06 +0200 Subj: Re: Hey Nonny Nonny (2) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 1994 19:07:52 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 13:27:06 +0200 Subject: Re: Hey Nonny Nonny 'Hey nonny nonny', according to my Shorter Oxford Dictionary, is 'a meaningless refrain, formerly often used to cover indelicate allusions'. In the song at the end of As You Like It, the refrain presumably refers to whatever the "pretty country folks" (is there a pun here?) were up to in the long grass. Ken Meaney University of Joensuu, Finland meaney@joyl.joensuu.fi (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Sunday, 20 Mar 1994 19:07:52 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." >Some time ago I was told that the English nickname for the French--"frog"--had >its origin in a French suitor to Elizabeth, I'd always assumed it was because the French ate frogs. I believe that it was the Christmas before last that the British Museum had an exhibit of cartoons showing racial stereotypes. The British insulting the French, the French the Germans, etc. Anyway, the "frogs" in this show were the Dutch, since they lived in a swampy land. It was pointed out that the term was only later applied to the French. Jerry Bangham jbangham@kudzu.win.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:33:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0257. Tuesday, 22 March 1994. (1) From: Karla Walters Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 08:08 MST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 12:52:29 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (3) From: Michael Calvert Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 12:35:11 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (4) From: Chris Kendall Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 10:23:04 -0700 (MST) Subj: good guys (5) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 12:37:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (6) From: Daniel Colvin Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 12:45:43 -0600 (CST) Subj: A Few Good Men (7) From: Edward T Bonahue Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 13:52 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (8) From: Patrick Dolan Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 11:55:58 -0700 (MST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 08:08 MST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men What's not "good" about Horatio in Hamlet, Edgar in Lear, and Benvolio in R&J? Karla Walters kwalters@bootes.unm.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 12:52:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Edgar? (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Calvert Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 12:35:11 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Blair Kelly asks: Are Shakespeare's bad boys more interesting than his good guys, and for that matter, are there any good guys? The answer to the first question is certainly yes, not only in Shakespeare but in virtually all of literature. Iago is more interesting than Othello, and Satan in PL is far more interesting than Adam, or, for that matter, God. Evil is always more interesting than good--I'm not entirely sure why, though my guess would be that being the depraved creatures we are, we enjoy the vicarious expression of our darker impulses by characters we can morally revile. (I believe this is Freud's explanation of the question, fundamentally.) Your perception that there are no "good" major characters in the plays is also correct, I think. There are heroic characters, like Hamlet and Henry V, and shrewd characters like Ulysses and Duke Vincentio in _Measure_. But no _good_ major male characters (at least none I can think of). Explanation? Shakespeare wasn't much interested in moralizing, but exploring life. And in life one rarely encounters saints, (and when one does, they are likelier to be female than male, but perhaps that's another discussion). Shakespeare's heroes are generally caught up in some sort of political power struggle; hence morality is seldom an issue in the usual sense, but effectiveness sure as hell is. Hamlet doesn't need to learn how to be "good", he already is "good"--he needs to learn how to ruthlessly slaughter his enemies, and in the end he does. To paraphrase a line from Shaffer's _Amadeus_--goodness means nothing in the crucible of art--here read politics--that, I think is the truth (unpleasant tho it be) that Shakespeare is getting at with his tragic heroes. Leading male figures in the comedies are another matter, of course. They mostly _are_ good, and hence, much less interesting than the heroines. Michael T. Calvert (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 10:23:04 -0700 (MST) Subject: good guys If you can forgive a premature burial at sea, Pericles comes off looking pretty good. He does exact some revenge, if I remember correctly, on the reprobate foster parents, but they really had it coming. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 12:37:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Are you forgetting Kent in KING LEAR? There can't be much doubt about him, even if you see problems with Edgar and Gloucester. Or what about Horatio in HAMLET? Henry VI in 3H6? McDuff? (I draw the line at Malcolm.) May one be good if wrong-headed? How about Brutus? Or if light-headed? Cassio? Helen Ostovich McMaster University (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Colvin Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 12:45:43 -0600 (CST) Subject: A Few Good Men To some extent, of course, the problem with identifying "good men" in Shakespeare is that we must define "good" -- is it a moral term alone or must it include some "effectual" goodness? For example, Jonson's Bonario is "good," but he is not especially effective in his actions. And others, like Friar Lawrence, have undercutting elements: Edgar's use of deception (though see Greenblatt on the uses of anxiety) or Prospero's hegemony. Still, I would offer the following as some of Shakespeare's "good" (though not perfect) men: Horatio Kent Ferdinand It is true that evil seems to be more interesting. Daniel Colvin, Western Illinois University mfdlc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward T Bonahue Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 13:52 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Blair Kelly raises an interesting point about "good guys." As I run down the list of men in the comedies, not too many would pass for "good." Theseus, Lysander, Demetrius--not particularly. Orsino, no; Sebastian, well, o.k., although the real spokesman for loyalty and love is Antonio. Bertram? No way. Antonio, Bassiano and Gratiano? No way. Petruchio? No way. Duke Vincentio? No way. At least, the generally accepted/received moral status of these men is equivocal. The tragedies and histories, though, give us lots of good guys. Should we start with Hamlet? At least Horatio? From _Lear_ the trio of Kent, Edgar and Albany seem like good candidates. Are Julius Caesar and Titus essentially "good"? Certainly the entrance of Henry VII at the end of R3 has all sorts of "goodness" pinned to it. Both John of Gaunt and the Duke of York in R2 carry moral weight. Various figures in H4, H5 and H6 carry the torch. In _T&C_ even Hector stoops for the armor. How about the romances? Could Prospero pass muster? (Probably Gonzalo would.) Of course, I can sit here and cull out my list of moral heroes all day long, but I wouldn't care to make any large claims for "goodness" as anything more than a highly localized and subjective construct. Each time a student comes in and says, "So Hamlet's supposed to be the good guy," I wince. "To me?" I ask. "To you? To the audience at the Globe? To women and minorities? To Marxists, deconstructionists, queer theorists?" Besides, to most of us cutting-edge types, I suppose this kind of character-based analysis is dreadfully passe. Still... Ed Bonahue University of North Carolina (8)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrick Dolan Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 11:55:58 -0700 (MST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Perhaps the best moral exemplar among all Shakespeare's characters is "First Servant" in Lear III:vii. C.S. Lewis points out that "if it were real life and not a play, that is part it would be best to have acted." Another character of great moral interest is Kent, who somehow embodies disillusioned and weakened middle-age in search of meaning. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:52:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0258 Re: Frogs; Hey Nonny Nonny Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0258. Tuesday, 22 March 1994. (1) From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 09:09:26 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 20:38:29 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0255 "A Frog ..." as seen by one (3) From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 15:11:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0255 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." (4) From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 10:04:40 -0500 Subj: Frogs again (5) From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 15:54:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0255 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 09:09:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0248 Qs: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." >Some time ago I was told that the English nickname for the French--"frog"--had >its origin in a French suitor to Elizabeth, and that the English nursery ... > III's brother, Francis, duc d'Alencon, and I wondered if he is the suitor in The "frog" nickname was indeed associated with Francis, duc d'Alencon, but did it originate with him or was it applied to him as a Frenchman (in other words, were the French already being called frogs by the Brits. In any case, another contemporary use of the name can be found in John Dowland's piece "Now Oh Now I Needs Must Part" also known as the "Frog Galliard." Here are some of the words--the others are kicking about in the back of my head somewhere and can be dredged up if needed: Now, oh now, I needs must part, Parting though I absent mourn. Absence doth no joy impart. Love once lost cannot return Sad despair doth drive me hence This despair unkindness sends. If that parting be offense It is she that doth offend. Hope Greenberg Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 20:38:29 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0255 "A Frog ..." as seen by one Dear all, here is a frog on frogs! Jerry Bangham suggests, as I'd always been told since childhood: >I'd always assumed it was because the French ate frogs. > >I believe that it was the Christmas before last that the British Museum had an >exhibit of cartoons showing racial stereotypes. The British insulting the >French, the French the Germans, etc. He goes on telling that the Dutch were the most frog-like characters in those caricatures, and I would suggest reading the excellent Dutch Ton Hoonselaars's book on Foreigners in Shakespeare, whose references I have at the office, so I'll send you a note tomorrow. Ton spoke on the subject in Paris (Froggyland) a year ago at the Froggish Shakespeare Society conference on Shakes, insularity and cosmopolitism. The proceedings should be coming out soon. Now about our eating frogs, the only time I did was in England, and I hated it. If you want to know about snails, for which also we are traditionally blamed, it's tasteless, but we DO like the garlic sauce we eat it with (or eat it for?...). You start feeling you were wrong to eat that when you get home to your partner, who shrinks from kissing hello. I can do without snails and garlic for ages, really. So can she... When I did a bit of the first chapter of Graham Swift's *Waterland* with my 2nd year translation class a few weeks ago, when coming to "the frogs were croaking in the ditches" I had to remind the students that it shouldn't be understood as "French citizens were dying in the ditches". Some of them didn't know about 'croaking', so the joke proved pedagogical, which is the worst possible effect for such an atrocious bi-lingual joke, but you never can tell; c'est la vie, as they say in the States! Portez-vous bien et buvez frais, Luc (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 15:11:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0255 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." St. Paul, Minnesota (which has some French heritage -- there are old jokes based on confusing 'voyageurs' and 'voyeurs' -- which I suppose might be an ethnic slur itself....) has an old ethnic neighborhood called "Frogtown." The claim I heard was that it had been the site of a swamp, but given that the neighborhood is atop a limestone cliff and that the foundation of the >100 yr old house I lived in was completely solid and the basement always dry, the claim of innocence does not hold water. Does this also suggest a French connection to the fancy embroidered closures on some clothes that are called "frogs"? About "Hey nonny nonny": I'm certain that Walt Kelly had a Pogo strip devoted to deconstructing "Rolly-polly gammon and spinach," etc., but I could not find it in my "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years of Pogo" this weekend. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 10:04:40 -0500 Subject: Frogs again The book by AJ (Ton) Henselaars I mentioned in my previous post is: *Images of Englishmen and Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries. A Study of Stage Characters and National Identity in English Renaissance Drama, 1558-1642* (Cranbury, NJ, London, Mississauga, Ont.: Associated University Presses, 1992). There aint nothin' 'bout frogs (as animals) in the index. Luc Borot Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines Universite Paul Valery -- Montpellier (France) (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 15:54:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0255 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; "A Frog . . ." I presume, given the period's liking for sophomoric punning, that what goes for Hamlet's rude remarks to Ophelia in the play scene about lying in her lap and "country matters", that "country" indeed is the forfended place. If you want to think that way. Of course, you needn't. Probably on the level of homogenized milk's being taken as queer. Silly.But there if you wish it to be. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 09:07:36 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0259 Re: Glorianna-Oriana Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0259. Tuesday, 22 March 1994. (1) From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 09:48:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0252 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; A Frog; Welsh; Glorianna (2) From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 13:52:45 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0244 Re: Imagining Gloriana (3) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 17:16:18 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0252 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; A Frog; Welsh; Glorianna (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 09:48:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0252 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; A Frog; Welsh; Glorianna Re: Steve Urkowitz and the Triumphs of Oriana (originally Imagining Gloriana) The madrigals and canzonets written by the composers of the day at the request of Thomas Morley for a collection titled "The Triumphs of Oriana" (based on a similar Italian work titled Il Triomfi di dori) did indeed each end with the phrase: Thus sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana, Long live fair Oriana. E. H. Fellowes, collector and publisher of many English Elizabethan music, includes the entire "Triumphs" in his set "The English Madrigals." It's well worth the read for imagining the pastoral and glorious Oriana-Elizabeth. And even more worth the listen. The most heralded (or at least most recorded) pieces from the collection are those by Thomas Weelkes (As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending) and John Wilbye (The Lady Oriana) The collection should be available in most libraries. Hope Greenberg Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 13:52:45 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0244 Re: Imagining Gloriana I'm not quite sure what category it falls into, but one of the Industrial Training films made by a company headed by John Cleese has a short film called "How to Run a Meeting" which features Mr Cleese himself as the celebrated Queen attempting to regulate the Privy Council in the face of various antics from Mssrs. Cecil, Raleigh and Co. When I worked for the Department of Social Security in Australia years ago, it was possible to schedule an afternoon session of these films and have it count towards one's working day as "in-house training". Other gems include "How to Answer the Telephone" and "Agendas" the latter set in a courtroom. I dont know how widely available they are. Tom Bishop Case Western Reserve University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 17:16:18 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0252 Re: Hey Nonny Nonny; A Frog; Welsh; Glorianna >I can't remember the parameters of the "Imagining Gloriana" original request, >but I just remembered one of the madrigals from the celebratory publication of >pieces dedicated to the Queen: THE TRIUMPHS OF ORIANA. Many, I think, or >maybe all, ended with the words, "Long live fair Oriana." Yes they do. One is by Weelkes "All creatures now are merry-minded" and there are others by Morley, etc. If I may share a personal fantasy about these, I always imagined a bunch of the guys getting together at the local tavern and dashing off a few tunes between beers to cheer up Liz after she regrettably had to whack off Essex's head. Yet another unsubstantiatied pipedream, alas. Melissa Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 09:37:43 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0260 Re: *MND* Video; Renaissance Bookshelf; Transmission Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0260. Tuesday, 22 March 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 10:51 EDT Subj: Video (2) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 09:09:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals; Renaissance Bookshelf (3) From: E.P. Werstine Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 21:19:19 EDT Subj: Transmission (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 10:51 EDT Subject: Video The Peter Hall *MND* has recently resurfaced after an absence of three years and that it can be purchased for $25 from Drama Classic Video, P.O. Box 2128, Manorhaven, NY 11050. They can be reached at 800-892-0860 or by FAX at 516- 767-7576. This is a small operation and provides attentive, personal service. (I do not have any connection with them other than as a satisfied customer.) They tell me that the company that has been distributing *Prospero's Books* has gone out of business, so the copies now in stock will be the last ones for a while (until someone buys the rights). CDV has it for $30. They take no credit cards but accept checks. Prepayment= no shipping or handling charge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 09:09:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0222 Tempest & Universals; Renaissance Bookshelf To: Ben Schneider >James McKenna urges Mr Budra to read Seneca's plays and Cicero's works for >style. Phyllis Rackin doubts that Shakespeare's audience had any bookshelves >to speak of. > >JM: I think that Seneca's moral works and Cicero' De Officiis are even more >important. > >PR: I still need to read Gurr's work on S's audiences, but I think the jury >is still out on Ann Jennalie Cook's findings, which agree with mine. What are >we to make of Ruth Kelso's monumental works, Doctrine for the lady of the >Renaissance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956) and The Doctrine of >the English Gentleman in the Sixteenth Century (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, I didn't "doubt that Shakespeare's audience had any bookshelves to speak of." I was citing Gurr's work to make the point that the audiences included a variety of people, female as well as male, illiterate as well as learned, and to imply (perhaps too obliquely) that since the plays were commercial products, they were probably designed to appeal to the heterogeneous audience that Gurr describes. The danger for modern scholars, I think, is the temptation to assume a monolithic audience constructed in our own image (and if we are scholars, that image is likely to be bookish). (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E.P. Werstine Date: Monday, 21 Mar 94 21:19:19 EDT Subject: Transmission This is a very belated reply to Anthony Hammond's contribution of March 6 with its attempt to provide some justification for the memorial-reconstruction narrative as an account of the genesis of the so-called "bad quartos" of Shakespeare. First, I want to observe that the memorial-reconstruction narrative is both very precise one and oddly multiple. Yet some of the "evidence" adduced by Hammond (and by everyone else who supports it) is not precise at all, and other "evidence" is precisely different from the stories it is supposed to support. According to the memorial-reconstruction narrative for Q R3, all or a portion of Shakespeare's company went on tour and found themselves in need of a promptbook for R3, either because they lost theirs or because they forgot it. So they all got together, Shakespeare himself perhaps included, and reconstructed it from memory. When they got to London, they didn't need it any more, and so it got into print as Q R3. The story of the other "bad quartos," like Hamlet Q1, is somewhat different; this time one or two actors who performed the play either in London or in the country or in both places wanted to put it on in the country themselves in consort with other actors unfamiliar with it. The "rogue actors" tried to reconstruct the play from memory; they actually staged the "bad quarto" version; when they got back to London they sold it to a printer. (Let me point out that the memorial-reconstruction narratives here presented are the most recent ones, but there is a century-long history of mutation in their details.) What's the "evidence" for such precise narratives? As Hammond writes, "Werstine is right in saying that there is no historical evidence that actors undertook such things, but he of course is aware of Heywood's complaints that some of his plays were published from texts 'coppied onely by the eare', and the celebrated phrase in the First Folio about 'stolne and surreptitious copies' must mean SOMETHING." Actually, I don't think, after "theory," that we must accept that either Heywood's complaint or the First Folio slur on early printings must *mean* anything, in the sense that they must *refer* to some actual practice; after all, language can be constitutive as well as referential. In any case, both Heywood's and the First Folio's language have been already interpreted in more than one way, and so their meaning can hardly be considered to be determinate. Heywood has been thought to object to people taking down his play as they heard it in the playhouse or to some practice of transcribing or typesetting a play from dictation; there is no reason to suppose that he is referring to anything so complicated and precise as the memorial- reconstruction narrative in either of its forms. The First Folio, as has already been pointed out on SHAKSPER, also cannot be coerced into support for either memorial-reconstruction narrative; since it refers to earlier printings in exclusively slighting terms, its reference cannot be limited to just some quartos, the "bad quartos." Indeed some even today think the Folio refers to the Pavier quartos, which is as reasonable an interpretation as that it refers to the "bad quartos." So what else supports the memorial-reconstruction theory? Hammond refers to eighteenth-century practice. We have very precise narratives from this century that are quite unrelated to the standard memorial-reconstruction narratives. For example, Tate Wilkinson, manager of the Theatre Royal at York, wanted to stage Sheridan's The Duenna. He could not because the play was not in print, and neither the playwright nor the companies authorized to perform it would give it to him. Here we are dealing with competition between established companies for the same play, a quite different state of affairs than anything posited in the memorial-reconstruction narratives. So Wilkinson went to see the play, then "I locked myself in my room; set down first all the jokes I remembered, then I laid a book of the songs before me; . . . by the help of a numerous collection of obsolete Spanish plays, I produced an excellent comic Opera" judged by modern Sheridan scholars to be an illiterate paraphrase. This is NOT the same as the memorial-reconstruction story. Another manager of a provincial theatre, one Hughes of Exeter, wanted The School for Scandal for his company. He was able to persuade an actor from one of the companies that had performed the play to help him. This actor, John Bernard, collected *the written parts* for eight roles: "With these materials for a groundwork, my general knowledge of the play collected in rehearsing and performing in it above forty times, enabled me in a week to construct a comedy in five acts." The differences between the eighteenth-century stories and the memorial-reconstruction narratives are too numerous to list. One answer to Hammond's question about why memorial reconstruction has had such a long run in textual criticism may be because no one has pointed to the huge gap between the narratives of memorial reconstruction and the evidence upon which they purport to be based. In spite of my attack on the memorial-reconstruction narratives, I still believe that memory *may have played a role* in the construction of the "bad quartos"; but the narratives we have written to explain that role collapse upon themselves in their writers' desire to represent themselves as knowing what happened with far more precision than they have any right to claim. Cheers, Paul Werstine ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 09:54:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0261 Seminar (Sh. & Beijeing Opera); CFP (Computers & Texts) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0261. Tuesday, 22 March 1994. (1) From: Robert Bethune Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 03:14:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shakespeare through Beijing Opera seminar (2) From: Stuart Lee Date: Tuesday, March 22, 1994 Subj: _Computers & Texts_: CFP (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Bethune Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 03:14:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare through Beijing Opera seminar A flyer crossed my desk recently that I thought might be of interest to the assembled readership. To wit-to whoo: Tufts University is offering a summer workshop that will explore applying traditional Chinese theatrical movement and dance to Romeo and Juliet. The workshop will be led by Yisong Fan of Shanghai Theater Academy, who combines 12 years training in Beijing opera with 20 years experience in teaching and directing Western-style theater. The workshop will run from June 20 to July 15, 4-9 PM Mon-Fri. The cost is $880; low-cost student housing is available. For further information, write or call William Sun or Lynn Frederiksen at the Department of Drama and Dance, Tufts University, Medford MA 02155, 617-627-3524 voice, 617-627-3803 fax. I don't have an Internet address for these folks. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stuart Lee Date: Tuesday, March 22,1994 Subject: _Computers & Texts_: CFP Computers & Texts # 7 CALL FOR PAPERS Newsletter of the CTI Centre for Textual Studies Computers & Texts has now been running for three years and is the newsletter of the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Textual Studies, based at Oxford University Computing Services. The subjects covered by the Centre include literature, linguistics, classics, theology, philosophy (& logic), theatre arts, and media studies. The newsletter has a selection of short articles relating to computer-aided learning in textual studies, a section devoted to the Office for Humanities Communication, and has a mailing of over 2,000 world-wide. In this issue we are continuing our discussion of courseware development and are particularly interested in quality assessment issues. We are also keen to have contributions from the "new" universities. Format: Submissions should be of approximately 1000 words although this is open to discussion with the editors. Footnotes should be limited and placed at the end of the article. References to published works should be of the form (Smith, 1992) with full bibliographic details given at the end of the article. Screen dumps are accepted, preferably in TIFF or PICT format for the Macintosh. Deadline: 13 May, 1994 Send all details to: Lorna Hughes or Stuart Lee Research Officers CTI Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Tel:0865-273221 Fax:0865-273221 E-mail: CTITEXT@UK.AC.OX.VAX ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 13:49:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0262. Wednesday, 23 March 1994. (1) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 10:40:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 12:57:26 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men (3) From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 94 17:56:00 GMT Subj: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (4) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 19:43:11 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (5) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 22:02:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men (6) From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 23 Mar 1994 08:48:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Good Men in Shakespeare (7) From: Toni Brotons-Goodney Date: Wednesday, 23 Mar 94 10:10:50 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 10:40:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men How about Adam and Corin, his green world counterpart, in _As you Like It_? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 12:57:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men Rosencrantz and Guildenstern -- and you know what happened to them. Certainly Orlando in *AYLI* is more sinned against than sinning. But, as others have noted, the Devil is always more interesting than Everyman. Samuel Johnson praised Shakespeare precisely because he captured "the real state of sublunary nature," depicting our world as a "chaos of mingled purposes and casualties." It used to be a commonplace of criticism that the motivations and emotions depicted in and evoked by Shakespeare's plays became ever more mingled over his 20 years of writing for the stage, with the "dark comedies" and "tragi-comedies" eventually taking over. Genre-typing may seem a superficial mode of criticism, but it does serve to point out a significant shift in his choice of subject, character development, etc. {Then there's biographical criticism, but I'll let someone else carry the banner for Aging Men....} Jim Schaefer (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 94 17:56:00 GMT Subject: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Try Horatio in *Hamlet*. Cheers, John Drakakis (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 19:43:11 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men Hi, Blair. I would immediately say that Horatio in *Hamlet*, and Tranio in *Taming of the Shrew* are both "good men." It all comes down, of course, to what we call good. I've seen it argued, convincingly, that Cordelia is a rather bad person. Why can't she just play along with her father's senile little game and save everyone tragic misery? Not that I'm saying she should, but maybe our view of "good" women only results from lots of years of not very close treatments of the female characters. Almost all critics in the past were men, after all. Perhaps we should just look for a respectable moral sensibility, however flawed and haphazardly applied, rather than "goodness." Cheers, Sean Lawrence. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 22:02:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men Several responses to the query about good guys in the plays included Horatio as a possibility. Am I the only one who sees a great deal of ambiguity in Horatio's presence in Denmark? What has he been doing at Elsinore for whatever period of time he's there before his good soldier-buddies (a scholar *and* soldiers' friend) bring him to Hamlet? How is it that he ends up being Claudius' gofer? I have many other questions about him. Any other doubters? Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 23 Mar 1994 08:48:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Good Men in Shakespeare Perhaps I might suggest a few more characters for consideration as Shakespearean good men. After seeing AS YOU LIKE IT at St.Clement's last month, I am more convinced than ever that Adam and Corin are pretty good men, and I like to think of Orlando in similar terms. Kent and Cornwall's servant who dies in defense of Gloucester belong with Edgar on the list good guys in KING LEAR, and I would certainly want to consider Gonzalo and Ferdinand in THE TEMPEST. It would also be difficult for me to exclude any of the Mechanicals in DREAM, regardless of what might be said of their abilities as actors. Surely others will find equally worthy candidates. The Marine Corps, of course, would have reasons to exempt a few. The sun is shining over the Green Mountains this morning. Temperatures are predicted to hover in the 50's. And yet if the cold and snows continue, I will try to remember that Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, The seasons' difference, as the icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind, Which when it bites and blows upon my body Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, "This is no flattery: these are counsellors That feelingly persuade me what I am." Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ungly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. Whoever said that, also belongs on the list. Bernice Kliman and Hardin Aasand will remember him from that afternoon at St. Clement's when a company of talented players reminded us of spring on a Saturday in February when the worlds from which we came still shivered through the winter season. It was a world on stage just as we liked it. Nick Clary clary@smcvax.smcvt.edu (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Toni Brotons-Goodney Date: Wednesday, 23 Mar 94 10:10:50 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0256 Q: A Few Good Men What about Edgar in *King Lear*? Or even Kent for that matter? How about Escalus in *Measure for Measure*? Even though he threatens the disguised Duke, he doing so out of loyalty. There's probably many more. Toni Brotons-Goodney ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:05:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0263 Qs: Hypermedia at SAA; New Globe Address Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0263. Wednesday, 23 March 1994. (1) From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 17:09:48 -0800 Subj: Hypermedia at SAA (2) From: Thomas H Blackburn Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 11:05:22 +0000 Subj: Multimedia at SAA (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 09:22:38 -0600 Subj: London's new Globe (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Monday, 21 Mar 1994 17:09:48 -0800 Subject: Hypermedia at SAA A while ago, there was some talk of an unofficial, informal gathering at SAA in order to discuss Shakespearean hypertexts and the like. Did this ever materialize? Is such a meeting being planned? Jeff Nyhoff (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas H Blackburn Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 11:05:22 +0000 Subject: Multimedia at SAA Some weeks ago there was some discussion about holding a session demonstrating some of the multimedia projects for Shakespeare study (i.e. "Shakespeare's Life and Times"). Has anything further been done on this front? As I noted then, I have a soliloquies project I would be glad to show and share if we had the time and resources. Awaiting word, Tom Blackburn (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 09:22:38 -0600 Subject: London's new Globe I read in a local paper recently that the anticipated opening of the rebuilt Globe is 23 April (of course) 1995, with a production of *Henry V* and QE2 present for the occasion. It also indicated that funds were still needed to complete the project. Despite being the typical overworked and underpaid academic type, this is something to which I'd actually like to send a contribution. Does anyone know where to direct it? Thanks. Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 14:23:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0264 Re: Frogs; First Times; Bookshelves; Leontes' Jealousy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0264. Wednesday, 23 March 1994. (1) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 94 10:10:51 EST Subj: frogs (2) From: Douglas Green Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 09:57:22 +0600 Subj: belated first times (3) From: Ben Schneider Date: Wednesday, 23 Mar 1994 10:25:08 -0600 (CST) Subj: Renaissance Bookshelf (4) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 23 Mar 94 11:06:10 EST Subj: Jealousy (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 94 10:10:51 EST Subject: frogs I always thought "frog" was synecdochic--referring to the clothes (coats?) typically worn by the French. I don't know where I got this idea (all my scholarship/memory is being lost to the aging process), but I'm pretty sure I didn't make it up. I also somehow think that frog is primarily of American origin rather than English. ? My word-search gives me only three hits of "frog" in Shakespeare, none referring to French. I also note that the OED's reference to "Dutch" is mostly pre-Shakespearean. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas Green Date: Tuesday, 22 Mar 1994 09:57:22 +0600 Subject: belated first times Though I'm always a bit behind in my SHAKSPER postings, I've greatly enjoyed the occasional "first times" that show up amid headier speculations about quartos and imagining Gloriana, as well as the post-/anti-/anti-anti- colonialist debate about the Tempest. (Has Ania Loomba's Gender, Race, and Renaissance Drama [Manchester UP, 1989] already been mentioned? If not, it should be.) At any rate here is my own first time with Shakespeare: Actually, it's not really. By ninth grade, we had read the usual RJ and JC. I loved, like others on this list, the histrionics of reading aloud, if only (and especially) in private. But it was reading the Merchant of Venice that bound me to Shakespeare: You see, "I am a Jew" who was raised a Catholic and attended parochial schools. Shylock's speech meant more to me than the fiery young instructor, Mr. Mooney, could possibly have imagined. Couple the emergence of my own 'subtext' in a sometimes alienating environment (the unconscious jokes of other students, the anxiety over who goes to heaven and who to hell [I feared for my Orthodox grandparents], etc.) with the "quality of mercy" and my own devout Catholicism at the time, and I was hooked--less by the play itself than by the way parts of it became passages in a quite different internal drama that is still replayed on occasion. Douglas E. Green, green@augsburg.edu / (612) 330-1187 Campus Box #13, English Dept., Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN 55454 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Wednesday, 23 Mar 1994 10:25:08 -0600 (CST) Subject: Renaissance Bookshelf To Phyllis Rackin: You say <> But if we are new historicists that image is likely to be sharply in conflict along class lines. The real question, if we are interested in the way audiences influence the content of plays, is not whether the audience is divided into ranks, or status groups, but the extent to which ranks or status groups affect taste. The less educated, certainly, are more interested in spectacle, but do they sit by calmly and watch themselves burlesqued in the mechanic scenes of MAN and MND and the mob scenes of JC? Kieth Wrightson (English Society 1580-1680, Rutgers 1982), speaking of the English hierarchy, puts the question as follows: <> Marx, funnily enough, comes down on the side of vertical ties (before the cash nexus takes over.) (Manifesto) A whole lot more work needs to be done before we get a definitive answer to this question, if ever. Coming back to bookshelves, my thesis would be that books were in style, and assuming that the lower classes ape the upper classes, (styles filter down) there may be more bookshelves around town than we imagine. Again, who is buying all these conduct books and translations of Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Montaigne? Respectfully submitted, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 23 Mar 94 11:06:10 EST Subject: Jealousy A belated contribution to the Leontes/ exchange. (Has anybody calculated the half-life of a SHAKSPER discussion?) As to performances of the play, the one I saw at Stratford, Ontario, in 1986, directed by David William, with Colm Feore as a Leontes literally prostrated by remorse (he took much of 5.1 face down on the floor, too ashamed to raise his eyes above Paulina's feet), is on my list of Ten Most Memorable Experiences of Shakespeare in the Theater--less risky and provocative than Robin Phillips' of the same season; like most of Williams' work, a steady, thoughtful opening out of the text, sunrise rather than fireworks. The relationships among Hermione, Paulina, and Leontes were strong. Goldie Semple made audience as well as Polixenes wish to extend their time with her as a beautifully generous and maternal Hermione; anybody who has seen her knows that she is splendidly statuesque, in the Lillian (or Jane) Russell sense--but she also gave back the term its literal meaning in a final scene all the more remarkable because it was taken so slowly- -long moments filling with wonder after nearly every speech, including the wonder of those of us in the know that minute after minute she could not be seen to move. The audience on the night I saw it gave it that rarest and most precious of theatrical accolades, several seconds of its own amazed silence before the applause began. As for Leontes, here's a question for interlocutors who need to authorize the suddenness of his jealousy by pointing to some specific early modern pathology, and also for those who seem to assign critical value only to those critical acts that thematize (here, in terms of time, etc.), and, indeed, for those who would insist on looking at it in terms of the social construction of sexual possessiveness, et al: What should I , critically and/or pedagogically, with my own experience of sexual jealousy--with the fact that once, in a social situation rather like the opening of the play, when I turned to catch a glimpse of a woman I loved, looking up into the face of a male friend with what I could interpret as pleasure and sexual interest, touching him and receiving his touch ("But to be paddling palms"), on the spot, without a perceptible moment's opportunity for consideration, the monster claimed me for its own, so that the blood pounded in my head, my bowels clenched, I fled out into the darkness to recover myself, was able after awhile to return to the party and make civil conversation, yet still inwardly wrestled with tumultuous feelings for many hours. The experience makes the sudden onset of Leontes' jealousy a non-problem for me, and so liberates my analytical time and energy to concentrate on what L. does to act out the feeling-- considering, as I do so, that I did not take immediate vengeance on the offending lover, reject her claims to my reasonable judgment, etc. Nothing in a lifetime of reading in and around Western writing suggests me that my experience was unique or even peculiar- -constructed in some merely local way by the special circumstances of the American Middle West in the third quarter of the twentieth century. Is it inappropriate for me to offer that experience to readers or students in the hope that I can spare them some trouble, so that they, too, can spend their energies investigating issues that, in my further experience, better repay investigating? It's a real question. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 09:05:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0266 Re: ISGC Address; Frogs; Shakespeare on the WWW Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0266. Friday, 25 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 09:19:17 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0263 Qs: Hypermedia at SAA; New Globe Address (2) From: Chris Ivic Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 21:52:52 -0500 Send Chris Ivic (3) From: Peter Scott Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 18:03:05 -0600 (CST) Subj: Shakespeare on the World Wide Web (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 09:19:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0263 Qs: Hypermedia at SAA; New Globe Address Dear Chris Gordon, Send your contribution to the Globe to the International Shakespeare Globe Centre, Bear Gardens, Bankside, Southwark, London SE1 9EB, England. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Ivic Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 21:52:52 -0500 Sender: Chris Ivic In a passage on Busyrane ("busy rana" [frog]) in his _Praise in The Faerie Queene_ Thomas Cain considers the topicality of the final episode of the 1590 installment of the poem. He writes: "The busy-frog etymology alludes...to the queen's proposed French marriage of a decade earlier. According to her habit of nicknaming courtiers, she had dubbed Alencon her "Grenouille" (frog). Her jewels at the time included a gold flower supporting a frog with Alencon's physiognomy. The conceit of the Frog Prince who did a-wooing go caught on sufficiently for Drake at his knighting to present the queen with a timely frog of diamonds. The Stationer's licensing of "A moste Strange weddinge of the frogge and the mowse" on 21 November 1580 shows that the negotiations had imbued this ancient rhyme with a new pertinence (it should be remembered that the frog is not successful)" (103). (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Scott Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 18:03:05 -0600 (CST) Subject: Shakespeare on the World Wide Web Point your lynx, Mosaic, Cello client to: http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare.html to use a hypertext version of the Plays. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 09:09:53 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0267. Friday, 25 March 1994. From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 10:22:14 -0600 Subject: query Dear SHAKSPER-eans, I'm currently directing the final scene from Macbeth for an evening of stage combat scenes at a theatre in Minneapolis and I've run across an interesting idea. I'm hoping that with all the experience out there (maybe we should figure out our combined age sometime!?!) someone can tell me if it's been done, and if so successfully. My idea is this. I think I'll begin the final fight to the death immediately after Macbeth's "and damned be he the cries[.]" Proceed with the fight and then after he is beaten and about to be beheaded have him "cry" "Hold, enough!" I find that the idea of Macbeth asking for mercy and not receiving it somewhat appealing. Has anyone seen this idea work on stage? Thanks in advance for your input. Timothy Dayne Pinnow pinnow@stolaf.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 08:48:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0265 Re: A Few Good Men Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0265. Friday, 25 March 1994. (1) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 94 11:57:03 GMT Subj: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 09:09:59 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men (3) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 18:02:49 -0600 (CST) Subj: Good and evil characters (4) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 11:05:41 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 94 11:57:03 GMT Subject: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men Depends, of course, on the definition of "good," as my old friend Aristotle used to say. I've always thought--and think so still--that ALL the tragic protagonists are GOOD men and women, even Macbeth who starts out as loyal thane defending his king and his feudal structures against "that most disloyal traitor / The Thane of Cawdor." That's the trajectory of tragedy (you should pardon the alliteration): the destruction of good guys. Cheerfully, Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 09:09:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men Dear Everybody out there concerned about "good men" in Shakespeare's plays. My problem is that I can hardly think of a single "good" man (or maybe woman too) in the plays who isn't tinged with a shadow. Good, dear old Adam in AYL verges on being an Uncle Tom; Horatio may be the last of the Romans but he's also something of an enigma, maybe a little sneaky; Tranio is close to a buffoon; Kent smacks of the "plain dealer" syndrome, etc. etc. Is this because I've been repositioned in history, because the plays are some kind of a Rorschach inkblot test, because I can't read, or because Shakespeare in his genius created characters with real virtues and warts? I think it may be all of the above but I favor the last theory. Ken Rothwell (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 18:02:49 -0600 (CST) Subject: Good and evil characters As several contibutors to this topic have already suggested, the categories "good" and "evil" may not be particularly relevant except on a superficial level. I am thinking especially about the cases of the Vice-Misrule types like Diccon in *Gammer Gurton*. He and his ilk work to stimulate (and ultimately to purge) repressed animosities. RIII is really this type rather than a tragic hero; Hamlet is this _and_ a tragic hero. Tamburlaine is a cosmic example, Feste a local, comic one. If to have a pharmacological function is "good," then certainly all of these are good characters, despite appearances. No? Maybe? Cheers to you all. Thanks for the happy chatter. Lonnie Durham durha001@maroon.tc.umn.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 24 Mar 1994 11:05:41 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men The reason Horatio becomes Claudius' go-for is that Theobald added a stage direction at 4.5.74. Even if we accept this emendation, Horatio's co-option doesn't make him a bad person, but shows how insidious the court drama is, in being able to enslave *even* so good a person. Cheers, Sean Lawrence. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 09:36:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0268 Re: Macbeth's Death Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0268. Saturday, 26 March 1994. (1) From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Friday, 25 Mar 94 14:16:16 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (2) From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 11:49:54 -0800 (PST) Subj: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (3) From: Mike Young Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 14:45:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (4) From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 15:56:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (5) From: Charles Neuringer Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 15:37:45 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Friday, 25 Mar 94 14:16:16 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death Why make him a coward? why rob Macbeth of the courage of despair? It's virtually all he has left, but Shakespeare leaves him that. He is more than a "dead butcher" as Lady Mac is more than a "fiend-like queen"- at least to the audience. Mind you, when Paul Scofield had to fight MacDuff many years ago, the broadswords were so heavy he had to impale himself on MacD's sword or the play would still be going on. Mary Jane Mary Jane Miller mjmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 11:49:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death Yikes! I feel somewhat out of my league in this conference, since I have not trained as a Shakespearean, but I have taught Macbeth in both high school and college, and your proposed staging of the fight scene sent chills up my spine--not, I'm afraid, of the good kind =-). I guess my objection as an audience member of your production would be that the only thing that *saves* Macbeth for me at the end of the play is that he stays the course, he doesn't cave in, that he goes out "as a man," if you will. When I taught Macbeth to inner city minority students, that was something they were very pleased to see in the play--yes, Macbeth did horrible things, yes, he had a terrible fall, but when they brainstormed all the things he *could* have done at the end (tried to cut a deal, sneaked away in disguise, committed suicide, surrendered outright), they saw guts--macho, to some of them--in his ending, a return to the noble figure we glimpsed if only too briefly at the beginning of the play. Since I think they have a point, I'd find your version terribly depressing, if he begged for mercy at the end. Still, that said, a surprising interpretation is always interesting (we had quite an unusual Duchess of Malfi at ACT this year)--and who knows? Others may like it. Elise Earthman San Francisco State University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Young Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 14:45:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death Yes, I have seen the death kept until the very last line at least once (I can see a university production from about ten years ago in my mind) and the scream by Macbeth punctuated the action. I think it also makes him more human, by speaking to anyone who will listen. i.e. the audience, just before the end. If the fight has been good and Macbeth a rounded character and voice, it'll do. Good hunting. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 15:56:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death No, I for one have never seen this utterance of the soon-to-be dead butcher turned this way. Don't you think that his words are not in any way an appeal for mercy but a final savage heroism? But in an evening of fight-scenes it matters less, of course, except that your audience probably all KNOW the famous couplet and would likely be impressed only by the novelty. You asked for a reaction to your idea, and that's mine. "Good fortune attend your endeavours." (A prize of pride for identifying that!) Harry Hill Concordia, Montreal (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Neuringer Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 15:37:45 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death How it plays depends on the context of the whole play's presentation. It would seem to me that Macbeth's death should reflect his life. If you play it as planned, Macbeth would have to characterized as a person who would ask for "mercy". If Macbeth is played as weary and worn out, (Dose not the text support such an interpretation?), then he might want to make an end of it quickly. In that case, asking for "mercy" is out of character. Charles Neuringer neuringer@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 10:19:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0269 Re: Horatio; Globe Address; Lenotes' Jealousy; Frogs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0269. Saturday, 26 March 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 08:04:50 -0600 Subj: Horatio as a good man (2) From: Harry Powell Date: Friday, 25 Mar 94 11:04 GMT Subj: New Globe Address (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 21:25:57 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0264 Leontes' Jealousy (4) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 21:44:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0258 Re: Frogs; Hey Nonny Nonny (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 08:04:50 -0600 Subject: Horatio as a good man In response to Al Cacicedo's questions about Horatio: he is a character I've been thinking/writing about for a very long time. I don't see the same ambiguities that Al does, although I admit that they're interesting. I think he's there because he truly care about Hamlet, but that he remains in the background until Hamlet (or Shakespeare) needs him. As to his becoming Claudius's go-fer, I don't see it. I think he's the eyes Hamlet leaves behind at court when he's sent to England; I've always read his "looking after" Ophelia as something he does as a result of either an explicit or implicit request from Hamlet. I disagree with Jim Schaefer about R & G, however; they're not good at all. Naive, maybe. Impressed by power, certainly. Probably not evil. But certainly not good. Best wishes to all for a glorious spring! Chris Gordon (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Powell Date: Friday, 25 Mar 94 11:04 GMT Subject: New Globe Address Just so that anyone who wants to contribute can, this is the address that I used; Maxine Leonard The Shakespeare Globe Trust Bear Gardens Bankside Liberty of the Clink (that's what it says on the letterhead...) Southwark London United Kingdom SE1 9EB The address in the newspaper adverts was a little more concise; Flagstone Appeal Shakespeare Globe Trust Bear Gardens London SE1 9EB but I guess they are the same place. Just in case you don't know, you can nominate a name to be inscribed on the flagstone you are funding... Oh! Their telephone number is +44 71 928 7710 and fax........ +44 71 928 6330 Harry Powell (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 21:25:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0264 Leontes' Jealousy I think David Evett's experience and its relationship to Leontes is very interesting and very informative. First, the experience suggests that we as humans haven't changed much in the last 400 years. Second, it suggests that Leontes' experience of jealousy doesn't need to be "historicized" -- whatever that process may be. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 21:44:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0258 Re: Frogs; Hey Nonny Nonny I have only skimmed the great FROG controversy, but I did not notice a reference to Farmer and Henley, SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES, sv "Frog," 2: "Formerly a Parisian; the shield of whose city bore three toads, while the quaggy state of the streets gave point to a jest common at Versailles before 1791: Qu'en disent les grenouilles? i.e., What do the FROGS (the people of Paris) say?" My apologies if this is old news, and I await Luc Borot's commentary on this derivation. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 26 Mar 1994 10:31:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0270 Qs: Richard III; Study Leave Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0270. Saturday, 26 March 1994. (1) From: Chantal Payette Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 14:43:22 EST Subj: Richard III (2) From: Rex Bunn Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 15:05:39 +1000 Subj: Study Leave (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chantal Payette Date: Friday, 25 Mar 1994 14:43:22 EST Subject: Richard III I'm curious to what people think about Richard III as a character in Shakespeare and Richard III as a character of fact. Why did Shakespeare make him out to be such a monster? Was he not one of England's better kings? How has history affected his character in Shakespeare? I was recently talking to someone who said that the ruler at the time that Shakespeare wrote it, (was it Elizabeth?) greatly influenced his writing and politically it was more beneficial to slander Richard's name. Comparisons in the monarchy I guess. Please, anyone, share your ideas. What do you think about the whole thing? Chantal (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rex Bunn Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 15:05:39 +1000 Subject: Study Leave I am a lecturer in Theatre Studies planning a study leave for the first half of 1995 (January to July). My plan is to visit the U.K., Canada and U.S.A.. My twin objectives are to discuss pre-production analysis of text with professional or university-based directors, and where possible to observe related rehearsals. This is in association with a research project I am conducting into current practice and trends in the production process. I would be grateful for any assistance or co-operation in developing an itinerary for this project. In return, I would be happy to exchange lectures/seminars etc. on Australian Theatre in general, and the plays of Patrick White in particular (my Ph.D. on WhiteUs plays is due to be submitted this year) My interest is not confined to Shakespeare, but includes all theatre which is substantially text-based. Please reply direct to me. Rex Bunn Department of Theatre Studies, University of New England, Armidale, N.S.W. 2351 AUSTRALIA Phone: 067-732047 (work), 067-753729 (home) Fax: 067-733757 Email: ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:22:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0273 Shakespeare in the MOOS Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0273. Sunday, 27 March 1994. From: Hilve A. Firek Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 94 11:46:08 EST Subject: Shakespeare in the MOOS On April 9 at 2:45 p.m., Shakespeare in the MOOS presents a scene from _The Tempest_. This virtual theater experience will be presented by high school students, from the learning disabled to the physically challenged to the gifted. To join the audience, meet us in the Crystal Caverns Theater in Diversity University (telnet thru rdz.stjohns.edu to esau.esau.edu). See you there! -- Hilve Firek, hfirek@vdoe386.vak12ed.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:27:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0274 Q: Line-endings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0274. Sunday, 27 March 1994. From: Harry Hill Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 14:49:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Line-endings I should be very interested in conversing with others concerned with shifts of consciousness (emotional, logical, rhetorical) indicated in the line-endings of Shakespeare's characters. This is one of the areas where the study and the stage can profit from each other's perceptions and particularly from their rhythmical and phonetic sensitivities. What Dryden noted as run-together thoughts overriding the line break and its usual slight pause in THE TEMPEST, for instance, is more probably the final and greatest flowering of S's already established technique of directing the actors' emphases and inflections found in great profusion if less "eccentricity" in the great plays at the climax of his career. Any thoughts on recent work being done around the question of Shakespeare as his own vocal director will be most welcome. Harry Hill Concordia, Montreal ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:08:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0271 Re: Macbeth's Death Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0271. Sunday, 27 March 1994. (1) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 14:31:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 20:45:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0268 Re: Macbeth's Death (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 14:31:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death I'm with Mary Jane Miller, Elise Earthman, and Harry Hill on this one. For me, one of the most powerful and uncanny effects of the Scottish tragedy at its conclusion is not so much the sense of closure as the attempt of those who remain to achieve closure. There is something grimly admirable in Macbeth's refusal to cooperate in this process, a refusal which leaves us with the uncomfortable feeling that evil is not something confined to a single individual, something which will simply disappear with his demise, but an enduring possibility, a temptation to which no one is in principle immune. No consequence, as a result, is ever entirely trammeled up. To have Macbeth beg for mercy would be in effect the same as having him commit the suicide he explicitly rejects in refusing to play the Roman fool and die on his own sword. In so far as _Macbeth_ contains an edifying moral, it is one constructed in retrospect by the victors, and in refusing to beg for mercy and rejecting suicide, Macbeth forecloses an opportunity for the victors to point the moral and adorn the tale. As Malcolm proclaims Macbeth a "dead butcher," he must point at the hero's severed head impaled on a pike, and in so doing he can only remind us that, whatever butcheries Macbeth may have committed (and there is no way of mitigating them), he has hardly cut off his own head. As the examples of my ancestor Macdonwald and the Thane of Cawdor suggest, Macbeth has scarcely invented the notion of usurpation, and as his attempt to seize sovereignty is not the first, so it will not be the last. The comforting notion that evil is self-consuming is always constructed in retrospect: that is why Malcolm must not only proclaim Lady Macbeth a "fiend-like queen" but a suicide as well, "Who (as 'tis thought) by self and violent hands / Took off her life." The play itself is silent on the question of how Lady Macbeth has met her end. Meanwhile, is it so hard to imagine Macduff, on his dutiful way to see Malcolm crowned at Scone, encountering three strange women who wish to have a word with him? --Ron Macdonwald (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 20:45:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0268 Re: Macbeth's Death I rather like the "damn'd be him, that first cries . . . . hold, enough" (TLN 2475). I think it a fine irony to have the "merciless" Macbeth finally crying for mercy -- and thus damning himself. The lack of mercy in Macduff is equally pleasing. Macduff never satisfactorily explains why he has left his family behind him in Scotland. Malcolm and Rosse give him the chance, but he doesn't excuse himself. As I grow older and more cynical, I see the play as completely cyclical; Macduff replaces Macbeth at play's end, and here we go again. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 17:16:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0272 Re: Richard III Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0272. Sunday, 27 March 1994. (1) From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 15:22:23 -0600 (CST) Subj: Richard III (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 21:02:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0270 Qs: Richard III; Study Leave (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 15:22:23 -0600 (CST) Subject: Richard III Shakespeare's Richard III must be a villain, given the time at which it was written. The histories that Shakspeare had at his disposal - Hall, Holinshed, Polidore Vergil, Thomas More -- all painted Richard as the hunchbacked villain. These are his sources, and the apologists would not appear for some years to come (Buck's History was not released until 1619). Given that the reigning monarch at the time when "Richard III" was first performed would have achieved her throne through usurpation and murder, I doubt, even if Shakespeare had any concept of Richard as a "good king", it would have been politically correct to portray him as such. But, I think, by Shakespeare's time, Richard's memory had been sufficiently tarnished that this was the view held by most of the English population (the north of England excepted. Richard was always popular in the north). Patricia Gallagher (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 26 Mar 1994 21:02:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0270 Qs: Richard III; Study Leave Chantal, You ask a very big question. The debate over Richard III has been going on since the 18th century when Horace Walpole expressed his "historic doubts." Of course, Sir/St. Thomas More's HISTORY OF RICHARD III (ca. 1513) is doubtless one of Shakespeare's chief sources -- in one way or another. Shakespeare may have considered More's account historically accurate. On the other hand, he may have been rather cynical about More's account. You can trace this background in James A. Moore's bibliography, RICHARD III: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, items 857-1154, or in Paul Murray Kendall's RICHARD THE THIRD, Appendix II. As the Latins might say, I mention Kendall to honor him. The interesting question is, of course: what is the relationship of the play to the written history? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:33:04 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0275 Re: Richard III Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0275. Monday, 28 March 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 08:29 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0270 Qs: Richard III; Study Leave (2) From: Herbert Donow Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 94 20:33:26 CST Subj: Richard III (3) From: Nicholas Clary Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 08:32:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Richard III (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 08:29 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0270 Qs: Richard III; Study Leave To Chantal Payette, A wonderful way to begin would be to read Peter Saccio's *Shakespeare's English Kings: History, Chronicle, and Drama* (Oxford UP, 1977). This book clarifies what Shakepeare would have known from chronicles, what historians now believe, and what Shakepeare does. An excellent book. Good luck with the exploration, Bernice W. Kliman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Herbert Donow Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 94 20:33:26 CST Subject: Richard III The answer to Chantal Payette's query about Richard III can be found by going first to Thomas More's Life of Richard, wherein most of the invidious tales of his character were recorded and preserved. Much of More's account came from John Morton's account (Morton being an enemy of Richard's and the owner of the celebrated strawberry patch). As long as the question of Richard III has come up in the wash of a recent discussion of Macbeth, I am prompted to deliver an observation about Richard and Macbeth. The two characters are of course quite similar in their boundless ambition, etc. etc., but Richard is a more successful character (and villain) because he has a sense of humor. I have always found the play Macbeth a disappointment because Macbeth was humorless, and there was no one there to provide the humor for us. I would far rather have my throat cut by a Richard, an Aaron, a Iago (or a Hamlet)--who could give the audience a chuckle while doing it--than by a humorless Macbeth. And with that I'll lug my guts to bed. Herb Donow Southern Illinois University (soon to be emeritus--hurrah) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Clary Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 08:32:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Richard III As a WALL STREET JOURNAL columnist notes: "The catalyst for many Ricardian conversions is A DAUGHTER OF TIME, a 1951 murder mystery novel by the late Josephine Tey. The book tells of a modern detective investigating the case against Richard and concluding that it was a frame-up by the Tudors, specifically, Henry VII, who succeeded Richard to the throne." While the novel does, as Bisceglia notes, inspire "a stirring of latent, anti-intellectual leanings, as if to confirm an earlier conviction," many Ricardian converts embrace its conclusions with enthusiasm. This new-popularist text is complemented by annual notices in local newspapers placed by the Richard III Society (chapters can be found in the U.S. as well as abroad) on the anniversary of Richard's death (August 22). See WSJ, for 13 March 1991 (I have the clip but not the full bibliographical data). I submit this posting as a supplement to the excellent recommendations that others have already made. By the way, a colleague of mine informed me that Tey's novel was required reading for his graduate course in bibliography and research at Wisconsin. It was not treated as a negative instance. Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:49:13 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0276 Re: Macbeth's Death Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0276. Monday, 28 March 1994. (1) From: Timothy Bowden Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 07:04:15 PST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0268 Re: Macbeth's Death (2) From: Charles Edelman Date: Monday, 28 Mar 94 16:57:00 EST Subj: Macbeth's Death (3) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 09:34:20 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0271 Re: Macbeth's Death (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 07:04:15 PST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0268 Re: Macbeth's Death > I guess my objection as an audience member of your production would be > that the only thing that *saves* Macbeth for me at the end of the play > is that he stays the course, he doesn't cave in, that he goes out "as > a man," if you will. When I taught Macbeth to inner city minority > students, that was something they were very pleased to see in the > play--yes, Macbeth did horrible things, yes, he had a terrible fall, > but when they brainstormed all the things he *could* have done at the > end (tried to cut a deal, sneaked away in disguise, committed suicide, > surrendered outright), they saw guts--macho, to some of them--in his > ending, a return to the noble figure we glimpsed if only too briefly > at the beginning of the play. Elise Earthman I'll bet they all bought into the juvenille macho depravity of Othello, as well. I'm wondering if persisting in unspeakable acts in the name of `manhood' to reach those impressed by such show is a fit objective here. What's the street application? A drug dealer trapped in a crack house with an automatic weapon? "Lookit me, maw, I'm Macbeth!" (- after Jimmy Cagney in _White Heat_.) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Edelman Date: Monday, 28 Mar 94 16:57:00 EST Subject: Macbeth's Death To remove "hold enough" from the words previous to them breaks up a couplet, which seems to me odd. "Damned be he that cries," left alone by itself, seems appropriate for a schoolyard fight, which is over when someone starts crying. My reading of Macbeth's final moments is that he is once again "brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name" and that he knows he is going to die, but is determined to do so bravely. I do not see any speeches in the Folio text which would appear consistent with his begging for a halt. This, of course, proves nothing, and the suggested staging COULD be both fitting and interesting. If self-advertisement is permitted, Timothy might find the discussion of the Macbeth combat in my book, 'Brawl Ridiculous: Swordfighting in Shakespeare's Plays,' Manchester U.P. 1992, of interest. Best wishes, Charles Edelman Edith Cowan University, Australia c.edelman@cowan.edu.au (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 09:34:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0271 Re: Macbeth's Death Meanwhile, is it so > hard to imagine Macduff, on his dutiful way to see Malcolm crowned at > Scone, encountering three strange women who wish to have a word with him? > --Ron Macdonwald No, it isn't. But given the fact that it isn't, why do you suppose the text we have doesn't? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:58:48 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0277 Qs: Folio-Based Edition; Film Music; Othello Game Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0277. Monday, 28 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 17:21:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: A student text based on the Folio? (2) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 19:50 ET Subj: Music and Shakespeare films (3) From: Karla Walters Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 06:35 MST Subj: Othello Game (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 17:21:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: A student text based on the Folio? So, okay, the 18th century has definitely given us their text of Shakespeare's plays and poems, and we have until recently accepted their gift with little or no thought, or so it seems. Now, the scales have dropped from our eyes, and we know the shadows from the true sun. Nevertheless, the texts we teach from (e.g., Riverside, Bevington, Wells and Taylor, Signet) are contaminated -- thoroughly contaminated -- by 18th century editorial decisions. For example, look at Folio A&C, TLN 3108-3199 (V.i), and compare the scene in the Folio with, say, the scene in Wells and Taylor (4.6). Note the added stage directions, the changed speech headings, the changed characters. The Folio's Menas (Pompey's former sidekick) is conventionally changed to Maecenas -- without comment. Is there a proposed new edition based on the Folio to remedy this perceived problem? If not, why not? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Sunday, 27 Mar 1994 19:50 ET Subject: Music and Shakespeare films Some time ago, I believe one of the members of SHAKSPER posted that they were going to be writing something on the use of music in Shakespeare films. Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me remember who it was. If this is one of you I'm talking about, please drop me an E-mail; I have a question or two to ask you. Thanks... Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University ebedgert@suadmin.syr.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 06:35 MST Subject: Othello Game One of my students has raised a question about the Othello board game (for which a video version has been developed). The question is, aside from the possibility that the game is named for Madison Avenue reasons of marketability (such as the word "Othello" sounds exotic or is easy to pronounce), is there a logical connection of some kind between the game and Shakespeare's play? The game consists of pieces which have one color on one side and another color on the other side. The idea is to fill as much of the board with your color. If pieces are placed in certain ways next to other pieces, they become your color, no matter their color before. One logical connection between the game and the play is the idea that nothing is ever as it seems. Things change constantly. Just because you have a majority of your color on the board doesn't mean you are winning. One move by your opponent could change pieces into his color. In the play, nothing is as it seems to the characters, especially Othello. He would see a scene as simple as Cassio bragging about his sexual exploits with a prostitute and think his former friend is bragging about taking his own wife. He would look at his honest friends and see only villainy, and look at the villainous Iago and see an honest friend. Possibly the game reflects this uncertainty about reality. Any other suggestions? Karla Walters The University of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 11:09:36 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0278 Sidney *Lear*; Ophelia's Contraceptive; Shakespeare & Film Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0278. Monday, 28 March 1994. (1) From: J F Knight Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 18:26:23 +1000 Subj: [Sidney *Lear*] (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 07:47:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Ophelia's Contraceptive (3) From: John Collick Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 22:04:06 JST Subj: Shakespeare and Film (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 18:26:23 +1000 Subject: [Sidney *Lear*] *King Lear* has just opened in Sydney. This morning's Sydney Morning Herald review started off... "This production of King Lear is more of a damned shame than a tragedy." Nice phrase, thought I'd share it with you. John Knight knight@extro.ucc.su.oz.au (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 07:47:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ophelia's Contraceptive The following two items may be of interest to SHAKSPERians who do not regularly read the *New York Times*: The March 8, 1994 "Science Times" section of the NYT contained an article entitle, "In Ancient Times, Flowers and Fennel for Family Planning." It was based in turn on an article by John M. Riddle, a historian at North Carolina State, published in the March/April issue of Archeology. Riddle's thesis is that women in the ancient world controlled their fertility by ingesting various plants -- including silphium (now extinct), pennyroyal, Queen Anne's lace, rue, and pomegranate -- that had contraceptive and/or abortifacient effects. (Incidentally, while the NYT article notes that Persephone's having eaten six pomegranate seeds in the underworld resulted in her being condemned to spending six months in Hades every year, it does not take the next logical step of speculating about _why_ she ate them, nor does it suggest that she might actually have _wanted_ to revisit Pluto on a regular basis, leaving us mortals to our long, cold, lonely winter!) This article was followed by a letter published on the editorial page in the March 22 issue; the letter is from one Colin Hugh Buckley of Boston. His letter reads: The knowledge that rue was widely considered in Renaissance Europe both as a contraceptive and an abortifacient newly illuminates Ophelia's final scene in "Hamlet." She addresses the Queen: "There's rue for you, and here's some for me -- we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. Oh, you must wear your rue with a difference." Perhaps Ophelia's deranged state and subsequent suicide are prompted by more than just heartbreak. Rue is the only one of the flowers Ophelia keeps for herself. The rue the Queen must wear with a difference, perhaps referring to its action as a contraceptive, suggests her sexual relations with the King, thus continuing the theme of Hamlet's Freudian concerns in the play. Then perhaps Ophelia takes rue in her own stead because of its action as an abortifacient. All of these lends a more somber tone to Ophelia's singing earlier in the scene: Then up he rose and donn'd his clothes And dupp'd the chamber door; Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Collick Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 22:04:06 JST Subject: Shakespeare and Film Apologies for blowing my own trumpet here. The BBC World Service arts program _Meridian_ is broadcasting a feature on Shakespeare and film on (I think) the 5th of April. They just interviewed me today in connection with the Japan section of my book _Shakespeare, cinema and society_ (Manchester Uni. Press, 1988) which is a cultural materialist analysis of Shakespeare films. In any case, me aside, the program should be of interest to anyone who watches Shakespeare movies. John Collick Waseda University, Tokyo melmoth2@twics.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 08:47:20 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0279 Re: Richard III; Macbeth's Death; 3-Frog Crest; Good Men Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0279. Tuesday, 29 March 1994. (1) From: Chantal Payette Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 10:46:41 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0272 Re: Richard III (2) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 13:04:26 -0600 (CST) Subj: Macbeth's Death, R III (3) From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 20:20:15 +0100 Subj: la grenouille de Paris (4) From: Ben Schneider Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 13:18:44 -0600 (CST) Subj: A Few Good Men (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chantal Payette Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 10:46:41 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0272 Re: Richard III Thanks so much for everyone's comments, but my main question is the one that Bill Godshalk pointed out, and I quote: "...what is the relationship of the play to the written history?" Exactly. There are indeed two different versions of the character of Richard III, one bad, one good. Was it not Henry VII's government that started hate propoganda against Richard III. He portrayed himself as the saviour king who saved the land against the usurper. Lies, turn into gossip, and then gossip eventually into fact. The gossips themselves become part of history. Anyway, I am writing about this. I have found that there are no dependable sources for the good Richard III except a few mentions here and there. I am very interested in the relationship of the history to the play. It's background, the influences, etc. Thanks, everyone has already been a real help. Chantal (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 13:04:26 -0600 (CST) Subject: Macbeth's Death And I'm with you, Ron Macdonald. For me, too, the major impact of the close of *Macbeth* is watching the survivors attempting to draw some rag of assurance over the great rent in the fabric of meaning that Macbeth has opened up. As for Richard of Gloucester, I think I know whence his nasty disposition arises. Once travelling from Norwich in Norfolk to York I stopped for the night in Grantham, Lincolnshire at an inn called The Angel and (something--can't remember) where they claimed Richard had once slept. If he had the same mattress they gave me, I'm surprised he did not behead the population of the entire county. In any case, I felt I had learned where he came by the name "crookback." Cheers all, Lonnie Durham durha001@maroon.tc.umn.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 20:20:15 +0100 Subject: la grenouille de Paris Dear all, Bill Godshalk invites my reply to his Paris crest suggestion. Though I live in the South of the country, I was born and raised in Paris, by parents who were born in Paris, from ancestors who have lived in Paris for 5 generations, which is very unfrequent in major European capitals. I have an inheritance of Parisian memory, and in my Parisian education, I have always heard (and it is verified: I checked over the week end) that the Paris crest had always been (always, i.e. since the 12th century at least to my knowledge) a sailing vessel on a blue and red background, with the motto 'Fluctuat nec Mergitur' (it sails and never sinks), which was the crest of the corporations of the "marchands de l'eau", who held a monopoly over Seine river trade. The tricolour French flag comes from the interposition of the white of the French monarchy between the two colours of the Paris municipal corporation in 1790 (perhaps end of 1789, my memory fails on this point) to which Louis XVI consented in that heyday of the first Revolution. I asked my Dad about the frogs on our crest, and he rummaged into his books on Paris history, without any success on this point. On Paris and dampness in the Middle Ages and early-modern period, here is some information, though I cannot reject the idea that the 3-frog crest existed for a tavern or student corporation. Yet, the university district is on the hill (we dare call it 'mountain', la Montagne Ste Genevieve) on the Left bank, which is much higher. The district where my father and myself grew up is called 'Le Marais' (the Marsh or Swamp), the 1st, 3rd, 4th districts of Paris on the Right (i.e. northern) bank of the Seine. It is said that these very low lands on that side of the river made the inhabitation of the area difficult in the higher Middle Ages, and that it was still unhealthy in the Renaissance; but then, which European town of the early modern period could boast of any relevant standards of hygiene by our modern criteria? Could the frog-crest come from that area? I aint got no idea, mates. It was the area of the Grande Truanderie and Cour des Miracles, made famous by Francois Villon in the XVth century before Victor Hugo took up the theme in *Notre Dame de Paris* with Gina Lollobrigida and Anthony Quinn in the leading roles. Hence my more than scepticism on reading of the Parisian 3-frog crest in Bill's message. One more point to conclude this very un-Shakespearean message: the French phrase for going on strike is "se mettre en greve", i.e. to stay on the river shore. It is said that it comes from the practice of the Paris workers in the Middle Ages, who came for a job to the harbour near the present Hotel de Ville, where the municipal authorities have sat for over 1000 years to this day, and made their protests there in times of unemployment and dearth. The Place de l'Hotel de Ville was then called Place de Greve (river shore square or something of the kind), and the land was sloping towards the river. I doubt whether this helps the debate on those small amphibious animals but that's all I can tell Bill on his suggestion according to my Paris lore and after my ole Dad's research. A la votre, Luc (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 13:18:44 -0600 (CST) Subject: A Few Good Men Dear Ken Rothwell, Great to be talking to you again after all these years. I've been listening to you with great pleasure ever since I tuned in to SHAKSPER. You say Kent <> Where have I been? I didn't know that there was something wrong with plain dealing. But if Kent is excessively plain, so is Cordelia, and maybe Lear was doing the right thing, after all, in dividing the kingdom and retiring. I do think this obsession with ambiguity is peculiar to our times. Our parents had very little trouble in telling the difference between right and wrong. But we know so much more than they did. As soon as you look into people's psyches and discover how they got that way, you find it hard to blame them for wrongdoing. The line between right and wrong becomes fuzzy. You can't help feeling sorry for Tonya Harding when you think of the huge insensitive institutional machine that has been arrayed against her from childhood. (See recent NYT op ed piece) If the line between right and wrong is uncertain, we can conclude that wrong behavior is a matter of where you stand; it's really nobody's fault; the times are out of joint. Which is about where we are today. Question is, is that where Shakespeare was? Maybe so. But I think we need to know a lot more about early modern opinions on right and wrong than we do. For one thing, I think we would find that Shakespeare's contemporaries thought plain dealing was the right thing to do. Of course that doesn't prove that Shakespeare thought it was. Maybe he actually did believe in massaging the psyches of power brokers. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 09:02:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0280 Re: Othello Game; Editions; Ophelia's Contraceptive; MOOS Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0280. Tuesday, 29 March 1994. (1) From: Sarah Werner Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 12:05:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Othello Game (2) From: Michael Young Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 12:20:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0277 Folio-Based Editions (3) From: Tad Davis Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 13:38:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0278 Ophelia's Contraceptive (4) From: Martin Zacks Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 11:17:32 -0800 (PST) Subj: Shakespeare in the MOOS (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Werner Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 12:05:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Othello Game One of the crucial things about the Othello board game is that the pieces are black and white--it's not just any colors that are changing but ones that are specifically racially coded. And that seems to me the logical connection between the game and the play. It's not a general uncertainty about reality, but an uncertainty about race-- the board game is like the play in that what's black and white is everything. In fact, naming the board game Othello seems a bit disturbing--what had been a game of logic and spatial awareness became a bizarre game of racial contestation once I realized the Shakespeare connection. (And I only made the connection after seeing a video version called Reverso with blue and red chips). If your student--or you--is really interested in how they chose the name Othello for the game, there's probably a good chance that if you write to the company they might be able to track something down about it. Sarah Werner University of Pennsylvania (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Young Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 12:20:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0277 Folio-Based Editions Dear Bill; as an old student of yours (well, how are you doing? Been so long....) at UC, I remember you telling us that you had tried using the Norton copy of the Folio as the textbook. It had seemed to be more of a burden than a boon. Have you thought of a new tact? Also, isn't all the editorial work done on the folio and Quatros part of the story? Could our undergraduates understand a nonedited text and should our grad students not see the the trail/the history of the texts. I do hope all is well. Perhaps we'll get the chance to e-chat soon. Yours, Michael Young Class of '89 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 13:38:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0278 Ophelia's Contraceptive > She addresses the Queen: "There's rue for you, and here's some > for me -- we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. Oh, you must wear > your rue with a difference." It was always my impression, from reading and from viewing many performances, that this is what happens. But the notes to the Oxford edition, edited by G. R. Hibbard, relying heavily on the analysis in Jenkins' New Arden edition, suggests something different: - Laertes gets the rosemary for remembrance and pansies for thoughts. - Gertrude gets the fennel ("for flatterers," according to other texts) and the columbine (symbol of willing cukolding). - Claudius wears the rue with a difference, being the only character present who has tried to repent for anything. There aren't any stage directions to indicate the author's intentions. This may be one of those areas where the sense of rightness depends more on the director and the actors than on literary analysis. (On the other hand, I've seen productions where the director's sense of rightness included having the Ghost wear a furred cap, since he "wore his beaver up.") Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zacks Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 11:17:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Shakespeare in the MOOS For those people not on the cutting edge of information technology, there is an interesting (and fairly bizarre) article on MOO's and MUD's in the March, 1994, issue of Wired. The article is by Josh Quittner and is entitled, "Johnny Manhattan Meets the Furry Muckers." Not for the faint of heart. Martin Zacks lalalib@comp.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 09:12:33 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0281 New Spinoff; Re: Line-endings; TPI Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0281. Tuesday, 29 March 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 16:02:36 -0600 Subj: new spinoff (2) From: Lynne Magnusson Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 19:36:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0274 Q: Line-endings (3) From: David Reifsnyder Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 00:34:01 -0700 (MST) Subj: Coming Soon - TPI (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 16:02:36 -0600 Subject: new spinoff I just finished a recent novel that may be of interest to fellow SHAKSPEReans. It's *The Shakespeare Transcripts* by Mark P. Friendlander, Jr. (a lawyer) and Robert W. Kenny (a former academic who taught English history), published by Ox Bow Press, Woodbridge, Connecticut, 1993. The plot has to do with the contemporary discovery of a summons related to a Shakespeare/Francis Bacon court case regarding (what else?) who wrote the plays. You get both the contemporary seekers (a dashing young male grad student, an intelligent--and of course, attractive--young woman attorney, a bad guy senior faculty member) plus the Elizabethan tale with our Will plus his attorney who has a (you guessed it) amazingly intelligent and beautiful daughter who would have been a lawyer if only it had been possible then. No appearances by the Queen (sorry about that, Imagining Gloriana compilers). Not great literature, but fun weekend reading. Happy autumn to those in the southern hemisphere! (I realized after posting my last message which contained spring greetings that I was being hemispherist--oops!) Regards to all, Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lynne Magnusson Date: Monday, 28 Mar 1994 19:36:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0274 Q: Line-endings In response to Howard Hill on Shakespeare as his own (and his actors') vocal director in his use of line-endings: George (Ted) Wright takes up this line of argument in _Shakespeare's Metrical Art_ (University of California Press) and also in an essay called "Language that Vanishes, Language that Keeps" (as closely as I remember it) in _The Elizabethan Theatre XII_ (1993). Lynne Magnusson University of Waterloo (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Reifsnyder Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 00:34:01 -0700 (MST) Subject: Coming Soon - TPI First, a brief apology to those of you whole subscribe to multiple lists and receive this message repeatedly. It is important to cross-post because many of our subscribers are members of only one list and we don't want to miss anyone. Theatre.Perspectives.International will be going out on-line this Thursday, March 31. If you haven't already subscribed, this is your chance to learn about the controversial Live Entertainment Corp. production of _Showboat_ before it moves from Canada to New York. To subscribe, send e-mail to listproc@lists.Colorado.EDU Leave the subject line blank and in the message section, type sub tpi Subscriptions are free and feedback is welcome - Dave Reifsnyder Co-Editor, TPI ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:31:14 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0284. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. (1) From: Karla Walters Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 08:31 MST Subj: Macduff (2) From: Pat Lawlor Date: Monday, 28 Mar 94 11:55:27 EST Subj: Macbeth's death (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 08:31 MST Subject: Macduff In the discussion of Macbeth's death, Bill Godshalk wrote that "Macduff never satisfactorily explains why he has left his family behind him in Scotland. Malcolm and Rosse give him the chance, but he doesn't excuse himself." I infered from this that Macduff goes to England for reasons of personal ambition, because Professor Godshalk concludes that "Macduff replaces Macbeth at play's end." Would not this view make Macduff the traitor that his own son protests he is not? How does one interpret that scene between Lady Macduff and her son? My students are always confused by it. I usually tell them that traditionally a nobleman could trust his lands to be held under his wife if he left the country, and that it was up to the monarch to honor the nobleman's claim until he could return. Macbeth's murder of the wife and children is not only genocide/infanticide, but a defiance of the traditions of law governing land holding. Macduff's leaving Scotland is both a test of Macbeth's ability to abide by and govern by law, and an attempt to "rescue" Scotland from tyranny. Where is the evidence that he is governed primarily by personal ambition? There is plenty of evidence that this motivates Macbeth, but I can't see much evidence of personal ambition in Macduff. Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Lawlor Date: Monday, 28 Mar 94 11:55:27 EST Subject: Macbeth's death The whole majesty of the play for me is in the dignity that Macbeth shows at the end of the play: He knows now that he let himself be deceived by the witches, but he accepts his fate and confronts death as a warrior. To turn him into a coward at the end would rob me of every thing that makes the play so powerful. Patrick J Lawlor pjl02 @ albnydh2.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:38:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0285 Re: A Few Good Men Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0285. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 10:36:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0279 Good Men (2) From: David Bank Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 94 19:35:01 BST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 10:36:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0279 Good Men Dear Ben Schneider, Good to hear from you about plain dealing, or anything else. The sound bites of e-mail open us up to all kinds of questions, no doubt. Cornwall, admittedly a villain and an unreliable witness, gives a shrewd appraisal nevertheless of the Plain Dealer syndrome when he says of Kent: "This is some fellow/ Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect/ A saucy roughness" (Lr. 2.2.95). Admittedly your plain dealer, sir, is a rock of integrity, unless he is only pretending like Iago to be a plain dealer to get the better of us. A consequence of being a Plain Dealer is a certain air of moral superiority, of ethical priggishness. Insofar as that rubs off on Kent I meant there is a shadow about him. I admit, though, that the shadow may not be there for others. That's why I spoke of the plays as Rorschach tests. Cheers, Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Bank Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 94 19:35:01 BST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0262 Re: A Few Good Men I take it we're looking for characters who act as moral "positives" as it were - not for characters who are merely "not bad" or who, because of their essentially functional role, resist this kind of question. I don't recall any suggestions from the Roman plays. Enobarbus must surely qualify as a loyal Kent of Old Nile. Brutus too was loyal in his fashion, a "respectable moral sensibility" to quote Sean Lawrence's phrase, "an honourable man" to quote Mark Antony's, yet something's missing. Love for another. I think that is what unites Kent, Edgar/Cordelia, Enobarbus, Horatio. Their moral compounds have an affective element which "goodness" cannot wholly assimilate. David Bank ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:11:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0282 Re: Othello Game Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0282. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. (1) From: Karla Walters Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 07:09 MST Subj: Othello Game (2) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 94 13:04:17 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0280 Re: Othello Game; (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 07:09 MST Subject: Othello Game Someone replying to my original query mentioned a new video game is now available called Iago. Has anyone seen this one? Can you tell us what it is like? I'm now curious to know if it has the same apparent "racial" black/white element the Othello game has. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 94 13:04:17 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0280 Re: Othello Game; Actually, I've got the same game on my Mac Classic black and white screened computer. Only it's called "Iago". Norman Myers ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:47:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0286 Q: Abridged *MND*; Re: Three-Toad Crest Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0286. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. (1) From: JAMES SCHIFFER Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 18:10:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Abridged MND (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 22:19:57 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0279 3-Frog Crest (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: JAMES SCHIFFER Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 18:10:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Abridged MND A colleague of mine (a poet, but not a Shakespearean) is looking for an abridged script of Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM that he might use for a production this summer at his vineyard (I'm not sure, but I think he wants something that runs 60 to 90 minutes). Please contact me directly if you know of a playtext he might use. Thank you. --James Schiffer Hampden-Sydney College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 22:19:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0279 3-Frog Crest Thanks, Luc, for the wonderful response. I got the three toads from Farmer and Henley, and they give no source for the assertion that the crest of Paris contained three toads (or frogs). Your research into the question casts heavy doubt on their assertion! Again, thanks, Bill ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:18:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0283 Re: Ophelia's Contraceptive/Rue Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0283. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. (1) From: Karla Walters Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 07:13 MST Subj: Ophelia's contraceptive (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 11:25 EDT Subj: Ophelia's rue (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 07:13 MST Subject: Ophelia's contraceptive The idea that Ophelia needed/used/lacked rue as a contraceptive is certainly one that would appeal to some of my students. Invariably each semester one of them wonders if Ophelia is pregnant. They surmise this because Laertes has told her to protect her "chaste treasure" from Hamlet, and because she does sing the song about the abandoned maid who is maid no longer. At the least, they suspect Ophelia has slept with Hamlet. If I tell them the rue Ophelia keeps for herself has implications of abortive/contraceptive qualities, won't this clinch the argument in my students' minds? I have been telling them there is no clear evidence that Ophelia lost her virginity to Hamlet. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994 11:25 EDT Subject: Ophelia's rue Perhaps it's time to correct a common idea? When I saw the letter Jim Schaefer quotes from the New York Times, I wanted to respond but missed the chance. On SHAKSPER, though, I think it's important to state that there is no Stage Direction indicating that Ophelia extends the rue to the Queen. Gertrude's last line in the scene is "But not by him" (TLN 2875). With this line, Gertrude has wittingly (in some productions) or unwittingly (in others) exposed her son to Laertes's revenge. Since the scene marks no exit for her, and since she speaks not at all during Ophelia's flower scene, a production could have her rush out right after this line as she realizes her mistake. The offering of rue comes at TLN 2933. A little later, Claudius is saying "where th'offence is, let the great Axe fall" (TLN 2970). To avoid letting Gertrude hear this line, most editors and productions have her exit with Ophelia, at TLN 2950: F1 has "exeunt Ophelia" at this line, which offers some justification for Gertrude's exit there, though the use of "exit" and "exeunt" is sufficiently mixed up so that nothing definite, I think, can be claimed. Q2 has no exit direction for Ophelia, while Q1 has "exit Ofelia." Sorry to go at such length. It was, in fact, only after I played Gertrude in this scene that I realized that her last speech was 30 lines before Ophelia's entrance. Cheers, Bernice W. Kliman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 18:28:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0287 SHAKSPER During the SAA Annual Meeting? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0287. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Wednesday, March 30, 1994 Subject: SHAKSPER During the SAA Annual Meeting? SHAKSPEReans, For the first time in many more years than I would have liked, I'll be attending the SAA annual meeting. There I hope to meet as many of you as I can face to face -- rather than screen to screen. However, my purpose now is not simply to announcement my good fortune to be in Albuquerque in two weeks. What I am wondering is if there is a kind SHAKSPERean who would be able to arrange for me a guest account that I could reach through a local telephone call from April 14 to April 18 while I'm in Albuquerque so that I could continue to edit and distribute SHAKSPER digests while I'm away? If so, please contact me. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 20:55:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0288 New on the SHAKSPER Fileserver: MATERIAL TEXT and CIBBER R3 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0288. Wednesday, 30 March 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS" (MATERIAL TEXT). This is my paper for the Shakespeare's Sonnets: Mapping Uncertainty" seminar of this year's SAA Annual Meeting. To retrieve MATERIAL TEXT send a one-line mail message (without a subject line) to LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET, reading "GET MATERIAL TEXT SHAKSPER." If you are directly connected to BITNET, you may issue the interactive command, "TELL LISTSERV AT UTORONTO GET MATERIAL TEXT SHAKSPER." SHAKSPEReans may retrieve from the SHAKSPER Fileserver Tom Dale Keever's transcription of Colly Cibber's *Richard III* (CIBBER R3). To retrieve CIBBER R3 send a one-line mail message (without a subject line) to LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET, reading "GET CIBBER R3 SHAKSPER." If you are directly connected to BITNET, you may issue the interactive command, "TELL LISTSERV AT UTORONTO GET SHAKSPER." Should you have difficulty receiving any of these files, please contact the editor, or . Selections from both are below. ******************************************************************************* Valuing the Material Text: A Plea for a Change in Policy Concerning Selection of Reference Texts for Future New Variorum Shakespeare Editions, with Examples from the 1609 Quarto of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS Hardy M. Cook In 1871, Horace Howard Furness initiated one of the greatest scholarly undertakings of modern times: The New Variorum Shakespeare -- an undertaking so vast in scope that it has not been completed to this day -- an undertaking so vast that it can never truly be completed -- an undertaking that of its very nature must like the Phoenix repeatedly consume itself in flames and be reborn of its own ashes. In the first of these editions, A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: ROMEO AND JULIET, Furness explains his purpose and plan: faced with having the valuable notes of editors like "Knight, Singer, Collier, Ulrici, Delius, Dyce, Hudson, Staunton, White, Clarke, Keightley, and Halliwell" only available in different volumes, he proposed to save time and effort by "collecting these comments after the manner of a Variorum and presenting them, on the same page, in a condensed form, in connection with the difficulties which they explain" (vi). After originally deciding "to adopt the text of some one edition from which all the variations of the Quartos and Folios and other editions should be noted," he, "in consequence of unforeseen obstacles," chose instead to adopt "the reading of a majority of the ablest editors," producing a composite text to be used as the reference text for his edition (vii-viii). Composite texts were also used as reference texts for next three volumes: Macbeth (1873), Hamlet (1877), and King Lear (1880). In 1886, The New Variorum Shakespeare underwent the first of its many transformations. Evidently preparing the first four volumes caused Furness to reflect more deeply on the nature of Shakespearean texts: But when we study Shakespeare [as opposed to simply reading him], then our mood changes; no longer are we "sitting at a play," the passive recipients of impressions through the eye and ear, but we weigh every word, analyse every expression, shift every phrase, that no grain of art or beauty which we can assimilate shall escape. To do this to our best advantage we must have Shakespeare's own words before us. No other words will avail, even though they be those of the wisest and most inspired of our day and generation. We must have Shakespeare's own text; or, failing this, the nearest possible approach to it. We shall be duly grateful to the wise and learned, who, where phrases are obscure, give us the words which they believe to have been Shakespeare's; but, as students, we must have under our eyes the original text, which, however stubborn it may seem at times, may yet open its treasures to our importunity, and reveal charms before undreamed of. (Variorum Othello v) The "original text" Furness found in the 1623 First Folio. [Several paragraphs omitted.] Richard Knowles announced the next major transformation of the principles governing The New Variorum Shakespeare in his "Plan of the Work" for the 1977 A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: AS YOU LIKE IT: This edition differs somewhat from earlier volumes of the New Variorum Shakespeare. The text is not a type facsimile, but a modified diplomatic reprint of the First Folio text which ignores its significant typographical irregularities, corrects its obvious typographical errors, but retains its lineation. All significant departures from F1 are duly recorded. [Emphasis added] (ix) Under this editorial policy, which was followed by Mark Eccles in his 1980 MM and Marvin Spevack in his 1990 Ant., many typographical features of the original text are ignored or silently regularized: [Long quotation omitted.] My work in preparing the first volume of The Public-Domain, Old-Spelling, Electronic Shakespeare, SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS and A LOVER'S COMPLAINT (forthcoming from the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, University of Toronto), and my reading of the work of Jerome J. McGann and Randall McLeod have convinced me that the Variorum Shakespeare's new policy concerning the old-spelling reference texts for Variorum editions is a mistake. ******************************************************************************* The Tragical History of King Richard III As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal _________________________________________________________________ By C. Cibber. _________________________________________________________________ -------Domestica Facta ________________________________________________________________ LONDON, Printed for B. Lintott at the Middle Temple-Gate, in Fleet-street, and A. Bettesworth at the Red-Lyon on London Bridge. ________________________________________________________________ ADVERTISEMENT Newly publish'd, a Collection of Novels, in 2 Vol. viz. The secret History of the Earl of Essex and Queen Elizabeth. The Happy Slave, in 3 Parts, and the Double Cuckold : To which is added, the Art of Pleasing in Conversation : By Cardinal Richlieu. Vol.2. contains the Heroine Musqueteer, in 4 Parts. Incognita, or Love and Duty Reconcil'd : By Mr. Congreve. The Pilgrim, in 2 Parts, Price 10 s. Each Vol. may be had singly. The History of the Reign of Lewis XIII. King of France and Navarre : Containing the most Remarkable Occurrences in France and Europe, during the Minority of that Prince : By Mr. Michael le Vassor, faithfully Translated. Price 5 s. Where Gentlemen and Ladies may have all sorts of Plays and Novels * * * * * Etext Editor's Introduction Richard Garrick first made his fame in the role of Richard III and it remained the character for which he was most reknowned. The backstage blessing, "Break a leg!" is attributed by some to a Garrick performance as the hunch-backed villain during which the actor was so transported by the role that he did not notice he had suffered a fracture. Yet Garrick never spoke the lines modern readers most readily associate with the play, "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York." Like virtually all other Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century actors Garrick performed not Shakespeare's script but the adaptation premiered in 1700 by Colly Cibber who cut the opening lines of Richard's famous soliloquy. When Macready tried in the 1820's to reintroduce more of Shakespeare's text critics sniffed that he had only shown how hopelessly awkward the original was and audiences expressed their disappointment. He bowed to the outcry and returned to Cibber's familiar "improved" script the next season. As late as the turn of the century Samuel French distributed Cibber's rewrite, as performed in a New York staging of the 1840's, as the "acting version" of Richard III. In our century opinion has turned a hundred eighty degrees. The once despised original now rules the stage unchallenged and Cibber's version, which was the most oft-produced "Shakespeare" play in Nineteenth Century America, is relegated to the research stacks. Though Olivier preserved a couple of Cibber's best known lines, "Off with his head! So much for Buckingham," and "Richard is himself again," in his classic film version, few other directors dare brave the rath of "traditionalists" who stand guard against vandals who'd tinker with the "genuine" text. Given the Cibber script's long and distinguished stage history it is hard to understand what "tradition" these guardians so fiercely defend. Though Shakespeare's original is not so unstageable as Cibber and his contemporaries thought, neither is Cibber's play so unworthy as our century has concluded. Cibber was not a poetic genius, his widely ridiculed appointment as Poet Laureate notwithstanding, but he was a skilled craftsman who understood how to make the theatrical conventions of his age work effectively on stage almost as well as Shakespeare knew the tricks of late Elizabethan theater. If his text didn't work well in performance it would not have outlived all the other Restoration adaptations as long as it did. Though this text will interest curious scholars I hope it also draws the attention of directors and performers. A theater company planning a season might consider surprising its subscribers with a "Shakespeare" they are certain never to have seen before. A director who is doing Shakespeare's version might consider adding a little Cibber to the mix or trying some of Cibber's cuts and doubling to reduce the often unwieldy size of Shakespeare's cast or to tighten up the action. Richard's murder of Henry VI in Cibber's first act or his brutal treatment of Ann in the third could be added to an otherwise "traditional" production. The former is, after all, mostly Shakespeare's, and the scene with Anne, though entirely Cibber's invention, is in keeping with Richard's character as limned by Shakespeare, and, though not immortal verse, is excellent melodrama. For this etext edition I relied on the 1700 text, but I have noted some additions made to the text and to the cast list in the 1718 version. The later edition omitted Cibber's "Epistle Dedicatory" and "Preface" and did not identify which lines were Cibbers and which Shakespeare's. As ASCII does not have an italicized font I have marked the lines Cibber identified as Shakespeare's by enclosing them in %'s. I have substituted ASCII's (') for Cibber's reversed mark to identify the lines he claimed were "generally [Shakespeare's] thoughts," trusting readers to cope with the occaisonal initial "'Tis" or "'Twere." All others I left unmarked, tacitly accepting Cibber's claim they are "intirely my own," even when in cases like, "I would not pass another hour so dreadful / Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days," I have my doubts. I have tried to reproduce the stage directions in their full variety, some centered, some flushed right, some bracketted, others with a parenthesis. The only change I have made in the original's layout is to center the speaker's name in the line before each speech to make the text more useful as a performing script. Both the 1700 and 1718 editions divide the play into five acts and, though scene changes are noted, they are not numbered. Alert readers will spot lines not only from Cibber's primary sources, RIII and 3HVI, but also from 1&2HIV, HV, and 1&2HVI. Tables tracking the number of these borrowed lines appear in Furness' _New Variorum_ and the appendix to _Five Restoration Adaptations of Shakespere_. They differ slightly. Tom Dale Keever ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:03:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0289 Re: Macbeth's Death; Macduff; Ophelia's Rue Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0289. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 11:00:53 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:22:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death (3) From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 14:17:50 -0500 Subj: ophelia's rue (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 11:00:53 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death To all who responded to my query: First off, many thanks for all the ideas concerning Macbeth's end. I agree with many of you, and if I were producing the whole play, I might not try the different endings that I am drawn to in doing just the final battle. But I am intrigued by the idea that Macbeth is NOT noble at the end of the play. In fact, I am fascinated by the idea that his ambition for "everything" has left him with "nothing" (as in signifying) not even his dignity. It is the price he pays for losing his soul to power. Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf College pinnow@stolaf.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:22:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death Macduff early on in the play indicates his mistrust of Macbeth, or so I read the choric scene 2.4.20-38 (Signet ed.). Macbeth has betrayed his king (Duncan) and his colleague (Banquo) before Macduff leaves for England. Why would Macduff believe that Macbeth will not hold his family hostage? Were I Macbeth, I would. Macbeth makes a mistake and kills Macduff's family. I think Lady Macduff's comment to Ross (4,2,6-14) is telling. Her question remains unanswered. Of course, Macduff is not a completely developed character, and he doesn't indulge in Iago-like soliloquies, but I'm afraid I can't subdue my suspicions. You say I'm cynical and quick to judge. You bet! And if Macduff is indeed "Bellona's bridegroom" (1.2.54) who is fighting in Fife (wouldn't you expect the Thane of Fife to lead the local fighting?), then he is opposed to Macbeth early in the play. I realize that I may not be walking on thin ice here; I may be walking directly on the water! I think Shakespeare likes to suggest, hint, that the primary action of his plays is not isolated. It goes on in a context, and that context is often shadowy, illusive. I think Shakespeare depends on the active (paranoid) auditor to fill it in. And don't we ever? Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 14:17:50 -0500 Subject: ophelia's rue In Zeffirelli's film *Hamlet*, Helena Bonham-Carter's Ophelia hands the rue to Claudius, delivering the line "You must wear YOUR rue with a difference" with supremely nasty emphasis on "your." Just another staging possibility... Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:14:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0290 Qs: AYI Weather/Music; MLA Project Volunteer; Stylistics Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0290. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: Robert S. COHEN Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 07:31:38 -0800 (PST) Subj: As You weather and music (2) From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 17:12:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Computerized Shakespeare and the MLA (3) From: Michael Caulfield Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 01:58:59 -0500 (EST)| Subj: Stylistics (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert S. COHEN Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 07:31:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: As You weather and music Anybody have any thoughts about the weather conditions in the forest scenes of AS YOU LIKE IT? How much of the "icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind" does the exiled Duke and his pals actually face? I've seen Act II begin in the snow, and in the summer, and even (in Munich once) in a steam bath for the aged. Any thoughts? Also: anyone able to share with me some good contemporary scoring for the songs? Robert Cohen, UC Irvine Drama Department (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 17:12:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Computerized Shakespeare and the MLA Dear Fellow Shakesperians: In the last stages of preparing a proposal - probably too long a proposal - for the MLA, I find myself still in need of one gallant volunteer: someone who would be able to and would like to write a fairly brief introduction to a section on computerizing the bard in the MLA volume on Teaching through Performance: this introduction would group the kinds of computer aids available for those teaching Shakespeare; it would be accompanied by an itemized check list of available computer materials (hypercard stacks and such - none of which I understand yet, but which I'm sure I soon will). The section itself will highlight the in-progress MIT program, burt I need a good introduction written by someone who knows what s/he is talking about to place that in context. Any takers? Best, Milla Riggio [email me at Milla.Riggio@Mail.Trincoll.Edu or RIGGIO@ADS.TRINCOLL.EDU] (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Caulfield Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 01:58:59 -0500 (EST)| Subject: Stylistics During a recent discussion with a friend it was mentioned that "Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast" (from Henry IV, 2) had an undeniable Shakespearian sound. I thought that it might have to do with the modification: the way in which the connotations of "giddy" seem to jar slightly against those of "high". I would be interested to hear of any ideas on this, other examples in S., or works which might help with this question. Michael Caulfield Merrimack, NH ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:37:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0291 Announcments: Malone Society; Lit List Interviews Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0291. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: Thomas Berger Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 14:14:09 EST Subj: malone society (2) From: J. Scott Kemp Date: Wednesday, Mar 30 21:23:32 1994 Subj: Lit List Interview (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Berger Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 14:14:09 EST Subject: malone society The Malone Society seeks new members. Founded in 1906, the Malone Society was named after Edmond Malone, editor of the first variorum edition of Shakespeare. The Society's first General Editor was W. W. Greg. Now under the general editorship of Dr. Roger Holdsworth, it continues to publish editions of Renaissance plays from manuscript, photographic facsimiles of printed plays of the period, and editions of original documents related to the drama. These volumes, all of which contain material not readily available elsewhere, maintain the high standard of a ccuracy for which the Society is renowned. They are indispensable to serious students of English drama. SPECIAL "SHAKSPER" OFFER As part of its ongoing membership drive, the Malone Society is offering new members two special packages: (1) 2-4-1 (two for one): Enroll as a member for 1994, and the membership will include the 1993 volume, COLLECTIONS XV ($27.00 U.S., $35.00 Canadian) (COLLECTIONS XV includes a reprint of one of Ralph Crane's transcripts of Middleton's A GAME AT CHESS; a reprint of the part of 'Poore' in an otherwise unknown Jacobean play acted at Christ Chruch, Oxford; a collection of records from the archives of the Middle Temple, relating to dramatic and musical entertainments, 1613-1643; and a letter from Sir Henry Killigrew to the Earl of Leicester enclosing proposals for a fireworks display for Queen Elizabeth.) (2) 3-4-1.5 (three for one and one half): Enroll as a member for 1994, and the membership will include the 1993 volume, COLLECTIONS XV and the 1992 volume, TOM A LINCOLN ($45.00 U.S., $52.00 Canadian). (TOM A LINCOLN, edited by Richard Proudfoot from BL Add MS 61745, dates from 1611-16 and is of historical interest not only for its echoes of Shakespeare but for its burlesque of the conventions of romantic narrative and romantic drama.) Members also receive positively silly discounts on back volumes, special treatment at the Malone Society Dance, and the (incalculable) good will of Tom Berger and Ted McGee. Please send inquiries to: Thomas L. Berger C. E. McGee Department of English Department of English St. Lawrence University Univ. of St. Jerome's College Canton, NY 13617 Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G3 U.S.A. CANADA Thanks, Tom Berger (TBER@SLUMUS.BITNET) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. Scott Kemp Date: Wednesday, Mar 30 21:23:32 1994 Subject: Lit List Interview Dear Colleagues, Last call for any who would be interested in answering a "short" questionnaire (6 questions) concerning the topic: "How Lit Lists are changing the way we Discuss/Learn English/Literature" Send request to scott@micronet.wcu.edu Attention: Last call! Thanks so much to those who participated in this study. Sincerely, John Scott Kemp Western Carolina University scott@micronet.wcu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 11:55:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0293 The Sonnets; Belott; Authors and Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0293. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1)From: John Rhoades <3JPR9@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 20:10:47 EST Subject: The Sonnets (2)From: Timothy Bowden Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 15:53:35 PST Subject: Young Friend Belott (3)From: John Cox Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 15:01:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Authors and productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Rhoades <3JPR9@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 20:10:47 EST Subject: The Sonnets SHAKSPereans: It seems that most of the discussion over the past few months has discussed only the dramas, so under the category of something completely different, a question for all of you. In reading the sonnets, I was struck by how they seem to function as a transition point between the Elizabethan sonnetteers and seventeenth century poets such as Jonson and Herrick. More specifically, it seems that the absence (?) of a traditional sonnet woman and the absence of stock sonnet machinery (especially war metaphors) paves the way for Jonson and Herrick's poems portraying them as aging lovers. I realize this is but the sketchiest of arguments, but I would appreciate any feedback anyone could offer. Thanks in advance, John Rhoades Queen's University 3JPR9@QUCDN.QueensU.CA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 15:53:35 PST Subject: Young Friend Belott I believe, with the recent shifting in the dates of the sonnets to directly overlap at least a portion of the Poet's stay with the Mountjoys, and given especially the identical objectives expressed in both the early poems and the depositions in the Belott suit, we can say with some certainty the early sonnets grew out of an exercise Shakespeare devised to fulfill the mission urged on him by Mrs Mountjoy: pressing the young man to marry. There is at least as much authority for this finding as there is for any other identity of any of the principals sketched by the poet, indeed more than for most of the legend generally accepted in some quarters; the deer poaching, the holding of the horses, the Mermaid matches of wits with Jonson. There. A controversial claim raises the question where a meek inquiry passes unnoticed. Thanks to those who have responded, and shall. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For those who think that having Shakespeare present at a production of one of his plays, the following is instructive. It's a short article from *The Manchester Guardian Weekly* of March 27, 1994 (p. 11): Trustees of the estate of the playwright Samuel Beckett are so angered with the interpretation of one of his plays in a production running in London that they have declared its director will never stage his plays again. Deborah Warner's production of Beckett's 20-minute play, Footfalls, opened last week at the Garrick Theatre in the West End with Fiona Shaw in the leading role. Their crime in the eyes of the trustees was in failing to comply with the exacting instructions which the playwright insisted in his will should be followed to the letter in every production of his plays. "We have not done anything about the fact that she has not followed all the stage directions. Life is too short, but she will not be doing Beckett again," said Leah Schmidt, literary agent to the playwright's nephew and heir, Edward Beckett. Ms Warner greeted news of the ban with anger. "It is with deepest regret that I heard this news and urgently ask them to reconsider this position," she said. "Plays are fluid things not objects; they can exist only by being reinter-preted for each generation." The dispute has cost Ms Warner the option to take the production to Paris. Earlier, the trustees raised concerns that five lines of text had been transposed from one character to another. Ms Warner apologised and returned to the original. John Cox ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 12:15:25 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0294 Re: Folio-Based Editions; Abridged MND; R3 and Daughter Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0294. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:52:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Folio edition (2) From: Kurt Daw Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 08:30:24 EST Subj: Re: Folio editions (3) From: David M Richman Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 13:49:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0286 Q: Abridged *MND*; Re: Three-Toad Crest (4) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 02:12:11 EST Subj: Re: Richard III and _The Daughter of Time_ (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:52:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Folio edition Michael: Yes, you remember correctly. I tried to use the Hinman Folio (when it cost $12.50 a copy) as an undergraduate text. And you remember correctly that the students quickly returned to their modernized texts with footnotes. So much for my noble experiment. What I am proposing at present is a modernized student edition with footnotes and with the text based on the Folio (1623). You might wish to look at Margreta de Grazia's SHAKESPEARE VERBATIM: THE REPRODUCTION OF AUTHENTICITY AND THE 1790 APPARATUS. It seems to me that a good deal of contemporary scholarship leads with an insidious intent to a Folio based text with a companion text based on the Quartos. This project will give Shakespearean scholars a good deal of work to do As Bernice Kliman has recently pointed out, some (if not many) of our judgments about the plays are wrong because we are misled by our texts, texts that have been created by editors over the last three hundred years. Editorial decisions have become canonized (when they should be cannonized). I admit that I have been fooled when I have tried to make a subtle point WITHOUT consulting the Folio and/or the Quarto. But I gather from the relative silence that no such project is waiting in the wings and that no one (?) is very enthusiastic. Oh, well. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kurt Daw Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 08:30:24 EST Subject: Re: Folio editions Re: Michael Young's question: "Could our undergraduates understand a nonedited text?" As a performance teacher I can only echo Bill G.'s appeal for a good folio-based edition. I have frequently taught from modern typeface editions of folio texts and find that acting students, at least, discover these texts to be at least as accessible as modern editions. The simplest explanation I can offer for this is that the considerably lighter puncuation of the folio is a far better guide as to how the texts are to be spoken aloud than modern editions offer. Speaking the texts aloud well usually leads to quicker and deeper insights on my student's parts than does extensive discussion. Perhaps my students are odd, but the elaborate footnoting of modern editions is often more confusing that enlightening to them. So much minutiae gets a note while big issues and questions go unexplored. The biggest problem with using folio-based materials as a teaching approach is that modern typeface folio texts are hard to come by. One source (with which I have no commercial connection) is a series called Shakespeare's Globe Acting Editions, M.H. Publications, 17 West Heath Drive, London, NW11 7QG, UK. At $66 per play these are fairly expnsive but they come with unlimited photocopy rights for teaching and production. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 13:49:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0286 Q: Abridged *MND*; Re: Three-Toad Crest I am directing a ninety-minute MND, which is touring to high schools and middle schools in New Hampshire. Eight performers, two vans. I made the abridgements with sadness--it is a desecration to cut so perfect a play. On the other hand, it is important to bring this play, live, to many who have never seen live theatre. I can send the script to the Shaksper fileserver, or directly to the interested parties. Is there sufficient interest to warrant a fileserver mounting? David Richman University of New Hampshire (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 02:12:11 EST Subject: Re: Richard III and _The Daughter of Time_ _Daughter of Time_ is an entertaining read, but unreliable history. Elizabeth MacKintosh, writing under the pen name "Josephine Tey," based her story on only one source, Sir Clements R. Markham, who laid out his combative revisionist theory in _The English Historical Review_ in 1891 and later expanded it for a book length 1906 bio, _Richard III: His Life and Character_. Markham was an energetic and opinionated crank with no qualifications or ability as an historian or as much else besides a clubby Victorian/Edwardian gentleman with independent means, society connections and a full complement of Colonel Blimpish bigotries. This lack did not prevent him from weighing in with strong opinions on numerous erudite topics from medieval history to polar exploration. As one of the chief fund-raisers on the committee sponsoring Scott's South Pole expedition, for instance, he threw his intimidating weight against the suggestion that the explorer consider using dog sleds and skis. ( No! by thunder! Let lesser races do what they will, ENGLISHMEN will conquer the pole with stout British ponies! ) Thanks to "Tey's" unearthing his justly neglected work almost a half century later his pernicious effect on the popular mythology surrounding Richard has been longer lived, though less tragic, than his impact on the hapless Scott. "Tey" may have read nothing more than Markham's opening salvo in The EHR - almost all the points she built her detective's "case" on are there. She certainly looked no further than his work for evidence. Had she done so she'd have learned that several contemporary experts, including the age's recognized authority on the period, James Gairdner, had blown large holes in Markham's theory, whose central point was that Henry VII, not Richard, had murdered the princes in the tower. She also ignored two discoveries in the 1930's that sank it once and for all. The first was the unearthing in Vatican archives of "The Mancini Manuscript," an Italian cleric's 1483 communique to the Pope reporting on events in London. Mancini shreds Markham's fanciful portrait of a London public confident that the young princes were safe in the care of their loving uncle. We now know that the boys disappeared from public view early in Richard's reign and that more than a few of his subjects suspected the worst. A biography by Philip Lindsay in 1933 revived Markham's indictment of Henry VII. In July of that year the bones that had been discovered in The Tower in 1674, long presumed to be those of Edward IV's young sons, were finally disinterred and examined. The results, published in the journal _Archaeologia_ the following year, concluded that the elder of the two boys was between twelve and thirteen when he died and the younger between nine and eleven. The boys were almost certainly killed before the end of 1483. Though this does not prove that Richard ordered them murdered ( personally, I suspect Buckingham ) it does exonerate Henry VII, who entered London two years later. I agree that Saccio is the beginning Shakespearean's best introduction to these complex matters and that Kendall is good reading, but the definitive modern works on Richard and his age are Charles Ross' biographies of Richard and of Edward IV, both published by U. of California Press. "Tey" fans, and I count myself one, should read Colin Dexter's recent homage, _The Wench is Dead_, in which a bed-ridden Inspector Morse unravels a nineteenth century murder mystery and exposes a long hidden injustice. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 09:24:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macbeth's Death; Macduff Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0295. Friday, 1 April 1994. (1) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 14:04:33 +0100 Subj: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death (2) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 10:05:00 est Subj: RE: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 14:04:33 +0100 Subject: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death On Macbeth's death: none of the contributions to this discussion so far has mentioned the structural symmetry of M's death with that of the first Thane of Cawdor (the traitor Macbeth defeated and replaced), who also dies with a certain amount of dignity: "Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving of it." This line of course prompt Duncan's beautifully ironic: "There's no art/ to find the mind's construction in the face; / He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust" (I.iv.7-14). Delicious, isn't it? On Macduff's departure: he's in England for the same reasons Ross and Malcolm are--to seek help against Macbeth. What's wrong with that? I agree that the exchange between Lady Macduff and her son is puzzling and problematic, but she wouldn't be the first woman who speaks as she does when her partner goes off to do some patriotic (not to mention patriarchal) thing. Cheers, Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 10:05:00 est Subject: RE: SHK 5.0267 Q: Macbeth's Death Historically, it's my understanding that Macbeth actually fled from Macduff, leaving me to think Macbeth's fall in battle could be an intentional injection of dignity. Deny him that and Macbeth seems to me less interesting as a central character. Like Richard III, who has his humour to round out his butchery, Macbeth need his dignity to keep us paying attention. jimmy jung jungj@jmbpo3.bah.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 09:43:34 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0296 Re: Folio-Based Editions, Footnotes, Using Original Texts Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0296. Friday, 1 April 1994. (1) From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 12:43:19 -0500 Subj: Re: the hazards of footnotes (2) From: Michael Caulfield Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 02:16:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Folio Texts (3) From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Friday, 01 Apr 94 08:40:49 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0294 Folio-Based Editions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 12:43:19 -0500 Subject: Re: the hazards of footnotes Re: Michael Young's question -- I wonder if anyone else does what I do about edited texts and footnotes. I tell students to read the play straight through, preferably at one or two sittings, first and then to reread with the footnotes. I began to advise this practice when a colleague in biology volunteered to do a paper on The Tempest for a 'great books/liberal studies' dress rehearsal which involved faculty only. He got completely bogged down in the footnotes, good scholar that he was and was bored by the play. I suggested a straight read-through for basic plot and flow, the closest one can get in the study to seeing the play. That untangled it for him and revived his interest. My students, - those who do read the play more than once [final exams are upon us so pardon the seasonal cynicism] -also seem to find that advice helpful. Of course, they do get lectures on Q and F, variants and the traps of look alike words whose meanings have changed etc. as a raison d'etre for not using Aunt Millie's old unannotated Globe text. Happy Easter all. Up here classes resume Easter Mon but conclude in 10 days. Mary Jane Miller, Brock University, mjmiller@spartan.ac.brocku.ca (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Caulfield Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 02:16:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Folio Texts Concerning Kurt Daw's comment that the lack of punctuation in unmodernized texts provides better reading cues to actors: if my memory serves me right, Roman Jakobson makes a similar point (regarding the sonnets) in his analysis of "Th'expence of spirit". The essay can be found in his *Language & Literature* volume. Especially where complex wordplay is prevalent in a text, the unnoted insertion of punctuation can be quite destructive. Michael Caulfield Merrimack, NH (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Friday, 01 Apr 94 08:40:49 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0294 Folio-Based Editions Using early editions? An anecdote about early editions -- quarto and Folio texts -- in classrooms: About six years ago I gave a workshop as part of series for New Jersey teachers interested in Shakespeare. The opening session, a week earlier, offered me a chance to distribute xeroxes of the 1597 and 1599 quartos. These were straight from facsimiles, though a few pages illegible in facsimile were followed by copies of equivalents taken from a 19th century diplomatic reprint. I asked the participants to look at the alternatives, concentrating on passages that they usually spent time on with students. At the next session one brave soul reported that she had made copies of copies and worked with them with her FOURTH GRADE class in the pine forests of central Jersey. They acted out the different texts of specific scenes. When she then turned to go into other activities, she handed out the standard issues modern type-face school texts. The class rebelled, she reported, saying, "We want the REAL plays." Just an anecdote. And scurrillously scampering away from the ontological "reality claims" of those imperfect witnesses from the olden days. But, hey, plays themselves smack of make-believe that we willingly choose to believe while we know we are making that belief. That's different from Authority, Editorial Style. To lay hands on copies of the earliest texts and to give them to your classes, perhaps you can xerox from an out-of-copyright 19th century facsimile. At 5 to 10 cents per two-page opening, you can have a Q1 HAMLET for $2-$4 if your school won't run them up for free. And for years I've been handing out small parallel text chunks of plays, a scene, a ten line passage of alternative actions, etc. If anyone would like to get "purple alternative passages" from LEAR, HAMLET, ROMEO AND JULIET, HENRY VI parts 2 and 3, and MERRY WIVES, I'll be glad to send them out. As ever, Steve Urkowitz Department of English City College of New York New York, NY 10031 SURCC@CUNYVM ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 10:21:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0297 Re: AYI Weather; Stylistics; Deathbed Scenes; Hamlet Trial Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0297. Friday, 1 April 1994. (1) From: Paul Silverman Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 11:33:22 -0800 Subj: AYI Weather/Music (2) From: Chris Kendall Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 17:26:12 -0700 (MST) Subj: Stylistics (3) From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 16:08 ET Subj: Deathbed Scenes (4) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 08:35 ET Subj: Hamlet on Trial (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Silverman Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 11:33:22 -0800 Subject: AYI Weather/Music >Anybody have any thoughts about the weather conditions in the forest scenes of >AS YOU LIKE IT? How much of the "icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's >wind" does the exiled Duke and his pals actually face? I've seen Act II begin >in the snow, and in the summer, and even (in Munich once) in a steam bath for >the aged. Any thoughts? I was involved in a production last sumer at the California Shakespeare Festival that was set in 19th-century Russia. The weather being nothing if not inhospitable, the enthusiasm expressed by the Duke in Act II was not shared by his crew. Ironic reads of all these lines, and weary reactions to the Duke's verve for comic effect. And beautiful Russian folk scoring of the songs. Paul Silverman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 17:26:12 -0700 (MST) Subject: Stylistics "... the high and giddy mast" Somewhere there's a glossary of figures of speech that I must get so that I can identify subjects like the above and amaze and bore people at parties. What's the name of this one, where a quality evinced in a human being by an object is ascribed to the object itself? I, too, find this trope "Shakespearian" but can't say exactly why. Possibly because he employed it so frequently and with such startling economy. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 16:08 ET Subject: Deathbed Scenes In connection with an article-in-progress on deathbed scenes in Shakespeare (of which a draft is on file with SHAKSPER), I would appreciate pointers to scenes in non-Shakespearean early modern drama that represent people dying of more or less natural causes (old age, disease). You can email them to me directly, d.evett@csuohio.edu, or by paper mail to Dept. of English, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115. Thanks in advance. Dave Evett (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 08:35 ET Subject: Hamlet on Trial I noticed that this weekend, C-SPAN (of all networks) is going to be airing a mock trial of Hamlet (for the murder of Polonius?), featuring one of the Supreme Court justices and members of the White House legal staff doing the cross-examining. The first airing is on Saturday at around 10:00 am EST, and I'm sure they'll repeat the program at some point during the weekend. Check the listings; I just happened to notice this as I was reading TV GUIDE just as I was leaving for work, so I didn't have time to write this information down properly! Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University ebedgert@suadmin.syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Apr 1994 07:44:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0298 Macduff and Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0298. Friday, 2 April 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 11:27:17 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macduff (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 14:13:46 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macbeth's Death; Macduff (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 22:53:08 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macbeth's Death; Macduff (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 11:27:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macduff Like Naomi Liebler, I agree that the exchange between Lady Macduff and her son is puzzling and problematic, but I think it has something to do with the issue of "manhood," which is defined in competing and contradictory ways throughout the play and is associated, I think, with the contradictions between residual and emergent conceptions of marriage. (Cf., e.g.,"I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." "When you durst do it, then you were a man." "Dispute it like a man." "But I must also feel it as a man") Macbeth's murder of Duncan takes place in the context of a close, affective bond with his wife, which historians associate with an emergent ideal of companionate marriage. Macduff's heroic, patriotic action requires literal and figurative estrangement from his wife, which reminds me of the old-fashioned ideal of the warrior satirized in Hotspur's preference for his horse to his wife. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 14:13:46 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macbeth's Death; Macduff Just a question for Bill Godshalk. Is there any reason to think that Macduff is not Thane of Fife? It is where he lives, after all, and he seems to receive the respect given to other Thanes. As for his leaving for England, it hardly makes him a bad or ambitious person. He is, after all, the man who desires the voices of the thanes "aloud with mine" to proclaim Malcolm king, and he no doubt saves hundreds of lives by helping to end Macbeth's tyranny. He doesn't enjoy leaving his wife exposed in the process, but if he doesn't run this risk, even more will die. Cheers, Sean Lawrence. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 22:53:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0295 Re: Macbeth's Death; Macduff Okay, let's admit that that the first thane of Cawdor dies with dignity, or, at least, Malcolm so reports his death (1.4.7-8, Wells and Taylor). That does NOT prove that Macbeth died in the the same fashion. In fact, isn't Macbeth a traitor worse that the former thane? I don't see why we have to glorify this murderer. I don't see why we have to see this play as a tragedy -- if tragedy means that the protagonist has redeeming qualities. Macbeth does NOT have redeeming qualities. He kills his direct superior to get his place; he kills his friend; he kills a defenseless family of women and children; he kills a boy warrior. I would not really like to hear anyone defend this kind of behavior for any reason. I don't think that Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth are the kind of people I'd like to live with. If you want them as neighbor, I guess we won't be hearing from you again. Let's not glorify this kind of violence. Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Apr 1994 07:55:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0299 Re: Hamlet's Trial; Richard 3; Stylistics; Plain-Dealing Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0299. Friday, 2 April 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 09:11:24 -0600 Subj: Hamlet's trial (2) From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 11:14:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: Richard III (3) From: Lynne Magnusson Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 14:01:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Stylistics (4) From: Douglas Bruster Date: Friday, 1 Apr 94 18:23:43 CST Subj: Plain-dealing (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 01 Apr 1994 09:11:24 -0600 Subject: Hamlet's trial For those who have been anxiously awaiting the outcome, here's the report compliments of the Associated Press (it appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Thursday, March 31). Killing Polonius was felonious The insanity defense worked for John Hinckley Jr. and Lorena Bobbitt, but Shakespeare's melancholy Dane might be in big trouble if he went on trial today for killing poor Polonius. Despite lawyers' vigorous arguments, a mock-trial jury at the Supreme Court didn't buy the argument that the protagonist of Shakespeare's royal blood bath, *Hamlet,* was insane when he stabbed Polonius to death. Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech was not the babble of a mentally unbalanced man, but a deep thinker's musing about the condition of humanity, prosecutors convinced a jury that included Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The exercise was all in fun, but made a valuable point, said presiding Justice Anthony Kennedy. "The issue of criminal responsibility is quite manageable and doesn't have to be a circus." The Shakespeare Theatre's Lawyers Committee sponsored the event. The insanity defence has long been a controversial one. Those who failed to prove they were insane include Jack Ruby, killer of Lee Harvey Oswald, and Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted of assassinating Robert Kennedy. A finding that Hamlet could be held criminally responsible would not necessarily end the case in real life. Given the chance, his lawyers said, they would argue that the killing of Polonius was justified. But there wasn't time for that issue. For now, Kennedy told an actor portraying Hamlet, "We remand you to the pages of our literary history where you may emerge again and again to challenge us to examine ourselves." (Associated Press) Have a lovely weekend, everyone! --Chris Gordon (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 11:14:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Richard III Last month, while visiting my daughter at Marlboro College in Vermont, I saw a student-written and -directed play (Title did not stick with me) about a student faced with finishing a thesis about the Richard III question--was he he or was he not guilty of murdering the young princes and other atrocities. In despair, he makes a deal with the devil, not quite selling his soul, to get definitive evidence one way or another. The result is to call up Ross and two other scholars who present their alternative pictures of the nature of Richard. Very funny...and a wonderfully imaginative way for this particular student to avoid finishing her thesis! Joel Plotkin SUNY Inst. of Tech. at Utica/Rome (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lynne Magnusson Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 14:01:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Stylistics Michael Caulfield asks what works might help explain the "undeniably Shakespearian sound" of "Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast." The best piece I know on this sort of imbalanced adjectival doublet in Shakespeare is "Hendiadys and _Hamlet_" by George T. Wright in _PMLA_, 96 (1981): 168-93. Some of the older books on Shakespeare's poetry also deal with it, perhaps George Rylands. Lynne Magnusson University of Waterloo (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas Bruster Date: Friday, 1 Apr 94 18:23:43 CST Subject: Plain-dealing Re: the recent discussion of "plain dealing" arising from the "good character" debate. Those interested may wish to consult the remarks on the character named "Plaine-dealing" in Dekker's *Whore of Babylon* in Jean Howard's new *The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England* (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), chapter 3. Doug Bruster ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Apr 1994 07:58:04 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0300. Friday, 2 April 1994. From: Dana Goldstein Date: Friday, 1 Apr 1994 16:45 EDT Subject: Shakespeare and the King James Bible I heard a rumor recently that Shakespeare may have had something to do with the creation of the King James Bible. This seemed unlikely to me but, not being a biblical scholar (or even much of a Shakespearean one), I had no good reason to refute the rumor, other than that it seemed too interesting to be true. Does anyone have any information in either camp that could illuminate the "truth" here? Thanks in advance, Dana Leslie Goldstein ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 07:22:01 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0301 Re: Shakespeare and the King James Bible Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0301. Sunday, 3 April 1994. (1) From: Kalev Pehme Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 08:07:03 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible (2) From: Michael Calvert Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 94 09:51:28 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kalev Pehme Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 08:07:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible There is a cipher regarding Shakespeare's connection, or rather, translation of the Bible or his contribution to it. The King James Bible was completed when Shakespeare was 46 years old. If you go to the 46 Psalm and go to the 46 word, you will find "shake". At the end of this verse (3), you will find the word "Selah" which may be interpreted as "spear". Allegedly, this "spear" is not in the original Bible and is an interpolation. Hence, by this cipher, as with many Shakespeare ciphers, we know that Shakespeare translated the Bible or some part of it. If you believe this, well we have a little Bridge in New York... Kindest regards, Kalev Pehme PEHME@Delphi.Com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Calvert Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 94 09:51:28 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible Dana Goldstein asks whether Shakespeare had anything to do with the creation of the King James Bible--I'm no expert on the creation of that work, but here's a bit of curious information imparted to me by a colleague several years ago. I don't know who first noticed it. In 1610, the year before the Bible was completed, Shakespeare would have been 46 years old. Turn to Psalm 46 in the King James, and count, first, 46 words from the beginning of the psalm, then count backwards 46 from the end--not counting the final "Selah". Interesting, eh? Knowing Shakespeare's fondness for punning on his own name --witness the fun he was with "Will" in the sonnets--this bit of evidence, though scarcely definitive, seems hard to ignore. Michael Calvert ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 07:32:35 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0302 Re: Macbeth and Macduff Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0302. Sunday, 3 April 1994. (1) From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 2 Apr 1994 15:39:25 +0100 Subj: Macbeth as tragedy (2) From: Milla Riggio Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 10:34:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0298 Macduff and Macbeth (3) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 15:25:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Macbeth, Macduff (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 2 Apr 1994 15:39:25 +0100 Subject: Macbeth as tragedy In the Macbeth-Macduff controversy (Vol. 5, No. 0298. Friday, 2 April 1994), Bill Godshalk wondered what made *Macbeth* a tragedy (he writes :"I don't see why we have to see this play as a tragedy -- if tragedy means that the protagonist has redeeming qualities."). I would like to bring in examples of tragedies whose heroes (-ines) are certainly not easy to define, and are not endowed with redeeming qualities. I would say that certainly the French classical poeticists like Boileau wouldn't have rated *Macbeth* as a tragedy for lack of the bleeding 3 unities, but perhaps this is one more reason for reading it as a tragedy if there are more essential qualities to tragedy. If you look at Racine's *Phedre*, the protagonist has no redeeming qualities, in *Britannicus*, who is protagonist? Nero? Britannicus? the title role in *Andromaque* has a redeeming quality, but what shall we do of queen Athaliah in *Athalie*? Others would bring other instances from other national literatures, and yet these plays would never be defined as something else than tragedies. In Aristotle's definition of tragedy, I'd rather look at the purgation of passions element (katharsis) for a consensual definition; I think that Nietzsche would be on the same line; he was a much better poeticist AND philosopher than Malherbe, Boileau and their mates. In the aforesaid cases, as in *Macbeth*, there IS purgation and restoration of order, not merely of community order, but also of cosmic order. To me *Macbeth* is the most efficiently tragical play by Shakespeare, as it does involve a total disruption of what Elizabethans and Jacobeans would have regarded at the time as God-willed cosmic harmony: regicide, usurpation, political murder, infanticide, witchcraft at all levels of society (the old hags and the thane's wife and queen-to-be herself), which both Bodin and James VI of Scotland (by then James I of England) agreed to regard as the worst threat unto the harmony of the bodie politique. Even the witches predictions conspire with the restoration of order and harmony. Would I like to have the MacBees as next-door neighbours? no, Bill but why expell from SHAKSPER those who would accept to take the risk? Yours as ever, Luc (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 10:34:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0298 Macduff and Macbeth Regarding Macbeth, Macduff, marriage, and manhood: I am prompted to write by Phyllis Rackin and William Godshalk, and though I haven't thought this through carefully, here are two quick responses to two different issues: on the question of "manhood" and marriage - surely Phyllis is right in evoking the evolving models of marriage. Shakespeare has more than once worked in assumptions that suggest he believes in what the social historians call the "companionate" marriage - he gives his women choice of mates (even when they are very young women, as in the case of Juliet and even when the choice does not work out very well, as in the case of Desdemona - however complicated that choice is, Sh. does not follow the source in just making OTHELLO a moral play about disobeying daddy in these matters). And in JULIUS CAESAR it is clear that if the men listened to the advice of their mates - both Portia and Calphurnia - they would have fared better. And yes, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have that kind of relationship (this time, by the way, the lady was dead -- oops, pardon the pun -- wrong!) And I think Phyllis is right in saying that Macduff follows a different model in leaving his wife for the sake of the state. And the wife feels abandoned. All very true. But don't forget Macduff's mourning his wife and children: In answer to Malcolm's cry to "dispute it like a man," Macduff replies, "Yes, but I must feel it as a man," and he weeps. This, too, is part of what manhood is all about and Macduff's shocked grief and his ability to express that grief in tears sets him apart from the Hotspurs of Shakespeare's world. Even his wife's sense of abandonment suggests that this is peculiar behavior on her husband's part. And as for Macbeth's monstrosity, Bill Godshalk, well, yes, who ever thought about defending Macbeth's BEHAVIOR. But the play is not just about a series of mod movie brutalities. Much of the drama is played out in Macbeth's conscience. The play dramatizes over and over again the price Macbeth pays in his consciousness of his actions, compared to which mere death - however brutal - is a blessing. His is the torment of the damned (and at a time when that torment was beginning to be seen as psychological, when hell in modern parlance was becoming "portable," transportable into the mind). At the end of the play, he has a chance to do what he actually knows how to do: fight a battle. He has plumbed the depths and now at last he simply gets to stand and fight. For me, it's a much stronger moment if he does just that. I'd probably hate to see a whining, grovelling, cowardly end for Macbeth, but then that is simply a director's choice. Directors are free to make choices, and I would say that the more important question is what leads up to this choice that makes it believable in terms of the development of the character throughout the play. If you lead Macbeth to that moment in some way - perhaps his fear of damnation is so great that, despite his hatred of himself, he has a cowardly fear of the death that will damn him eternally. Or some such. This ending, let's recall, will involve skewing the text itself, and again I'd druther not see that. But again, that is a director's choice. Best, Milla Riggio (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 15:25:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Macbeth, Macduff It seems to me a misrepresentation to imply that those of us who would speak for Macbeth (note: _not_ vindicate, exonerate, or excuse him), who would try to acknowledge the agonizing complexity of the issues the play raises, are somehow out to glorify the kind of violence of which the hero is undoubtedly guilty. Usurpation, regicide, and murdering the defenseless are, indeed, dire and dreadful matters, and the play, as far as I can see, makes no attempt to render that judgment problematic. But it may encourage us to ponder the considerable extent to which we prefer to think of the capacity for enormity as something belonging exclusively to other people. Unspeakable deeds may be comfortably cordoned off by defining them as the kind of things monsters do. Then we have only to paint the monster on a pole and underwrite "Here may you see the tyrant" to maintain a clear conscience. We glimpse something here of the great convenience Caliban offers to those whose behavior is not exactly beyond scrutiny. It seems to me fruitless to debate whether Macduff was or was not right to leave wife and children for the service of his country. What the episode shows us in this upsetting and morally unflinching play is that even deeds undertaken for the most highminded and unimpeachable reasons may embroil the doer in dubious and inculpating consequences. Macduff, I think, realizes this fleetingly in his plangent self-address concerning his butchered family: "Sinful Macduff, / They were all strook for thee! naught that I am, / Not for their own demerits, but for mine, / Fell slaughter on their souls" (IV.iii.224-27). If, a scant ten lines later, Macduff is once again referring to Macbeth as "this fiend of Scotland," it is not despite his introspective moment but because of it, a way of denying the unendurable moral complexity he has glimpsed but briefly. In his last conference with the Weird Sisters, Macbeth asks them, "What is't you do?", and they reply, "A deed without a name" (IV.i.49). All deeds are ultimately nameless in this terrifying and, I would maintain, profoundly tragic play in that all out attempts to name them without ambiguity are bound in some degree to fail. Fair is foul, and foul is fair. --Ron Macdonald ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 07:44:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0303 Re: Authors & Productions; Richard III; SSE Contest Winner Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0303. Sunday, 3 April 1994. (1) From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 2 Apr 1994 15:39:31 +0100 Subj: Beckett (2) From: Hilary Thimmesh Date: Saturday, 2 Apr 1994 11:44:05 -0600 (CST) Subj: Richard III (3) From: Ralph Cohen Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 17:12:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 4.0450 Re: SSE Contest (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 2 Apr 1994 15:39:31 +0100 Subject: Beckett Re: Authors and productions In his posting identified above, John Cox said that Deborah Warner was having trouble with Beckett's heirs about his short play *Footfalls* and that she would be taking her production to France. I'm glad this would give me an opportunity to see a new production by her, as I loved her *Titus Andronicus* of the Swan Theatre a few years ago. Yet, let her beware: last time the Comedie Franciase themselves wanted to put a Beckett play (shortly before his death), the man himself denied them the right to produce it in a way he did not approve of. It seems that the heirs would be taking the same risks over here as in London. I call this risk on their part, as this is a sort of power abuse concerning the interpretation of a work of art. A legal case could be brought against them, as a different reading of B's directions could be put forth and justified, with greater competence in drama and theatre than the heirs could ever pretend to. They are only depriving themselves of the opportunity to get more money from the production of their ancestor's works. Even liberal economists would agree with this, though they had never read or heard the word 'art'. I think that French law on artistic property might provide information on this. It is very respectful of the rights of creators, both as original creators and as interpreters of original works. So there is a hope if my information on that law is not wrong. Yours, Luc (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hilary Thimmesh Date: Saturday, 2 Apr 1994 11:44:05 -0600 (CST) Subject: Richard III Regarding "the good Richard III" Charles Ross has a helpful summary of historical sources in his *Richard III* (California, 1981), including two that are contemporary with Richard's reign--Dominic Mancini and the Croyland Chronicle-- and thus escape suspicion of Tudor bias. It would be nice to report that they know nothing about all the nasty things the Tudor establishment later alleged against Richard, but according to Ross even these presumably impartial accounts present a troubling picture of the King, Croyland in particular pointedly leaving things unsaid with a sort of we-could-and-if-we-would air. I still prefer Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant, who concludes from his hospital bed that a man who had such a decent reputation before he became king--and such a worried look on his face in his single portrait--cannot have turned into a monster overnight. On the other hand, Grant reasons, Henry Tudor proved himself cold-blooded about wholesale extermination of possible Yorkist claimants to the throne once he had it for himself, so why would he have hesitated to do in the two little princes and blame the deed on his predecessor? Never mind that history assumes on the basis of some evidence that the princes had bid this world good-night sometime before Henry VII got his hands on the keys to the Tower. Tey lets us have a good Richard and a villainous Henry, if nothing else an emotionally satisfying inversion of Shakespeare's characterization of the two kings. Hilary Thimmesh (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ralph Cohen Date: Saturday, 02 Apr 1994 17:12:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 4.0450 Re: SSE Contest I'd like to announce the winner of our SSE Season-naming Contest. Some of you may remember that early in Fall we asked for a name that would cover *Othello,* *Shrew,* and *Much Ado* as well as last year's trio -- *R&J,* *A&C,* and *Dream* -- was covered by "Season of Love." And the winner of the naming contest for the 1994 season of the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express is... [drums, trumpets]...Tad Davis with his suggestion of "Tongues Like Knives." Tad receives an official "Tongues Like Knives" T-shirt on which he will find his motto cleverly incorporated into a logo. Others can sport this special fashion statement for the low price of $15. Write to SSE, Box 1485, Harrisonburg, VA, 22801. And thank you, Tad Davis. Ralph Cohen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Apr 1994 07:48:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0304. Sunday, 3 April 1994. From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 94 08:04:08 EDT Subject: Theatre in other classrooms I am hunting for articles, essays, how-to guides or programs that focus on ways of using theatrical performances as ways of enhancing learning in other fields of study. I am particularly interested in any experiences that bring professional actors or acting companies into what might be considered odd venues during campus residencies. Can Horatio help in a Philosophy 101 course? Does Titus have anything to say to a class on Parent-Child Development or Gross Anatomy? Timon on Finance? Brutus in Political Science or Higher Education Management? This kind of writing might show up in an alumni magazine or in the files of a campus development office. Please send citations to me at SURCC@CUNYVM.cuny.edu, or hardcopy to 463 West Street, C915, New York, NY 10014, or by Fax in care of Professor Susan Spector, 212-387 1604. Thanks for your help, Steve Urkowitz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 11:04:10 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0305 Re: Macduff; Hamlet's Trial Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0305. Monday, 4 April 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 1994 10:56:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0298 Macduff and Macbeth (2) From: Robert Teeter Date: Sunday, 3 Apr 1994 22:55:49 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0299 Re: Hamlet's Trial (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 1994 10:56:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0298 Macduff and Macbeth Sean Lawrence, I think you must have been confused by my rhetoric. I don't think there's any reason to believe that Macduff is not Thane of Fife, and, as Thane of Fife, he should obviously defend his own territory in the initial battles of the play. Okay, surely you have evidence for seeing Macduff as a heroic man. He himself emphasizes that he is a man of feeling, a man who will condone only so much evil in a king. Greed and lust are fine with him. But that's it (4.3.92-114, Wells and Taylor). He won't, he says, accept general corruption in his king. But that still leaves us with the question: why did he not take his family with him when he fled from Scotland? Why did he leave them as possible hostages? I think that historical paradigms imposed by later historians can take us only so far in explaining Macduff. And I've been convinced by recent arguments that Raymond Williams's paradigm (moribund/dominant/emergent) is too simplistic. No, MACBETH as play has a concern with children. Macbeth seems to want (in both senses) male heirs. Macduff has a male heir and leaves him in the clutches of the butcher. (cf. he departs from Germany himself, but leaves his family in the hands of Hitler.) He loses his whole family in fact. Very, very careless, as Oscar might have said. Macduff lacks SOMETHING -- the common touch? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Teeter Date: Sunday, 3 Apr 1994 22:55:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0299 Re: Hamlet's Trial Thank you, Chris Gordon, for the report on Hamlet's trial. The report on National Public Radio gave the added bit of information that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also urged investigating Hamlet's complicity in the death of Ophelia. Robert Teeter ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 11:11:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0306 Qs: Thersites; MND Productions; Help Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0306. Monday, 4 April 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 1994 20:33:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: Who plays Thersites in the BBC video? (2) From: Scott Crozier Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 18:21:58 +1000 Subj: Recent productions of MND (3) From: Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 1994 20:09:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Shakespeare would have helped (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 1994 20:33:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Who plays Thersites in the BBC video? This evening I read that Charles Gray played Thersites in the BBC production. I don't have access to the video until I get to the library, but I'm fairly sure that Thersites was played by an actor with only one name. Can anyone help me with this puzzle? Thanks. Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 18:21:58 +1000 Subject: Recent productions of MND I am intersted in receiving information from people who have seen recent English productions of MND. I am especially interested in Lepage's 1992 MND at the National; John Caird's RSC production 1990; and Declan Donnellan's Cheek by Jowl production in 1985. My research is involved in uncoverring the performance history of the play in England with specific interest in the twentieth century. Any anecdotal reports would be helpful. Thanks, Scott Crozier (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Date: Sunday, 03 Apr 1994 20:09:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Shakespeare would have helped I received a letter in the mail that really touched me. The letter was written as follows: I am participating in a request that a business card be sent to Craig Sherfold at the address below. Seven year old Craig has a tumor and has a little time left to live. Craig has turned in a wish to the Children's Make-A-Wish Foundation and has expressed his desire to have an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records for the largest collection of business cards received by an individual. Please take time to send Craig one of your business cards and mail this request to another twenty businesses of your choice. Surely, this wish is worth a few minutes of your time. Only twenty names to fulfill a little boys dream. Craig Sherfold c/o Children's Make-A-Wish 3200 Perimeter Center, East Atlanta, GA 30346 I thought I might take it to the next level and show them what the internet was all about. Instead of me sending the letter to twenty businesses, I'll post this letter on twenty listservs. Let's all see what we can do to make sure that Craig reaches his goal. Please remember, time is of the essence. MEDIAGUY@delphi.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 11:14:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0307 Review: *Hamlet* at Orlando Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0307. Monday, 4 April 1994. From: Theresa Conrad Date: Sunday, 3 Apr 1994 21:52:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival Friday was opening night for the fifth season of the Orlando-University of Central Florida Shakespeare Festival, and open-air theater-goers were treated to Director Russell Treyz' _Hamlet_. (This reviewer saw the preview of _Hamlet_, but has not yet seen the second play, _Much Ado About Nothing_, directed by Mark Rucker and set against the art deco high society backdrop of the American 1930's.) Despite the difficulties of outdoor performances (the most vexing of which is the fact that the amphitheater is on the downwind leg of Orlando Executive Airport) Jim Helsinger as Hamlet gave an extraordinary performance. It was possibly the most accessible Hamlet I've seen, with the maximum amount of humor wrung from Shakespeare's words; antic, desperate, calm at the end, Hamlet progresses from wry ("A little more than kin, and less than kind!") through ridiculous, to end in a serene resignation. Paul Kiernan was a loyal and likable Horatio, and Celia Howard was an older Gertrude, strong and yet still caught by the sensuality of her new marriage. Suzanne O'Donnell was a practical and forthright Ophelia whose pitiful madness is in startling contrast to her former warm good humor. Jack Judd is an earnestly foolish Polonius, and David McCann plays a calculating and self-centered Claudius, trying to rationalize his crime. The new stage at the Eola Park Amphitheater allowed new blocking configurations, adding a number of "above" exits, a trap door, and a rear wall that functions as a projection screen where Elsinore backgrounds were shown. The three-hour show was plain enough for the group of high school students who attended (members of the Festival's Young Company, who are performing _Romeo and Juliet_ as a play within a play, set in the framework of present day Bosnia) yet contained enough subtlety for seasoned Shakespeare aficionados, a remarkable feat. Performances continue throughout the month of April, ticket prices are modest ($6-$25). If you're anywhere near Orlando this month, make it a point to see OSF's '94 offerings. Theresa Conrad ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 11:24:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0308 Re: Hamlet Trial; Theatre in Other Classrooms Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0308. Monday, 4 April 1994. (1) From: Gregory Chew Date: Monday, 4 Apr 1994 00:11:37 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 09:38:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory Chew Date: Monday, 4 Apr 1994 00:11:37 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms Please note C-SPAN broadcast Saturday evening of a mock trial held at the U.S. Supreme Court. The defendant was Hamlet, the issue was insanity defense, and the prosecution and defense were lawyers eminent in American judiciary. FYI- Hamlet was found legally sane and the jury also suggested further charges be pursued in the death of Ophelia. Perhaps the broadcast will be repeated, as it was originally taped on March 16, or tapes may be available. Prominent legal authorities included Supreme Court Justices serving on the jury. Greg Chew (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 09:38:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms I'll be interested to see what anyone has to offer Steve Urkowitz regarding the use of theatre in the classrooms of other disciplines. Unemployed after graduate school 10 yrs ago, I scrambled to teach myself dBASE programming (and managed to live off it for a while). I was intrigued to find that programming languages are action languages (all are reduceable to just three commands: DO something, DO something again [loop], or GOTO the next thing) and that the analysis of an office's procedures and communication lines that a systems analyst has to do in order to write a good application program is, in fact, a form of dramatistic analysis. I delivered a paper on this at an SCA conference, suggesting that dramatic theorists should co-teach courses with computer science and business faculty to introduce this humanist point of view into an otherwise abstract process (one that often produces lousy programs!) -- and to offer the opportunity to slip in some moral guidance as well (*Macbeth* is a more enlightening guide to the corporate takeover mania of the 80's than *Bonfire of the Vanities*). So far as I know, this idea disappeared into a black hole (at least, it didn't get me a job). Is anyone doing anything like this now? Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 12:39:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0309 PLEASE NOTE: Do NOT Send Business Cards Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0309. Monday, 4 April 1994. [SHAKSPEReans, I apologize for sending out the earlier message as the response below explains. --HMC] (1) From: Seth Gordon Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 13:06:37 -0400 Subj: DO NOT SEND BUSINESS CARDS TO "CRAIG SHERFOLD" (2) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 13:17 ET Subj: A note about Craig Shergold (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Seth Gordon Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 13:06:37 -0400 Subject: DO NOT SEND BUSINESS CARDS TO "CRAIG SHERFOLD" (I'm cc'ing this to postmaster@delphi.com. Given the virulence of this particular chain letter, I believe that *all* organizations that give people Internet access should warn them not to pass along this message. Either Delphi does not give its new users such a warning, or didn't pay attention to it.) / I received a letter in the mail that really touched me. Please contact whoever sent that letter and tell them to stop passing along this request. /The letter was written as follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hardy M. Cook Bowie State University Editor of SHAKSPER Associate Professor of English SHAKSPER@utoronto.bitnet HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /I am participating in a request that a business card be sent to Craig Sherfold /at the address below. Seven year old Craig has a tumor and has a little time /left to live.... The original version of this letter asked for postcards, not business cards, and they asked for the cards to be sent directly to Craig's home town in the U.K., not to Make-A-Wish Foundation. And I believe that the correct spelling of his last name is "Shergold". Craig is now a teenager, his tumor has been successfully removed, his local post office is *still* being inundated with postcards, and Guinness has announced that they will no longer include "most postcards received" as a category in their world-record books. _The New York Times_ has even published an article about this out-of-control chain letter. /Please take time to send Craig one of your business cards and mail /this request to another twenty businesses of your choice. Surely, this /wish is worth a few minutes of your time. Only twenty names to fulfill /a little boys dream. If you've already sent out such a request, please send out letters of retraction. /I thought I might take it to the next level and show them what the internet /was all about. Many other people have already done this. I've been seeing these letters for Craig circulate on the net for *years*. If you want to help sick children, why not donate real money to UNICEF? I wish I could add some pithy Shakespearian tag here.... (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 13:17 ET Subject: A note about Craig Shergold Regarding the request that was posted on this LISTSERV (and others, I presume) about Craig Shergold, the little boy who needs your business cards: Please do not send them. This request is years old, and they no longer want cards sent to him. (As I understand it, the boy recovered...) The upshot is, this family has been swamped with cards they no longer want or need, and they've been trying for years to quash this request, which has been propagated over the years by well-meaning folks. (We now return you to SHAKSPER, already in progress...) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 08:52:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0311 Re: Thersites in BBC Production Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0311. Tuesday, 5 April 1994. (1) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 12:40:04 EST Subj: Re: Thersites in BBC production (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 4 Apr 1994 16:19:39 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0306 Thersites (3) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, April 5, 1994 Subj: Thersites in BBC *Tro.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 12:40:04 EST Subject: Re: Thersites in BBC production I have Charles Gray playing Pandarus, Anton Lesser as Troilus, John Shrapnel at Hector and someone with 3 names as Thersites, an actor who names himself "THE INCREDIBLE ORLANDO." Do you suppose that, like The Incredible Hulk, he suffers from a credibility problem? Later, Tom (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 4 Apr 1994 16:19:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0306 Thersites Dear Bill, Thersites was played by The Incredible Orlando (Jack Birkett) in the 1981 BBC TROILUS. Charles Gray played Pandarus. See my (w. Annabelle Melzer) SHAKESPEARE ON SCREEN: AN INTERNATIONAL FILMOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY (New York and London, 1990), Item #638, pg. 299. The Incredible Orlando, you may recollect, played the loathesome Caliban in Derek Jarman's 1980 movie of THE TEMPEST. Yours until Albuquerque, Ken Rothwellon, (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, April 5, 1994 Subject: Thersites in BBC *Tro.* Having written my dissertation, "Reading Shakespeare on Television," on adapting Shakespeare to that medium, I have a complete set of *The BBC TV Shakespeare* editions. Henry Fenwick writes the following about Jack Birkett, "The Incredible Orlando" in the *Troilus and Cressida* volume: Miller's casting of Thersites is probably the most startling element of the production. "He's often seen as just a scaborous misanthrope and can be rather tiresome," Miller explains. "I saw him in my mind's eye as being like one of those extremely satirical camp theatre dressers, trying to hasten those great stars onto the stage, who has the burden of seeing the show goes on while these tempermental stars emote in their dressing rooms." He had seen Jack Birkett, who bills himself as "The Incredible Orlando", on stage with Lindsay Kemp's troupe, then saw him playing Caliban in Derek Jarman's film of *The Tempest*. Also influenced by *MASH* and "that wonderful figure of Klinger, I took courage from the line where Ajax addresses him as 'Mistress Thersites' and thought, 'Well, let's have him in a dress' -- not drag, but a rather tatty old dress with his bald head and hairy chest -- a bizarre, camp, surrealistic role." Birkett is indeed an outrageous figure. A dancer and a mime, now blind, he has a line in extreme camp which is funny and breath-stopping. "Instead of being a scurvy railing knave, in the production he's a scurvy railing bitch -- a bit of a cow, really, no loyality to anyone. I found the character like that! She owns herself and doesn't answer to anyone." (p. 24) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 08:27:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0310 Re: Limericks; KJV; AYI Weather/Music; Macbeth & Macduff Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0310. Tuesday, 5 April 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 11:22:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: more limericks about Oxford (2) From: Pat Dolan Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 11:50:19 -0600 (MDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible (3) From: David M Richman Date: Monday, 4 Apr 1994 16:46:47 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0290 AYI Weather/Music (4) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 15:30:48 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0302 Re: Macbeth and Macduff (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 11:22:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: more limericks about Oxford Colleagues: The recent limerick on Oxford inspired the following "limerick cycle" by an eminent Shakespearean who is not on the network. I include it for the edification of all: Will Shakespeare to Oxford once said: "My lord, you've an excellent head For a tragical line. King Lear is quite fine For a chap who for years has been dead." There once was an earl named ol' Ox, Who allegedly got off his rocks By claiming to be William Shakespeare, e'en he Of the tragicall buskin and socks. There once was a gifted young poet Who, though born as an earl, didn't know it. He thought he was just William Shakespeare, and must Write some dramas in order to show it. The seventeenth earl of Oxford With his craft as a poet was bored. So he gave up his pen To Will Shakespeare, and then Paid him all that his purse could afford. O, what does it finally matter Who wrote all that fabulous chatter? Lord Oxford, the earl, Or some silly young girl, Or Shakespeare, as mad as a hatter? John Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Dolan Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 11:50:19 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0300 Q: Shakespeare and the King James Bible There is a brief discussion about this, accompanied by an interesting, though fanciful, speculation about the translation of the forty-sixth Psalm, in Anthony Burgess' __Shakespeare__, pp. 233-234. Pat Dolan Arapahoe Community College pdolan@arapahoe.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Monday, 4 Apr 1994 16:46:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0290 AYI Weather/Music I have always understood AYL to begin in winter (perhaps midwinter spring, to coin a phrase) and to move toward spring. (Cliche, but that's comedy, right?) I took the winter (icy fang) "counselors that feelingly persuade me what I am) fairly seriously. We didn't try to make artificial snow, but we did try with gesture, stance etc. to take the cold into account. The garments (we hoped) were also wintry. They changed, as did the lighting. I have been less satisfied with productions that don't try to do something about the winter in Arden. As to music, I like Cleo Laine's jazz versions. There is also a very good setting of "Blow Blow thou Winter Wind" by a Brazilian composer whose name escapes me. David Richman University of New Hampshire (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 15:30:48 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0302 Re: Macbeth and Macduff It strikes me that the question of whether we can justify Macbeth in any terms ties in to the "few good men" discussion of a week or so back. To me, what makes characters interesting in the theatre is precisely the fact that they are neither totally "good" nor totally "bad". Apart from the soul-searching already mentioned, Macbeth is also clearly established as having been a brave and loyal vassal for his entire life prior to the beginning of the play. His subsequent actions are not thereby excused, but neither do they completely obliterate the "good" things Macbeth did. A more archetypical case for me would be Iago. I had always viewed him (and my professors had always viewed him) as the incarnation of evil. Probably because of this interpretation, I found _Othello_ transcendently dull. Then I saw a production in which the character was played as a sort of displaced Restoration rake: he does awful things to Othello because he can, because he is cleverer, because, well, it's sorta fun to be naughty. The production was otherwise only so-so, but the *play* came alive for me for the first time. To anticipate Bill Godshalk's question, no, I would not choose to live next door to Iago, Iagella, and their brood of Iagettes... but they might be preferable to this one family who lived next door to us about ten years ago... Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 09:04:01 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0312 Q: A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0312. Tuesday, 5 April 1994. From: John Massa Date: Monday, 4 Apr 94 14:21 CST Subject: Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns Regarding: Frankie Rubinstein's A DICTIONARY OF SHAKESPEARE'S SEXUAL PUNS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE (Macmillan, 1989): (1) It is out of print. Does anyone have or know of a copy that I can purchase? Reply to John-Massa@uiowa.edu. (2) Anyone have any comments on the scholarship? Rubinstein seems to find many more sexual puns than do the popular annotated texts, but I don't know if he is over doing it or if everyone else is just a little shy. Partridge's "Shakespeare's bawdy.." does not quite match Rubinstein's enthusiam for finding the "quibble" and going out on a limb (so to speak). Any general words of wisdom on how to approach the less obvious sexual puns in Shakespeare? (Asside from snickering and poking people with your elbows?) John Massa John-Massa@uiowa.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 13:36:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0314 Re: The BBC Thersites Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0314. Wednesday, 6 April 1994. (1) From: William Gelber Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 03:12:41 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0306 Qs: Thersites (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 15:59:36 -0500 Subj: The BBC Thersites (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Gelber Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 03:12:41 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0306 Qs: Thersites Charles Gray played Pandarus, I believe. Thersites was played by a blind man whose name has suddenly escaped me. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 15:59:36 -0500 Subject: The BBC Thersites In response to Bill Godshalk's query: the Incredible Orlando played Thersites; Charles Gray played Pandarus. The info came from *Shakespeare on Television* edited by J.C. Bulman and H.R. Coursen (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1988). Best, Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 11:53:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0313. Wednesday, 6 April 1994. (1) From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 11:17:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Macbeth Anecdotes (2) From: Michael Calvert Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 17:21:09 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0305 Re: Macduff; Hamlet's Trial (3) From: E. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 08:46:28 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0305 Re: Macduff; Hamlet's Trial (4) From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 16:42 ET Subj: Companionate Courtship; Macduff (5) From: Piers Lewis Date: Wednesday, 06 Apr 1994 07:19:41 -0600 (CST) Subj: Cawdor & Macbeth (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 11:17:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Macbeth Anecdotes A colleague has asked me to solicit any and all anecdotes relating to weird occurrences during productions of MACBETH. Is there a published collection? Are there any anecdotes that you know which are probably not published? I assured her that you would respond. Thanks, Nick Clary (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Calvert Date: Monday, 04 Apr 94 17:21:09 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0305 Re: Macduff; Hamlet's Trial Re: Macduff's leaving his family behind when he goes to England: might not the simplest (as opposed to simplistic) explanation be the best one? Why does Macduff leave him family behind? He makes a mistake. Anyway, that's the answer I've always given my students, and they seem satisfied with it. Michael Calvert (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 08:46:28 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0305 Re: Macduff; Hamlet's Trial To Bill Godshalk-Macduff may have been relying upon the convention (Mafia style according to Puzo) that the wives and children of business rivals are sacrosanct. Of course, Macbeth breaks that convention. ELEpstein (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 16:42 ET Subject: Companionate Courtship; Macduff Like Milla Riggio I'm inclined to think that in some sense Shakespeare "believed" in companionate marriage, though it is a little odd say so about a man who, like Macduff, left his wife and children for months at a time while he went off to do his job. Whatever the other bases of his "belief," it is surely the case that companionate marriage--both the courtship leading up to it, with its opportunities for conflict and anxiety, and the married life itself, with its opportunies for further testing, discovery, reflection, perhaps even regret--are on the face of it more dramatically interesting than marriage by patriarchal disposition: what happens to the latter part of if Capulet gets his way? Shakespeare saw this from the beginning--Comedy of Errors, Shrew, even, in its way, Lucrece, though he tends toward the beginning to emphasize the courtship (marry in haste) and toward the end (Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, Winters Tale--to emphasize the married life. As to Macduff, I'm not persuaded that his conception of marriage, whatever it is, comes into it. The time of his departure for England is not clear; he denies Macbeth's call to court before the murder of Banquo, for we hear of it at the end of the banquet scene; he has been gone some time when Lennox and Ross tell us where he's gone. To this point Macbeth's bloody assaults have been confined to powerful male rivals: no murders of women and helpless children to produce anxiety. He is in a hurry, so he can't take the family because they will slow him down. He is going to raise an army to bring back, so he couldn't take them anyway because families didn't travel with armies. It's a risk--but anybody who had read even as much Scottish history as was in Holinshed knew that life in them parts was always risky. Where's the huge fault? He makes a difficult decision in a hurry. He and his family pay a dreadful price for it. The outcome for the society as a whole is a good one. Life's got rocks on one side of it and hard places on the other. All this doesn't touch the set of questions arising from the fact that Shakespearean characters are not people but dramatic images. Maybe later. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Wednesday, 06 Apr 1994 07:19:41 -0600 (CST) Subject: Cawdor & Macbeth Naomi Liebler (I think) has suggested that we compare the deaths of Cawdor and Macbeth. Does the play, in some odd sense of the word, 'intend' that comparison? Jan Kott (_Shakespeare Our Contemporary_) thinks so. Here is what he says: "The Thane of Cawdor does not appear in Macbeth. All we know of him is that he has been guilty of treason and executed. Why is his death described so emphatically and in such detail? Why did Shakespeare find it necessary? After all, his expositions are never wrong. Cawdor's death, which opens the play, is necessary. It will be compared to Macbeth's death. There is something Senecan and stoic about Cawdor's cold indifference to death. Faced with utter defeat Cawdor saves what can still be saved: a noble attitude and dignity. For Macbeth attitudes are of no importance; he does not believe in human dignity any more. Macbeth has reached the limits of human experience. All he has left is contempt. The very concept of man has crumbled to pieces, and there is nothing left. The end of _Macbeth_ like the end of _Troilus and Cressida_, or _King Lear_, produces no catharsis. Suicide is either a protest, or an admission of guilt. Macbeth does not feel guilty, and there is nothing for him to protest about. All he can do before he dies is to drag with him into nothingness as many living beings as possible. This is the last consequence of the world's absurdity. Macbeth is still unable to blow the world up. But he can go on murdering to the end." Why should I play the Roman fool and die On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better on them. Piers Lewis Metropolitan State University St. Paul, Mn. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 13:43:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0316 Re: Theatre in Other Classrooms Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0316. Wednesday, 6 April 1994. (1) From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Tuesday, 5 Apr 1994 09:07:57 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Theatre in Other Classrooms (2) From: James E. Hoburg Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 10:00:26 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Tuesday, 5 Apr 1994 09:07:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Theatre in Other Classrooms Jim Schaefer asks about Theater as an adjunct in computer issues. Brenda Laurel, an OHIO State theater PhD, wrote >Computers as Theatre< a few years ago, attempting to apply Aristotle to Interfacing. The book is dreadfully sophmoric, with almost no reference to contemporary performance theory (probably more relevant to Laurel's purpose), but provides at least the beginning of a dialogue. Laurel is a highly succesful computer game designer who is a major figure in the Virtual Reality sphere. Joel Plotkin SUNY Inst. of Tech. at Utica (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James E. Hoburg Date: Tuesday, 05 Apr 1994 10:00:26 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0304 Q: Theatre in Other Classrooms I believe Brenda Laurel has been heavily involved in using dramatic models as a design basis for user interfaces in computer software. She has authored a number of papers dealing with this theme, and one book is notable: _The Computer as Theater_. (Sorry for the incomplete citation as my copy is not at hand.) -- James Hoburg ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 13:55:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0317 Re: *MND* Productions; Stylistics; Dictionary Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0317. Wednesday, 6 April 1994. (1) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 19:54:31 Subj: MND Productions (2) From: Michael Caulfield Date: Wednesday, 06 Apr 1994 01:46:29 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Stylistics (3) From: James Harner Date: Wednesday, 6 Apr 1994 10:39:53 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0312 Q: A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Monday, 04 Apr 1994 19:54:31 Subject: MND Productions >I am intersted in receiving information from people who have seen recent >English productions of MND. I saw Lepage's 1992 MND at the National. Not under ideal conditions. The acrobat who played Puck had managed to injure herself and so an understudy more or less walked-through the role. A good vocal performance (I've been told it was hard to understand the acrobat) but little blocking. I guess that there just wasn't any way to duplicate the acrobatics (evidently mainly done on a rope that hung from the flies). Generally I enjoyed the producton. In recent years I suppose I've seen more MSNDs than any other Shakespearean play, and have no problem dealing with an offbeat approach. A lot of the strange things that were done really seemed to work. It must have been pure hell for the actors, though. Just the thought of all of the wet costumes and mattresses piling up backstage gave me pause. How do you get all that stuff dry again? Also I heard there were lots of injuries and that the water was very cold. I suppose that I shouldn't assume that everyone reading this is familiar with this particular production. Almost all of the action took place in a pool of rather muddy water and the first row of the audience were provided with plastic rain capes. The main prop was a bed that could be poled around the pool like a gondola and was used many other ways as well. It all sounds bizarre and it was. It also sounds pretty dreadful, but I enjoyed it. I would have liked to see the acrobatic Puck though. Jerry Bangham jbangham@kudzu.win.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Caulfield Date: Wednesday, 06 Apr 1994 01:46:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Stylistics Many thanks to Lynne Magnusson for pointing me towards Wright's _Hendiadys and Hamlet_. It was exactly what I needed. Michael Caulfield Merrimack NH (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Wednesday, 6 Apr 1994 10:39:53 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0312 Q: A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns Athlone Press (London) has just announced a 3-volume +Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature+ by Gordon Williams. I recall, though, that the price was quite steep--well over 200 pounds sterling! Jim Harner World Shakespeare Bibliography ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 08:18:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0318 Re: Thersites Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0318. Friday, 8 April 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 09:11 ET Subj: Casting Thersites (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 23:49:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0314 Re: The BBC Thersites (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 09:11 ET Subject: Casting Thersites Directing and looking for ways to get more women involved I cast as Thersites a thin, bony, physically active young woman. She was wonderful--dived in and out of the scene from a sort of watchtower we built for her at one side of the thrust stage, made her hands crawl over the bodies of the men as she wheedled and sniped, crawled herself to mitigate wrath or get a better view. The palpable androgyny not only fit the character but enhanced other ambiguities of the play. The costuming was, shall we say, eclectic; she fitted herself out in green tennis shoes, T-shirt, and black jeans; this was before I'd ever seen Jonathan Dollimore, and I'm afraid I find it hard to read his stuff now without thinking of Thersites. Such are the hazards of performance criticism. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 23:49:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0314 Re: The BBC Thersites Thanks to all those who answered by question. I was especially amused by those who insisted that the actor who played Thersites had three names: The Incredible Orlando. Silly me, I thought that Orlando was the name. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 08:29:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0319 Re: *Mac. Anecdotes; Marriage; The Macbeths Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0319. Friday, 8 April 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 11:13:23 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth (2) From: Diana Henderson Date: Thursday, 7 Apr 1994 13:49 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 8 Apr 94 12:00 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0302 Re: Macbeth and Macduff (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 11:13:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth Regarding *Macbeth*: Bernard Grebanier's *Then Came Each Actor* (NY: David McKay, 1975) has a couple brief paragraphs (pp. 444-445) on actors' superstitions about playing Macbeth. In *John Gielgud* (NY: Random House, 1971), Ronald Hayman gives details of a terrible wartime run of Macbeth, with disasters that ran from bad press to the death of the 3rd witch (pp. 134-38). I've read interviews with other older actors that related broken legs, falling scenery, and other bad omens. Biographies are probably a good place to find them. Jim Schaefer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson Date: Thursday, 7 Apr 1994 13:49 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth In response to the comment that Shakespeare preferred companionate marriage to those arranged by "patriarchal disposition," citing "Shrew" as evidence: The marriages of both daughters to Baptista Minola in "Shrew" are precisely the result of "patriarchal disposition" [in the narrow sense implied, i.e., arranged by dad]. Yes, we get the illusion of rebellion in the last act's secret marriage of Lucentio and Bianca, but in fact "Lucentio" [Tranio] was promised Bianco's hand earlier, beating out old Gremio on the basis of Lucentio's better dowry offer -- and requisite upon Vincentio's confirmation (hence the added farce & identity play with the pedant as false dad). Kate, of course, has been promised to Petruchio by Baptista, before these "companions" even meet. What a surprise that father knows best; just another one of "Shrew"'s charms, I guess! This is not to disagree with the larger claim, and the other plays cited work much better than this one ... Best, Diana Henderson (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 8 Apr 94 12:00 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0302 Re: Macbeth and Macduff Since we're turning the play into a third-rate novel, let's not omit the possibility that the 'companionate' marriage of the Macbeths exists in the shadow of Lady Macbeth's previous marriage: the one which produced her children. But all this is overshadowed by the central issue, unanswered to this day: did Lady Macbeth really faint? Answers by postcard please, to Bill Godshalk. T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 08:44:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0320 Re: Dictionary; Limericks; MND Prods.; Others; P. Dealers Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0320. Friday, 8 April 1994. (1) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 6 Apr 1994 13:01:34 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0312 Q: A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns (2) From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 08:35:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Limericks (3) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 7 Apr 1994 09:16:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0317 Re: *MND* Productions; Stylistics; Dictionary (4) From: Martin Zacks Date: Wednesday, 6 Apr 1994 23:13:22 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re:SHK 5.0308 R: Theatre in Other Classrooms (5) From: Ben Scheidner Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 13:28:16 -0600 (CST) Subj: Plain Dealers (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 6 Apr 1994 13:01:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0312 Q: A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns Frankie Rubinstein is a woman. She has spent a lifetime investigating obscenity in Shakespeare, but some of her assumptions do not work out when you apply her definitions to the words in other contexts. Try comparing what she says to what Henke says in COURTESANS AND CUCKHOLDS (also out of print, but available in some libraries -- he defines words in their contexts in non-Shakespearean plays) and even to what Partridge says. That should provide enough guidance to tell you what to believe and what to discard. By the way, what's the weather in Albuquerque? It's snowing up here. Helen Ostovich (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 08:35:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Limericks The limerick cycle I posted recently is not mine, as some have alleged. It was sent to me by David Bevington, whom I inadvertently failed to acknowledge in my haste to publish it. John Cox (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 7 Apr 1994 09:16:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0317 Re: *MND* Productions; Stylistics; Dictionary I saw the 1992 MND at the National with the acrobat. She was absolutely unforgettable, hanging upside down and inside out, or something, while speaking her lines with aplomb. I can well understand how the poor young woman injured herself as no human body was ever built to withstand such shocks. The production opened to lukewarm reviews in the London press, though I remain a closet admirer despite the "distractions from the text." I'd already read the play before I got there. Ken Rothwell (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zacks Date: Wednesday, 6 Apr 1994 23:13:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re:SHK 5.0308 R: Theatre in Other Classrooms As for Theater in Other Classrooms, and more specifically " humanist" programming, I would recommend to James Schaefer (and Steve Urkowitz as well), "Computers as Theater," by Brenda Laurel. Also, my computer-knowledgeable wife recommends two books by Donald Knuth, "Art of Computer Programming," and "Literate Programming." If the Shakespeare Electronic Conference is an example, I think computers are already "humanist." Martin Zacks lalalib@comp.org (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Scheidner Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 13:28:16 -0600 (CST) Subject: Plain Dealers Thank you Douglas Bruster for the tip directing those interested in Plain Dealing to Jean Howard's comments on the character Plain Dealing in Dekker's *Whore of Babylon* in her new book on Social Struggle in Early Modern England. I can't lay my hands on Jean Howard's book, but I did check out Dekker's play. Dekker's Plain Dealing, along with Truth and Time, is a major ally of The Fairy Queen (Elizabeth) in the defeat of the Whore of Babylon (Rome). In this context, Cornwall's derogation of the type in *Lear* puts him on the side of the Whore of Babylon. It is interesting that Dekker's Plain Dealing has an invective style of speech similar to Kent's. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 08:51:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0321 Qs: Imagery, Semantics; Friar Lawrence Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0321. Friday, 8 April 1994. (1) From: Michael Caulfield Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 01:33:12 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Imagery, Semantics (2) From: Michael Dotson Date: Thursday, 7 Apr 94 12:27:52 -0400 Subj: Friar Lawrence (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Caulfield Date: Thursday, 07 Apr 1994 01:33:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Imagery, Semantics Does anyone know of any studies of imagery that have utilized current semantic theory? It is my belief that the major force of imagery in Shakespeare comes not from mental visualization (the "inner eye") but rather from a complex set of intersections between the semantic entries of contiguous words. For instance, the fairly nonimaginal quality of "truth" and "lies" is the result of an "ordered" set of entries which finds similarity or opposition only along a small, finite set of lines. On the other hand "star" vs. "wandering bark" (Sonnet 116) becomes imaginal due to inherent haphazardness of entries in words with physical referents. This is to say where truth vs. lies generated only common opposition, star vs. wandering bark generates a plethora: ethereal/material, fixed/moving, bright/dark, etc. (or, more properly [+ethereal/-ethereal, +fixed/-fixed, etc.) If anyone knows anything about semantic theory, modern approaches to imagery, works which may elucidate this question or simply has feedback on the idea, please respond. Thanking you all in advance. . . Michael Caulfield Merrimack NH (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Dotson Date: Thursday, 7 Apr 94 12:27:52 -0400 Subject: Friar Lawrence Hi! I am currently doing an explication of Friar Lawrence's meditation in Act II, Scene III. It is for an honors English 102 class. I have had no previous experience with Shakespeare. I am having some problems recognizing things like alliteration, assonance, and consonance in the passage. I know it is a series of couplets, but that's about as far as I could go with it. I think I have done a good job on explaining the imagery. I was wondering if someone could either point me to a good explication on this passage, or help me out a little here on the list. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much. Mark Dotson ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 10:47:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0322 Re: *Mac.* Anecdotes; The Macbeths Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0322. Saturday, 9 April 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 09:15:08 -0500 Subj: Macbeth anecdotes (2) From: Michael Cohen Date: Friday, 8 Apr 1994 08:05:58 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Macbeth Anecdotes (3) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 16:33 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0319 Re: *Mac. Anecdotes; Marriage; The Macbeths (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 09:15:08 -0500 Subject: Macbeth anecdotes For Nick Clary's colleague: two sources with lots of information are *The Curse of Macbeth and Other Theatrical Superstitions* by Richard Huggett (London: Picton Publishing, 1981), and *The Royal Play of _Macbeth_* by Henry Paul (New York: Macmillan, 1950). Have a great time in Albuquerque all of you who are going! Chris Gordon (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Cohen Date: Friday, 8 Apr 1994 08:05:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Macbeth Anecdotes David Rodes of UCLA supplied me with a yellowing newspaper article of 1980 from the Associated Press, in which Peter O'Toole's disastrous turn as Macbeth is related to the "curse" on Shakespeare's Macbeth. An excerpt: William Shakespeare's "Macbeth," about a man whose ambition was his undoing, has been dogged by bad luck since it first was staged in 1606. The latest victim is Peter O'Toole's ambitious production, which one London critic branded "Mac-Flop." . . . Bad luck has plagued the play since its first performance before King James I. The boy actor who played Lady Macbeth -- in days when actresses automatically were classed as whores-- was taken ill just before the performance. Shakespeare had to play the role himself and the youngster died during the performance. Subsequent performances have been interrupted by riots, the theater burning down and actors falling ill or dying. In 1934 Malcolm Keen lost his voice. Alistair Sim, his replacement, did one performance before being rushed to the hospital with a chill. Two other actors who took over the role fell ill within days of each other. In 1937, when Sir Laurence Olivier first played Macbeth, a fragment of his sword broke off and struck a spectator who had a heart attack. Lilian Baylis, founding manager of the Old Vic and the person who made it into a center for Shakespeare's plays, died just before Olivier opened in the 1937 production. Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. Lymond@netcom.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 16:33 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0319 Re: *Mac. Anecdotes; Marriage; The Macbeths To Prof. Hawkes, Could you give me a ref. Mrs. Mabeth's previous marriage? William Proctor Williams bitnet: TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 11:08:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0324 Symposium; CFVote Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0324. Saturday, 9 April 1994. (1) From: Geoffrey Proehl Date: Friday, 8 Apr 1994 08:54 EST Subj: Symposium (2) From: Mark Kupferman Date: Friday, 8 Apr 94 21:55:19 EDT Subj: CFV: rec.arts.theatre.{misc,musicals,plays,stagecraft} (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geoffrey Proehl Date: Friday, 8 Apr 1994 08:54 EST Subject: Symposium The associate artistic director at the Arena Stage has asked me to pass this notice to SHAKSPER and since it seems relevant to subscribers interests I've happily agreed to do so: The "Theater as Discovery" Series presents "The Skull Beneath the Smile," Sunday, April 17, 2 p.m., in the Fichhandler Theater. In conjunction with Alan Ayckbourn's two-part comic extravaganza THE REVENGERS' COMEDIES, this symposium will explore the genres of comedy and tragedy as well as contrasting black comedy in the Jacobean age with today's versions of murder and mayhem. Panelists include: Albert Bermel, professor of theater at Lehman College; John Russell Brown, professor of theater at the University of Michigan; Martin Esslin, professor emeritus of drama at Stanford University; and Liza Henderson, professor of English at Trinity College. The symposium will be moderated by Laurence Maslon, associate director of Arena Stage. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Kupferman Date: Friday, 8 Apr 94 21:55:19 EDT Subject: CFV: rec.arts.theatre.{misc,musicals,plays,stagecraft} ******************************************************************* NOTE: If you would like to play a role in this vote make sure you follow the instructions at the end of this file and be VERY careful to make sure that your ballot is returned to voting@qualcomm.com and not this mailing list. ******************************************************************* FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.misc (replaces rec.arts.theatre) unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.musicals unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.plays unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft Newsgroups line: rec.arts.theatre.misc Miscellaneous topics and issues in theatre rec.arts.theatre.musicals Musical theatre around the world rec.arts.theatre.plays Dramaturgy and discussion of plays rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft Issues in stagecraft and production Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 29 April 1994. After this CFV appears on news.announce.newgroups it will be sent to an infinite number of mailing lists. See below. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting questions only contact rdippold@qualcomm.com. For questions about the proposed group contact Mark Kupferman . CHARTER (Proponent) rec.arts.theatre.musicals: Rec.arts.theatre.musicals is a new newsgroup intended to provide a home for everyone to share their experience, ideas, thoughts, and comments about musicals. It is a place to talk about musicals being performed on Broadway, musicals being performed in community theaters, musicals performed in college theaters, and musicals being performed in community theaters. Rec.arts.theatre.musicals is a place to discuss subsidiary issues related to musical theater, such as cast albums and televised performances. It is a place to talk about the actors you loved in _______ and the actors you hated in __________. It is a place to share gossip and tidbits about upcoming performances and a place to ask questions about what musicals are playing where. It is a place to ask about ticket prices. Ask anyone you meet on the street, and chances are they've heard of _Cats_, _Phantom_of_the_Opera_, _Oklahoma!, _Hair!_, _A_Chorus_Line_, and any of the other hundreds of musicals that get revived time after time throughout the world. Musicals such as _Falsettos_ and _Miss Saigon_ have helped us to deal with contemporary issues in a way not possible in any other medium, while other shows such as _Forever_Plaid have taken us back to the music of our youth. In all cases, the spirited song from the stage seems to bear a magical quality that sets our toes tapping, our lips moving, and our hearts free. rec.arts.theatre.plays: While musicals and operas seem to have captured part of the limelight for the last few hundred years, plays have been delighting audiences since thousands of years ago. Whether you're a fan of the tragedies performed at the City Dionysus in 534 bc, Roman fabula togatas of 150 bc, Sanskrit dramas of the fourth century A.D., liturgical dramas of the early middle ages, religious cycles of the fourteenth century, morality plays of the sixteenth century, neoclassical theater, naturalistic theater, or contemporary theater, rec.arts.theatre.plays is the place to bring to light all of your dramaturgical questions and comments. rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft: This group would cover the art of stagecraft. It was once said that the only thing you need for theater is some actors and an audience, but the fact is we enjoy performances a lot more when there is some kind of atmosphere and context. We've grown used to seeing magic happen on the stage, but what it takes to create that magic is a lot of technical knowledge that can only serve the world better if it is distributed. rec.arts.theatre.misc: There are a lot of questions that clearly don't fall into the discussion of plays, the discussion of musicals, or the discussion of stagecraft. Rec.arts.theatre.misc is a new group intended to cover all of these issues including but not limited to topics such as: acting, directing, theater management, design, and stage management. What is the purpose of theater? What purpose is theater going to serve in the twenty first century? Does theater need to serve a function? What is appropriate dress to wear to the theater? How does one go about finding a theater? How does one spell theater? This group will replace rec.arts.theatre, which will be removed after three months if the proposal passes. Reasons for the Proposal: Many rec.arts.theatre readers and many members of the USENET theatre community have come to feel that it is time to break theatre discussion into chewable pieces. Kill files aren't solving the problem because people still want to read all of the messages--they just need them organized in such a way that it makes sense (i.e., all of the musical messages are seperated from the play messages, all of the play messages seperated from the stagecraft messages, etc). Prefixes have been tried, but it hasn't worked. Many people have even left rec.arts.theatre because it was too confusing. It is hoped that this re-organization will provide a happy home for everyone to keep up with thier personal interests in the theatre. The mailing lists this CFV will be sent to are: - THEATRE@GREARN.bitnet Theater discussion list - ARTMGT-L%BINGVMB.bitnet Arts Management Discussion - stagecraft@jaguar.cs.utah.edu Stagecraft discussion list - comedia-l@arizvm1 Hispanic Classic Theater PERFORM@IUBVM.bitnet Medieval Performing Arts REED-L%UTORONTO.bitnet Early English Drama ASTR-L%UIUCVMD.bitnet Theatre History Discussion Asianthea-l@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Asian Theatre Discussion musicals@world.std.com Musicals Discussion shaksper@utoronto.bitnet Shakespeare Discussion List candrama@unb.ca Canadian Theatre Research theatre-theory@mit.edu Acting-Movement-Voice theory HOW TO VOTE Erase everything above the top "-=-=-=-" line and erase everything below the bottom "-=-=-=-" line. Do not erase anything between these lines and do not change the group names. Give your name on the line that asks for it. For each group, place a YES or NO in the brackets next to it to vote for or against it. If you don't want to vote on a particular group, just leave the space blank. Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Then mail the ballot to: voting@qualcomm.com Check the "To:" line when you reply. Votes to a list or group are invalid. -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- rec.arts.theatre reorganization (Don't remove this marker) Give your real name here: [Your Vote] Group ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.arts.theatre.misc (replace rec.arts.theatre) [ ] rec.arts.theatre.musicals [ ] rec.arts.theatre.plays [ ] rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program. The votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge- ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. Only one vote counted per person, no more than one vote per account. Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results list. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 11:24:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0325 Re: Imagery and Semantics; Albuquerque Weather; Trial Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0325. Saturday, 9 April 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 10:06:13 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Imagery and Semantics (2) From: Karla Walters Date: Friday, 8 Apr 1994 23:14 MST Subj: Weather in Albuquerque (3) From: K. Chin Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 22:42:30 -0500 (CDT) Subj: I've seen hamlet trial. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 10:06:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Imagery and Semantics To Michael Caulfield: James Jenkins and his students John Bransford and J. J. Franks did some fascinating work at Minnesota in the 70's on the comprehension of metaphorical language (and relevant work with visual imagery) using a Chomskian, rather than behaviorist, approach. Bransford pulled this material and a lot more into his book, *Human Cognition: Learning, Understanding and Remembering* (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1979). I can give you a slew of citations, if you want to contact me privately. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Friday, 8 Apr 1994 23:14 MST Subject: Weather in Albuquerque Some people are wondering what kind of weather to expect in Albuquerque this next week. We had snow two weeks ago, the first since early December, but it melted in 2 hours. For the past week the highs have been 60 to 70 degrees, lows at night range from 30 to 50 degrees. It can be cold with wind, even when it is sunny, so don't come without a sweater or a coat, but it can be very WARM in the sun if there is no wind. However, spring is our windy season. For people flying into the area, that makes for some bumpy flights. Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: K. Chin Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 22:42:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: I've seen hamlet trial. I caught a glimpse of that mock trial several weeks ago, and thought it was very entertaining. Both the prosecutor and defendant attorneys were eminent (and smart) lawyers ( once white house legal counselors as I recall). Witnesses include two psychiatrists. The arguments are all well prepared (one of the lawyers said he actually had a paralegal work on the facts) and thus enlightening (at least for me who know nothing in psychiatry) most of the time. For those who seldom watch C-SPAN, this is probably one of the good reasons these two channels should exist. :) Enjoy, Chin/Kansas, U. S. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 10:58:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0323 Re: Marriages Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0323. Saturday, 9 April 1994. (1) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 12:07:11 EST Subj: Companion-Dog Marriages (2) From: Timothy Bowden Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 10:23:26 PST Subj: `What man in the whole world -' (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 12:07:11 EST Subject: Companion-Dog Marriages In response to the comment that Shakespeare preferred companionate marriage to those arranged by "patriarchal disposition," boy, I donno. Like, maybe, Desdemona's marriage? Even in something like Midsummer Night's Dream, though Egeus doesn't get his way, the final marriages take place because Theseus "overrules" Egeus and pretty much dictates all the other arrangements. I'm waiting for the memory to catch up with my brain, but so far I can't think of a Shakespeare companionate marriage which isn't terrible or in some way problematic or sullied. ? Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 10:23:26 PST Subject: `What man in the whole world -' -, except a father or a potential father-in-law, cares whether any other man gets married?' - C S Lewis, _English Literature in the Sixteenth Century_ Question: Are there other examples of a poet attempting to induce a young man to marry in any era prior to, say, 1609? Just how widespread was the practice? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 11:32:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0326 Qs: The Complete BBC Shakespeare; Teaching *WT* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0326. Saturday, 9 April 1994. (1) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 12:55:53 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0311 Re: Thersites in BBC Production (2) From: Elizabeth Driver Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 14:46 EDT Subj: Help on Winter's Tale and storytelling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 12:55:53 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0311 Re: Thersites in BBC Production In responding to the Thersites question, you mentioned that you had a complete set of the BBC Shakespeare productions. Where did you get them? More to the point, where can I get them (or some of them?) Are they available for USA VCRs? And what price range are we talking about? Annalisa Castaldo Temple University [Annalisa: What I have is a complete set of the BBC TV Shakespeare editions, with the Peter Alexander text annotated to show cuts and with essays on the productions. The complete BBC videos are available from a number of vendors now. --HMC] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Driver Date: Friday, 08 Apr 94 14:46 EDT Subject: Help on Winter's Tale and storytelling For a graduate course on the teaching of Shakespeare, I am working with Winter's Tale, and I have two questions for the members of this illustrious group. First, have any of you tried teaching this play at the high school leved? If so, from what angle did you approach the play? Second, I am interested in the characters' uses of storytelling within WT. Does anyone know of studies concerning Shakespeare's use of stories within his plays? Thanks in advance for your assistance. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 08:27:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0326 Re: Macduff; *Mac.* Anecdotes Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0326. Monday, 11 April 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 17:48:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Saturday, 09 Apr 94 13:12:34 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0322 Re: *Mac.* Anecdotes (3) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 20:16:00 Subj: *Mac.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 17:48:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0313 Q: *Mac.* Anecdotes; Re: Macduff and Macbeth Dave Evett says that, if Macduff takes his family, his family will slow him down. In Macduff's day, perhaps the quickest way to get from Fife to London was not the train or the horse, but a ship. The ruins of Macduff's castle (so-called in Fife) are on the coast, some yards from the sea. Ergo, a ship. Would the presence of his family on this (supposed!) ship really slow the ship down? I always supposed that Macduff went by ship. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Saturday, 09 Apr 94 13:12:34 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0322 Re: *Mac.* Anecdotes Re the _Macbeth_ "curse": I seem to recall a fairly lengthy discussion of this on rec.arts.theatre about a year ago. Interested parties might want to search through their archives. The last I knew, the way to get started was to write to: theatre-request@world.std.com. There's a real person at the other end, so you can actually send a message in English rather than geekspeak. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Friday, 08 Apr 1994 20:16:00 Subject: *Mac.* >A colleague has asked me to solicit any and all anecdotes relating to weird >occurrences during productions of MACBETH. Is there a published collection? I have a vague recollection that there is one, but don't know any details. If opera versons count, I remember the Met broadcast that ended an act or so early when someone lept to their death from the balcony. Jerry Bangham jbangham@kudzu.win.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 08:34:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0327 Re: Marriages Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0327. Monday, 11 April 1994. (1) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Saturday, 09 Apr 1994 13:06:01 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0323 Re: Marriages (2) From: William Russell Mayes Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 21:07:59 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0323 Re: Marriages (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Saturday, 09 Apr 1994 13:06:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0323 Re: Marriages As to companionate marriages -- what about Beatrice and Benedick? Rosalind and Orlando? Patricia Palermo (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Russell Mayes Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 21:07:59 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0323 Re: Marriages Ronald Dwelle wonders about companionate marriages in Shakespeare. My feeling is that he is generally right about those marriages dramatized by the plays, but that many plays end with companionate marriages that we are expected to see as "happily ever after." Of course not all comic marriages are of this type (I have trouble with the Duke and Isabella in MFM and Bertram and Helena in AWTEW to name two obvious ones), but there are quite a few. I'll name the one I'll be teaching this week: Perdita and Florizel in WT. W. Russ Mayes Jr. wrm2b@faraday.clas.virginia.edu University of Virginia Dept. of English ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 08:45:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0328 Announcements: Brithday Party; Hypermedia at the SAA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0328. Monday, 11 April 1994. (1) From: Blair Kelly III Date: Saturday, 9 Apr 1994 20:37:37 -0400 Subj: Shakespeare Birthday Party (2) From: Michael Mullin Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 12:46:46 -0600 Subj: SAA Hypermedia Session 15 April 94 (3) From: Michael Best Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 94 21:54:22 PDT Subj: Hypertext at the SAA (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Blair Kelly III Date: Saturday, 9 Apr 1994 20:37:37 -0400 Subject: Shakespeare Birthday Party To each member of SHAKSPER who will be in the Washington D.C. area for the evening of 23 April: We in the Washington Shakespeare Reading Group consider you honorary members and cordially invite you and a guest to attend our 1994 Shakespeare Birthday Party beginning at 6:30 pm on Saturday, 23 April to be held at the home of a member in Northwest DC. (Please contact the undersigned for the address.) Please bring food or drink to share for our communal dinner. (And if anyone wants to bring some sack, that's fine too!) Please come prepared to read your favorite Shakespearean soliloquy or scene as part of our Member's Choice readings (part of the evening's entertainment). Please tell the Entertainment Director your choice when you arrive, so that he may organize the readings. (If you do not have a choice, the Entertainment Director will assign you the most embarrassing scene he can find!) Your guest is encouraged but not required to read. The toast to William Shakespeare will be given by the editor of SHAKSPER, Professor Hardy Cook of Bowie State University. Dress: Formal, informal, casual, costume - your choice! Blair Kelly III (Secretary, WSRG) 1309 Beltram Court Odenton, MD 21113-2102 bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil 410-674-5968 Home 301-688-0331 Work (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Mullin Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 12:46:46 -0600 Subject: SAA Hypermedia Session 15 April 94 SHAKESPEARE ON INTERACTIVE HYPERMEDIA CD-ROM SAA 5:30 pm Friday 15 April 1994 Location TBA. Michael Mullin (University of Illinois-Urbana) and Michael Best (University of Victoria-British Columbia) invite you to join them in an informal session on interactive hypertext.at 5:30 in **** on Friday 15th at the Shakespeare Association meeting in Albuquerque. Michael Mullin will demonstrate *OUR SHAKESPEARES: Shakespeare Across Cultures*, featuring video clips linked with text. Michael Best will show *Shakespeare's Life and Times*. Please join us and other SHAKSPERians. We'll have a machine--you're welcome to bring your golden disks to show everyone. The focus of the discussion will be on future directions. To RSVP, please email Michael Mullin: motley@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu. Be there, or B . Michael Mullin motley@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Department of English University of Illinois Urbana, IL 61821 USA 217/333-5858 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 94 21:54:22 PDT Subject: Hypertext at the SAA WATCH FOR THIS POSTING-- SHAKESPEARE ON INTERACTIVE HYPERMEDIA CD-ROM SAA 5:30 pm Friday 15 April 1994 Location TBA. Michael Mullin (University of Illinois-Urbana) and Michael Best (University of Victoria-British Columbia) invite you to join them in an informal session on interactive hypertext.at 5:30 on Friday 15th at the Shakespeare Association meeting in Albuquerque. Michael Mullin will demonstrate *OUR SHAKESPEARES: Shakespeare Across Cultures*, featuring video clips linked with text. Michael Best will show the new CD ROM version of *Shakespeare's Life and Times*, and will discuss a project for a group of plays to be edited in hypertext format. Please join us and other SHAKSPERians. We'll have a Macintosh --you're welcome to bring your golden disks to show everyone. The focus of the discussion will be on future directions. We will post the venue as soon as it is confirmed. To RSVP, please email Michael Mullin: motley@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 08:58:42 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0329 Re: Plain Dealers; Friar Lawrence; Limericks; Ophelia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0329. Monday, 11 April 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 10:21:09 -0500 Subj: plain dealers (2) From: Herbert Donow Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 94 11:54:47 CST Subj: Query on Friar Lawrence (3) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 10:40:10 +1000 (EST) Subj: Anti-Oxonian Limericks (4) From: Karla Walters Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 21:14 MST Subj: Ophelia's Contraceptive (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 10:21:09 -0500 Subject: plain dealers A wonderful colleague of mine who's been lurking on the SEC and enjoying the interchanges pointed out a relevant speech from *Much Ado* on the topic of plain dealing/dealers: in 1.3, Don John proclaims, "In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain." Plain dealing clearly can be a tool for people of all sorts: good, bad, and all muddled like most of us. --Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Herbert Donow Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 94 11:54:47 CST Subject: Query on Friar Lawrence Michael Dotson asked about Friar Lawrence in II.iii. The speech gives us a curious revelation into the way his mind works, preparing us for his very bad ideas (assisting in an unsanctioned marriage and a trick suicide). When he observes, correctly, how good things in nature can, when misused, be bad, and how even the most vile of things can serve some useful function, he makes the illogical leap to "Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,/And vice sometime by action dignified." To jump from speaking of things appearing virtuous, to virtue itself, leads him into an absolute form of error, tipping us off as to the kind of problems he will eventually lead himself and others. Herbert Donow Southern Illinois University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 10:40:10 +1000 (EST) Subject: Anti-Oxonian Limericks John Cox's revelation of the source of the 'limerick cycle' was interesting. David Bevington, for whose work I have always had great respect, is one of the relatively few Shakespearean scholars whose work requires him to maintain an anti-oxfordian (or 'oxonian' if we must) stance. In his early work, (*From Mankind to Marlowe*) he confronted, more directly than most, the yawning chasm that separates the popular drama of the mid 16th century from that of the Shakespeare-dominated late 16th, and 'bridged' it in a way that, directly or indirectly, has given performance criticism aid and comfort ever since. The fact that his 'bridge' ignores (or, by implication, consigns to the realm of the inexplicable) so many dimensions of Shakespeare's (and Marlowe's and Kyd's) dramatic writing *other* than structure (e.g. lexical richness and rhetorical complexity) is overlooked in the rush to affirm that yes, we *can* somehow derive Shakespeare's work from the popular tradition. Anyway, my point is that Bevington has an interest in ridiculing the actually very powerful Oxford claim. Others do not, and it would be a pity if they were prevented from having an open-minded look at the evidence by a political strategy that might be mistaken for mere pleasantry. Patrick Buckridge. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Sunday, 10 Apr 1994 21:14 MST Subject: Ophelia's Contraceptive Recently some discussion occurred on this list about Ophelia's rue having contraceptive or abortive effects. Just last week in writing an answer to an exam question a student interpreted the scene in which Laertes leaps into Ophelia's tomb and cries, "Now pile your dust upon the quick and the dead": The student wrote, "He uses quick to mean both "living" or "alive" and also "to be with child," which leads us to believe that Ophelia was pregnant with Hamlet's child at the time of her death." Honestly, I never discussed this scene with my class in these terms. Has anyone seen this interpretation of Laertes' speech as 'evidence' that Ophelia was pregnant? Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 08:37:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0330 Re: Plain Dealing; Ophelia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0330. Tuesday, 12 April 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 09:54:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: plain dealing (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 10:38:47 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0329 Ophelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 09:54:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: plain dealing As various people have pointed out, both Cordelia and Kent are plain dealers in *Lear*, and it gets them into trouble. No one has yet pointed out, I think, that when Lear recovers consciousness in 4.7, he speaks more truly than he has at any point in the play previously: "I am a very foolish fond old man" etc. Moreover, he says, "And, to deal plainly . . . ." I like to think that among other virtues he has learned in his madness is the virtue of plain dealing. John Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 10:38:47 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0329 Ophelia Re Karla Walters' student's interpretation of "the quick and the dead". Certainly it is the sort of pun Shakespeare was fond of using, and I do recall hearing (as opposed to reading) this idea somewhere in the murky past. I think the wordplay must be intentional: but that doesn't mean that Ophelia is pregnant. To my mind, the scene is analogous to the "mousetrap" scene, which doesn't really prove Claudius guilty of anything (an innocent Claudius would be upset by an enactment of a nephew killing his uncle the king, especially when C knows Hamlet chose the entertainment). Hamlet uses C's reaction to justify what he has already decided to do [I had a dean like that once, but that's another story....]. So does Laertes fuel his desire for a confrontation with Hamlet based on... what? Anything from truth to evidence to suspicion to paranoia to "MY sister wouldn't have done that unless...". Maybe, for example, he overheard the "rue" conversation and jumped to conclusions... To me, Hamlet and Laertes are a lot closer temperamentally than either might choose to admit. And avenging a father's death is serious business, not to be impeded by the application of mere logic. The fact that both are "right" about their respective fathers' killings does little to change the bloodthirstiness of their responses. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 08:48:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0331 Qs: Melancholia; Shylock; Maria Ouspenskaya Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0331. Tuesday, 12 April 1994. (1) From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 18:00:32 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Melancholia (2) From: Kimberly Beane Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 18:40:27 EST Subj: Shylock & the Holocaust (3) From: Don Weingust Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 20:57:20 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Maria Ouspenskaya (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joel A. Plotkin Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 18:00:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Melancholia While lecturing on *Merchant of Venice* today, I noticed how vividly and efficiently S describes the sensation of depression or melancholia -- heaviness, weariness, wanting to die, unwillingness to take action. Later on, of course, S. writes the consumate depression speech in Hamlet -- How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable... Earlier in the semester, while covering Midsummer Night's Dream, I spent some time on the use of the word >nothing< which is often used dismissively to refer to poetry or art (>to give to airy nothing a local habitation<... Romeo dismisses the Queen Mab speech as >nothing<. In Lear of course, the word become almost a talisman. Does this suggest to people more familiar with S.'s work (than a prof at a technical college) that there may be an underlying emotional tendency to depression in the playwright? I remember an earlier post in which a physician commented on signs of parkinsonian palsy in some of the autographs. Of course this is all highly speculative, and possibly mere transference from my own experiences of depression, but I'm curious whether this strikes a chord in other readers? Joel Plotkin SUNY Institue of Technology at Utica (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Beane Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 18:40:27 EST Subject: Shylock & the Holocaust Hullo, fellow Shaksperians-- I'm currently begining a small research project looking into interpretations of that most-ambiguous of Shakespearian characters, Shylock, and have become most interested in examining how the experience of the Holocaust has affected actor choices in playing the character. Specifically, I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions along the following questions: 1) Is there any indication (and so far all my searching says a vehement "NO!", but I thought I'd ask anyway) as to how the Bard wanted the character played or how the original actor(s) viewed the character? 2) Are there any studies (or groupings of original documents) examining the popularity of _Merchant of Venice_ during the Nazi reign in Germany? (John Gross's book, _Shylock_, mentions that MV was one of the most popular plays staged in Germany at the time. No doubting the interpretation, but I would be interested in seeing reviews, notes, etc from such productions.) 3) Has anyone speculated (and if so, where can I find said speculations!) about how the Holocaust has influenced actor/director interpretations of the character in the post-Auschwitz years? and finally, a sidelight of interest: 4) What is the Jewish reaction to Shylock, both pre- and post-Holocaust? I'd appreciate any tidbits, speculation, confused comments, or serious suggestions. Many, many thanks in advance. Kim Beane Purdue University beanekd@expert.cc.purdue.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Weingust Date: Monday, 11 Apr 1994 20:57:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Maria Ouspenskaya Though somewhat outside the purview of this particular list, perhaps a fellow SHAKSPERean or two can provide some much sought-for information. I am trying to contact persons who have studied Acting with Maria Ouspenskaya, either in her American Laboratory Theatre days, or in Hollywood. If anyone receiving this message has studied with Madame, or knows of someone else who has studied with her, I would be most grateful to hear from you. I would also be interested in hearing from anyone with personal anecdotes or insights about her. Rather than replying to the list, please contact me personally at the following e-mail address: weingust@uclink.berkeley.edu. Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Apr 1994 09:03:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0322 Re: Limericks Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0332. Tuesday, 12 April 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 18:34:06 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0329 Re: Limericks (2) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 21:24:10 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0329 Re: Limericks (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 18:34:06 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0329 Re: Limericks A quick seat-of-the-pants reply to Patrick Buckridge's implicitly pro-Oxford response to David Bevington's anti-Oxonian limericks: Buckridge points out the "yawning chasm" between mid-16th and late-16th century English drama in terms of lexical richness and rhetorical complexity, the existence of which I am certainly not going to dispute. Since Buckridge identifies himself as an Oxfordian (by his mention of the "actually quite powerful Oxfordian claim"), I assume he sees this development as supporting the case for Oxford's authorship, but I fail to see how such a position could avoid being elitist. What, exactly, is it about the development of English drama in this period that was more likely to come from a nobleman (i.e. Oxford) than from a bunch of commoners like Marlowe and Shakespeare? Couldn't at least some of this development been the result of the massive improvement in public education under Elizabeth I, with the resultant sharp rise in literacy and the explosion of the London publishing business, which greatly increased both the number of works a potential playwright/poet could use as sources, and the audience for any works such a playwright/poet might produce? Elizabethan England was ideally suited for the rapid development of a theater by and for the "common people" (i.e. non-nobility), when anybody could pay a penny and go see the latest play by Shakespeare, or go to St. Paul's and pay sixpence for a copy of Venus and Adonis or any of the untold hundreds of other works for sale. Only by divorcing the plays from the cultural context can anything remotely resembling an Oxfordian arguument be made on the basis of the developments Buckridge cites. Sorry. Had to get that off my chest. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Monday, 11 Apr 94 21:24:10 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0329 Re: Limericks About Pat Buckridge's fume accusing David Bevington of irreverence and interference in the free exchange of ideas or evidence about Oxford the Bard: Seems, m' dear, that laughter is not allowed in the hallowed halls of Oxfordolatry. I can only refer the community to a dimly recalled remark by Plato. Responding to the question, "What can one do when a person refuses to accept the conclusions of argument and evidence?" Plato (or Socrates?) replied, "You can only hold him up to the ridicule of the Polis." I have personally been the beneficiary of David Bevington's intellectual generosity and forbearance, in quality and quantity beyond counting. It ain't nice to accuse such a gentle and gracious person of irritable self-interest when at second-hand we receive the lighthearted playfulness of his animated exuberance. Cakes and ale, anyone? Or dire warnings of Oxonian Correctness Police on Patrol? Ye' pays yer money and ye'takes yer choice. Irreverentowitz of the Bronx, 242nd Earl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 10:50:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0333 Re: Limericks and a Related Query Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0333. Wednesday, 13 April 1994. (1) From: John Mucci Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 06:01:14 -0400 Subj: Limericks (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 11:46:05 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0322 Re: Limericks (3) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 94 16:18:10 EDT Subj: Q: Identities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 06:01:14 -0400 Subject: Limericks Thank you Patrick Buckridge for your defense of the sober study of Oxford as regards David Bevington's interest against him. I don't know if that defense is entirely necessary. Having produced the three-hour live videoconference on the authorship issue, for which Dr Bevington was interviewed on tape, I can say that I have never talked to another scholar, Shakesperian or otherwise, who looked at a topic he disagreed with, with a more neutral, dispassionate and fair demeanor. Because he is so knowledgeable on the times and the topics, he was easy to converse with on subjects most of the other scholars had "come to conclusions about long ago." He is truly one of the guiding lights of the videoconference itself, and when people see the tape, they still comment on how he bridged the gap between those ossified professors who regurgitate--sometimes down to the last word and punctuation--what another has concluded, and the primary research which is being done on the Oxford issue. I cannot say I am an Oxfordian (please, not Oxonian!) as dyed in the wool as there are some, but I am perfectly fascinated with the possibility of his authorship, because so much of his story *fits*, whereas the story of William Shaksper (thank you for naming the BBS service after him of Stratford!) has to be constantly shored up and wedged into a story that rings false more often than not. As for Limericks, anyone can indulge in them with impunity! Remember this? AECHAEOLOGY IN STRATFORD Mr Shaksper's old privy you seek? They've dug up foul papers all week. What would befall instead, Leaves of poor Hollinshed, Had he no Latin and less Greek? John Mucci GTE VisNet JOHN.C.MUCCI@GTE.SPRINT.COM [Editor's Note: SHAKSPER was chosen as the name for this conference because it was the best EIGHT letter (the limit for a list name) choice available; the name has absolutely *nothing* to do with the "authorship" debate. --HMC] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 11:46:05 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0322 Re: Limericks Dirtiest kind of politics. We only know about kings and queens through Shakespeare anyway, so here we have a circular argument of the worst kind. ELEpstein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 94 16:18:10 EDT Subject: Q: Identities The vigor of the Oxfordians brings to mind a thought... and a question: To my mind, Shakespeare surpasses Lyly by less than Lyly surpasses Udall or "Mr. S", and surpasses Marlowe by less than Marlowe surpasses Preston or Sackville & Norton. Yet Lyly's and Marlowe's careers are almost exactly tangent to Shakespeare's: they were not, as is often assumed (especially with respect to Marlowe), really contemporaries. Has anyone ever suggested that Lyly and Marlowe, neither of them nobles, were anyone other than who we think they were? Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 11:29:58 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0335 Re: Plain Dealing; *Mac.* Anecdotes; The Mousetrap Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0335. Wednesday, 13 April 1994. (1) From: Ben Schneider Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 12:01:40 -0600 (CST) Subj: plain dealing (2) From: Ron Moyers Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 15:37:38 -0500 (CDT) Subj: *Mac.* Anecdotes (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 22:10:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0330 Re: Plain Dealing; Ophelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 12:01:40 -0600 (CST) Subject: plain dealing Dear Christine Gordon: When you say, speaking of Don John in MAN, that plain dealing "is a tool for people of all sorts, good bad, and all muddled like most of us," do you mean to suggest that PDing is not a totally unambiguous virtue? Granted that villains may be plain dealers, and several of Shakespeare's villains are plain dealers in the same sense as Don John (Iago, Richard III, Edmund in Lear), does it follow that plain dealing itself is villainous? For example compare Goneril&Reagan with Edmund. The double-dealing sisters tell themselves that what they are doing is for Lear's own good; plain dealing Edmund has no such illusions. He's unambiguously out for himself. Edmund says to himself, if I'm a bastard in birth why not be a "bastard" in behavior? "Nature, be thou my Goddess." He goes about his evil-doing "with direct eyes" like the un-Hollow Men in Eliot's poem. He is a man of a superior intelligence. Watch him characterize his shilly-shallying father: "This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion." (1.2.118-22) No one has a better grasp of what's rotten in England. Isn't it better to be a clear-eyed villain than a hypocritical rationalizing, self-approving pragmatist? My point is that Plain-dealing is a good thing even when it's an attribute of villains. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyers Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 15:37:38 -0500 (CDT) Subject: *Mac.* Anecdotes I seem to recall that the spring 1988, Broadway-bound production of *Mac.* which starred Glenda Jackson and Christopher Plummer was sufficiently troubled to exhaust the play's ill luck for some time to come. I believe a Sunday NYTimes, ca. March-April '88, has an article detailing the productions's out-of-town woes--e.g., several directors, various sets, a multitude of Macduffs, etc.--Ron Moyer, Theatre, Univ. of South Dakota (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 22:10:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0330 Re: Plain Dealing; Ophelia Rick Jones is absolutely right about Hamlet's "mousetrap." He should have had the king's brother kill the king. Of course, even this wouldn't have proven that Claudius was/is guilty. Claudius might point out that he took the play as an insulting accusation that he killed his brother Hamlet. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 11:21:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0334 Qs: Teaching; Brook's *MND*; *Tro.*; Villains Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0334. Wednesday, 13 April 1994. (1) From: Bill Dynes Date: Tuesday, April 12, 1994 Subj: Teaching aids for the undergrad classroom (2) From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 08:13:41 +1000 Subj: Brook's MND (3) From: Alan Weber Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 19:18 EST Subj: Query (4) From: Doug Cummins Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 09:15:17 CST Subj: Villains in Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Dynes Date: Tuesday, April 12, 1994 Subject: Teaching aids for the undergrad classroom I'm a new member of SHAKSPER, so I hope you'll forgive me if this subject has been discussed more thoroughly in the past. I'm wondering what teaching aids others use to help students, primarily undergrads, *flesh out* and become more comfortable with the plays, the era, and the like. I use videos, of course, and a small model of the Globe theater for discussions of the original playing space. What else is out there? Dr. Bill Dynes University of Indianapolis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 08:13:41 +1000 Subject: Brook's MND I'm interested in discovering from those who saw the production, whether the plate that Brook used as a the little western flower actually made an audible sound over the volume of the dialogue? I know of the freekas and the noise that the metal trees would have made but did the flower made a sound? Regards, Scott Crozier (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Weber Date: Tuesday, 12 Apr 1994 19:18 EST Subject: Query Dear Shake-fans, Herzlichiu Gruzzen from Binghamton, NY, where the candle of Shakespeare burns amid post-industrial depression. I have been reading through some of the medieval Troy stories which contain the Troilus and Cressida legend. I came across this curious line in a Mittelhochdeutsche poem ez ist auch naturlich, daz ain yeglichiu fraw dez manns allzeit begert, reht alz diu materi begert der form [it is also natural that every woman always desires a man, just as material desires form] The passage seems to be related to Guido delle Colonne (Historia Destructionis Troiae) Scimus enim mulieris animum semper virum appetere, sicut appetit materia semper formam. O utinam materia, transiens semel in formam posset dici suo contenta formata! I can't help but think that Shakespeare came across this passage in one of the many European translations of Guido, and that a form/ material metaphor runs explicitly throughout T&C, with Troilus as form and universal and Cressida as world or material. The idea of celestial male form and terrestrial female material has a long history (Aristotle De Physica, Gnostics, Nichomachus, Paracelsus in the Renaissance). Has anyone uncovered any other metaphors in T&C or other plays drawn from Scholastic, Stoic, or Renaissance physics? I know we're not supposed to think in dualistic terms in modern philosophy, mais que sais-je? I have been enjoying the Shaksper discussions. -- von Weber (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Doug Cummins Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 09:15:17 CST Subject: Villains in Shakespeare Good Morning! I am working with an undergraduate student on a research paper comparing various Shakespearian "villains", namely Iago, Richard III, and Claudius. The paper is prompted by the fact that he is playing Claudius in our current production of Hamlet, which I am directing. He has done a fine job, so far, but we've both reached a kind of dead end in finding material that compares the characters. We especially need more information on Claudius. There's a lot of stuff on Richard and Iago, as you might expect, but old Claudius is overshadowed by his Danish step-son. I am primarily a director and and actor, and although I revere the works of WS and perform them regularly, I'm not up on all the current research on the Bard. If you know of some sources or have some information that Kirk could use in his paper, please send them out on the wire,or mail them to me privately at dcummins@panam. Kirk and I will be very grateful. In the meantime, we open Hamlet on April 27. We'll appreciate all the good vibes,wishes, prayers and incantations you can send our way. "Remember me . . ." Doug Cummins, The University of Texas - Pan American, Edinburg TX ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Apr 1994 11:06:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0336 Re: Authorship (Was Limericks) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0336. Saturday, 16 April 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman" Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 94 18:54:40 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0333 Re: Limericks and a Related Query (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 15:32:01 +1000 (EST) Subj: Limericks (3) From: James Callahan" Date: Thursday, 14 APR 1994 10:26 -00 Subj: More "Authorship"? (4) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 12:17:53 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0333 Re: Limericks and a Related Query (5) From: Timothy Bowden Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 94 11:50:56 PST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0334 Qs: Teaching; Brook's *MND*; *Tro.*; Villains (6) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 15 Apr 94 10:03:54 EST Subj: authorship redux (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman" Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 94 18:54:40 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0333 Re: Limericks and a Related Query Rick Jones asks whether anyone has ever suggested that Lyly and Marlowe were not who we think they were, and the answer is, "Of course they have". I know for sure that Charlton Ogburn Jr., the leading Oxfordian, believes that Oxford wrote not only Shakespeare but all of Lyly's work as well, and I think (though I'm less sure off the top of my head) that Ogburn gives Marlowe's corpus to Oxford also; if he doesn't, there are certainly others (e.g. Stephanie Caruana) who do. The logic is impeccable: Shakespeare's plays are too beautiful to have been written by the unlettered yokel from Stratford, so they must have been written by the omniscient and brilliant Earl of Oxford; Lyly's and Marlowe's plays are also suspiciously well written, have demonstrable parallels with Shakespeare's work, and are much better than what came immediately before; ergo, the same brilliant Oxford must have written them as well. The same logic has led Ogburn (and to an even greater extent, Caruana) to give Oxford credit for massive chunks of Elizabethan drama, including, I believe, the works of Greene, Peele, and Nashe in addition to those of Lyly and Marlowe. Now I know more sober Oxfordians (and near-Oxfordians, like John Mucci) will cry that the issue of whether Oxford wrote Shakespeare is separate from whether he wrote Marlowe or Greene, but I really don't think it is; the arguments in both cases are remarkably similar, involving the same type of "evidence", and if one accepts the premises which lead to the conclusion that Oxford wrote Shakespeare, one virtually *has* to accept the conclusion that Oxford (or someone similar) wrote almost the whole of Elizabethan drama. I hope it's clear that I don't think much of either argument, though I respect those who make the arguments, as long as they respect me. And by the way, can we *please* put to rest that old anti-Stratfordian canard about the spelling of Shakespeare's name? Yes, I will grant you that he was baptized as "Gulielmus Shakspere", and that he signed his name "Shakspere" or "Shakspeare", and that the name on the First Folio and most of the Quartos is "Shakespeare". But a systematic review of the evidence reveals how absolutely meaningless this distinction is. About a year ago I did an informal survey of how the name was spelled in primary documents referring unambiguously to: a) the Stratford man, and b) the playwright. Guess what --- the name was more likely to appear without the first e (e.g. Shakspere) when referring to the *playwright*. You could make a pretty good case that people were more likely to omit the first e when writing longhand than when setting type: for example, on June 12, 1593, Richard Stonley bought a copy of Venus and Adonis, with a dedication signed by "William Shakespeare", then wrote in his diary that he had bought "Venus and Athonay pr. Shakspere". Many other examples could be given. In the Bellot-Mountjoy suit of 1612, he is consistently referred to as "William Shakespeare" of Stratford-on-Avon, though he signed his name "Willm Shakp" on his deposition. I defy anyone to show me systematic evidence that *any* variation in the spelling of Shakespeare's name had *any* consistent significance. I'm pretty sure it can't be done, because I've looked. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 15:32:01 +1000 (EST) Subject: Limericks Dave Kathman sees the case for Oxford's authorship as unavoidably 'elitist'. This is a fairly frequent response: David Bevington's equivalent phrase is 'essentially snobbish'. It depresses me when I encounter it, because it usually comes from people who are on the left politically, as I am myself, and who should, it seems to me, be sympathetic to a position which acknowledges the material cultural determinations of artistic achievement and rejects idealisms about the miraculous operations of untutored genius. In other words, to write the way Shakespeare did he had somehow to acquire the huge wealth of cultural knowledge his plays contain. My impression is that, printing and Humanism notwithstanding, improvements in public schooling were not really that spectacular in the sixteenth century: schools like Westminster and the Merchant Taylors were certainly not typical. An education of the kind 'Shakespeare' (the playwright) must have had could only have been gained through intensive tutoring, a stint at the university, and then some: the kind of education available to male members of the nobility and gentry, and not too many others. We know William Shakspere of Stratford didn't go to either university - nearly all his contemporary playwrights did; indeed, there is no evidence that he even attended the Stratford grammar school (and no reason to suppose he would have, since his parents were illiterate). The Oxfordian position is not elitist, but Elizabethan society certainly was - an aristocratic oligarchy if ever there was one. One of the most remarkable effects of Stratfordianism is the way it can induce people who obviously know a lot about Elizabethan society -- the rigid class system, with its powerful legal and ideological supports -- to abandon that knowledge in order to swallow the most improbable violations of social decorum, placing William Shakspere, a journeyman player from the sticks in his late twenties, in a variety of unimaginable relations with members of the aristocracy, up to and sometimes including the Queen. The oligarchic structure of Elizabethan society was in no way inconsistent with 'the rapid development of a theater *for* [though not *by*] the common people' - far from it. Such an institution was very much what Elizabeth and her government wanted, and there is evidence that they helped to finance it from the start. The historical context -- and Oxfordians give it more attention than most -- includes a series of Catholic-inspired assassination plots against the Queen, and an enormously expensive and protracted war with Spain, lasting until after the turn of the century. What England needed, and was able to bring into being, using the top-down methods natural to such a polity, was a mass instrument of English Protestant propaganda: the public theatre. Anyone who's interested more of this should read Charlton Ogburn's book, *The Mysterious William Shakespeare* without delay. Apart from anything else it's extremely witty. To Steve Urkowitz: I'm all for *irreverence*, but it's an odd word to use for the Bevington limericks. Has Oxfordianism recently become the established orthodoxy at which irreverent Stratfordians cock their sceptical snooks? What world are you on, Steve? I'm on planet Earth where the Stratfordians are the kings of the castle. As for ridicule, well, there's a politics of ridicule, as there is of most things, and there's no discourtesy in drawing attention to that fact from time to time. Plato's question about what to do when people refuse to accept the conclusions of argument and evidence is one that Oxfordians confront all the time. To Rick Jones: I agree with your ratio of gaps as between Udall, Lyly/Marlowe, and Shakespeare. I don't know of any alter egos proposed for Lyly and Marlowe. What is known about them, though, is that they were both closely associated with Oxford in the 1580s. Lyly was his Private Secretary for several years. Hence, the argument runs, to the extent that their writing approaches Shakespeare's it is because they were profoundly influenced by Oxford's writing and in a position to profit by his example in part by reason of their university trainings. Pat Buckridge. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Callahan" Date: Wednesday, 14 APR 1994 10:26 -00 Subject: More "Authorship"? ATTENTION: Real academic query at end... I personally thought that the authorship question had been put to rest when that book came out claiming that Marlowe was Will's double. It seems to me that there are some more ridiculous and involved arguments proving authorship one way or another than there are vague misdirecting words in a politician's lexicon. The most interesting part of the debate, for me, has been the arguments and the ridiculous way some people back up their "claim". Gold prospectors stop when the vein runs out, or the stream is clean, but it seems "Shakespeare" prospectors never die, they just go on T.V. Plugging my sarcasm into my own existence, I find myself intrigued by these arguments and forming an opinion. My opinion is based entirely on a random flip of the metaphoric coin and I back up Mark Twain. Not that Mark Twain wrote Shakespeare, but I back up Bacon, who Mr. Clemens claims really wrote the plays. In a rare-ish book called _WASN'T SHAKESPEARE SOMEONE ELSE????_ (I think, but I am probably wrong) Twain says that Bacon is Shakespeare, and that is good enough for me. Now, back to the virtually real world. I am interested in the arguments themselves. If people would like to send me the names of authors and books whose arguments are totally off-the-wall, I would be interested in compiling a quasi-bibliography of ridiculous Shakespeare arguments. You may reach me here at s3callah@ilstu please send it private, as I do not want to take up more of the list than I have already. Thank you, jim (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 12:17:53 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0333 Re: Limericks and a Related Query What I meant was that the argument for Oxford is circular; we only know how kings and queens spoke because Shakespeare told us. How they really spoke was probably like Tammany ward heelers, because royal politics was as dirty as you get. EL Epstein (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 94 11:50:56 PST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0334 Qs: Teaching; Brook's *MND*; *Tro.*; Villains I believe we can all agree on the following standard scenario: Edward de Vere saw a fitting match for his lovely daughter Bridget in one William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke in-waiting. Discretion prevented his urging the young man to the bond as he might like (1), and so he devised a strategy. On the occasion of the young lord's 17th birthday, on 8 Apr 1597, there was gathered at the country estate at Wilton a sparkling array of the luminaries from court, the arts and letters to celebrate. On that occasion, put forth was one Stratfordian with a gift of one each short poems for every year of the life of young Herbert, with one common theme - that he should marry. Of course, the Earl of Oxford was the author of the works, being of all present the most invested in the project. However, to the irritation of many, including the great Lord Burghley himself, the scheme failed. Oxford was understandably disappointed. He was known to dabble in poetry, and so as time permitted (and nobles then and now weren't particularly pressed for time) he continued to chronicle the interplay of Pembroke and his Cyrano in portraits which flattered neither. The bond presented was a bit, ah, Greek to the taste, and there were illicit doings off-page hinted at, and gross chagrin and guilt and woe as well. Oh, dear. But it all was harmless enough - until 1609. At that time, the Earl found a method of revenge diabolical in both cleverness and effect. He presented the accumulated 150 and more of the poems to another Stratfordian, this one a printer, in such manner to credit the gift as from the Earl of Pembroke himself! Oh, was Mr Thorpe not grateful? He was. But not everyone, as might be imagined, was pleased. And herein lies a dilemna. For the tale as told was true. And, after taking such round credit at Wilton for their production when they were innocent, could the Stratfordian then turn and deny ownership of the poems? He could not. Through private pressures and amid public silence, the practical joke was stuffed back into the bottle, and the poems were not heard from again for a hundred years or more. Oxford, at least, was presumably pleased, as we may guess was young Bridget. I hope this construction does not overly jostle known facts nor juggle existing theories. -Tim Bowden (tcbowden@clovis.felton.ca.us) (1) We remember how Shakespeare was pressed into duty of the same nature by the Mountjoys while living with them some years later. (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 15 Apr 94 10:03:54 EST Subject: authorship redux Triumph of the Will In this authorship question's dull screed, There is less about justice than greed; Some desire this man's art, Of his scope claim a part, "Just a piece of the action," indeed! 4/13/94/dah ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Apr 1994 11:44:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0337 Re: Mousetrap; Plain Dealing; Teaching; *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0337. Saturday, 16 April 1994. (1) From: Ron Moyers Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 14:58:00 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Mousetrap (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 10:04:11 -0500 Subj: plain dealing (3) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 23:04:21 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0335 Re: Plain Dealing (4) From: Karla Walters Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 00:18 MST Subj: Ideas for Teaching Shakespeare (5) From: Clifford Ronan Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 94 00:57:10 EST Subj: Re: Woman as matter, man as form (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyers Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 14:58:00 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Mousetrap Rick Jones and Bill Godshalk properly note that Claudius' reaction to a play depicting a nephew murdering an uncle-king is open to various interpretations. Additional ambiguity in the script comes with Horatio's rather flat answers to Hamlet's questions after the King's departure: certainly Horatio must be acted as clearly agreeing or disagreeing with Hamlet or as confused by the events (and presumably such a clear choice was made under the author's tutelage), but the text offers no clarification of Horatio's view. In my experience, Hamlet's planning, expectation, and reaction tend to influence an audience into seeing any reaction by Claudius as guilty, but my 20th- century eyes see Claudius as being in greater control of his public persona, and I think an ambiguous or an "innocent" response from him is more interesting dramatically than an obviously guilty reaction.--Ron Moyer, Theatre, Univ. of South Dakota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 10:04:11 -0500 Subject: plain dealing Thanks to Ben Schneider for seeking clarification about my earlier comment. I would agree that in most cases plain dealing is a good thing; I certainly like plain dealing villains more than double dealing ones-- something about clarity, I suppose. But I've also seen (occasionally) plain dealing used as a weapon by real and fictional people, and then the waters do become a bit more muddy. I tend to be straightforward to a fault myself, which can lead to trouble in some situations, but I think that in most cases it's the best option. But I'd hate to lose the double-dealers in life and literature, however, since they too have a certain appeal. Greetings to those in Albuquerque, and I hope everyone else is having as lovely a day as we are here in Minnesota today. --Chris Gordon (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 23:04:21 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0335 Re: Plain Dealing Let's be sure that we can distinguish between a plain dealer and a railer. In fact, isn't the point made explicitly in *Lear*? ELEpstein (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 00:18 MST Subject: Ideas for Teaching Shakespeare This is a response to the request for ideas besides videos and models of the Globe theater to make Shakespeare come to life for teenage students. The April 1993 issue of _English Journal_ was devoted to ideas for teaching Shakespeare. The National Council of Teachers of English has just published a book by James E. Davis titled _Teaching Shakespeare Today: Practical Approaches and Productive Strategies_ (1993). At the SAA conference here in Albuquerque, Peggy O'Brien of the Folger Shakespeare Library gave a presentation on teaching Shakespeare to high school teachers that was very exciting and got everyone involved. She initiated us all into Shakespeare's language by having us do choral readings, antiphonal readings, successive readings and directing of scenes. It was fun, lively, and dramatic and would work wonderfully with high school students. A new book Peggy O'Brien mentioned, that incorporates both scholarship and teaching ideas generated at the Folger is _Shakespeare Set Free_. I hope this is helpful. I'd also be interested in some further discussion of teaching strategies for Shakespeare on this list. Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu [Editor's Note: We SHAKSPERians have Karla Walters to thank for enabling me to edit your submissions from Albuquerque. Thank you Karla. --HMC] (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Clifford Ronan Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 94 00:57:10 EST Subject: Re: Woman as matter, man as form To: Alan Weber I suppose you will get many replies quoting *MND* I.1, where Theseus over (?)states the patriarchal tradition descending from the Greeks (cf. Athena in the *Oresteia*) as he tries to scare her into submitting to her father's will: To you your father should be as a god; One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure it. With every hearty wish from charming Krakow, Cliff Ronan, Southwest Texas SU/ U of Silesia ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Apr 1994 12:06:58 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0338 Qs: RSC Summer; D.C. Summer; Malvolio's Soliloquy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0338. Saturday, 16 April 1994. (1) From: Peter Novak Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 21:07:12 -0700 (PDT) Subj: RSC SUMMER (2) From: David M Richman Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 17:19:13 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Query to shaksperians in D.C. area (3) From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 20:57:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Malvolio's soliloquy III.4 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Novak Date: Wednesday, 13 Apr 1994 21:07:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: RSC SUMMER I'm having a tough time trying to find out what the RSC's summer season is. Does anyone know what they will be doing from mid-June to September 1st? I will be in England then and was wondering what Shakespeare I could catch. On a related note, does anyone know of any Shakespeare being produced at the Edinburgh Festival and what the dates are? I would be much obliged. If y'all don't think this is interesting enough to go out to everyone, could you send it to me at this address on internet: IN%"PNOVAK@SCUACC.SCU.EDU" I would be most appreciative for any replies. Peter Novak Santa Clara University Department of Theatre and Dance (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 17:19:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Query to shaksperians in D.C. area My family and I will be visiting the D.C. area from July 17 to 24 or so. I haven't been to Washington since the '67 march on the Pentagon, which I suppose dates me. I would be grateful to learn of attractions Shakespearean or theatrical in D.C. and environs at that time. Anything running at the Folger or other theatres? We are up on all the usual D.C. attractions, but a few theatrical or related tips would be received with gratitude and joy. Please reply directly to me: David Richman dmr@christa.unh.edu Many Thanks. David Richman University of New Hampshire (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Thursday, 14 Apr 1994 20:57:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Malvolio's soliloquy III.4 How now. I have to perform Malvolio's soliloquy III.4 ("O ho. Do you come near me now? etc...) for a class in a week or so. I was wondering if any of y'all out there in 'Shakespeare's electronic globe theatre' might have any suggestions on how I should do it. It strikes me as if he almost has a split personality: at once, he is puritanical and all of the luggage that goes with being a Puritan; he is also human and he must contend with all of his human want for Olivia despite the restrictions put upon him by puritanism and by his lower office. Am I anywhere near the bullseye on this, or am I going to perform like a schmuck? I hate to drag the puritan schtick into this again, but I realize that it is somewhat inescapable. By the way, I think it would be cool to do a contemporary production of Twelfth Night in which Malvolio wears a yellow leisure suit instead of yellow stockings and a cheesy ascot to replace the cross garters. If this has been done I would love to hear about it. Matthew Vail Smith Hobart College MASMITH@HWS.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 20:52:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0339 Re: Malvolio Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0339. Monday, 18 April 1994. From: Edmund L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 16 Apr 1994 13:31:21 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0338 Qs: Malvolio's Soliloquy For Malvolio and his split personality, see Tartuffe. Puritans want a reward for their self-denial, and the reward invariably involves getting what they have been denying themselves! ELEpstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 13:31:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0340 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0340. Monday, 18 April 1994. [Because of a technical, this digest is being resent. --HMC] (1) From: Charles Neuringer Date: Saturday, 16 Apr 1994 12:42:59 -0500 (CDT) Subj: The Real Truth! (2) From: David Joseph Kathman" Date: Saturday, 16 Apr 94 13:35:06 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0336 Re: Authorship (Was Limericks) (3) From: Jason Hoblit Date: Sunday, 17 Apr 1994 14:46:51 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0333 Re: Q: Identities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Neuringer Date: Saturday, 16 Apr 1994 12:42:59 -0500 (CDT) Subject: The Real Truth! You fellows have it all wrong. The real truth is that Shakespeare was really the Earl of Oxford. Oxford died young and secretly of a horrible disease (probably leprosy). The family wishing to hide their shame noticed that Shakespeare closely resembled the Earl. They talked him into impersonating the Earl. Shakespeare lead a double life. Sometimes he signed his work with the Oxford name and sometimes with the Shakespeare name. Proof? Well, isn't it obvious! Charles Neuringer neuringer@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman" Date: Saturday, 16 Apr 94 13:35:06 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0336 Re: Authorship (Was Limericks) I don't want to drag this on too long, at least not in this forum, but there are a couple of things I have to say to Pat Buckridge's latest post. First of all, the "elitist" label: I'm well aware that the vast majority of Oxfordians denounce such a label, but I still think it's essentially accurate when you look at all the facts (rather than just the facts Charlton Obburn chooses to present). I'm surprised that the issue of Shakespeare's education vs. that of his contemporaries continues to be presented in such a twisted way by Oxfordians, so here goes: The issue of what Shakespeare's sources were and where he got his knowledge is far from a settled one, as anything who has studied the issue can attest, but to suggest that this knowledge could have only been acquired through "intensive tutoring, a stint at the university, and then some" is, to be blunt, ludicrous; such a view implies that all of Shakespeare's contemporaries had a similar education, and there is of course no evidence for such a view. The statement that "nearly all" of Shakespeare's contemporaries went to a university is patently false. True, the immediately preceding generation of playwrights (the "University Wits" such as Marlowe, Lyly, Greene, etc.) mostly did go get Universtiy educations, but Shakespeare's contemporaries, many of whom displayed just as much, if not more, learning than he did, did not. In most cases there is, in fact, no concrete evidence that any of these playwrights went to any school, just as in Shakespeare's case. Ben Jonson, the most learned playwright of the day, supposedly went to the Westmimster School, but we have no records of his attendance; we only know about it from Drummond's notes of his conversations with Jonson, which survived by chance until they were finally published 200 years later. Most scholars think John Webster went to the Merchant Taylors school, but again there is no contemporary evidence for this. We don't know where Thomas Dekker went to school, or even exactly when he was born or died. None of the above men attended a University; the occasional University man in Shakespeare's time, such as Thomas Heywood, was the exception rather than the rule. These men presumably got their learning from the many books which were published in London and sold in St. Paul's churchyard; books were plentiful and cheap in Elizabethan and Jacobean London, despite the claims of nearly all the anti-Stratfordians. (If you want evidence, take a look at, for instance, Louis B. Wright's *Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England*.) Over a century ago Charlotte Stopes published a list of books published by Richard Field, Shakespeare's Straford contemporary (Field was three years older) and publisher of *Venus and Adonis* and *The Rape of Lucrece*. The list includes many possible and probable sources for the knowledge in Shakespeare's plays, including Plutarch's *Lives*, Ovid's *Metamorphoses*, and such things as histories of Italy and Italian grammars. Isn't it at least possible that Shakespeare could have borrowed such books from his countryman and publisher (and almost certainly friend) Field, especially when he was just starting out as a playwright? If Ben Jonson could acquire the best classical education of his day while spending eight years as a bricklayer, and if John Taylor, a little later, could gain his considerable erudition with (by his own admission) little knowledge of Latin and Greek while spending his days ferrying people across the Thames, I think it is at least as likely that Shakespeare could have acquired his considerable knowledge while working as an actor. R. C. Churchill has an excellent discussion of this issue in the context of the authorship question in *Shakespeare and his Betters*. There's a lot more to be said, but I've already said more than enough. If any Oxfordians have any evidence to refute what I've said above, I'd be more than happy to see it. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jason Hoblit Date: Sunday, 17 Apr 1994 14:46:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0333 Re: Q: Identities > Has anyone ever suggested that Lyly and Marlowe, neither of them nobles, were >anyone other than who we think they were? > Rick Jones > strophius@aol.com I'm not much for the debates over who wrote what, because I have yet to see such an argument that would substantially alter the way I think of the texts. However, I felt I should at least mention that in one of the saner histories of deVere's life (B.M. Ward _The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604: From Contemporary Documents_, (London: 1928) he does mention that John Lyly served as Oxford's secretary. He also makes the suggestion that as a patron and a dabbler Oxford might have collaborated with Lyly in writing the court plays. He doesn't push it too far, but he does claim that Lyly only wrote dramas while serving under Oxford (the Euphues novels were earlier written). I'm not sure I buy the argument that Oxford was involved at all in the writing, but even so Ward doesn't claim that Oxford wrote the plays himself. Jason Hoblit University of Washington - Seattle hoblitj@u.washington.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 10:27:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0341 Re: Malvolio Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0341. Wednesday, 20 April 1994. (1) From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 1994 14:08:27 +0300 Subj: Malvolio's yellow stockings (2) From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:02:04 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0339 Re: Malvolio (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 1994 14:08:27 +0300 Subject: Malvolio's yellow stockings If I were going to do _Twelfth Night_ in a contemporary dress, I think I would have Malvolio wear early nineteen seventies gear: flared trousers, a jacket with wide lapels, and a kipper tie. My students laugh their heads off at the sight of such gear. Textual changes would be fairly easy: "Remember who commended thy yellow necktie, and wish'd to see thee ever flared-trousered." and "This does make some obstruction of the blood, this necktie; but what of that?" Ken Meaney University of Joensuu, Finland meaney@joyl.joensuu.fi (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:02:04 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0339 Re: Malvolio At a later date, Malvolio's reward for self-denial appears reappears in Angelo that precise authoritairrian in *Measure for Measure*. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 10:39:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0342 Re: Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0342. Wednesday, 20 April 1994. (1) From: Ralph Cohen Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 1994 18:01:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0340 (2) From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:17:53 +1000 Subj: Authorship (3) From: Martin Zacks Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 1994 23:26:55 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Authorship ad nauseam (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ralph Cohen Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 1994 18:01:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0340 As to the question of Shakespeare's education, Tom Jones's reply to Ensign Northerton seems apropos: "Sir, it is as possible for a Man to know something without having been at School; as it is to have been at School and know nothing." (Book VII, chapter xii). The Oxfordians themselves seem proof of Jones's observation. Ralph Cohen James Madison University FAC_RCOHEN@vax1.acs.jmu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:17:53 +1000 Subject: Authorship All I can add to Dave Kathman's thoughtful response to the Oxford debate is that the problem of Shakespeare's learning is explained very plausibly in *The Origins of Shakespeare* by Emrys Jones. A scant perusal of the opening chapter will show that it offers more than enough logical explanation of Shakespeare's *learning*. Scott Crozier (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zacks Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 1994 23:26:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Authorship ad nauseam Against my better judgment, a thought on the question of authorship. The First Folio along with most of the quartos that I have seen all have Shakespeare's name as author. That is enough for me to assume that he wrote the plays. To overcome the presumption of that authorship, the evidence really has to be stronger than an assumption he lacked the necessary education. I promise I won't comment on this again. Life is too short and the plays too wonderful to be distracted by this topic. Martin Zacks lalalib@class.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 11:14:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0343 Re: RSC & DC Summer; Friar Lawrence; AYL Weather Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0343. Wednesday, 20 April 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 18 Apr 1994 21:27 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0338 Qs: RSC Summer (2) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 94 16:22:13 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0321 Qs: Friar Lawrence (3) From: John Boni Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:04:08 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0290 Qs: AYI Weather/Music (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 18 Apr 1994 21:27 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0338 Qs: RSC Summer I ordered tickets from RSC for H6, MND, H5, The Wives' Excuse, TN, Cor.,and Peer Gynt. I don't know what else is playing. I ordered tickets by FAX, using my AMEX or VISA card. The Fax number is 011-44-789-261-974. In DC, the 1993-94 season, which included R2, JC, and Rom., will end in early summer. I am not sure when the 1994-95 season starts. It will include H4, 1 and 2, Cym., Tit, WT, KJ, Tem., School for Scandal, Mourning Becomes Electra, The Golden Apple, Becket--i.e., it will select from among those plays. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Tuesday, 19 Apr 94 16:22:13 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0321 Qs: Friar Lawrence To: Michael Dotson RE: Friar Lawrence's meditation You could do a whole lot worse than consult W. H. Auden's introduction to the Dell Laurel R&J, long out of print, I suppose, as mine is the fifth printing of March 1963. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:04:08 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0290 Qs: AYI Weather/Music Robert Cohen asks about weather in AYL, a topic which has interested me over the many years I have taught the play. For example, while the Duke is intoning his "Sweet are the uses of adversity" speech in the forests in Act II, perhaps his real-life counselors, are blowing their nails and hopping up and down to keep warm. One of the most impressive productions I saw in terms of its use of set to emphasize "weather," somewhat loosely construed, took place at Stratford, CT, in the '70s. It starred Eileen Adkins as Rosalind. Throughout, a bare tree dominated the rear of the stage; one almost expected a production of "Waiting for Godot." At the point of the weddings at the end, golden leaves fell from above and attached themselves to the tree. Magical! The audience was so taken that when Adkins attempted to deliver the epilogue, applause drowned her for several minutes. Such moments are all too rare.... John M. Boni ujboni@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 11:24:58 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0344 Q: Shakespeare Films on Bravo; Final CFVote Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0344. Wednesday, 20 April 1994. (1) From: Mike Young Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:06:33 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Q: Othello on Bravo (2) From: Mark Kupferman Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 94 00:58:53 EDT Subj: Final CFV: rec.arts.theatre.{misc,musicals,plays,stagecraft} (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Young Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 09:06:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Q: Othello on Bravo To all; Last night I was shacked to see Olivier's Othello on the Bravo channel. The surprise was not that Bravo was showing it but that the 'network' has recently been added to our cable and it is not listed in our TV Guide. Since Henry V followed Othello and there was an ad for Macbeth, is there something of a Shakespeare festival? Bravo is now piped into every dorm room and throughout our little town. My students and I would be thankful for any program lists or ways to find out the schedule. Yours, Michael Young Davis & Elkins College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Kupferman Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 94 00:58:53 EDT Subject: Final CFV: rec.arts.theatre.{misc,musicals,plays,stagecraft} ************************************************************** NOTE: This is the last time you will see this Call For Votes: If you are interested in playing a part in this vote you MUST send your vote in before April 29. Make sure you follow the instructions at the end of this file and be VERY careful to make sure that your ballot is returned to voting@qualcomm.com and not this mailing list. ************************************************************** LAST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2) unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.misc (replaces rec.arts.theatre) unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.musicals unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.plays unmoderated group rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft Newsgroups line: rec.arts.theatre.misc Miscellaneous topics and issues in theatre rec.arts.theatre.musicals Musical theatre around the world rec.arts.theatre.plays Dramaturgy and discussion of plays rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft Issues in stagecraft and production Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 29 April 1994. After this CFV appears on news.announce.newgroups it will be sent to an infinite number of mailing lists. See below. This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party. For voting questions only contact rdippold@qualcomm.com. For questions about the proposed group contact Mark Kupferman . CHARTER (Proponent) rec.arts.theatre.musicals: Rec.arts.theatre.musicals is a new newsgroup intended to provide a home for everyone to share their experience, ideas, thoughts, and comments about musicals. It is a place to talk about musicals being performed on Broadway, musicals being performed in community theaters, musicals performed in college theaters, and musicals being performed in community theaters. Rec.arts.theatre.musicals is a place to discuss subsidiary issues related to musical theater, such as cast albums and televised performances. It is a place to talk about the actors you loved in _______ and the actors you hated in __________. It is a place to share gossip and tidbits about upcoming performances and a place to ask questions about what musicals are playing where. It is a place to ask about ticket prices. Ask anyone you meet on the street, and chances are they've heard of _Cats_, _Phantom_of_the_Opera_, _Oklahoma!, _Hair!_, _A_Chorus_Line_, and any of the other hundreds of musicals that get revived time after time throughout the world. Musicals such as _Falsettos_ and _Miss Saigon_ have helped us to deal with contemporary issues in a way not possible in any other medium, while other shows such as _Forever_Plaid have taken us back to the music of our youth. In all cases, the spirited song from the stage seems to bear a magical quality that sets our toes tapping, our lips moving, and our hearts free. rec.arts.theatre.plays: While musicals and operas seem to have captured part of the limelight for the last few hundred years, plays have been delighting audiences since thousands of years ago. Whether you're a fan of the tragedies performed at the City Dionysus in 534 bc, Roman fabula togatas of 150 bc, Sanskrit dramas of the fourth century A.D., liturgical dramas of the early middle ages, religious cycles of the fourteenth century, morality plays of the sixteenth century, neoclassical theater, naturalistic theater, or contemporary theater, rec.arts.theatre.plays is the place to bring to light all of your dramaturgical questions and comments. rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft: This group would cover the art of stagecraft. It was once said that the only thing you need for theater is some actors and an audience, but the fact is we enjoy performances a lot more when there is some kind of atmosphere and context. We've grown used to seeing magic happen on the stage, but what it takes to create that magic is a lot of technical knowledge that can only serve the world better if it is distributed. rec.arts.theatre.misc: There are a lot of questions that clearly don't fall into the discussion of plays, the discussion of musicals, or the discussion of stagecraft. Rec.arts.theatre.misc is a new group intended to cover all of these issues including but not limited to topics such as: acting, directing, theater management, design, and stage management. What is the purpose of theater? What purpose is theater going to serve in the twenty first century? Does theater need to serve a function? What is appropriate dress to wear to the theater? How does one go about finding a theater? How does one spell theater? This group will replace rec.arts.theatre, which will be removed after three months if the proposal passes. Reasons for the Proposal: Many rec.arts.theatre readers and many members of the USENET theatre community have come to feel that it is time to break theatre discussion into chewable pieces. Kill files aren't solving the problem because people still want to read all of the messages--they just need them organized in such a way that it makes sense (i.e., all of the musical messages are seperated from the play messages, all of the play messages seperated from the stagecraft messages, etc). Prefixes have been tried, but it hasn't worked. Many people have even left rec.arts.theatre because it was too confusing. It is hoped that this re-organization will provide a happy home for everyone to keep up with thier personal interests in the theatre. The mailing lists this CFV will be sent to are: THEATRE@GREARN.bitnet Theater discussion list ARTMGT-L%BINGVMB.bitnet Arts Management Discussion stagecraft@zinc.com Stagecraft discussion list comedia-l@arizvm1 Hispanic Classic Theater PERFORM@IUBVM.bitnet Medieval Performing Arts REED-L%UTORONTO.bitnet Early English Drama ASTR-L%UIUCVMD.bitnet Theatre History Discussion Asianthea-l@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu Asian Theatre Discussion musicals@world.std.com Musicals Discussion shaksper@utoronto.bitnet Shakespeare Discussion List candrama@unb.ca Canadian Theatre Research theatre-theory@mit.edu Acting-Movement-Voice theory HOW TO VOTE Erase everything above the top "-=-=-=-" line and erase everything below the bottom "-=-=-=-" line. Do not erase anything between these lines and do not change the group names. Give your name on the line that asks for it. For each group, place a YES or NO in the brackets next to it to vote for or against it. If you don't want to vote on a particular group, just leave the space blank. Don't worry about spacing of the columns or any quote characters (">") that your reply inserts. Then mail the ballot to: voting@qualcomm.com Check the "To:" line when you reply. Votes to a list or group are invalid. -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- rec.arts.theatre reorganization (Don't remove this marker) Give your real name here: [Your Vote] Group ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [ ] rec.arts.theatre.misc (replace rec.arts.theatre) [ ] rec.arts.theatre.musicals [ ] rec.arts.theatre.plays [ ] rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft -=-=-=-=-=- Don't Delete Anything Between These Lines =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program. The votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge- ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again. It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly. Only one vote counted per person, no more than one vote per account. Addresses and votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results list. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 09:39:01 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0345 Re: Malvolio Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0345. Thursday, 21 April 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 13:37:42 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0341 Re: Malvolio (2) From: David McFadden Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 16:03:49 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0341 Re: Malvolio (3) From: Blair Kelly III Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 17:53:59 -0400 Subj: Contemporary Twelfth Night and Malvolio (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 13:37:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0341 Re: Malvolio I like Ken Meaney's suggestion about modern-dress costuming for Malvolio -- the yellow-tie crowd "inside the Beltway" are an insufferable bunch of Malvolios -- but wouldn't there be a bit of historical inaccuracy? I don't remember yellow ties showing up until Reagan brought his gang of neo-conservative riverboat gamblers to town a decade ago. My memory of the 70's dressed-up is maroon leisure suits with white leather boots (of course, that was in Minnesota). Jim Schaefer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David McFadden Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 16:03:49 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0341 Re: Malvolio The suggestion for Malvolio in seventies gear is a good one, but I'll add this suggestion anyway: how about having him in a bright yellow jumpsuit? I saw a US tourist in England last year wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit and he was getting a lot of disapproving looks wherever he went, from the English who in general have a tendency to dress modestly in greys and beiges. This fellow said someone back home had told him a bright yellow jumpsuit would be ideal for his tour of England. He felt he'd been tricked and was very embarrassed. dwm (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Blair Kelly III Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 17:53:59 -0400 Subject: Contemporary Twelfth Night and Malvolio Matthew Vail Smith asks about contemporary productions of Twelfth Night and especially Malvolio. I saw such a production. Here is my journal entry which describes that production: Let me tell you about the Shakespeare play I saw back on Thursday 28 March 1991. The play was Twelfth Night, and it was performed at the New Victoria Theatre at Newcastle-under-Lyme/Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. (The two towns have grown into each other.) This was about an hour drive north of Birmingham and about another hour drive trying to find the place. The British really do have confusing one-way ring roads through most of the centers of their towns. I usually end up going around three times and I still end up having to stop and ask someone for directions. The New Victoria is a new theater, as the name implies. This production of Twelfth Night was set in the 1960s, and the set was suitably psychodelic pop-art. This Duke of Illyria was not a political leader, but rather was the "The Duke", the rock star! It's great what you can do with Shakespeare, it's so flexible! And they played it for all it was worth, with lots of throw-away lines added to the play. At one point the band was tuning up for a rehearsal, and one of the band members stumbles in and mumbled "Sorry I'm late!" --- great acting in character! The director has pretensions as a composer, and there were lots of original rock songs in a pastash sort of way. To me they were mostly loud noise with lots of percussion; I think he would have done better using actual songs from the 60s. The actors even flogged (sold) records of the tunes after the performance. The concept was brilliant, as the 60s were an exciting time of experimentation and new ideas (like Elizabethan England) followed by the "Me" 80s. And Malvolio's line --- "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you!" --- beautifully presages this. Somehow it leaves you wondering where did it all go wrong. It certainly was a thought provoking theme, at least for me. The acting was good. I fell in love with Viola and her accent. Regional theaters seem to not be afraid to leave in accents, unlike the big theaters of the RSC or London. From what I heard around me at the interval, it is a Staffordshire accent. Everyone was in various stage of 60s dress, from the wild dress and long hair of the Duke and his band to the more restrained dress of Olivia's household, with of course Malvolio's being the most conservative of all. The fool was a small John Denver type figure. Antonio was a Hell's Angel on a motorcycle, followed in the next scene by Malvolio on an old-fashioned bicycle --- the contrast was excellent, besides explaining how Malvolio can catch up with Viola/Cesario. They took some liberties with the text, changing yellow stockings to yellow loon pants, and adding a P.P.S. (an additional postscript) to the letter Malvolio finds --- "And I want to see you walk like Mick Jager." It was a good laugh as Malvolio strutted off stage like a chicken, but perhaps too much. Sir Andrew was not well acted. I now see that as being a very difficult role --- you have to act an idiot without letting on that you are not. But on the whole a very good performance with an outstanding directorial concept. --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 09:44:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0346 Re: Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0346. Thursday, 21 April 1994. (1) From: Norman J. Myers Date: WedNESDAY, 20 Apr 94 13:27:34 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0340 (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 23:11:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0342 Re: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 94 13:27:34 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0340 Oh, I don't know. The whole Earl of Oxford "controversy" seems very simply resolved to me. If we consider the scripts as they should be considered: as VEHICLES FOR *THEATRICAL* PRESENTATION, then it becomes obvious that they had to have been written by someone thoroughly familiar with production conditions under which they had to be presented and thoroughly familiar with the talents of the company who was going to present them. In short, they *had* to have been written by an ACTOR. And, after all, Shakespeare was first and foremost an actor who wrote plays for a commercial theatre, not a poet who acted on occasion. Is there any evidence that the Earl was a regular practicing professional stage actor for up to 20 years? Norman Myers Bowling Green State University nmyers@andy.bgsu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 1994 23:11:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0342 Re: Authorship I can't resist recording that William Shakespeare is REALLY the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester. The Shakespeare family was chosen as young William's foster family by the Queen's agents. He was given every educational opportunity because of his unique position, and when he came of age, he was brought to London where he selected acting and playwrighting as his dual career. Of course, the Queen pushed his plays. There's no reason to bring in Edward de Vere, when my elegant hypothesis accounts for all the phenomena. So, I say to the Oxfordians "enough," and, please, stop attempting to disrupt seminars at the SAA Meetings. (Only my last sentence is meant seriously.) Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 09:58:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0347 Re: LePage *MND*; Shakespeare on Bravo Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0347. Thursday, 21 April 1994. (1) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 94 17:14:58 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0317 Re: *MND* Productions (2) From: Nicholas Clary Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 08:34:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shakespeare on Bravo (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 07:50:42 -0500 Subj: the bard on bravo (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Wednesday, 20 Apr 94 17:14:58 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0317 Re: *MND* Productions I too saw the 1992 LePage production of MND at the National, and while I liked the thrill of the mud and the acrobat topless female Puck, I walked out struck by the best example of upstaging I'd ever seen. When Theseus is giving his lunatic lover poet speech, Philostrate was busy in the background setting up chairs for "Pyramus and Thisbe." For each chair he had to walk across the seat of the previous one (mud, don't you know), and by the time he had gotten about 4 chairs in (of 12 or 13), not a soul in the audience was paying the least bit of attention to Theseus. This seemed to me to reflect the entire production. If they/it hated the text so much, why did they leave so much in? Gosh, they are no words in the MND ballet (is there one? don't respond), so why such a full text for this one? To defeat it? To beat up on it? Goodness. Nice mud, though. Tom Berger at St. Lawrence University. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Clary Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 08:34:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare on Bravo On April 23, a telling date, Bravo is broadcasting the following programs consecutively: The RSC Henry V Othello Macbeth As my program guide provides nothing more than these titles, I cannot say which versions we will get. The Othello, I will assume from yesterday's broadcast, is likely to be the Olivier (with a youthful Derek Jacobi as Cassio, by the way). If I can catch a preview before the end of the week, I will add details. Others may have better program guides. While the programming described above begins in the early evening, Othello will not start until 12:30 am, and Macbeth not until 3:30 am. Nick Clary (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 07:50:42 -0500 Subject: the bard on bravo To Mike Young and anyone interested: Bravo traditionally shows some Shakespeare-related films\ during the bard's birthday week. In Minneapolis-St Paul, in addition to earlier showing this week, we have a triple bill of Orson Welles's *Macbeth* (Sat at 7 CDT), Olivier's *Henry V* (Sat at 9 CDT), and Olivier's *Othello* (11:30 CDT). Also related (though I'm not sure the folks at Bravo were aware of this when they scheduled it), Gus Van Sant's *My Own Private Idaho* (shown last Sunday, being repeated tomorrow (Friday) at 7 pm CDT. Happy viewing --Chris Gordon, U of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:36:42 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0348. Friday, 21 April 1994. From: James Schaefer Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 11:53:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Computer Skakespeare There's been a lot of discussion about various computerized texts that are or will be available for scholars. Does anyone know of interesting Macintosh programs that are _about_ Shakespeare or the plays, quasi-multimedia approaches (that don't require a CD-ROM) that could supplement a computer-literate teenager's beginning interest in reading the plays (without distracting him away from them!)? Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:39:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0349 Stratford Seminars on Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0349. Friday, 21 April 1994. From: Joyce Litster Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 14:27:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Stratford Seminars - McMaster University The Centre for Continuing Education McMaster University ANNOUNCES THE STRATFORD SEMINARS ON SHAKESPEARE AND THE THEATRE Thirty-fifth Season July 11-16, 1994 Stratford, Ontario Every year since 1960, McMaster University has conducted a 6-day seminar for theatre and Shakespeare enthusiasts in Stratford, Ontario. The program is held in association with the Stratford Festival and begins with a get-acquainted reception and entertainment on Monday evening in the Festival theatre rehearsal room. During the week, participants attend seven performances (Twelfth Night, Othello, Hamlet, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Cyrano de Bergerac, Pirates of Penzance, and Alice Through the Looking Glass), engage in formal and informal discussion with scholars, Festival cast and production people, attend lectures on the plays, meet some of the Festival cast, and soak up the ambiance of Canada's festival town. Three types of membership are available: Type 1: Includes tickets for 7 performances, all seminar activities, 5 lunches and four dinners at the Stratford Country Club, 6 nights accommodation in a Stratford guest home. Fee: $836 (Cdn) Type 2: Includes tickets for 7 performances, all seminar activities, 5 lunches and four dinners at the Stratford Country Club. Fee: $646 (Cdn) Type 3: Includes tickets for 7 performances and all seminar activities. Fee: $499 (Cdn). Fees are quoted in Canadian dollars. American participants will find with the current exchange rate that fees are considerably less in U.S. dollars. If you would like more information or wish to be placed on our mailing list, please contact: Joyce Litster Co-ordinator, Stratford Seminars Centre for Continuing Education McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, CANADA L8S 4K1 Telephone: (905) 525-9140 ext. 23329 FAX: (905) 546-1690 Toll-free message line, Canada, north and central U.S.: 1-800-463-6223 e-mail: litster@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:54:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0350 Re: Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0350. Friday, 21 April 1994. (1) From: David Bank Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 94 20:04:02 BST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0342 Re: Authorship (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 22:40:31 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0346 Re: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Bank Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 94 20:04:02 BST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0342 Re: Authorship Following Martin Zacks: perhaps - O horror! - the ad nauseam of the question will provoke Infinity. In my campus bookshop this afternoon, running away from SHAKSPER, I was accosted by a massive bookspine bearing the legend THE OXFORD SHAKESPEARE. Doesn't OUP *know*? - or are they in another Other conspiracy? David Bank (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Thursday, 21 Apr 1994 22:40:31 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0346 Re: Authorship >I can't resist recording that William Shakespeare is REALLY the illegitimate >son of Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Leicester. Surely not. I've been doing some substantial research on this in my copious free time, and have concluded that Edmund Lord Blackadder is the actual author of the plays and sonnets. If one drinks about a gallon of mixed International Coffees and Schnapps, and peers closely at a replica of the First Folio (preferably DROPPED or THROWN) one notices an elaborate numerological schema which adds up to (on the first page of text) "Edmund my name is Edmund get with the program alas pigeons alas BlackadderalaEdmundiae" And that is only one impressive example! This doesn't even take into consideration the biographical proofs. None of the other candidates for the title of "Shakespeare" have had an entire British comedy series written about them, either. -: I sat in on the Shakespeare and Sidney seminar at the SAA. Thank goodness the "Playing with Theory" seminar didn't attract even minimal curiousity about the authorship "controversy." M. Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 09:51:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0351 Re: Computer Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0351. Saturday, 23 April 1994. (1) From: Martin Mueller Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 08:55:07 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare (2) From: Michael Cohen Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 08:12:47 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare (3) From: Thomas H. Blackburn Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 10:45:20 +0000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 08:55:07 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare In reply to the question by James Schaefer, Intellimation sells a Hypercard program called Shakespeare's Life and Times. Their telephone number is 805.968-2291 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Cohen Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 08:12:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare James Schaefer asks about Macintosh Shakespeare software. I have been working on (and just finished, for all practical purposes) an edition of Macbeth for Voyager, which is aimed at audiences that range from the first time reader to the full-time scholar. A.R. Braunmuller of UCLA provided the edition, notes, and essays; his colleague David Rodes of UCLA provided the introduction and scene-by-scene commentaries. We hope it will be available this summer. I don't want to waste bandwidth by what might be construed as advertising, so contact me by private e-mail if you want more details about this. A company called Bookworm has a product called the Shakespeare Quartet, also for Mac, which has four plays and lots of notes, and seems aimed at a general market as well. I only got about a minute to look at a demo last January, so I can't say much more than that (of course, MY product is much better because I worked on it <*grin*>). Unfortunately, both of them are CD-ROM products (which Schaefer intimated he had less interest in). I have a feeling that most popular Shakespeare materials for the Mac or Windows will be on CD-ROM--it is hard to put performances, images, and sounds on a floppy based product. Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. Lymond@netcom.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas H. Blackburn Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 10:45:20 +0000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0348 Q: Computer Shakespeare Michael Best's is pretty exactly what you are looking for. Available from Intellimation, 1-800-346-8355, Fax 1-805-968-8899. My last catalog prices it at $79. Enjoy. Tom B. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 10:06:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0352 Re: *MND* Productions; Authorship; Thanks Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0352. Saturday, 23 April 1994. (1) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Friday, 22 Apr 94 14:39:59 +0100 Subj: SHK 5.0347 Re: LePage *MND*; Shakespeare on Bravo (2) From: Walter Cannon Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 12:10:29 -0500 (CDT) Subj: authorship (3) From: Chris Daigle <866141@academic.stu.StThomasU.ca> Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 18:26:30 AST Subj: Thank you! (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Friday, 22 Apr 94 14:39:59 +0100 Subject: SHK 5.0347 Re: LePage *MND*; Shakespeare on Bravo For the person who is tracking British productions of MND (I'd have replied sooner, but the review I wrote has only just recently appeared): One of the very best productions I have ever seen of MND was mounted last autumn at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, directed by Kenny Ireland. The staging, and in particular the set by Rae Smith and the mechanicals' performance led by Andy Gray as Bottom, were nothing short of brilliant. My enraptured and rather lengthy and detailed review apppears in the Winter 1994 (Vol. 12, no. 1) issue of *Shakespeare Bulletin*, pp.21-22. Two post-scripts: anyone seeking America and elsewhere should always check *SB* archives as a first move. It's fairly comprehensive in its coverage of performances. Better yet, you should subscribe! Also, I know the original inquiry regarding MND productions specified performances in England, not in the rest of the UK, but this SCOTTISH production was better than anything I've seen south of the border, ever. Point taken? Cheers, Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Walter Cannon Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 12:10:29 -0500 (CDT) Subject: authorship Norman Holland thinks Hamlet is his greatest creation. I'll bet if we did some checking, we might find that he had a hand in other plays as well. Walter Cannon Central College (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Daigle <866141@academic.stu.StThomasU.ca> Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 18:26:30 AST Subject: Thank you! Thank you to all members of Shaksper for allowing me to read the conference. I am a student and I am almost finished exams so I have to take of summer hiatus from the group. Do not send any more postings to 866141@StThomasU.Ca please. I will write you when I am back from summer break..(which will be spent reading some of the Bard's works) Once again, Thank you... Chris Daigle CHRIS DAIGLE St.Thomas University Fredericton, N.B., Canada Email 866141@StThomasU.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 10:19:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation; London/Stratford Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0353. Saturday, 23 April 1994. (1) From: Terence Martin Date: Friday, 22 Apr 94 07:40:19 CDT Subj: Identifying Quote (2) From: Carey Cummings Date: FriDAY, 22 Apr 94 18:46:15 EDT Subj: London/Stratford performances (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Martin Date: Friday, 22 Apr 94 07:40:19 CDT Subject: Identifying Quote I am trying to identify the following quote of which I have only a portion. It may also not be accurate. ". . . and besides the wench is dead." Any help to my mailbox would be appreciated. Terence Martin UM - St. Louis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carey Cummings Date: FriDAY, 22 Apr 94 18:46:15 EDT Subject: London/Stratford performances Perhaps someone can help me. I am going to London on 8/11/94 and plan to be in London for at least a week before going over to Stratford. Does anyone know what will be at the National Theater and the Barbican during the period. Also does anyone have the Stratford schedule for 8/18-8/26? I would appreciate any help you can give. Thanks ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 10:23:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0354 CFP: ISCT Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0354. Saturday, 23 April 1994. From: International Society Date: Friday, 22 Apr 1994 18:56:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: ISCT CALL for PAPERS CALL for PAPERS: Third Meeting of the INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE CLASSICAL TRADITION Boston University, Boston, MA (USA), March 8-12, 1995 Papers are invited on all aspects of the transmission, reception, and impact of Greco-Roman Antiquity from the ancient world to the present time. Conference languages will be: English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Presentations of 20, 30, or 45 minutes will be arranged in thematic sessions and panels. Abstracts (not more than 25 lines) of prospective papers, as well as suggestions and inquiries, should be sent to: I.S.C.T., Wolfgang Haase / Meyer Reinhold, Co-Presidents, either at: Institute for the Classical Tradition, Boston University, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA, or at: Universitaet Tuebingen, Arbeitsstelle ANRW, Wilhelmstr. 36, D-72074 Tuebingen, GERMANY, or to our e-mail address at: isct@acs.bu.edu. Posted by A. Ingle, RA ICT aingle@acs.bu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 12:46:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0357 Re: Quotation: "The dead wench" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0357. Sunday, 24 April 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 22:23:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: The dead wench (2) From: A.G. Bennett Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 22:31 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation (3) From: Ed Pechter Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 08:31:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 22:23:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: The dead wench For Terence Martin, The passage is from Marlowe's THE JEW OF MALTA, 4.1.42 (according to the Fehrenbach, et al. Concordance). But, of course, that was in another country -- a phrase that has provided titles and words for many another writer. Nostalgically yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A.G. Bennett Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 22:31 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation The quotation Terence Martin asked about is from Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_, IV, 1. The full quotation is as follows: Friar Barnadine: "Thou hast committed--" Barabas: "Fornication-- but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead." One question that's always nagged at me about this-- could this be Abigail's mother he's talking about? After all, she, too, is dead before the play begins and isn't mentioned (I don't think) otherwise. Any ideas? Cheers, Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Pechter Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 08:31:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation Let me join what I'm sure will be hundreds in telling Terence Martin that the quotation is from Marlowe's *Jew of Malta*. It's Barabas, describing extenuating circumstances surrounding a charge of fornication: "But that was in another country and besides, the wench is dead." (Given Menendez & Bobbitt decisions, he's probably got a good defense here.) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 12:52:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0358 Re: London/Stratford Productions; Birthday Greetings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0358. Sunday, 24 April 1994. (1) From: Tom Clayton Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 17:23:25 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: London/Stratford Productions (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 22:39:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: A birthday greeting (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Clayton Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 17:23:25 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: London/Stratford Productions 18-26 August, Stratford: MND, TN, H5 in the RST; Cor., Southerne's *The Wives' Excuse*, and *Peer Gynt* in the Swan; and H6 [Part 3 with additional material from Part 2] at The Other Place. NT 11-18 August has, up to the 13th (as far as the latest word goes), Per. and *The Seagull* in the Olivier; Pin- ter's *Birthday Party*, Cocteau's *Les Parents Terribles*, Arthur Miller's new *Broken Glass*, and *The Seagull* in the Lyttelton; and *Le Cid* (new trans. by Ranjit Bolt, 1994) and &Rutherford & Son* (by Githa Sowerby, 1912) in the Cottesloe. At the Barbican, same time: Tmp., MV, and Lr. in the Barbican; and *The Country Wife*, *Ghosts*, and *Murder in the Cathedral* in the Pit. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 22:39:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: A birthday greeting I suppose Hardy's away giving a birthday toast at a big Shakespeare Birthday Party, and I can't resist singing a little birthday song: Happy Birthday, Shakespeare baby, Happy birthday to you. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 12:38:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0356 Q: Exotic Settings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0356. Sunday, 24 April 1994. From: Karla Walters Date: Saturday, 23 Apr 1994 08:28 MST Subject: Exotic settings query I have been under the impression, from the time I first read Shakespeare as an undergraduate, that Shakepseare used exotic settings like Italy, Denmark, and even ancient Greece and Rome, not merely because the Renaissance was a period in which people became fascinated with ancient times and far away places, but because there was a certain safety from censorship in using exotic settings. However, it seems to me that there is plenty of murder and intrigue in the domestically set histories. Does anyone know where the theory originated that there was some kind of political "safety" in choosing exotic settings? How much factual or historical evidence exists for it? Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 08:49:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0359 Announcements: Reading of 2nd Maiden's Tragedy; TDR Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0359. Monday, 25 April 1994. (1) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 13:08:11 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Second Maiden's Tragedy reading (2) From: Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 20:25:59 -0400 (EDT) Subj: announcement: TDR (T141 Spring 1994) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 13:08:11 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Second Maiden's Tragedy reading I wanted to let anyone and everyone know who may be in the Dallas- Fort Worth area next weekend that Stage West, a Fort Worth theatre co. will be presenting a concert reading of "The Second Maiden's Tragedy" Sunday, May 1 at 7pm. In an article appearing in this week's Dallas Observor, the reading coincides with the publication of Charles Hamilton's book, SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER's CARDENIO or THE SECOND MAIDEN'S TRAGEDY. Hamilton feels that SMT is one of "the lost plays" based on manuscript evidence. Having read Eric Rasmussen's article in SQ, the evidence points more towards WS making corrections and additions rather than authoring text. In any case it will be a unique opportunity. Anyone needing further details and directions should send a note to my e-mail. Oh, there will also be a post-performance discussion. Since my SAA paper was over SMT, you can be assured I'll be rather vocal. THose of you who I met last week will have guessed that. Hope some of y'all can be there. Elizabeth Schmitt E2E3schm@vaxb.acs.unt.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 20:25:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: announcement: TDR (T141 Spring 1994) ...you probably heard of us, but when is the last time you read... ______________________________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ######| ######\ ######\ ##| ##| ##\ ##|__##| ##| ##| ##| ######/ ##| ##|__##/ ##| ##\ ___________________ ##| ######/ ##| ##\_______________________ The Journal of Performance Studies T141 (Spring 1994) TDR is the only journal that explores the diverse world of performance with an emphasis on the intercultural, interdisciplinary and experimental. It covers theater, dance, entertainment, media, sports, aesthetics of everyday life, politics, games, play, and ritual. Although TDR is not yet an electronic journal, you can browse through sample articles online, or subscribe through the Electronic Newsstand and via e-mail from MIT (see directions below). TDR is edited by Richard Schechner of the Department of Performance Studies, New York University, and published quarterly by MIT Press. Check out our table of contents. ------------------------------------------------------------------- // In This Issue (T141 Spring 1994) \\ -------------------------------------- //Comments\\ TDR & NEA: The Continuing Saga - TDR Comment by Richard Schechner (editor) In Memory of Utpal Dutt - by Sudipto Chatterjee In Memory of Robert W. Corrigan - by Richard Schechner //Letters\\ Free Giveaway of His Plays - by Richard Foreman Marxism, Melodrama, and Theatre Historiography - Dan Gerould responds Eelka Lampe Responds to Masakuni Kitazawa Native Earth and Jennifer Preston - a letter from Alan Filewood Retiring or Recharging? - a letter from Richard E. Kramer //Articles\\ Muhammed and the Virgin: Folk Dramatization of Battles Between Moors and Christians - by Max Harris "A Radiant Smile from the Lovely Lady": Overdetermined Femininity in "Ladies" Figure Skating - by Abigail M. Feder Tomas Schmit: A Fluxus Farewell to Perfection - interview by Gunther Berghaus Going Going Gone: Theatre and American Culture(s) - by Bradley Boney Whatever Happened to the Sleepy Mexican?: One Way to be a Contemporary Mexican in a Changing World Order - by Yareli Arizmendi The New World Border: Prophecies for the End of the Century - by Guillermo Gomez-Pena The Other History of Intercultural Performance - by Coco Fusco //Book Reviews\\ Women and Comedy: Rewriting the British Theatrical Tradition (by Susan Carlson) - reviewed by Lizbeth Goodman Gender in Performance: The Presentation of Difference in the Performing Arts (edited by Laurence Senelick) - reviewed by Kim Marra The National Stage: Theatre and Culture Legitimation in England, France and American (by Loren Kruger) - reviewed by Susan Manning Actors and Onlookers: Theater and Twentieth-Century Scientific Views of Nature (by Natalie Crohn Schmitt), The Actor's Instrument: Body, Theory, State (by Hollis Huston), The End of Acting a Radical View (by Richard Hornby), Acting (by John Harrop) - all reviewed by Phillip B. Zarrilli Each TDR issue is filled with photographs, artwork, and scripts that illustrate every article. The journal, founded in 1955, is 7 x 10, and a 184 pages per issue. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- // Come browse and subscribe \\ ------------------------------- 1. MIT Press Online To access MIT Press Online Catalogs and subscription informaton: telnet techinfo.mit.edu /Around MIT/MIT Press/journals/arts/ You can also access MIT via Gopher in USA/massachusetts/MIT/ To subscribe to TDR through MIT Press, send e-mail to: journals-orders@mit.edu MIT Press Journals, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1399 USA. Tel: (617) 253-2889 Fax: (617)258-6779 2. The Electronic Newsstand You can browse through an article from our latest issue and obtain subscription information on the Electronic Newsstand. On Gopher, go to: massachusetts/MIT/Interesting Sites to Explore/Electronic Newsstand/all titles/TDR:The Drama Review/ To subscribe to TDR through the Electronic Newsstand, send your name and address to: tdr@enews.com. Or call: 1-800-40-ENEWS. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 10:07:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0360 Re: Quotation: "another country" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0360. Monday, 25 April 1994. (1) From: Milla Riggio Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 14:29:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation (2) From: Robert Burke Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 20:22:02 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation (3) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Sunday, 25 Apr 94 10:31:13 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0357 Re: Quotation: "The dead wench" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 14:29:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation Dear Terence Martin: I'm sure you will get 100 answers to your query. Your quotation come from Marlowe's JEW OF MALTA. When asked if he did not once commit fornication, Barrabas replies, something to the effect that: "Yes, but that was in another country and besides the wench is dead." Best, Milla Riggio (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Burke Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 20:22:02 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation As many perhaps have already pointed out, the quote appears in Marlowe's -Jew of Malta-, IV.i.40. "But that was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead." (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Sunday, 25 Apr 94 10:31:13 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0357 Re: Quotation: "The dead wench" > The passage is from Marlowe's THE JEW OF MALTA, 4.1.42 (according to the > Fehrenbach, et al. Concordance). But, of course, that was in another country > -- a phrase that has provided titles and words for many another writer. > > Nostalgically yours, Bill Godshalk From "another country": I translated an Afrikaans novel entitled _'n Ander Land_ recently and found, miraculously, that the author had anticipated Marlowe by almost four hundred years. Perhaps there is a universal operating here somewhere? David Schalkwyk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 10:22:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0361 New Birthday Evidence; Authorship and Malvolio Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0361. Monday, 25 April 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 14:27:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: New Birthday Evidence (2) From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 22:04:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: AUTHORSHIP (and malvolio) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 14:27:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: New Birthday Evidence In THE NEW DOMINION MONTHLY of April 1852 there was a tiny fuss made about a dreadful little poem recently "discovered" with a refrain that excited the editors with its cleverness, Anne hath a way. The headline of the unattributed article housing the work was "Is It By Shakespeare?" In Christopher Fry's unpublished correspondence with T.S.Eliot's accountant, Jonathan Sieve-Wrights (who later was to bring an end to his own life with a Glenlivet enema -- an event unrevealed until now), there is a small piece of paper with a blank verse dialogue written in impeccable hand in red ink. I take CHR to be Marlowe and WI to be Shakespeare-- an understandable assumption, I should think. CHR Thys words may be as jewels, Will, but I, Not made to court sweet pearlets of repute But labour part time at the wordwright's art, Find solace in that bower of beauty's best Where rhythm ties its ribbon on the sense And measure springs untrammeld from its womb Between the legs of blessed Saint Cecelia, Who sings "Thou must needs end this sentence now Before the verb is lost and with its thrust The bloody puport of the speech." WI Not end? I'd scarce begun, when thou CHR No pause allowed! I'll finish up thy line, what tho it blast me. WI Blast thee fine it will. CHR You think Ill pun now? That's it, right? Use thy will to make a joke Upon thy name to foster it in fashion cutesie-pie To have the cognoscenti give those awful chuckles And sophomoric smugging smiles as well? WI You used "thou" twice within two awful lines, You know. I'd not do that. Not on my birthday, Anyway, unless for emphasis or mockery. CHR We part on couplets then? We've got the rhyme. WI Okay. You've got my birthdate right, but not the time. CHR That line's too long, as is your fame. What WAS the time? WI The same as Oxford's, which explains CHR A lot. Well, Happy Birthtime, Will WI Thanks. And thank you, Baby Bill. I guess Fry, or Eliot, or Jonatghan Sieve-Wrights was just feeling silly today, and am sure they would each like to apologise for wasting e-time. If someone would promise to grade my pile of papers here, I'd not do this kind'of thing. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Sunday, 24 Apr 1994 22:04:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: AUTHORSHIP (and malvolio) Perhaps someone involved in the authorship argument would be kind enough to inform the National Trust that they should set up shop in Oxford as well as Stratford-upon-Avon to stay on the cutting edge of quasi-scholorship *cum* tourism. (As if Oxford doesn't have enough tourism!) The National Trust could renovate a barn somewhere in Oxfordshire, claim that Roger Bacon and a sullen band of secret underground Knights Templars (headquartered at the Church of the Temple in London!) enacted plays in front of Willie who wrote them down. (These plays, by the way, contain many of the secrets of the universe, so be careful when performing them near any Druidic epicenters. Just a kindly warning.) This barn could be surrounded by some naf information boards describing the lurid history of Willie's Earldom and his connection with Queen Elizabeth in sentences no longer than twelve words. They should also arrange some posh shrubbery and inside the National Trust could sell chocolate bars that have copies of the folios for wrappers. If the National Trust were really clever they might even sell small linen doilies; each bearing the likeness of only the most popular heros so that they sell like hotcakes to American tourists given half an hour to look around while their coach driver gets himself a nip of tea. Someone should get on this right away so that as soon as this Oxfordian Shakespeare trend blows over, the National Trust will already have generated enough income to cover its costs and to build the next Shakespearean museum project--perhaps in Norwich this time? Matthew Vail Smith Hobart College MASMITH@HWS.BITNET p.s. For those of you concerned with my Malvolio plight: I have been experimenting with Malvolio as performed by Kramer and George from the popular sit-com "Seinfeld." So far so good.---mvs ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 08:57:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0362 Re: Exotic Settings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0362. Tuesday, 26 April 1994. (1) From: Ronan Clifford Date: Monday, 25 Apr 94 09:33:56 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0356 Q: Exotic Settings (2) From: Jason Hoblit Date: Monday, 25 Apr 1994 21:09:05 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0356 Q: Exotic Settings (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronan Clifford Date: Monday, 25 Apr 94 09:33:56 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0356 Q: Exotic Settings Dear Karla Waters, What could be a more exotic setting than Albuquerque? I hope it's safe. I do not know who first suggested that Shakespeare prudently shifted from English historical subjects about 1599 back to a Roman one. But of course the truth of the reasons often given is not demonstrable. But it can be demonstrated that Massinger wrote a play on a Renaissance pretender to the throne of Portugal, had the play turned for its politically sensitive nature ("the being a peace sworen twixte the kings of England and Spayne," the Master of the Revels observed), and then got the work accepted when the scene was shifted back 1700 years to ancient Rome, Carthage, and Antioch. The revised version is equivocally named *Believe As You List.* The point is that one of Shakespeare's younger contemporaries rightly thought that an exotic setting was safer. Cliff Ronan, Southwest Texas State University/ University of Silesia (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jason Hoblit Date: Monday, 25 Apr 1994 21:09:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0356 Q: Exotic Settings For a discussion of relatively local settings versus more 'exotic' locales you might try to locate studies of Massinger's _Believe As You List_, which was originally set in Spain and Portugal. After the original version was censored (and successfully so as it does not survive) Massinger rewrote the play setting it in Lower Asia in the second century BC. This apparently made it acceptable. For starters you might take a look at Philip Edwards' article 'The Royal Pretenders in Massinger and Ford' in Essays and Studies, 1974. True, the discussion is of Stuart rather than Tudor practice, but it should provide a starting point, and certainly offers an opportunity to examine the problem of setting directly. Jason Hoblit University of Washington - Seattle hoblitj@u.washington.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 09:02:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0363 Re: Quotations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0363. Tuesday, 26 April 1994. (1) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Monday, 25 Apr 94 10:41:56 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 25 Apr 1994 21:10:16 -0500 (EST) Subj: The "In Another Country" Universal (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Monday, 25 Apr 94 10:41:56 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation To add a twist to Terence Martin's note about the *Jew of Malta* quotation-- can anyone explain the significance of this quotation to TS Eliot's brilliant--but-not-as-well-studied-as-Prufrock poem, "Portrait of a Lady," where it appears as an epigraph? I have my own ideas, but I'd like to hear what Marlovians have to say about the matter. Noel Chevalier chevalie@max.cc.uregina.ca (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 25 Apr 1994 21:10:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: The "In Another Country" Universal David Schalkwyk has provided us with another example of what we may call the "human universal." Given a chance, the human male will always claim that it happened "in another country." That phrase is probably the origin of Hamlet's "country matters." Universally, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 09:05:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0364 Q: Titania in *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0364. Tuesday, 26 April 1994. From: Scott Crozier Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 19:15:29 +1000 Subject: Titania in MND Apart from working on the performance history of MND for my thesis, I am directing the play. At present I am struggling with Brook's idea that Hippolyta and Theseus should be doubled with Titania and Oberon. I can see reasons for doing this and understand the psychological thoughts behind this practice yet if they are doubled and the play does start and end in harmony then why would a freed libido of Titania give up her Indian boy to a repressive Oberon? I would be interested in the thoughts of fellow SHAKSPER readers on this matter. Regards, Scott Crozier ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:18:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0365 Re: Quotation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0365. Wednesday, 27 April 1994. (1) From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 94 14:51:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation (2) From: Balz Engler Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 12:09:32 +0200 Subj: SHK 5.0363 Re: Quotations (3) From: Terence Martin Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 94 09:37:53 CDT Subj: Thank you (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 94 14:51:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0353 Qs: Quotation Dear Terence Martin, Try Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, IV.i.42 Cheers, John Drakakis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Balz Engler Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 12:09:32 +0200 Subject: SHK 5.0363 Re: Quotations Bill Godshalk has given himself away again. Speaking of "human universals", he then gives the example of the human male always claiming that it happened in another country. Are all humans male? Balz Engler (male) University of Basel, Switzerland (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Martin Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 94 09:37:53 CDT Subject: Thank you Thank you to all of you who identified the quote from ^The Jew of Malta^ so quickly, graciously, and accurately. I do not have the time to answer each of you individually. At one point I felt as though I were running a contest which offered a major prize! Shaksperians are clearly motivated by less material items. Terence Martin UM - St. Louis. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:43:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0368 Re: London/Stratford Productions Correction Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0368. Wednesday, 27 April 1994. From: S. Hampton-Reeves Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 13:22:23 +0100 (BST) Subject: Henry VI I feel I should make one small correction to Tom Clayton's list. Katie Mitchell's *Henry VI - The Battle for the Throne* is on the whole a straight text with minor additions from *Richard III* and *Richard II*, but not *Henry VI Part II*. I bring this up not to be a pedant but because a straight unadapted and unsequeanced production of *Henry VI Part 3* is a rare thing, so no one should miss it. Incidentally, it is a touring production and should hit LA later this year, then Europe. Stuart Reeves ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:29:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0366 Re: Exotic Settings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0366. Wednesday, 27 April 1994. (1) From: Joseph Lawrence Lyle Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 09:45:58 -0400 Subj: exotic settings query (2) From: Martin Mueller Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 14:07:39 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0362 Re: Exotic Settings (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Lawrence Lyle Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 09:45:58 -0400 Subject: exotic settings query I have no particular erudition to share, but it seems that the past is as "safe" from censorial wrath as a foreign country would be; in the words of a recent title, the past _is_ a foreign country. Even so, the Tudor lineage must be sanctified: hence Henry IV's (and Henry V's) keenly felt remorse for the deposition of Richard II; and hence the vilification of Richard III. Jay Lyle (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 14:07:39 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0362 Re: Exotic Settings It may or may not be the case that for prudential reasons Shakespeare chose "exotic" settings. But at some level the choice of a subject is always an act of displacement: the audience find out about themselves by watching another. Strategies of displacement are therefore always part of the playwright's work, whether or not there is censorship. One might shrug the choice of locale off as a convenient disguise: from such a perspective Massinger's Believe as you list or Verdi's Stiffelio and Masked Ball are the "same" works in their different historical settings. On the other hand, one might argue that skin deep is very deep indeed, and that the choice of setting is always a profound choice and one that is not explained (away) in terms of convenience or prudence. The Rome of Coriolanus, the Dunsinane of Macbeth, and the Alexandria of Antony and Cleopatra are all deeply exotic settings, and a desire to experiment with temporal and spatial displacements of one kind or another seems a relatively deep aspect of the playwright's craft. Martin Mueller Northwestern University martinmueller@nwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:40:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0367 Re: *MND* Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0367. Wednesday, 27 April 1994. (1) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 17:32:49 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0364 Q: Titania in *MND* (2) From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 23:35:39 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0364 Q: Titania in *MND* (3) From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 27 Apr 1994 09:01:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Doubling for Hippolyta in MND (4) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 94 09:45:41 EST Subj: repressed libido (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 17:32:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0364 Q: Titania in *MND* Danny Scheie's wonderful MND at Santa Cruz two years ago had Oberon and Titania double Theseus and Hippolyta in reverse--ie, Th. played Titania, and Hip. played Oberon. Since the Theseus was a very handsome, very tough and military black actor, and as Titania wore a blonde wig and a tutu, s/he was rather less convincing than the H/O, who was terrific in both roles. The Indian boy, moreover, was a blatant sex object: a mostly naked 19 year old, who lounged around onstage for most of the performance looking sulky and very sexy. I know this doesn't answer the question, but it might give you some good ideas. Cheers, S.O. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 23:35:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0364 Q: Titania in *MND* The choice of doubling the roles of Titania/Hippolyta and Oberon/Theseus creates some difficulties in a theme that I find to be running through the play's resolution, that of finding a common ground for understanding. For one thing, it weakens the impact of IV.i, when all the parties are able to lucidly resolve their differences. If the two have already come to a reconciliation earlier in the scene, the dialogue between Theseus and Hippolyta on the hounds is turned into idle small talk, rather than the finding of a common ground between them. This reduces the power of the moment, and weakens the theme of compromise and understanding. It also creates contradiction, in that Theseus and Hippolyta fought each other, and are truly getting to know each other for the first time, while it is assumed Oberon and Titania have been lovers and rulers since the dawn of creation. How can there be familiarity and distance present at the same time? On a textual note, Titania reprimands Oberon for diddling around with Hippolyta, and Oberon reminds Titania that she is seeing Theseus. With the parts doubled, the audience finds that they are accusing each other of infidelity to each other with each other. In a nutshell, there are many problems and inconsistencies with the doubling of the parts. To make it truly effective, there must be a greater theme that is reinforced by the doubling, as to distract from the inconsistencies. I personally can not find one. Chris Langland-Shula chrisls@netcom.com UCLA Theatre Dept. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 27 Apr 1994 09:01:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Doubling for Hippolyta in MND While it is certainly true that the doubling of these roles often occurs in even the earliest recorded performances of MND, I have recently begun to wonder about the doubling question as it may pertain to ritual practices. Whatever the occasion for the first performance of this play, the fact remains that the Pyramus and Thisby interlude is part of the wedding festivities for Theseus and his Amazonian bride (a revel among the solemnities). In this light, I have found the following passage in Oesterley's THE SACRED DANCE: A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE FOLKLORE quite fascinating: Very widely spread is the custom of calling the bridegroom and the bride "king" and "queen," and of treating them as a royal pair during the whole period of the wedding festivities. The reason for this was originally that, by means of change of identity, the bridal pair might avoid the mysterious dangers which were supposed to be present. The idea presumably was that a disguise puzzled malign visitors so that they did not know on whom to vent their spleen. It is evident that a similar purpose was served by the custom of substituting a mock bride for the real one, or of a bride and bridegroom being attended by one or more persons dressed up to resemble her or him; Crawley gives interestings illustrations of both customs [here Oesterley cites THE MYSTIC ROSE, 337 ff.). Though perhaps not immediately pertinent to your particular project, I invite you to muse a bit on the implications of what Oesterley has described. Nick Clary (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 94 09:45:41 EST Subject: repressed libido Scott Crozier asks: "...yet if they are doubled and the play does start and end in harmony then why would a freed libido of Titania give up her Indian boy to a repressive Oberon?" My thoughts: repressing freed female libidos sounds like marital harmony to me, 1595-wise. (Guess we won't call this one a "universal," eh?) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:47:35 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0369 Shakespeare Spinoff? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0369. Wednesday, 27 April 1994. From: Blair Kelly III Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 21:38:34 -0400 Subject: Shakespeare spinoff? Does anyone recognize the following Shakespeare spinoff? The other weekend I saw a production of "The Other Shakespeare" put on by Saint Mary's High School in Annapolis, Maryland. The play bill did not list an author, but had the following quote on the back page: "Women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare. Be that as it may, I could not help thinking, as I looked at the works of Shakespeare on the shelf, that the bishop was right at least in this; it would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister..." Virginia Woolf A Room of One's Own 1928 Let me describe the production. It was a two act play, each with five scenes. The first act takes place in Stratford, the second in London seven years later. The lead character is Cassandra Shakespeare, the younger (by two years) sister of William Shakespeare who is 18 years old when the play begins. Like Will, Cassie is interested in poetry, stories, and theater, but not cooking, sewing, or cleaning as her parents wish. Will, after getting Anne Hathaway in the family way, is forced by his father to marry in order to uphold the family honor. Cassie runs away to London in order to avoid the marriage match her father is planning for her. In London, Cassie works as a barmaid while trying and failing to break into the theater business. One evening when the bar patrons get rowdy because Christopher Marlowe fails to show up at a poetry reading, Cassie recites one of her sonnets and wows the crowd. Nick Greene compliments her on her poetry. Cassie makes one last try at a life in the theatre, disguises herself as a boy and tries out for Richard Burbage. Burbage is impressed and wants to hire her, but Cassie runs away when Nick Greene enters and recognizes her. Will, who had recently begun working with Burbage, hears about Cassie, finds her, and tries to convince her to come back and work as a team. But Cassie has been proposed to by Percy Fields, the tavern owner, on the condition that she give up writing and dreams of the theater. Beaten down by life, Cassie accepts his offer and rejects Will's. The production was a typical high school production, with mostly relatives in the audience. But I will give high marks to the two lead players for affecting British accents - althought I suspect that William and Cassandra would speak with broad Warwickshire accents rather than Oxbridge accents! The idea that Will might have been forced by his father to marry was a new one to me. I had always assumed that Will and Anne had wanted to marry, she to get a husband, he because she was an heiress (although who tumbled who makes for interesting speculation). Anyway, does anyone recognize this Shakespeare spinoff? Was it written by Virginia Woolf? Is it on our SHAKSPER spinoff list? --- Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 10:50:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0370 Q: Kingship by Decree Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0370. Wednesday, 27 April 1994. From: Barbara Simerka Date: Tuesday, 26 Apr 1994 17:21:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: kingship by decree I am investigating the theatrical representation of the transition from the monarchy as a moment of "presence" -- personal audiences, etc. to the more modern type of governance by decree, with requests coming to the monarch in the form of petitions rather than oral requests. Is this an issue in the plays of Shakespeare or any of his contemporaries? At what historical moment (during whose reign) does this transition occur in early modern England? Barbara Simerka Davidson College ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:22:35 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0371 Re: Kingship by Decree Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0371. Thursday, 28 April 1994. (1) From: Linda Vecchi Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:59:05 -0230 (NDT) Subj: kingship by decree (2) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:32:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0370 Q: Kingship by Decree (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Linda Vecchi Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:59:05 -0230 (NDT) Subject: kingship by decree To Barabara Simerka, within the context of Shakespeare's history plays the Henry plays show the dominance of oral presentation over petition. In the opening scene of Gaunt and Bolingbroke stand before the king and the combantants are Richard announces "Call them to our presence" (1.1.14). still offer physical presence before the king as the regular mode of address. The same is generally true of . The heightened dramatic nature of these physical presentations before the monarch rather than the mere reading of a petition seem obvious. In however there is some suggestion of the significance of written communications to the king: ie Bedford's line in 2.2 "The King hath note of all that they intend,/By interception which they dream not of." To move to the "real" monarchs of the Tudor period I am on thinner ground, although Elizabeth certainly received numerous petitions. During the 16th and 17th centuries petitions seem most commonly to have been directed to Parliament, rather than to the monarch, such as Robert Waldegrave's (?) (1585) I'm sure others will have more to say on the matter. Linda Vecchi (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:32:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0370 Q: Kingship by Decree *Richard II* certainly registers a change in the way that kingship is conceived. *Macbeth*, on the other hand, makes reference (perhaps nostalgic?) to the healing hands of the monarch (4.3.142-45). The last monarch to touch for scrofula was Anne, who did her best for poor baby Sam Johnson. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:34:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0372 Qs: Olivier *Oth.*; Orsino; *3H6*; OTA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0372. Thursday, 28 April 1994. (1) From: Douglas Green Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 11:25:22 +0600 Subj: Olivier OTHELLO (2) From: Dwight Maxwell Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:31:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: ORSINO (3) From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:13:03 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: Henry VI pt 3 (4) From: W.L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday 27 Apr 1994 21:56:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Address of the Oxford Text Archive (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas Green Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 11:25:22 +0600 Subject: Olivier OTHELLO I was glad to hear that Bravo had shown Olivier's OTHELLO, which has one of my favorite Iagos, but sad to have missed it. I've been looking for a video copy for ages. You've all probably covered this ground before, but is the Olivier production available on tape? If so, whom do I contact to order a copy? Douglas E. Green, green@augsburg.edu / (612) 330-1187 Campus Box #13, English Dept., Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN 55454 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dwight Maxwell Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:31:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: ORSINO Hello fellow interpreters of Shakespeare, I am a student at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Right now I am taking a performing Shakespeare course and we are reading plays like Twelfth Night, and King Lear. I was wondering if anyone on the net could shed some light on Orsino's complex personality. I am trying my best not to play Orsino's character in a general way though is emotions seems somewhat general I have never seen a performance of Twelfth Night and so I am clueless as to how others have interpret this character. In addition my professor does not recomend any of the films. When I endevor to play Orsino, I usually become confused, simply because his intentions aren't that clear. Yes, we know that he wants to woo Olivia, but for what reasons. It could be easily for money or for love. In the beginning of Twelfth Night we see Orsino enters the stage saying "If music be the food of love play on, give me excess of it." I see that here he is comparing music to food, food that feeds love, what sort of love though. Is Orsino in love or could one play it either way? I usually call upon my poetic experience and read the speech like a sonnet, but that is too dry. If anyone has any suggestion, please write. Thank you very much. Dwight Maxwell E-Mail address is (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 14:13:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Henry VI pt 3 When will that be coming to Los Angeles? Chris Langland-Shula chrisls@netcom.com (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 21:56:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Address of the Oxford Text Archive I have just spent some fruitless time on Gopher looking for the e-mail address of the Oxford Text Archive. Can anyone provide me with the address, or, in lieu of the e-mail address, the snail-mail address? Thanks, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:43:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0373 Re: Stratford Productions; Quotation; *MND* Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0373. Thursday, 28 April 1994. (1) From: Tom Clayton Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 15:10:59 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0368 Re: London/Stratford Productions Correction (2) From: W.L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday 27 Apr 1994 21:10:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: "Universals" and Jesting (Quotation) (3) From: William Kemp Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 94 21:58:34 EDT Subj: re: *MND* Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Clayton Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 15:10:59 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0368 Re: London/Stratford Productions Correction Whatever he says. All I knew is what I took from the RSC Spring/Summer 1994 Season booklet, which says: "This production will concentrate on the final part of the Henry VI trilogy with additional material from part II" (17). I hope that whoever sees whatever it is enjoys it. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 21:10:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: "Universals" and Jesting Balz Engler has accused me to tipping my hand -- again. Actually I was simply jesting with David Schalkwyk, and so if I have revealed anything about myself it is that I lack high seriousness. However, as far as I know, males are universally distributed throughout the mammalian species. (My wife just reminded me -- over my shoulder -- that in China males are over-represented.) Hanging in there, I remain, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Kemp Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 94 21:58:34 EDT Subject: re: *MND* Doubling James Calderwood published an article in ShQ a few years ago which (as I recall, but caveat lector) argues for the doubling as thematically appropriate. He sees the dream in the woods as a Thesean anxiety fantasy about marrying an Amazon. The Indian boy becomes a symbol of Titania-Hipployta's emotional independence. After Titania-Oberon have reconciled in Theseus' dream, he is able to calmly resolve the conflicts among the young lovers -- an otherwise inconsistent action, Calderwood argues, since in 1.1 Theseus had claimed to be bound under Athenian law to enforce Egeus' wishes. He also tries to identify Egeus (father of Hermia) with Aegeus (father of Theseus). Maybe too clever. Calderwood frames all this with brief discuss of Holbein's painting "The Ambassadors," which has a famous optical-illusion skull in the foreground. His point is that such perspective tricks are common in the Renaissance. MND, he claims, offers an analogous perspective trick when the action switches from Athens to the forest. Sorry, I can't give a citation; my copies of ShQ are at the office. Personally, I think doubling literalizes and impoverishes the analogies between the two pairs of characters. The play teases us into looking at Athens in the light of the forest--and forest in the light of Athens. Doubling prompts us to feel that Athens=forest. Too categorical, too reductive. Bill Kemp Mary Washington College Fredericksburg, Va. wkemp@s850.mwc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 08:48:06 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0374 CFP: Conference on Language and Literature Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0374. Thursday, 28 April 1994. From: CNY Conf. on Language & Literature Date: Wednesday, 27 Apr 1994 16:10:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Call for Papers (Shakespeare) CALL FOR PAPERS (abridged version) 4th Annual Central New York Conference on Language and Literature SUNY College at Cortland Cortland, NY 13045 October 16-18, 1994 The Fourth Annual CNYCLL (scheduled October 16-18, 1994) will feature approximately 55 sessions on a variety of issues related to literature, language, and composition studies. As in previous years, this conference's range of sessions is very broad-- encompassing both traditional and non-traditional topics (sessions on cultural diversity, non-canonical writers, etc.). The following abridged list includes some conference sessions relevant to Shakespeare. ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** NOTE: Those interested in presenting papers at CNYCLL should contact directly the session chairs listed below and offer preliminary abstracts (or drafts of papers, if specified). ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** Milton:Perceptions and Receptions Chair: Dana E. Aspinall English Department Box U-25, University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269-1025 Deadline: July 1, 1994 Shakespeare and Others (Representations of Racial, Gender, and Class Differences in Early Modern Drama) Chair: Dia Lawrence 119 Village Lane Rochester, NY 14610 Deadline: June 15, 1994 ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** CONFERENCE GUIDELINES Generally speaking, participants should deliver only one paper or chair only one session. Session chairs shall consider all papers submitted in response to the general call for papers and shall not have pre-selected panelists. Papers should have a 15-18 minute reading time. This year we plan to disseminate abstracts of all papers accepted for the conference. IF YOUR PAPER IS ACCEPTED FOR A CNYCLL SESSION, YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO SUBMIT A FINAL ABSTRACT (maximum 200 words) BY 1 SEPTEMBER 1994. Procedures for submitting final abstracts for conference papers are explained in the document "Submitting Final Abstracts" (available via GOPHER or e-mail to the addresses listed below). Abstracts will be made available to conference participants in print and electronic-text (via e-mail and GOPHER). FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REGARDING THIS CONFERENCE: E-mail Address: send requests for information to CNYCLLinfo@snycorva.cortland.edu (or to CNYCLLinfo@snycorva.bitnet) GOPHER Address: obtain information regarding abstracts, schedule of sessions, conference registration by GOPHERing to: orchard.cortland.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 12:52:35 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0375 Report of Hypermedia Session at SAA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0375. Thursday, 28 April 1994. From: Tom Blackburn Date: Thursday, April 28, 1994 Subject: Hypermedia Session at SAA [Editor's note: This brief report was forwarded to me from Bill Godshalk from a corRespondence he had with Tom Backburn, concerning the Hypermedia Session at the SAA. With Tom's permission, I post it to the entire conference. HMC] There were three presentations at the SAA Hypermedia Session, Michael Best's in Hypercard, now undergoing revision to appear on a CD, Michael Mullin's very interesting , a multicultural look at Shakespeare as produced and interpreted in different cultures. His CD--almost finished--makes use of a lot of QuickTime movie clips. Then I showed my rather less polished Hypercard stack which contains QT movies of four different renderings of two soliloquies each from Hamlet and Macbeth in a format which makes comparisons easy and which includes study questions, bibliography,etc. We talked some about such matters as permissions for the production materials, etc., and briefly about some of the pedagogical uses of this stuff. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 11:30:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0379 Re: Hyupermedia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0379. Friday, 29 April 1994. (1) From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 19:04:32 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0375 Report of Hypermedia Session at SAA (2) From: Don Weingust Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 22:38:28 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0375 Report of Hypermedia Session at SAA (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 19:04:32 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0375 Report of Hypermedia Session at SAA Could someone please tell me what Hypermedia and Hypercards are? Thanks. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Weingust Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 22:38:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0375 Report of Hypermedia Session at SAA I would be interested in hearing more from that conversation, particularly about access to production materials. What is the current situation with "fair-use" laws and the ability to excerpt from published works, including film/video? Does anyone out there have some experience in licensing such materials, that they would care to share? Thanks, Don Weingust UC Berkeley (grad. student, Dramatic Art) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 11:18:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0377 Re: Spinoff?; OTA; Orsino Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0377. Friday, 29 April 1994. (1) From: James Harner Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 9:37:28 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0369 Shakespeare Spinoff? (2) From: Robert Teeter Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 22:24:51 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re.: Oxford Text Archive (3) From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 11:20:02 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0372 Qs: Orsino (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 9:37:28 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0369 Shakespeare Spinoff? What Blair Kelly probably saw was Laura Annawyn Shamas, +The Other Shakespeare+ (Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1981). Jim Harner World Shakespeare Bibliography (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Teeter Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 22:24:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re.: Oxford Text Archive To get to the Oxford Text Archive, use anonymous ftp to ota.ox.ac.uk, cd /ota, get textarchive.info. This file gives basic information about the archive and how to get into the archive. To read this and other information online, gopher to gopher.tamu.edu, select 5. Browse information by subject, then 13. Classics, then 12. Oxford Text Archive. Robert Teeter | "Ripeness is all." -- Shakespeare (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 11:20:02 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0372 Qs: Orsino Reply to Dwight Maxwell, A common critical argument about Orsino is that he is in love with LOVE, rather than with Olivia--that he's getting off, so to speak, on the delicious pleasure of BEING a lover and enacting its cliches and attitudes. Olivia herself doesn't so much matter as the sensual thrill he gets out of mooning over music, poetry, and his own appetite for passion. So what you describe as his emotions appearing to be "general" could be the key to his character--self indulgent, self-absorbed, and totally engrossed with being a walking cliche of lovesick symptoms. I see no reason why this Duke would want to marry for money, and there's not much in the way of textual evidence for that motive, is there? If you try the first speech "like a sonnet," yes, but from a man who LOVES sonnets, can't get enough of 'em, the gooier & stickier the better,reveling sensuously in the delights of his own poetic fancies, devouring music as food as love (not necessarily in that order!) you might find it's not "dry" at all! Good luck! Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 11:24:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0378 Qs: Othello's Lights; Folger Library by Email Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0378. Friday, 29 April 1994. (1) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 11:15:52 EST Subj: director/actor Othello query (2) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 10:15:43 CST Subj: Folger (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 11:15:52 EST Subject: director/actor Othello query The following question came up in a class discussion (regarding staging/blocking/directing/acting Othello) and I had no good answer. When Othello says "Put out the light, and then put out the light," which of the two lights (Desdemona or the lamp) does he intend to do first, which second? There seems to be no indication at all in the text. Any tradition, precedent, or suggestions elsewhere in the text or from character of Othello? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 10:15:43 CST Subject: Folger To all fellow SHAKSPERians: This should be an easy one: I'm looking for the e-mail address of the Folger Library, if one exists: specifically, I want to contact the person or persons responsible for granting reproduction permission. If no e-mail address is available, does anyone have the snail-mail address handy? I am having a hard time finding this info. at U of Regina. Thanx in advance, Noel Chevalier chevalie@max.cc.uregina.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 11:08:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0376. Friday, 29 April 1994. (1) From: Bill Gelber Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 08:54:52 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0373 Re: *MND* Doubling (2) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 12:42:21 EST Subj: RE: MND DOUBLING (3) From: Bruce Avery Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 14:38:31 -0800 Subj: Doublings in MND (4) From: Marie Myers Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 19:04:54 -0500 Subj: MND doubling (5) From: Tom Davey Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 21:33 PDT Subj: *MND* Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Gelber Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 08:54:52 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0373 Re: *MND* Doubling >Personally, I think doubling literalizes and impoverishes the analogies between >the two pairs of characters. The play teases us into looking at Athens in the >light of the forest--and forest in the light of Athens. Doubling prompts us to >feel that Athens=forest. Too categorical, too reductive. > >Bill Kemp The reason that I favor doubling, although not particularly when it comes to those roles, is the practical one of having good actors who can play two or three small parts throughout the production. What tends to happen (and this is, of course, a sweeping generalization) is that someone like Marcade in LLL has one line which he spends the entire play waiting to say and then blows it, whereas when you double him with someone like Nathaniel, he is warmed up and you also have the skilled actor playing a tiny part. (Also, in that case, when I directed LLL, I could have Nathaniel go out the back of the stage for the play-within-the-play, change costumes and return through the curtains as Marcade, surprising the court.) I'm enjoying the conference very much. Bill Gelber University of Texas (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 12:42:21 EST Subject: RE: MND DOUBLING The doubling of Theseus and Hippolyta with Oberon and Titania, in whatever fashion, is made difficult by the text, which has Oberon and Titania exiting at line 102 of 4.1, Thesues and Hippolyta entering immediately thereafter. Yes, I know: picky, picky, picky. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce Avery Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 14:38:31 -0800 Subject: Doublings in MND As long as Professor Orgel mentioned Danny Scheie's MND of a few years ago, I might as well throw my two cents in. I was dramaturg on that production, and Danny's idea behind the chyasmic doubling, in which the Duke played the Titania and Hyppolyta played Oberon, was that in the forest repressed aspects of personality could emerge, aspects that the official world of Athens forbade. The Duke, for example, spends much verbiage discounting poetry, but does so in the best poetry of the play. Ergo, he really likes poetry but can't admit to it in the macho military world he inhabits. In the forest, "feminine" aspects of his personality come out, pardon the pun. Likewise the young lovers: perhaps Lysander really does, underneath it all, love Helena rather than Hermia. The Hipolytta-Oberon connection is easy to make. She's butch and so is he. To go with the forest as unconscious motif he stole bits and pieces from every previous famous production of MND, as well as some basic Cecil B DeMille approaches to show biz, so that the play became a fantasia of images rising from the unconscious of theater history. It was all good fun. But it does, I think, offer a rationale for doubling the roles, even if one wants to retain gender consistency instead. Oh, and while we're at it, I wonder why no one has pursued the other important attribution of Oxford. He must have written Mozart's music, because, just as no mere peasant could have written Shakespeare's works, no seven-year-old could have written a symphony. Q.E.D. Cheers, Bruce Avery (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marie Myers Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 1994 19:04:54 -0500 Subject: MND doubling I know I shouldn't hit and run (a lurker who'll be away from my modem for two weeks), but I'd like to respond to ideas tossed about doubling in MND. I don't get a clear sense of the kind of MND Scott Crozier wants to stage -- a "dark" Dream or a comedy? The freed libido/Titania-repressive/Oberon probably works well in the thesis, but sounds a strait-jacket for a staged production. Regarding Chris Langland-Shula's observation that "with the parts doubled, the audience finds that they are accusing each other of infidelity to each other with each other." From the rest of the posting, I had the impression that this is to be avoided. Why? Sounds great to me. I hope we won't rehearse old shibboleths about audiences being "confused" by doubles? Howell's H6 plays for the BBC show how neatly repertory doubling works for present-day audiences. Note Stephen Orgels' comment about the UCSC MND: the criss-cross gender casting for the doubling has no legit interpretative value, but probably was great theater. I suspect the audience didn't sit there scratching their heads over such inconsistencies. Brannagh's *Dead Again* plays with such a double-crossed doubling. Too cleverly, maybe, but entertainingly. I agree with William Kemp's remarks doubling being "too categorical, too reductive"--when written about, that is; not when performed. Essays tends to make a big deal about the "thematic relevance" of this or that doubled pair, but when I see doublings during the performance of a play, they constitute only a part of the experience, usually a small part of it. Nevertheless, an enjoyed part. And usually, seeing interesting doubles encourages me to think less rigidly about casting. How about Shylock and Old Gobbo? Henry V and Chorus? Bassanio and both Morocco and Arragon? ??? Marie Myers chalc@chmrs6.chem.olemiss.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Davey Date: Thursday, 28 Apr 94 21:33 PDT Subject: *MND* Doubling The thematic complications of doubling Oberon/Titania with Theseus/Hippolyta don't seem to be as troublesome as the staging complication presented by 4.1. At 4.1.102 Oberon and Titania exit. Theseus and Hippolyta enter at the VERY NEXT LINE. No editorial scene division is usual here. Even if one were to forgo the suggested effect of an overlapping exit/entrance, it seems that a doubled performance would have to stop however briefly while the actors make a costume change of some sort. Naturally, I'm curious how this was handled at the Santa Cruz production Stephen Orgel described: the "very tough and military black actor" would have to slip doubletime out of his blonde wig and tutu (as Titania) and into his military costume (as Theseus). And, if we extrapolate from the doubling rules in David Bradley's "From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theater: Preparing the Play for the Stage" (Cambridge: 1992), this same lack of a break for a costuming change would have meant the roles would NOT have been doubled in contemporary productions. Dreamily, Tom Davey, UCLA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 May 1994 17:10:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0381 Re: Doubling in *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0381. Sunday, 1 May 1994. (1) From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 13:53:20 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0367 Re: *MND* Doubling (2) From: Sharon Cinnamon Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 14:19:31 -0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* (3) From: Chris Kendall Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 12:19:02 -0600 (MDT) Subj: *MND* doubling (4) From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 13:06:13 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* (5) From: Sarah Gannon Date: Saturday, 30 Apr 1994 18:36:57 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 13:53:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0367 Re: *MND* Doubling I imagine that doubling is the result, in most theatrical companies including Shakespeare's, of pragmatic considerations. More roles than performers. Any doubling can stir the audience's imagination--especially in *MND*, which celebrates the imagination. The spectators observe similarities and contrasts among characters. Not every doubled pair suggests an identity. (Oberon may be associated with Theseus, but Oberon does not equal Theseus.) In my eight-performer travelling version, we are doubling Helena with Oberon, Titania with Hippolyta, and Theseus with Bottom. The implications are interesting. Oberon charms Demetrius to fall in love with Helena. Theseus watches Bottom perform Pyramus, and the Bottom-Titania couple connect with the Theseus-Hippolyta couple. We are in no case suggesting identity. We are trying to suggest association, and sometimes contrast. David Richman University of New Hampshire (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sharon Cinnamon Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 14:19:31 -0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* I've been in two productions of MND where T&O were not doubled with H&T and one production where they were. The production in which they were doubled was last summer at Shakespeare & Co. at the Mount in Lenox, MA. The quick change in 4.1 (I believe) was done center stage in full view of the audience while a Unification dance/ritual was performed by the male and female fairies. Maybe it actually worked. My problem with the doubling is a physical one. As King and Queen of the Fairies, I see Oberon and Titania as physically small -- as tall as an acorn cup or wide enough to be wrapped by a weed. Thus each ridicules the other for absurdly loving the large, muscular warriors. The contrast between the two couples rests with their differing sources of power. The Fairies have magical powers, but the warriors physical ones. Titania's petite size I think also adds to the humour of her relations with Bottom. However, I cannot imagine a petite Hyppolyta. Sharon Cinnamon Cinnamon@mit.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 12:19:02 -0600 (MDT) Subject: *MND* doubling I don't have my Shakespeare to hand (filling an idle moment at work by catching up on my email) but I was in a production of *MND* in which Theseus/Hippolyta and Oberon/Titania were doubled and I believe that Bottom's scene: "The eye of man hath not heard..." was interposed between the exit of the fairies and the entrance of the mortals, allowing adequate time for a costume change. I like the doubling because it underscores the nature of the fairies as abstractions. Depending on your metaphysical view, Theseus and Hippolyta are out of tune _because_ Oberon and Titania are, or vice versa. The fairies, who have existed since the beginning of time, take on the appearance of Theseus and Hippolyta because they are the pair who are taking their place on love's stage at the moment. Regards, Chris Kendall (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 13:06:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* As to Bill Gelber's mention of the benefits of doubling, I certainly agree that doubling tiny roles with others is a good practice, as it reduces the number of the cast (I've always found smaller casts to be closer to each other), but in the case of Titania/Hippolyta and Oberon/Theseus, the thematic issues of having the two powerful pairs being played by the same people does create some problems, as well as audience confusion. Now, normally, I don't have any problem with doubling, and as long as the costumes and characterizations are different enough, the audience doesn't get confused. However, with MND, the close entrances and exits of the two pairs (IV.i, and also in V.i) can confuse audiences not familiar with the play. I was in a production in Menlo Park, CA, where the roles were doubled, and several times my guests or other members of the audience expressed confusion as to who exactly the "two" characters were. As a concept though, I greatly support doubling. In this case, other issues outweigh the benefits. Chris Langland-Shula chrisls@netcom.com UCLA (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Gannon Date: Saturday, 30 Apr 1994 18:36:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0376 Re: Doubling in *MND* I would like to pose a question that relates (somewhat) to this conversation about doubling... How do people feel about the use of masks in performances of Shakespeare? I have been experimenting with the use of masks in my experience performing on the stage here at Hobart and William Smith College. Wouldn't it make it obviously easier to deal with the idea of doubling in productions with the use of masks? However, I was wondering how people felt about using masks on all characters of any given Shakespearean play? Curiously, Sarah Gannon ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 May 1994 16:48:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0380 New Shakespearea Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0380. Sunday, 1 May 1994. From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 29 Apr 94 09:23:35 EST Subject: New Shakespeare Knowledge Aware that my CV has been lacking in substance, I resolved this semester to work harder at important scholarship. You can thus imagine my delight at stumbling across new knowledge in the Shakespeare canon, and from the unlikeliest of sources--my sophomore Intro-to-Shakespeare students. Having just finished 47 hours of intensive exam grading, I can now report convincing evidence of an hitherto unknown oeuvre by the Bard. Initial indications are that it may be a complete play--a sort of pre-ur-Hamlet--or perhaps an unfinished early play which Shakespeare later cannibalized in order to create several of his greatest tragedies. What we have evidence of, so far, is mostly some suggestion of the plot. First action is a "cruel act by Pontius of pouring poisons in his uncle's ear" in order to gain the throne of Stratford-upon-Avon, which is "the university where Hamlet attended" (all quotations are from my students' exams, now safely archived and under lock-and-key, awaiting transfer to the Folger). Following this "haynous" act, "Hamlet gets a visit from the witches who talks about his father who was murdered." This seems to "drive Hamlet bananas" which is well evidenced by one particular scene in which "Hamlet is talking to his mother, telling her that he is her son." Also involved is a "girl Opelia," a character who is "Hamlet's love interest before his madness overtakes him." In a central scene of the play, Hamlet is "taking back all the things he said to her in the time he was wooing her. He tells her off and tells her to go to a nunnary." Another source indicates "Hamlet's brutal speach in this scene sets Opheila [perhaps a variant name?] off in to madness and ultimately death." There may also be a parallel scene in which "Hamlet is talking to himself about his mother, saying that he won't kill her but she must die, so as not to betray more men like Hamlet's father." Following this confrontation, a new setting emerges--"Elsionor, the city where Prince Hamlet is sent when Clodius thinks he knows the truth about his father's murder." It is unclear what happens in this city, but when Hamlet returns, "Everything goes to hell and he kills everybody until they are all dead on the stage, except Hippolyta, the King of Norway," who gets "Hamlet's dying breath." In general, the play is apparently fraught with mayhem--"The murders seem to happen when night is about, and he wants to kill his uncle." There may or may not be additional characters in the ur-play: "a hairy ass Bottom" and "Robin Goodfellow, who is Hamlet's college friend." [The name Robin Goodfellow was apparently not only fictive--"This was the name of someone in Shakespeare's family," according to another scholar.] Another character is a busybody named "Polyonious," father to "Lartes." Another young woman in the play is named "Beanica," though her role is quite vague (or this may be "Banquo, who wants to be king"). In addition to the overall structure, there are several indications of the poetic techniques employed by the author (perhaps different interpretations, or perhaps just differing deductions from the fragmentary evidence available). One scholar reports that the play is written in "Imbic Pentameter," that is, "there are 10 beats to a line, with 5 beats per foot, therefore there are 2 feet in a line." Another reports that the poetic lines "always end with some form of punctuation at the end of each line. This is the opposite of free verse, where all the lines don't have to have punctuation." Still another claims that the play is in Shakespeare's usual "stile of writting where each line only had 7 syllables" [undoubtedly apprenticeship-level blank verse, circa 1587-1588]. Yet another indicates that it is "in a type of poetry style that had a stress every 3rd beat or syllable." One other incidental detail--this ur-play was apparently performed by "Robin Goodfellow, Shakespeare, and Richard Bondnage, all called the Chamberland Men" [sic]. I think it would be best if we kept this preliminary information confidential to the Shakspr list, until we can acquire additional evidence of this new play and present it all to a refereed journal as a complete package. And, in the spirit of collegiality, if you all will provide me with additional data as it becomes available, I will complete the "construction" of the new play, and leave all the de-construction to you. For now, I must go return the exams, and offer suggestions to my young charges on what additional fields of interest they might pursue for their final scholarly papers. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 May 1994 17:28:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0382 [was 0SHK 5.382] Re: Hypermedia; Lights; *Mac.* Ancedote; OTA Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0382. Sunday, 1 May 1994. (1) From: Michael Cohen Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 09:38:44 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0379 Re: Hypermedia (2) From: John Boni Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 13:34:30 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0378 Qs: Othello's Lights (3) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 19:58 ET Subj: Yet another *Macbeth* anecdote (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 21:13:03 -0500 (EST) Subj: Thanks for the Address, and Contra Oxfordians (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Cohen Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 09:38:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0379 Re: Hypermedia In response to Diana Akers Rhoads' query: HyperCard is a computer program sold by Apple Computer. Among other things, it is used to create hypertext and hypermedia presentations. Hypertext and hypermedia (sometimes called "multimedia" though there are those who would say that synonym is WRONG) are both terms used to describe methods of presenting of text (or in the latter case, text, graphics, video, and sound) on the computer screen, such that readers can move from topic to topic in a dynamic way. It is hard to describe without actually demonstrating, and, like so much else, one person's definition becomes another person's fighting words (so please don't flame me, you hypermultimedia mavens out there), but here's a simple example: you could design a Shakespeare hypermedia presentation so that on the screen you have the text of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Clicking (with the mouse) on a line of text brings up a video performance of the line. Clicking on a word that is marked (say, with an underline) brings up a definition. Clicking on a little text symbol (like a miniature page) on the bottom of the screen brings up a another window containing commentary about the scene. I don't want to clog up the list with more examples, but if the example above doesn't suffice, contact me and I'll go into more detail. As for Don Weingust's query about fair use: as I understand it, you can pretty much use anything as long as it is for YOUR classroom use only, you do not charge admission, you do not distribute it, you do not sell it, and you purchased the original source material. That is, it is just as though you bought a book and read it to your class. If you photocopied the library's book, you are violating the law. If the copy was stolen, you are violating the law. If you charge admission to your reading, you are violating the law. I am not a lawyer, so don't quote me on this--Nimmer on copyright is the standard legal source on the topic, and his multivolume tome goes into great detail on electronic publishing issues. When in doubt, get the rights (hey--would you want YOUR work to be incorporated into a multimedia work without your permission?). As for the costs of rights--it varies WIDELY, and there are few guidelines, since all the recent media hype about multimedia and the information superhighway makes some people think that the property that was a bomb at the box-office will be a hit in multimedia, and outrageous fees are the order of the day (this year--next year the bubble may burst). Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. Lymond@netcom.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 13:34:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0378 Qs: Othello's Lights RE: "Put out the light." The syntax helps me decide Othello's meaning. He refers first to the candle he is (usually) holding, and mentions that he can relight (relume) that. But the greater act (and loss) is that of putting out the light of Desdemona which cannot be relit. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 19:58 ET Subject: Yet another *Macbeth* anecdote For the person who inquired about *Macbeth* anecdotes, here's a doozy that just happened the other day: a jogger was attacked at Northwest Missouri State University by a naked former RSC member who was to play Lady Macbeth in a local production of the play on Wednesday. The actress (who according to witnesses seemed high on...well, >something<, and was not wearing a stitch) allegedly propositioned the victim's husband (who was jogging with her at the time), then clawed and scratched the victim, drawing blood. It took three men to subdue the actress. This was reported in the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press on Thursday (the attack took place on Tuesday). The university's public relations officer confirmed that an understudy was set to replace the actress. "The show must go on..." I dunno...this certainly is one of the "best" ones I've heard for quite a while. In such a rapidly changing world, it's nice to know that some things never change: the sun will rise, the tides will flow, and there will always be disastrous productions of *Macbeth*. I feel strangely comforted. (I think.) Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 29 Apr 1994 21:13:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Thanks for the Address, and Contra Oxfordians Thank you very much to all who have responded. You have been very, very generous, and now I must sort through the material. I apologize to those whom I have not addressed personally. Concerning the Oxfordian controversy, I can hardly be generous. Charles Ogburn wrote me a nasty little note, accusing of intellectual dishonesty and so on. Now, I can not defend myself against these charges since I have all the humans failings (including intellectual dishonesty), but it is not very politic of Ogburn to draw these failings to my attention, especially if he wishes to draw me to his cause. So I say, "Have at thee, Ogburn." Bad Billy (and NOT Sweet William) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 May 1994 17:34:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0383 Spinoff: Monsterpiece Theatre Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0383. Sunday, 1 May 1994. From: Joanne Merrian Date: Saturday, 30 Apr 1994 10:24:17 -0300 Subject: Spinoff: Monsterpiece Theatre Saw this on Sesame Street a few days ago... MONSTERPIECE THEATRE: HAMLET introduced by Alistair Cookie (Cookie Monster) A.C.: Hello. This is Alistair Cookie and welcome to Monsterpiece Theatre. Today, me incredibly proud to present one of best-loved classics in whole world, a play that explores feelings that bubble deep inside all of us. Yes, me proud to present "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". It don't get classier than this. (Scene: Hamlet walks on the cloudy battlements, reading a book.) Enter Elmo. Elmo: Forsooth! Elmo spieth Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Reading a book! (Hamlet laughs) A funny book! It maketh him happy. Oh, Hamlet, what doth thou read that maketh thee so happy? Ham: Words, words, words. (Hamlet laughs) Elmo: Elmo knoweth that a book hath words, words, words, but pray tell what words doth the book hath? (Hamlet sighs, begins to cry) Oh, now Prince Hamlet seemeth so sad. (Hamlet elaborately blows his nose) Oh, Hamlet. Pray tell Elmo what maketh thee so sad? Ham: (sadly) Words, words, words. Elmo: Again with the words, words, words! Prince Hamlet doth not give to Elmo a straight answer! Oh-oh! Oh-oh! A dark cloud doth sweep across Hamlet's brow! He seemeth... angry! What doth thou readeth that maketh thee so angry, oh great prince? Ham: (angrily) Words, words, words. Elmo: Okay! That does it! Elmo's feddeth up! One last question, Hamlet! Ham: What? Elmo: Where can Elmo getteth his own book? Ham: Get thee to a library, Elmo. Elmo: Ah.. a library! Of course. Elmo will run to the royal library and borroeth his own book! Yeah, bye! (Hamlet waves) Exeunt Elmo. Ham: At last, now I am alone. Enter Elmo, carrying a book. (Elmo sits next to Hamlet, begins to read and starts laughing) Ham: What doth thou read, Elmo, that maketh thee so happy? Elmo: Oh, well Elmo can't read yet, Hamlet. Elmo's looking at... pictures! pictures! pictures! (Hamlet sighs) A.C.: Oh boy, that great stuff! Very deep, very emotional. But what me like best is that Hamlet is Prince of Denmark, cause that make Hamlet Danish, and me just love danish! Especially prune danish! (Eats prune danish) Monsterpiece Theatre theme starts. (Eats plate) By the way, Hamlet was played by Mel Gibson. This episode aired here on April 28. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 09:09:42 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0384. Tuesday, 3 May 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 22:42:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Ur-Hamlet (3) From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Monday, 02 May 1994 00:01:21 -0400 (EDT) Subj: re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (4) From: Nick Clary Date: Monday, 02 May 1994 08:57:13 -0500 (EST) Subj: Correcting exams can be amusing (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 17:44:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0380 New Shakespeare Knowledge Lovely. Thank you. Reminded me of an undergraduate last year who wrote of Abbie in DESIRE UNDER THE ELUMS [I shouldn't have pronounced it that way in that class. . .] that "Abbie is completely self-servicing". That time of year. ..isn't it? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 22:42:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Ur-Hamlet Ronald Dwelle has done us all a favor. We now understand the basic outline and structure of the Ur-Hamlet. I look forward to further installments in the ongoing saga. I haven't laughed as much in days. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Monday, 02 May 1994 00:01:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: re: New Shakespearean Knowledge R. Dwelle: Yes, I have come across the ur-ur text of "Banana Hamlet"! Apparently, Auphelia is a latent Lisbon, seeking a surragit mother in Gertrude. Since the latter is attached to the control freak, Clodias, the result in pandemonier. I'll alert the Folger. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Monday, 02 May 1994 08:57:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Correcting exams can be amusing Yes, students can make wonderful blunders in that odd little medium of textual transmission and transformation that we in academia call a final examination. I wonder why Ron Dwelle, who happily shared these little rhinestones with us, bothered to include a telling [sic] along the way. Surely we were not about to attribute an error to his transcriptions, were we? By the way, where did Gertrude's name come from? And why do we spell Hamlet or Shakespeare the way we do? Perhaps there are some clues in the pre-ur-Hamlet that we may have overlooked. Clues about something.... Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 09:23:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0385 Re: Masks; Doubling; Spinoff; Quotation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0385. Tuesday, 3 May 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 17:39:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0381 Re: Doubling in *MND* (2) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Monday, 02 May 94 13:25:51 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0381 Re: Doubling in *MND* (3) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 19:22:47 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0383 Spinoff: Monsterpiece Theatre (4) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 02 May 94 13:11:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0363 Re: Quotations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 17:39:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0381 Re: Doubling in *MND* Sarah Gannon at Smith RE masks in a Shakespeare play. . .you mean ALL characters wearing faces on their faces? A bit odd, I'd say. Ben Jonson maybe, but only maybe, making the humours unchangeably obvious. Jonson for the bozos, certainly. Not even caricature but cartoon, surely? If it were a company of only five actors playing fifteen roles, then the convention would be perhaps understood and accepted. Otherwise I'd imagine the audience would yearn for human facial expressions. A salutory acting exercise in the privacy of a theatre school, without doubt, creating an accuracy of gesture as well as of vocal nuance that can then be carried over into a real performance. Ihave seen a deal of doubling, particularly enjoying Fool/Cordelia, which has often been suggested as a Renaissance practice. That instance raises other considerations, of course, such as the boy actor and the feminization of Lear through "Grace" or whatever. Your question is much more interesting than my first reaction to it led me to feel. Hm. In conclusion: the History plays are complex enough with all their factions that doubling would have to be very skilled indeed, don't you think? A caution to directors contemplating much doubling is found in the Scottish play-- Double double? Toil and trouble! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Monday, 02 May 94 13:25:51 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0381 Re: Doubling in *MND* One more comment on doubling in *MND*.... At Wellesley, where I did my undergraduate work, there was a Shakespeare Society which put on two plays a year. Since Wellesley is a woman's college, all the roles where played by women (fair turnabout to Will, we always felt). When they put on *MND*, they not only doubled the parts, but reversed the "gender." This actually worked out wonderfully because the complications of a woman playing a man and a woman, a human and a fairy allowed for some amusing moments and some thoughtful ones. At least for me, the end result was that the fairies beca me totally removed from the sphere of reality, even the reality of the stage. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 01 May 1994 19:22:47 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0383 Spinoff: Monsterpiece Theatre Tell us you'll put the monsterpiece work on the LISTSERV, Hardy. Please. Sean. [First chance I get. --HMC] (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 02 May 94 13:11:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0363 Re: Quotations Eating on the insane root again Bill! Or maybe too much Albuquerque sun! Either way your universal writ doesn't run in this instance. cheers, John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 10:03:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0386 Q: OTA Quartos and Folios Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0386. Tuesday, 3 May 1994. From: Kurt Daw Date: Monday, 2 May 94 09:25:07 EDT Subject: Oxford Text Archives Folios and Quartos I recently purchased the OTA "special offer" in Macintosh format, but the files have arrived in a format that none of my word processing programs seem able to decode. Is there a SHAKSPERian out there that understands these things that can help me decode my disks? I don't want to clutter SHAKSPER with what I presume is a very individual request so feel free to e-mail directly to me: kdaw@kscmail.kennesaw.edu. Thanks in advance for any and all assistance. Kurt Daw Kennesaw State College ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 10:06:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0387 Teaching *Tmp.* and *Ant.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0387. Tuesday, 3 May 1994. From: Elise Earthman Date: Monday, 2 May 1994 09:36:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Teaching The Tempest/A&C I'm going to be including The Tempest next fall in a sophomore level course in which I'll also be teaching Frankenstein and the film, Europa, Europa, among other things. I'd enjoy hearing from others who have had success teaching this play to non-majors who have little interest in Shakespeare (but who have more after they encounter him in my class!). Any ideas for particular approaches, projects, group work, connections to contemporary things they know? I had a moment of success the other day while teaching Antony and Cleopatra to the same students--frustrated by the students' repeated question of "Why does he *stay* with her? She's such a *b&*%^*!" I was suddenly struck by a connection to a popular Lyle Lovett song--"She's got big red lips/she's got big brown eyes/when she treats me right it's a big surprise/she never does anything that she says she would/she makes me feel good..." and then later, "She likes to race my motor/and then slam my hood/she makes me feel good." They all smiled and said, "Ahhh . . . " Of course, I hope to move them toward seeing A&C with *little* more complexity than that seen in Lyle's song, but it was a nice moment-- Elise Earthman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 10:09:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0388 New Release from RLG Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0388. Tuesday, 3 May 1994. From: RLG Sales Associates Date: Monday, 2 May 94 16:32:04 PDT Subject: NEWS RELEASE FROM RLG The following is a news announcement from the Research Libraries Group. It is being posted to other library-related LISTSERVs. E IS FOR ENGLISH ONLINE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY SHORT TITLE CATALOGUE EXPANDS The Research Libraries Group (RLG) and the International Committee of the Eighteenth-Century Short Title Catalogue (ESTC) have added nearly 75,000 records covering the period before 1701 to the ESTC bibliographic database in RLIN, RLG's online union catalog of more than 64 million items. Because of its new scope, RLIN ESTC now will be known as the English Short Title Catalogue. When completed, ESTC will contain records for virtually every English letterpress item published between 1473 and 1800. The catalogue describes materials published in English and the other British languages anywhere in the world, as well as materials published in England or its dependencies in any language. The Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, did the majority of the new ESTC cataloging itself. The Center plans to continue to create records, in conjunction with the British Library, until RLIN's coverage of pre-1701 imprints is complete. At this point, ESTC includes some 70 percent of the items recorded in the second edition of Pollard and Redgrave's standard work, "Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475-1640," as well as nearly half the items in the second edition of Donald Wing's short title catalogue for the years 1641-1700. "The file contains numerous items not listed in the STC and Wing bibliographies," observes Stephen Tabor, Senior Bibliographer for the ESTC, based at the Huntington Library. "Most of these are new editions of known works, some of which will be of great interest to scholars; but some are previously unrecorded texts. We have also shown certain items in the published bibliographies to be ghosts." Much of this material is accessible on microfilm, and ESTC records include specific pointers to University Microfilms International's "Early English books, 1475-1640," "Early English books, 1641-1700," and "Thomason Tracts" microfilm sets, as well as showing where thousands of unfilmed items can be found. The bulk of the new ESTC records were created under grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the US Department of Education's Title II-C program. Additional funding was provided by the Ahmanson Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Carl. E. Pforzheimer Foundation. For more information, contact Richard Kohn, bl.rjk@rlg.stanford.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 10:51:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0392 Re: OTA Quartos and Folios Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0392. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 15:04 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0386 Q: OTA Quartos and Folios (2) From: Kurt Daw Date: Wednesday, 4 May 94 08:37:05 EDT Subj: Thanks for assistance with OTA disk translation (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 15:04 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0386 Q: OTA Quartos and Folios Re Kurt Daw's request for instructions on decompressing his OTA texts: I'd be grateful for the same info, so maybe whoever responds could post it, rather than mailing directly to him. Skip Shand (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kurt Daw Date: Wednesday, 4 May 94 08:37:05 EDT Subject: Thanks for assistance with OTA disk translation Thanks for assistance in solving my OTA disks problem. From the various answers I received off the internet I was able to piece together that the files had been compressed in a format my computer didn't recognize, but I was directed to a shareware program that unstuffed it. SHAKSPERians help in solving the mystery (much is mysterious to me in the electronic world) is sincerely appreciated. It has saved me hours of searching. Kurt Daw Kennesaw State College ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 11:06:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0394 Qs: Shakespeare's Inspiration; Polonius's Name Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0394. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. (1) From: Deena Parker Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 9:17:08 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Shakespeare's inspiration? (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 09:55:40 EDT Subj: [Polonius] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Deena Parker Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 9:17:08 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Shakespeare's inspiration? [SHAKSPEReans, I normally do not post questions from non-members, but I just could not pass this one up. If you respond, please do so directly to CENTRALLEE@ INS.INFONET.NET. --HMC] My name is Deena Parker and I am in sixth grade. I am doing research about William Shakespeare. I am very interested about his inspirations for his plays. Mainly Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, A Midsummer Nights Dream,etc. If anyone has any information about this I would really appreciate it. Send it to my e-mail address. Thank you! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 09:55:40 EDT Subject: [Polonius] Just a query. Why is Polonius called Polonius? In the source he is called Corambus. Is this the first Polish Joke? E.L.Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 11:09:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0395 CFP: McMaster's University Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0395. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. From: Helen Ostovich Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 12:54:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Call for Papers CALL FOR PAPERS "Expanding the Canon: New Dimensions in English Renaissance Studies", this year's McMaster University English Association Conference, will be held on November 18, 1994. Scholars are invited to submit papers which rediscover and explore neglected areas of English writings, 1560-1625, such as lesser known dramatic, poetic, and prose works, travel literature, emblem books, women's writing, masques, and popular culture. Plenary speaker: Jean Howard (Columbia). Respondent: Paul Stevens (Queens). Send completed 10-page/20-minute papers by OCTOBER 3, 1994, to Dr Helen Ostovich or Dr Mary Silcox, Dept of English, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4L9 e-mail inquiries: ostovich@mcmaster.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 10:22:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0389 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0389. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 10:37:28 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Ur-Hamlet (Errr ... *Hamlet*?) (2) From: John Boni Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 13:00:51 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (3) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Tuesday, 03 May 94 15:57:59 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 10:37:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Ur-Hamlet (Errr ... *Hamlet*?) The pre-publication of the new Ur-Hamlet, linked with teaching Beckett's *All that Fall* in today's last class session, prompted me to recall one of the first papers I read as a grad TA. In his review of a performance of Pinter's *The Birthday Party*, a freshman concluded that "the action of the play occurs off-stage. It must, because nothing happened on-stage." Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 13:00:51 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Colleagues: On the subject of our students' errors: A few years ago the Chronicle of Higher Education, in its summer editions, used the first column of page 2 (the "laughers" column) to highlight student errors sent in by readers. Some persons registered demurrers and (consequently,I hope) the practice ended. A number of years ago, at an institution where I worked (taught), the graduate students in English, housed in a large converted classroom office, put on the blackboard the heading "Gems of the Weak," and listed student errors. One young instructor, invited in to share the joy, quietly said, "That's unprofessional." His sentiment has stayed with me, lo, these thirty years. I don't want to be too much the wet blanket, but let's not celebrate our students' errors too joyously. We do commiserate with each other over these bits of evidence of our failures; we sometimes become a bit caustic about these errors. When the parade of failure become public and the object of satire, I, for one, become concerned. This is not a Shakespeare concern--unless someone decides to dub me Malvolio--but I raise it in terms of use of the discussion network and as a professional issue. I am open to responses. John Boni ujboni@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu P.S.: And, yes, I am aware of the line that begins, "When we lose our sense of humor...." Simply, I believe that some topics are more open to serving as subjects of public humor than others. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Tuesday, 03 May 94 15:57:59 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge To: Shakespearean Blunders Bill Green, Queens-CUNY, tells of an answer to a Merchant of Venice quiz item asking about the Rialto, "The business end of Venus." Anon, Tom ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 10:36:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0391 Re: Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0391. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 11:54:57 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Doubling/fragmenting (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 15:05:36 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0385 Re: Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 11:54:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Doubling/fragmenting David Richman recently added to the doubling discussion the comment: >I imagine that doubling is the result, in most theatrical companies including >Shakespeare's, of pragmatic considerations. More roles than performers. "Pragmatic" considerations can vary -- in a high school production, the main difficulty in selecting a play for performance is often that most plays have too few roles for the multitude of potential actors -- and they also have philosophical and aesthetic implications (or roots). We readily accept the convention of doubling, of the same actor playing more than one character. We accept this even when we clearly know that it is the same actor. (I temporarily exempt from the discussion cases in which a character deliberately dons disguise to deceive another character within the context of the play, e.g., Rosalind as Ganymede.) Why then do we resist so strongly the opposite strategy, of fragmenting a single character out into multiple actors? As probably one of the last people trained in an oral interp / chamber theatre tradition that used this technique, I was fascinated by the way in which it could be used to tease out the complexities of a character's seemingly monolithic personality -- but I've avoided using it myself in performance of plays, feeling it will appear contrived (when everything in performance is contrived) and will only confuse the audience. Why do we so readily believe that one person can play many roles, but insist that the unity of personality precludes more than one person playing "a" character? There is something deep in our sense of what dramatic imitation means that doesn't buy it. Although critical history has left us the impression that the famous *Romeo and Juliet* in which Gielgud and Olivier alternated Romeo and Mercutio left a hybrid, composite image of both actors' interpretations of both characters. Just musing into my beard here. Jim Schaefer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 15:05:36 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0385 Re: Doubling Hello, folks. I'm not a director, or in any way theatrically gifted, but frankly, despite knowing a certain amount about Shakespeare (I subscribe to the list, after all) I *am* often confused by doubled roles, particularly in productions that involve a certain amount of what Hamlet might call "dumb-show" acting, in which the actors don't say anything for a few minutes. Of course, perhaps my confusion is "the point," in some pomo sense. There's another thing no-one has brought up. If we can't count on a one-to-one correlation of actors and characters, then we have to rely on costumes to tell us who's who. If Hamlet also plays (say) first gentleman, and second soldier, then we only know it's Hamlet because he's dressed like James Dean. This means, though, that we can't have any characters change into different clothes within the course of the production. I tend to think, for instance, that Hamlet should look quite a bit different at the end, perhaps changing from his usual black to a more clean-cut white at the beginning of act 5. In Henry IV, we can hardly expect Hal to wear the same clothes in a nightclub (I'm assuming a modern dress production throughout, in case anyone hasn't gathered that), while dealing with matters of state policy, and in combat. However, if his Rolling Stones t-shirt is how we tell him apart from Douglas, his change into camos for the battle would make it difficult to tell if Hal or Douglas has changed clothes. I can see how the associations of characters can make us think about their roles (or raise suspected correlations to the point of bigotries), but can't this also seriously curtail certain artistic tools? As always, Sean Lawrence. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 10:58:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0393 Re: Lights; Orsino; Teaching Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0393. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. (1) From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Tuesday, 3 May 94 11:23:48 +0300 Subj: Re: Othello's Lights (2) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 3 May 94 12:38 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0372 Qs: Orsino (3) From: Peter Novak Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 16:31:44 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0387 Teaching *Tmp.* and *Ant.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Tuesday, 3 May 94 11:23:48 +0300 Subject: Re: Othello's Lights >RE: "Put out the light." The syntax helps me decide Othello's meaning. He >refers first to the candle he is (usually) holding, and mentions that he can >relight (relume) that. But the greater act (and loss) is that of putting out >the light of Desdemona which cannot be relit. Yes, the text supports the reading that the first light is the candle and the second Desdemona. I think that Othello intends the murder is to be done in darkness, but is then caught up in the thought of the irrevocability of what he is about to do. "_If_ I quench thee", he says: I don't think that Othello has to extinguish the lamp at all. Ken Meaney University of Joensuu, Finland (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 3 May 94 12:38 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0372 Qs: Orsino Dear Dwight Maxwell, Forget about Orsino's character. He doesn't exist and so he doesn't have one. If you were my student, I'd suggest that you started with the play's title. Find out what 'Twelfth Night' means. That should help to explain all the references to food, eating etc. And don't forget that one of the characters is called Belch. Then look up Puritanism and the anti-theatrical debate. There's more going on in this play than 'love', matey. Enjoy! T. Hawkes (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Novak Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 16:31:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0387 Teaching *Tmp.* and *Ant.* I have been teaching The Tempest for the past two years and have a brief ten-minute videotape that I have been using which is a translation of Act I, scene II (Prospero, Caliban, Miranda) into American Sign Language. The scene is extremely powerful and actually provokes excellent discussion into the relationship of Caliban and Prospero. The scene is subtitled and includes some description on how to discuss the nature of sign language and linguistic oppression...some good post-colonial themes of the play. The curses exchanged between Prospero and Caliban are much more intense in the ASL translation than what we normally hear. Prospero's line, Poisonous slave, got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam, come forth" is rendered visually so that Prospero actually shows Sycorax spreading her legs, the Devil drooling, mounting her, and Sycorax giving birth (painfully) to this thing which is Caliban. It's very powerful. Peter Novak Santa Clara University PNOVAK@SCUACC.SCU.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 10:31:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0390 Re: Masks Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0390. Wednesday, 4 May 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 10:16 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0385 Re: Masks (2) From: Sarah Gannon Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 22:07:15 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0385 Re: Masks (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 3 May 1994 10:16 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0385 Re: Masks Harry Hill may be dismissing Sarah Gannon's mask query too quickly. Edward Burns, and plenty others, have argued that Elizabethan acting style was much more rhetorical/gestural than the psychologized and internalized post-Ibsen styles which underlie most contemporary performance. Classical mask (as distinct from neutral mask, which IS a tool for interior work often) can be a wonderful tool for eliciting gestural performance from actors whose whole training is versions of "method". As such, it might well be a very helpful route to productions capable of embracing the discontinuities of character explored by nontheatrical readers like Belsey and Sinfield. Mask's most obvious use, it seems to me, might be in identical twin plays (I have often imagined a masked *Comedy of Errors*--has anyone seen one?), but I find my imagination savoring the idea of a masked *Macbeth* even as I write this. What I'd love to know is whether anyone has any evidence of a wider use of mask on the Elizabethan stage than those occurrences (*Dream*, *Ado*, etc.) which are occasional and specified by text? Skip Shand (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Gannon Date: Tuesday, 03 May 1994 22:07:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0385 Re: Masks Harry Hill RE your response to my masks question... Thanks for your response. I see what you mean about the use of masks being facially restricting. However, I feel that in a play such as Twelfth Night, it might be rather interesting to use masks for Sebastion/Viola or even Viola/Cesario. However, I do agree that these plays are very complex without all of this doubling and use of masks. However, do you not agree that it would be an interesting technique? Just a thought. Sarah Gannon @William Smith ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 10:26:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0396 [was 5.038] Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0396. Thursday, 5 May 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 11:42 ET Subj: Masks (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:20:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0390 Re: Masks (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 11:42 ET Subject: Masks No reason why masks should be regarded differently from any other physical element of dramatic production--sets, costumes, lights, space. It's always going to depend on how good they are, how well they're used, how fully the particular advantages and limitations they offer cooperate with all the other theatrical decisions, about text choice, cuts, casting, pace. . . .For modern audiences, it would seem to make best sense to use them in plays where questions of identity and role are most urgent--I can imagine them working wonderfully in or . But of course questions of identity and role are pretty ubiquitous in this oeuvre. Early modern spectactors would have been familiar with masks at both ends of the social spectrum--commedia and jig, in popular entertainment, the masque for aristocrats; hence, I suppose, the readiness with which they are used in and . As I write this I am suddenly wrestling (not, to be honest, all that strenuously) with the semiotics of a masked production of one of those plays in which the actors appear with naked faces in the masking scenes. In those scenes, of course, the masks serve to conceal the maskers from themselves but not from the onlookers, a point which seems to me entirely relevant to the question whether they can appropriately be used in contemporary productions. So I say plunge in, have a splash, and report to us on what happens. David Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:20:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0390 Re: Masks Skip Shand's question about masks interests me. I've noticed recently in Victorian literature (or "texts" if you please) that the characters will now and again appeared masked -- without any apparent incongruity. And I began thinking about Renaissance masking. Of course, we know that ladies masked in the sun to keep their complexions nice and white. (Did women who weren't "ladies" mask in the sun? I don't know.) And we know about the tradition of masking/masquing. How wide spread was the practice of masking? And what did it "mean"? I don't have any answers; I'm just curious. Curious Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 10:32:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0397. Thursday, 5 May 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Wednesday, 4 May 1994 11:30 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (2) From: Bruce Avery Date: Wednesday, 4 May 1994 13:01:06 -0800 Subj: Re- New Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Wednesday, 4 May 1994 11:30 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0384 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge I think that all we have to do is look back at some of the wonderful bloopers in our own e-mail transmissions and we might be a little less willing to laugh at our students. I *did* laugh, but it's not a laugh I enjoyed. Sorry to be a spoil sport. Bernice W. Kliman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce Avery Date: Wednesday, 4 May 1994 13:01:06 -0800 Subject: Re- New Shakespeare To John Boni: I agree with your caveat about making fun of students. I've always felt that if my students don't know something I tried to teach them, the fault is mine, not theirs. Ridicule slung at them is only a way of laying the blame for one's own failures someplace else, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance, and failed teachers because of MTV. And yes, I'm more than happy to be a wet blanket, if it means smothering flames like these. If students don't know anything, it's because they haven't been taught. We're teachers. Causality pretty clear in this case, no? Soddenly yours, Bruce Avery ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 10:38:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0398 Re: Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0398. Thursday, 5 May 1994. (1) From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 14:46:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Doubling in HAMLET (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:08:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Tripling a character (3) From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 12:40:11 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0391 Re: Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 14:46:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Doubling in HAMLET Now that HAMLET has been pulled into the doubling question, let me mention the Kabuki version done by the Tokyo Globe Company in 1991. In this production, the same actor plays Hamlet, Ophelia, and Fortinbras; a second actor plays both Claudius and the Ghost of Hamlet's father. The cast included 15 performers and 12 musicians. I might note that the repertoire included versions of KING LEAR and FALSTAFF, for which there were no doublings at all. As I noted in an earlier posting, Kabuki began in 1603, according to the program, "when a foxy little nun by the name of Okuni left her life of nunnery at Izumo Grand Shrine behind and went to the big city of Kyoto with a group of like-minded fellow nuns to become stars of the riverbed....These ladies were so far out that nobody could describe them with a proper word, so the slang verb 'kabuku' came to be used in its noun form 'kabuki' to describe them. The word meant 'leaning far over to one's side' or, as we would say today, 'avant-garde.'" HAMLET, of course, was not in the first kabuki repertoire. Nick Clary (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:08:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tripling a character Some years ago, Word Baker (I think that is his name) directed a production of Marlowe's EDWARD II at the University of Cincinnati. He had three different actors playing Edward, and all three were on stage at the same time: a hetersexual, a homosexual, a female -- the three aspects of Edward (said Mr. Baker). Each actor had a section of the stage as his/hers, and Baker himself "directed" who would speak the lines. It varied for each performance. The homosexual aspect/actor was "killed" in the obscene parody of homosexual love (to paraphrase Empson). Or so it was the night I saw it, and I assumed that Baker always directed him to "die." I could be wrong. The audience was also on stage, and each auditor had to sit with someone he/she didn't know. The auditors were also encouraged to become actors at certain times during the play, esp. battle scenes. This is a twenty year old memory, but I recall that I was not disturbed by the character of Edward being "tripled." Needless to say, however, this was a strange night at the theatre. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 12:40:11 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0391 Re: Doubling Best doubling I ever saw was Judy Davis as both Cordelia and the Fool with John Bell (I think it was) as Lear. Pomo or no, having his daughter come back to tweak him with his humanity added an extraordinary gender / patriarchy yarchy dimension to the interaction - and then, of course, as Lear achieved wisdom, the Fool died. Very nice. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 10:47:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0399 Re: Polonius; Orsino; Lights; Teaching Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0399. Thursday, 5 May 1994. (1) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Wednesday, 4 May 1994 14:20:39 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0394 Qs: Polonius's Name (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:35:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Orsino as Character (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:32:13 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Lights on Stage (4) From: Constance Relihan Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 06:45 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0393 Re: Teaching (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Wednesday, 4 May 1994 14:20:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0394 Qs: Polonius's Name Re Polonius: he is not Corambis in the source, whatever that may be, but in Q1, where Reynaldo is also Montano. The most plausible explanation is given by Hibbard in the Oxford Shakespeare introduction, p. 74-- that Q1 derives from a performing version for Oxford: Polonius would be the Latin version of Pullen, founder of the university, and Reynaldo that of John Rainoldes, head of Corpus Christi, the notorious anti-theatrical pamphleteer. These would therefore be names to be avoided. S. Orgel (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:35:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Orsino as Character Terence Hawkes tells us that Orsino does not exist and has no character. I say that Orsino IS a character, and he exists every time TN is performed. I know. I've seen him with my own eyes, and heard him too. Yours, naively, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 04 May 1994 17:32:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Lights on Stage My friend Keith Brown has an interesting essay on lighting, "More light, more light," ESSAYS IN CRITICISM, 34 (1984), 1-13, where he notes, "even before October was over the autumn sun would actually have been below the horizon before the end of many afternoon playhouse performances" (2). And so, when OTHELLO was performed at the Globe (and I assume that it was), the last act would have been done in comparative darkness. When Othello blows out the candle, the audience may hear more than it sees. Keith meditates on these possibilities -- as darkness falls in the playhouse. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Constance Relihan Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 06:45 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0393 Re: Teaching Re: Peter Novak's remarks about an ASL videotaped version of _Tempest_ 1.2. Is the tape widely available? Can you provide the list with information on obtaining it? My advanced Shakespeare class will be discussing _Tempest_ in three weeks (while all you folks who are not on the quarter system are already basking on the beach), and I think they'd find it fascinating. --Constance C. Relihan Auburn University ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:17:06 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0400. Friday, 6 May 1994. (1) From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 11:16:09 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Teaching & New Knowledge (2) From: Michael Cohen Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 08:38:56 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (3) From: Gloria Wilson Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 12:04:58 CST6 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (4) From: Joseph Lawrence Lyle Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 13:24:58 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (5) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 13:50:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: Laughter (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 11:16:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Teaching & New Knowledge While I too am uncomfortable making fun of student's work, I am equally uncomfortable with placing the blame for for poor exam performance entirely on an instructor's over burdened shoulders. One can't properly teach students who don't come to class, don't read the material, or sleep through class because they were out all night at a frat party. Things aren't quite as formulaic as Bruce Avery makes them out to be. I wish they were; we'd all get to read better exams and give fewer Ds and Es. Kimberly Nolan U of Miami (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Cohen Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 08:38:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge I already responded to the author who proposed that publishing student bloopers was unfair and unprofessional, and I thought to let it lie, but with the sudden rush (okay--two messages) agreeing with this view, I thought I would share my counter argument. First, it is not clear to me that anonymous reports of student blunders hold ANYONE up to ridicule. I think we are being more than over-sensitive here. Second, we don't share all student blunders; we share the FUNNY ones. Why? Because WE enjoyed them; they lightened our day (after a grueling time reading essay after essay, all on the same topic). Funny bloopers have, in fact, become a commercial genre, with TV specials devoted to them, books, columns in magazines. I don't want to be ridiculed by name because I made a typo, but if I make a howlingly funny blunder in my e-mail, and it gets passed on (without personal attribution, of course),I would probably feel both embarassed AND honored. And, after the initial sting, only honored. Third, the mistakes that our students make can be VERY instructive; they show us when and in what way our teaching has gone awry. As such, these compilations are a charming way for us to learn what works in the classroom and what doesn't. I would suggest that those who feel we have violated our poor students by sharing their miscues to relax a little. No one has been harmed, many have been amused, and some of us have learned something. I am much more concerned about teachers who can't find any joy in teaching at all. End of flame... Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. Lymond@netcom.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gloria Wilson Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 12:04:58 CST6 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge I have thoroughly enjoyed the student bloopers. I have taught in both high school and college settings for a number of years and I have the greatest respect for both the novice writer/reader and the teacher. It takes somewhat of a scholar to appreciate the humor in such bloopers, and it is more of an intellectual chuckle between oneself and other professionals who appreciate the subject matter than a reproach to the student. I remember such instances of my own students' writing with fondness for both the occasion and the student. GLORIA R. WILSON gwilson@ahs.aberdeen.k12.ms.us grw2@ra.msstate.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Lawrence Lyle Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 13:24:58 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge We all know people who recount their students' failures with a bit too much glee: whether they do so because they enjoy feeling superior or because they need to mask insecurity resulting from failure to teach as well as they like, it's disturbing. The several people who point this out are quite right to do so. But let's not get carried away. If a student spells "throne" "thrown," it's amusing. It's sad, of course, and we should all work as hard as we possibly can to correct this sort of thing, and we should all remember that someone somewhere along the line has done the student a very grave disservice. While we cannot forget our responsibility, nor can we make ourselves eternal martyrs. "In this scene, Hal reveals his manhood to Falstaff." Ha! Jay Lyle jll6f@virginia.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 13:50:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Laughter Laughter at willful ignorance is not inappropriate. Most of us are talking about university or college students, students who have the ability to read, to study, to remember. As a teacher, I do my best to encourage my students to do all three. I give them study guides. I give them quizzes that lead to revelant class discussions. I have them write short papers every other week, and so on. If my students refuse to read carefully and study the material, it is not my fault. Students must ultimately be responsible for their own education. But we teachers invest a lot of our energy, time -- you name it -- in the process, and, when our students don't do the work, don't learn the material, we are hurt. We are hurt because our students are negligent. And so some of us turn to satire. I assume that we do not personally satirize our students. There is nothing wrong in the general satire of willful ignorance. Now, what about our own bloopers? Bernice warns us to humility. (I remember with blushes when I forgot that Aragon is in Spain!) Of course, our pride is not above satire, is it? How many satires of academic life are available in the local library? I won't venture to guess. Reverence is not my bag. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:23:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0401 Re: Polonius's Name Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0401. Friday, 6 May 1994. (1) From: Ronan Clifford Date: Thursday, 5 May 94 10:55:44 EST Subj: Polonius' name (2) From: Roger A Stritmatter Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 17:31:54 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Polonius, Corambis and other names (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronan Clifford Date: Thursday, 5 May 94 10:55:44 EST Subject: Polonius' name To: E. L. Epstein-- My fellow Shakespearean in Cracow, Professor Teresa Baluk, who teaches here at the Jagiellonian University, holds that Polonius is so named because of the popularity of a treatise on the ideal senator (legislator), translated into English from the Latin of a noted sixteenth century Pole. I cannot provide, let alone pronounce, the name, but she tells me that the theory is not original with her. Cliff Ronan, Southwest Texas SU/U of Silesia (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roger A Stritmatter Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 17:31:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Polonius, Corambis and other names E.L. Epstein asks, "why the names Polonius and Corambis" -- and the only aspect of Stephen Orgel's reply which I think plausible is his observation that "Corambis" is not in a source. Orgel thinks that Polonius is the Latin version of the name of the founder of Oxford University, where Q1 seems to have been played. But he says nothing about Corambis, which was presumably the name used in such performance. I don't know why Orgel refers to an obscure claim by Hibbard that Polonius refers to the founder of Oxford College when an impressive tradition, including luminaries such as Dover Wilson and E.K. Chambers, associates both the name and the character with William Cecil. "Corambis," of course, is a satirical version of the Latin motto of Cecil, "Cor unum, via una" -- and hence *very emphatically* to be avoided in any official publication of the play, which Q1, whatever else one thinks about it, was not. Hence *both* names have plausibly been associated, beginning in 1860 by George Russel French, and most recently by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in his "Shakespeare Canon of Statutory Construction" (UPenn Law Review, Spring 1992), with the most powerful politican of Edward de Vere....ere, I mean "Shakespeare's," lifetime, both by "orthodox" and "heretical" scholars of Shakespeare. I like the question. This is only the tip of the iceberg of my answer. Sincerely, Roger Stritmatter Stritmat@Titan.ucs.umass.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:29:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0402 Re: Masks Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0402. Friday, 6 May 1994. (1) From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 16:46 EDT Subj: Re: Masks (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 15:21:34 GMT-6 Subject: Masks Regarding Curiousbillgodshalk's question about the social status of Renaissance ladies masking in the sun, if we take "mask" to mean all types of vizards, James T. Henke's *Gutter Life and Language in the Early "Street" Literature of England* perhaps sheds some light under "Black-bag whore." He notes that "privy prostitutes" may have disguised themselves as "honest widows, unfortunate gentle women, etc." by wearing a dark veil. Henke then quotes from the sham *Resolution of the Women of London to the Parliament[1642]*, which includes a phrase evidently describing the social and moral scale of womankind from highest to lowest: "...whether rich or poore, great or small, honest or halfe honest, even from the blacke-bagge to the Oyster-wench...." This context makes the black bag a mark of gentility. "Who was that masked stranger?" Back then we might very well wonder. On another point, thanks to you John Boni for your cautionary note about teachers flaunting their students' gaffes. Yes, we chuckle-- otherwise we might go mad; then we resume tending our garden. Best regards, Tom Hodges in Amarillo Tom Hodges, Professor of English, Amarillo College, PO Box 447, Amarillo, Texas, 79178, Voice (806) 371-5176, fax 806 371-5370 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A.G. Bennett Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 16:46 EDT Subject: Re: Masks Bill Godshalk asked about masking during the Renaissance-- my information on that period's a bit sketchy on this, but during the Restoration, women frequently appeared masked in public-- to do otherwise could be taken as a sign of lack of virtue, I believe. Then again, there is the intriguing dichotomy that the whores who worked the theatres (and usually sat in a particular area of the balcony, I think) were referred to as "masks." I'm interested in hearing from others about how it all seemed to work during the Renaissance itself.... Cheers, Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:44:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0405 U of Delaware P Award for MS Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0405. Friday, 6 May 1994. From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 11:25:46 -0500 Subject: $1000 award for ms in Shakespearean lit I just received an announcement that many of you will find of interest: The University of Delaware Press announces a new $1000 award for best book-length manuscript submitted in the field Shakespearean Literature. Mnauscripts must be submitted by December 31, 1994. For details and entry form, write: Shakespeare Manuscript Competition University of Delaware Press 326 Hullihen Hall Newark, Delaware 19716 Telephone: 302-831-1149 FAX: 302-831-6549 Go for it! --Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:42:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0404 Q: 19th.-Century *Troilus and Cressida* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0404. Friday, 6 May 1994. From: Karla Walters Date: Thursday, 5 May 1994 08:52 MST Subject: 19th C *Troilus & Cressida* A while ago someone posted a query to the VICTORIA list asking about 19th c adaptations of Troilus and Cressida. I was wondering if anyone on SHAKSPER could mention whether this play was popular in the 19th century and whether you know of other literary forms in which the story was used in the 19th c. Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 10:39:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0403 Re: Spinoffs; Teaching; Orsino Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0403. Friday, 6 May 1994. (1) From: Mike Young Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 13:46:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Teaching Tempest (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 6 May 94 12:22 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0399 Re: Orsino (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Young Date: Thursday, 05 May 1994 13:46:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Teaching Tempest A note on teaching Tempest, especially to undergrads: I have just tried the HBO animated version of Tempest (and Romeo and Juliet) in my 200 level course. They do have certain advantages. Excuding the Intro. by Robin Williams, which is a nice "ice breaker", the productions are about 25 minutes long. It is very easy top watch one and have an immediate discussion within a 50 minute period. Also, the adaptation has not cut out all the side and sub plots. These are not just entertainments and silly cartoons. I have seen the entire set of six plays advertised in a media catalogue, though I can't find it right now. Yours, Michael Young (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 6 May 94 12:22 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0399 Re: Orsino Dear Bill Godshalk, Yes, we know that Orsino IS a character. I said that he doesn't HAVE one, so Dwight Maxwell can stop worrying about it. I have a feeling you're going to go all dewy-eyed about this one, so let me remind you that you haven't yet dealt with the Question of The Hour. I repeat it: Does Lady Macbeth really faint? Give that a bit of welly. Terry Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 08:59:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0406 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0406. Saturday, 7 May 1994. (1) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 6 May 94 11:54:10 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (2) From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 06 May 1994 15:54:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (3) From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 13:59:25 -0700 (PDT) Send Elise Earthman (4) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Friday, 06 May 1994 20:02:54 -0500 (CDT) Subj: New Shakespearen Knowledge (5) From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 20:25:55 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (6) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 07 May 1994 00:04:42 EDT Subj: RE: New Shakespearean Knowledge (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 6 May 94 11:54:10 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0397 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge To: Bernice W. Kliman and Bruce Avery Neither of you are "spoil sports." I think it's just short of tragic that our students do not have the basics of *reading*. Of course, they're 18, 19, 20+ when we get them, so we're not entirely at fault, but I agree that we would be better advised to look to our own teaching. Something about the "mote in your brother's eye" comes to mind. Norman Myers Bowling Green State University nmyers@andy.bgsu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Simerka Date: Friday, 06 May 1994 15:54:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge In adressing the issue of "who is to blame" for the errors of spelling, grammar, and details of plot that we find in student compositions, the college teacher vs. student is a false binary which leaves out an important element of the equation: the education that students receive in K-12. I do not suggest demonizing primary and secondary school teachers for the inadequacy of student preparation; a far more important culprit is the systematic (under)funding of most public school systems, which leads to overcrowded classrooms and insufficient individual attention at the crucial moments of language skills development. While the blunders themselves may be momentarily amusing, I can feel only anger at a government which values redundant weapons systems more highly than the education of its children. The new program for the year 2000, which prioritizes the compilation of standards and goals and allocates minmal resources to their fulfillment only perpetuates the current injustices. Barbara Simerka Davidson College (formerly a teacher in public schools in Detroit and East Los Angeles) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 13:59:25 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Elise Earthman I think finding a certain delight in our students' anonymous bloopers and malapropisms is a long way from holding particular individuals up to ridicule--perhaps the appropriateness of it has to do with the spirit in which the excerpts are offered. I for one know that the occasional goof brings a bit of joy--last night, for example, after a long session of reading study questions that said the same thing, over and over, to come on one that said that "Antony insisted that Octavia go back to Rome as a pacemaker" definitely lightened the rest of my work. I'm sure the student knew what he meant, and on this informal kind of assignment I wouldn't even embarrass him by correcting his gaffe. But I don't think it's wrong to share it anonymously with you. Some students even manage to render themselves unforgettable by delighting us in this way. Over ten years ago, I had a remedial class of 18 students, the only one of whom I can remember (and quite clearly, too) is the student who told me one of her favorite books was *Tess of the Doobyvilles*. I was delighted not only by her recollection of the title, but by the fact that she had read Hardy! This was the same student who, when I finished a part of my plan for one day and said "Does anyone have any questions?" raised her hand and said, "Do you know the name of a good dentist?" Please--with a four-course load and the crush of committees, research, writing, etc. etc.--don't tell me I can't share these moments of joy with my colleagues! Elise Earthman (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Friday, 06 May 1994 20:02:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: New Shakespearen Knowledge Perhaps it is the end of semester that makes me foolhardy enough to put my two cents into this discussion. I,too, laughed upon reading the "knew info"...so much so, I printed it up and showed my husband (who was wondering what I was laughing about). He read and read and didn't crack a smile---not even at Richard Bondage (my fav).He then gave me a stern talking to about bad teachers of Shakespeare (first hand experience on his part), those who put their students off the Bard for life. Well, this was a sobering thought. But as his replies filtered in with several of the list's "wet blankets,'" a quote came to mind from JULIUS CAESAR,"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves." Yes, it is partially bad teaching: "bad" being qualified by time constraints (I had to fit HAMLET into two 90 min. classes of a World Lit. survey), over familiarity and fondness with the text, and often too many students to see if they're all comprehending. BUT, as others have noted, many of the studentys in our classes could care less. They're in the class because they need it to graduate, not because it is a driving force in their life. And they haven't studied, or even bothered to watch the video. Sometimes they're just too "Oer hasty" in their labors. I submit as parting evidence selections from a paper on HAMLET from a well-meaning student who didn't take the time to check his facts or proofread. The punctuation is original; the ellipses are mine: "When Claudius realizes that Hamlet knows all about Claudius killing his father he becomes eccentric. . . . Ophelia does not understand why Hamlet does not care for her anymore. In fact even though Hamlet really does still care for. This will later put her in devastation. . . Hamlets fathers spirit reoccurs and reminds him not to take revenge out on his mother Gertrude. . . The moral of this play is that even though that Hamlet was a mad crazy man throughout the play. The real crazy man was Claudius the King of Denmark." Flinging off the wet blanket, Elizabeth Schmitt E2E3SCHM@vaxb.acs.unt.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 20:25:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Even our students enjoy student bloopers when we share such howlers with them. But I don't think we should feel self righteous about this. (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 07 May 1994 00:04:42 EDT Subject: RE: New Shakespearean Knowledge Re: bloopers. Need I remind the network that Shakespeare makes fun of Dogberry's bloopers? If it's good enough for the Bard, it's good enough for us. E.L.Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 09:07:25 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project; Hand's *Henry VI* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0407. Saturday, 7 May 1994. (1) From: Robert Knapp Date: Friday, 06 May 94 08:37:47 PDT Subj: Hypertext/Hypermedia (2) From: Louise Nichols Date: Friday, 6 May 94 15:02:04 EDT Subj: Henry VI (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Knapp Date: Friday, 06 May 94 08:37:47 PDT Subject: Hypertext/Hypermedia Does anyone have information about the current state of the MIT/Stanford project (under development by Peter Donaldson, Larry Friendlander, and Janet Murray) that was demonstrated at the Atlanta SAA? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louise Nichols Date: Friday, 6 May 94 15:02:04 EDT Subject: Henry VI I`d like to know if anyone out there saw (or knows much about) the Terry Hands' 1977 RSC production of Henry VI with Alan Howard as Henry. It was an unusual feat in that all 3 plays were performed relatively uncut and I`m particularly interested in Alan Howard`s portrayal of Henry as a king who became increasingly disillusioned, even cynical, as the plays progressed. How consistent was Henry`s development in the production? -- Margaret was played as one who had genuine, positive, feelings for Henry. Did this work? Was there a positive feeling between them throughout? I`ve already read a number of theatrical reviews and academic critiques on the production, so it is mostly eyewitness accounts that interest me (if anyone can remember that far back!) But if anyone knows about any helpful written accounts that I may have missed, I`d be happy to hear about them too. Thanks, Louise Nichols ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 09:18:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0408 Re: Polonius's Name; Orsino; Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0408. Saturday, 7 May 1994. (1) From: Martin Mueller Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 10:58:44 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0401 Re: Polonius's Name (2) From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 12:59 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0403 Re: Orsino (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 06 May 1994 21:12:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: Character and Lady Macbeth's "faint" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 10:58:44 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0401 Re: Polonius's Name >"Corambis," of course, is a satirical version of the Latin motto of Cecil, >"Corunum, via una" -- and hence *very emphatically* to be avoided in any >official publication of the play. I'm a moderately accomplished Latinist, but the of-courseness of the explanation eludes me. Please explain. As for Plonius, I had naively thought that Polonius was simply a name designed to add Baltic flavoring and establish the play's setting the Northeast Territories. Martin Mueller Northwestern University martinmueller@nwu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 6 May 1994 12:59 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0403 Re: Orsino For folks out there who might like to pull their wellies on and wade into the character muck with Terry Hawkes and Bill Godshalk, there's an intriguing chapter on the issue in Alan Sinfield's *Faultlines*--and, yes, the Lady's faint/feint does figure interestingly in it. Odd, that. Skip Shand (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 06 May 1994 21:12:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Character and Lady Macbeth's "faint" Terence wants me to tell him if Lady Macbeth "really" faints. I have just read Alan Sinfield'd review (was it really a review?) of Graham Bradshaw's MISREPRESENTATIONS in the TLS (April 22), and I know now that Cultural Materialists have a difficult time with "really." Do you mean, Terence, "really" in the fictional world of the play, i.e., the primary reality of MACBETH? Or do you mean, "does the actress that plays Lady faint"? The answer to the second question would seem to be "usually not." The answer to the first question is in dispute -- but it is a sound question. You see, Terence, characters in plays do have characters (in a certain sense). I know you've read Kendall Walton's MIMESIS AS MAKE-BELIEVE (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1990), or at least read about it in Vickers's APPROPRIATING SHAKESPEARE, a book that mentions your name quite often, though hardly with "faint" praise. So you know that we (auditors) make believe that dramatic characters have characters. You might want to call it the willing suspension of disbelief. We "take" actors for "real" people with "real" problems. Do Cultural Materialists believe (make believe?) that genuinely real people have characters? Or are we just nodes of cultural activity? Does the culture live us, rather than we making the culture? Yours, curiously, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 08:58:48 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear*; Searching the SHAKSPER Logs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0410. Sunday, 8 May 1994. (1) From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Saturday, 07 May 1994 11:45:09 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Doubling in Lear (2) From: J F Knight Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 15:10:06 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project; Hand's *Henry VI* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Saturday, 07 May 1994 11:45:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Doubling in Lear I would like to know if antone has seen productions (other than that with Judy Davis already mentioned) where the Fool and Cordelia are played by the same actress. Also, was this doubling standard (if there is such a thing) when the play was performed in the early 17th C? Any thoughts on this topic would be appreciated. Thanks, Kimberly Nolan U of Miami (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 15:10:06 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project; Hand's *Henry VI* I didn't see this production but have a tangentially related question: you're interested in Henry VI; I'm currently interested in King John. Is there some hypertext or Veronica-style system whereby I can search through the discussion on Shakesper over the last (what is it) six years, and pull out the threads which relate to King John? I got a very long summary of posts listed in chronological order when I joined the list, but it should be a relatively simple task to make this huge (and getting huger) repository of free associations on Shakespearian matters available to the group on a meta-search basis. What do you think - or have I failed to grasp a potential which is already there? John Knight knight@extro.uss.su.oz.au [Editor's Note: John Knight raises an interesting question. The five indexes to which he refers are intended for searching, but there is indeed an alternative. One feature of the LISTSERV software is a DATABASE function. I've had the documentation for years but just have not had the time to try to figure it out and digest it down into a simple procedure for members to use. If there is a SHAKSPERean with the time, inclination, and interest to study the DATABASE documentation and produce a set of instructions for its use, please contact me and I'll willingly and readily forward the material. --Hardy] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 09:51:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0412 Announcing TDR_Forum Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0412. Sunday, 8 May 1994. From: Lucia Ruednberg Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 00:11:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Announcing: TDR_forum ______________________________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ######| ######\ ######\ ##| ##| ##\ ##|__##| ##| ##| ##| ######/ ##| ##|__##/ ##| ##\ ___________________ ##| ######/ ##| ##\_______________________ The Journal of Performance Studies T141 (Spring 1994) TDR_FORUM ON PERFORM-L We invite you to join the TDR_FORUM, a discussion that occurs quarterly on Perform-l, the discussion list for Performance Studies. Every quarter we focus on one article from TDR's latest issue. This spring we are featuring: "A Radiant Smile from the Lovely Lady": Overdetermined Femininity in "Ladies" Figure Skating" - by Abigail Feder TDR is the only journal that explores the diverse world of performance with an emphasis on the intercultural, interdisciplinary and experimental. It covers theater, dance, entertainment, media, sports, aesthetics of everyday life, politics, games, play, and ritual. We encourage you to download the article from our archives and look forward to dicussing its implications with all of you. To download Feder's artictle via anonymous ftp: ftp acfcluster.nyu.edu, cd perform get tdr_feder.txt. quit To get Feder's article via e-mail: Send e-mail to: mailserv@acfcluster.nyu.edu Leave subject blank. Put only one line in the letter: send [anonymous.perform]tdr_feder.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Direct questions or problems subscribing to the discussion list to: Sharon Mazer: mazers@acfcluster.nyu.edu Direct questions or problems with getting the article to: Lucia Ruedenberg ruednbrg@acfcluster.nyu.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 09:13:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0411 Re: Morality; Polonius; Bloopers; Character; Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0411. Sunday, 8 May 1994. (1) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 07 May 94 15:05 CDT Subj: Morality (2) From: Roger A Stritmatter Date: Saturday, 07 May 1994 12:04:36 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Polonius (3) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 07 May 94 19:51:36 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project; Hand's *Henry VI* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 07 May 94 15:05 CDT Subject: Morality Dear Shaksper, In the old days we all thought we knew what was moral and what was not. Apparently those of Alan Sinfield's generation neither know nor care. In the old days those of us asked to review a book which treated so closely what we have done, and what our very close colleagues have done (in this case Sinfield, Dollimore, Drakakis, Hawkes, et al.) would make this a book we could not review because we could not be objective-fair-reasonable--or even evaluative. No so for Alan Sinfield -- he took the book, took the money, and wrote an explanation of himself -- not a review (TLS 22 April, 1994, pp. 4-5). I do not know what penalty (he'll love that word) should be exacted, but I do know who will not review for me again until the crack of doom. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roger A Stritmatter Date: Saturday, 07 May 1994 12:04:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Polonius Martin Mueller's question about the latinity of the name Corambis reminds me of an intriguing fact that any careful reader of the Shakspere allusion books can learn in about five minutes. It seems that one of the literary pseudonyms of Shakespeare, under which he's alluded to by a number of prominent literary figures of the early 17th c., was "Labeo," after the Latin admiral famous for his equivocating linguistic strategies. It seems that Labeo once secured the surrender of his opponent on the promise that after the cease-fire, he would divide the conquered navy in two parts and leave half to the opponent. He then instructed that all his opponent's ships should be cut in half and left to sink five fathoms or more deep. He offered the defeated admiral whichever half he preferred. "Of course" is an ellipses for the many pages of scholarship -- see EK Chambers on Hamlet, Dover Wilson on Hamlet, or J. Valcour Miller on the history of the question (in Ruth Loyd Miller, ed, 1975) for the details -- which seem to be missing from the collective consciousness of present-tense academic discourse on allegory and authorship. I'm still wondering if Professor Orgel can explain the dramatic values Shakespeare might have had in mind if, as Hibbard says, he went out of his way to ridicule someone as obscure as Pullen and ritually murder him on the Elizabethan stage with the interesting line "dead for a ducat!" Cecil was known around court as "Pondus," and sometimes "Polus." But that's only the most superficial reason for knowing that he's the prototype for the man Shakespeare immortalized with the line "more matter and less art!" Perhaps Marting Mueller could offer an English transliteration of the name "Corambis" which could shed further light on these unnacountably abstruse matters. Best Regards :) Roger Stritmatter (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 07 May 94 19:51:36 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project; Hand's *Henry VI* Three posts on assorted subjects. RE: New Knowledge As a non-academic theater professional I have felt a bit out in the cold during the debate over student bloopers. I don't see any reason not to enjoy or share them, but it is not for me to dictate ethics to other professions. My only recent experience with academic bloopers was reading one on the front page of the NY Times "Arts and Leisure" section. For a feature linked to Denzel Washington's RICHARD III in Central Park the editors in "Culture Gulch" engaged the services of a professor at Columbia to discuss feminist issues in the play. The "New Knowledge" she revealed was that the seduction scene with Lady Anne takes place over a casket holding the body of her murdered husband (?!?). Perhaps we should wrestle with the moral issues involved in laughing at professors' bloopers. That point still moot I will refrain from mentioning either the professor's real name or the one she uses on her mystery novels. * * * RE: Orsino Like Bill Godshalk I am curious to know more of what Terry Hawkes means when he says Orsino "has no character." Until recently I was inclined to agree that the role was hopelessly thin and I was thankful that when I did the play I was Sir Toby. I had to rethink a lot of preconceptions when I saw Hamburg's Thalia Theater's stunning WAS IHR WOLLT a few months ago, though, not least the widely shared prejudice that can be summed up, "Krauts can't do comedy!" In this production EVERYONE was funny, not just Belch (or "Rulp") and Aguecheek ("Bleichenwang"), but even Orsino and Sebastion! The humor resulted from the actors' fleshing out what the text gave them in original, striking, and surprising ways. Orsino was petulant and self absorbed to the point of silliness. He may not have been very likeable, and the audience wondered, as always, what Viola saw in him, but he had a singular and sharply defined character capable of holding the stage and getting big laughs. In the hands of an actor who is willing to sweat the details and build a precise persona, in this case a careful craftsman named Jan Josef Liefers, every person of the drama is potentially a "character." * * * RE: Doubling Watching The Arden Party's LEAR last night in SoHo's Ohio Space I thought of the recent posts about doubling. Director Karin Coonrod did her LEAR, as she has earlier done ROMEO & JULIET, LOVE'S LABOURS, and numerous other "classics," with radically truncated casts - three men and two women in the case of LEAR. Coonrod did a good bit of work cutting and rearranging the text as well. The result was very enjoyable and the fact that everyone except Lear was appearing and reappearing in multiple roles stopped mattering early on. At Edinburgh, where shoestring productions are the rule on The Fringe, I saw two other companies mount small cast Shakespeare. The Custard Factory did AS YOU LIKE IT and MEASURE FOR MEASURE with three actors and abridged texts, the latter more successfully. One of the best shows I saw at that year's festival, though, was the Cambridge Experimental Theater's RICHARD III. The text was only lightly abridged, but the huge cast of characters was effectively portrayed by three energetic performers, moving from one scene to the next with great zest and establishing almost in an instant who their new characters were. If the vision of the production is strong enough, and the actors have the range, Shakespeare can be done with much smaller casts than one might think. Doubling, though more often than not a necessity, should be treated, too, as an opportunity. Having to build several well-defined characters in a single production offers great training for actors. I doubled as The Duke and Pinch in COMEDY OF ERRORS with The National Shakespere Company and as Charles and Silvius in AS YOU LIKE IT for Jean Cocteau Repertory. In both cases the necessity of inventing physical details to distinguish the two characters helped sharpen my work. I have less enthusiasm, though, for theory-driven doubling like the Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania under debate. I have seen this tried with varying degrees of success. Directorial choices that leave the audience wondering, "What does he MEAN by that?!?" are almost always missteps. Look at the radical choices of real directorial geniuses like Brook or Miller and they almost always look so natural they seem inevitable and are accepted in an instant, not puzzled over. The Fool/Cordelia doubling is built into the text of LEAR, of course, and has given rise to the widely accepted theory that one actor played both in the original staging. Thus the line "Since my young Ladies going into France, Sir, the Foole hath much pined away," spoken as the actor was finishing his costume change, is revealed as an "in joke." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 May 1994 08:42:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0409 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0409. Sunday, 8 May 1994. (1) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Saturday, 7 May 1994 08:40:12 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (2) From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 7 May 94 10:40:49 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0406 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Saturday, 7 May 1994 08:40:12 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge I'm surprised that no one, in this pro-and-con over whether or not to make fun of *students*, have noticed that much of the point of Ron Dwelle's satire is *our own* dogged search for academic minutiae. Surely some of the humor lies in finding a "ur-text" in an unexpected location, much like PDQ Bach manuscripts being found in a coffee filter (I refer, of course, to the "Sanka Cantata.") Of course, that would require us all to possess a sense of humor about ourselves. . .:- Melissa Aaron (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 7 May 94 10:40:49 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0406 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge Just a note on teaching conditions in American public schools: large class size is not necessarily a deficit. In Japan, at present the most literate nation on the planet, high school class size usually hovers somewhere between 40 and 50 students per. I'm not suggesting that Japan has it all together--I for one would hate to be a Japanese high school student--and there are a lot of factors in Japanese society that make for a high literacy rate, not least of which are the many hours most people in that country spend on the train every day. On the other hand, big classes don't seem to be hurting much. Just proffering a little-known fact, David Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 10:30:42 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0413 Re: Doubling in *Lear* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0413. Monday, 9 May 1994. (1) From: Robert O'Connor Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 10:37:47 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear* (2) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 20:24:08 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 10:37:47 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear* Dear SHAKSPEReans, Kimberly Nolan asked about productions of *Lear* in which the Fool and Cordelia were doubled. I haven't seen any executed in that particular fashion, but the Playbox company of Melbourne are touring Australia and Asia at the moment with a production which doubles Cordelia with Oswald - a very dwarvish and squeaky Oswald, who is hard to take seriously as any kind of beau of Goneril's. The production has a lot to recommend it, and, to be honest, some conspicuous flaws. In some ways this doubling did not work, as I think it was only achieved with a significant reduction in Cordelia's part, but then the production as a whole was only 1 hour 40. Robert O'Connor Australian National University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 20:24:08 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear* Kimberly Nolan asks about productions in which the same actress doubled as Cordelia and the Fool. Another Australian production in which something like this took place was staged in Sydney a couple of years ago by the Sydney Theatre Company as part of (the alas late) Philip Parsons's ongoing series of research productions of Shakespeare. The attempt in this case was to reproduce as far as possible the likely conditions of an early C17 touring company with only the kind of resources that could be taken on the road--very basic costume, a set consisting of a simple trestle-like stage backed with hessian curtains and lots of doubling. The rehearsals were very brief and as I understand it consisted mainly of the actors learning their lines and performing them as well as they knew how, largely front-on to the audience. The roles of Cordelia and the Fool were doubled but, since all the actors were male, by a man. He and his sisters wore wimple-like headdresses when playing the women, but in the final scene where Lear brings in the dead body of Cordelia the wimple was gone--just the face and hair of the Fool with the body (that is to say, costume) of Cordelia. It was a complex and disturbing moment, both emotionally and intellectually. I should point out that this was the most moving performance of the play I've yet seen, and that Ron Haddrick--one of Australia's best actors-- gave me things in his performance as Lear that I've never seen before. The horrific speech about women being centaurs from the waist down had me feeling literally nauseous, both in distaste at the appalling contempt and hatred of women, and in a perverse sympathy for Lear's anger and frustration. And in the 5 x "never" the first four grew in intensity as expected, but the fifth dropped away into an uncomprehending question which felt to me as if I were seeing someone who all his life had been accustomed to saying "No" and "Never" to other people and geting his own way, and who suddenly for the first time had to confront the fact that in something he wanted he had to accept that "never" applied to him as well. Overall the production had these moments of disturbing and disruptive complexity, paradoxicaaly made possible by the extreme simplicity of the staging which allowed and encouraged a wide range of rich and even contradictory responses simultaneously. I hope to see a more moving and stimulating production sometime, but I'm not holding my breath. Adrian Kiernander ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 11:04:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0415 Re: Lady Anne; *H6*; MIT/Stanford; Polonius; Masks; K. John Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0415. Monday, 9 May 1994. (1) From: Martin Mueller Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 10:10:39 -0500 Subj: Lady Ann and New Shakespearean Knowledge (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 17:24:31 +0100 Subj: T. Hands' Henry VI (3) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 10:26:51 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project (4) From: Marc W. Kuester Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 11:44:53 +0200 (MESZ) Subj: Masks in Timon of Athens (5) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 21:16:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: KING JOHN bibliography (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 10:10:39 -0500 Subject: Lady Ann and New Shakespearean Knowledge The argument that "the seduction scene with Lady Anne takes place over a casket holding the body of her murdered husband (?!?)" may be a blooper in some ways, but in another way it says something about the deep structure of the scene. Somewhere not so far in the background of the seduction scene (and very plausibly part of Shakespeare's literary memory) is the Matron of Ephesus tradition with its many, and frequently coarse, descendants as for instance the version by Marie de France in which a man sees a widow grieving over the body of her husband and making a bet with his companion that he can "get" her (the French is cruder) Martin Mueller Northwestern University martinmueller@nwu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 17:24:31 +0100 Subject: T. Hands' Henry VI Dear all, Louise Nichols asks for a written account of Terry Hands's 1977 production of the 3 parts of H6. There is a review by Jean-Marie Maguin (and several pictures) in *Cahiers Elisabethains* 12 (Oct. 77) pp.77-80. Some of the pictures show the king and Margaret in a close relationship. I let you read Maguin's review to know more about what he thinks about what it was like. I was too young to be there. Hope this helps. Luc Borot Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines Universite Paul Valery (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 10:26:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0407 Qs: MIT/Stanford Project; In reply to Robert Knapp on the Stanford/MIT project: Larry Friedlander's email address is Larryf@leland.stanford.edu, and you could get an update from him directly. Re: Polonius, I'm really baffled by all the sarcasm, but nobody has suggested that Polonius is satirizing Pullen, only that it was a name to be avoided when performing the play at Oxford, as Reynaldo was too close to Rainoldes. Clearly plausibility is in the eye of the beholder; no surprises there. S. Orgel (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marc W. Kuester Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 11:44:53 +0200 (MESZ) Subject: Masks in Timon of Athens Dear Shakspereans, Concerning the question on masks in Shakespeare performances: Only once have I ever seen the employment of masks for the whole cast, but then to amazing effect: The performance of Timon of Athens in Bochum/Germany. It used intensive doubling, though this was not the main reason for this strategy. The masks were huge - some times the size of a human head - and highly stylized. The intriguing thing about them was their reaction towards light: through the position of their heads and through lighting shadows created all sorts of faces, laughing, crying... It was wonderful to see this, but it requires much skill to produce the masks this way and to handle them accordingly. Nevertheless, I could not picture the strict use of masks in many of Shakespeare's other plays (Romeo's face hidden - a nightmare). On the other hand I could see but a few days ago a performance of Richard II. by the famous Bremer Shakespeare Company. As they frequently do they played with a very small cast - four players in this case - but with only fairly limited cuts in the required personnel - apart from attendants, lords and Isabel everyone was present. Most of the changes took place right on stage and were achieved by simple means, namely by putting on a new coat or the like. They did this so skillfully that even those who did not know the play could follow it without difficulty and enjoyed it very much. The only danger was a certain drift towards caricature and simplification of the minor characters, but I did not find this too irritating. Regards, Marc W. Kuester (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 21:16:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: KING JOHN bibliography John Knight and others interested in KJ may not yet know that Deborah T. Curren-Aquino's KING JOHN: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY (New York: Garland, 1994), is now available. It's almost 900 pages plus a 27 page introduction. It's a must for KJ scholars, and, no, I'm not disinterested. (I'm general editor of the series.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 10:41:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0414 Re: Character, Doubling, and Acting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0414. Monday, 9 May 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 09:53:59 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0408 Re: Character (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 15:37:03 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0411 Re: Character; Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 09:53:59 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0408 Re: Character Re: *character* in plays--the question is not, Do characters in plays have *real character* but rather, Do people outside plays have character? What is *character* anyway? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 15:37:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0411 Re: Character; Doubling What a laudably lucid and oral prose style Tom Dale Keever has! Such a pleasure to read his interesting three postings -- as if we were in an elegant vocal presence. As an actor who had the fortune to play Sir Toby rather than Orsino he will know that the unstoppable thread on New Shakespearean Knowledge (to which I contributed a shameless and doubtless irrelevant three lines on "Desire Under The Elms", has brought forth an unexpected, flurried rustling of virtue from the Cakes & Ale Anonymous Group. He also doubts that Orsino has no character; I wanted to say a while ago that his character exists in his lines, their shape and feel, and that should an actor be visually plausible as a love object himself all he really needs to do is SAY the part in sensitive obedience to the phonic signals given so languidly and sensually in the text, he will to all intents and purposes BECOME the character. Orsino is --they all are,of course -- a fiction, a character, not a person, and his music reacts with others' music to constitute the poetic/dramatic event that is the performed play. The actor ought on no account to attempt a motivation for this, surely. He is an instrument in an artistic experience in which if the right notes are played at the indicated volume and pace the whole becomes a visual and aural equivalent of emotion in which thought and feeling are played for us, rather than merely enacted. "Ah!" I hear some sighing. "What volume? What pace? What face to make [ or cute mask to be told to wear ] ?" The answer again is this: the lines tell all that. I suspect that Tom Dale Keever will agree with me, even although he also knows that it is perfectly possible to bring one's own body, face, habits and so on to bear on a role and thereby flesh out its perfections. He also says sensible things about doubling. The examples he gives from shoestring Edinburgh Fringe offerings of course bring with them the audience's collusion: aware as they are that they are present at a financially precarious perormance, a small cast doing a large play is totally accepted and questions simply do not enter spectators' minds. To see Third Witch reappear as Waiting Gentlewoman even in a large company does not trouble as much as larger doubled roles would, but in a small company it is accepted as a convention just as speaking in verse is. But IS speaking in verse heard much now? There has been a tendency since Stanislvaski and Strasberg to turn it into prose by ignoring the glorious ambiguities and character-creating moments afforded by line-endings, short lines, broken ones and other rhetorical signals given in the verse portions of the plays. I remember being given my typed script of Henry V at a theatre which I dare not name: the first rehearsal, we all had "sides" just as they are presumed to have had in Shakespeare's theatres, that is one's own part and the cues. Mine, the Duke of Burgundy, who gets to say fine things about the bloodied battlefield, was typed out as PROSE. "But," I said to the hot young director [I too was young], "These words are actually in verse, you know." "It's the MEANING we're going for, Sir Henry, not the POETRY. Feel the emotions of the speech!" Alas, I discovered that the entire play had been carefully edited and typed out lest, I suppose, we actors got carried away. Carried away? Carried into truth, for heaven's sake. The truth of the character resides in how he says what he says. She IS how she says what she says. Her form his her content. This one example is, I concede, perhaps extreme; but it merely indicates the way the verse could probably have been said anyway, pauses run over, antitheses and significant repetitions glossed over. In short --I'm sorry to have whined so long --I would like to reiterate that there seems to be rather little said about interpretation through signals given. Might it be, might it just be that the more we find ourselves given up to thematic considerations the fewer of us are actually able to scan a line? To see where the physical process of thought and the lightning vacillations of character are poetically created? In most of these plays, thoughts are things. I was, I add as a last thought, mightily gratified to see another actor join the company. We don't have all the answers. . .but those of us who are are also musicians and readers of poetry like to get in our performers' two cents worth. We also like to criticise ourselves. This is a curse rather than a virtue. We lead double lives, masked. But we do very much need and appreciate scholarly aid. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 12:00:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0416 "The stately legate"; "English" Translation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0416. Monday, 9 May 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 21:37:38 -0500 (EST) Subj: "The stately legate of the Persian King" (2) From: Tom Loughlin Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 22:28:30 -0400 (EDT) Subj: The "English" Version (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Sunday, 08 May 1994 21:37:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: "The stately legate of the Persian King" This afternoon, reading THE TAMING OF A SHREW, I hesitated over the lines: "As was the Massie Robe that late adornd/The stately legate of the Persian King" (Bullough, NARRATIVE AND DRAMATIC SOURCES, vol. 1, 85 [Scene 7, lines 46-47] or in the F. S. Boas edition II.i.131-2). Boas notes the Marlovian echoes of 1 TAMBURLAINE III.i.43-4, and 2 TAMBURLAINE III.ii.123-4. But are these lines a reference to an historical event? I seen to have something in the back of mind about eastern visitors to Elizabeth's court, but I couldn't find the reference in my home library -- if indeed there is one. But if there is, such a reference, were it definite, would give a terminal date for A SHREW. Has this reference been identified? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Loughlin Date: Sunday, 8 May 1994 22:28:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: The "English" Version While following the thread on the "Ur-text" of Hamlet, my wife happened to come home this past Friday with an interesting tale. She works part-time in a local adult learning center which doubles as a detention hall for misbehaving high school students. She monitors them as they complete their homework. This past Friday she happened to be helping a student with his English homework, which centered on Romeo and Juliet. She offered to get down a version of the play from the small library shelf at the center, but was quickly informed by Jose that they were studying the "English version" of the play. A quick check of their English textbook revealed a version of R&J written in modern, colloquial English - the "English version." Granted, Jose is not the brightest of students, but this text cuts across the entire grade in the curriculum, so everybody at our local high school has the great good fortune to study Shakespeare's R&J in "translation." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 07:01:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0417 Re: Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0417. Tuesday, 10 May 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 09:20:32 -0500 Subj: doubling/fragmenting (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 21:06:58 +0100 Subj: Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 09:20:32 -0500 Subject: doubling/fragmenting The University of Minnesota did a production of *King Lear* in 1993 that used eight (I think) actors playing multiple roles but also SPLITTING roles; at one point (the heath scene) four different actors played Lear simultaneously. I found the production interesting and provocative for the most part, though at times it was also chaotic and confusing (which may have been part of the the point). It was not a production I could recommend to someone unfamiliar with the play or with Shakespeare in general, but for those who were, it was a fascinating experiment. --Chris Gordon (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 21:06:58 +0100 Subject: Doubling Dear all, Doubling is something which the ACTER association does systematically and as a matter of principle, as their method is to perform uncut texts of Shakespeare with neither more nor less than 5 (five!) actors, with not much money to buy costumes and set, ergo, they have NO set... (The acronym means A Center for Theater, Education and Research). I'm sure lots of you in the US and Canada saw them, as their mission is to take cheap, clever, uncut performances of Shakespeare to North American campuses. I saw them last year at Stratford, England (the place some people think should not exist because no one was born there in 1564, April 23rd or so, and even so he couldn't spell) in a marvellous production of *The Tempest*. "Good" Duke and "Bad" Duke were played by the same actor. Ariel and Miranda were the same actress, the king and Caliban the same actor, and other such doublings. It worked marvelously. We were all wondering how "good" and "bad" Dukes would meet... well, Prospero spoke to an empty space, his brother, which I found a very deep and thoughtful solution. Prospero would then appear as void as his evil brother, or his brother as vain and irrelevant, which he were in the plot anyway, if he had not gone to Tunis to marry his daughter there. I reviewed it in nb44 of *Cahiers Elisabethains* (Oct 1993), pp.100-101. Cheers and all that Luc Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 10:52:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0418 Re: "The stately legate" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0418. Tuesday, 10 May 1994. (1) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 16:28:37 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0416 "The stately legate" (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 20:52:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0416 "The stately legate" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 16:28:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0416 "The stately legate" Perhaps Bill Godshalk remembers the embassy to Elizabeth from Morocco--I don't recall the date, but Bernard Harris' article in *Shakespeare Survey* 11 (1958): 89-97 gives the information and reproduces a "Portrait of a Moor" (that's the title of the article as well). Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 20:52:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0416 "The stately legate" I ran across a note today indicating that a Persian legation arrived in England early in the reign of James I -- a little too late for dating A SHREW. Was there an earlier visit by the Persians? Still searching, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 11:05:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0419 Re: Morality; Knowledge; Polonius; Character; Anne; Lights Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0419. Tuesday, 10 May 1994. (1) From: Barbara Simerka Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 13:37:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Morality/ Reviewing (2) From: Jennifer Saine Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 18:51:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge (3) From: Shawn Smith Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 19:15:48 -0400 (EST) Subj: Re: Polonius/Corambis (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 21:29:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0414 Re: Character, Doubling, and Acting (5) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 13:29:14 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: Lady Anne (and partner) (6) From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 05:46:58 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0393 Re: Lights (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Simerka Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 13:37:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Morality/ Reviewing I do not know any of the particulars concerning Alan Sinfield's review. However, in this or other similiar cases, a recent experience I had might be enlightening: when asked to review a book by a colleague that I also consider a friend, I alerted the book review editor concerning our "relationship," and was informed that in this era of theoretical specialization, it's nearly inevitable that people who work on the same areas will form friendships, and that to eliminate those friends would likely require the elimination of most readers who are familiar enough with the specific field to offer a knowledgeable reading. Barbara Simerka Davidson College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jennifer Saine Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 18:51:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0400 Re: New Shakespearean Knowledge As an undergraduate student of Shakespeare and a student tutor to adult learners striving for their GED, I applaud Bill Godshalk. Yes, we college students are educated (for the most part) and most of the bloopers might be perhaps sad, but might be at least our own faults (for not showing up to class, etc.) I can and do laugh at my colleagues and my own mistakes--and the laughter helps prevent future embarrasment, I hope! I would not, however, laugh at my adult learners' mistakes for the same, and inverse, reason. Yes, I think we students are strong enough to take the stuff of our mentors! Jennifer Saine William Smith College (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Shawn Smith Date: Monday, 9 May 1994 19:15:48 -0400 (EST) Subject: Re: Polonius/Corambis I'm baffled as to why everyone is so baffled by this. Why would Polonius be "a name to be avoided when performing the play at Oxford" if it were NOT satirizing Pullen? Polonius is a parody of human faults such as hypocrisy, dishonesty, and verbosity, whether Reynaldo/Rainoldes is hanging about or not, and regardless of whether Polonius is Pullen, Polus, or H. Ross Perot. I also don't understand the difficulty in associating Corambis with Burghley. It's much easier for me to see Corambis as a play on "cor unum, via una," than as an allusion to the proverb that is usually trotted out: "crambe bis posita mors est" (though that's not to say it might not be rattling about in there somewhere). Wouldn't that make it "Crambis"? (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 09 May 1994 21:29:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0414 Re: Character, Doubling, and Acting Although E. L. Epstein names no names, I assume that the question about "character" is aimed at Terence Hawkes and me, and our desultory quarrel about "character" in drama. I was using "character" to mean "the presence of creatures in art that seem to be human beings of one sort or another" (Holman nad Harmon, s.v. "character"). When I shift the word to human beings, I am on more nebulous ground. By "character," I meant generally what Norman Holland defines in THE I (Yale, 1985) as "identity" or Lichtenstein as "primary identity" -- "a style of being which is a structure IN the person" (Holland, 36). And, yes, ever since I read Plato (many years ago), I have believed in this basic identity. Without this basic internal structure, learning would be impossible, Holland discusses this problem in terms of feedback and feedback loops. By "character" I did NOT mean some kind of "moral constitution of the human personality (Aristotle's sense of ETHOS)," according to Holman and Harmon. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 13:29:14 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: Lady Anne (and partner) The idea of Lady Anne grieving over her husband's body is not necessarily an error at all. The Olivier film version of the play cuts and rearranges the text so that, if I remember correctly, this is precisely what's going on, and I have a vague recollection that the Colley Cibber version, which was standard up until the late C19, does the same thing, so there's a substantial performance tradition behind the practice. The Olivier film also cuts the scene in two so that the successful part of the wooing is performed somewhat later in time than the funeral procession. Adrian Kiernander (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 05:46:58 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0393 Re: Lights Regarding Ken meaney's interpretation of the candles: I once saw Leavis "perform" the passage this way in front of 200 undergraduates, using the thumb and forefinger to mime the snuffing of the wick. Isn't this also the "standard' reading? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 10:34:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0420 Re: Doubling; Double-Casting; Polonius Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0420. Wednesday, 11 May 1994. (1) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 11:08:08 EDT Subj: Doubling (sort of) (2) From: John C. Mucci Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 11:56:43 -0400 Subj: Doubling; Polonius (3) From: Ronan Clifford Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 11:26:26 EST Subj: Polonius (4) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 17:02:47 +1000 (EST) Subj: Polonius/Corambis (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 11:08:08 EDT Subject: Doubling (sort of) The recent thread on doubling prompts me to ask SHAKSPEReans for comments on the flip side of the phenomenon: double-casting. By this I do not mean variations on the theme of four actors playing Lear simultaneously, but rather the very common practice (especially on college campuses) of casting two different actors to play the same role on alternate nights. More often than not, women's roles are doubled; men's aren't. This happens quite a lot with Shakespeare for a number of reasons: the desire to expose students, especially but not exclusively theatre or English majors, to at least one Shakespeare production sometime in their undergraduate careers; the fact that most Shakespearean plays are profoundly male-dominant in terms of available roles; the fact that many if not most undergraduate theatre programs have more good women than men (I was recently in a situation in which the 4th best "Jennifer" was better, over all, than the 4th best man); the desire to give more women the opportunity to have experience with Shakespeare; the fact that the people designing the season are too lazy to find complementary plays to balance the available roles for a season (or, to be fair, the reality that the *rest* of the canon isn't exactly bursting at the seams with wonderful plays which have more roles for women than for men). I have a pretty good idea of the opinions of theatre people on this phenomenon: the range, as one might expect, extends from "don't do Shakespeare" to "necessary evil". I'd be especially interested in the perspectives of those of a more literary bent, although I'd be happy to hear from directors and season-planners as well. BTW, this is all related to a panel I'll be chairing at ATHE this summer on "Social and Ethical Concerns in Season Selection". I'd be happy to provide more details on that as things become clearer. Cheers, Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John C. Mucci Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 11:56:43 -0400 Subject: Doubling; Polonius The question of doubling is one which has come up before in this conference, and it does beg the question of the resources available to the Elizabethan acting company, no matter which. It is interesting that Shakespeare's plays need more players than most other Elizabethan plays, and as such doubling is almost always required. Taking that (and some of the respondent's queries) to the logical further step, may I quote from Arthur Colby Sprague's monograph, THE DOUBLING OF PARTS IN SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS (1966): "In number of actors a London company at the close of the 16th century, with its eight or 10 sharers and half-dozen hired men, was well off. This compares not unfavorably with some of the stronger provincial troupes of a century and a half ago [or] with some of the stronger repertory theatres of today. Shakespeare had no need to economize. That his freedom in the multiplying of characters was enviable is implied by the abrupt variations in number of roles from play to play. ...A playwright who could indulge himself in such an unnecessary character as Peto in 1 Henry IV, not to mention the proleptic archbishop and Sir Michael of Act IV/4, is writing under little restraint." To me, this says that Shakespeare was somone who had no problem being extravagant, and perhaps was not terribly concerned with the fiscal exigencies of the theatre. It is an aspect of the author's character which is not often taken into consideration. -------------------------------------------------- Martin Mueller, referring to the motto of Lord Burleigh asks, Burleigh's motto was "Cor unum, via una" that is, "One heart, One Way." It is not much of a stretch to see hear "Corambis" as "Cor Ambis" ("Double-hearted") as a parody on that motto. That, in and of itself is mild compared to the rest of the allusions in *Hamlet* which --to many Stratfordians and Oxfordians alike-- depict Polonius as Cecil, Lord Burleigh. - Burleigh wrote down for his son a number of "preceptes" (his term for them), which sound like maxims very similar to Polonius' precepts delivered to Laertes. May I quote a few? "...Let thy hospitality be moderate; & according to the means of thy estate; rather plentiful than sparing, but not costly. Beware of surety for they best friends. He that payeth another man's debt, seeketh his own decay..." As would also Polonius advise, the list goes on and on and on. *How can anyone not see & agree with this parallel?* Personally I find it extremely compelling, but in light of so much more, it becomes overwhelming. - Burleigh was indeed known as *Polus* or *Pol* at court. - Burleigh He was proud of the fact that he was born during the Diet of Worms, and made mention of that fact at court, as well as in a letter which was not published until several hundred years after his death. The line in *Hamlet* about "A certain convoca- tion of politic worms are e'en at him,/Your worm is your only emperor for diet" has been pointed out to refer to Charles V's convocation, but--why? What has it to do with *Hamlet* unless talking about Burleigh? And this too asks the question, how could a fellow from Stratford (as Charlton Ogburn writes), "lampoon the man who for 40 years was nearest the Queen in power, let alone can [Stratfordians] account for the appearance of the royal coat of arms" on the title page of the 1604 play? Other bits of information, such as the report given to Elizabeth about the guest list at the Order of the Garter banquet in Denmark, which included a certain Heer Guildenstern and two Heer Rozenkrantz say to me that there is something connecting the royal court very closely with *Hamlet.* It is undeniable. However, to the original point, there is simply too much amiss in the traditional explanations for authorship for the linchpin of Burleigh to be ignored. John Mucci GTE VisNet Stamford, CT (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronan Clifford Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 11:26:26 EST Subject: Polonius If anyone is interested in the non-encroaching theory that Labeo/ Shakespeare, no matter what else he may be doing, is making a glancing gesture in the direction of a real life senator/counselor/senex, Professor Baluka (English, Jagiellonian U) tells me that many articles in the 1970s and 1980s mention the Polish tract *De optimo senatore* of Laurentius Goslicius, a work translated into English and published, according to STC, as *The Counselor*. And that's no Polish joke. Best regards from Krakow, Cliff Ronan SWTSU/U Silesia (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 17:02:47 +1000 (EST) Subject: Polonius/Corambis I do think Stephen Orgel should not feign ignorance of the Oxfordian implications of the Polonius question. There are probably - indeed there are certainly - many people out there who would like to see him seriously address such questions as how, if Polonius is a caricature of Burghley, William Shakspere of Stratford hoped to escape arrest and judicial mutilation for such a liberty. But of course, says the orthodoxy, Burgley had been dead for years before Hamlet was written. Could it be that the Ur-Hamlet was in fact *our* Hamlet? A little less disingenuousness, please, from people who, I have no doubt, are very well aware of what's been argued by Ogburn, Strittmatter and many others on this issue. Patrick Buckridge. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 10:49:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0421 Re: Doubling in Lear; Masks; Character; Legate Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0421. Wednesday, 11 May 1994. (1) From: Bill Dynes Date: Tuesday, May 10, 1994 Subj: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear* (2) From: Milla Riggio Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 10:58:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0415 Re: Masks (3) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 13:39:55 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0419 Re: Character (4) From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 16:07 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0418 Re: "The stately legate" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Dynes Date: Tuesday, May 10, 1994 Subject: SHK 5.0410 Qs: Doubling in *Lear* The 1993 Colorado Shakespeare Festival (Boulder, CO) produced *Lear* in this way, with one interesting side effect. During the intermission I overheard one member of the audience proclaim to his wife that the Fool was _obviously_ Cordeila, disguised to remain near here father. I'm sure they expected a revelation in the second half that never came. Bill Dynes English Department University of Indianapolis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 10:58:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0415 Re: Masks On the question of masks, I have an a personal anecdote about modern masking to add: When staging OTHELLO at Trinity College a few years ago, I found myself with a seminar on the play that featured about 10 African-American and Caribbean black students in a class of 28. We wanted to produce a stylized black-on-white production: black tuxedo pants and white shirts for actors; raked black platform; black stools for watching actors not on "stage"; black and white curtain to make the balcony and the storm and so forth. And my 10 non-white students wanted to be in the play. Color-blind casting was out. Students became angry; offered to act in white face to be in the play. After much late-night talk (at least one all-night session between all 28 students in a dorm room trying to sort out all this), we used white half-masks on all but a small set of performers. We cast the entire Venetian Senate, for instance, as black students in white masks and left them there, turning their heads in synchronized fashion, throughout the entire play. All the "watchers" were masked. The effect was startling and very powerful. What began as a source of terrible dissension became the center piece of the play. And, to the point of this discussion, the masks were powerfully successful, though we did not mask OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, IAGO, OR EMILIA. Milla Riggio (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 13:39:55 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0419 Re: Character Re character: as far as I can see, *real* character equals a recognizable chunk of meat plus a recognizable way of speaking and thinking; *fictional* character equals the speaking and thinking minus the meat. Comments? E.L.Epstein (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 10 May 1994 16:07 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0418 Re: "The stately legate" Bill, you might see whether Samuel Chew's *The Crescent and the Rose* (1937) turns up anything about earlier Persian legations. I looked at it years ago when working on Robert Sherley's visit to England as Persian ambassador, and found it helpful. Skip Shand ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 10:53:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0422. Wednesday, 11 May 1994. From: Carey Cummings Date: Tuesday, 10 May 94 17:54:15 EDT Subject: SHREW Perhaps someone out there can help me. A couple of years ago I saw a version of SHREW directed by Tina Packer at Lennox and I was struck by the ending of the play. Throughout the play, until the final scene, the repartee between Petruchio and Kate was "comic" and lively. However, the "submission" scene at the end was so stark as to be out of joint with the precceding Acts. Rather than write this off to directorial innovation I thought it would be interesting to look at the final scene with Kate and compare it to the rest of the play and with other "shrews" in the canon. I have isolated the speeches of Adriana (ERRORS) and Beatrice (MUCH) and I am in the process of doing frequency counts and word analysis. I plan to compare the speeches of Kate in the first 4 acts of SHREW with her speeches in the final scene. In addition, I would like to compare her early speeches with those of Adriana and Beatrice and then compare the final scene with each. Why would anyone want to do this? My general thrust is to see if we may have any reason to suggest that Shakespeare DID NOT WRITE the final scene of the play as we have it. If the "final" Sly resolution is missing could not the final Kate scene have been missing as well and have been supplied by another hand. What I would like to know is if I am covering ground already covered adequately by others. Should I shelve this project and read another mystery? Any suggestions would be welcome. Carey Cummings Albany NY Shakespr@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 08:31:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0423 Re: Masks; Character; Double-Casting; Doubling Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0423. Thursday, 12 May 1994. (1) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Wednesday, 11 May 94 15:27:32 SAST-2 Subj: Re: masks and character (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 12:29:37 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Character (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 20:47:42 -0500 (EST) Subj: Masks in Renaissance plays? (4) From: Fran Teague Date: Wednesday, 11 May 94 11:41:28 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0420 Re: Doubling; Double-Casting (5) From: J. F. Knight Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 06:44:54 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0417 Re: Doubling (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Wednesday, 11 May 94 15:27:32 SAST-2 Subject: Re: masks and character David Evett writes: > No reason why masks should be regarded differently from any other physical > element of dramatic production--sets, costumes, lights, space. It's always > going to depend on how good they are, how well they're used, how fully the > particular advantages and limitations they offer cooperate with all the other > theatrical decisions, about text choice, cuts, casting, pace. I wonder whether the question of masks does not raise theoretical issues that put masks on a different level from "any other elements of dramatic production--sets, costumes, lights, space". (I'm not sure that "space" is on the same level as the others here, either.) The reason for this is that masks intervene at the intersection of language and action, at what we might call the "expressiveness" of both (provided we *don't* imply an "interior" that is conveyed by the mere medium of an "outside"). To treat masks as if they were just like the set or costume is to suggest that the human face is as externally related to human language as is lighting, whereas I wish to suggest that they are internally related: that discourse is fundamentally affected by the ways is which it is embodied or disembodied, or that our concepts are interwoven with what Wittgenstein calls "fine shades of behaviour", including those enacted by the face. I am not suggesting that masks should be prohibited; rather I'm trying to work out (rather ineptly, in an exploratory way) in what ways we should consider their use and effect. To conceal the expressiveness of a face with the rigid expression or inexpression of a mask can be highly effective precisely because of the effect this has on both discourse and the expressivity of the rest of the body. But the point I'm trying to make may also explain why some might find it inconceivable or horryfying to have certain characters in a mask (someone has mentioned Romeo). We should also remember that the 'social' mask or visor worn by certain kinds of characters for particular social or cosmetic ends--can a cosmetic end *not* be social, setting aside UV polution for the moment--in a masque, or by Olivia, for instance, is not of the same kind as the mask which stands in for the actor's face in the theatre, and it would be interesting to see how a production might cope with the interaction of both kinds of mask: "Good Madam, let me see your face . . ." Why is this such a crucial request? This is related to the question of doubles: it is the necessary and singular embodiment of human expressivity, both discursive and non- discursive, that proves so disturbing about doubling major characters, not the possibility that audiences might get confused. Though, of course, this unease may be the very reason to double, as some have suggested. Harry Hill's welcome comments about playing the lines endorses what I am suggesting about the expressivity of embodiment without any suggestion of an inner state to be represented, although I fear that his comment that "it is perfectly possible to bring one's own body, face, habits and so on to bear on a role and thereby flesh out its imperfactions" suggests that such "fleshing out" is a mere ancillary, a optional prop, *in the theatre*. As for character, perhaps Terence Hawkes's grammatical correction, that Orsino *is* a character rather than *having* a character, is not only insightful, but is also a way of extending what I am trying to express. Oh, may I ask you to join me in the celebration of what can only be a regarded as the miracle that happened in and to South Africa this week? We are all, as Nelson Mandela said, "free at last". David Schalkwyk English Department University of Cape Town Rondebosch 7700 South Africa (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 12:29:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Character E. L. Epstein proposes differentiating real character(s) from fictional character(s) on the basis of the latter's lack of physical embodiement. But drama becomes theatre precisely when the disembodied "character" is embodied. And I, as an audience member seeing and hearing this embodiement, come to know its "character" in the same way that I, as an individual in all that world that exists outside the theatre, see and hear others (my colleagues at work, my spouse, my students, the fellow next door who keeps carrying guns in and out of his house) and thereby come to understand them. In fact, it is precisely this mode of knowledge (talking and listening to others) that the drama imitates. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 20:47:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Masks in Renaissance plays? The other night I happened to reread Phillip Stubbes's "beware, therefore, you masking players, you painted sepulchres, you double dealing ambodexters" in the notes of Kerrigan's HAMLET'S PERFECTION. And that "masking players" took on a new meaning (in the context of our discussion of masks). Before I had always taken "masking players" to be a redundancy, something like "acting actors." The "painted sepulchres" certainly suggests actors' makeup. Does the "masking" suggest that some actors in some productions wore masks? Or should we take everything that Stubbes says about the playhouse to be suspect rather than suggestive? Who was that masked man? Bill Godshalk, of course. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Wednesday, 11 May 94 11:41:28 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0420 Re: Doubling; Double-Casting Rick Jones asks about the problem that directors face with too few female roles. In the local theater where I sometimes direct, this problem comes up again and again. We often cast women in men's roles and service on the play selection committee means long discussions about how to ensure an adequate chance for actresses to shine as brightly as actors. When I directed MND a while back, we wound up with nine men, eleven women, and a dog in the cast. It worked reasonably well, I think, but then as director, I would. The reviews were generous and we made a fair amount of money, both of which suggest the Goddess production (as it became known) had something going for it. When a friend directed TN, he added a Mute Wench and changed Antonio to a pirate maid Antonia. The problem of too few women's roles was alleviated, but the omission of Antonio and the addition of the Mute Wench's horseplay altered the tone considerably. In this as in every production, the director has to decide what works given the personnel available and what the production's goal is. If anyone's too outraged by that attitude, I'd suggest working on a production to see if the experience changes one's perspective. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. F. Knight Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 06:44:54 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0417 Re: Doubling What's all this about the doubling between Cordelia and the Fool being evident from the text? I thought David Wiles (Shakespeare's Clown, Cambridge, 1987) had made a pretty unanswerable case that roles like the fool were played by specialist clowns who never doubled, and that Lear's fool in fact was played by Robert Armin. Is someone suggesting that Armin played Cordelia? According to Wiles he was a grotesque dwarf - although extremely intelligent. Sort of an inverse version of Elle McPherson, in fact. Fool/Cordelia doubling is a more recent idea. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 08:40:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0424 Re: *Shrew* Query Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0424. Thursday, 12 May 1994. (1) From: Jay Funston Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 13:02:42 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* (2) From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 16:46:20 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jay Funston Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 13:02:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* Carey Cummings I'd suggest watching almost any modern production of the play to see what a competent actress can do with Kate's speech at the end of _Shrew_. She can offer quite a lively picture of an unsubmissive but loving wife, or go to the extent of complete satiric reversal of the literal sense. Jay Funston (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 16:46:20 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* Reply to Carey Cummings: -- Should I shelve this project and read another mystery? My response is yes. Your purpose seems redolent of what Linda Woodbridge describes as the "Can this play be saved" response of critics who can't bear to believe that their favorite author, on whom they have lavished so much time, care and attention, could really have ended *Shrew* on a note so sour to feminist consciousness (I paraphrase). Face the brutal truth that not even computers can absolve "Shakespeare" (Stratford, Oxford, London committee, or what you will...) of the play's ending (which has never seemed to me that far off from the endings of the other comedies). Or as RSC actress Fiona Shaw said of Act 5, scene 2, lines 136-179:"Lovely rhythm. A shame about the words." Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 08:43:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0425 Q: Capulet's Bawdy Joke Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0425. Thursday, 12 May 1994. From: Noel Chevalier Date: Wednesday, 11 May 94 13:33:16 CST Subject: Capulet's bawdy joke? I am just finishing teaching *R & J* to a 3rd-year summer session class, and I noticed an interesting textual problem. In 1.2, in his speech to Paris, Capulet brags that Such comfort as do lusty young men feel When well-appareled April on the heel Of limping winter treads, even such delight Among fresh fennel buds shall you this night Inherit at my house. The 1597 quarto--reputedly the "bad" quarto--clearly has "female buds" in this passage, which would seem to me a nudge-nudge comment to young Paris. The 1599 quarto favours "fennel," while Wells and Taylor's old-spelling edition gets around the problem by printing "femmel," which leaves the reading ambiguous. Would it be out of character for Capulet to make such a comment to Paris? Shouldn't the 1597 reading be accepted? Most modern editions I have consulted favour "fennel," perhaps on the assumption that the "bad" quarto is universally corrupt. I welcome further comment on this matter. Noel Chevalier ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 08:51:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0426 Re: Polonius; "The Stately Legate" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0426. Thursday, 12 May 1994. (1) From: Martin Mueller Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 22:07:55 -0500 Subj: Polonius (2) From: Helen Vella Bonavita Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 11:39:08 +0800 Subj: "The Stately Legate" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 22:07:55 -0500 Subject: Polonius The argument that Shakespeare's Polonius is a gentle or not so gentle dig at the late Burleigh strikes me as persuasive, if not completely compelling. Delight in the leakages of systems of representation is an important part of theatrical fun, and there was probably a lot more of it than we imagine. It is telling that the famous anecdote about Shakespeare's substituting himself for Richard Burbage with a female fan by claiming that William the Conquerer came before Richard III turns on such leakage. But if Polonius *is* Burleigh, what does that have to with questions of authorship? The playwright who wrote about the relationship of authority and license in the figures of Lear and the fool knew that if you went too far you were in trouble but if you didn't go far enough you'd also be in trouble. Just how dangerous would it have been to say unflattering but eminently deniable deniable things about a dead politican that would have amused some powerful patrons and enraged others? We probably don't know. I have learned from this discussion that there is pretty good evidence for the argument that in some ways Polonius *is* Burleigh. But the evidence has no bearing whatever on questions of authorship. Martin Mueller Northwestern University martinmueller@nwu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Vella Bonavita Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 11:39:08 +0800 Subject: "The Stately Legate" I don't know whether this will be of any help or particular interest, but for what it's worth: I don't have the exact reference by me, but in (I think) Acts 3 or 4 of King Lear the king complains: "I like not the fashion of your garments; you will say they are persian, but let them be changed". Helen Vella Bonavita (University of Western Australia) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 May 1994 08:57:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0427 Theatre in Higher Education Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0427. Thursday, 12 May 1994. From: Don Weingust Date: Wednesday, 11 May 1994 22:41:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Theatre in Higher Education Dear fellow SHAKSPER members, Please take a moment to review the following. Responses from the thoughtful members of this list will be of enormous benefit to our cause. Thanks very much. Purveyors and supporters of the arts in higher education, we urgently need to hear from you. As many of you are aware, the State of California has been hit hard by the current recession. Budget cuts in the University of California system have reached crisis proportions. In light of these budget cuts, the University of California, Berkeley administration is now deciding the fate of its Department of Dramatic Art. The members of the Department have enthusiastically supported a task force report suggesting the restructuring of our Department as a Center for Theatre Arts, a plan we believe will allow us to maintain excellence in the face of adversity. Acceptance of this proposal is not assured; there is the very real possibility that Berkeley's Academic Planning Board may elect to eliminate the Department altogether. In addition to meaning our extinction, such a move would provide an ominous precedent for Theatre in higher education. We urge you to make your voices heard. Please send letters and/or e-mail messages expressing your support for Theatre in higher education to the three members of Berkeley's Academic Planning Board listed below. Time is of the essence. Review will occur next week. Thanks very much to all. Bruce Bolt Academic Senate 320 Stephens Hall University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 [e-mail, care of: DIANA@GARNET.Berkeley.Edu] Provost Carol Christ 200 California Hall University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 [e-mail: CAROL_CHRIST@MAILLINK.Berkeley.Edu] Vice-Chancellor John Heilbron 200 California Hall University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 [e-mail: JOHN_HEILBRON@MAILLINK.Berkeley.Edu] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 08:47:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0428 Re: *Shrew* Query; The Study and the Stage Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0428. Friday, 13 May 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 09:13:51 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 16:06:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Study & The Stage (3) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Friday, 13 May 94 06:43:36 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 09:13:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* Dear Carey Cummings, Although I agree with Jean Peterson's warning about the temptation to absolve Shakespeare of responsibility for sentiments we find reprehensible, I think this is an interesting project, and I'd love to know what you come up with. Phyllis Rackin (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 16:06:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Study & The Stage Jay Funston's suggestion about watching a competent actress giving either "quite a lively picture of an unsubmissive but loving wife, or got to the extent of complete satiric reversal of the literal sense" ties in so well with its companion posting from Jean Peterson who quotes the RSC's Fiona Shaw,"Lovely rhythm; what a shame about the words." A performed interpretation cannot provide what Jay Funston calls "the literal sense" [what might that be?], but only a fleshing out of what I earlier deliberately called "perfections" [which David Schalwyk took to be a typo, unfortunately]. Of course the actor's fleshing out can never give the character as WE had seen or heard him in our imaginative participation that we enjoyed in the study; some interpretations, further, cannot be acted. Some years ago Catherine Belsey was on a lively lecture circuit giving her new reading of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", among other things, and one of her points was that the poems'conclusion, "Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run" was far from triumphant. It is indeed possible to THINK this, and to read it thus internally, but it is in fact impossible to SAY that way. When pressed, she began to try, then realized that it could not be done. This is not to say that the only test of an interpretation of a poem is the reading of its lines aloud, although I would certainly hold that as a kind of litmus test it's pretty reliable as a rule of thumb if not an eternal verity. With a stage play, however, it is just about the only test an actor can use. . .but with a stage play that is a POETIC drama we have the case that has arisen since Johnson, through Hazlitt and Coleridge, Goethe etc.etc.until the present day, where the plays of Shakespeare exist in two not always joinable environments, the mind and the body, or study and stage---to a point where we can say "How dare that actor do that to MY Lear? Goneril is not as thin as that!" For the performer, what IS "the literal sense". She has to be careful, above all, never to go for the PROSE sense, never to turn her speeches into so many internalised motivations, but instead to take what she has been nearly always so thoroughly given: the texture and shape of her lines, their fell on the tongue, how they control her facial muscles. Her body knows, for instance, when she rehearses Regan, that she is a tight-lipped, precise speaker, that she is "clean, shipshape, well- scrubbed"[Creon describing the ideal running of a state in Anouilh's "Antigone"];her face knows that she cannot be as expansive of physical utterance as she is of the referents of her vocabulary. She knows all this when she says, And find I am alone felicitate In your dear Highness' love. The "literal sense" of this is expansive, surely. But the kind of speaker she is -- and she remains the same throughout the play --as well as the kind of person, exists in her phonetic structure as the writer has taken care to establish it. When I wrote earlier about Orsino's "character" and how a suitably type-cast actor becomes that role by reposning to his lines, this is the sort of reponsive method I meant. In short, there IS no "literal sense" if a fiction is to pronounce it. As I said before, characters in well wrought plays reside in how they say what they say. To indulge in a penultimate reductionism, their form is their content. As far as The Shrew is concerned, a close physical reading of her lines in that final scene can indeed sustain, since they appear in that not always mature verse play, the satire that Jay Funston rightly says a competent actress could give, although as Fiona Shaw correctly said, their rhythm does fight that sense. The whole business is fascinating to me as an actor. Perhaps, though, we could ask Catherine Belsey to read the speech for us? In any case, I wish to reassure David Schalwyk that the fleshing out only becomes a mere ancillary, an optional prop when the actor whom a director [blasts and fogs upon them!] allows to bring his body ro to a role ignores the physical guides the lines give to his mental state and his "character". I'd like to thank those who corresponded with me privately about the creation of an interpretation from the shape of the words, their order and feel. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Friday, 13 May 94 06:43:36 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0422 Q: *Shrew* Cary Cummings wants to chase after the possibility of Shakespeare not-the-author of the ending of SHREW because it isn't as comic as it might be. (I just woke up, so I'm not sure if that is really the point.) Anyway, let me suggest that you look at the endings in Q and F of MERRY WIVES. Q sounds like it had been written by someone who had just read C.L.Barber's SHAKESPEARE'S FESTIVE COMEDY : embraces between parents and child, integration of all characters into a celebratory feast, Parson Hugh Evans jolly outburst, "I shall eat pippins and dance at your weddings" (again quoted from cobwebby memorial reconstruction). Same moment in Folio text has Ann Page beg her parents for forgiveness, but they say not a word to her. No forgiveness, though they greet her husband warmly. She stands silent till the end (like the heroine of Measure for Measure). There's an essay about this and a similar mood/text modulation in ROMEO AND JULIET floating somewhere in e-space on the SHAKSPER fileserver. Rather than playing the ogburn-and-slash form of literary agriculture, maybe consider the sustainable formulas of saying "Gee, the people responsible for these documents seem to have been able to be quite professionally flexible, artistically inventive, and happily less dogmatic than many folks stodging about in righteous armor mining the rainforest for gold nuggets of truth." Steve Urquartowitz Grandfather of a recently bipedal child in Bloomington, IN [To retrieve the essay mentioned above, send the following one-line mail message -- GET URKOWITZ RJ-MWW SHAKSPER -- to LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET and voila it will appear in your mailbox. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 09:00:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0429 Re: Character; Masks; Double-Casting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0429. Friday, 13 May 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 09:52:11 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0423 Re: Masks; Character; Double-Casting; Doubling (2) From: Michelle M Fortunato Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 10:56:50 -0400 (EDT) Subj: masks/character (3) From: Matthew Smith Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 13:15:49 -0500 (EST) Subj: masks (4) From: J F Knight Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 05:59:28 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0420 Re: Doubling; Double-Casting; Polonius (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 09:52:11 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0423 Re: Masks; Character; Double-Casting; Doubling Re Schaefer on character: yes, the actors give meat to the soul, but for *real *people, the meat is already there, and does not change with each production of the work. E.L.Epstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michelle M Fortunato Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 10:56:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: masks/character It is perhaps not coincidental that the discussions of masks and character have come together (David Schalkwyk). The word "persona" as I understand it originates in the idea of the sound of an actor's voice (sona) coming through (per) the mask he wore on stage during Greek tragedy. (I think this has something to do with projecting the voice, too, the mask serving as a megaphone.) In this sense, character most certainly is a sort of mask, even when no physical mask is worn. The question of using masks in a production becomes more interesting with this in mind, especially in terms of the way Shakespeare often tantalized his audience with the idea of the actor beneath the character (ie. does the use of a mask call increased attention to that actor?). Amusedly musing, Michelle Fortunato Univ. of Pennsylvania (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Smith Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 13:15:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: masks When I was in Japan a couple of years ago I ran across a woodshop which had a rather handsome display of masks. I asked the shopkeeper what they were and he explained to me in great detail about each mask and the Shinto god which they represented. Considering the masking question, originally raised by Sarah Gannon at William Smith, I thought that there is something to be said for masking a character by his or her archetype. For example, there is a trickster god with a rather phallic nose that could be worn by Feste. There are gods and goddesses whose love goes unrequited. And so on and so forth. Perhaps masking can help production crews to bridge culture gaps by connecting the Elizabethan characters to a commonality with a traditional Japanese (or whatever other culture to which one might try to connect) character with a mask. Perhaps masking can also help with doubling. It could prove as a barrier to one trying to impose some kind of connection between Cordelia and the Fool, for example. p.s. Kimberly Nolan: I take great offense that you blame fraternities for your students' in-class sleep. I am in a fraternity and I have yet to force anybody to stay awake and drink beer. Next time, please be sensitive to the fact that even "frat guys" read, understand, and enjoy Shakespeare. p.p.s. Seeing as we have a Shakepeare bulletin board, I was wondering if anyone out there is on a James Joyce bulletin board. Does one even exist? Please advise! Thank you. Matthew Vail Smith Hobart College MASMITH@HWS.BITNET (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 05:59:28 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0420 Re: Doubling; Double-Casting; Polonius I really can't see the problem. Don't make the poor women share the meagre women's roles, which will mean you'll probably never get round to doing Henry V. Just cast all the men's roles with women. It really is TOO conservative of you to think that women have to play women's roles and men have to play men's roles. Compelling supporting evidence: 1. At the Globe all the women's parts were played by men 2. The Australian Theatre for Young People has about 20 girls for every boy. A couple of years ago they did a stunning Tempest in which Prospero, his brother, practically everyone was a girl. The only males (as I recall) were the love interest, what's-is-name, and Caliban - the only two male stereotypes which the new feminism will support, as it happens. 3. Round most university English Departments these days women have a lot of trouble seeing any use for men at all. The concept that you can't play Shakespeare without them is dead and gone. 4. I myself was a Thisbe to die for when I was at school, and schoolboy Juliets in boys' boarding schools are terribly romantic figures. Enough. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 10:19:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0431 CFP: Conference at Tempe Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0431. Friday, 13 May 1994. From: Jean R. Brink Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 11:48:25 -0700 (MST) Subject: Conference in Tempe CALL FOR PAPERS Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods February 16-18, 1995 The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University invites papers for an interdisciplinary conference on the general topic of how the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have been viewed through the centuries and how they defined themselves. (Norman Kantor's work on the concept of the Middle Ages in various historical periods may be used as a model.) Possible session topics include: periodization as it affects views of the past revivalism Gothicism national differences twentieth-century views continuities/changes in attitudes to allegory Renaissance views of the Middle Ages medievalism/the Renaissance in the modern periods (Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, modern, post-modern, etc.) medieval views of the Middle Ages Renaissance views of the Renaissance continuities between the Middle Ages and Renaissance survival of antiquity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance The conference will be held at the Radisson Mission Palms Hotel, two blocks from the ASU campus in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. The high temperature in the ~Valley of the Sun~ during February averages 70 degrees. Proposals for sessions and detailed abstracts will be accepted beginning August 1, 1994. The final deadline will be December 1, 1994. Please send two copies of proposal for papers and sessions to the program committee chair: Robert E. Bjork, Director, ACMRS, Arizona State University, Box 872301, Tempe, AZ 85287-2301. Email: atreb@asuvm.inre.asu.edu. Phone: (602) 965-5900. Fax: (602) 965-2012. Jean R. Brink (602) 965-5900 English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 Jean.Brink@ASU.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 10:16:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0430 Q: *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead*; Thanks Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0430. Friday, 13 May 1994. (1) From: Gloria Wilson Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 13:40:33 CST6 Subj: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (2) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Thursday, 12 May 94 08:55:25 CST Subj: Thanks (3) From: Mark Kupferman Date: Thursday, 12 May 94 11:16:43 EDT Subj: Thanks for your support of the USENET groups... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gloria Wilson Date: Thursday, 12 May 1994 13:40:33 CST6 Subject: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Does anyone use Tom Stoddard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" (Excuse the quotations marks; I can't underline) in their curriculum? Do you know how much critical work has been done on it? GLORIA R. WILSON gwilson@ahs.aberdeen.k12.ms.us (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Thursday, 12 May 94 08:55:25 CST Subject: Thanks Fellow SHAKSPEReans: Thanks to all who provided me with addresses and phone numbers for the Folger; you were a great help. Noel Chevalier (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Kupferman Date: Thursday, 12 May 94 11:16:43 EDT Subject: Thanks for your support of the USENET groups... This is just a brief note to thank everyone who participated in the vote to create the USENET groups rec.arts.theatre.misc, rec.arts.theatre.plays, rec.arts.theatre.musicals, and rec. arts.theatre.stagecraft. The groups were officially established on Monday, May 9 and are all showing a pretty good amount of traffic. You are, of course, welcome to participate. For those of you who missed it, here are the one line description of each of the newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre.misc Misc. topics and issues in theatre rec.arts.theatre.musicals Musical theatre around the world rec.arts.theatre.plays Dramaturgy and discussion of plays rec.arts.theatre.stagecraft Issues in stagecraft and production Keep in mind that, at present, none of these groups are gatewayed to mailing lists. In order to access and participate in these groups you will need access to some kind of news server and news reading software, which can probably be obtained from your local system administrator. While I would imagine that it is possible to have the groups gatewayed, I have to admit that I haven't any idea how one would go about establishing such a link. Thanks again for your support! Mark Kupferman catseye@minerva.cis.yale.edu Yale School of Drama Yale Repertory Theatre ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 12:10:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0432 Re: Character; Polonius and Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0432. Saturday, 14 May 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 09:37:55 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0429 Re: Character; Masks; Double-Casting (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Friday, 13 May 94 22:03:25 CDT Subj: Polonius and authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 09:37:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0429 Re: Character; Masks; Double-Casting To E.L. Epstein: Yes, for real characters, real people, the meat is already there. But the rest of us can come to know what that meat is (behind it, within it, controlling it -- choose your favorite metaphor) _only_ by inference from what the meat says and does, just -- just exactly -- as we the audience infer "who" Hamlet or Blanche DeBois are from what they say and do on the stage. We have no other means, unless there is an as-yet unknown gene for telephathy. In fact, the case can be made that we cannot know ourselves (and the actor,in particular, cannot know a character's character, cannot know how to embody it) without hearing what we say and watching what we do. It is pure Aristotle: we are what we do (including what we say): the things we do harden into character. But perhaps I have misunderstood your posting. If so, please set me aright. Jim Schaefer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Friday, 13 May 94 22:03:25 CDT Subject: Polonius and authorship Since the Polonius/Burleigh issue seems to have brought the Oxfordians on the list out of the woodwork, I thought I'd chime in with my two cents from the other side. I agree with Martin Mueller that the case for identifying Polonius/Corambis as a satire of Lord Burleigh (or Burghley; they're alternate spellings) is "persuasive, if not completely compelling", but I also agree with him that this has nothing to do with the authorship question. Well, maybe not "nothing", but it's certainly no evidence against Shakespeare of Stratford, despite the triumphant tone of John Mucci and Pat Buckridge. The idea that Polonius-as-Burleigh "proves" that William Shakespeare couldn't have written *Hamlet* (and presumably that the Earl of Oxford did) rests on two assumptions, both of which, I would argue, are mistaken. Assumption 1: William Shakespeare of Stratford could never have known enough about Burleigh to caricature him, since he (Shakespeare) was not a member of Court. To this I say, balderdash. Shakespeare was a member of the Lord Chamberlain's men, the leading acting troupe of the day, who often performed at court --- at least 17 times between 1594 and Burleigh's death in 1598, and undoubtedly more times for which records have not survived. But, I hear the Oxfordians saying, a mere actor could never have learned the behind-the-scenes stuff found in the character of Polonius. How do you know? Were you there? Do you rationally expect us to believe that there was not abundant gossip about just such behind-the-scenes stuff, especially among the acting troupes whose livelihoods depended on royal patronage, and whose fortunes could shift with those of their patron? When the patron of Shakespeare's troupe, Henry Carey (1st Lord Hunsdon and Lord Chamberlain) died in July 1596, his son George became 2nd Lord Hunsdon, but because of a power struggle at Court, the title of Lord Chamberlain unexpectedly went to William Brooke (Lord Cobham), who was considerably less friendly to actors. In a letter a month later, Thomas Nashe wrote of the players that "in there old Lords tyme they thought there state setled; it is now so uncertayne they cannot build upon it." The following March, William Brooke died, and George Carey managed to get the title of Lord Chamberlain back for his family. Don't you suppose Shakespeare and his fellows were intensely interested in such power struggles, in many of which Burleigh played a central role, and soaked up all the gossip they could get? I have to believe that any information about Burleigh and his character which has managed to survive for 400 years so that we know it would have also been available to Shakespeare, who was right there. Assumption 2: William Shakespeare of Stratford would have been tossed in jail if he had dared to satirize someone like Burleigh; thus the author msut have been a well-connected nobleman. This completely ignores the fact that the plays of the late 1590s and early 1600s are bristling with satirical portraits of all kinds of public figures, including members of the nobility, many written by playwrights of considerably less stature than Shakespeare. Let me give an example. In Ben Jonson's *Every Man in his Humour* (1598), the character of Cob is generally taken to be a satire of Henry Brooke, 8th Lord Cobham and son of the William Brooke who was briefly Lord Chamberlain. In addition to the obvious association of Cob / Cobham, the character of Cob is a menial water-bearer, which is a satire on Cobham's then-recent appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports; furthermore Cob says "my lineage goes to rack, poore cobs they smoke for it, they are made martyrs of the gridiron, they melt for passion"; which is an obvious satire on Sir John Oldcastle, a medieval Lord Cobham who was burned at the stake as a Protestant martyr. Now, this was one of Jonson's first plays, and his first real popular success. Why was such a junior playwright (at the time) not thrown into jail for such impudence? Presumably because, while some members of court might have been offended, others (such as George Carey, the Lord Chamberlain and Cobham's bitter enemy) relished the satire. The same goes for the Burleigh/Polonius issue. Burleigh had been dead for two years when *Hamlet* was produced, and in his lifetime he had made many enemies at court. Undoubtedly these enemies laughed heartily at the character of Polonius when they saw the play at Court, and undoubtedly Shakespeare correctly judged that such enemies would greatly outnumber any defenders Burleigh might have. It's hard for us to reconstruct Elizabethan court politics with any precision at this late date, but from what we know there is no reason to believe that satirizing Burleigh as Polonius would have gotten anybody in trouble. Before I go, I have to address the "Rozenkrantz" and "Guildenstern" connection noted so triumphantly by John Mucci, because it seems to me to be a particularly flimsy argument in the Oxfordian arsenal, one which has appeared in different forms in many, many anti-Stratfordian arguments over the years. These two names were common Danish names, and they pop up all over the place. Claud Sykes, in arguing that the Earl of Rutland wrote the plays, pointed out that Rutland had some fellow students with these names in Padua. Those who say the Earl of Darby wrote the plays point out that there were a couple of students with these names at Wittenburg University who Derby probably met. Some Baconians point out that the names are found on a portrait of Tycho Brahe that Bacon probably saw. The fact that the guest list a banquet in Denmark contains the names "Rozenkrantz"(sic) and "Guildenstern" is just one more piece of evidence that these were common names in Denmark, and has nothing to do with who wrote Hamlet. I'm sure the above won't convince any Oxfordians, but I hope it will at least put to rest the notion that orthodox scholars are somehow running scared, afraid to address this issue. Believe it or not, Dover Wilson and E. K. Chambers were not complete idiots; they were aware of all the above and more when they suggested that Polonius was a caricature of Burleigh. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 12:17:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0433 Re: *R and G Are Dead* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0433. Saturday, 14 May 1994. (1) From: Don Foster Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 14:16:36 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0430 Q: *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead* (2) From: Gloria Wilson Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 15:00:40 CST6 Subj: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 14:16:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0430 Q: *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead* To: Gloria Wilson The last time that I checked the MLA On-Line Catalogue, there were a couple of dozen critical studies that dealt in whole or part with R&G are dead (but you'll want to look for Stoppard, not Stoddard). By the way, the film version is a near-perfect disaster. It's hard to believe that Stoppard had anything to do with it. Good luck. Don Foster (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gloria Wilson Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 15:00:40 CST6 Subject: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead I apologize for reposting, but I mistyped "Stoddard" for "Stoppard" in previous post. My question should read: Does anyone use Tom Stoppard's play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" (Excuse the quotations marks; I can't underline) in their curriculum? Do you know how much critical work has been done on it? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 May 1994 12:24:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0434 Q: Feste; Canterbury Flat to Rent Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0434. Saturday, 14 May 1994. (1) From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 21:02:21 -0500 (EST) Subj: FESTE (2) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 14:33:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: [Canterbury Flat to Rent] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 21:02:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: FESTE I have this idea for a final paper topic: "Feste as a Linguistic Theorist." I was wondering if this idea, like the word 'element,' is overworn. I figured I could dig through a little Kenneth Burke for info on Master Tropes, and I could wade through pages of early Richard Rorty and some Stanley Fish. But I guess my big question is: Is it really worth it? Or could I find an article or book which discusses Feste's linguistic foolery in enough detail that I may cite it without being cheesy? Any suggestions, folks? Perhaps there is a theorist (linguistic or critical) that you recommend I should look? Any help would be much appreciated. So as not to waste bulliten board space, my address is: MASMITH@HWS.BITNET Thank you. Matthew Vail Smith Hobart College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Friday, 13 May 1994 14:33:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [Canterbury Flat to Rent] Apartment in England to let, available from now to the end of September. It is set in gardens in the center of Canterbury, very close to the main shopping area, a short walk from the train station, an hour and a half from London and 1/2 hour from the channel ports. It has one bedroom, a modern kitchen and bathroom, and a spacious sitting room/study. The rent is 75 pounds a week. For further inquiries, please contact Dr. Kate McLuskie, The Registry, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NZ. Phone 0101 227 764000 ext 3910. FAX 227 451684. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 09:29:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0435 FYI: The Folger Institute: Fall 1994 and Spring 1995 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0435. Monday, 16 May 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Monday, May 16, 1994 Subject: The Folder Institute: Fall 1994 and Spring 1995 The Folger Institute ***** Fall 1994 Seminars Deadline for Consortium Grants and Early Admission: 1 June. Final Deadline for Admission: 1 September. "Analogies of State and the Political Subject in Shakespeare's Romances," directed by Constance Jordan, Professor of English at the Claremont Graduate School. This seminar will center on Shakespeare's representations of domestic and political government and on such topics as monarchic authority, the liberty of the subject, obedience, conscience, contract, properly, free speech, and servitude. Shakespeare's romances will be read with works by James I and Francis Bacon, Coke's Reports and Institutes, Parliamentary record, and accounts of the Virginia colony. Dates: Thursdays, 1 :00 to 4:30 p.m., from 29 September to 8 December, except 24 November. "A Presse Full of Pamphlets: Books as Events, 1637-1660, " directed by Michael Mendle, Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama. Sponsored by the Folger Institute Center for the History of British Political Thought, this seminar will consider the institutional circumstances that shaped how political books appeared, were distributed, were read, and were understood as deeds. Texts will include the Eikon Basilike, Henry Parker's Observations, the little tracts of 1641, and literature of the royalist campaign of 1642-43. Dates: Fridays, 1 :00 to 4:30 p.m., from 23 September to 9 December, except 11 and 25 November. "The O-Factor: Voice, Media, and Community in Early Modern England," directed by Bruce R. Smith, Professor of English at Georgetown University. This seminar will attend to early modern ideas about speaking and listening; address the ways in which such media as handwriting, printing, musical notation, and pictures vary in representing the human voice; discuss some recent forays into post-phenomenology; attempt an acoustical reconstruction of the Globe theater; and argue about the political implications of hearing versus seeing. Dates: Fridays, 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., from 23 September to 9 December, except 30 September and 25 November. "Renaissance Paleography in England, " directed by Laetitia Yeandle, Curator of Manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Designed to provide introductions to English handwriting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and to the manuscript collections of the Folger Shakespeare Library, this skills course will also offer opportunities for participants to discuss textual problems encountered in their own manuscript work. Dates: Thursdays, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., 29 September to 8 December, except 24 November. "The Material Renaissance, 1400-1700, " directed by Sheila ffolliott, Associate Professor of Art History at George Mason University. This colloquium, moving across interdisciplinary and geographical boundaries, will consider the social role of the object, particularly through collecting, display, and exchange, in the age of the wunderkammer. Sessions will provide a forum for discussion of participants' work-in-progress as well as of joint readings and "lookings." Dates: One Thursday each month, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., beginning 22 September. ***** The Folger Institute Evening Colloquium. Papers are solicited on any topic of interest to scholars of the early modern period. Carol Hall of Howard University, Denise Albanese of George Mason University, and Terry Murphy of The American University review submissions, select those to be offered, and set the schedule. Registrants receive papers in advance of the monthly sessions. Phone for details. ***** Spring 1995 Seminars Deadline for Consortium Grants and Early Admission: 1 September 1994. Final Deadline for Admission: 6 January 1995. "Researching the Renaissance, directed by Leeds Barroll, Professor of English at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. Designed specifically for doctoral candidates whose dissertation work would benefit from use of the Folger Library collections or from discussions of the methodological and theoretical issues involved in interdisciplinary scholarship, this seminar will offer both group discussions and individual consultations. Dates: Fridays, 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., from 27 January to 14 April, except 17 and 24 March. "Art and Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnifcent, " directed by Charles Dempsey, Professor of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art at The Johns Hopkins University. Attempting to attain a closer understanding of the visual arts as an integral part of the general cultural endeavors sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent, this seminar on the works of Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Signorelli, and the Lippis (among others) will incorporate historical and literary texts and analysis and humanist scholarship in reconfronting the question of the "Renaissance" itself. Dates: Thursdays, 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., from 2 February to 13 April, except 30 March. "Encounters with Antiquity: The Search for the Past and the Art of History from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment," directed by Donald Kelley, Professor of History at Rutgers University. Among the issues to be considered in this study of the practice and theory of history are the roles of humanism and the Reformation; problems of narrative; the discovery of the New World; the rise of mythology; the "new history" of the Enlightenment; and the relations between history and poetry, politics, and moral philosophy. Dates: Fridays, 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., from 27 Janualy to 7 April, except 3 March. "The Victim in French Classical Tragedy, " directed by John D. Lyons, Commonwealth Professor of French at the University of Virginia. The Christian culture of early modern France celebrated Christ as a blameless victim; the neo-Aristotelian poetics of French classical tragedy demanded strict causal linkages between the victim's life and death. The seminar will consider this opposition as the source for acute paradoxes in the theory of La Mesnardiere and d'Aubignac and the practice of Corneille, Racine, Beze, Jodelle, and Garnier. Dates: Thursdays, 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., from 26 January to 6 April, except 16 March. "Historical Difference/Sexual Difference," directed by Phyllis Rackin, Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Focusing on the cultural implications of cross-dressing in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, this Center for Shakespeare Studies seminar will explore early modern understandings of sex and gender. Issues will include the connections between changing theatrical representations of cross-dressing and changing conceptions of patriarchal authority, sexual difference, and personal identity. Dates: Fridays, 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., from 27 January to 14 April, except 17 and 24 March. ***** Faculty Weekend Seminars For those who find it difficult to commit themselves to the schedule of a weekly seminar, the Center for Shakespeare Studies is sponsoring two weekend seminars in the 1994-9S program. The advance preparation of those admitted to the seminar, consisting of the submission of a work-in-progress, a report on a pedagogical project, or a position paper relevant to the topic at hand, will culminate in a series of sessions on a consecutive Friday and Saturday. Because of the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, there are no seminar fees, and travel grants are available to a nationwide constituency for these condensed and highly intensive seminars. "Remember Me: Shakespeare and the Arts of Memory," directed by Stephen Greenblatt, Class of 1932 Professor of English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. This seminar is concerned with memory and memorialization in Shakespeare and in a tangled cultural history that extends from the ancient world to the present. The two-day seminar will begin by addressing foundational discourses, including the classic and medieval "arts of memory," Renaissance sculptural and verse memorials, and the Christian practice of "anamnesis." Centrally at stake is communal self-fashioning through memory, specifically the proper management of traumatic memory. Participants will visit the Vietnam Memorial and the Holocaust Memorial Museum, two of the most powerful sites of collective memory in the United States. They will consider the languages offered by memorials for addressing the problems of unbearable loss and will sample contemporary theoretical literature on trauma and commemoration. Discussion will finally turn to Shakespeare and especially to a tragedy structured around traumatic memory, Hamlet. Friday and Saturday, 4 and 5 November. Application deadline: 1 June 1994. "Contextualizing Writing by Early Modern Women," directed by Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, W. R. Kenan Professor of English Literature and of History and Literature at Harvard University. Despite the recovery and analysis of a body of writings by early modern women, we still know very little about how they read and wrote themselves and their world. This seminar will attempt to bring their voices to bear on such issues as the ideology of absolutism and patriarchy, the formation of subjectivity, the forms of authorial self- fashioning, and the power of social and cultural institutions. The seminar seeks to explore the theoretical, practical, and aesthetic problems involved in attempting to contextualize more adequately the writings of early modern women. And it asks the important question, "where should we go from here?" with such studies. Friday and Saturday, 7 and 8 April. Application deadline: 1 September 1994. ***** Late Spring Seminar "The Spectacle of the Court: The Stuart Masque, directed by Jerzy Limon, Professor of English at the English Institute of the University of Gdansk, Poland. This intensive seminar will consider the masque as a theatrical spectacle, creating new conventions and revolutionizing staging techniques; as a cultural construct, reflecting Stuart politics and ideology; and as an element of courtly festival, illuminating larger cultural texts. Two research projects will be proposed for joint publication. Dates: Thursdays, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, and Fridays, 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., from 1 June to 30 June. Spring seminar application deadlines apply. ***** Conference set for 16-18 March 1995 Material London, ca. 1600 This conference, sponsored by the Folger Institute Center for Shakespeare Studies, will under take a new view of the material structures and practices that distinguished London during the period of Shakespeare's theatrical career. The traditional associations of urban centers with the Renaissance, the Reformation, the development of nationalized and bureaucratic political and administrative systems, the process of democratization4 and the commercial culture that spawned capitalism will be reevaluated, together with the early modern roles of rural economies, country towns, local landowners, and aristocratic taste. Representing the fields of social, intellectual, urban, agrarian, literary, and architectural history as well as archaeology and cultural anthropology, the international panel of speakers includes Ian Archer of Keble College, Oxford; Catherine Belsey of the University of Wales College of Cardiff; Peter Blayney of the Folger Shakespeare Library; Alice Friedman of Wellesley College; Patricia Fumerton of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Anthony Grafton of Princeton University; Andrew Gurr of the University of Reading; Jean Howard of Columbia University; Ann Rosalind Jones of Smith College; Derek Keene of the Centre for Metropolitan History, London; Gail Kern Paster of George Washington University; David Harris Sacks of Reed College; Jane Schneider of the City University of New York; John Schofield of the Museum of London; Alan Sinfield of Sussex University; Joan Thirsk of St. Hilda's College, Oxford; and Peter Thornton of Sir John Soane's Museum. The registration fee, set at S45.00, is due by 15 February 1995. Support from the N.E.H. makes available grants-in-aid to reimburse travel and lodging expenses for full-time faculty members. Application for travel grants must be made by 6 January 1995. The conference meets Thursday evening, Friday, and Saturday, 16, 17, and 18 March. To request a brochure, contact the Institute offices. ***** Anniversary Marked 14-16 July 1994 Tyndale: Church, State, and Word To mark the five-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the reformer William Tyndale, the Tyndale Project, housed at the Catholic University of America, is sponsoring a reinvestigation of the work and influence of the controversialist and English translator of the New Testament and the Pentateuch. Drawing on recent research in church history, political thought, and literary criticism, the conference will meet Thursday, 14 July at Catholic University and Friday and Saturday, 15 and 16 July, at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Featured lectures include David Daniell of University College, London speaking on "'Gold, Silver, Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks': Tyndale and Modern English" and Anne O'Donnell of Catholic University speaking on "Erasmus and Tyndale as Biblical Exegetes." Lodging is available on the CUA campus. For a brochure, write to the "Tyndale Conference" in care of the conference organizer, Anne O'Donnell, English Department, Catholic University, Washington, D.C. 20064. Or phone (202) 319-5488. ***** Folger Exhibition Schedule: Visions of Shakespeare Edwin Austin Abbey's Shakespearean Subjects. 20 June through mid-September. Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911) was a prolific artist, known especially for his Shakespearean subjects. Dazzling in its technicality and expressive power, Abbey's work became familiar to a wide public through illustrations in Harper's Monthly. Works displayed range from quick sketches in notebooks to large works in oil, all based on Shakespeare's plays. As a painter of Shakespearean subjects, Abbey was almost the last of his kind. Literary paint ing, which had flourished in England for over a century, was yielding with the Victorian aesthetic that had nurtured it to a spirit of modernism. The genre has recently attracted renewed scholarly interest as a record of a prospering middle class's interaction with literary and popu lar culture. This traveling exhibition, curated by Lucy Oakley, is gathered largely from the collection of Abbey's work donated by his widow to the Yale University Art Gallery. A catalogue published by the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University will be available at the Folger Museum Shop. ***** Roasting the Swan of Avon: Shakespeare's Redoubtable Enemies and Dubious Friends. Closes 4 June. Also still available from the Museum Shop is the fully illustrated, 76-page catalogue to the exhibition curated by Bruce R. Smith, Professor of English at Georgetown University. The S14.95 edition is published by the Folger Library with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Publication Fund. ***** Application Procedures Application forms for admission to Institute programs are available from the Institute offices. For those who are affiliated with member universities, forms are also available from the campus representatives. Applications from affiliates must be signed by the listed campus representative. All applicants are requested to submit a current curriculum vitae and two letters of reference. Of particular interest to the Institute's Application Review Committee are the statements by applicants and their referees regarding the relevance of the Institute seminar to the applicant's own program of research. This application procedure does not pertain to conferences and colloquia with a registration rather than an application deadline. Subject to space limitations, submission of the listed registration fee will secure a place in conferences and colloquia. Registration Fees Graduate students and faculty from the member institutions are admitted to Institute seminars without charge; others are required to pay a registration fee of $500 for semester seminars and skills courses. Conference fees cover entertainment costs and are chargeable regardless of affiliation. Nominal fees for the evening colloquia cover duplication expenses. This year's weekend faculty seminars are sponsored by the N.E.H. and have no fee. If You've Missed A Deadline Inquiries concerning late applications are always welcome. Be warned, though, that there are ceilings on seminar and workshop admissions as well as on grant-in-aid awards, and that these may make it impossible to accommodate late requests. Grant-in-Aid Policies 1. Faculty and graduate students from affiliated universities may apply for reimbursement of travel and lodging expenses, as well as for course reductions in support of participation in programs sponsored by the Folger Institute or by the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies. 2. Full-time faculty from any American college or university who attend programs funded by the N.E.H. and sponsored by the Center for Shakespeare Studies may apply for N.E.H. at-large grants for reimbursement of travel and lodging expenses. 3. In collaboration with the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Institute awards one $2,000 ASECS/Folger Institute fellowship each academic year to a scholar conducting post-doctoral research in the period 1660-1815. Preference is given to seminar participants. 4. A limited number of registration-fee waivers are available to independent scholars. ***** Folger Library Guest House For the convenience of visiting scholars, the Folger maintains a small Guest House directly across the street from the Library. Single-room rates are $40.00 per night; doubles are $45.00. A limited number of apartments are also available for monthly rental by readers. Accommodations are booked by the Folger Library Registrar, David Ressa, who may be reached at (202) 6750306. Mr. Ressa also maintains a list of other available lodgings in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. ***** Further Information More detailed descriptions of the programs can be obtained from the Folger Institute offices at the Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003. Or phone (202) 544-4600, ext. 349. In requesting information, please indicate if you would like to be added to the Institute mailing list to receive future announcements. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 09:46:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0437 Re: Feste; Masks; Polonius and Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0437. Monday, 16 May 1994. (1) From: Priscilla Finley Date: Saturday, 14 May 1994 13:53:28 -0400 (EDT) Subj: re: Feste (2) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Sunday, 15 May 1994 10:39:19 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0429 Re: masks (3) From: Thomas I. Ellis Date: Sunday, 15 May 1994 18:00:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0432 Re: Character; Polonius and Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Priscilla Finley Date: Saturday, 14 May 1994 13:53:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: re: Feste To Matthew Vail Smith, regarding Feste's signifying, A good starting point for assembling a biblio. on Feste's slipperiness would be Keir Elam's book "Language-Games in Shakespeare's Comedies" (title may not be exact). He focuses on Merry Wives & Love's Labor's Lost, which you might examine too if you're serious about deconstructive language & modes of meaning, but I'm pretty sure he discusses Feste as well. Also coming immediately to mind is an article by Elizabeth Freund called "Twelfth Night and the Tyranny of Interpretation" (ELH 53(1986): 471-489). I would appreciate it if you could either post or e-mail a summary of the responses you get, since this is a topic I'm keeping notes on too. Thanks! Priscilla Finley SUNY Binghamton (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Sunday, 15 May 1994 10:39:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0429 Re: masks I think masks may have been partly naturalized in the Renaissance. When I was working on the Inigo Jones drawings I was struck by the fact that, though we know masquers always wore masks to perform, the costume designs without exception show the masquers without them. This suggests that, at the very least, Jones didn't consider them part of the costume. S. Orgel (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas I. Ellis Date: Sunday, 15 May 1994 18:00:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0432 Re: Character; Polonius and Authorship There is another problem with the claim that a Polonius as a caricature of Lord Burleigh is somehow "proof" that Oxford, and not Shakespeare, wrote "Hamlet." That is that Oxford was, in fact, Burleigh's son-in-law; his first wife, Anne Cecil, was Burleigh's daughter. It would have been irregular indeed for Oxford to create a caricature of his own father-in-law. Moreover, aside from the inherent improbability of this and all other conspiracy theories--the notion that virtually all of Elizabethan London would be parties to a grand cover-up for the purpose of duping--whom?--their descendents?--the Oxford hypothesis fails a simple and obvious test: we have a number of poems reliably attributed to the Earl of Oxford, and if there were anything at all to this claim of Shakespearean authorship, one would expect to find some glimmering of talent and insight--a droll wit, perhaps, or a penchant for subtle ironies and word-play--in these poems. In fact we find none whatsoever; instead these poems are mediocre and conventional in every respect, with clumsy diction, hackneyed conceits, and prosody so incompetent that awkward inverted diction and "filler words" proliferate throughout. Here is an example: Wherewith I muse why men of wit have love so dearly bought. For love is worse than hate, and eke more harm hath done; Record I take of those that rede of Paris, Priam's son. It seemed the god of sleep had mazed so much his wits When he refused wit for love, which cometh but by fits. But why accuse I him whom earth hath covered long? There be of his posterity alive; I do him wrong. Whom I might well condemn, to be a cruel judge Unto myself, who hath that crime in others that I grudge. (From Hebel & Hudson's "Poetry of the English Renaissance" p. 103) Can anyone seriously maintain that the man who penned this tissue of Petrarchan cliches in his own name would take on a mask to write the greatest poetry in the English language? Q.E.D. Thomas I. Ellis Hampton University TIELLIS@DELPHI.COM ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 09:47:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0438 Q: Bankside Restoration Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0438. Monday, 16 May 1994. From: Edna Boris Date: Sunday, 15 May 94 20:49:00 EDT Subject: Bankside Restoration In late July I'll be in London and am planning to visit the Bankside Globe restoration. Can anyone let me know about hours, fees, things to see, etc? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 May 1994 09:37:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0436 Re; *R and G Are Dead* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0436. Monday, 16 May 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Saturday, 14 May 1994 15:24 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0433 Re: *R and G Are Dead* (2) From: Leslie Thomson Date: Saturday, 14 May 1994 20:26:41 -0400 Subj: Re: R and G are Dead (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Saturday, 14 May 1994 15:24 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0433 Re: *R and G Are Dead* I like the film *R&G ARE DEAD* and do not think it is, as Don Foster says, *a near-perfect disaster.* Yours, Bernice W. Kliman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Thomson Date: Saturday, 14 May 1994 20:26:41 -0400 Subject: Re: R and G are Dead For criticism of *R and G are Dead* and of Stoppard generally, see the annual bibliography in the June issue of *Modern Drama*; another good reference is *File on Stoppard*. I forget the compiler/author's name. Hope this helps. Leslie Thomson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 09:41:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0440 Re: *R and G*; *Shrew*; Bankside Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0440. Wednesday, 18 May 1994. (1) From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 17 May 1994 09:04:06 -0500 (EST) Subj: R and G are Dead (2) From: Carey Cummings Date: Monday, 16 May 94 19:52:34 EDT Subj: To shrew or not to shrew (3) From: Jerald Bangham Date: Monday, 16 May 1994 18:41:48 Subj: Bankside Restoration (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 17 May 1994 09:04:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: R and G are Dead Methuen published two quite useful books at a reasonable price: Richard Corballis. STOPPARD: THE MYSTERY AND THE CLOCKWORK (1984) [this includes a nice appendix, "II. Applied Stoppard: The Adaptations," as well as a comprehensive bibliography] Malcolm Page, compiler. FILE ON STOPPARD (1986) [this includes excerpts from reviews of each of his plays as well as a selected bibliography, briefly annotated in many cases] Students who have done seminar essays on Stoppard have found that the available secondary resources are plentiful. Scholars in the U.S. were quicker than were British scholars to recognize Stoppard as a significant new playwright. Nick Clary (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carey Cummings Date: Monday, 16 May 94 19:52:34 EDT Subject: To shrew or not to shrew I feel like the "unfortunate Memphis man who kicked old Buddah's gong" in the Hoagy Carmichael song "Hong Kong Blues." I just thought it might be interesting to see if there are any linguistic deviations between Kate's last speech and her prior speeches and the speeches of other "shrews." I don't care if Shakespeare wrote the scene or not. I'm not trying to save the Bard from any felt or believed misogynist leanings. I just thought it might be fun to investigate. Carey Cummings (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerald Bangham Date: Monday, 16 May 1994 18:41:48 Subject: Bankside Restoration >In late July I'll be in London and am planning to visit the Bankside Globe >restoration. Can anyone let me know about hours, fees, things to see, etc? At Christmas time the final framing timbers were going up. I'm not sure that anything will be open yet. If it isn't, there is always the nearby Bear Garden Museum which will undoubtedly have exhibits on the progress. Jerry Bangham jbangham@kudzu.win.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 09:56:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0441 Qs: RSC Women's Group; Mannerism in *Ham.*; Galileo Musical Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0441. Wednesday, 18 May 1994. (1) From: Sarah Werner Date: Tuesday, 17 May 1994 11:49:17 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Q: RSC women's group (2) From: Lawrence Guntner Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 12:11:12 DSZ Subj: "Mannerism in Shakespeare"(Hamlet) (3) From: Alexa Junge Date: Monday, 16 May 94 10:37:46 EST Subj: REQUEST FOR INFO. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Werner Date: Tuesday, 17 May 1994 11:49:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Q: RSC women's group While reading Lizbeth Goodman's _Contemporary Feminist Theatres_, I came across a couple of references to something she calls the RSC Women's Group (or the RSC Women's Project). It seems to be a group of female RSC actors who were together for a few years in the mid-eighties and who put on at least one production. Goodman doesn't give any other information than this, and her source of information seems to be the RSC archives (not the easiest think to work with from Philadephia). Since I'm doing work on actors and feminist performances of Shakespeare, I'm very interested in finding out more information on this group. I'll be in England in the fall, but for the moment, I'm hoping that someone on the list can provide me with any general information about this--who exactly is this group? what were its goals? what did they perform? Anything you can share would be great-- Sarah Werner University of Pennsylvania (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lawrence Guntner Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 12:11:12 DSZ Subject: "Mannerism in Shakespeare"(Hamlet) I have to give a lecture on "Mannerism in Shakespeare" for an interdisciplinary aesthetics colloquium at the end of June. I am planning to concentrate on HAMLET because it is probably the play with which most of the audience will be familiar. I have been using John Greenwood's SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES AND THE STYLISH STYLE: MANNERISM IN SHAKESPEARE AND HIS JACOBEAN CONTEMPORARIES and John Steadman's REDEFINING A PERIOD STYLE: "RENAISSANCE;" MANNERIST;" AND "BAROQUE" IN LITERATURE, but I would be grateful for any comments or suggestion of recent work on the topic. Lawrence Guntner (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alexa Junge Date: Monday, 16 May 94 10:37:46 EST Subject: REQUEST FOR INFO. [SHAKSPEReans, I normally do not post queries from non-members, but this one was just zany enough for me to want to pass it on. Please, reply directly to Alexa Junge at BJUNGE@JHUHYG.BITNET -- and NOT to SHAKSPER. --hmc] I have a bit of a strange request for the other subscribers on this digest. I am a play-writer and will soon have a musical produced about the life of Galileo. My co-authors and I are desperately in need of a sexy title that will capture the imagination of theatregoers for years to come. "Galileo the Musical" sounds too musty and historic and would probably be a giant turn-off. Rather than synopsize the show -- since it encompasses such a wide range of monumental themes -- here are a list of some possible areas for cogitation and sample titles we've considered thus far. Free opening night tickets and incredible karma for anyone who can help! TITLES DISCUSSES SO FAR IDEA BEHIND THE TITLE "Night Kingdom" astronomy/sky angle "Heresy & Heaven" clash between Man & God, faith and "Starcrossed" empirical observation "Miracle & Shadow" "God's Sequined Blankie" not really! "A Crack (Rip) in the Sky" revolution of thought Galileo's discoveries represented "Heaven's Door" from a Donne poem, this area "God's Ladder" represents the notion that even though Galileo's discoveries were at odds with the Bible, he believed they were a way to get closer to God -- that faith and science could indeed co-exist. "Night Vision" vision is a great metaphoric area especially since Galileo eventually went blind. "Messenger from the Stars" from one of his works called "The Starry Messenger" DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEAS? I am grateful for any comments/ideas you all might have. THANKS A LOT, ALEXA JUNGE bjunge@jhuhyg.sph.jhu.edu PS. PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY TO ME!!! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 09:30:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0439 Re: Polonius, Authorship, and Court News Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0439. Wednesday, 18 May 1994. (1) From: Martin Green Date: Monday, 16 May 94 09:03:58 -0400 Subj: Re: D. J. Kathman on Polonius and Authorship (2) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 17 May 94 06:54:09 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0437 Re: Polonius and Authorship (3) From: Joseph Lawrence Lyle Date: Tuesday, 17 May 1994 08:28:56 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0437 Re: Polonius and Authorship (4) From: David Evett Date: Tuesday 17 May 1994 13:23 ET Subj: Court News (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Green Date: Monday, 16 May 94 09:03:58 -0400 Subject: Re: D. J. Kathman on Polonius and Authorship I completely agree with David Joseph Kathman's observation that Burleigh's being the model for Polonius (if indeed he was) proves nothing about the authorship question. As Mr. Kathman points out, one assumption in the argument to the contrary is that >William Shakespeare of Stratford could never have known enough >about Burleigh to caricature him, since he (Shakespeare) was not a member of >Court in response to which Mr. Kathman presents a convincing number of ways in which Shakespeare could have been well-informed indeed about Burleigh. To his list, I wish to add one more item: if Shakespeare was a personal acquaintance of the third Earl of Southampton (as I believe, in my recent book, I have conclusively shown he was), then in the earl, who had been Burleigh's ward from his eighth to 21st years, Shakespeare would have had an excellent source of information about Burleigh's person and personality, and, most particularly, of such pronouncements and wisdom as Burleigh was apt - no doubt often, and at great length - to pass on to his young charge. M. Green (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 17 May 94 06:54:09 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0437 Re: Polonius and Authorship Thomas Ellis misses the point of the poems circulated under the Earl of Oxford's name. Obviously these were clever satires that everyone in the court laughed at or knowingly winked about. Clearly Oxford took the opportunity to transcribe in shorthand the native woodnotes wild of the Stratford maltster for the amusement of his intimate circle who were in on the conspiracy. Oxfordowitz, First Earl of da' Bronx (my other works are published under the pseudonym WW Greg) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Lawrence Lyle Date: Tuesday, 17 May 1994 08:28:56 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0437 Re: Polonius and Authorship Hooray for Thomas Ellis (who showed us a bit of the real Earl of Oxford). What's all the fuss about? Jay Lyle (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Tuesday 17 May 1994 13:23 ET Subject: Court News Thanks to Dave Strathman for his salvo. Let me suggest as a source for court news what would later become the servants' hall. Large households--the Queen's or Burghley's--had dozens and dozens of people, some of whom were in position to see or hear the most intimate and sensitive details of their masters' affairs; they came and went on errands and visits, became guests in other households when their masters travelled, moved from livery to livery as the opportunities allowed (e.g. Lancelot Gobbo shifting from Shylock's service to Bassanio's), left service to set up as tavern-keepers or small-holders. Actors were technically and to some extent practically servants of Lord So-and-so or even the monarch, and in any case would have had all kinds of opportunity for chatting with the full-timers. Anxiety lest the servants betray household secrets appears in many of the contemporary treatments of the servant's role--Baptista worries about it in Act 4 of : no smoke without fire, I think. Nashe's account of the servant's life in is a fiction, not a treatise, of course, but it rings true, and testifies to the importance of gossip and other conversation in the life of people who spent a lot of their time waiting for orders. I've been persuaded for years that Shakespeare was a great listener--if only because most of the contemporary comments about him are so kind--and the amount of information you can pick up if you are willing to listen with real interest is great, as any working reporter will tell you. In any case, it's not as if the kinds of information necessary to produce a satirical portrait of a statesman--a nickname, a trick of speech, the names of some foreign visitors or correspondents--were exactly state secrets. And the likelihood that Shakespeare picked up a lot of his incidental knowledge in this way--to say nothing of his familiarity with many kinds of human behavior and speech--seems very strong to me. Dave "Little Pitcher" Evett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 08:46:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0442 Re: RSC Women's Group Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0442. Thursday, 19 May 1994. (1) From: Gabriel Egan Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 17:46:51 +0100 Subj: RSC Women's Group (2) From: James Harner Date: Wednesday, 18 May 1994 11:27:19 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0441 Q: RSC Women's Group (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gabriel Egan Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 17:46:51 +0100 Subject: RSC Women's Group In response to Sarah Werner's enquiry about the RSC Women's Group, Russell Jackson at the Shakespeare Institute Stratford-upon-Avon remembers that it comprised Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Hariet Walter. He thinks nothing much came of it and has seen nothing written about it. I can dig a bit deeper if you are interested. Gabriel Egan (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Wednesday, 18 May 1994 11:27:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0441 Q: RSC Women's Group For some details of the RSC Women's Group, see Lizbeth Goodman, "Women's Alternative Shakespeares and Women's Alternatives to Shakespeare in Contemporary British Theater," +Cross-Cultural Performance: Differences in Women's Re-Visions of Shakespeare+, ed. Marianne Novy (Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1993) 206-26. Jim Harner World Shakespeare Bibliography ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 09:14:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0443 Re: Masking Shakespeare; Mannerism in *Ham.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0443. Thursday, 19 May 1994. (1) From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 18 May 1994 10:15:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Masking Shakespeare (2) From: Fran Teague Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 10:24:22 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0441 Q: Mannerism in *Ham.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 18 May 1994 10:15:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Masking Shakespeare Several characters within Shakespeare's plays don masks to conceal their identities, often in connection with social occasions that call for them. In AMND, however, Bottom is "translated" without his awareness of a change. Other masks are specified for Flute and for Snug in their respective roles as Thisbe and Lion in the wedding-night interlude prepared by Peter Quince. R.A. Foakes (*New Cambridge Shakespeare* 1984) glosses Flute's mask by citing from Fynes Moryson's *Itinerary* III, 177: "when they [ladies] goe out of dores, weare upon their faces little Maskes of silk, lined with lether" (MND 1.2.40). Bottom wears an ass's head when he returns to the stage during the rehearsal scene in Act 3, and Snug wears a lion's mask which permits his face to be clearly seen through it. I wonder what differences there might be between the mask worn by Bottom and the one adopted by Snug? In the Loseley manuscripts (see *Manuscripts and other rare documents, illustrative of some of the more minute particulars of English history, biography, and manners, from the reign of Henry VIII to that of James I*, edited with notes by Alfred John Kempe, 1836), the following masks are required for a performance of MASK OF CATTES: "hedd peces...of paste and cement mowlded like lyons hedds, the mouthe devouringe the mannes hed helmet wise" (88). If the actor playing Nick Bottom were already masked, how do we imagine his masked face before he is "translated"? Would he be masked again as Pyramus? And what could he possibly have imagined onstage when he offered to "hide [his] face" in order to double as Thisbe? The New Cambridge AMND offers a richly informative introduction and copious glosses on metamorphic aspects of the literary as well as the performance texts, which might prompt some interesting experimentation for a director wishing to foreground both masking and doubling as central to the play's concerns. Such matters, of course, are relevant to the rites/rights of passage. Nick Clary (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 10:24:22 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0441 Q: Mannerism in *Ham.* Lawrence Guntner asks about Mannerism and _Hamlet_: I like David Evett's discussion of Mannerism in _Literature and the Visual Arts in Tudor England_ (1990). Although he doesn't discuss _Hamlet_, he does consider Shakespeare as a Mannerist pp. 247-88. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 09:17:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0444 Q: The *Henry 6* Plays Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0444. Thursday, 19 May 1994. From: Norman J. Myers Date: Wednesday, 18 May 94 11:45:08 -0400 Subject: Re: King Henry VI I am working on a paper which examines the 1963 RSC production WARS OF THE ROSES and an 1817 Drury Lane production entitled RICHARD DUKE OF YORK, ascribed to J.H. Merivale and written for Edmund Kean. These are worth study in tandem because, among other things, they offer remarkably parallel rationales for adapting "lesser" Shakespeare (though part of the WARS is RICHARD III, hardly "lesser." I am particularly in need of some advice regarding early nineteenth century critical opinions of the Henry VI plays. Thank you for your help. Norman Myers, Professor Theatre Dept. Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Oh. 43403 419/372-7173 FAX 419/372-7186 nmyers@andy.bgsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 09:20:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0445 Announcement: E-GRAD Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0445. Thursday, 19 May 1994. From: Louise Mowder Date: Wednesday, 18 May 1994 13:10:36 -0400 Subject: A New Electronic Mailing List: E-GRAD Announcing a new electronic mailing list: E-GRAD dedicated to the interchange of ideas and information among graduate students in English and the modern languages. E-GRAD is sponsored by the Graduate Student Caucus of the Modern Language Association, for the exchange of academic, professional, and practical information. E-GRAD is an open, unmoderated list, devoted to the concerns of graduate and post-graduate students in English and the modern languages. This list provides a forum to: >disseminate information on academic programs, teaching, funding, new publications, government and campus-based academic developments, and job opportunities (or lack thereof); >distribute calls for papers, conference announcements, professional notices, and other related material; >share research queries, materials, insights and concerns, and to discuss specialized topics, as well as practical and personal issues related to the Ph.D. process; >debate critical, theoretical, pedagogical and technological issues; >provide communication between the members of the Graduate Student Caucus of the MLA, including a rapid transmission system for the Caucus Newsletter and other MLA information. While subscribers are not required to be members of the Graduate Student Caucus or the Modern Language Association, they should expect to receive postings concerning both. How to subscribe to E-GRAD: Do NOT send a message directly to the list. Send it instead to the "listserv" that handles the list. The listserv program on the mainframe computer at the other end will figure out your e-mail address from the header on your message. Send the following message to LISTSERV@RUTVM1.Rutgers.Edu or LISTSERV@RUTVM1.Bitnet Leave subject line blank. In message area, type SUBSCRIBE E-GRAD (you name). You will receive acknowledgement from the Listserv upon acceptance. To send a message to E-GRAD, post it directly to E-GRAD@RUTVM1.Rutgers.Edu or E-GRAD@RUTVM1.Bitnet All messages will be posted directly to the list. Please note: while this list is not moderated, the listowner expects professional and courteous dialogue at all times. Advertisements, flames, and other noxious material will not be permitted. If you have any questions or want additional information, please contact the list owner: Louise Mowder English Department Rutgers University Murray Hall New Brunswick, N.J. 08901 Fax: 908-932-1150 Email: Mowder@Zodiac.Rutgers.Edu or Mowder@Zodiac.Bitnet PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE. Thanks! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 08:53:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0446 Re: RSC Women's Group; Mannerism in *Ham.*; Masking Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0446. Friday, 20 May 1994. (1) From: Ron Moyers Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 13:01:20 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RSC Women's Group (2) From: John Dorenkamp Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 16:19:05 -0400 (EDT) Subj: "Mannerism in Shakespeare" (Hamlet) (3) From: Scott Crozier Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 07:33:24 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0443 Re: Masking Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyers Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 13:01:20 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RSC Women's Group In the April 1989 issue of *Plays International*, p. 8, Christine Eccles interviews Juliet Stevenson, Paola Dionisotti, and Anna Furse regarding their production of *On the Verge* at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells (for which Stevenson had negotiated a hiatus in her Hedda performances at the National). Introducing the interview, Eccles writes: "The three women all had something to do with the Women's Project at the RSC which culminated in the 1986 production of Deborah Levy's play *Heresies*." That is the only mention of the WP in the article, but the brief interview, along with Carol Rutter's *Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare's Women Today* (interview/discussions with Sinead Cusack, Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Stevenson, and Harriet Walter) might help fill in attitudinal/philosophical background. --Ron Moyer, Theatre, University of South Dakota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Dorenkamp Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 16:19:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: "Mannerism in Shakespeare" (Hamlet) Lawrence Guntner might be interested in Helen Whall's "Hamlet and the Manner of the Miniature" in the current issue of Interfaces: Image, Texte, Langage, 1994, number 5, pp. 295-315, published by the Universite de Bourgogne. Originally delivered at the Word and Image conference in Nice last summer, the article discusses both English resistance to Mannerism (as represented in Hilliard's treatise on the miniature) and Shakespeare's Mannerist response in Hamlet. If you have difficulty obtaining a copy, let me know at the address below and I will send you a copy. John Dorenkamp (Dorenkamp@hcacad.holycross.edu) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 07:33:24 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0443 Re: Masking Shakespeare Just a comment about masking in MND. Although Bottom is translated and appears with a asses's head, the fairies refer to him as a "mortal". Does this mean that his mask would have allowed a good proportion of his face to be seen or does it mean that in other respects he remained mortal although translated? Regards, Scott Crozier ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 May 1994 09:04:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0447 Authorship: Polonius, Works of Urkowitz; Green's Book Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0447. Friday, 20 May 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 09:33:41 +1000 (EST) Subj: [Polonius/Burghley] (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 20:26:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Works of Steven Urkowitz (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 20:58:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Martin Green's recent book (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 09:33:41 +1000 (EST) Subject: [Polonius/Burghley] Thomas I. Ellis makes a number of statements with which I have to take issue: 1. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever claimed that the Polonius/Burghley connection 'proves' that 'Shakespeare' was Oxford. It's just one of several hundred pieces of cicumstantial evidence that point in that direction; but it is a pretty strong piece, for reasons recently outlined by John Mucci. 2. So far from being 'another problem' with the Oxford Theory, Edward De Vere's family relationship to Burghley (which Ellis mentions as if it were a little-known fact about him!) is one of its stronger features. The quality of this relationship was strained at best, at times intensely acrimonious, and occasionally litigious. This is a matter of ample documentary record, much of it detailed in Ward's 1928 biography of Oxford. Oxford certainly had no reason to feel well-disposed towards Burgley: essentially, Burgley had been robbing him blind since he was a boy. (On succeeding to his title at the age of ten Oxford had become a Royal Ward, which placed his estate under the direct and largely unfettered control of Lord Burghley, who did not scruple to enrich his family at his young ward's expense). Clearly this particular father and son-in law relationship was not of a kind to inhibit satiric thrusts from a young playwright son-in-law with a justified grudge and an older title. 3. What is it with people who think all conspiracy theories are 'inherently improbable'? Don't they think conspiracies happen? This is naivete of no mean order. In any case, I doubt if 'conspiracy' or 'cover-up' are appropriate terms for the Oxford/Shakespeare situation. I imagine it was more in the nature of an 'open secret'. Things that go unmentioned by one generation are often forgotten by the next; it's the bane of social historians. 4. Ellis's choice of an excerpt on which to exercise his literary taste is not exactly innocent. The verse is in 'Poulter's Measure', a fashionable meter in the early 1570s, when the poem was written. Lines of twelve and fourteen syllables in English sound a bit silly to the modern ear; I'm not sure why that is - but I challenge anyone to compose them without the odd 'filler'. What is certain is that the vigorous and varied experimentation with new verse forms, new metres, new words and new tropes that was going on in the 1570s and 1580s (when the 'Petrarchan' conventions were still something of a novelty) is what made the poetic achievements of the 1590s possible. To believe that the greatest achiever of them all was not himself involved in these formative processes seems to me to deny much of what we know about how literary traditions work, and of how individual poets develop. What, I wonder, did Ellis think Shakespeare's juvenilia *would* look like? 'Venus and Adonis' hardly seems like 'prentice work to me. How about this, also by the Earl of Oxford, written when he was in his late teens or early twenties? *Love Thy Choice* Who taught thee first to sigh, alas, my heart? Who taught thy tongue the woeful words of plaint? Who filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart? Who gave thee griefe and made thy joys to faint? Who first did paint with colours pale thy face? Who first did break thy sleeps of quiet rest? Above the rest in court who gave thee grace? Who made thee strive in honour to be best? In constant truth to bide so firm and sure, To scorn the world regarding but thy friends? With patient mind each passion to endure, In one desire to settle to the end? Love then thy choice wherein such choice thou bind, As nought but death shall ever change thy mind. Call me a philistine, but I don't have any trouble believing that a twenty-year old 'Shake-speare' could have written that in the 1570s. But then I don't have any trouble with Poulter's Measure either. Unlike those hard-headed realists of the Stratford School, however, I do have some trouble believing that Shakespeare didn't have a juvenile phase at all, but sprang fully-formed from the forehead of John Shakspere. Patrick Buckridge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 20:26:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Works of Steven Urkowitz I see that Steve Urkowitz claims to be the author of the works that have been (erroneously) attributed to W. W. Greg. Now, it seems obvious that Steve Urkowitz cannot have written all of the Greg oeuvre plus all of the works attributed to Steve Urkowitz. Ergo, I would like to stake my claim to the name and works of Steve Urkowitz. Scholars four hundred years in the future should take note. Bill Godshalk is the real Steve Urkowitz. And my psychiatrist backs me 100% in this claim. And thus I sign myself, The real Steve Urkowitz: Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 19 May 1994 20:58:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Martin Green's recent book Martin Green tantalizes us with a reference to his recent book. I just looked it up and I believe the title is: WRIOTHESLEY'S ROSES IN SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, POEMS, AND PLAYS. Am I right? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 May 1994 11:58:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0448 Re: Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0448. Sunday, 22 May 1994. (1) From: John Mucci Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 12:37:02 -0400 Subj: Polonius/Authorship (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 20:23:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: Another Poem by Oxford? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 12:37:02 -0400 Subject: Polonius/Authorship Although the debate on Polonius/Burghley is one which could easily go on for another few weeks, it is interesting to me that our SHAKSPER members respond so viscerally to it, and that what I thought was an interesting discussion becomes the defense or attack of a mere *equation*: Corambis = Polonius = Burghley = Oxford wrote Shakespeare. Great Scott, no matter what the most ardent Oxfordian might wish, no one is saying that. As Father Francis Edwards says in my videoconference *Uncovering Shakespeare:* "One has to resist any emotional upsurge on one side or the other, and of course it has to be admitted that sometimes certain Oxfordians or Stratfordians have taken the thing up in the spirit of a religious crusade, which it is not. It is a purely intellectual question, and emotion should be left out of such things, as they ideally should be left out of all attempts to solve the problems of history." What David Joseph Kathman has called the "triumphant" tone of my calling attention to the connection between Burleigh and Polonius seems to be a misinterpretation. It is a connection which I feel ought not be overlooked or rejected out of hand, as so many prominent Shakespeare scholars have. For example, Samuel Schoenbaum's explanation for the similarity between Burleigh's *Preceptes* and Polonius' *Preceptes* is that if Shakespeare did not see them in manuscript, there always are "cunning parallels...between literature and life" --that is, it's a mere coincidence! Both of Schoenbaum's options seem rather lame and unconvincing to me. The idea that Shakespeare was a person who listened to the upstairs/downstairs servants and read everything "in manuscript" from *Beowulf* down to *The Sun Also Rises* is certainly a possibility. But eventually these explanations ("he had an absorbent personality..." "he was a good listener...") become more like making excuses than anything else. When Mr. Kathman says I incorrectly posit that "Shakespeare of Stratford would have been tossed in jail if he had dared to satirize someone like Burleigh; thus the author msut have been a well-connected nobleman," he is telling only half the story. There are just as many reports of actors having their ears and hands cut off and indeed being thrown into prison for much less than satirizing Burghley. I will be glad to enumerate if asked, but am loath to waste space at this point. The main issues, I think, are these three: in order to effectively satirize someone of that station you need to have 1) intimate knowledge of them, 2) motivation, and 3) enormous daring. Shaksper of Stratford had no motive. Edward de Vere had a tremendous one, in that he *hated* Burleigh. In a letter to Burleigh, de Vere agrily wrote: "I mean not to be your ward or your child. I mean to follow her majesty, and I am that I am." --where have I heard that last phrase before? (Oh, yes, the book of Exodus.) As to Mr. Thomas Ellis' quotation of a de Vere poem to obviously be compared with any one of Shakespeare's, I can only say I think he picked a terrible, juvenile example! Remember that when Oxford's writing abruptly stops being published, that of Shakespeare appears. If I may quote another poem by de Vere from 1588: "Were I a king I might command content; Were I obscure, unknown would be my cares, And were I dead no thoughts should me torment, Nor words nor wrongs, nor love, nor hate, nor fears; A doubtful choice of these things which to crave, A kingdom or a cottage or a grave." That's what keeps me interested. It's not a crusade. We are all united in the love of Shakespeare's works. No matter what the outcome of the authorship question is (and I don't think there will be a conclusion), that love is unchangeable. John Mucci GTE Stamford, CT (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 20:23:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Another Poem by Oxford? Who taught thee first to write such awful drivel? Who taught thee oft so plaintively to snivel? Who filled your mouth with words of bitter smart? Who gave thee pain that went right to thy heart? As the Earl himself later said, "I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted." The above is just a taste of what can be done when you abandon your mind to it. Yours, Duke Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 May 1994 12:01:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0449. Sunday, 22 May 1994. From: Renee Pigeon Date: Friday, 20 May 1994 11:42:29 -0700 Subject: Shakspeare Association Mtg Does someone know the dates of the SAA meeting for next year? Is it correct that it will be held in Los Angeles? Thanks ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 May 1994 12:09:35 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0450 Re: Masks; Student Edition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0450. Sunday, 22 May 1994. (1) From: Hana Scolnicov Date: Saturday, 21 May 1994 23:00:20 +0300 (IDT) Subj: masks (2) From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 21 May 94 17:05:06 CDT Subj: A student text based on the Folio? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hana Scolnicov Date: Saturday, 21 May 1994 23:00:20 +0300 (IDT) Subject: masks The ongoing network discussion of masks in Shakespeare shows how little we know about his theatre! In the absence of "concrete" or visual evidence (surviving masks, period paintings) one must tread carefully, refraining from assuming the use of masks where there is no specific textual reference. In May 1993, the Theatre Arts Department at Tel-Aviv University organized a Conference on the general subject of "The Mask". At this conference I presented a paper on "The zoomorphic mask in Shakespeare". An extended version of this paper will appear in the 9th issue of *Assaph* (published by Tel-Aviv Univ.). I will gladly send an electronic pre-publication copy to anyone interested. The paper focuses on *MND* and *MWW*, interpreting the special use to which the masks are put and tracing their mythological and paleolithic associations. I also glimpse briefly at other instances of masks in Shakespeare, some of which have been mentioned in the present discussion. Has anyone come accross other work on the subject? Hanna Scolnicov Department of Theatre Arts Tel-Aviv University Tel-Aviv, Israel (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 21 May 94 17:05:06 CDT Subject: A student text based on the Folio? A couple months ago Mr. Godshalk remarked, > So, okay, the 18th century has definitely given us their text of > Shakespeare's plays and poems, and we have until recently accepted their > gift with little or no thought, or so it seems. Now, the scales have > dropped from our eyes, and we know the shadows from the true sun. > > Nevertheless, the texts we teach from (e.g., Riverside, Bevington, Wells > and Taylor, Signet) are contaminated--thoroughly contaminated--by 18th > century editorial decisions. For example, look at Folio A&C, TLN 3108- > 3199 (V.i), and compare the scene in the Folio with, say, the scene in > Wells and Taylor (4.6). Note the added stage directions, the changed > speech headings, the changed characters. The Folio's Menas (Pompey's > former sidekick) is conventionally changed to Maecenas--without comment. > > Is there a proposed new edition based on the Folio to remedy this per- > ceived problem? If now, why not? I was wondering whether the new Folger editions might not do for this purpose. The introductions are written for something like a high school, rather than a college audience, it seems to me, but they are cheap ($3.99/play), gloss more vocab than the Signets, have lots of pictures (including colorful covers), and . . . they show you what the editor has done to his base text ***in the text***, not in the apparatus (which is at the back). Thus Mowat and Werstein (the editors of the series) use the Folio text for _King Lear_, emended from Q1 where there seems to be "a gap" in F, along with "all the passages and a number of the words that are to be found only in Q1" (p. lxi). So far, just another conflated text, right? Ah, but unlike previous student texts (and for that matter, unlike any scholarly text I've seen), all emendations (from Q1 or editorial) are marked off thus, in the text itself: - All words found only in Q1 are printed in pointed brackets, . - All "full lines" found only in F are printed in square brackets, [thus]. - All editorial emendations (e.g., from Rowe, from Pope, etc.) appear in half-bracket--well, I can't do them on this keyboard. To be sure, this is not the Folio text Mr. Godshalk was pleading for. On the other hand, it gives students a fair idea of what Shakespeare looked like to Keats or Tennyson (no small thing, that), *and* it makes it pretty easy to see what the Folio looked like to Jonson. A nice compromise, I should think. Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 09:04:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0451 Re: 1995 SAA Meeting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0451. Monday, 23 May 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Sunday, 22 May 1994 14:44:56 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting (2) From: Thomas Berger Date: Sunday, 22 May 94 19:23:30 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Sunday, 22 May 1994 14:44:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting The last I heard, the 1995 SAA meeting will be March 23-25 in Chicago, and the 1996 meeting, combined with the 1996 International Shakespeare Association World Congress, will be held in Los Angeles on April 7-14. The definitive source for information on the dates and places for both meetings is Nancy Hodge, the Executive Director of the SAA, who is not on e-mail but can be reached at the English Department at SMU, Dallas, Texas 75275. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Berger Date: Sunday, 22 May 94 19:23:30 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting The 1995 SAA meeting will be held in Chicago, from March 22 (Wed) - March 26 (Sun), or so I'm told. Tom Berger (TBER@SLUMUS.BITNET) St. Lawrence University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 May 1994 09:12:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0452 Re: Authorship; Thy Lovely Lines Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0452. Monday, 23 May 1994. (1) From: Ann M. Cox <71573.1726@CompuServe.COM> Date: Sunday, 22 May 94 13:36:37 EDT Subj: SHK 5.0448 Re: Authorship (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 08:06:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Thy Lovely Lines (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ann M. Cox <71573.1726@CompuServe.COM> Date: Sunday, 22 May 94 13:36:37 EDT Subject: SHK 5.0448 Re: Authorship Just to say I am totally in agreement with John Mucci's argument for Edward de Vere as the man behind Shakespeare, so to speak. I find particularly convincing, his argument that an effective satirization of Burghley could only be plausible by one who had means, motive and opportunity, i.e. Edward de Vere. Two salient points specifically, 1. de Vere's evident dislike of Burghley, and 2. the fact that Shakespeare's affront to a man such as Burghley could go unpunished in a time when, as Mucci wrote, one could be sent to prison for less. Another fact is that nothing really ties Shakespeare, the man, to Shakespeare the "bard". Even his will, offered little evidence of his scholarship. I think it is all a case of "some men have greatness trust upon them". Just my .02$. Ann M. Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 08:06:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Thy Lovely Lines TO GW [William Godshalk] Thy lovely lines that flowed extempore From perspicacious brain, through fluid pen, And thence into the screen oppressed world Of those who Oxford in their hearts do hold And those whom Upstart Crow would call his own, Are proof indeed how little care it takes To pen a verse in sixty seconds flat And show us in few words where learning's at. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 09:12:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0453 Re: Polonius/Burleigh/Authorship; Thy Lovely Lines Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0453. Tuesday, 24 May 1994. (1) From: William Boyle Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 12:25:42 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Polonius/Burleigh/authorship (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 22:54:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Polonius (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 23 May 94 22:47:37 CDT Subj: More authorship (4) From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 23:01:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Thy Lovely Lines (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Boyle Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 12:25:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Polonius/Burleigh/authorship I have been reading with interest the postings over the last 2 weeks about Polonius identified as Burleigh, particularly whether this identification has any bearing on the authorship issue. I agree with all that Pat Buckridge says in his latest post, responding to Thomas Ellis. On the matter of whether Oxford "would have" satirized his father-in-law, I thought this passage from Elizabeth Jenkins' *Elizabeth the Great* (1958, Coward-McCann, N.Y.) describing the 1575-76 flap over Oxford's believing Ann Cecil had cuckolded him would be of interest. She writes (page 193): "he [Oxford] was one of those who, like Hamlet, are so impressed with the importance of their own sufferings, they are completely indifferent to the pain they themselves give to other people." She goes on to quote a letter from Oxford to his father-in- law Burleigh (cited from Ward, no page given): [As to the reason for casting off Ann Cecil] "I will not blazon or publish it until it please me. And last of all, I mean not to weary my life any more with such troubles and molestations as I have endured, nor will I, to please your Lordship only, discontent myself...Always I have, and I will still, prefer mine own content before others." This doesn't sound as if Oxford would have had any trouble at all in satirizing his father-in-law in whatever he may have written, or probably anyone else for that matter. Also, in all the discussion I have seen in the past two weeks, no one has come out and asked directly "If Polonius is Burleigh, what other characters in *Hamlet* are satires of or modeled on court personalities?" Considering all the parallels between Oxford and Hamlet (son-in-law/prospective son-in-law to monarch's chief counselor, harsh treatment of counselor's daughter for reasons not entirely clear, writers, theatre lovers/patrons, overall attitude/temperament, captured by pirates in English Channel, etc.), isn't it at least reasonable to consider that there is something going on here? Do such parallels *prove* anything about the authorship issue? No. But how can they be ignored? And what *do* they mean? William Boyle 23 May 1994 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 22:54:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Polonius Replying to Ann Cox, et al., I would like to make several points. First, I'm not at all convinced that Polonius was meant to be a satirical portrait of Burgley. And, I suggest, that no one in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century was convinced either. If Burgley or his son had recognized a satirical portrait, the putative author, Shakespeare, would have been punished (I suppose) no matter who actually wrote the lines. Second, as an avid reader of detective novels, I KNOW that motive, means, and opportunity do NOT determine the villain, or in Oxford's case, the author. Let's, for the sake of investigation, say that Oxford had motive (didn't like Burgley), means (pen and ink), and opportunity (a leisure day or two). Didn't many other people in London have the same motive, means, and opportunity? The problem for anyone suggesting that William Shakespeare did not write the works of William Shakespeare is that all the solid evidence points to him: titlepages, testimonials of playwrights and actors. If Ben Jonson had known that Shakespeare was playing the part of Woody Allen (the front), Jonson would not have kept his mouth shut -- especially after Oxford's death in 1604. By 1604, the old order had changed. James was on the throne. Why didn't Oxford's enemies ridicule him as a common playwright -- if he were? No, the only good evidence that we have points to the fact that Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him -- or most of them, at least. As far as I can see, there is no shred of contemporary 16th or 17th century evidence linking Oxford to the writing of popular plays. And, finally, I'd like to quote from a postcard that Charlton Ogburn sent me in 1989: "You confirm my experience that orthodox Shakespearean professors, to the extent that they are not ignorant, are dishonest when addressing the question of Shakespeare's identity." That's just to set the record straight. As Hamlet once said of Polonius: "These tedious old fooles" (TLN 1262). Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 23 May 94 22:47:37 CDT Subject: More authorship While I have neither the time nor the energy right now to continue the Polonius/Burleigh argument much further in this forum, I feel compelled to make a few comments on John Mucci's and Patrick Buckridge's responses. 1. Both Mucci and Buckridge state that neither they nor other Oxfordians claim that the Polonius/Burleigh connection *proves* the Oxfordian case. Fair enough. But they do certainly imply that it is *evidence* that William Shakespeare of Stratford did not write *Hamlet*, and it was to that claim that I was responding; I was arguing that the connection, even if one accepts it, is no evidence against Shakespeare's authorship. 2. I agree with the idea that we should not let emotions get too involved here, and that this is an intellectual debate which should not be taken as a religious crusade by either side. 3. Mr. Mucci still finds the similarity between Burleigh's *Preceptes* and Polonius' advice to Laertes compelling, and feels that orthodox scholars have glossed over the similarity. He particularly finds Schoenbaum's passing discussion of the parallel "lame and unconvincing". Well, excuse me, but I don't see any reason to believe that Shakespeare needed access to Burleigh's advice, since such fatherly advice to a son departing on a journey was a commonplace in the literature of the time. If you'll look in the Arden *Hamlet*, you'll find a lengthy discussion of this issue, with quotations from numerous other lists in literature of fatherly advice to sons, many of which are at least as similar to Polonius' advice as Burleigh's is, if not more so. The idea that Shakespeare had to have had access to Burleigh's *Preceptes* is based on the assumption that these *Preceptes* were somehow unique or unusual, which they were not, not at all. Orthodox scholars are perfectly well aware of this. 4. Mr. Mucci states that "there are just as many reports of actors having their ears and hands cut off and indeed being thrown in prison for much less than satirizing Burghley." While it's true that there are a few recorded instances of playwrights being thrown in prison, I would challenge the statement that this was done for "much less" than satirizing Burleigh. The two best known cases of this kind are *The Isle of Dogs* in 1597 and *Eastward Ho* in 1605, for both of which Ben Jonson was imprisoned, the second time along with Chapman and Marston. *The Isle of Dogs* was so successfully suppressed that no copy survives, but from contemporary references (such as those in the Parnassus plays) it appears to have contained criticisms of the Queen and her policies; the actual Isle of Dogs in London was, in Elizabethan times, a hangout for outlaws and a repository for sewage washed downriver from the city. Draw your own conclusions; to me, this suggests something much more serious than a caricature of a dead politician. As for *Eastward Ho*, there Jonson et al got in trouble for making fun of the King and his Scottish heritage, and even so they got off fairly easy, with only a brief imprisonment, and the play was published with many of the offending passages intact. Both cases appear to have involved criticism of the Crown, which was seditious libel and quite illegal; the character of Polonius in *Hamlet*, even if it is a satire of Burleigh, is nothing of the sort. As I said before, there are many cases in plays of the time of satires parallel to Polonious-as- Burleigh; it was only when the Crown itself became a direct target that the authorities really clamped down. 5. Mr. Mucci states that "when Oxford's writing abruptly stops being published, that of Shakespeare appears." To characterize this as a significant distortion is charitable. Eight poems of Oxford's were published in 1576 under his name or initials, and are generally accepted as his. Then one was published in 1589 under his name in Puttenham's *Art of Poesie*. Then one was published in 1600 under the initials "E of O". That's it, as far as publication. I'd hardly call anything about that pattern "abrupt". There also exist several poems which until 1872 existed only in manuscript, and which are generally attributed to Oxford and taken as belonging to the same era as the ones published in 1576. This includes the poems quoted by both Mucci and Buckridge (I'm not sure where Mucci's 1588 date comes from), and also a couple that were published under Sidney's name in the early 1590's. The idea that Oxford's published work ceased "abruptly" just when Shakespeare's started appearing seems to me to bear little resemblance to the facts. 6. Ann M. Cox's comment would require much too long to respond to, but I take strong exception to her claim, common to all anti- Stratfordians, that "nothing really ties Shakespeare, the man, to Shakespeare the bard." The amount and type of evidence we have to link William Shakespeare of Stratford with the William Shakespeare whose name appears on the plays and poems is completely typical for the time; it's significantly better than what we have for many other playwrights of the time, including Webster, Dekker, Kyd, Day, Fletcher, etc. etc. I really don't have time to get into this now, but this is probably the one area that has been most distorted by anti- Stratfordians. There's plenty more to be said, but it will have to wait. If this posting seems "visceral", mea culpa; I just want to get the facts straight. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 23:01:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Thy Lovely Lines I want to thank Harry Hill for his lovely lines. It isn't every day that someone sends you a poem, even in Cincinnati where you can't walk across the street with meeting a poet. With thanks (and a laugh -- or two), Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 09:19:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0454 Summer Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0454. Tuesday, 24 May 1994. From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 23 May 1994 14:17:06 -0500 Subject: Summer Since I've only been communicating with fellow Shakspereans since January, I've no idea what happens to discussion in the summer. I do know, however, that many faculty members here at Minnesota disappear until the fall term begins. We others (administrator/advisor/instructor in my case) tend to be around all summer long, so I hope to have at least some continuing conversations during that time. But I'd also like to wish a wonderful summer to those going off to do research, to write, or just to rejuvenate themselves in myriad other ways, and to invite anyone who happens to find her or himself in the Twin Cities to get in touch with me if you're interested. "If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wished-for come . . ." --Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 09:44:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0455 Re: Authorship with an Editor's Note Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0455. Wednesday, 25 May 1994. (1) From: William Boyle Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 11:58:26 -0400 (EDT) Subj: "I am that I am" (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 24 May 94 14:09:52 EDT Subj: Polonius/Burleigh (3) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Tuesday, 24 May 94 18:08 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0453 Re: Polonius/Burleigh/Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Boyle Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 11:58:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: "I am that I am" The "I am that I am" quote from Oxford to Burleigh (mentioned by John Mucci in his latest post) is quite interesting when considering any correspondance between Oxford's writing and Shakespeare, and I offer it here in full. It appears at the end of a brief letter to Burleigh concerning Oxford's debts to the Queen (Oct. 30, 1584), and is written in Oxford's own hand (unlike the letter itself) in a postscript, seemingly a hasty addition to the letter, written in anger, with the subject most likely being Burleigh's continuous spying operations: "My Lord, this other day your man Stainner told me that you sent for Amis my man, and if he were absent that Lyly should come unto you. I sent Amis, for he was in the way. And I think very strange that your Lordship should enter into that course towards me whereby I must learn that I knew not before, both of your opinion and good will towards me. But I pray, my Lord, leave that course, for I mean not to be your ward nor your child. I serve her majesty, and I am that I am, and by alliance near to your lordship, but free, and scorn to be offered that injury, to think I am so weak of government as to be ruled by servants, or not able to govern myself. If your Lordship take and follow this course, you deceive yourself, and make me take another course than yet I have not thought of. Wherefore these shall be to desire your Lordship, if that I may make account of your friendship, that you will leave that course as hurtful to us both." This entire postscript reads almost like a first draft of Sonnet 121, a sonnet that Robert Giroux spends a few pages on in his *Book known as Q*, commenting on its most personal nature of all the sonnets, and speculating that it was probably written in a "white heat". Giroux also remarks that, with the "I am that I am" in line 9 of this sonnet, the author "explodes in a magnificent assertion, unique in his writing." This line ("I am that I am"), if I understand correctly, is known to appear only three times during the Elizabethan period: 1) The Geneva Bible (Exodus III,14), 2) Shakespeare's Sonnet 121, and 3) a postscript written by The Earl of Oxford. Two other interesting points about this postscript: 1) "Lyly" is John Lyly, Oxford's secretary for most of the 1580's, and 2) the threat "make me take another course than yet I have not thought of" echoes these lines from *King Lear* (II,4. 280-282): "I will do such things - what they are yet I know not: but they shall be the terrors of the earth." All in all, it seems to me at least, a very intriguing set of parallels. William Fowler, in his *Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters*, speculates that when Oxford *did* think of another course, it was probably satire on the stage. The play's the thing, so to speak. William Boyle May 24, 1994 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 24 May 94 14:09:52 EDT Subject: Polonius/Burleigh Perhaps looking at topical allegory in another playwright might shed some light on questions of "identification" of Polonius and Burleigh. For about a century, beginning in the 1840's, a very high percentage of Lyly scholarship was devoted to attempts to unravel the presumed political allegory of Lyly's plays. Some roles were identified with several different courtiers, ladies in waiting, etc., depending on the whim of the individual critic (both Burleigh and Oxford show up with some frequency). Then the search more or less just stopped: moral lessons, thematic integrity, classical allusion, etc. became the stuff of Lyly scholarship, and the hunt for topical allegory suddenly became declasse. But the fact is that Cynthia in _Endymion_ almost surely does bear some relationship to the Queen, just as Gloriana and Belphoebe do in Spenser. Can we therefore surmise that Cynthia IS Elizabeth? No. But there are surely parallels. In one of his prologues, Lyly begs his courtly audience not to "apply pastimes" (i.e. seek hidden meanings). Most critics, including me, believe that this was in fact an invitation to do exactly the opposite: i.e. that the admonition was accompanied by a metaphoric nudge-nudge-wink-wink. I find an analogy to contemporary portraiture useful. Look at the background of any of the major portraits of Elizabeth and you'll see all manner of events depicted simultaneously. I'd argue that this simultaneous presentation, reflected also in late medieval scenography, appears in Lyly as well: that Cynthia simultaneously is and is not Elizabeth. More precisely, Cynthia is simultaneously Elizabeth, the moon, and the goddess of the moon. So, I'd argue, can Polonius both be and not be Burleigh. (Of course, this argument can apply to any age, but I think is especially applicable to the Elizabethan period.) One other thought, in a slightly different direction: it strikes me that different people would respond differently to being the butt of such satire. Socrates doesn't seem to have been much put out by Aristophanes' caricature of him; Cleon was livid and tried to change the laws so he could prosecute. Do we have any indication that any particular courtier (as opposed to the Queen herself) was particularly good-natured or ill-natured about such things? Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Tuesday, 24 May 94 18:08 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0453 Re: Polonius/Burleigh/Authorship I think it would be a very good idea if the Oxfordians started their own list. Those Stratfordians who are interested in this sort of stuff could join it and those of us who aren't wouldn't have to be troubled with what is, largely, a pointless discussion. I personally subscribe to Richard Armour's view that the plays of Shakespeare were not written by him but by a playwright of the same name. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET [Editor's Note: I too confess to a weariness at the continuation of this discussion. There are by my count five Oxfordians who are members of SHAKSPER. However, there are also 635 more of us who are not. Not wishing to be accussed of stiffling free speech again, I am announcing that ALL future posting advancing the case of anyone (Oxford, Bacon, Queen Elizabeth, or William Shakespeare of Stratford) as the author of the plays and poetry we discuss as the works of William Shakespeare will be listed under the subject of Authorship with no further designations so that anyone not wanting to be bothered with reading them can delete these digests knowing full well what they are about. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 09:56:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0456 Qs: Video Recommendations; Adriana's 2.1 Speech; Salvini Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0456. Wednesday, 25 May 1994. (1) From: Elise Earthman Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 08:59:39 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: Video Recommendations (2) From: John Senczuk Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 07:02:54 +1100 Subj: Adriana, COMEDY OF ERRORS (3) From: Patrizia Ardemagni Date: Tuesday, 24 May 94 23:18:34 CEST Subj: Thesis on Salvini (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 08:59:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Video Recommendations Can anyone recommend a good video production of The Tempest that's easily acquired? We have the BBC in our library, but I'm wondering if some of you might like another production better. Also, can anyone tell me about the production of Antony & Cleopatra with Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave, which I've seen advertised in several catalogues--I'm intrigued, but since it's somewhere around $70, I'd like a recommendation before I buy-- Thanks, Elise Earthman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Senczuk Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 07:02:54 +1100 Subject: Adriana, COMEDY OF ERRORS The following passage, I know, is notorious ... I have a good actress playing the role and, strangely, in performance have found a 'meaning' in terms of the action, but I'm anxious to speculate as to the exact meaning of the following passages: ADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense; I know his eye doth homage otherwhere, Or else what lets it but he would be here? Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain; Would that alone a toy he would detain, So he would keep fair quarter with his bed: I see the jewel best enammelled Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bodes still That others touch, and often touching will Wear gold, and no man that hath a name By falsehood and corruption doth it shame. Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, I'll weep what's left away and weeping die. 2.1.103-116 [ARDEN] ADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dinspense: I know his eye doth homage otherewhere, Or else, what lets it but he would be here? Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain, Would that alone, a toy he would detain, So he would keep fair quarter with his bed: I see the jewel best enamelled Will lose his beauty. Yet the gold bides still That others touch, and often touching will, Where gold and no man that hath a name, By falsehood and corruption doth it shame: Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, I'll weep (what's left away) and weeping die. 2.1 [FOLIO] It is not only the punctuation but Theobald's emendation of wear/where which poses most problem for me. My maiden posting, ladies and gentlemen. Be gentle. John (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrizia Ardemagni Date: Tuesday, 24 May 94 23:18:34 CEST Subject: Thesis on Salvini I am an Italian student at the State University of Milan. I am writing a thesis on the great Italian actor Tommaso Salvini (1826-1919) and his Shakespearian interpretations of Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and Coriolanus.He was very succesfull in his tours all over the world and above all in the United States and UK. I am looking for all the bibliographic materials, articles and any possible recordings (cassettes or bobbins) of his performances. Since Salvini couldn't speak English and acted in Italian it would be very interesting for me to know the response of the audience to his performances abroad, I mean I'd like to read any articles written by the critics of that period. I have been already kindly assisted by Cornelia Wallin curator of the Williams / Watson Theatre Collection in Hanover, NH. I know this is a very individual request and I don't want to clutter Shakpser. If anyone has any information about my bibliographic research I would be very grateful for e-mailing directly to me. Thank you in advance for all your help. Patrizia Ardemagni MC4875@mclink.it ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 10:06:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0457 Re: SAA Meeting; Student Gaffs; Summer Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0457. Wednesday, 25 May 1994. (1) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 11:47:49 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting (2) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 17:37:59 -0500 Subj: Student Gaffs (3) From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 18:19:49 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0454 Summer (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 11:47:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0449 Q: 1995 SAA Meeting It is my understanding that the World Shakespeare meeting will be in Los Angeles in August 1995, and that the SAA regular meeting will be in Chicago in March. Helen Ostovich (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Tuesday, 24 May 1994 17:37:59 -0500 Subject: Student Gaffs Dear Shakespereans-- I hesitate to pass along one more nugget of information to be found in grading student papers, but this one simply must be shared. While grading the essay portion of my intro to theatre exams, I ran across-- "One of the most important things in Greek comedy was that all the men wore fallacies." My wife suggested to me that I may have uncovered a universal truth. Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf College pinnow@stolaf.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 18:19:49 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0454 Summer Please spare a thought to all of us south of the Equator who are avid conference members. We are entering into deep winter! So if you are not on gloriuos holidays, there are people out here still wanting to discuss the works of Shakespeare (aka)!!! Regards, Scott Crozier (in winter woollies!) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 09:25:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Late Romances; Curses and Cursing Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0458. Thursday, 26 May 1994. (1) From: Patricia Buchanan Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 12:46:21 -0400 (EDT) Subj: [Late Romances] (2) From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 17:23:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: Curses and Cursing (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Buchanan Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 12:46:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Late Romances] I am working on Shakespeare's late romances (specifically Pericles, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, and Tempest) and would be grateful for any suggstions on two separate research issues. 1. I am interested the motif of abandonment that appears in these four plays, especially children abandoned by fathers. Can anyone suggest where this motif appears outside Shakespeare? I'm new to this; has this topic been done to death? 2. I'd also like to look at what the old historical critics did in light of new historicism. Any suggstions? Patricia Buchanan English Department Salem State College PBUCHANAN@RCNVMS.RCV.MASS.EDU (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 17:23:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Curses and Cursing I am currently working on a book length treatment of *Richard III*, which includes a discussion of the problem of the women's curses, and cursing more generally. In this regard, I would appreciate any comments on the following items: [1] To my knowledge, no other play in the corpus contains so many prominent curses and references to curses. I must admit that, not having read the _entire_ corpus, that I wonder if I might be missing something. Does anyone know of other prominent treatments in the corpus, particularly those involving women? [2] I am also looking for suggestions on sources that might have treated the problem of cursing in general, and in the corpus. Thanks in advance, Matthew Westcott Smith Dept of Political Science SUNY at Buffalo ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 09:36:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0459 Re: Endymion; Discussion Groups; Globe Site Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0459. Thursday, 26 May 1994. (1) From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 12:29:29 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0455 [Endymion] (2) From: John Boni Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 13:19:11 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0455 [Nature of Discussion Groups] (3) From: Edna Boris Date: Wednesday, 25 May 94 19:11:03 EDT Subj: [Globe Site] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 12:29:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0455 [Endymion] This is really for Rick Jones, and it's just a note about Endymion. David Bevington has just finished working on this play and is satisfied that he, at last, has "cracked" the allegorical nut. I'm not sure when this will be published. But stay tuned. Best, Milla Riggio (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 13:19:11 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0455 [Nature of Discussion Groups] I applaud the editor's decision that the "authorship" question has for now run its course, though I must admit that I learned a good deal of interesting information in the process. However, this raises for me a larger issue of the nature and purpose of groups such as this. I have participated in several such discussion groups and remain active in two. We at times engage in topics fairly close to trivia, at other times, we touch upon major and weighty issues. Perhaps this pattern constitutes a defense of refereed publication. I am by no means suggesting that we initiate refereeing internet communication. Another thought presents itself: perhaps without the protection of print and copyright, some persons are hesitant to share their ideas for fear of the ideas being ripped off by a net member? More than musing, speculation. John M. Boni ujboni@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edna Boris Date: Wednesday, 25 May 94 19:11:03 EDT Subject: [Globe Site] Nicholas Robins, museum manager at the Bankside Globe restoration has provided the following information which may interest others. Tours of the Globe site are by appointment only but can be arranged with a couple of days' warning. The museum is open 7 days a week and costs 3 pounds; the hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 2:00 to 5:30 on Sunday. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 09:45:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0460 Mid-Atlantic Shakespeare Weekend Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0460. Thursday, 26 May 1994. From: Mike Field Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 13:51:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: An Invitation to Mid-Atlantic Shakespeare Groups The Maryland Renaissance Festival--Maryland's largest outdoor themed entertainment--is again sponsoring a "Shakespeare Weekend" during the long Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3, 4 & 5. In addition to the regularly scheduled productions of [abridged] R & J and Shrew, as well as thrice-daily appearances of "Shakespeare's Skum" [fractured-fairy tale versions of the Bard] the Fair hopes to highlight as many other Shakespeare performing groups, societies, scholars and etc... as possible. Last year's successful weekend featured performances by actors from Washington's Shakespeare Theater and Maryland's Shakespeare on Wheels as well as an appearance of Mr. Shakespeare himself. This year we are hoping to do more. The outdoor event is informal and flexible, and could accomodate performances, demonstrations, lectures, discussion groups and more, including, possibly, use of the Fair's to-scale reproduction of the stage of the Globe. We will also happily distribute any flyers, brochures or other information your group might have. Daily attendance (barring rain) exceeds 12,000 and frequently approaches 20,000. For more information please call entertainment director Carolyn Spedden at 1-800-296-7304; e-mail to Mike Field at the above address, or write Carolyn at: Md. Ren. Fest.; P.O. Box 315; Crownsville, Md. 21032. Thank you. Hope to see you there. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 09:58:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0460 Re: Videos; Summer; Memorizing; Adriana's Speech Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0461. Thursday, 26 May 1994. (1) From: Christine M Gordon Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 20:39:26 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Videos & Summer (2) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 07:11:11 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0456 Qs: Video Recommendations (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 22:38:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Adriana II.i.110-115 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine M Gordon Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 20:39:26 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Videos & Summer I haven't seen the entire *Antony & Cleopatra* with Dalton and Redgrave, but the clip I saw was absolutely dreadful; I don't think I'd spend $70 on it. Apologies to Scott Crozier and our other colleagues south of the equator; there I go, being hemispherist again. I'm delighted you'll be around to talk about whoever this guy is who wrote these plays (and poems). A moderately frivolous query: does anyone else out there enjoy memorizing sonnets and passages from the plays? I find this a delightful occupation in those otherwise tedious moments of the day (standing on the bus stop or in a line, walking the dog, etc.). When I teach, I insist that everyone memorize at least one passage from a play we're studying: while there's usually some resistance at the beginning, most students ultimately enjoy it. I always liked memorizing (poems especially) as a child and teenager, but have only come back to it recently as an adult (and I'm glad I have). It's one very interesting way of coming to terms with a text. May your summer days be pleasant, your winter ones invigorating. Chris in Minnesota (where we KNOW about winter, and cherish our summer days) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 07:11:11 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0456 Qs: Video Recommendations The Lynn Redgrave ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA video, like most of the overpriced Bard productions made me feel like my brain was being filled with tepid plastic. I saw only the first ten minutes before my brain shorted out. But the new release of Janet Suzman's performance (with Patrick Stewart as Enobarbus) crackles with all kinds of energy. Actually, the A&C with Charlton Heston has many fine moments, particularly the meeting between Antony and Caesar. It might be fun to show parallel clips of passages from any of these versions as exercises in multiple visions. But we textual scholars seem to think that sort of thing is fun. Go know. The Suzman video is now available for about $20. G'luck. Steve Urkowitz (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 25 May 1994 22:38:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Adriana II.i.110-115 For John Senczuk, I assume that the hard part of the speech begins with line 110 (Riverside edition). Gold will always ("still") endure the touch of others. There's a pun on "touch" which is used in the ordinary sense and in the sense of "checking the quality of." I take the "and" of line 111 to have the force of "but." And I will (hesitantly) accept the emendation of "Where" to "Wear" in line 112. "But repeated 'touching' [both senses] will wear even gold." Even gold will begin to tarnish if you rub it enough. The "and" of line 112 I read as "and even more than gold." "No man who has a reputation will defame it [the reputation] by lying and corrupt behavior." Compare the following passages: III.i.86, and 100ff; IV.i.71-84 (reputation/shame). Obviously, this is a tough passage to read. But Adriana seems to be comparing gold with reputation, the promised chain with Antipholus's martial promise, coinage with Antipholus. She sees Antipholus as gold abiding "others touch." But at line 114, Adriana seems to include herself in the "loss" of beauty (109-110). That's about all I have to say about the passage right now. If we're lucky, someone will disagree, and we'll get a heated discussion going. Let's hope that the discussion generates more light than heat! Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 08:39:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0462 Re: Curses and Cursing Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0462. Friday, 27 May 1994. (1) From: Louise Nichols Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 11:06:46 EDT Subj: curses and cursing (2) From: William Russell Mayes Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 11:08:58 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Curses and Cursing (3) From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 11:22:14 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Curses and Cursing (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 22:38:59 -0500 (EST) Subj: Curses (5) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Friday, 27 May 94 06:08:01 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Curses and Cursing (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louise Nichols Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 11:06:46 EDT Subject: curses and cursing To Matthew Westcott Smith -- If you haven`t already done so, you should look at the HENRY VI plays where Queen Margaret begins her cursing career. She throws her first curse at King Henry himself in Part Two of the sequence after Henry banishes her lover, Suffolk. She then gets angry at Suffolk for not knowing how to curse his enemies. I think you`ll find a lot of cursing in these plays, although much of it is among the men. Louise Nichols (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Russell Mayes Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 11:08:58 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Curses and Cursing To Matthew Wesctott Smith: As for curses in Shakespeare, Caliban (in _The Tempest_), King Lear and Coriolanus all have some memorable curses, but I think their purpose is different than the women in Richard III. Shakespeare's sources, particularly Holinshed, discuss some of these women (as I recall), but Shakespeare departs from Holinshed in significant ways. As far as criticism goes, you may want to look at a brief book called _Prayer in the Sixteenth Century_ (I forget the author) that explains curses in opposition to prayers. I hope this helps. W. Russ Mayes Jr. Dept. of English University of Virginia wrm2b@faraday.clas.virginia.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 11:22:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Curses and Cursing Though Frances Shirley specifically excludes formal cursing from her survey, Matthew Smith might nonetheless find her book useful. It's called *Swearing and Perjury in Shakespeare's Plays* (London: Allen & Unwin, 1979). John Cox (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 22:38:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Curses For Matthew Westcott Smith: remember curses are prominent in KING LEAR. Lear curses each of his daughters in turn. But you're right; the curses in R3 are quite different. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Friday, 27 May 94 06:08:01 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Curses and Cursing Matthew Wescott Smith asks about curses and women. One method of tracking them would be to chase the words "curse," "vow," "oath" etc through a concordance. But I'd very much encourage you while you're at it to look at the early qrinted quarto texts as well, since they usually have juicy variant forms of this kind of thing. A quick way to check would be with Marvin Spevack's multi-volume concordance that includes "bad" quartos. And I know that you could do the same electronically with the Oxford Text Archive e-texts of the entire canon including the baddies on disc. (You maybe could; I can't yet as I still suffer from e -phobia, an irrational fear that if I hit the wrong command I'll erase all of my hard disc or that Ian Lancashire will wince discomfortedly.) Ken Steele, the originator of SHAKSPER, is a whiz at this, but he's otherwise engaged. When you find out anything nice, why not post it for the tribe to see? Hunting and gathering, Steve E-quartowitz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 08:58:25 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0463 Re: The Nature of Discussion Groups Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0463. Friday, 27 May 1994. (1) From: Nick Clary Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 11:44:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Printing as Protection (2) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 10:30:41 CST Subj: Nature of Discussion Groups (3) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Friday, 27 May 94 06:25:43 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0459 Re: Discussion Groups (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 11:44:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Printing as Protection I like the notion that ideas may be safeguarded by printing them. I'm not thinking of publication as a mechanism for keeping intellectual property from being ripped off, however; I'm thinking of it as a hedge against forgetfulness, not poachers or pirates. Nick Clary [NB: All five years of SHAKSPER discussions are available on the SHAKSPER Fileserver for retrieval by email. Further, the previous discussions can be read and retrieved through the University of Toronto's VM GOPHER Server. Every digest from the first to the most recent carries with it a header that contains both the volume and the digest number. In a real sense (or should I say virtual sense), SHAKSPER disussions are published and retrievalable. --HMC] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 10:30:41 CST Subject: Nature of Discussion Groups Thanks to John Boni for stating what I've been feeling for some time--that this discussion group has become less a forum for serious discussion of WS and his plays and more a Kaffeeklatsch for Oxfordians. I myself couldn't care less about the "authorship question"--and I know my students feel the same way. Not that that makes any difference, I know--but the whole debate has led to me to question seriously what an electronic conference is really all about. Perhaps John Boni is right, and the SHAKSPER group really is a place for trivia--y'all will save your *real* scholarship for *real* conferences. If I am totally off the mark, please let me know. It could be that I've just lost my innocence. But I am (or was) quite excited about the idea of electronic conferences, and had hoped to tap into the best of current Shakespeare scholarship. I sincerely hope that the Oxfordians have had their day, and that we can move on to something a little more useful. Petulantly, Noel Chevalier. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Friday, 27 May 94 06:25:43 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0459 Re: Discussion Groups John Boni anticipated and richly expanded on some crack-of-dawn thoughts I had this morning about the processes behind the authorship controversy. In a lot of ways, I should be more sympathetic to the holders of these theories of authorship, since only a tenure-run ago folks like Fredson Bowers were thundering at me about my "impossible" theory that Shakespeare could have had anything to do with the First Quarto of HAMLET, or that there was anything in Q1 HENRY V worth looking at. Well, maybe I should be sympathetic. I'm not, primarily because of what I read as petulance and ill humor in a dogged form of argument where one side must win and therefore the other must lose. In such an ungenerous testesterone-swamp, no one wants to be shown a fool. Another way of putting it, as John Boni says, is that folks don't want to be ripped off. The property-right anxiety flourishes in a world where intellectual and emotional resources are conceived of as scarce, a Beowulf-dragon hoard that can only be diminished rather than a garden where new flowers and cantaloupes are coming up all the time. The debate over the flow of hurley-Burleigh gossip seems to be structured this way. (Psssst! Here's a juicy bit of news . . . No one else knows it. Don't tell a soul, promise?) Like a new dance, or a way of wearing a hat, or a clever "I am that I am" application into current speech, in a generous world these things circulate swiftly and joyously, but under a parsimonious emotional regime they circulate just as swiftly but angrily, jealously. Oops, it's bright day over the upper harbor outside my window, and I'm off to plant my garden. As ever, Steve Hortorwitz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 09:06:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0464. Friday, 27 May 1994. (1) From: Steven Marx Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 08:58:40 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0456 Qs: Video Recommendations (2) From: Peter Greenfield Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 15:24:56 PST Subj: For Shaksper: A&C films (3) From: Elise Earthman Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 16:25:39 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0460 Re: Videos (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Marx Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 08:58:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0456 Qs: Video Recommendations I regret ordering the BARD video production of A and C. On the other hand, I found the RSC version recently released and of comparable price to be excellent, far superior to the BBC version. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Greenfield Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 15:24:56 PST Subject: For Shaksper: A&C films Let me second--or third--previous comments on the Bard film of Antony and Cleopatra. I discovered to my $$$$ grief that it was NOT a film of the 1986 West End production with Dalton and VANESSA Redgrave, which had some powerful moments. Peter Greenfield U. Puget Sound greenfield@ups. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 16:25:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0460 Re: Videos Thanks for the non-recommendation of the Dalton/Redgrave A&C; it looked intriguing, but was way too expensive for me to take a chance on it. I used the Suzman this semester and had mixed feelings about it. My students were so unhappy last time with the BBC Antony (Colin Blakely, I think) that I thought I'd try the RSC one. But the production is too stylized for my taste, making it harder to get into, and to my dismay, they cut or underplay a number of the play's (IMHO) most wonderful moments, for example, seriously abridging the "I dreamed there was an emperor Antony" section and throwing away the "Not know me yet?" "Cold-hearted toward me?" exchange. And after I described to students the towering rage that Antony is in upon seeing Thidias with Cleopatra, the RSC version of that scene was pretty tame. The best thing about that production is students' delight in seeing Captain Picard playing Enobarbus, and they also told me that the fellow playing Eros now appears as the butler on Fresh Prince of Beverly Hills, which I didn't know but which heightened their interest in the play (not to be sneezed at). I have a hard time, in teaching A&C, in getting students to see it as something other than a soap opera, with Cleopatra slapping messengers around and Enobarbus groaning, "Oh, Antony, Antony..." I'll be teaching it again this summer--any ideas on how to get past the "As the Roman Empire Turns" aspect? They have particular trouble in seeing Antony as anything but a broken down old has-been who is led around by a ring in his nose. They enjoy the play, but are very skeptical at the suggestion that this is a pair of great lovers-- Elise Earthman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 09:30:58 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0466 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0466. Friday, 27 May 1994. From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 09:48:19 +1000 (EST) Subject: Authorship I find the openly partisan spirit of Hardy Cook's ruling on authorship debate a little troubling, but I can easily live with the ruling itself, since I suspect there's a lot more interest in the question than he and some others seem to believe. It's a surprising assumption, to say the least, that because there are five (more or less) self-confessed Oxfordians on the list everyone else must be either on the other side or uninterested. My sense is that there might be quite a large number of silent members who are interested and keeping their options open. I may be wrong. Anyway, I'd like to say three things from within the quarantined enclosure, if I may: 1. A few quick rejoinders to Bill Godshalk's 'several points' against Oxford: First, Will Shakspere would hardly have been punished for writing a play which both Burghley and his son knew he hadn't written. Elizabethan justice may have been harsh and inequitable, but it wasn't quite that arbitrary. Second, it is quite inconceivable that Ben Jonson, of all people, would have spilled the beans on Oxford's authorship, even after his death, since Jonson's whole livelihood was intricately tied up with the Earls of Pembroke, Montgomery and Derby and their families: the last two earls were married to two of Oxford's daughters, and the first earl had been engaged to the third daughter; Pembroke arranged for Jonson's pension in 1616; all three couples acted in his court masques; and Pembroke and Montgomery were joint sponsors of the First Folio. Others less directly indebted to Oxford's sons-in-law and daughters than Jonson was would have been equally cautious about ridiculing him as a 'common playwright', since James showed his favour towards 'great Oxford', as he called him, straight after his coronation by renewing his mysterious annuity and reappointing him to the Privy Council. During the Christmas season after his death the following year, seven of his (Shakespeare's) plays were presented at Court. Third, as to there being 'no shred' of evidence linking Oxford to play-writing, there are quite explicit statements to this effect by George Puttenham and Francis Meres, as well as many other (understandably) more guarded and ambiguous statements before and after Oxford's death. (Is there some covert suggestion in the word 'popular'? If so, I've missed it). 2. A point that has nothing to do with Polonius/Burghley, but a lot to do with Oxford. Sonnet 125 begins with the line, 'Were't aught to me I bore the canopy?' 'Shakespeare' then proceeds, as he does in several other sonnets, to belittle the privileges of high rank to which he (the poet) is entitled. (Quite apart from other considerations, this is surely an odd theme for the man from Stratford to pursue, but there it is). Now it so happens that one of the hereditary privileges of the Lord Great Chamberlain (i.e. the Earl of Oxford) was to bear a canopy over the head of the sovereign in Royal processions. One such celebrated occasion was immediately after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and Oxford's prominent role as canopy-bearer was commemorated in a popular ballad. I'd be interested to know how the Stratfordians manage to finesse that one away. As far as I can see the canopy has no metaphoric force whatever. And by the way, all the above is straight out of Charlton Ogburn. No wonder he once got testy. 3. A point which - wonder of wonders - has nothing (necessarily) to do with the Oxford authorship claim. I think Rick Jones's reflections on topical allegory are spot-on. For far too long now the reaction against seeking historical 'applications' in Renaissance poetry and drama has gone unchecked. There is absolutely no reason to regard these systems of topical reference as falling below the horizon of serious literary analysis. We know how important these systems were to the writers and readers of the day; we even know that they theorised about them; yet we persist in treating them as something piecemeal, old-fashioned and speculative, to be relegated to the notes of scholarly editions, or to Notes and Queries. As Jones's suggestions indicate, we now have scholarly and analytical tools which would enable us, if we chose to use them, to approach those levels of textual meaning with a rigour and sophistication that wasn't available to the last generation that took much interest. New Old Historicism, I'm all for it. 4. A late addition. I strongly endorse John Mucci's statement that the bottom line for Oxfordians, as I'm sure for most others on this list, is the love of Shakespeare's poetry. Any demonising implication that the Oxford advocates are embarked on some kind of fanatical mission that leads away from recognising and celebrating the inexhaustible greatness of the poetry is quite unwarranted and unfair. Like Christine Gordon, I make a habit of memorising sonnets and passages from the plays, and I approve of getting students to do it. Patrick Buckridge ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 09:18:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0465 Re: Memorizing; Adriana's Speech; Late Romances Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0465. Friday, 27 May 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 12:36:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0460 Re: Memorizing; Adriana's Speech (2) From: Carmine Di Biase Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 19:07:58 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Late Romances (3) From: Karla Walters Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 21:30 MST Subj: Fathers and children; Late romances (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 12:36:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0460 Re: Memorizing; Adriana's Speech 1. MEMORIZING SPEECHES & SONNETS I don't really see how one can "learn", "study" or "teach" Shakespeare WITHOUT absorbing the lines so that they become a part of one's own rhythm -- even to the point that many actors reach of being able to improvise iambic pentameter, near-nonsensical though it may well turn out under the stress of performance. Your method of encouraging students to commit a soliloquy, say, to memory may sound terribly old- fashioned to some, smacking of dictation and parroting and all those punishing things forwhich I for one am grateful to Aberdeen Grammar School, but there is no doubt that "knowing" consists to quite a large degree simply of "having in one's head", whence it becomes embedded in the bones. 2. ADRIANA'S SPEECH The Riverside is indeed helpful, punctuating those lines thus: I see the jewel best enamelled Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still, Where gold; and no man that hath a name By flasehood and corruption doth it shame. and glosses it thus: "A difficult, possibly corrupt, passage. Herford explains: `The best ensmalled jewel tarnishes; but the gold setting keeps its lustre however it may be worn by the touch; similarly, a man of assured reputation can commit domestic infidelity without blasting it'." As I wrote to John S., right or wrong this is at least clear and the actress' use of a physical illustrative object should pass the foggy moment quite nicely. That is how the Adriana in the hilarious RSC's "Comedy of Errors" did it in 1991, I think I remember, but she'd just come up a distracting trapdoor so my memory may be as hazy as that moment in the speech certainly is. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carmine Di Biase Date: Thursday, 26 May 94 19:07:58 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0458 Qs: Late Romances Patricia, You might consider examining some of the Italian novellas that might have influenced Shakespeare. A motif index I have before me tells me that you'll find stories of abandoned children in Straparola's "Le Piacevoli Notti" (III, No.1, IV, #3) and in Giraldi Cinzio's (or Cinthio's) "Gli Ecatommiti" (IX, No. 10, IX, No.1). I would check Painter's "Palace of Pleasure" first to see if any of these four novelle were translated by him, as Shakespeare was more likely, generally speaking, to read a tale in English if it was available in English. I would check some of the later Elizabethan collections of novelle as well - Pettie's "Petite Pallace," George Fenton's "Tragicall Tales" (these are translations from Matteo Bandello). The motif index I mention is the "Motif-Index of the Italian Novella in Prose," by D.P. Rotunda (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1942). I found no entries regarding cursing. Carmine Di Biase Jacksonville State University Jacksonville, Alabama (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 21:30 MST Subject: Fathers and children; Late romances A great deal has been done on the theme of fathers and children, but possibly not very much in relation to Shakespeare. One source you will want to look at because it does include Shakespeare is Betty Flowers and Lynda Boose, *Fathers and Daughters* (Johns Hopkins UP 1989). The Victorians were very concerned with this issue, and research into this period will turn up many discussions. One father-daughter novel by Dickens--Dombey and Son--is particularly relevant. Children's literature deals with the issue of parent abandonment as a convention in many sources. The Fall 1993 issue of Children's Literature Association Quarterly was devoted to Fathers and Sons in Children's Literature. The Winter-Spring issue 1993-94 is devoted to Mothers and Daughters in Children's Literature. Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 11:01:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0467 New on the SHAKSPER Fileserver: MONSTERP SPINOFF Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0467. Friday, 27 May 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook or . ******************************************************************************* The following was submitted by Joanne Merrian to the SHAKSPER Conference on Saturday, April 30, 1994. Spinoff: Monsterpiece Theatre Saw this on Sesame Street a few days ago... MONSTERPIECE THEATRE: HAMLET introduced by Alistair Cookie (Cookie Monster) A.C.: Hello. This is Alistair Cookie and welcome to Monsterpiece Theatre. Today, me incredibly proud to present one of best-loved classics in whole world, a play that explores feelings that bubble deep inside all of us. Yes, me proud to present "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". It don't get classier than this. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 10:36:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0468 Re: Video Recommendations; Teaching *Ant.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0468. Saturday, 28 May 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 09:36:19 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations (2) From: Karla Walters Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 07:56 MST Subj: Teaching A & C (3) From: John Boni Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 12:23:02 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations (4) From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 14:02:09 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 09:36:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations To Elise Earthman -- How about letting your students in on the respectable opinion that A&C is the funniest sex comedy after "The Importance Of Being Earnest"? An old Caedmon LP with Pamela Brown, although only excerpts, is beautiful evidence of the extreme wit and poise of Cleopatra that makes her death all the more affecting. Harry Hill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karla Walters Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 07:56 MST Subject: Teaching A & C I have not found a video version of Antony and Cleopatra that works altogether well, but of those I have used, the Charlton Heston version works the best. In teaching this play to undergraduates I have found it works well to break away from the soap opera elements by introducing the play as a conflict between Roman and Egyptian values. Given the multicultural student body I have been teaching at the University of New Mexico, this has worked extremely well. They are able to see Egypt as a threatened, "feminine" culture that gets subsumed by the Roman conquest, and are able to trace ways Antony becomes "feminized" or more Egyptian and ways Cleopatra's manipulative cunning in dealing with Caesar shows a degree of Roman calculation. We also talk about the death of culture that happens to Egypt. I give my students study questions dealting with various elements (compare Cleopatra to Octavia, for example) touching on the culture conflict in the play, and the manner in which Antony and Cleopatra die. The students discuss these questions in small groups and develop a degree of ownership in the discussion. Karla Walters Univ. of New Mexico kwalters@bootes.unm.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 12:23:02 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations To Elise Earthman, RE: Teaching A&C-- I. too, have had some problems in teaching this play. For a number of years I myself had problems coming to grips with it. As a consequence, I can understand the students' problems. Only half joking, let me suggest that if one has reached or is fast approaching middle-age, one can more clearly understand and appreciate *A&C* as well as the title characters. Therefore, I suggest the students regard the play's title characters as Romeo and Juliet gone gray. After that opening quip, I try to discuss erotic love in mature (or seasoned) persons and to talk about Shakespeare's own maturing vision as embodied here. Well, I'm teaching it again this fall. We'll see how it goes. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 14:02:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0464 Re: Video Recommendations To Elise Earthman: If your students see *A&C* only as a soap opera, it might be useful to have them read both it and Dryden's *All for Love* to see what a sentimental treatment of the story CAN be! It would also provide a wonderful opportunity to contrast Shakespeare's art with the neoclassic aesthetic. I had my students read it this semester along with *KL* and Racine's *Phaedra*, and it made the virtues of the other two stand out in stark contrast. (Not that it doesn't have virtues of its own.) Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 10:41:25 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0469 Re: Late Raomances Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0469. Saturday, 28 May 1994. From: William Russell Mayes Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 11:20:19 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0465 Re: Late Romances Patricia and Carmine, According to my copy of Painter's _Palace of Pleasures_, Painter translates both Straparola and Cinthio, but not the excerpts Carmine mentions. I have not reread the tales to see if they would be helpful for Patricia's project, but since they are relatively brief, I'll give you Painter's titles. All of these stories appear in Tome II. XLIX. Filenio Sisterno (from Straparola, Piac.Notti, II.2) (My mistake, this is in tome I, sorry). XI. Two Maids of Carthage (from Cinthio, Ecatomithi, giorn.ix,nov.8) XV. Euphemia and Acharisto (from Cinthio, viii.10)--this would seem to be the most likely to fit into the father-daughter motif. I don't think I missed any, though I suppose Painter could have taken a similar story to one's Carmine mentioned from a different source. I'll look more closely if you'd like, but I hope this brief post helps. Good Luck Russ Mayes wrm2b@faraday.clas.virginia.edu University of Virginia ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 10:59:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0470 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0470. Saturday, 28 May 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 13:52:40 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0466 Authorship (2) From: John Cox Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 13:51:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: authorship (3) From: Jerry Bangham Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 18:39:38 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0466 Authorship (4) From: Roger A Stritmatter Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 22:55:02 -0400 (EDT) Subj: de Vere (5) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 23:43:42 -0500 (EST) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 13:52:40 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0466 Authorship Re Buckridge: Wouldn't the canopy reference give away Shaxford's identity to those from whom he was eager to keep it secret? A pure case of one argument too many! ELEpstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 13:51:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: authorship I agree with Hardy's decision to flag messages about authorship as part of a separate discussion. I'm sure he's right that most people believe the authorship debate is a *non-issue*, though it has a way of taking over and shoving other things aside. Better to put it to one side, where it belongs, and let the main conversation go on. At the same time, I think it is important to point out that not only are the Oxfordians thus being sidelined but also the Stratfordians, chief among them (on this list) being David Kathman. I for one am grateful for his patient and (to my mind) wise responses to Oxfordian arguments. As I see it, though Kathman has consistently responded in credible ways with new arguments rebutting Ogburn et al, his Oxfordian interlocutors simply fall back on the same old arguments and authorities. This is not surprising, given the fact that they really have only one argument to make, namely, that Oxford wrote the plays. It would be nice if they could add something else to the discussion. In this respect, I find Pat Buckridge's recommendation of personal allegorizing dispiriting, and I recommend a rereading of the introduction to David Bevington's *Tudor Drama and Politics*. Sophisticated technology cannot redeem an intellectually bankrupt methodology, and if Buckridge thinks the method has merit, he would do well to say why and to give an example from something other than the Oxford repertory of arguments. John Cox (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerry Bangham Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 18:39:38 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0466 Authorship >I find the openly partisan spirit of Hardy Cook's ruling on authorship debate >a little troubling, but I can easily live with the ruling itself, since I >suspect there's a lot more interest in the question than he and some others >seem to believe. It's a surprising assumption, to say the least, that because >there are five (more or less) self-confessed Oxfordians on the list everyone >else must be either on the other side or uninterested. So far, I've just ignored this drivel, but if you ask for a statement, let me say that I've heard far more than I want to of these arguments. I wouldn't be at all upset if H.C. did indulge in "censorship." Jerry Bangham jbangham@kudzu.win.net (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roger A Stritmatter Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 22:55:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: de Vere Dear Shakespeareans (one and all), Don Oldenburg, in his recent *Washington Post* article on the authorship controversy, writes that Edward de Vere's life reads like a rough draft of *Hamlet.* Those who have read the play may know what Oldenburg means. I must admit, on the other hand, that I don't have the foggiest notion what Steve Urkowitz means about intellectual property and the Oxfordians. Please, Steve, a little more matter and less art. When I spoke at the Huntington Library in January of 1992 about my research on the de Vere Bible, for example, all the scholars in residence were invited; and when I spoke for the Shakespeare authorship Roundtable of Santa Monica, Ca., I allowed my talk to be taped, because I don't believe the truth can be copyrighted. Some folk, knowing the former talk had the endorsement of the Huntington's William Moffet (who also thought the Dead Sea Scrolls shouldn't be the private preserve of a closed preisthood of true believers) chose not to attend my lecture. Hardy Cook, just so, thinks he should put a warning label on heretical material, hoping that what is not posted here will not find its way by samizdat into the *Post* or anywhere else, and that by expressing his editorial disapproval, complete with a census of who believes what, he can scare away the curious and uncommitted; he wins enthusiastic backslaps from the shamans of the tribe. These are the rites of a True orthodoxy; who would be such a Feste as to deny them their day in the sun? By contrast, there is nothing esoteric or incomprehensible about what the Oxfordians are saying. You can read the story in the daily newspaper; and your students, whatever they may tell you in hopes of earning your approval, are curious about it. Roger Stritmatter (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 23:43:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Authorship I'm like to reply briefly to Pat Buckridge. (1) Agents are often punished for the crimes of their superiors. Cf. Nixon's men. Agents are fair game because they are expendable. (2) We all know the Sidney-Pembroke connection. Why would Jonson feel that it was all right to bad-mouth Sidney, but not Oxford? I'm sure the Oxfordians have an answer. (3) And, yes, "popular drama" was an intentional qualifier. Meres and Puttenham refer (I believe) to Oxford as a closet dramatist. And probably Lyly did his writing for him. I think Martin Green points out that secretaries actually did write poetry for their masters. (Martin, correct me if I got that wrong. I was reading your book LATE the other night.) Today, I read that Henry VIII's secretary wrote his letters which he then copied out in his own hand. Surely, the Earl did not write his own plays! I am sure that his servants did his writing for him. And, now I have done. J. Thomas Looney is precisely that. Oxford may be of some interest in his own right, but not as the putative author of Shakespeare's plays. As far as the Oxford debate and I are concerned, the rest is silence. And flights of angels sing me to my rest. Yours, Hamlet Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 11:09:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0471 Qs: Light and Heat; Cordelia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0471. Saturday, 28 May 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 16:25 ET Subj: Light and Heat (2) From: Pamela Bunn Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 17:35:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Cordelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 26 May 1994 16:25 ET Subject: Light and Heat Query to Wm. Godshalk (Godshawl, indeed--I'd try to make some joke about the 17th-century Anglo-Jewish playwright William Davening if I didn't suspect somebody already got to it in the days before I joined the network): What's with this reactionary humanist-enlightenment hierarchizing of light and heat? As a brand-new grandfather thinking about my brand-new granddaughter and how she had to come out of the warm dark place where she was into a world where wicked deeds are carried out at least as often in daylight as in darkness, I wonder. Our Author, of course, is not absolutely committed to the conventional valorizing of light and darkness (if he subscribes to it much of the time). As for heat (and I am grateful to W.G. for sending me off to the concordance foran intellectual sauna) it's true that most of the uses of "hot" seem to carry negative connotations. But as Paris observes, "hot thoughts is hot deeds" (intemperate rockets to hmcook, no doubt), "and hot deeds is love"--I write this as a brief respite from job applicants' writing samples, most of which remind me of Miss Devlin in Joyce's "A Mother": they sit in the chilly circle of their accomplishments waiting for some department to offer them a brilliant life, and I long for a little scholarly and critical zip, a little love, a little fire! ("O for a muse of," etc.) It has long seemed odd to me that people living in a dank northern climate before central heating (I think of early modern writing in general, not just Shakespeare) don't complain more about the cold or praise warmth, even heat, more than they do. Does that go along with their failure to complain much about headaches, or the common cold? Is it only when relief from some at least of the thousand natural shocks gets relatively easy to come by that the shocks themselves, the more modest ones, at least, seem worth note? In warmth, Dave Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pamela Bunn Date: Friday, 27 May 1994 17:35:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Cordelia This term, I have been taking a Performing Shakespeare class. Now that we have reached the end, it is time to write our final papers. After reading KING LEAR and observing some in-class interpretaions, I have decided to focus my paper on Cordelia and the development of her character in the first scene. In class, we have discussed the range of emotions she might be experiencing: dismayed, hurt, frustrated, angry. Yet, conveying all of these at once has been difficult. How could it be done, while she still maintains her sincerety? What words, phrases, movements, emotions, should be emphasized/explored? Her character must make strong impression, because she does not appear again for a while. Any suggestions? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 09:22:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0472 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0472. Sunday 29, May 1994. (1) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Saturday, 28 May 1994 11:46:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship (2) From: Martin Green Date: Saturday, 28 May 94 20:41:39 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship comments 5/27/94 (3) From: Martin Green Date: Saturday, 28 May 94 20:41:39 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship comments 5/27/94 (4) From: Tad Davis Date: Sunday, 29 May 1994 11:27:20 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship (5) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 29 May 94 15:00:47 CDT Subj: Authorship (6) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 10:46:49 +1000 (EST) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Saturday, 28 May 1994 11:46:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship I, for one, am offended by R. Stritmatter's rude and unfounded remarks. Perhaps he should send his missives to the *Post* himself instead of to the list. It is he, and not Hardy Cook, who "scared away" this member of the "curious." By the way, "curious" and "uncommitted" do not necessarily go hand in hand. I am "committed" to the fact that what he calls the "truth" is instead something quite the opposite. Ironically, it is Mr. R. S.'s remarks, and no one else's, that have persuaded me from here on in to scramble for the delete button whenever the "authorship" tag appears. Pat Palermo (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Saturday, 28 May 1994 18:03:00 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship > Meres and Puttenham refer (I believe) to Oxford as a closet dramatist. Can I add to Bill Godschalk's comment that there is a huge difference between closet drama and drama meant to be performed? One look at "the Tragedy of Maryam" and you'll know what I mean. Personally, I find it harder to believe that an earl could write even competant drama than a practicing actor. . .but maybe I am hopelessly bourgeois. . . Melissa (Down with Debrett) Aaron (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Green Date: Saturday, 28 May 94 20:41:39 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship comments 5/27/94 1. Dear John Cox: I myself am a pious Stratfordian, but I cannot agree that segregating the authorship controversy sidelines Stratfordians as well as Oxfordians; rather it makes Stratfordianism the Orthodox line, since such postings as I and other Stratfordians may submit relating to, say, the source of Shakespeare (the actor's) knowledge about Greek romances, will be treated as shedding light (or trying to shed light) on the true author of the plays, whereas submissions by others about Oxford's or Bacon's knowledge about the Greek romance elements in the plays will be relegated to the nonsense section. To be sure, I have no doubt, myself, that it IS nonsense, but no one should be deceived into thinking that by segregating postings dealing with the authorship issue we are treating all sides equally; Professor Cook's decision (which, regretfully, I think was the practical, and therefore correct, decision) establishes Stratfordianism as the premise of this conference. Perhaps the best thing for those who reject this premise might be to start SHAKSPER conferences whose premises are Oxfordian or Baconian, or whatever, or which are devoted expressly to the authorship question. By the way, Irvin L. Matus has just come out with a book (Continuum: New York) which considers and attempts to refute, the Oxford claims. 2. Dear William Godshalk: Well, in my book, I did treat of one example of a secretary who wrote poems for his master: this was Henry Cuffe, who wrote poems for the Earl of Essex. There may be other instances of this, but this is the only one I dealt with. Martin Green (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Sunday, 29 May 1994 11:27:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship I wasn't going to have much to say about this either, because it seems so tiresome. But I have yet to hear the Oxfordians tackle, head-on, the most damning argument against their case: the small matter of Oxford dying in 1604. A great deal of effort has gone into dating the plays over the last several hundred years. There are still arguments about details, but there is a broad consensus over dating: nobody, for example, argues that the Tempest was an early play or that Two Gentlemen of Verona was a late play. The dating depends to a large extent on several factors: (a) pinning down topical references in the plays themselves, either to political or literary events; (b) understanding the broad pattern of theatrical fashion over the 25-year period of Shakespeare's career; (c) records of printing; (d) topical references TO the plays in other sources, such as other plays or in some cases diaries and account books; (e) internal evidence suggesting a pattern of development in the handling of certain themes or verse forms; (f) patterns of influence -- though this could be considered a subset of (a) and (d). For the most part, the evidence from each of these areas points to a consistent conclusion about the dating (as I said, allowing for some differences of detail). We are not talking about a small body of work here. The Frontline documentary on the Oxford controversy said, dishonestly, that there was a problem with the chronology because Oxford died in 1604 and "one or two plays may have appeared long after that date." Here's the list, using one conventional dating scheme: 1604 - Measure for Measure 1604 - Othello 1604 - Timon of Athens 1605 - King Lear 1605 - Macbeth 1606 - Antony and Cleopatra 1607 - Coriolanus 1608 - Pericles 1609 - Cymbeline 1610 - The Winter's Tale 1611 - The Tempest 1612 - Henry VIII 1613 - The Two Noble Kinsmen This amounts to a full third of the works attributed to Shakespeare either in whole or in part. In order for the Oxfordian thesis to be true, the conventional dating of every single one of these plays would have to be demolished, in detail, from each of the five or six perspectives noted earlier. This would require not simply reattributing the plays to a different writer but completely rewriting the accepted theatrical history of the entire period. Has anyone actually accomplished such a feat? There is, of course, another argument, which as a practicing playwright myself I find the most persuasive of all: the person who wrote these plays had extensive, direct, day-to-day experience as a working theater professional. I admit that this is a purely subjective judgement, but it is unshakeable. The research of Donald Foster on verbal echoes from play to play reinforces this subjective impression, and in my opinion presents another formidable hurdle to the Oxfordians. Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 29 May 94 15:00:47 CDT Subject: Authorship All right, one more time. I can understand the annoyance of those who feel that this is not the proper forum for this whole authorship discussion, and so I was loath to say anything more on the subject. But since it seems to be continuing within the limits Hardy Cook has set up, I might as well chime in with my latest two cents. I know none of this is convincing any Oxfordians, but just for the record: 1) The Oxfordians on the list have been insisting that *Hamlet* is Oxford's autobiographical piece a clef. To this I have several responses. First of all, all the major characters and plot elements of *Hamlet* --- Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Ghost, the brother marrying the widow of the king he just killed, the feigned madness, the interview with Ophelia, the play within the play, the switching of weapons, etc. etc. etc. --- can be found in Shakespeare's sources, primarily Saxo Grammaticus, Belleforest's *Histoires Tragiques*, and Kyd's *Spanish Tragedy*. Second of all, the supposed similarities between Oxford's life and *Hamlet* seem to me to be pretty strained, especially when you consider how many similar "parallels" one can find in *Hamlet* with the life of virtually any other nobleman of the time, depending on what you focus on. The Earl of Rutland was on very bad terms with his brother (Claudius vs. Hamlet Sr.); furthermore, he had actually been English ambassador to the Court of Elsinore, where he could have picked up local color about the castle, plus he had had a couple of fellow students at the University of Padua named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Voila! Those who say the Earl of Derby wrote *Hamlet* have at least as elaborate and plausible a cast of characters: Mary Queen of Scots is Gertrude, her murdered husband Lord Darnley was Hamlet Sr., and Helene de Tournon, who died of heartbreak, is Ophelia. *Hamlet* has also been claimed as the autobiography of Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Robert Burton, and essentially everyone who has ever been claimed as the author of Shakespeare's works (with the possible exception of Queen Elizabeth); in every case, the proponents of a given candidate have been equally passionate, and equally convinced that their hero was pouring his heart out in *Hamlet*. I will refrain from further comment. 2) On Pat Buckridge's "canopy" argument: I've never quite understood the fascination this argument has for Oxfordians. First of all, I should point out that Oxford is hardly the only person who ever held a canopy for royalty, even among candidates for the Shakespeare honors: the Derbyites use exactly the same argument for their candidate, since he bore the canopy for the Queen in 1591. That aside, I have to marvel at the literal-mindedness of the Oxfordians. For one thing, "canopy" has a perfectly good metaphorical sense, meaning "sky" or "firmament"; Shakespeare used it as such in *Hamlet* II.ii, among other places. Even if you accept it in this context as a reference to a canopy for royalty, as most modern commentators do, why on earth does it have to refer to an actual instance when the author bore such a canopy? As far as I can see, the poet is asking whether it would make any difference if he did elaborate things to honor his nobly-born young friend, such as bearing a canopy, or "lay(ing) great bases for eternity", i.e. for monuments. What's the big deal? As for Pat's claim that the poet here and elsewhere is belittling the privileges of high rank to which he is entitled, I just don't see it. The Fair Youth is of the nobility, sure, and is a patron of poets, including Shakespeare. But I don't see the author claiming to be nobility, and neither do any of the hundreds of commentators without an axe to grind. 3) I see that the Oxfordians have all been referring to the actor from Stratford as "Skakspere" or "Shaksper", in keeping with anti-Stratfordian dogma. Well, I'm getting a little sick of this. His name was "William Shakespeare", not "Shaksper", as anyone who gives more than a cursory glance to contemporary records can see. I went through the list of documents in E.K. Chambers' *William Shakespeare*, and made a list of all the times William Shakespeare of Stratford was mentioned in documents during his lifetime; I limited this to instances where he was either explicitly identified as being "of Stratford upon Avon", or where the documents in question are from Stratford or its environs. His name is mentioned 107 times in such documents, with 17 different spellings (such variation being, of course, perfectly normal for the time). By far the most common spelling of the name was "Shakespeare", with 38 instances; second most common was "Shakespere", with 17 occurences. Together these two spellings account for about half of the total. (This is actually quite consistent under the standards of the day; Christopher Marlowe's name was almost never spelled "Marlowe" during his lifetime, being usually spelled "Marlo", "Morley", or "Marlin".) "Shakspere" occured 4 times in the corpus, "Shaksper" once, in a letter. This doesn't even include references to him in London as an actor, where the name was always spelled "Shakespeare", except for one time when it was spelled "Shakespere". No matter how he signed his own name or what the spelling is on the record of his baptism, this man was generally known as "William Shakespeare", and anyone who says otherwise is either deluding himself or being outright misleading. 4) As for Roger Stritmatter's rant, I don't quite know what to make of it. No one is being censored; we're just being set off from the rest of the list so those who don't care can ignore us if they choose. All of these arguments I've been making are in the public domain, and are based on references that anyone can look up; anyone out there is free to use them any time. The Oxfordian "case" lends itself well to sound bites and op-ed pieces, based as it is on a series of categorical statements that sound reasonable to the modern ear, but which do not bear up under examination. Explaining why these statements are untrue, or why they don't mean what they seem to mean when you look at the context of Elizabethan England, requires patience and more time than most people have over their morning coffee. I've seen all the Oxfordian arguments, and have yet to encounter one that has any significant merit. I'm sure the Oxfordians will continue their crusade, and will continue to complain about the lack of respect they get from orthodox scholars, and will continue to talk about the "high priests" of the "orthodoxy" or Stratfordianism, and will continue to ignore the patient counterarguments such as I've just been making. Enough. I agree that SHAKSPER deserves better than this; I'm getting out of this discussion for now. If anybody out there is on the fence and wonders if there's anything to the anti-Stratfordian arguments, try to get a hold of R.C. Churchill's *Shakespeare and his Betters* and read it; it's not perfect, but it gives a pretty good summary of the Stratfordian counterarguments. E-mail me personally if you want, but don't clutter up the list with this stuff. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 10:46:49 +1000 (EST) Subject: Authorship A quick response to E. L. Epstein on the canopy in Sonnet 125. What you say might be so if there were any evidence that 'Shakespeare' intended the sonnets for publication. But to the contrary, they were published, in a 'back of a truck' manner, several years after Oxford's death, and we have Meres' testimony that they circulated privately in the 1590s among his friends. In other words, there's every reason to think that the sonnets 'addressed to the Young Man' really were just that. Patrick Buckridge ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 09:28:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0473 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0473. Monday, 30 May 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 28 May 1994 19:06:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0470 Authorship My life sounds like a bad "soap opera." (Joe Gores and others have told me so.) However, I do not write bad "soap operas." And so, even if Oxford's life sounds like the play HAMLET, that doesn't mean he wrote the play. Okay, now I won't say another thing about this debate, until the Oxfordians come up with something not in Ogburn and Looney. How about come manuscript evidence? How about proving that Oxford wrote the poetry attributed to him? The collection of poetry attached to Looney (3rd edition) includes poems often attributed to other authors, e.g., Lyly. Why not prove that Oxford wrote something, anything? Prove that what you think is his handwriting is his handwriting. Prove that "the Earl of Oxford" isn't just a figment of Sir Philip Sidney's imagination. How about them apples? I want to see the dripping pen. And if the Oxford authorship is supposed to be kept a secret by everyone (including Jonson), why were Puttenham and Meres "allowed" to give the secret away? If Meres was prohited from saying that Oxford was a playwright, why did he say that he was a playwright and then atribute his plays to Shakespeare? Well, it was a secret and yet not a secret. That Oxford was a playwright was no secret, but the titles of his plays were a secret. No, I want the Oxfordians to hold themselves to the same standards of evidence that they wish to hold the Stratfordians to. No more assumptions. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 09:38:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0474. Monday, 30 May 1994. From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Saturday, 28 May 1994 13:07:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Concordance Recomendation Dear Colleagues: I am about to purchase a Shakespeare concordance, only to find out that the Harvard CTS is "permanently back-ordered" according to the publisher. Does anyone know of a seller (new or used) that might have a copy for sale. Perhaps even one of us? Alternatively, I would appreciate recommendations for a second choice. Thanks all. Matthew Westcott Smith Dept of Political Sciecne Box 604120 SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo NY 14260-4120 716 645-2261 ext 414 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 09:48:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0475 Re: Teaching *Ant.*; Discussion Groups Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0475. Monday, 30 May 1994. (1) From: Rick Jones Date: Saturday, 28 May 94 23:08:00 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0468 Teaching *Ant.* (2) From: J F Knight Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 06:08:44 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0463 Re: The Nature of Discussion Groups (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Saturday, 28 May 94 23:08:00 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0468 Teaching *Ant.* The question of how one might teach a particular play, in this case A&C, seems too often to be divorced from what one is attempting to do with the course in which it's being taught. I realize that most people on this list teach Shakespeare's plays in courses called "Shakespeare" or variations on that theme. I, however, have never taught a "Shakespeare" course and probably never will: I have, though, taught several of the plays in courses called Introduction to Theatre, Neo-Classical Theatre, and History of Western Theatre. Were I teaching A&C in a "Shakespeare" course, I'd probably adopt a strategy not unlike the one Karla Walters articulates. But in a theatre history course, the play is far more interesting in juxtaposition to 1) contemporary continental theatre (and theory) and 2) subsequent English theatre (e.g. _All for Love_). No other play of the period (unless we want to go all the way back to _Cambyses_, the subject of my current work) trods more unheedingly on the neo-classical concepts of the unities, decorum, purity of form, etc. As such, it becomes a very valuable tool for assessing the English attitude toward neo-classical ideals and the developing conception of tragedy. In an intro to theatre course, I'd center on contrasting Egypt and Rome, but would talk more about how to make those distinctions palpable without being bludgeoning in terms of sets, costumes, and lighting. And so it goes. This probably doesn't advance the discussion very much, but it is perhaps a gentle reminder that Shakespeare wrote plays for the stage, not simply literature. Yeats's plays are wonderful until you have to stage them; Boucicault's are great fun unless you try to read them; Shakespeare's offer great joys both on stage and in the library -- that's what sets him apart from all but the greatest of his fellow dramatists. Not (I hope) *too* crabbily yours, Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 06:08:44 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0463 Re: The Nature of Discussion Groups To return to a previous comment - yes, the whole of the last five years of Shaksper is retrievable, but (absurdly for electronic information) it is not searchable. I've gopher'd across to the archive site - that's easy - but the gopher and veronica only search on the titles of the files, and the titles of our files refer to date not to content. I've looked at the ListServ database command manual, but its author had been reading too much Derrida and was way into hermeneutics (at least I assume that was what the problem was). So if I want to retrieve all references to King John in discussions within this group over the last five years, guys, what do I do? John Knight [NB: A noble SHAKSPERean has volunteered to research the Database Function. I hope in a week or two to have a set of instructions as to how to do the searches John Knight requests. "So much to do; so little time." --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 09:54:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0476. Monday, 30 May 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 02:25:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Iachimo in a Box In CYMBELINE, Iachimo gains entrance to Imogen's room in a truck, and after she falls asleep Iachimo emerges from the trunk (Folio: Iachimo from the Trunke [TLN 917]). I would like to claim that this is a visual pun to Jack in a Box, a pun that's obscured by the Oxford Shakespeare's "Giacomo." The OED, s.v. Jack-in-the-box, Jack-in-a-box, gives the first definition as "A name for a sharper or cheat; spec. 'a thief who decived tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for others full of money' (Nares)." One of the examples is Dekker, CRYER OF LANTHORNE (1612), and the earliest is dated 1570. Of course, Iachimo is exactly this kind of sharper. He tells Imogen that the trunk is full of plate and jewels. And he substitutes himself for the valuables in order to get into her room. He substitutes one kind of jack for another. The OED's sixth definition is "a toy consisting of a box containing a figure with a spring, which leaps up when the lid is raise." The first example is dated 1702. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES, find references to the toy in 1570 and 1600. And so when Iachimo pops up from the trunk he approximates the action of the children's toy. Farmer and Henley, s.v. CREAM-STICK, also suggest that Jack-in-a-box is slang for penis. Given Iachimno's mission -- to seduce Imogen -- that pun may be available, too. Unfortunately, Farmer and Henley give no date for the "penis" reference. In a brief search that included Henry Jacobs's bibliography and the most recent editions that I could find, I have found no reference to these possible puns. A few months ago, I asked Linda Woodbridge what she thought of Iachimo-in-a-box. She look at me skeptically, and then said that she was skeptical. Nevertheless, what do you all think? Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 18:51:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0477 Re: Iachimo; Concordance; Cordelia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0477. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. (1) From: Diana Henderson Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 15:52 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 17:40:59 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 31 May 94 12:56 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 15:52 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box John Pitcher's "Names in Cymbeline," in Essays in Criticism 43.1 (1993) concurs with Bill Godshalk to the extent that he believes the sound and meanings of "jack" resonate in the name of Iachimo/Giacomo/Jachimo (the last being his preference for modern spelling editions). I don't remember his talking about the jack-in-the-box specifically, but several other connotations with jack(s). (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 17:40:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation For Matthew Wescott Smith. Until you can get a copy of the Spevack concordance, you can use the on-line concordance at Penn. At the dollar sign prompt, type: gopher ccat.sas.upenn.edu When you get into Penn's computer, use your instinct! I can't remember exactly what the menu reads. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 31 May 94 12:56 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia >>After reading KING LEAR and observing some in-class interpretaions, I have decided to focus my paper on Cordelia and the development of her character in the first scene. In class, we have discussed the range of emotions she might be experiencing: dismayed, hurt, frustrated, angry. Yet, conveying all of these at once has been difficult. How could it be done, while she still maintains her sincerety? << Dear Pamela Bunn, Cordelia is not a real, live flesh and blood human being. In consequence, she has no 'character', and it does not 'develop'. To suppose otherwise, as your teachers have apparently encouraged you to do, is to impose the modesof 19th and 20th century art on that of an earlier period which knew nothing of them. It is, in short, to turn an astonishing and disturbing piece of 17th century dramatic art, whose mode is emblematic, into a third rate Victorian novel, whose mode is realistic. Cordelia has no private motives, or emotions, other than those clearly prsented in the play as part of its thematic structure. The play uses her to raise matters of large public concern such as duty, deference, the nature of kingship, the right to speak, the function of silence, the roles avalable to women in a male-dominated world, and so on. These are not the newly- minted slogans of wild-eyed Cultural Materialist revolutionaries, but the fundamental principles on which informed and entirely respectable analysis of the plays has proceeded for fifty years and more. Read the fine and justly famous essay by L.C.Knights, "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?". It was first published in 1933. Why have your teachers made no mention of these important issues? Ask for your money back. Terence Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 18:53:48 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0478 [was 0478] Q: Comedy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0478. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 10:59:57 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Comedy A friend of mine recently asked if I could recommend a really good essay on Shakesperian Comedy. She will be using it in an undergraduate level course that will be discussing COMEDY OF ERRORS, TAMING OF THE SHREW (both on view at summer Shakespeare fests) and MUCH ADO (the film). Most of my work involves tragedy, so I thought I'd toss this out to the esteemed audience/participants of SHAKSPER. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance, Elizabeth Schmitt e2e3schm@vaxb.acs.unt.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 19:00:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0479 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0479. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. (1) From: Robert O'Connor Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:12:12 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0472 Authorship (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 30 May 94 22:43:07 CDT Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:12:12 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0472 Authorship Dear SHAKSPEReans, I have to say that, up till now, I have had no opinion on authorship question at all - though I have enjoyed the (sometimes heated) debate. Now, though, I would like to contibute something. I saw a report in *New Scientist* a few months ago on a recent computer analysis os some Shakespearean and other Elizabethan texts which - according to the authors - announced the development of a method which produced results that agreed almost entirely with the conclusions of more traditional means of textual analysis. For myself, I found the article quite convincing. It was the stated intent of the researchers to apply the method they had developed to some unattributed or doubtful works, to see if anything surprising came to light. I read in the paper this morning that the same researchers will reveal in a forthcoming issue of *Literary and Linguistic Computing* that they are now prepared to attribute *The Contention* and *The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York* to Marlowe, to confirm the dependence of *2* and *3HenryVI* on these two plays, and to suggest, therefore, that Marlowe was _not_ killed in Deptford in 1593 (Sydney Morning Herald, May 31). The kind of analysis used by these researchers is controversial enough, but the results ... Well, I will wait and read the article. I also heard, over the weekend, that a recently-discovered copy of one of Donne's sermons has been confirmed to have annotations in Donne's hand which largely contradict the tone of the published version. It seems there is still a lot to be discovered . . . Robert O'Connor (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 30 May 94 22:43:07 CDT Subject: authorship Just a quick note: on rereading my last message on the net, I see that I may have given the mistaken impression that I'm trying to close off discussion of the authorship question, which is not the case. What I was trying to say was that I can see the point of those who have objected to the space this has taken up on SHAKSPER, and that some other forum might be more appropriate for this sort of thing. Where I said, "Don't clutter up the list with this stuff," I probably should have said, "*Let's not* clutter up the list with this stuff." One other thing: When I said the Oxfordians call the man from Stratford "Skakspere", I assume everyone realized that was a typo for "Shakspere". Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 19:05:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0480 Re: Teaching *Ant.*; Iachimo Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0480. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 11:22 ET Subj: Teaching A & C (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:20:44 -0500 Subj: teaching A&C; Iachimo in a box (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 11:22 ET Subject: Teaching A & C Elise Earthman wonders about teaching . It's always a problem, certainly with conventional 20-year old undergraduates, and often, indeed, with returning students readier than Hamlet to believe in the possibility of middle-aged grand passions. Karen Walter's proposal to pair the play with , asking what might become of people like them who survive into middle age works well if you use Susan Snyder's comic/tragic//evitable/inevitable//improvise it/play the script ideas to get at the nature of the conflicts, both internal and external. Here's a question (not that largely explored in the criticism): Why (really) does Cleopatra fly from the battle at Actium? And why (really) does Antony follow her? Thing to consider: What would it actually mean for them to win? That gets you into some other issues, like Antony's agreeing to marry Octavia and his botched suicide.On the production thing, there's a stimulating essay by Steven Booth, 8 or 10 years back?, arguing that no satisfactory production of the play is possible because no satisfactory performance of Antony is possible. I'm not sure I agree with him but it's the case that I've seen several Cleopatras I liked (most especially Goldie Semple at Stratford, Ont.) and not one Antony. David Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:20:44 -0500 Subject: teaching A&C; Iachimo in a box Thanks to Rick Jones for reminding us about the multiple ways and places that Shakespeare is taught. My own teaching of *A and C* has been similar to that of Karla Walters. But I also try to incorporate a theater-friendly perspective while teaching in a literature department, so I find it valuable to ask the students to attempt to visualize a production, and to suggest ways in which set, props, and costumes might cue the audience about the differences between the two worlds of the play (much like Rich does in his Intro to Theater course). Such a discussions often leads into a more careful discussion of the myriad riches of the play's other aspects. To Bill Godshalk: without looking back at the play, or even thinking about it too hard (it was a holiday weekend, after all), I love the idea of "Iachimo in a box" and its multiple possibilities. I can see some wonderful production opportunities here. Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 09:39:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0483 Women and Theatre and Black Theatre Network Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0483. Wednesday, 1 June 1994. From: Lisa Anderson Date: TueSDAY, 31 May 1994 17:26:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Women in Theatre-Black Theatre Network Joint Conference Conference Announcement: The Women and Theatre Program and the Black Theatre Network are sponsoring "Breaking Barriers: Celebrating Women Making Theatre," a joint conference in Chicago this summer at the Bismark Hotel. BTN events begin July 23rd and run through July 27th and WTP events begin July 24th and run through July 26th. A day of joint scheduling Monday July 25th includes keynote presentations by Glenda Dickerson of Spelman College and Clinton Turner Davis from the Non-Traditional Casting Project. The conference will also feature performances and panels ranging in themes from the experiences of women artistic directors to issues of subjectivity and the self as a site of institutional structure. In addition, WTP will be undertaking the task of reimagining its future as it celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its founding. To attend the conference you can register either through BTN or WTP. For more information and registration materials through BTN call (313) 353 5591. For more information and registration materials through WTP call (614) 486-7358. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 09:16:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0481 Re: Cordelia; Comedy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0481. Wednesday, 1 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 14:21:15 +1000 Subj: Re: Cordelia (3) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 03:15:20 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Comedy and Cordelia (4) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 94 07:21:59 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0477 Re: Cordelia (5) From: Kurt Daw Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 94 08:23:10 EDT Subj: Playing Cordelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 14:21:15 +1000 Subject: Re: Cordelia For Terence Hawkes Your students must adore you if you put them down so callously and unnecessarily as you did my namesake, Pamela Bunn. Did you not notice that her paper is for a Performing Shakespeare class? Pamela knows, and I know, and you ought to know, that when an actor steps onstage in the character of Cordelia, there is a real, live flesh and blood human being called Cordelia whether armchair literary pontificators like it or not. Pamelas question is a legitimate one for anyone involved in actual theatre, where the luxury of believing in the fallacy of *neutral performance* does not exist. Rex Bunn (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 03:15:20 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Comedy and Cordelia Two things: first, regarding Terence Hawkes' advice to Pamela Bunn--hear,hear. Second: regarding Elizabeth Schmitt's inquiry about good stuff on comedy--I know it's not much in fashion, but I still find Northrop Frye's discussions, both in the *Anatomy* and in "The Argument of Comedy," to be very useful in class discussions. He schematizes comedic forms and conventions in a way students can easily grasp, and from there one can point out all the departues, variations and inversions of (from) these few simple schemes. Of course the book of my old mentor, C.L. Barber, *Shakespeare's Festive Comedies* isn't exactly chopped liver either. I know that C of E isn't technically a festive comedy (nor is the wild sea out of which the radical confusion arises exactly Frye's "green world") but many of the same principles still apply. For myself--I've had interesting times applying one of Levi-Strauss's (doesn't THAT name seem quaint in these days!) old dichotomies: the raw and the cooked. Ephesus is "overcooked," the meat is falling off the spit; Antipholus of E is stuck in a pressure cooker in too-close proximity to a young and desirable sister-in-law. He is also over-identified: everyone knows him and what he's supposed to be and be doing. He can't even be late for dinner. The play's action is to inject some of the "raw" world, the radical confusion (madness) that comes out of the sea to reinvigorate a stifled society. The "raw" comes out in the ostensibly incestuous proposals of Antipholus. Get the repressed EXpressed in other words--the rage of A of E at his restricted identity and A of S's terror of madness and foreigners (which is also the Duke's fear, making him execute one for whom he has so much fellow-feeling), and the old institutions (like marriage) can be re-invented. I won't ramble any more, but you get the drift. Good luck, Elizabeth. Lonnie Durham (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 94 07:21:59 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0477 Re: Cordelia Dear Pamela Bunn, Terence Hawkes warns you about mistaking the marks on the page for a "real" flesh and blood entity like yourself (unlike me, though, a mere projection of electrons emanating from some NYNEX connection in Greenwich Village). The marks on the page, nevertheless, may be mapped onto three and four dimensional critters, and the projection may possibly create interesting simulacra of "real" emotions and ideas and events. The technical skills needed to accomplish such translation from script to flesh seem to have shaped the profession of acting, directing, and playwriting in many different cultures, in many different ways. One of the repeated discussions in written treatises on acting is how to project or to enact the experience of juxtaposed emotional states: eagerness and reticense at once, politeness and fury, a desire to stay and a compelling need to go. A script can suggest "development" in a fictional character as the balance of loyalty against rebellion, for example, shifts from the early part of a dialog to a later one. The opening scene in LEAR seems to be an demonstration of family equilibrium: "How much stress can we apply to this daughter before she falls off the balance-point?" As with jugglers and acrobats, we watch to see the breaking point, teetering over disaster. (Not real disaster, just a fictional disaster.) Living creatures seem to take pleasures in such dynamic displays, like dance, song, spicy food, body-surfing, and "learning." Beth Goldring, "COR's Rescue of Kent," in Gary Taylor and Michael Warren, THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOMS (1983), looks at how the different printed texts of LEAR offer different maps for an emotional/political/hierarchical journey to be taken by Cordelia (or by the artificial arrangement of signs on the page that we encourage actors to "play" as if they were a real person's unrehearsed spontaneous actions and utterances.) You might look at Bertram Joseph, ELIZABETHAN ACTING, 2nd edition, and other more recent studies of the craft to see how those folks talked about these same issues raised by us today. Same fights, different players. Essentially, Steve Urkowitz (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kurt Daw Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 94 08:23:10 EDT Subject: Playing Cordelia Re: Terence Hawkes reply to Pamela Bunn on playing Cordelia. As an actor and teacher of Shakespearean performance, I find Terence Hawkes reply to Pamela Bunn a bit overstated. While it is true that Cordelia is not a real person, it is also true that actors playing her are. To suggest that Shakespeare's art is entirely emblematic is perhaps a perfectly agreeable solution in a class focusing on literary analysis, but it wouldn't get one very far in a performance class. Actors who resort to emblematic performances, even when citing historic precident, are apt to appear very wooden in a modern production. Actors do have to think about the emotional states they (as their characters) are undergoing as they play a scene. I may be wrong here, but I understood Ms. Bunn's question to be in the context of writing about *playing* the character. I think that a "Cordelia" would indeed have to face the problem of undergoing layers of evolving (and sometimes conflicting) emotions. Finding a way of keeping those clear to oneself, and to an audience, is a real actor problem. While I respect Prof. Hawkes's caution that sentimental character biography can lead to terrible distortion of plays and characters, I would assert that his position seems as reactionary and damaging in an equal and opposite way. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 09:22:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0482 Re: Light and Heat; Iachimo Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0482. Wednesday, 1 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 22:26:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Let there be heat and light! (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 22:37:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Jachimo/Iachimo (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 22:26:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Let there be heat and light! For David Evett: Every time I make a choice, I create a hierarchy. There's nothing wrong with hierarchies, David. Without them, cognition is quite possibly impossible. George Lakoff, WOMEN, FIRE, AND DANGEROUS THINGS: WHAT CATEGORIES REVEAL ABOUT THE MIND, found that categories are arranged hierarhically (well, kind of, anyway). Members of a category are NOT equal; some members are better than others. You might also find his work on metaphor helpful: METAPHORS WE LIVE BY, with Mark Johnson. You see, I was using "heat" and "light" metaphorically! Now, what did I "mean" by those metaphors. Well, I meant approximately what Shakespeare meant by them. See Marvin Spevack, A SHAKESPEARE THESAURUS. "Heat" means "vehemence" and "anger" (14.37, 14.29 in Spevack). And "light" means "knowledge" (15.06). What I meant was: maybe someone would bring some "knowledge" to the interpretation of Adriana's difficult speech. How about it? What is Adriana talking about? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 22:37:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Jachimo/Iachimo Thanks to Diana Henderson for the John Pitcher reference. And John, as usual, is right on the money. I forgot to mention the references to "jack" in 2.1.2 and 2.1.20 (Riverside ed.), in the scene before Jachimo pops from the box. This seems to be a little proleptic nudge for the audience. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 09:18:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0484 Re: Cordelia and Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0484. Thursday, 2 June 1994. (1) From: Martin Mueller Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 08:33:15 -0500 Subj: Cordelia (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 10:29:19 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0481 Re: Cordelia; Comedy (3) From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 13:13:08 -0500 (EST) Subj: Cordelia, Character development, and Comedy (4) From: James McKenna Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 13:06:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: characters with character (5) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 12:34:42 -0500 Subj: Cordelia (6) From: Rick Jones Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 94 17:25:05 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0477 Cordelia (7) From: Christine M Gordon Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 18:32:25 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Cordelia (8) From: Luc Borot Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 10:38:38 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0481 Re: Cordelia; Comedy (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 08:333:15 -0500 Subject: Cordelia Everything Terence Hawkes writes to Pamela Bunna about Cordelia is true, and yet I hear the cry of a baby as the bathwater rushes down the drain. And I am reminded about early twentieth-century discussions of "character" in Greek tragedy, where learned scholars argued at length that discussions of the "character" of Antigone or Medea were in principle misguided. No doubt they were but the "private motives, or emotions" of a literary character are not so easily banished. In wondering about the "sincerity" of Cordelia, as Pamela Bunn does, one might go to Hamlet for a moment. There are significant scenic resemblances between the first appearances of Hamlet and Cordelia. A public scene of pomp, circumstance, and fraud; a royal child that says nothing or very little. Hamlet is goaded into extravagant speech by his mother and in his words about trappings and suits of woe he flaunts an irreducible "me" that is contradicted in the very act of utterance: we witness the highly rhetoric and constructed search for an authentic self. Cordelia says nothing, partly but only partly because she is a woman. Hamlet raises the question of authentic character in a highly rhetorical display, and Cordelia raises it differently in silence. The answer that there simply is no there there will not quite do. There may not be development in Cordelia's character, but there is a problem of disclosure, and if a modern student asks about it, the question is already there in that odd entity we are no longer supposed to call a text. Martin Mueller Northwestern University martinmueller@nwu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 10:29:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0481 Re: Cordelia; Comedy I am not a reactionary old fart, and neither is Terence Hawkes, whose advice to the student in a "Performing Shakespeare" class was a splendid counterbalance to the teacher, actor, scholar, reader who has never been encouraged to give credence to the guides Shakespeare and other careful playwrights provide in the actions, thoughts and feelings as represented in the lines characters utter (OF COURSE they do it on a stage!) in situations. I have said it before, to little notice: characters in Shakespeare ARE what they SAY and HOW they say it, and the "how" is almost always thoroughly given. In Cordelia's case it is balanced (nearly legal) and plain-spoken; how she speaks is how she thinks and feels, basically. Her sisters' speech patterns are totally different from hers and from each other's. I could easily go on as I have before... As an actor, I know that it is possible -- even desirable -- to be at once a person and an emblem. Most important, I know that it is totally wrong to give an extra-textual life to a character in these plays, totally misleading I should say. Who I am comes (with appropriate physical type) from how I speak. An ability to respond to the feeling of the lines in the most fundamental way, allowing their shape and texture to affect the facial muscles and therefore the rest of the body, brings the character to artistic life. The simplest instance of this is perhaps the slight pause at a line's end: therein lies a great deal of a character's emphasis and focus. A look at Cordelia's You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I Return these duties back as are right fit shows that she has inherited a mite of her father's selfishness. We know this from the final "I". Again, I could easily go on... any actor with an inkling of the rhetorical tradition in which these plays are so rooted will know this. I apologize if my posting sounds simplistic and reductionist. I felt that Terence Hawkes' letter needed reinforcement. Harry Hill Montreal (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 13:13:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Cordelia, Character development, and Comedy In a curious coincidence, Norman Rabkin has some wonderfully interesting things to say about the relationship between dramatized time and character in his Appendix "Shakespearean Mimesis, English Drama, and the Unity of Time," printed in *Shakespeare and the Common Understanding* (1967). Here we are reminded that time is a dimension of character and that Shakespeare's portrayal of entended time, especially in his mature work, may be an indication of his perception of character as changing. Let me share at least one paragraph with anyone who does not have Rabkin's book handy: Our consideration of the problems raised in measuring Elizabethan drama by Sidney's standards leads us thus to realize that the hybrid nature of that drama, its fusion of conventions derived from divergent mimetic traditions, builds into it a kind of internal conflict between notions of character; it builds in as well a source of versatility unprecedented in theatrical history, and my help explain why the theater of Shakespeare and his contemporaries is able to present, with the aid of a finite number of conventions, such a varied set of personal visions of the human condition. By founding a play on conventions derived from the classical or medieval tradition, a playwright is enabled to embody a view of character as fixed or in process, of life as determined or free. By combining conventions, he is able to ascribe theatrically fruitful ambiguity to the human condition, and to find a vehicle most admirably suited to his own view. This may or may not be particularly useful to Ms. Bunn--I hope it can be. I remember be greatly impressed by the book when I first read it. I return to it from time to time and continue to find it arresting. Nick Clary (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 13:06:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: characters with character Dear Professor Hawkes, I am confused. When you claimed that Cordelia cannot develop because she isn't a real person, I felt a great emptiness somewhere in me. I realized that, for years and years I had mistakenly thought that the people (whoops! characters) I had been reading about shared with me deep longings and hopes. Suddenly, I found myself alone among pasteboard emblems. The contact I'd thought I'd had with men and women of times and places far distant from myself vanished, and I realized my awful aloneness in the world. I began to question whether the images I had in my mind of the people around me (whom I thought I knew) might be equally false and flat constructs. In the end, I came to understand that even my own knowledge of myself is faulty and is, in fact, the creation of a character. With this heavy burden of falseness and emptiness on my soul, I walked in the dark along the muddy Ohio, seeking in the shimmering reflections some solace for my terrible solitude. In the end, I drowned myself and am now washing slowly along the bottom toward Louisville. Fortunately, since I am a character, all this hurt far less than one might expect. Still, in my muddy wanderings, I wonder whether there might not be more to life than flatness and historicity. What do you think? Soggily yours, James "Driftwood" McKenna (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 12:34:42 -0500 Subject: Cordelia To Pamela Bunn-- First, let me encourage you to keep doing what you're doing--ask questions, try to learn as much as you can--even when crusty old literary types sit around and lie in wait for eager students like yourself to ask questions so that they can jump at you in order to build themsleves up and tear you and your teachers down. Second, the problem I think you're running into in ACTING Cordelia is that it is relatively impossible to play two emotions at one time. In fact, it's relatively impossible to play emotions. Try concentrating on what it is the Cordelia is *doing* not feeling. What is she trying to accomplish by her statements? whose behavior is she trying to affect? How does she want the whole situation to turn out? All acting is interacting, so if you can figure out what is going on between her and those around her, you'll have some pretty big clues. Most of all, however, (and watch the literary types jump on me for this one) don't allow yourself to get too caught up in the thematic content of the play, except insofar as it helps you understand the play and it's situations. Themes are best left up to directors to communicate--actors work in the moment-to-moment relationships. Best of luck--and don't ever stop asking questions. Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf College pinnow@stolaf.edu (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 94 17:25:05 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0477 Cordelia We are all deeply indebted to Terence Hawkes for alerting us to the remarkable discovery that fictional characters aren't real people. Imagine! Surely none of us could have come to this deep understanding of the ways of literature unaided by his pompous pronouncements. It is no doubt true that modern theories are often imposed on works which were not designed to accommodate them. It is also true that any modern actor who chooses to play Cordelia solely in terms of her emblematic value to the play as a whole will be out of a job in a big hurry: and rightly so. My advice to Pamela Bunn is fairly simple. It is impossible to play "hurt" or "disappointed" or whatever. A character who has been hurt wants to appear that she wasn't hurt, or she wants to change the behavior of her adversary, or she wants to make the person who hurt her feel guilty, or perhaps she wants something else: these are playable, because they represent what the characters WANTS. The fact of the hurt is simply background. As I tell students repeatedly (some might say ad nauseum): Play the right verbs, and the adjectives and adverbs will take care of themselves. I realize that this is a paper, not a performance. Still, I'd take a long look at what Cordelia really WANTS, the obstacles she must overcome, and the tactics she employs to overcome the obstacles and achieve her objectives. Is this straight from about the third day of Acting I? You bet! But it's there for a reason. What I urge Pamela NOT to do is to construct long character histories involving manifold suppositions that are not supported directly by the text. These work fine for (many) modern plays, but not (at least in my experience) for Shakespeare. If the information is important, it's right there for you. If it isn't there, it's pretty much irrelevant. (Obviously, there are exceptions -- some knowledge of what was expected of a princess, for example, is important. What she had for breakfast or whether Goneril used to pull her hair isn't.) Above all, I urge approaching the character in her own terms -- if you're doing a character study, either for stage or page, the function of your character within the framework of the play is irrelevant to your purposes. [N.B. I am NOT suggesting that this is irrelevant work, merely that it is irrelevant to the project at hand.] I've rambled long enough. Send me personal e-mail, Pamela, if you'd like to discuss this at greater length. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine M Gordon Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 18:32:25 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Cordelia Well, here I go, blowing all my radical credentials, achieved over time with much energy and cost. When I read a work of literature, or see a play, I do so to learn more about what it is to be human. Thus the marks on the page (the signs in the semiotic universe) do, in fact, become real for me in their own way. Not perhaps as real as the students in my classroom, my family, my friends; yet real enough so that when an actor brings one of them to life on stage or screen, I might be moved to experience real emotions of my own in response to her or his performance. The stories are what made me fall in love with literature as a child: I became the characters about whom I read. The stories, and the characters who inhabit them, are what still attract the majority of undergraduates whom I teach and advise. This is not to say that I/we don't deal with the other issues that Terence and others have raised, since literature is much more than simply the stories (that's what reading groups are for, I tell prospective majors). Nonetheless, if it weren't for the stories, I wouldn't be here. (And good riddance, I hear a few voices saying; but I want us all to be part of the enterprise, even as we argue.) Affectionately, always, Chris Gordon (8)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 10:38:38 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0481 Re: Cordelia; Comedy Dear all, For a change, I think that we are ALL perfectly right and relevant about Pamela Bunn's question. For a change, I agree with Terence Hawkes, when he reminds us that there is no set and established psychology in a literary character, and I would add, especially in drama. If there was such a thing as a set psychology implied and imposed for a given character, where would be the pleasure,challenge and art of acting? There would be no performance, only liturgy, though I know many specialists of liturgical studies who would not agree with this comparison... Terence is right as he makes the point that no woman of flesh is on the page, or is prescribed by the text, whatever text is chosen, and *Lear* is a text with lots of problems. The character is, I think, an interface between the written text, the reader of the text, and the theatrical interpreters, stage-directors, dramaturgs and performers... and to make it more complex, the spectators. This conception of the character is interesting because it makes the character a potential, an open figure, and it also provides barriers: the chosen text is there to make sure it is not thorough improvisation. A character does not fully exist until it is enacted on a stage, or at least until we readers try to put the pieces together to make it live in our brains. So I think we all are right, but it does not mean that we shall ever agree, but is there any alternative in this postlapsarian, sublunary world? Sublunarily and postlapsarianly yours, Luc ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 09:26:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance; Deaf Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0485. Thursday, 2 June 1994. (1) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 09:58:22 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (2) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 14:21 ET Subj: Deaf Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 09:58:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance As part of a larger study of how the body is foregrounded in Shakespearean performance, I'm interested in getting information about the use of nudity (or partial nudity) in recent Shakespearean performances. I've already included Zeffirelli's *RJ*, Branagh's *Much Ado*, and Greenaway's *Prospero's Books*, as well as Marowitz's *Hamlet* and the LePage *MND* at the National. Other examples I might include? I've not uncovered (ahem) any critical work on this topic--have I missed something? I would appreciate any information, references, anecdotes. Just keep the Bottom jokes to a minimum. Cheers, Douglas Lanier University of New Hampshire (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 14:21 ET Subject: Deaf Shakespeare A bright, resourceful, hard-working and very ambitious deaf student just starting out in our graduate program wants to do a project on presentation of Shakespeare texts to deaf audiences. He's a sometime actor, and has had some practical experience, signing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He knows of no effort by any deaf company to perform Shakespeare, supposing that they have been intimidated by the sheer verbal complexity of the texts. I heartened him, I think, my calling attention to things like the Marowitz collage and Fred Kurchack's one-man adaptations, and to such translations across languages, cultures, and media as the Kurosawa films. At any rate, although the project may eventuate in a deaf performance of some kind, we want to start in the usual scholarly way with a survey of the published resources, and would be very grateful for networkers' suggestions, not only about deaf Shakespeare per se, but relevant work in the semiotics of drama and translation. Mere references can be sent directly to me; I can imagine that some of you have ideas about it that would interest many SHAKSPERians and should be sent to Hardy. Dave Evett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 09:33:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0486 Re: Shakespeare Concordances Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0486. Thursday, 2 June 1994. (1) From: J F Knight Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 17:33:46 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0477 Concordance (2) From: Balz Engler Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 09:32:07 +0200 Subj: SHK 5.0477 Concordance (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Wednesday, 1 Jun 1994 17:33:46 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0477 Concordance Many thanks to Hamlet Godshalk for his note about the on-line concordance which I for one will certainly be having a look at. Belated thanks also for his note about the new King John bibliography. Of course, the chances of it being marketed in Australia are close to zero. Just remind me, Bill, where can I find it on-line? From JF (I don't have any character either) Knight (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Balz Engler Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 09:32:07 +0200 Subject: SHK 5.0477 Concordance Re: Shakespeare Concordances Having done extensive work with Shakespeare concordances, I should like to put in a good word for good old Bartlett, which (apart from electronic ones) I have consistently found the most useful. He may have omitted some collocations, he may have made some mistakes (try to imagines his Victorian card index), but he actually gave some thought to what he was doing, unlike the computer. Bartlett therefore lists various forms of the same verb under the same heading. He has entries for phrasal verbs. Computer concordances, on the other hand, do not list words, just combinations of letters. You may find Bartlett in your library, unless they have removed it in the mistaken belief that computer-generated concordances have made it obsolete. Balz Engler engler@urz.unibas.ch ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 09:40:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0487 Re: Cleopatra's Retreat; Light and Heat Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0487. Thursday, 2 June 1994. (1) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 11:56:58 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0480 Teaching *Ant.* (2) From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 11:45:06 -0500 (EST) Subj: Heat and light in speeches (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 11:56:58 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0480 Teaching *Ant.* Dear David, You ask why Cleopatra pulls away at Antioch. I'm not really sure, but I have a feeling that it has to do with balance of power, and her position as a widow. Widows (I'm told) had a position of some freedom in early modern society, falling in the interstices (so to speak) between positions as daughters or wives in which they lost their independence to men. No doubt there are some good feminists on the list who can tell me where this originates, and how I'm perverting it in my repetition. Anyway, this curious borderline position only exists if Antony is held at a slight distance. If he actually wins and becomes emperor, he'll no longer have to rely on her for support; she'll be able to be recognized as his queen, but will hold a subordinate position as his vassal. If he actually loses, of course, it's equally game over. Cleopatra must maintain a balance of power between her and Antony in order to maintain her independent power of action. The idea of a balance, not coincidentally, is also suggested by the relation of Octavius and Antony--the empire only functions if both remain strong. When Antony neglects his duty, the empire almost falls to Pompey, and has to be taken over by Octavius, filling a vaccuum, as it were. The empire, like the relationship, has its ideal structure when neither Antony nor Octavius rules, but they both maintain a dynamic balance. Anyway, that my $0.02 worth. Cheerio, Sean Lawrence MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 11:45:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Heat and light in speeches When Ophelia insists on the honorableness of Hamlet's love for her, noting that he "hath given countenance to is speech...with almost all the holy vows of heaven," her father lectures her: Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter, Giving more light than heat, extinct in both Even in their promise, as it is a-making, You must not take for fire. I wonder why he speaks so tropically here? Can't he be more frank to a daughter whom he has just advised: "Think yourself a baby"? Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 09:31:10 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0488 Qs: Video Question; Conferences on Italian Architecture Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0488. Friday, 3 June 1994. (1) From: Mike Young Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 22:31:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Video Question (2) From: Francesco Sforza Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 94 17:34:51 CEST Subj: The Italian Theater Building (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Young Date: Wednesday, 01 Jun 1994 22:31:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Video Question After going through all the messages about Video that piled up over the last two weeks (been on personal business and a trip to New Brunswick), I have a question. Does anyone know about a video of a stage production of Midsummer Night's Dream done in Boston a few years ago? It was shown about 1991 to those of us at the Ohio Shakespeare Conference when it was held at Bowdoin in Maine (That's a long story, none of which involves upsidedown maps, to be told another time). The PBS station that had done the tape used us as a test audience. Anyone I spoke to about it liked the tape but I have not heard of it since. If someone can give an update on the video I would appreciate it. It would have come in handy last term when my class had a lot of questions about staging Shakespeare. Thanks, Michael Young (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Francesco Sforza Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 94 17:34:51 CEST Subject: The Italian Theater Building CONFERENCES ON ITALIAN THEATER ARCHITECTURE I am thinking of proposing to several architecture and theater departments two-hour conferences about the book I wrote. I would also like to hold short seminars (4-5 days) for architecture students. For these seminars, the help of an interpreter will be crucial. I can speak in English and answer to possible questions with the help of a person which speaks both Italian and English. Do you think that you may be able to suggest me mail and e-addresses of architecture and theater departments to which I may submit such a proposal? If presented to the Italian Ministery of Foreign Affairs by a foreign institution, this project may find support, as plane tickets and lodging costs. Thanks in advance. arch. Francesco Sforza via di Villa Ricotti 6 00161 Roma tel.fax 39 6 44238680 (please contact me by E-mail: I'm not on the list) [If you are interested, you may also contact Francesco Sforza for description of the book, which I have deleted from the message I received. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 09:42:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0489 Re: Character and Cordelia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0489. Friday, 3 June 1994. (1) From: Bill McRae Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 10:40:46 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Cordelia and Character (2) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 12:00:11 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Reading Character (3) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 14:51:20 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0484 Re: Cordelia and Character (4) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 3 Jun 94 11:30 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0484 Re: Cordelia and Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill McRae Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 10:40:46 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Cordelia and Character Terence Hawkes tells us in *Meaning by Shakespeare* that "Shakespeare doesn't mean: *we* mean *by* Shakespeare." Christine Gordon speaks of her reading Shakespeare in similar instrumental terms. The debate over character seems to turn on precisely this question of instrumentality; the plays are our instruments. We ought to pay attention to that fact, for its political significance carries--dare I say it--powerful moral consequences. How we use Shakespeare is how we use ourselves. As a sidebar to all this--has anyone thought of the ways this debate evokes the problematics of the cyber world? Have a conversation in a MOO sometime to see just how plastic the notion of character is, how easily character elides "real life" and "virtual reality." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 12:00:11 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Reading Character Being fairly new to the SHAKSPER conference, there seems to be a history behind the exchanges between Hawkes and Godshalk's gaggle of supporters that I'm not aware of; but I doubt that Hawkes, in his remarks to Pamela Bunn, was intent upon swatting down some poor, questing student. What I felt was his exasperation at her teachers for neglecting the training of students in matters of literary CONVENTION--i.e. literary education itself--and replacing it (in the name of making them better people) with a pretense at cultivating human compassion. I hope my students are compassionate, but I do not believe attempting to turn literature into a means of social control (even for the most laudable ends) can result in anything more than moral saws and shallow, self-congratulatory treatises. ANY hypothesis about character, however, is merely a critical construct anyway, applied for the sake of organizing critical attention toward this or that set of details. The hypothesis that characters can be thought about rather in the same way we think about living beings results in the sort of thing I read once claiming that since all upper-class English children were wet-nursed, King Lear, being upper class, was denied nursing by his own mother, resulting in his current rage to capture and nurse upon his most beloved daughter. But more to the point: the "real humans" hypothesis leads one to interpret in terms of the most powerful current popular obsessions, so that rather than getting CLOSER to the humanity of other times and peoples, we are actually getting further away, replacing their intellectual constructs with our own. This is NOT the path to multicultural understanding, but the ethno- and chrono-centric annihilation of cultural difference. But too preachy. I hate my tone here. The fact is, I will do ANYTHING to grasp and convey a moment in the poetry. Love to you all, and cheer up Pamela Bunn, wherever you are, Lonnie Durham (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 14:51:20 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0484 Re: Cordelia and Character Dear all, I've been enjoying the discussion about the ontology of characters. A couple of days ago I borrowed a book from the library called *Character as a Subversive Force in Shakespeare*, by a man named Bernard Paris (are you out there, Prof. Paris?). I have yet to read much of it, but the title got me thinking. If character is entirely emblematic of, one supposes, what the theatrical traditions demand, then can we ever really learn anything from a play? Don't we end up doing something analogous with the more decadent forms of Freudian or archetype criticism, reading a book to find out how it is essentially like all other books everywhere? Nietzsche once observed that most men read not to learn, but to confirm what they already know. The reason that such readings don't quite function, IMHO, is that we are called upon to, or seduced into sympathizing with literary characters. No doubt this all sounds very romanticist, but isn't that essentially why we read, as a form of, or at least simulacrum to, communication? We construct another subject out there, in the novel or play or whatever, and recognize it as somehow like ourselves. This is why its actions can shake us up, why we do not (hopefully) dismiss it like the two-dimensional criminals and politicians we are presented by the popular press. I can't help thinking that the only way in which literature can call upon us to question our own prejudices and bigotries is by presenting characters that possess enough sympathy to draw us into their apparent subjectivities. Shakespeare seems particularly good at doing this. Even if we do not admire a Hotspur or a Falstaff (depending on our politics) we cannot simply dismiss them if we listen to them speak. Enough of my out-dated rambling, Sean Lawrence. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 3 Jun 94 11:30 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0484 Re: Cordelia and Character Dear Professor McKenna, Did you perhaps -like Lady Macbeth- really faint? (That'll be $500.00 please). T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 09:56:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0490 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0490. Friday, 3 June 1994. (1) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 10:48:58 -0500 Subj: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (2) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 09:23:51 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (3) From: Douglas Green Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 12:25:05 +0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0485 Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (4) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 94 17:04:00 edt Subj: RE: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (5) From: Katherine West Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 09:00:23 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 10:48:58 -0500 Subject: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance To Douglas Lanier-- Several years ago I saw a production of *Lear* at the Missouri Rep. in Kansas City that used a nude Fool (take that phrase however you like). Although my first reaction was "hmmm interesting" it turned into "What is the Point?" by the final curtain. You may be able to find a review or two in the Kansas City papers. It would have been the fall of 91. Best of luck. Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf College pinnow@stolaf.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 09:23:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Other nude productions: there was a ravishing T&C that the RSC did around 1973, at a time when everyone in the company seemed to me gorgeous; costumes consisted only of the briefest of g-strings for the men, though Helen had some nice drapery much of the time--the company was very sexist in those days. The problem, however, was that Nestor and Ulysses also had to be naked, and that seemed a little unfair--one felt the oldies-but-goodies deserved something as glamorous in the way of clothing as the bodies of the kids. I remember feeling by the end of the performance that it was really the costumes I liked about theater. S. Orgel (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas Green Date: Thursday, 2 Jun 1994 12:25:05 +0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0485 Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Regarding Douglas Lanier's query about nudity in Shakespeare, there was much ado in the 70s about Polanski's MACBETH for its nude sleepwalking Lady M. and other scenes. Douglas E. Green, green@augsburg.edu / (612) 330-1187 Campus Box #13, English Dept., Augsburg College, Minneapolis, MN 55454 (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 94 17:04:00 edt Subject: RE: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Doug, Perhaps someone can tune you into a recent Othello at Center Stage, Baltimore. Desdemona is more less in the nude in the final scene (she wears her sheet). I couldn't decide if the nudity increased the sense of her vulnerability and the precariousness of her situation. For me it was a very powerful scene, but I wonder if it also didn't distract by playing on our voyeristic tendencies. It may or may not be an issue, but the play was directed by a woman, Center stages artistic director, if I recall correctly. The play was set in the 50s (Othello dressed in a marine uniform, Des wears Jackie O style fashion). As I recall the director said she believed the 50s was the last time a woman's chasity could be considered critical. E-mail if you wanna know more. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Katherine West Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 09:00:23 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance The current RSC production of _Merchant_ at the Barbican includes a brief scene of partial male nudity. The production is set in the late 80s/early 90s business world (with sounds of modems, faxes, computers, etc). As Shylock realizes that Jessica has left, a disco-type dance is occurring behind him on the set, with a male in a g-string flaunting his bare bottom amid the crowd of dancers. In theory, this would have made an interesting contrast to the seriousness of Shylock at this moment in the play. In practice, the performance I saw was a matinee with 90% of the audience from school groups; it took them almost 15 minutes to get over the excitement of this dancer's bare bottom, and they doubtless missed many important parts of the play. The nudity was effective for more mature members of the audience, but should have been left out of matinee performances with mainly student audiences. Hope this helps! Katherine West U of Toronto kwest@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 10:19:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0491 Re: Light and Heat Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0491. Friday, 3 June 1994. (1) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 13:39:29 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0487 Re: Light and Heat (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 16:11:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0487 Re: Light and Heat (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 13:39:29 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0487 Re: Light and Heat I've heard it suggested that Polonius is speaking from the position of his own experience; when he was a young man, he chased skirt aggressively, and assumes that Hamlet (and Laertes, by the way) will do likewise. If so, then he might be unwilling to speak too directly of his own favourite sort of sin. It's too close to home. Cheers, Sean Lawrence. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 02 Jun 1994 16:11:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0487 Re: Light and Heat Nick Clary raises an interesting point. If "light" is associated with knowledge as Spevack claims, and "heat" with "vehemence, games, and disposition," then Polonius's "blazes" that give "more light then heate" (1.3.118 Folio, THREE-TEXT HAMLET) seems contradictory. I would expect "more heate then light" but both Quarto and Folio have this form. Harold Jenkins (Arden ed.) does not gloss the line. The Furness Variorum isn't much help either. Could Polonius be punning on "light" as "sensuality" or "levity"? Maybe I'm the only one who's puzzled. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 13:45:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0492 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0492. Saturday, 4 June 1994. (1) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 10:19:53 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (2) From: Jay Edelnant Date: Frifsy, 03 Jun 1994 14:06:19 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Nudity in Shakespeare (3) From: Michael Friedman Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 15:43:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: [Nudity] (4) From: AL Cacicedo Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 1994 0:35:18 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0485 Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (5) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, June 4, 1994 Subj: Nudity in Performance (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 10:19:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance To Douglas Lanier, When Ian McKellan played Edgar to Robert Eddison's Lear in 1974, in a production by the short-lived Actor's Company that played in Brooklyn, he stripped to the buff when he transformed himself into Poor Tom; then, before the hovel, Lear upended him (and his loin-cloth) to demonstrate how man was a forked animal. Also, you will no doubt remember the sleep-walking scene from the Polanski Macbeth which, perhaps not incidentally, was produced by Playboy Films. Cary M. Mazer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jay Edelnant Date: Frifsy, 03 Jun 1994 14:06:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Nudity in Shakespeare The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis did a very revelatory MND in the early to mid 70s with the fairies in costumes made of a strand of string. Frank Langella played Oberon and was later replaced by Len Cariou. I believe it was not directed by Michael Langham. To put some spin on the use of nudity, the "chorus" of fairies was composed of young men and boyish young women all of whom wore only the string in a kind of G-string, wrapped over one shoulder effect, with some green and silver body make up but bare breasted and bare from the rear. From very close up, it was almost impossible to know the gender of the actor four feet in front of you, which caused some concern among my students. The costumes were so flimsy that (on a tour of the wardrobe area) we were shown life-sized cardboard clothes hangers over which the web-like string were hung for storage because one of the actors had dropped one during rehearsal and no one could figure out how to get it back the way it was supposed to be, a la a cat's cradle tangle, or so the story went. As I recall, Tovah Feldshu was an intern in the company and played one of the fairies. The production was under fire from the local authorities and was nearly closed, it was reported. Jay Edelnant (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 15:43:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Nudity] Doug Lanier, In Barry Kyle's 1978 RSC production of *Measure For Measure*, Barnardine appeared stark naked, at least in the early performances of the production, according to Graham Nicholls in *Measure For Meaure: Text and Performance*, p. 74. Nicholls doesn't say why a change was eventually made, but perhaps someone on the list will know. See also Philip McGuire's *Speechless Dialect: Shakespeare's Open Silences*, p. 66. Michael Friedman FriedmanM1@jaguar.uofs.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: AL Cacicedo Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 1994 0:35:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0485 Nudity in Shakespearean Performance To Douglas Lanier: The ART, in Cambridge, MA, did a *Lear* a couple of years ago in which Poor Tom was entirely unsophisticated by clothing. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, June 4, 1994 Subject: Nudity in Performance In late 1990 and early 1991, The Shakespeare Theatre, then at the Folger, put on a fascinating *Othello* that opened with Othello (Avery Brooks) and Desdemona (Jordan Baker) in bed with Desdemona's nude back to the audience. The production, directed by Harold Scott, was not as interesting for this opening scene with nudity that clearly established the sexual nature of Othello's and Desdemona's bi-racial relationship as it was for its casting of Iago and Emilia with African-American actors. Iago was wonderfully portrayed by Andre Braugher, soon after his performance in *Glory*. Emilia was played by Fran Stewart Dorn, one of Washington's finest actresses, who moves between The Shakespeare Theatre and Arena Stage to ply her significant talents. I believe Scott had a trial run at Yale Rep with at least Brooks, Jordan, and Braugher at the end of the previous season. Hardy M. Cook Bowie State University HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 17:33:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character, et al. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0493. Saturday, 4 June 1994. (1) From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 13:07:12 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Character, Nudity, and Comedy (2) From: Jean Peterson Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 13:41:59 -0400 Subj: Character (3) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 13:22:50 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0489 Re: Character and Cordelia (4) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 11:49:58 -0500 Subj: Cordelia and Character (5) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 22:38:42 -0500 (EST) Subj: Terence Hawkes and Lady Macbeth (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 13:07:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Character, Nudity, and Comedy W. B. Yeats, who learned a thing or two about poetic drama, defined personality as "blood, imagination and intellect running together." Neither Cordelia, nor any other of Shakespeare's dramatis personae, has blood, imagination, intellect, or flesh for that matter. They are indeed not alive. But they pretend that they are. Lady Macbeth talks about her nipple and her child; Dogberry boasts about his pretty piece of flesh. Performers are very much alive. They lend their bodies and voices, their blood, imagination and intellect, to the collections of words and implied actions which constitute all that remains for us of Shakespeare's (or any other expired playwright's) dramatis personae. Half-serious suggestion for Doug Lanier: connect your interest in nudity in performance to this current flap about "character". A partially naked performer can call spectators' attention to the bodies that performers have, and not-alive "characters" do not. (Partial nudity may be more interesting, because more dramatic, than total nudity.) Edgar reserves a blanket, and Lear, apparently, doesn't succeed at tearing *all* his clothes off. As to the query a while back about an essay on comedy: I'll be immodest and plug my own book. *Laughter, Pain, and Wonder* explores the relations between comedies in performance and their audiences. It would, I think, be a good supplement to a course dealing with comedy in performance. Cheers--and let us all keep our shirts on-- David Richman University of New Hampshire (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 13:41:59 -0400 Subject: Character It seems that there is a general tendency to approach character from two mistaken, anachronistic assumptions: -- that personality, identity, subjectivity, "self" are unchanging essences, and mean the same things in Shakespeare's era as they do to us now --that the theatrical practices and acting methods used now, BASED on current concepts of personality, self, etc. are also unchanging, and were the same methods used in the Renaissance theater But if one accepts new historicist arguments that "subjectivity" in the early modern period was radically different from what it is now, the picture becomes vastly more complicated, and the incongruity of using "Stanislavskian" concepts of character, motive, interiority, etc., to speak of early-modern characters becomes apparent. For many actors, directors, and theater people, this incongruity seems an insurmountable obstacle--because these ways of thinking about character are the only ones they know. Actors are USED TO thinking about the motives, impulses, desires and inner thoughts of the developed psychological entities they call characters, and it is disconcerting to be told that these things didn't exist, not in the forms and ways that they do now. What does all this mean for theatrical practice? I think (to use an earlier example) that to tell an actor: "Play the anti-theatrical prejudice" or "Play the conflict over court advisors" is to give him/her an impossible task. BUT WHAT IS POSSIBLE is for directors, actors, designers to develop a set of theatrical signs that will bring those conflicts to life on stage--a road less traveled, but well worth exploring. OK, Terence--you've got me curious. DOES SHE FAINT? C'mon, spill! Jean Peterson Bucknell University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 13:22:50 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0489 Re: Character and Cordelia Dear Rick Jones: Thanks for your thoughtful, intelligent and temperate reply to my posting about Hawkes's reply to Pamela Bunn. You are absolutely right; I WAS looking past Ms. Bunn's queries toward an old (and continuing) academic controversy. Some of us old Engprofs are like fire horses--strike a particular bell and we're off with the bit in our teeth. I, for one, admit myself entirely unqualified to comment upon the training of actors. The only tutoring of that kind I've ever had was from Prince Hamlet--something about not sawing the air with your hands or arms (or paws or anything you got now) [quote from a song called "All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir," just in case you have never heard that delightful piece]. I have, though, seen enough Sh'n theatre by now to feel comfortable that my readings of the plays at least ENVISION staging, and as we both know, every dramaturg and director must begin with the text and go on to be a teacher of dramatic conventions to his-her cast (which is, as in every learning space, a two-way street). I think we probably agree also that the chemistry of a particular production is entirely unique and mysterious. I have been to stagings that failed for being too iconic, and to others--of the same play, of course--that failed for being too naturalistic (for want of a better term). But it isn't a matter of BALANCING the two tendencies, is it? Every production must create the terms of its own world, and make that world artistically coherent, whatever it happens to be. That is, don't you agree that it makes no sense to criticise a Noh play for being "too conventional"? Nor, I would argue, does a production become more relevant by pointing toward some preoccupation of the contemporary media. To be entirely candid, though, and perhaps a bit cynical, I suspect that every two decades or so there appears (for whatever reason) an enormously influential production which gets imitated ad nauseum until the next revolution of the wheel of fashion. To believe at ANY time, then, that we are FREE of convention and therefore closer to "real life" is largely, if not entirely, delusional. I remember going to a production in Chelsea that starred Jonathan Price as Hamlet. Rather than have the ghost appear as a separate character, they chose to have Hamlet's father's spirit "possess" the prince, indicated by a dramatic shift in vocal quality (after considerable squirming rather like the transformation scenes in the old Jekyll-Hyde movies). After a bit of this, I realized they were "quoting" one of the most commercially successful films of the period, "The Exorcist." Finally--and I think this was my real point in the Shaksper posting--literary education's main task is to point up the pervasiveness and persistence of convention in ALL media, and to try to define both the form and the source of those conventions, not only as an academic activity, but as a form of cultural awareness, because the most virulent strains of political and commercial manipulation are those that appeal to our desire, especially in the U.S., to be a new, naked Adam and Eve in a new Paradise, unfettered by the corrupt conventions of the Old World. Ask any undergraduate about the interpretation of a passage and he or she will invariably answer, "It's up to the individual." Well, enough. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to share this rant with the conference. Cheers to you, and again, thanks for your gentle chidings of my indifference to Ms. Bunn's concerns. Lonnie (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 11:49:58 -0500 Subject: Cordelia and Character Lonnie Durham writes that Terence Hawkes was trying to question Pamela Bunn's teachers about teacher her literary conventions. If that is the case, then I wholeheartedly agree--every actor should have a grasp of the Shakespeare from the literary point of view. It is an indispensable tool for uncovering the actions of the characters. However, Ms. Bunn's class was on *Performing Shakespeare* and that is another matter. A matter where character does exist--at least in the mind of the audience member(forgive my existentialism). In that case, all the literary knowledge in the world will not save you if you don't have a firm grip on acting as the fundamental set of skills for the task. Durham concludes: The fact is, I will do ANYTHING to grasp and convey a moment in the poetry. To which I reply: The fact is, I will do ANYTHING to grasp and convey a moment in the *PLAY* Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf College pinnow@stolaf.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 22:38:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Terence Hawkes and Lady Macbeth To all Shakespeare detectives, why is Terence Hawkes so obsessed with MACBETH TLN 884-5 (Folio)? He seems to think that some fainting is involved. Lady says: Helpe me hence, hoa. And Macduff: Looke to the Lady. Did Terence Hawkes really say "really faint"? I don't see any reference to any fainting in the text. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 17:40:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0493 Re: Light and Heat Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0494. Saturday, 4 June 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 15:13 ET Subj: Hotter and Lighter (2) From: Ronald Moyers Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 16:24:26 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Light and Heat (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 15:13 ET Subject: Hotter and Lighter Bill Godshalk is confused about Polonius' use "more light than heat" in 1.3 because, as I tried to suggest in the note that initiated this little eddy, he's applying Spevack's gloss as though it were an iron law and not an observa tion on a general pattern of usage. There are contexts in which the normative connotations of metaphoric "heat" and "light" are not appropriate: some discussions of love among them. Love enjoys the dark; true love is warm, as various citations attest, but especially Leontes' reaction when he takes Hermione's hand(a reaction associated in the next two lines with another elemental activity). Polonius is warning Ophelia against something that looks like love, that flares and dazzles, but that does not sustain (you might recall here how tactile images as well as visual ones become urgent when Romeo transfers his affections from Rosalind to Juliet)--people who build fires know that it's the pile of glowing coals that really heats the room, not the initial blaze of tinder and bark. Dave Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Moyers Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 16:24:26 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Light and Heat Bill Godshalk, Hibbard, in the single-volume Oxford Shakespeare, provides the following note on ll. 117-20: "Compare the proverbial saying, 'The bavin burns bright but it is but a blaze' (Tilley B107)." The suggestion seems to be that Polonius thinks the "blaze" of Hamlet's passion to be impetuous and short- lived ("extinct in both/Even in their promise as it is a-making"), emitting a burst of light but lacking the sustaining heat/warmth of fire/love. To the possible enriching "light" puns of "sensuality" and "levity" can be added light as revealer of appearance: that his "green girl" mistakes the *appearance* of love for a deeper passion. --Ron Moyer, Theatre, Univ. of South Dakota ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 17:45:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0495 Re: Video Question Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0495. Saturday, 4 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 22:19:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0488 Qs: Video Question (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 23:22:43 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0488 Qs: Video Question (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 22:19:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0488 Qs: Video Question For Michael Young Herb Coursen, RR2 Box 5210, Brunswick, Maine 04011, is the person to ask. I remember watching that video, and it was excellent. As I recall, there was some problem with copyright. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 23:22:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0488 Qs: Video Question Re: ART *Dream*: Herb Coursen, who arranged for the showing of the ART pro- duction at Bowdoin in 1991, writes about this version in his book *Watching Shakespeare on Television* published by Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1993 (Chapter 2). The Peter Hall *Dream* recently resurfaced and is available from Classic Drama Video, among others, for about $20. Bernice W. Kliman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 17:54:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0496 Re: Signed Shakespeare; Philosophers Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0496. Saturday, 4 June 1994. (1) From: Michael Field Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 13:05:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Signed Performances of Shakespeare (2) From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 17:50:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: References to Philosophers (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Field Date: Friday, 3 Jun 1994 13:05:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Signed Performances of Shakespeare David Evett might want to contact Bill Brown or Sam McCready at Shakespeare on Wheels at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. They have used a deaf interpreter as an integral part of their productions (in the play, rather than outside of it) for some time now. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Friday, 03 Jun 1994 17:50:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: References to Philosophers Dear Colleagues: Other than the three references each to Aristotle and Machiavelli, does any-one recall any other refereences? Thanks in advance. Matthew Westcott Smith ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 22:26:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0497 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0497. Sunday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: Mark Anderson Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 15:14:04 -0400 (EDT) Subj: [Authorship] (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 09:29:36 +1000 (EST) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Anderson Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 15:14:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Authorship] Fellow Shakespeareans-- I am one of the 600-odd "Stratfordians" from Mr. Cook's recent census who would just like to add one bit of information to the discourse. Ms. Nina Green, a researcher in British Columbia, has done some incredible work which I hope interested parties will consider spending a postage stamp to look at.She is an English teacher who has, among other things, compared Edward de Vere's vocabulary and style (in the letters and poems) with that of Shakespearean and apocryphal Elizabethan Literature. One recent example is her study of the Shakespeare lexical vocabulary compared with that of de Vere. For instance, she applied Elliot Slater's Shakespeare Rare Word test to de Vere's prose and found that 27% of the time de Vere wrote with "Shakespeare Rare Words" (words found less than a dozen times in Shakespeare). It should be noted that Shakespeare employed these so-called Rare Words with a similar frequency. She found de Vere coining many words before the OED claims they came into being. (More than once do we find de Vere's writings using words Shakespeare supposedly coined years later.) And her discovery that the overall Shakespeare and de Vere vocabularies overlap by 95% is especially interesting when you consider that the number of lexical words in the Shakespeare canon still only constitutes less than a tenth of the OED. Ms. Green's work is not an end in itself, but it asks and begins to answer some of the most interesting questions that I have seen in Elizabethan Literary research today. Since this posting will undoubtedly have the "Authorship" flag affixed to it, many SHAKSPERians didn't even read this... er... tripe. (?) For those who did, though, I recommend sending a postcard to Ms. Green asking her to send along her newsletter. (The Shakespeare/de Vere lexical vocabulary issues are Numbers 57, 58 and 59.) Her address is: Ms. Nina Green Edward de Vere Newsletter 1340 Flemish Street Kelowna, BC V1Y 3R7 Canada I'm sure she'd appreciate a few dollars to cover Xerox and postage costs, but from what I understand such donations are not necessary to receive the Newsletter. Enjoy. --Mark Anderson (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 09:29:36 +1000 (EST) Subject: Authorship I hope the editor is willing to accommodate a couple of responses to points made last week in support of the Stratford claim: 1. The matter of the canopy in Sonnet 125. Not having canvassed the heterodoxies quite as assiduously as Dave Kathman, I confess I didn't know that the Derby-ites had made a similar claim for their man; however it doesn't surprise me. The royal canopy, a rather weighty contraption no doubt, was normally carried by six nobles anyway, but the fact that carrying it was a designated duty of Oxford's exclusive hereditary position as Lord Great Chamberlain arguably gave it a special significance for him. I was more surprised by Dave's insistence on a metaphoric reading for the canopy in the sonnet. He is obliged to try this one on, of course, because nobody but A. L. Rowse (or perhaps Marchette Chute) could imagine a circumstance in which Shakspere of Stratford would have been bearing a real ceremonial canopy. But I really don't think the metaphoric reading will wash. Yes, I know there are metaphoric canopies elsewhere in Shakespeare, but metaphoric function is defined by context: the metaphoric force of Hamlet's 'most excellent canopy, the air' is thus clearly defined by the apposition. Equally clearly (I'd have thought) the canopy in the sonnet is a literal one. Here's the poem for those who don't have it to hand. Were't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all and more by paying too much rent, For compound sweet forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent? No, let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul When most impeach'd stands least in thy control. Dave Kathman's reading of the first two lines (that the poet is 'asking whether it would make any difference if he did elaborate things for his nobly-born young friend, such as bearing a canopy...') could only be sustained if there were an 'if' after 'me' in the first line (and also, surely, 'a' instead of 'the'). But there's not. The statement 'I bore the canopy' is, I'm afraid, irremediably declarative. This is what he did, not what he might do. The question is: Did it mean anything to him (the poet)? Hell, no! he says (with the wisdom of a life spent in court politics), I've seen what happens to people who get so fixated on their public image and their prospects of advancement ('dwellers on form and favour') that they sacrifice the joys of personal relationship ('forgoing simple savour'). If I'm going to be an obsequious functionary for anyone, it may as well be you. Now this doesn't seem to me a particularly strained reading. I honestly can't see how else it can be read. I admit I don't understand the final couplet, and I don't know whether 'la[ying] great bases for eternity' is metaphoric or a second literal ceremonial act: I suspect the latter, but can't identify it - yet!). In any case, what could any of this have had to do with Will Shakspere of Stratford? Answer: nothing. (By the way, I'm persisting in my spelling of the Stratford man's name, not to annoy Dave Kathman, or even to make a point, but simply to avoid confusion). 2. In response to Tad Davis, I for one am happy to tackle, head-on, the matter of Oxford's death in 1604. I hope I can do so without being tiresome. The general point to make is very simple: there are no records that tell us when *any* of Shakespeare's plays were first written or first performed. There are records that tell us when some of the plays were first printed and published; and there are some records of performances (none of them known to be first performances). Oxfordians believe most of the plays were first written and performed in the 1580s, and subsequently revised in the 1590s and early 1600s; and there is no documentary evidence I am aware of that renders this impossible. The fact that much scholarly effort has been expended on dating the plays, and that a broad consensus exists is, frankly, neither here nor there. All dominant paradigms generate work, and they all, by definition, command apparent consensus. It doesn't make them true, though it can make them hard to shift (at least until they collapse under the weight of their own internal contradictions). The idea that human knowledge advances in a linear, incremental fashion, by the patient accumulation of detail, is a fiction, long recognised as such. That's a description, rather, of how dominant paradigms (e.g. Stratfordianism) are elaborated; it's also how oppositional paradigms (e.g. Oxfordianism) are developed, within the limits imposed by their marginality. I really don't think it's a good idea for Shakespearean scholarship to pretend it's not subject to the wider dynamics of knowledge-production in the world. A few specific comments, finally, on the six factors Davis thinks should be taken into account when attempting to assign dates to works: 1. Topical references. Few, if any of these have ever been conclusively 'pinned down' in Shakespeare's plays. History is teeming with people and events, and you can find *at least* as many plausible topical references in the 1570s and 1580s as in the later decades - many more, in fact. (See Eva Turner Clark, _Hidden Allusions in Shakespeare's Plays_). I know that particular arguments have been advanced to connect _King Lear_ and _The Tempest_ with events or documents from after 1604, but these have been persuasively refuted, in my view. Generally speaking, the striking fact about topical references in Shakespeare's plays is that there *seem to be* so few of them by comparison with the works of his contemporaries. Why is that, I wonder? 2. The 'broad pattern of theatrical fashion' over Shakespeare's career. This is surely very nebulous, and largely premised on Stratfordian assumptions about the nature and chronology of Shakespeare's career. 3. Records of printing. As argued above, these are simply not relevant to questions of composition and first performance. 4. References to the plays. Again, to be useful, wouldn't these have to indicate whether a given performance was a 'premiere'? I know of none that do. Henslowe's diary is no use for Shakespeare in this regard. 5. Internal patterns of development. *Notoriously* determined by subjective assumptions about the author and lots of other things, as any textual scholar will attest. (See Schoenbaum, _Internal Evidence and Elizabethan Dramatic Authorship_) 6. Patterns of influence. Notoriously ambiguous as to the direction of influence. Even if a significant connection can be established between two texts (e.g. _The Winter's Tale_ and Greene's _Pandosto_), how do we know who influenced whom? I think I've probably said more than my allowance for this time. I'll leave the matter of being a 'practicing theater person' to another day. Pat Buckridge. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 22:41:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0498. Sunday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: Milla Riggio Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 20:43:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character, et al. (3) From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 1994 19:10:02 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Baby Cordelia (4) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 18:50:01 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 20:43:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character, et al. Jean Peterson is obviously correct when she points out that the individual self changes over time and because of feedback from the environment. If we didn't change, we'd still be gurgling babies, and, perhaps to make up for our stasis, we'd live forever -- or until the sun burnt out. But the harder question to answer concerns the new historicist claim about "early modern subjectivity." What are the new historicists actually claiming? Are they claiming that the human brain has evolved radically over the last 400 years? Or are they more simply claiming that a woman in 1600 would think about herself differently than a woman in 1994? If the latter, then the answer seems to be an obvious "yes" and not worth arguing about. Borges made this point years ago. Or are the new historicists arguing (an old argument) that there has been an historical discontinuity that makes "us" different from "them"? That we can't genuinely understand the Tudor tyranny of Henry VIII? Or do the answers to my questions all depend on the new historicist you talk to? Or are the new historicists making an entirely different point about "subjectivity"? I am genuinely interested. Can these questions be answered without new historicist jargon? And a philosophical defense of representational art is Kendall Walton's MIMESIS AS MAKE-BELIEVE (Harvard, 1990). Walton claims that he has changed his thinking somewhat, but basically his argument is the same. None of us has to apologize for defending character and character development in a play. We argue from a firm philosophical basis. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 1994 19:10:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Baby Cordelia I admit freely (though a little defensively) that I study S. primarily as a literary rather than theatrical artist, so I don't presume to advise an actor on her approach to Cordelia; I do think, though, that categorical statements on the uselessness of constructing personal histories for fictional characters tend to narrow the range of possible readings, and for no reason other than to encourage a consensual or "closed" interpretation. The Elizabethan expectation of 'Lear' may very well have been emblematic, and may have been experienced on that level, but the late-twentieth century audience is simply not interested in recreating a remote, historical dynamic when they plunk down their thirty bucks. Luckily, the writing is of a calibre that is almost director-proof: Gloucester's blinding can be either a relatively symbolic episode or a special effects gore-fest - in either case the veracity of the text is unimpaired. In 'Lear' especially it seems to me that pre-textual personal histories are not only permissible, but essential; the "The Fool hath much pined away.." line instructs us to fabricate an antecedent relationship between that character and Cordelia, and the interaction of Kent in diguise and Lear is implicitly contrasted with their shared history that ends with the opening of the play. The animosity of Regan and Goneril for their sister cannot be accounted for in the text of the play (though it can, I admit, be surmised), and the exchanges between Gloucester and Edgar/Poor Tom achieve their effect because of the father/son history that we as the audience (okay, as readers) must supply. My point is that the fabrication of a pre-textual history is not the sole province of the actor; surely, in order to allow our emotional investment in a character's fate to ripen - as well as to simply contextualize certain characters' motivations - we have no choice but to invent personal histories. Otherwise, reading is reduced to a sterile examination of theme, structure, and social history. The single most striking feature of S.'s writing for me is his psychological realism; to squander that resource on a theatrical reconstruction whose sole redeeming feature is its historical authenticity is to say to the theatre-going public, "Stay home, folks. You haven't the anthropological background to understand the arcane event we are presenting here tonight for other academes just like ourselves." I'm grateful that my introduction to Shakespeare was through his characters, and not through his emblems. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 18:50:01 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character. Thank you Jean Petersen. The attempts to impose twentieth century (or more probably late nineteenth century) understandings onto early modern play scripts almost always result in performances which are dreary and predictable. In fact it's precisely because Pamela Bunn is asking about Cordelia in these terms for a course called "Performing Shakespeare" that I'm worried. Using psychological criteria to make decisions about how to play a character in Shakespeare may very occasionally (and serendipitously) produce interesting theatrical results, but more often there is a confused and non-theatrical image put onto the stage. One technique which I sometimes use with students to try to break them of the habit of psychologism (and that's hard because of the pressures on all of this from film and television) is to compare some drearily naturalistic moments from the (typically) naturalistic and dreary BBC Richard II with moments from the (for me) much more exciting and theatrical Mnouchkine production. Mnouchkine's approach to that play was that there was NO psychology in the role of Richard, and no more in the other nobles, and her production was clearly not the product of a literary mind. I had hoped that the psychological approach to Shakespearean character study and performance had passed its use-by date, but alas it still appears to be cluttering up the shelves. But unfortunately the theatre profession, including its teaching, tends to be conservative, perhaps because many of the practitioners learn skills rather than techniques for acquiring skills. Adrian Kiernander akiernan@metz.une.edu.au naturalistic ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 23:20:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0500 Re: Signed Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0500. Sunday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: Peter Novak Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 16:37:17 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Deaf Shakespeare (2) From: Pete Guither Date: Sunday, 05 Jun 1994 14:59:17 CDT Subj: Re- Signed Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Novak Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 16:37:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Deaf Shakespeare Dave Evett, Unfortunately, your graduate student is correct that there are very few productions of Shakespeare in ASL. The reasons are many. The National theatre of the Deaf recently performed what we might call a "spinoff" of *Hamlet* entitled *Ophelia* which was, I believe, produced in tandem with the Pilobolus Dance Company. I did not see it but have read favorable reviews. In the entire 25 year history of NTD, they have never performed a Shakespearean play, perhaps because of the difficulties of translating an oral/aural language into a visual/gestural one. However, realize that 90% of the National Theatre of the Deaf's audience is hearing and not all of their plays are performed in ASL. Repertory companies usually hire interpreters to interpret a play during a season, but the task of interpreting Shakespeare is formidable. Many times, interpreters will attempt to listen to the actors to gain some understanding of the performance rather than from an understanding of the text itself. Interpreters are paid very little and lack the time and resources to do justice to the plays. However, there are some examples of theatres incorporating Deaf actors and some ASL into plays. In the mid-1980's at the La Jolla Playhouse, a production of *The Tempest* starred Howie Seago (a well-known Deaf actor) as Caliban. Last summer, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival (I believe??) produced Pericles with poet/actor Peter Cook in the title role. The National Technical Institute of the Deaf in Rochester, NY as well as Gallaudet University in D.C. have also produced Shakespeare by Deaf actors and for Deaf audiences. They will have specifics of their seasons. I have done some interpreting/translating of Shakespeare and would be very interested in discussing this with your student. The creative possibilities and inherent problems of the process yield a fascinating result. Let me know if he would like a videotape of ASL version of a scene from *The Tempest*. I think he would like it very much. Peter J Novak PNOVAK@SCUACC.SCU.EDU Santa Clara University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pete Guither Date: Sunday, 05 Jun 1994 14:59:17 CDT Subject: Re- Signed Shakespeare The 1993 Illinois Shakespeare Festival featured a production of Pericles with a deaf actor in the lead role. The concept blended with the fact that Pericles is a traveller, a stranger in strange lands with all sorts of cultural barriers. Peter Cook, a deaf Chicago-based actor, played the title role and signed his entire performance. Equity actress Margo Buchanan played Gower, and this role was expanded so that she was on stage almost the entire time as observer/narrator/chorus, and she spoke Pericles' line as Peter signed them. (so us sign-impaired audience members could understand) Sometimes she blended in the background and other times became part of the action (as when Pericles is washed up on shore and rescued by the fishermen, Gower became a rustic fisherman who happened to know Pericles' "language" and could interpret for the rest. Characters in Pericles' family and from his homeland both signed and spoke when communicating with Pericles. The production was directed by Doug Finlayson who has some experience in regular signed and shadow signed Shakespeare performance. Peter Cook spent considerable time developing the signing for the role, using a combination of American Sign Language, English Signing and other sources to translate the poetry of the language into a poetry of movement. It was quite beautiful. He even used a couple of Russian signs when it was necessary to display subtle effects. The effect of the production was quite remarkable and very well received. One point of interest. During rehearsal, before Peter was off book, there was a problem having him sign with a book in his hands, so we got an opaque projector and projected the script on a screen with the Assistant Stage Manager moving it along (sort of like a teleprompter). We also did a couple of performances for hearing-impaired audiences with the remainder of the lines shadow-signed (rehearsed interpreters in dark clothing on stage following the action and signing to the audience. There should be some more about this production in an upcoming edition of the Shakespeare Bulletin. Pete Guither, General Manager Illinois State Theatre Illinois Shakespeare Festival ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 23:05:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0499. Sunday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 20:53:42 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Film, Video (2) From: Robert O'Connor Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 15:58:50 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0492 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (3) From: J F Knight Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 20:36:41 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0490 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (4) From: Vinton G. Cerf <0001050002@mcimail.com> Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 94 13:22 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0490 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (5) From: Balz Engler Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 20:57:10 +0200 Subj: SHK 5.0492 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (6) From: Pete Guither Date: Sunday, 05 Jun 1994 15:14:13 CDT Subj: Re- Nudity in Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 20:53:42 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Film, Video While some of us are on the subject of film and video productions, back in the seventies sometime I saw in London a film version of *The Tempest* directed by Derek Jarman. Miranda was "topless" as they say and wore (I think) a grass skirt. She was constantly teasing Caliban and then dancing away as he tried to embrace her. As I recall, the closing and opening credits were accompanied by Cleo Laine singing "Stormy Weather." I had heard that the British Film Board, who financed the project, refused to allow it to be exported once they viewed the finished work. Has anyone out there news about the fate of this poor orphan? I'd really like to hear. Cheers all, Lonnie Durham (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 15:58:50 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0492 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Dear Douglas Lanier, Apart from the infamous Polanski *Macbeth*, I have seen several productions of 'The Scottish Play" which featured full or partial nudity. One performed in Perth, at the University of Western Australia in 1985 (which, it was claimed, was based on a similar interpretation at the Edinbirgh Fringe a few years before, but I don't know about that) had all three witches appear nude to Macbeth at their initial meeting, and later during their summoning of the apparitions, and Lady Macbeth likewise appeared nude in the sleepwalking scene. There was some attempt, using makeup and _very_ small scraps of material, to make the witches appear sexLESS, but nonetheless it caused quite a stir. The production tried to represent the witches as the old maiden-mother-crone trio, with some success; interestingly enough, when they cast off their cloaks the more obvious differences between them disappeared, and I was lead to believe at the time that this was intentional. It was the stage debut of the girl playing the 'maiden' witch. She had not informed her first-night attending parents of the scope of her role. It made the after-opening party interesting! Robert O'Connor Australian National University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 20:36:41 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0490 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance The Bell Shakespeare M of V had the opening dialogue between the male venetians set in a gay bathhouse. They wore towels, sort of. It was neat because it makes sense of Antonio's loan "for love" to Bassanio in the first place. There was a strange Sydney production of Macbeth I remember seeing in 1971 or 1972 where all the cast wore transparent gauze gowns and nothing else; performed at the Students Union at Macquarie University. The whole thing played, I seem to recall, as a ritual black mass. The recent Sydney Theatre Company Titus featured a huge amount of male flesh. There are probably several others - the theatre scene in Sydney is very big on nakedness. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Vinton G. Cerf <0001050002@mcimail.com> Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 94 13:22 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0490 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance About two years ago, the Shakespeare Theatre here in DC carried out a performance of Othello. The opening scene showed Avery Brooks as a very compelling and powerful Othello in bed with his very blond Desdemona. She is sitting upright, facing towards the back of the stage and in a relatively darkened scene, he disrobes her (only her back is visible) and as they merge the bed is pulled stage back and disappears. It was a powerful scene although I recall thinking that it seemed somewhat gratuituous. Vint Cerf (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Balz Engler Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 20:57:10 +0200 Subject: SHK 5.0492 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance I remember a production of *King Lear* by Peter Zadek, one of the great directors of German theatre, at the Bochum Schauspielhaus in (?1974) in which Lear carried in the dead Cordelia naked. It was a stunning moment. Nakedness worked perfectly as a metaphor for innocence. Balz Engler engler@urz.unibas.ch (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pete Guither Date: Sunday, 05 Jun 1994 15:14:13 CDT Subject: Re- Nudity in Shakespeare At Illinois State Theatre this past Spring, we did an experimental production based on Macbeth which contained some brief nudity. I should emphasize that this wasn't truly Macbeth, but a production based on Macbeth. The cast and director spent close to a year working together and exploring the text, the issues, and the images and relating them to issues that they wished to follow further. The production used Shakespeare's lines (although only a small portion of them) and was heavily based on imagery. It was an ensemble approach with each of the actors playing Macbeth in various stages of his state of mind and the actresses playing Lady Macbeth in the same way (using masks to show who was currently Macbeth/Lady Macbeth). It focused heavily on issues of violence in society, personal responsibility, and evil. The ending was much more ambiquous than Shakespeare's ending, the witches looked like batty, frumpy, maiden aunts and acted as amused observers rather than driving any actions, and the use of multiple actors in roles gave a different perspective to the characters. Back to nudity. Lady Macbeth (hoisted up by the other actors dressed in black and lit by the candles they're holding) rips off her top in the speech (Come, you spirits...Unsex me here...Come to my woman's breasts...etc.) Also, there was a rain curtain upstage, and at one point Macbeth is dimly seen nude standing in the rain curtain, which is lit deep red, washing the blood from himself. I think the production succeeded in some areas and failed in others, but the audience seemed to appreciate it (heavily student audience and the show had an almost MTV-like pace - ran 1 and one half hours). To me a big part of the excitement was in doing it at all. There's a luxury available to Universities to try new things and explore texts in a different way that I think is important. Pete Guither, General Manager Illinois State Theatre Illinois Shakespeare Festival ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 23:45:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0501 Hollywood Bard; Light; Concordance; Philosophers; Legate Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0501. Sunday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 94 17:46:11 CDT Subj: Hollywood Bard (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 20:48:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Light and Heat (3) From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 94 20:56:54 CDT Subj: Spevack concordance (4) From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 14:14:24 +0100 Subj: Re: Philosophers (5) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 05 Jun 1994 15:46:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: The stately legate of the Persian King, Once More (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 94 17:46:11 CDT Subject: Hollywood Bard Dear SHAKSPERians: There's a movie which just opened Friday (at least here in the U.S.) called *Renaissance Man*, in which Danny DeVito plays a guy who gets a job teaching Shakespeare to new recruits on an Army base. He gets them into the Bard by such techniques as having them do a rap version of *Hamlet* (one of the recruits is played by rapper Marky Mark), and apparently there's one scene where one of the recruits recites Henry's St. Crispin's Day speech from *Henry V* to their incredulous sergeant. I haven't actually seen the movie --- I gleaned the above from several reviews I read. These reviews were negative but not scathing --- apparently the plot is fairly predictable --- but it sounds like it could be interesting for the folks on this list, especially those who teach Shakespeare for a living. If anybody out there has seen the movie, or plans to, maybe they could post a review. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 20:48:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Light and Heat Thank you, Dave Evett and Ron Moyer, for clearing up my confusion. I should have checked Hibbard. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 4 Jun 94 20:56:54 CDT Subject: Spevack concordance If anyone is still looking for the Spevack concordance, I've seen two at the Seminary Coop Bookstore in Chicago. Phone: 312/752-4381 or 312/752-1959, 5757 South University Ave., Chicago, IL 60610. Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 5 Jun 1994 14:14:24 +0100 Subject: Re: Philosophers Matthew Westcott Smith asks if we can find other references to philosophers other than Aristotle and Machiavelli. Matthew, what do you exactly mean by 'reference'? do you want ONLY the philosophes *named*, or others just alluded to, or would you also be interested in the titles of their works or the use of their best-known concepts if we encounter such information? It would extend the search quite a lot. There is quite a lot of platonist or neo-platonist allusions, many in the sonnets, and especially concerning love. In a collaboration with others, Shakespeare was involved in a play on a philosopher: Sir Thomas More, though More was not involved as philosopher but rather as statesman. I can't find if the Cicero in *JC* is THE Cicero, and I don't have the time and annotated editions to check it here at home. I'm interested, so I will try to find others. If you only want the names mentioned, use a concordance, but beware of homonymies, which may be the case for the above-mentioned Cicero... If I may venture a very poor joke, you have the rape of Lucrece, which a French student of mine once thought was an episode of the life of Lucretius, since the woman and the philosopher have the same name in French: 'Lucr\ece'... Weather's fine down here, but student papers are on my desk; I will take them to the balcony, where I can face the task with less boredom and greater equanimity, which is a good thing for the students. I'd rather go to the beach, but duty calls and deadlines kill my philosophical headonism from time to time. Enough with self-pity. Fare ye well, Philosophically, Luc (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 05 Jun 1994 15:46:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: The stately legate of the Persian King, Once More A few weeks ago, I asked if anyone could help me find an historical basis for the following lines in THE TAMING OF A SHREW: "As was the Massie Robe that late adornd/The stately legate of the Persian King" (Scene vii, 46-47, Bullough, Vol. I, p. 85). Although I received several suggestions, nothing immediately surfaced. A few days ago, I read the following in David Bradley's FROM TEXT TO PERFORMANCE IN THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE: PREPARING THE PLAY FOR THE STAGE (Cambridge U.P., 1992): "In ALPHONSUS, KING OF ARAGON, the lords in Act IV are sent as 'Legats to god Mahomet', and recall a visit from 'the stately legate of the Persian King'" (p. 256, note 21). I don't own a copy of Greene's aplay, and rushed to the library to get one. I found the first line quoted (Malone Society reprint, line 1232), but now that I have read Act IV three times I say with some confidence that "the stately legate of the Persian King" is NOT there. I have skimmed the rest of the play several times, just in case: no Persian legate did I find. Now, the question is: Did Bradley import the reference to the stately Persian legate from A SHREW? Or is it from another play? If the simile is from another play, we may have a dating argument for A SHREW. I've tried to find Monash University (Bradley's academic home) on gopher, and it's not there. Does Bradley have e-mail? Does anyone have his e-mail address? Or, heaven forfend, must I send him a letter on PAPER? I am, of course, hoping that Bradely can clear up this little problem. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:07:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0502. Monday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 12:42:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean P (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 10:05:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (3) From: William Russell Mayes Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 11:06:40 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (4) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 10:49:50 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 12:42:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean P Dear Douglas Lanier, I understand that there was a Wilson Knight production of King Lear some years ago in Exeter, where he stripped off completely: "Off, off you lendings"(!) He was, I think, 85 at the time. One person I know who saw it was Professor Peter Thompson of the Drama Department at Exeter. Sorry I don't have any more information on that. Also what about Jody Dench's topless Puck in Peter Hall's film of MND, and (of course) Francesca Annis's nude walkabout dream scene in Polanski's Macbeth. Cheers, John Drakakis University of Stirling PS. Keith Hack's 1976 production of Measure For Measure had Barnadine bearing his buttocks to the audience- one of which (Kenneth Muir!) Shook his fist at the actor! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 10:05:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Dear Lonnie, Your message about the Jarman TEMPEST reminded me of the time in summer school that I booked it on 16mm for campus-wide screening. After I pre-viewed it, I had to station guards at the door to prevent earnest young faculty mothers from dumping their children for the afternoon at the performance. We quietly moved the children into another classroom for a screening of the BBC MND, while we adults contemplated the TEMPEST "as seen through the eyes of" Derek Jarman. The latter qualification is important because you can't view this film as it was meant to be viewed if you have the mentality of a policeman alert for violations of the "text." It includes what is surely one of the most revolting scenes ever filmed in depicting Sycorax nursing her Caliban, who is the famous Jack Birkett. On the other hand, in its "open" treatment of Shakespeare's text, it recontextualizes the play for the post-colonial period. I recommend Sam Crowl's Review in SHAKESPEARE ON FILM NEWSLETTER 5.1. (1980): 5+, available in your better university libraries, or from the current editors of SHAKESPEARE BULLETIN. The vocalist was not Cleo Laine but Elizabeth Welch, and Derek Jarman, a committed filmmaker, tragically died of AIDS. There's a moving tribute to him in SIGHT AND SOUND (April 1994). His TEMPEST was a box office failure, so much so that I'm not sure that it can be booked any longer even on 16mm in the United States. Ken Rothwell (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Russell Mayes Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 11:06:40 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance I seem to recall the National Theatre in London doing a WT in 1988 (I think) in which Perdita wore a virtually transparent blouse during Act IV. Not exactly nudity, but close. W. Russell Mayes Jr. wrm2b@faraday.clas.virginia.edu University of Virginia (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 10:49:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0499 re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Re Lonnie Durham on the Jarman TEMPEST: it featured not only a topless Miranda, but a topless and bottomless Ferdinand, who has lost every stitch of clothing in the wreck, and spends his first scene with Miranda entirely naked. The film was intermittently interesting, though Caliban as a Charles Addams butler didn't work for me. I saw it on British tv, and I sort of suspect that it will surface on video shortly, at least in England. S. Orgel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:30:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0503 Qs: Excursions; Essay on the SHAKSPER Fileserver Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0503. Monday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: Robert O'Connor Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 10:43:50 +1000 Subj: Excursions . . . (2) From: Ben Schneider Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 15:57:51 -0600 (CST) Subj: contributions to lists as publication (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 10:43:50 +1000 Subject: Excursions . . . Dear SHAKSPEReans, I am taking the plunge and putting together a proposal for some fieldwork in the UK later this year. Most of the information I need to plan and prepare for the trip is readily available, of course, but I was hoping to get some info off the net that might facilitate things. So, can anyone help me with some addresses? I'm trying to find the e-mail addresses (if they have such) of people at the Bodleian and British Libraries who might be able to help me find out about conditions and facilities for visiting researchers. Likewise, if any of this info is available off fileservers (especially since the most recent info I have been able to get otherwise is two years old) I would appreciate knowing where to get it from. I have done a little net-surfing but didn't come up with anything. This will be my first such excursion; I'm hoping to spend at least six weeks going through pamphlet and manuscript material, trying to put together some idea of the perceptions of manhood in Elizabethan England other than those provided by the likes of Elyot, Ascham and the other better-known or 'mainstream' writers. Any assistance that can be provided would be greatly apreciated! Robert F. O'Connor PS: Any advance notice about conferences, seminars, or performances of plays in southern England around September-October would also be great! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Saturday, 04 Jun 1994 15:57:51 -0600 (CST) Subject: contributions to lists as publication Dear Hardy and interested SHAKSPERians, If material submitted to SHAKSPER has been published electronically may one submit the same material to a journal? Since journals do not publish already published material will they not reject any articles that have previously been sent to an electronic discussion group. How do journals react to such invasion of their monopoly on what they publish? Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu [Dear Ben and Interested Others, Although I consider our daily digests scholarly discourse that may with permission be cited in scholarly writings and documented by volume and digest number, I do not consider essays available on the SHAKSPER Fileserver as published. Here are my reasons. First, the SHAKSPER Fileserver is a service for the members of the conference; it does not in any way purport to be an electronic journal and can only be accessed by members of the conference. Second, the SHAKSPER Fileserver makes available essays of three general categories. 1) Electronic reprints of published essays, 2) Early drafts of papers that eventually may be published (such as SAA Conference papers), and 3) Papers that will probably never be published but that may still be of interest to the members. I'm not sure if the above covers all papers that are retrievable, but I do not see in category two any conflict with eventual print publication. We do distribute early drafts of our work at conferences like the MLA and SAA and we often read them at others institutions. We do this, of course, for feedback. It seems to me that papers available to SHAKSPERean on the Fileserver that are not yet published are placed there in that spirit. I welcome anyone else's response to Ben's question but thought I would go ahead a state my understanding. Hardy M. Cook Editor of SHAKSPER] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:58:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0504. Monday, 6 June 1994. (1) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 13:00:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0489 Re: Character and Cordelia (2) From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 06:56:01 -0600 (CST) Subj: character (3) From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 09:28:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia (4) From: Martin Mueller Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 09:32:53 -0500 Subj: NO psychology in the role of Richard (5) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 15:07:40 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 13:00:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0489 Re: Character and Cordelia The fuss which Terry Hawkes' comments on character has provoked is, of course, entirely predictable so long as Bill Godshalk et al persist in not being able to tell the difference between life and art. Perhaps the way forward is to think of "character effects" in these texts, that is to say certain rhetorical devices from which we can make certain meanings. The real question that arises from this concerns the connection between these "effects" and an extra-dramatic social formation. Hawkes' point is that our perceptions of "character" are anachronistic; universalists such as Godshalk see them presumably as facets of an unchanging human nature. In this Hawkes is the more historical. I suppose the additional question might be: what did Elizabethan auditors think they were seeing when they saw actors on the stage speaking lines of blank verse? Did they suspend their disbelief? Did they say, Ah, yes, a "character"? or what? I still think that Terry Hawkes is right to insist that Pamela Bunns asks for her money back! She's the victim of an educational conspiracy that's too incompetent to recognize clearly its own politics. Right on El Tel John Drakakis University of Stirling (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 06:56:01 -0600 (CST) Subject: character Jean Peterson writes (June 3): "But if one accepts new historicist arguments that 'subjectivity' in the early modern period was radically different from what it is now, the picture becomes vastly more complicated, and the incongruity of using Stanislavskian concepts of character, motive, interiority, etc., to speak of early-modern characters becomes apparent. For many actors, directors, and theater people, this incongruity seems an insurmountable obstacle--because these ways of thinking about character are the only ones they know. Actors are USED TO thinking about the motives, impulses, disconcerting to be told that these things didn't exist, not in the forms and ways that they do now." Bernard Williams, in _Shame and Necessity_, shows that Homer's assumptions about motives impulses, desires, intentions, action and responsibility are a lot closer to ours than has been commonly supposed by scholars who have been reading him with their heads full of christian-cartesian dualism and kantian morality. To have motives, desires, intentions etc. is to have or be a character, right? If expectations about character in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ are not radically different from ours, perhaps we should take another look at new historicist claims about early modern subjectivity. Maybe actors who make common-sense assumptions about the meaning of 'character' are not completely misguided after all? On another matter. John Seabrook reports in the last_New Yorker_ (June 6: "My First Flame"): "Everywhere I went in the newsgroups, I found flames, and the fear of flames. In the absence of rules, there is a natural tendency toward anarchy on the net anyway, and in some stretches I'd come upon sites that were in complete chaos, where people had been flaming each other non-stop, absolutely scorching everything around them, and driving all civilized people away. Sometimes I'd arrive at a dead site long after a flame war broke out; it was like walking through what was once a forest after a wildfire. Sometimes I came upon voices that were just howling at the world . . . " What a remarkably civilized bunch we are on this list. So cheers, all round. Piers Lewis Metropolitan State University St. Paul, Mn. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 09:28:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia Pamela Bunn's query certainly shows what we do with our vacations: correct each other's misapprehensions and methods. I have no doubt that Terence Hawkes is fully aware that actors are made of flesh and blood and also that the plays were written for performance to be acted out [or perhaps recited mimetically, which really boils down to the same thing -- the offering of a near illusion in "current language heightened"] by actors some of whom were aware of the thematic and emblematic structure. Luc Borot's reply a few days ago was temperate and understanding, as is Gregory McSweeney's of today, but what surprises me is an almost complete absence of mention of what CONVEYS the emblems, the characters and feelings associated with them: dramatic poetry. I do feel that we are making hillocks out of molehills as we talk around the topic as we are doing. It is undeniable that actors who bring extratextual personal histories to their roles COULD be doing the script a disservice and that it is often a felicitous accident if what they do also conveys the lines as they are written. I oppose those who find the plays mere "blueprints for production" as much as I oppose those who dogmatically insist that "it's all there already" (among whose numbers I sometimes have to count myself), and continue to hold that actors now have to be trained specifically in responding to a rhetorical script often unlike the quasi-naturalism to which they have become accustomed. John Barton's advice to "see and feel the images" comes very close to the ideal of offering an open reading which is the result of poetic discipline. In short, it's all there but watch how you do it. Or how you hear it. Very often we see performances in which there's less here than meets the ear precisely because the actor felt that there was more here than met the eye. I cannot understand how I can look through my saved files on the Cordelia/character interchange, so fortuitously started by Pamela Bunn, and find so little on the petic solution. A final word: Arthur Koestler in "The Act of Creation" makes satisfyingly clear that a perfect response to such theatrical art is that where the mind is constantly vacillating between two matrices: believing that the actor is a character and knowing that he is an actor, surrendering to an illusion and admiring the skill. Stanislavski's seldom quoted statement that "the chief secret of our art is in producing the desired emotion at the advertised hour" hinges on what is meant by "desired". That meaning is what is likely causing what strikes me as our confusion. PS: And another thing... As a student just remarked to me when he had recovered from his dismay and amazement on reading the Cordelia/character exchange: "I don't know why people are talking about acting as presenting emotions. Acting is not about presenting emotions, not even one emotion, let alone two or three in conflict. Acting is about physical actions, saying lines,looking or moving here or there for particular reasons. Emotions in acting are the results of actions. Actors should not concern themselves with the emotions their characters are experiencing in a given moment or scene. When they do, they become mannered." (Paul Hawkins) Indeed. And the audience is deprived of THEIR emotions when the actor is "feeling" away to herself. We have paid to come and cry, not simply witness tears. The WORDS and their referents are what affect us. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Monday, 6 Jun 1994 09:32:53 -0500 Subject: NO psychology in the role of Richard There is a lot of practical wisdom in cautioning students against assuming that the psychological conventions of the realistic novel are identical with human nature and always appropriate to the interpretation of any Shakespearean character. But the assumption that there is No psychology in the role of Richard II and that by implication we would be better off kissing psychology good-bye runs against elementary facts of the texts. The plays include cases of psychological explanation that require very little translation to fit twentieth-century clinical diagnoses. Richard III tells you in so many words that he will be a bully because he has been a victim, and the little son of Coriolanus is meant to tell you a lot about a family environment that turned Coriolanus into the kind of man we see on the stage. What these and similar cases show is that there are substantial areas of overlap in which the contemporaries of Plutarch, Shakespeare, and we talk about character. If the idea of character development seems inappropriate to Cordelia, it is not because that idea is never applicable to Shakespearean drama, but because Cordelia is a character who does not develop. That is, as it were, the point of her "character," as point that is perfectly intelligible to a reader of the Antigone, where there is a long history of critical disagreement about her "character" or "ethos." Hegel thought she ws the embodiment of ancient undivided ethos as opposed to modern divided character, but Bernard Knox showed in a wonderful essay about "Second thoughts in Greek tragedy," that the corpus of Greek tragedy is full of characters who reason and act in ways that are all too recognizably like ours. Martin Mueller Professor of English and Classics Department of English Northwestern University Evanston IL 60208 martinmueller@nwu.edu 708-467-1065 (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 15:07:40 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia I confess myself a little bewildered by Adrian Kiernander's recent remarks. I certainly grant that my profession (teaching theatre) is considerably more conservative than it fancies itself, but beyond that, I'm baffled. Is the point that: -- modern conceptions of character, theme, etc. are utterly irrelevant to appreciating Shakespeare? So much for his ability to speak to us through the ages if we're not allowed to approach his work even marginally through our own experiences! -- or that we should abandon late-19th century modes in favor of late 20th century modes which are, apparently by definition, correct? -- or that criticism is allowed to adapt with the times but production isn't? -- or that it's OK to say that the greatest playwright ever lived 400 years ago in England, but not that the greatest acting theorist ever lived 100 years ago in Russia? -- or that because post-Stanislavskian acting theory contains/allows some, perhaps even many, excesses, that both post-Stanislavskian and indeed Stanislavskian theory (which is considerably different!) ought to be discarded in their entirety? -- or that bad productions of Shakespeare are all attributable to a quest for naturalism? and good ones are all anti-naturalistic? A little reductive, don't you think? -- or is this simply another version of the prevalent motif in certain areas of academe that the reason some of us act or direct is that we're too stupid to write articles? Grumpily, defensively, but I hope not paranoidly yours... Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 09:57:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0506 Re: Signed Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0505. Tuesday, 7 June 1994. (1) From: Charlie Mitchell Date: Mondat, 6 Jun 1994 15:35:48 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Deaf Shakespeare (2) From: Stanley D. McKenzie Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 18:21:00 +0000 Subj: RE: SHK 5.0500 Re: Signed Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charlie Mitchell Date: Mondat, 6 Jun 1994 15:35:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Deaf Shakespeare For the graduate student looking for deaf Shakespeare references... I recall an all-deaf production of *Macbeth* produced a few years back, I believe, by Gallaudet. It was presented at Ithaca College for the American College Theatre Festival somewhere between 1985-89. It was done entirely in sign with musical accompaniment. Most notable was Lady Macbeth whose visual interpretation for pulling the child from her breast is an eerie image I have never been able to shake. There was an elaborate battle scene as well with the only sounds being the grunts of soldiers and the crashing of swords on shields. Quite jarring. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stanley D. McKenzie Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 18:21:00 +0000 Subject: RE: SHK 5.0500 Re: Signed Shakespeare Although the National Theatre of the Deaf has not done a Shakespeare play, they have done "Volpone" and other Elizabethan dramas. The NTID Theatre (National Technical Institute for the Deaf) here at the Rochester Institute of Technology has done "Taming of the Shrew" (1974), "Romeo and Juliet" (1981), "Tempest" (forget year, but a stuninng production), and "MacBeth" (1987), usually with actors signing with simultaneous voice-over (sometimes by the same actor). Gallaudet's Drama Department has done "Tempest," Othello," and "Hamlet." My colleague Bonnie Meath-Lang at NTID was honestly surprised at the question because there are so many deaf performances of Shakespeare among 200 deaf acting companies around the world, the first in America possibly being a deaf production of "Merchant of Venice" in Philadelphia in 1894 by the All Souls' Working Club. Dr. Meath-Lang recommended consulting the "Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deafness and Deaf People," ed. J. Van Cleave, McGraw-Hill, 1987, under the entries: Theatre, University; Theatre, Community; Performing Arts; and National Theatres of the Deaf. Also, Steve Baldwin's "Pictures in the Air" (1994) has just been published and is highly recommended. Stan McKenzie RIT ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 12:00:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0506. Tuesday, 7 June 1994. (1) From: Leslie Harris Date: Monday, Jun 6 17:27:41 EDT 1994 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 21:36:27 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 21:47:17 -0500 (EST) Subj: Art, Life, the Turing Test, and Universals (4) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 14:12:13 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character (5) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 09:00:27 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character (6) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 10:10:29 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Monday, Jun 6 17:27:41 EDT 1994 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0498 Re: Character and Cordelia Hi, folks. This is my first posting to Shaksper since joining the list about a month ago. I thought I'd join the fray, though (and quite a fray it is), supporting what Jean Peterson said about an Elizabethan sense of the self differing from our notion of the self. I'm not coming to this issue from a New Historicist standpoint, but I do think it is important to recognize that the Elizabethan sense of the self was very different from our own. Our semi-serious adage "You are what you eat" was taken much more literally by thinkers during the Renaissance. The process of digestion was not just physical. According to the theory of the four humors, physiological imbalances could lead to psychological imbalances--to dominant character traits, based on which humor was dominant. This strong link between the physical and the temperamental meant that the self was not seen as distinct from its surrounding environment as we tend to think. The notion of the uniqueness and the originality of the self were also less pronounced during the Renaissance. Shakespeare and Jonson's use of source materials would be considered plagiarism by modern standards. For Jonson, the "centered self" included others within it, whose works and ideas were digested and "turned to blood"--to become a part of our own being. Our notion of the self (and of the influence of others on us) is much less physical. Leslie Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einstein.susqu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 06 Jun 94 21:36:27 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character I find Harry Hill's recent post interesting -- not because I agree with all of it, but in its desire to re-structure the terms of the debate into something we can all agree about. Unlike Mr. Hill, however, I find myself agreeing BOTH with those who see playscripts as "mere" blueprints for production (if they were really intended primarily as literature, wouldn't more of them have been printed in the author's lifetime?) AND with those who say "it's all there already" (I have a great affection for a number of Shakespearean plays I have never seen in actual production, and I suspect I am not alone in this). But I would never say the former in a literature class or the latter in an acting class. That, perhaps, is what separates me from some other folks on the list. I would also point out that not all modern acting theory is Stanislavsky-based (much less *post*-Stanislavsky based), that many (most?) acting teachers and directors, especially those who chose to work with pre-modern texts ("pre-modern" meaning "pre-Ibsen" in theatre terms), understand that meaning is often carried in the poetry, the emblems, even in the sound of the words themselves. I have used one of Cicely Berry's books as a central text in my Acting II course, and confess to having a number of friends in the theatre who consider me hopelessly anachronistic for insisting on a recognition of the forces she explicates. But the emphasis on action as opposed to emotion suggested by Mr. Hill's student is nothing new to *anyone* in theatre: it is indeed the central principle of modern (dare I say Stanislavskian?) acting -- take another look at Timothy Pinnow's or my initial posts on this topic, for example. Both of us talk about forgetting about trying to play emotions and concentrating on actions. Is it coincidental that we're among the perhaps 1% of listmembers who have actually taught acting courses? Neither of us deny for a moment the importance of literary study, but we both realize that actors are pragmatic beasts: playing abstractions is impossible; playing here-and-now motivations can be done. It is, in short, very easy to develop completely inaccurate visions of disciplines about which we have limited knowledge. The common misconception of Shakespeare as dull, dry and irrelevant is well known to everyone on this list. Let me assure my literarian colleagues that precious few *real* acting courses are about "being an ice cream cone", whatever the popular mythology might be. With apologies to all, especially to Adrian Kiernander, for the intermperance of my last post... my reservations remain, but my missive reads much nastier than I had intended it to be. Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 06 Jun 1994 21:47:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Art, Life, the Turing Test, and Universals John Drakakis has accused me of confusing life and art. But this I deny. Indeed, without life there would be no art. For those of us who can muster no belief in a deity, and thus do not believe that nature is the art of god, art is only created by living beings, and some of us would no doubt restrict that creation to humans. Dramatic art is a human cooperative venture. There can be no confusion here. Art depends on life. Without living beings, there's no art, no artists, and no critics. The assertion that art transcends life is only a moderately conforting fantasy. Now, isn't it interesting that the character called "Terence Hawkes" cannot pass the Turing test? This character always says the same thing about character, but when asked a question, never responds. "Terence Hawkes" recurrently asks about Lady Macbeth and fainting. When confronted with a text, "Terence Hawkes" says nothing. Instead, John Drakakis has to step in and tell us what "Terence Hawkes" means. It seems fairly obvious to me that "Terence Hawkes" is a computer. And thus again I distinguish between art (the computer) and life (John Drakakis). And, finally, my universalist argument is limited, but hard to deny. All living mammals have certain common experiences. If they had no common ground, there would be no category mammalia. Warning: I make no further claims. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 14:12:13 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character My point about the Mnouchkine Richard II was not to suggest that this is the only acceptable way of performing that play, but that Mnouchkine, strategically, made a decision to deny the actors the refuge of naturalism and psychological verisimilitude in order to force them to use a search for theatricality as a yardstick, rather than probability. Only too often actors content themselves with solutions which are dull or overcomplicated or so subtle as to be invisible because these satisfy aims in acting that they have been taught are important in terms of psychologism. But what I most object to is the dogma, which I have encountered in many trained and experienced actors and directors, that psychological plausibility, depth, motive and so on are the ONLY way to approach any play from any period, especially if it's by Shakespeare. I would like an acknowledgement that this approach to acting is relatively recent, that it is not ideologically neutral--there's a good essay by Raymond Williams on the ideological basis of naturalism--and that some of the most exciting productions of Shakespeare that I know of have abandoned psychology as a working method. Which is not to say that the audience can't come to conclusions about psychology as they read the performance. In reply to Rick's questions, most of them (especially the final one about directing rather than writing articles) lose some of their force, I think, in terms of what I've said here. I am not saying that there is one (modern) right way of performing Shakespeare, just that the search for essential character traits in the roles is limiting and, when practised almost exclusively, harmful to the student/actor/production etc... and distracts attention from approaches I find more interesting, and that approaches which ignore what some consider to be the core of performance work can be very successful. I would go as far as saying, though, that I can't imagine any Shaekspeare production engaging in a quest for naturalism to have any interest for me personally and that any good productions of Shakespeare scripts would probably have to be aiming in the opposite direction. But given that there's only one naturalism and a wide variety of anti-naturalisms, I don't feel too reductive. Adrian Kiernander akiernan@metz.une.edu.au (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 09:00:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character Harry Hill's student, working from within a classic Stanislavskian paradigm, is absolutely right when he says that "emotions in acting are the results of actions." But if Professor Hill takes that to mean "the WORDS and their referents are what affect us," he should go back and READ Stanislavski until he can understand what his own student means by this. (For a shortcut, and a quick definition of what the student means by "action," he might try Boleslavsky, *Acting: The First Six Lessons*, or anything by Boleslavsky's friend and colleague, Francis Fergusson.) Now, I am not suggesting that Stanislavskian conceptions of character and performance are at all germane to the way dramatic "character" (NOT Shakespeare's word for it) is conceived or structured in the playscripts; I agree with Jean Peterson's warnings about recognizing the historical differences. But if Terence Hawkes is saying that "Shakespeare doesn't mean; we mean by Shakespeare," what contemporary actors mean by Shakespearean character, anachronistic to the scripts though it may be, is character according to a mid-twentieth-century post-Stanislavskian model. Well-trained actors DO know how to use the verse; but if you think people like John Barton, Cicely Berry, Kristin Linklater and others are abandoning Stanislavskian paradigms in HOW they ask actors to use the language, then think again (and re-read, or review the first chapter/program of Barton's book/series *Playing Shakespeare* and see what he means by the "two traditions"). It's our job as scholars and teachers and self-historicizers to understand these differences and to situate our own era's aesthetics. If Professor Hill wants a new "just-speak-the-words" paradigm of acting, let him invent one of his own, let him train his own students, let him fund his own theatre, and may any and all English professors who agree with him go and have a good time, applauding with one hand and patting themselves on the back with the other. I'd rather wait and see what Jerzy Grotowski, Joe Chaikin, Peter Brook, Robert Wilson (God save us), Eugenio Barba and others come up with, and then see what that aesthetic does, equally anachronistically, with Shakespeare. Cary M. Mazer University of Pennsylvania (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 10:10:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0504 Re: Character Hear Hear! again to Harry Hill. If we have any useful role as scholar/teachers in either English OR Theatre, it is to help our students to learn how to read dramatic texts, how to tease the life out of a dramatic text, because that is where good playwrights put it (as opposed to bad playwrights, who tell us about it in their Prefaces and Introductions and Afterwords). Shakespeare's texts do contain psychological truth(s), but they are not presented in the form of predigested "characters," the kind that Strindberg decried in his Preface to *Lady Julie* (incidentally, does anyone know where Strindberg's example, "Birkis is willin'," comes from?). Theatre imitates life by giving us bits and pieces that WE form into an idea of character, just as we do in real life. Harry's student is correct: the actor (et al.)'s job is to present those bits and pieces. Motivations are apparent to, or even guessed at by, the actor as well as the audience only AFTER action occurs. No, Codelia has no character, nor is she emblematic: she is enigmatic, and we play her and watch her to examine and re-examine her mystery, per omnia saecula saeculorum. But to say she doesn't change?? I'm sitting without text at hand (some of us administrative types have to work all [Northern hemisphere] summer), but my students and I spent most of a class session this past semester examining how her speeches late in the play differ from those earlier, how her change in vocabulary and poetic structure suggest the changes that she has undergone as queen of France, out from under her father's oppresive rule. It is from these hints that we know of her development as a character--and they only deepen the mystery of her love for her father. The actor who cannot read these hints will not convince us of these changes, and we will all be poorer for the loss. Great discussion! Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 12:05:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0507 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0507. Tuesday, 7 June 1994. (1) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 14:43:12 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity/Jarman Tempest (2) From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 08:41:40 -0500 (EST) Subj: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 14:43:12 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity/Jarman Tempest In reply to Lonnie Durham, I remember first seeing the Jarman Tempest (and thoroughly enjoying it) at a Film Festival in Auckland, New Zealand, so clearly the film was allowed out of Britain. It also exists on video--I saw it at a library in Cambridge while I was there briefly a few years ago--and I'm sure it's more widely available. Further to the nudity in Shakespeare issue, a production of R&J by the Queensland Theatre Company in Brisbane last year had the two actors relatively briefly nude as in the Visconti film. There were a few complaints but nothing serious, and it's interesting that there was a sense that the complaints were because it was a Shakespeare play. There has been plenty of other nudity on the Brisbane stage, but there are still those around who seem to feel that this violates the sanctity of the Bard and high art. The production was very youthful and lively with suggestions of an excess of male hormone, and the actor playing Juliet, Veronica Neave, did something which I thought very brave, making herself look less attractive than she normally is on stage, using little obvious makeup in an attempt to look and play a very young teenager. It's the first time I've seen a production take Juliet's age so seriously. The production was directed by Aubrey Mellor. Adrian Kiernander (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 08:41:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Reading the Wilson Knight anecdote provided by John Drakakis, I am reminded of an anecdote provided me in the mid-70's by James Redmond, Westfield College Drama department. According to this story, Knight dramatically stripped down to a gold lame g-string toward the end of his lecture on *Timon of Athens*. The performance ended in a flurry of gold confetti the size of coins. Either Knight's performances were several or his single one has gone over to folklore. I sure would like to know more from anyone who was in attendance at one or more of these extravaganzas. Incidentally, I have myself given a performance essay on *Hamlet* during which I read from a prepared text, the rhythms of which were deliberately and relentlessly iambic. To the bitter end, alas, I remained fully clad in tie and sportcoat. Surely my audience was grateful. Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 12:14:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0508 Qs: Titania and Bottom; Naked Hamlet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0508. Tuesday, 7 June 1994. (1) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 00:49:26 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Titania and Bottom (2) From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 10:46:21 -0500 (EST) Subj: character and nudity (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 00:49:26 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Titania and Bottom The other day one of my colleagues seemed startled (if not revolted) at my saying I always had assumed that Bottom and the fairy queen retired to her bower to copulate, and not merely for an afternoon nap, putting Oberon in the peculiar position of having conspired at his own cuckolding. In fact, in my more rabid myth-rit days I used to make much of this intercourse between the beauty and the beast. On the other hand, I jummped a bit myself at one of my student's suggestions that Oberon has sexual designs on the Indian boy. Any comments toward either point? Lonnie (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 10:46:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: character and nudity While working on *Hamlet* this morning, just after reading my SHAKSPER, I found myself musing on Hamlet's letter to Claudius and on the King's reply: High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom, to morrow shall I begge leaue to see your kingly eyes, when I shal first asking you pardon, there-vnto recount the occasion of my suddaine returne. When Laertes asks whether he knows the hand, Claudius replies: Tis Hamlets caracter. Naked.... Hamlet had been astounded earlier at the ghost's appearance "in compleat steele," wondering aloud, "what may this meane." Here Claudius wonders at Hamlet's naked return to Denmark: What should this meane...is it some abuse, and no such thing? Has anyone ever seen a naked Hamlet onstage on in a film? Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 12:18:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0509 Re: Rsc Women's Group Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0509. Tuesday, 7 June 1994. From: Simon Rae Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 12:25:26 +0000 Subject: RE: SHK 5.0442 Re: RSC Women's Group Another (late) response to Sarah Werner's enquiry about the RSC Women's Group .... I showed the original note to Lizbeth Goodman here at the Open University and her response was: "There IS no other information available in printed form about the RSC Women's Group. My information was gathered from RSC Archives at the Barbican (the RSC's London base - Simon) and from interviews and letters. But everyone involved has a different story to tell, a different version of events, and there never was a printed policy or set of stated aims and objectives." Cheers Simon ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 09:57:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0510 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0510. Wednesday, 8 June 1994. (1) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 14:51:35 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0507 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (2) From: Vinton G. Cerf <0001050002@mcimail.com> Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 94 23:07 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (3) From: Balz Engler Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 08:41:18 +0200 Subj: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (4) From: Luc Borot (luc borot) Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 14:07:48 +0100 Subj: Re: nudity on stage (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 14:51:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0507 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Re Wilson Knight in the gold g-string: I saw him do it in Washington, at the Shakespeare meetings in 1976, I think. It was pretty startling. S. Orgel (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Vinton G. Cerf <0001050002@mcimail.com> Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 94 23:07 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance The wonderful typo below from John Drakakis deserves recapitulation: >PS. Keith Hack's 1976 production of Measure For Measure had Barnadine BEARING >his buttocks to the audience- one of which (Kenneth Muir!) Shook his fist >at the actor! Did he carry his buttocks on a silver salver to them or just in his hands? On my first read of this delightful P.S. I thought Barnardine had given names to each buttock, and one was named Kenneth Muir (I bet Kenneth has been called a lot of things before, butt...) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Balz Engler Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 08:41:18 +0200 Subject: SHK 5.0502 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Can anyone tell me what the "discussion" of nudity in Shakespeare is about? Balz Engler engler@urz.unibas.ch (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot (luc borot) Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 14:07:48 +0100 Subject: Re: nudity on stage About nude acting in productions of Elizabethan plays, I was reminded of something that I had heard of when Antoine Vitez died. As I accidentally erased a few messages early this week, this may have been said by somebody else, so I apologize beforehand in case of repetition. Bis repetita non semper placent. I remember that there was a huge uproar about a dozen years ago (if not more) in Paris, at the Theatre National Populaire when director-actor Antoine Vitez played the title role of Marlowe's *Dr Faustus*, and at the beginning progressively emerged in the nude from a wooden cabinet that looked very much like a coffin. I saw photographs of it, but I did not see the production. When Vitez died a few years ago several articles took this as the best token of his personal and intellectual daring. They said that when he had finished emerging from his box, at the end of his speech, he looked at the audience and ran away as in a panic. I think it was an interesting and courageous choice for that play. I could try to otain more information from the Theatre Dept in Montpellier if some are interested; there were certainly reviews in the major papers. Luc Borot Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines Universite Paul Valery ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:07:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0511 Re: Bottom, Titania, Oberon. et al. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0511. Wednesday, 8 June 1994. (1) From: John Boni Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 11:42:33 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0508 Qs: Titania and Bottom (2) From: Ron Moyer Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 17:19:42 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Titania and Bottom (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 21:32:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Titania and Bottom, Oberon and the Indian Boy (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 11:42:33 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0508 Qs: Titania and Bottom I, too, have argued in class that Bottom and Titania sleep together (to use our widespread euphemism). To me, that experience is at the heart of Bottom's wonderful dream--a dream far beyond anything he could have *imagined* experiencing, and thus one that he realizes can be communicated only through a product of the imagination--art. (Peter Quince will write a ballad of it for Bottom.) And, yes, if not a union of beauty and the beast, it most certainly a union of the most gross and the most ethereal. ("Ethereal" does not lack sexual desire.) As to the other query about sexual desire--Oberon for the boy--several of my students over the years have intuited that possibility. Could bisexuality be an element of the ethereal, as Milton has Raphael inform Adam in Paradise that angels may change gender? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyer Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 17:19:42 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Titania and Bottom For Lonnie Durham, regarding Bottom-Titania and copulation. You might review Jan Kott's essay "Titania and the Ass's Head" in *Shakespeare Our Contemporary*. Kott examines MND ("the most erotic of Shakespeare's plays") in terms of variations on love/eroticism and animal imagery, including the comment: "The monstrous ass is being raped by the poetic Titania, while she still keeps chattering about flowers." The program for the Liviu Ciulei-directed production of MND at the Guthrie in 1985 includes a brief quote from Kott and an "abridged version" of a paper by Shirley Nelson Garner that was published in *Women's Studies* (Vol. 9, 1981). The gist of the article is that MND "affirms patriarchal order and hierarchy" by "the breaking of women's bonds with each other and the submission of women, which the play relentlessly exacts." Garner suggests that "Titania's attachment to the boy is clearly erotic" and that Oberon "is both attracted to and jealous of him." The suggestion of the extraordinary sexual prowess of asses is widely annotated and has been frequently suggested in production (e.g., Brook's production, with Bottom riding on fairies' shoulders with a stiff-armed "phallus" protruding between his legs). In the Ciulei production, when Oberon awaked his Queen from the potion, Titania turned, saw the Ass, and screamed, nearly collapsing in horrified humiliation at the realization of her beastiality. It was a splendid coup de theatre that under-scored the dark, anti-female theme in the production. --Ron Moyer (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 21:32:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Titania and Bottom, Oberon and the Indian Boy In response to Lonnie Durham's question, I say, "Yes, yes, yes." MND is filled with kinky sex. Theseus woos Hippolyta with his sword, doing her injuries. Titania and Oberon accuse each other of various marital infidelities. We get the idea that Oberon "likes to watch." He sets Titania up for bestialism, and she goes for it. Gail Paster sees an anal component in: "I will purge thy mortal grossness" (Riverside, 3.1.160). Oberon has pederastic designs on the Indian boy. The Wall episode (5.1.174-205) is filled with anal/oral/testicle suggestions: "My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones." Thisby and Pyramus are talking through Wall's parted legs. This year one of my students told me that Helena and Hermia have had an erotic relationship pre-play. And why not? This play has something for everybody, an omnibus of sex. Don Hedrick read a paper on this topic at the Ohio Shakespeare Conference -- illustrated with pornographic marriage manuals! Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:23:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0512 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0512. Wednesday, 8 June 1994. (1) From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 94 12:14:17 CDT Subj: Character; Freud and Modern Psychiatry as 20C Humor Theories (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 16:39:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character (3) From: David M Richman Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 21:11:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: character redux (4) From: Christine M Gordon Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 21:25:15 -0500 (CDT) Subj: barkis, oberon, character (5) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 94 14:13 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 94 12:14:17 CDT Subject: Character; Freud and Modern Psychiatry as 20C Humor Theories > I'm not coming to this issue from a New Historicist standpoint, but I do > think it is important to recognize that the Elizabethan sense of the self > was very different from our own. Our semi-serious adage "You are what > you eat" was taken much more literally by thinkers during the Renaissance. > The process of digestion was not just physical. According to the theory of > the four humors, physiological imbalances could lead to psychological im- > balances--to dominant character traits, based on which humor was dominant. > This strong link between the physical and temperamental meant that the self > was not seen as distinct from its surrounding environment as we tend to > think. > > The notion of the uniqueness and the originality of the self were also less > pronounced during the Renaissance . . . Leslie, at least in this instance I don't see that the Renaissance was very different from the twentieth century. Does it really matter that we say "repression" where they said "too much black bile"? And has there ever been an epoch that did *not* attribute psychological imbalances (at least in part) to a bad diet? Indeed, I would argue that modern psychiatry (read, "drug therapy) *is* nothing more than a more sophisticated version of the old humor theory (and literal, as well, where Freud's was only metaphorical). Let's also not leave out of our accounts of "early modern subjectivity" Edmund's speech in LEAR: This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spher- ical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an en- forced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore- master man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing . . . (_King Lear_, I.ii) At least someone in the Renaissance (id est, Shakespeare) thought like an essentialist . . . Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 16:39:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character I'm sure there will be gladness here and there that as we near the end of this discussion I find breath poor and speech unable. I hope you may permit my student/colleague/friend these words: `That acting is about action may not, as Rick Jones indicates in his recent posting, be news to anyone in the theatre. But in practice, in theatre departments and the professional theatre, the notion is often overlooked. This is particularly true in Shakespearean performance. Who has not countless times seen actors' truthless miming of emotion in productions of Shakespeare's plays? In an earlier posting on this issue, Kurt Daw mentions that when actors play emblems, they "are apt to appear wooden." But when actors play "characters," and those characters' emotions and impulses, they out-herod Herod. Stanislavskian insistence on *physical action* is thus intensely relevant to the present discussion of character (Cary Mazer seems to deny this). "Character" and its constituent parts ("impulse," "emotion," "motivation")--even if they exist--remain enigmatic, as Jim Schaefer notes (he further suggests the application of this notion to naturalistic as well as to pre-naturalistic texts), and unplayable for an actor, as Rick Jones rightly insists. Only the elimination of the words "character," "emotion," "impulse," --and perhaps even "motivation" (since it, too, is another vague abstraction) --from actors', directors', and scholars' working vocabularies when examining or producing Shakespeare's plays--is this not more or less what Terence Hawkes is advising?--and a consideration of action, whether emblematic or mimetic, will permit the recurrent revelation of the meaning-in-process that these plays can offer, in the study or on the stage. This discussion began with Pamela Bunn's having been asked to describe the emotions Cordelia is feeling in the first scene of *Lear*. She should ask for her money back, but not because her instructors have overlooked Hawkes's "important issues" ("duty, deference, the nature of kingship, etc."). She has been asked to treat an unanswerable question (what is Cordelia feeling?) as if it were answerable. What is Cordelia feeling? An actor playing the part will discover *one* answer (and her audience other answers) if her actions, among them the fluent and graceful speaking of the verse, are right--born of a practical understanding of the action of a scene and its lines, performed with a discipline that eschews mannered emoting. Bravo, Terence Hawkes. Cordelias have no characters. Paul Hawkins (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 21:11:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: character redux What would he doe, Had he the Motive and the Cue for passion That I have? He would drowne the Stage with teares, And cleave the generall eare with horrid speech: Make mad the guilty, and apale the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, A dull and muddy metled Rascall, peake Like John a dreames, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing: Actors who speak this speech so as to catch and hold an audience's attention will immerse themselves in the verse's rhetorical and rhythmical qualities. They will note the alliteration and the near-spondee (two strongly stressed syllables) at "make mad". They will note a long line (six iams instead of five) ending with "I", and they will note that the line immediately following ends with a verb. They will note that subject and verb are separated by nine syllables. Such attention to verse rhythm and structure will help them reach decisions about pacing, pitch, stress, timbre, and modulation. However, this speech explores the complex connections among motive, passion, and action. The speaker probes his inability to speak or act, holding the passionate player up as a sort of contrasting mirror. My point is that concern with the connection between motive and action did not originate with Stanislavsky. Hamlet's would-be performer will do well to comprehend the words, and to apprehend what might compel the speaker to speak those words. Stanislavsky, a great actor who grew tired of stock gestures and speeches learned by rote, tried in his several books to encourage performers to seek the emotional truth of their roles. What does your character want to accomplish? he asked again and again. Such analysis has been vulgarized by an over-dependence on pop psychology, but Stanislavsky's "psycho-physical technique," temperately employed, can be quite useful to performers of Shakespeare. To my mind and ear, even the dreariest of bourgeois naturalism is less deadening than impeccably spoken verse uttered by speakers who have no sense of what compels them to speak. The result is a sort of effete chant. The best dramatic speech is possessed of urgency, immediacy, and I would argue that urgency can be achieved only by performers who understand how and why their characters are impelled--who have grasped the "motive and cue" for passion. I am not a Stanislavskyan. On the spectrum of opinions expressed in this discussion, I am probably closest to Mr. Hill and Mr. Kiernander. Meticulous attention to rhythm and verse structure is at the center of my approach to performing Shakespeare, and I am skeptical of a hot pursuit of naturalism. but I am even more skeptical of speech without urgency, and Stanislavsky provides a useful tool for performers who want to achieve urgency. Is Stanislavsky historically and culturally foreign to Shakespeare? Of course. Shakespeare's company, so far as we know, didn't use electric light either. I wouldn't drown my productions in Stanislavsky, but I would no sooner abandon him than I would abandon electric light. What a useful and stimulating discussion! David Richman University of New Hampshire (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine M Gordon Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 21:25:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: barkis, oberon, character First of all, thanks to everyone who's been in on the character discussion; it really has been wonderful. I feel privileged to have studied Shakespeare over the years with both literary and theater people and have learned much from both; I try to pass along as much as I can to my students. We just had a wonderful time this term discussing (in a class on "Techniques of Literary Study"), Will Shakespeare's *1 Henry IV* and Gus Van Sant's *My Own Private Idaho.* To Jim Schaeffer: "Barkis is willing" is from Dickens's *David Copperfield.* To Lonnie Durham: I've always thought Oberon had some sort of designs on the Indian boy; perhaps "merely" paternal, but I think in this world the erotic possibilities also come into play. And, on a totally unrelated topic, but one I've always wondered about, to my colleagues in the southern hemisphere: are there any holidays indigenous to the south that fall at approximately your winter solstice that are intended to "bring back the light" along the lines of Christmas, Chanukah, winter solstice celebrations up here in the northland? Chris Gordon (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 94 14:13 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character Dear Bill Godshalk, The question 'Did Lady Macbeth really faint?' is one of the issues memorably addressed by A.C. Bradley in his infamous SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY of 1904. Other gems in the same volume include a discussion of 'Events before the opening of the action in Hamlet', strenuous ponderings on such questions as 'Where was Hamlet at the time of his father's death?' and 'Did Emilia suspect Iago?' and musings on the matter of Macbeth's children. I'm sorry, Bill. I assumed you'd have a copy of this by your bedside. I know I do. T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:33:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0514 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0514. Wednesday, 8 June 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 94 17:40:04 CDT Subject: Authorship (sonnet 125) I'm sorry, but I can't resist a quick reply to Pat Buckridge's latest on Sonnet 125 ("Wer't ought to me I bore the canopy..."). Pat still insists that: (1) the first four lines of the sonnet must be taken as declarative, i.e. the poet is asserting that he did in fact bear a canopy, and that (2) this "canopy" must be taken literally, as a canopy borne over royalty. Now, I have no objection if someone wants to interpret the sonnet this way, but to claim (as Pat seems to) that it *must* be interpreted this way seems to me a little presumptuous, and involves ignoring centuries of scholarship and commentary. If you look up this sonnet in Hyder Rollins' 1944 Variorum edition of the Sonnets, you'll find that: (1) the great majority of commentators over the years have agreed with my reading of the opening lines as hypothetical or conditional (e.g. "Would it make any difference if I bore the canopy or laid great bases for eternity to honor you?"), and (2) there has been no shortage of commentators who have seen the canopy here as metaphorical. Now, I'm not, as Pat claims, insisting either that the lines are hypothetical or that the canopy is metaphorical; I'm just claiming that both of these readings are possible and plausible, and that critical opinion over the last two centuries has seen them as such. Anyone is entitled to disagree with this critical consensus, of course (though preferably while acknowledging its existence), but to then insist that this contrary opinion is the only possible correct one, and to base elaborate arguments on it, seems a little presumptuous and disingenuous. I don't see anything in Sonnet 125 to indicate either that Shakespeare didn't write it or that Oxford did. I'll shut up now. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:37:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0515 [was 0SHK 5.515] Re: Signed Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0515. Wednesday, 8 June 1994. From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 94 07:25:44 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0506 Re: Signed Shakespeare Two 17th century texts might be interesting to a student of signed Shakespeare, Bulwer's CHIROLOGIA and CHIRONOMIA. Briefly described by Bertram Joseph in ELIZABETHAN ACTING, Bulwer went out into the streets with an accompanying artist to draw images of how people "spoke" or augmented speech with hand gestures. The illustrations offer delicious reminders of the possibilities of extra-lingual language. For each of his drawings (several hundred, I recall), Bulwer has a Latin title. I've had most of these translated for me, but it is fun to try to interpret the gesture without knowing the ascribed meaning. Ah, kinesthetics! Also, there is a group that has been working at the Joseph Papp NY Shakespeare Festival bringing three or four signers to a few performances at the Delacort Theatre. At one ill-directed production, the physically active signers were much more interesting to watch than the players onstage. (The signers were set off in the audience close to one section reserved for the deaf.) Good luck on your gathering of signs. Sincerely, Steve Urkowitz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:30:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils; Bardolph/Botolph Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0513. Wednesday, 8 June 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 15:38:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Plays that have stage devils (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 22:15:26 -0500 (EST) Subj: Bardolph/Botolph (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 15:38:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Plays that have stage devils In support of a project I am presently working on, I have compiled a list of plays that stage devils, in a more or less continuous acting tradition, from the beginning of English drama to the end of the seventeenth century. My list appears below, excluding cycle plays. Dates are from Harbage, Schoenbaum, Wagonheim, Annals of English Drama. I have benefitted from Berger and Bradford, An Index of Characters in English Drama to the Restoration. I am publishing my list on the network with a request for additions and corrections. My information is especially spotty toward the beginning and end of the time period, but I would be glad for assistance with any part of it. 1405-25 Castle of Perseverance 1450-1500 Mind, Will, and Understanding (The Wisdom That Is Christ) 1465-70 Mankind 1480-1520 Mary Magdalene 1560 Thomas Ingelend, The Disobedient Child 1565 R. Wever, Lusty Juventus 1568 Ulpian Fulwell, Like Will to Like 1572 Nathaniel Woodes, Conflict of Conscience 1574 The Interlude of Minds 1577 Thomas Lupton, All for Money 1578 Thomas Garter, Most Virtuous and Godly Susannah 1588-93 Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus 1589-92 Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay 1590 Robert Wilson, Cobbler's Prophecy 1592 A Knack to Know a Knave 1592 Shakespeare, 1 Henry VI 1596 Fulke Greville, Mustapha 1600 William Haughton (revised by "I.T."), The Devil and His Dame (probably the same as Grim the Collier of Croydon, or The Devil and His Dame, published 1662) 1601 John Day and William Haughton, Friar Rush and Proud Woman of Antwerp (lost, payment recorded by Henslowe) 1602 The Merry Devil of Edmonton 1600-04 George Chapman, Bussy D'Ambois 1605 George Chapman, Caesar and Pompey 1606 Thomas Middleton (?), The Puritan 1606 Thomas Middleton, A Mad World, My Masters 1607 Barnabe Barnes, The Devil's Charter 1608 Samuel Rowley, The Birth of Merlin 1609 Nathan Field, A Woman Is a Weathercock 1611 Thomas Dekker, If This Be Not a Good Play, the Devil Is in It 1611 Thomas Heywood, The Silver Age 1613 Robert Daborne, Machiavel and the Devil 1615 John Fletcher, Monsieur Thomas 1616 Ben Jonson, The Devil Is an Ass 1620 Thomas Middleton and Samuel Rowley, The World Tossed at Tennis 1619-20 I.C. (John Cumber?), The Two Merry Milkmaids, The Best Words Wear the Garland 1619-23 The Two Noble Ladies and the Converted Conjuror 1621 Dekker, Ford, Rowley, The Witch of Edmonton 1622 John Fletcher, The Prophetess 1623 John Fletcher, The Devil of Dowgate, or Usury Put to Use 1625 John Fletcher, The Chances 1631 Ben Jonson, Chlorida 1633 Aston Cokain, Trappolin Creduto Principe 1634 William Davenant, The Temple of Love 1635 James Jones, Adrasta 1635 John Kirke, Seven Champions of Christendom 1637 Thomas Nabbes, Microcosmus 1638 William Davenant, Luminalia 1638 John Suckling, The Goblins 1639 1 St. Patrick for Ireland 1670 William Davenant and John Dryden, The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 07 Jun 1994 22:15:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Bardolph/Botolph In Jasper Ridley's HENRY VIII, I found the following passage: "Botolph did not fall into Henry's trap, so Pate, the English ambassador in Ghent, asked the authorities in the Netherlands to extradite him. He invented a story that Botolph had stolen ornaments from a church, because he thought that they would find this very shocking; but they refused to extradite Botolph." If one is not a rhotic speaker, Bardolph and Botolph are pronounced very similarly. And, of course, it has been argued that Bardolph is a late name change. See, e.g., Bevington's Oxford edition of 1 HENRY IV, 1.2.153. In HENRY V, Bardolph is executed for robbing a church (Riverside, 3.6.101 ff). Is it possible that Shakespeare got the idea of changing Sir John Russil or Rossill to Bardolph because of the historical Botolph? Would Shakespeare have known about this incident? And, finally, has this been suggested before? Or is the suggestion completely off the wall? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 09:07:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0516 ALERT: Internet Virus Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0516. Thursday, 9 June 1994. From: Anthony Korotko Hatch Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 11:56:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Internet Virus Alert ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- From: MX%"esteward@ISI.EDU" 6-JUN-1994 16:23:41.32 To: CORBIT CC: Subj: INTERNET VIRUS ALERT! A Virus has been discovered on Internet that is disguised as CD-ROM shareware. Unknown hackers have illegally put the Chinon name on a destructive shareware file and released it on the Internet. This catastrophic virus is named "CD-IT". -- DO NOT DOWNLOAD. IT WILL CORRUPT YOUR HARD DRIVE. The program, allegedly a shareware PC utility that will convert an ordinary CD-ROM drive into a CD-Recordable (CD-R) device, which is technically impossible, instead destroys critical system files on a user's hard drive. The program also immediately crashes the CPU, forces the user to reboot and stays in memory. Widest dissemination is requested. Frank Potter CSSO ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 09:45:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0517 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performances Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0517. Thursday, 9 June 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 12:17:01 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0510 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (2) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 12:40:19 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Nudity in Shakespearean Performances (3) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 94 15:09:41 CST Subj: Nudity in Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 12:17:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0510 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance re: Q: What is this discussion about nudity about? A: In journalism, it is called "The Silly Season," the dog days when nothing is going on and nothing happens and you still have a news hole to fill between the ads, so you write about things like people with separately-named buttocks. I guess this is what we academics do when we don't have papers to read or a lecture to prepare for tomorrow. Jim Schaefer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 12:40:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Nudity in Shakespearean Performances Since I started the discussion about nudity in Shakespearean performance with my query, and since Professor Engler has expressed interest in what it's about, let me explain. My interest lately has been in how, in the shadow of the Shakespearean text, Shakespearean performances have underlined or foregrounded their "bodiliness" (necessitated all the more by the fact that most audiences have been thoroughly conditioned by film and TV, where performers are not physically present to the audience). Nudity is one way--in American culture a particularly powerful way--to stress the physical presence of the performance, to make it more immediate. And in the case of Shakespeare that immediacy is complicated by our awareness of the text as text, by its rhetorical formality, its historical differences in language, and the sacral authority of that text for most audiences. It's for that reason, I would argue, that nudity in Shakespearean performances functions rather differently from nudity in productions of modern works (say, famously, *Equus*). I got started on this line by wondering about the overwhelmingly negative reactions to the nudity in *Prospero's Books*, which was labelled "gratuitous" by many reviewers (and viewers) and which caused Greenaway no end of trouble in production. (When he went to Japan to process the film using NHK's HD-TV and electronic paintbox technologies, the Japanese labelled the film pornography and went through elaborate legal gyrations to enable him to use the NHK studios.) I'm also intrigued by the charge of "gratuitous" that is levelled at nudity in Shakespearean productions in many reviews, but which is not nearly as often levelled at other elements of production. There is, I think, more than mere prudery operating here--there are interesting issues of the relationship of textual authority to performative "license" (especially the construction of the limits of that license), and of the place of bodily spectacle in Shakespearean production. Nudity in Shakespearean performances seems an interesting limit case for performance theory, particularly because it remains controversial even for seasoned theatergoers. This is why I asked SHAKSPERians for some additional evidence to inform and complicate my thinking on this issues. I thank all that have offered instances and remembrances, and I would, of course, welcome any thoughts about this line of inquiry. And I suppose I need to promise that I won't show up at SAA meetings in my G-string. Cheers, Douglas Lanier University of New Hampshire dml3@christa.unh.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 94 15:09:41 CST Subject: Nudity in Shakespeare This may have been mentioned already, but discussion of Jarman's *Tempest* reminds me of Greenaway's *Prospero's Books*. As a reading of *The Tempest* it seems dubious to me--more self-indulgent (if that's possible!) than other Greenaway films. However, the point of the nudity there was to underline the *naturalness* of the *natural* characters--Caliban, Ariel, &c--in direct contrast to the *civilised* characters--Propsero, Miranda, Ferdinand. Given the post-colonial readings of *The Tempest* as a play partly about colonisation, does Greenaway's reading underscore the savage/civilised binary suggested by the text? And does Jarman, in turn, get away from this binary by having Miranda and Ferdinand nude as well? Does anyone know if Jarman's film is at all available? I think a comparison of Jarman's and Greenaway's readings of *The Tempest* would be worthwhile. Noel Chevalier. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 09:54:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0518 Re: Stage Devils Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0518. Thursday, 9 June 1994. (1) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 16:18:51 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils (2) From: Skip Shand Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 14:04 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 21:03:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 16:18:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils RE: John Cox's search for stage devils -- The listing of Middleton's THE PURITAN is incorrect. There is a fake conjuring of devils, but certainly no devils appear. That is the point of the conjuring scene, I believe. Since the other plays on the list actually have devils appearing on stage, perhaps this one should be deleted? Helen Ostovich McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 14:04 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils It's not a play (perhaps simply because it was written during a plague closure), but Middleton's *The Black Book*, which I've edited for the forthcoming Oxford Middleton, reads like a Jacobean one-man show in which Lucifer rises on the stage of the Globe, tours the underside of London to gather together his most loyal followers, proclaims his last will and testament to them (Piers Penniless is the main benificiary), and departs to hell, again via the stage! The text is very vivid first-person narrative, so much so that I've been tempted to adapt it for performance. John, if you're interested, I could perhaps send you my text/intro/notes-- e-mail me directly if that's of use. Skip Shand (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 21:03:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0513 Qs: Stage Devils Peele's BATTLE OF ALCAZAR (1588-89) has some incidental devils (third dumb show). Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 10:06:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0519 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0519. Thursday, 9 June 1994. (1) From: Rick Jones Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 94 16:41:19 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0512 Re: Character (2) From: Jon Connelly Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 16:43:33 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 20:38:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: A. C. Bradley and Terence Hawkes (4) From: Thomas Ellis Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 22:53:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character, et al. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 94 16:41:19 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0512 Re: Character A response to Paul Hawkins: Surely we all grant that there have been dreadful "naturalistic" productions of Shakespeare. But just because these examples exist does not mean that theatre professionals as a group are less than mindful of basic tenets of their own field. Surely we do not claim that English professors are, as a class, a pack of blithering idiots just because a goodly percentage of what we hear at conferences or read in journals is either self-evident or drivel. I would also argue that such terms as "character", "motivation", etc., do have specific meanings to people in the theatre. The problem is not that the terms are vague, but rather that they also exist as terms of general conversation, and other definitions than the ones relating particularly to theatrical production are often applied to theatre settings. I'm reminded of a former colleague in music to whom applying the term "classical music" to Tchaikovsky represented a gaffe of monstrous proportions: Tchaikovsky was a *romantic*, you see. But to most of us, the man was still a classical composer. Thus, "action" to an actor doesn't necessarily have anything to do with movement or gesture: rather, it means that a character (yes, a character!) must DO something with every line, with every gesture. Those actions are inextricably linked to motivation (a.k.a. intention), which is simply what a character WANTS to achieve in the SHORT term [notice how I carefully avoid getting into discussions of through-lines!], but has only a peripheral relationship to a character's psyche. Sometimes a character succeeds, sometimes s/he fails: either way, the next time s/he speaks (or often before), s/he has adopted a new strategy, based on a new set of short-term desires. In other words, employing the basic tenets of 20th century (or late 19th century) acting theory is not to be equated with an attempt to do psychological naturalism. Finally, I don't think Pamela Bunn was asked to answer the unanswerable. Her post read to me as if she were asking *herself* unanswerable questions, or, rather, approaching an answerable question (how to play Cordelia) from the wrong perspective (playing emotions instead of actions). From the response her post generated, however, one thing is very clear: it was a good question, the kind that too few students ask (perhaps for fear of being treated as Ms. Bunn was by Terence Hawkes). I am left in a state of curiosity, however -- Pamela, did you get anything useful out of all this blather we have generated? Cheers, Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Connelly Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 16:43:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0506 Re: Character Re: Jim Shaefer's query, I don't know anything about Strindburg, but "Birkiss is willin'" sounds an awful lot like "Barkis is willin'," which is from _David Copperfield_ I believe. Jon Connolly, UC Santa Barbara (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 20:38:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: A. C. Bradley and Terence Hawkes In Terence Hawkes's recent attempt to pass the Turing test, he claims to keep a copy of Bradley's SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY by MY bedside -- NOT his bedside. I find this lapse very telling. Thus we can not infer that Terence Hawkes has a bed -- normal for people, but not computers. Also, notice that he does not claim to have READ Bradley's book. He merely mentions titles of appendices, titles that can be obtained by computer connections. I see no evidence of a high programming skill in this response. Whoever is programming the Terence Hawkes Computer needs to work on simulating higher cognitive skills, what we English majors call "thought." Just one idea might make me reconsider my conclusion. Dancing in flames, I remain Bill Godshalk (programmed by Robin Godshalk) (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Ellis Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 22:53:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0493 Re: Character, et al. To Jean Peterson: Your post of 4 June begs some interesting questions: (1) "mistaken,anachronistic assumptions [about character, subjectivity, etc]" Your apposition of "mistaken" and "anachronistic" implies that anachronistic assumptions = mistaken assumptions. But in speaking of language used to describe human experience, can we truly label any assumptions, however anachronistic, as "mistaken"? On what basis? This seems to be a peculiarly postmodern prejudice on your part-- that anachronistic assumptions are therefore mistaken assumptions. (2) While it is true that the essentialist constructs of identity and subjectivity implicit in Stanislavskian concepts of character, motive, and interiority have as little in common with whatever Shakespeare's contemporaries might have thought about these issues as they do with postmodern constructivist assumptions, you are forgetting that "the map is not the territory and the name is noth the thing named." That is, the vocabulary we use to describe our experience is, of course, a cultural artifact, but it does not necessarily follow that the phenomenon to which that vocabulary alludes--i.e. human experience itself--is as culture-bound as the jargon we invent for talking about it. If it were, why would Shakespeare's plays continue to be immensely popular. Remember, Shakespeare did not talk about human experience so much as he portrayed images --not simply of the way people WERE ca. 1600, but also the way people TEND to react in certain circumstances. And this is the foundation of his continuing appeal, is it not? We IDENTIFY with these fictive constructs, even though they inhabit a cultural frame of reference vastly different from our own. Our concepts of identity have changed; we haven't. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 10:09:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0520 CFP: McMaster's University Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0520. Thursday, 9 June 1994. From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 8 Jun 1994 16:28:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SECOND NOTICE: CALL FOR PAPERS CALL FOR PAPERS "Expanding the Canon: New Dimensions in English Renaissance Studies", this year's McMaster University English Association Conference, will be held on November 18, 1994. Scholars are invited to submit papers which rediscover and explore neglected areas of English writings, 1560-1625, such as lesser known dramatic, poetic, and prose works, travel literature, emblem books, women's writing, masques, and popular culture. Plenary speaker: Jean Howard (Columbia). Respondent: Paul Stevens (Queens). Send completed 10-page/20-minute papers by OCTOBER 3, 1994, to Dr Helen Ostovich or Dr Mary Silcox, Dept of English, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4L9 e-mail inquiries: ostovich@mcmaster.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 10:19:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0522 Qs: Resourse Guide; Bishop of Winchester Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0522. Thursday, 9 June 1994. (1) From: Tilly Dutta Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 12:37:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Resource Guide (2) From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 13:58:30 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re : The Bishop of Winchester (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tilly Dutta Date: Tuesday, 7 Jun 1994 12:37:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Resource Guide Hello ! I am a library science student, halfway through my MLS program, and I am trying to compile a resource guide on Shakespeare - resources available on the Internet. (In another life, back in India, I used to teach English literature in private college in Calcutta.) I'm also trying to make list of OPACs which have excellent collections of Shakespeare criticisms (the operative word here is "trying"). Any help in this field will be greatly appreciated. Thanking you in advance, Sincerely, Tilly Dutta Dutta@scsu.ctstateu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 13:58:30 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re : The Bishop of Winchester I'm reading and writing about Henry VI part 1 at the moment, and I'm wondering, why does the Bishop of Winchester get such a bad rep? Was he (as a historical figure) a legendary ratbag, or is this anti-Catholic polemic, or just straight anti-clericalism. He's the King's uncle, yet Gloucester the protector sees him as ...a most pernicious usurer Froward by nature, enemy to peace, Lascivious, wanton... and much more besides (III.i.17-19). Is there a new historicist out there who can shed some light? JF Knight knight@extro.ucc.su.oz.au ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 10:23:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0523 Re: Bottom, Titania Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0523. Thursday, 9 June 1994. From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 20:06:37 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Bottom, Titania Thanks for the comments on MND. Those of Ron Moyer and Bill Godshalk were especially enlightening. I reckon that since the Athenian wood is "outside the law," we ought to be prepared for a full exposition of all the perversities those inside the walls are so terrified of--so much so that they are prepared for the ultimate perversity of infanticide in order to preserve their control over the most frightening thing in the Shakespearean world picture, i.e. the "undisciplined" desires of women. I think it also enriches our reading of the play to think of the coupling of Pasiphae with the Minoan Bull to produce the monster who will lurk at the center of the labyrinth, a labyrinth that only Theseus is able to penetrate (with the help of a woman). The Athenian wood is the labyrinth in MND, of course, and it helps if one is to descend into it to face one's personal beast to have it turn out to be merely Bottom. And as long as I am free associating here, that's exactly what Hamlet finds when he descends into the grave, isn't it: that of all the model fathers he has before him, the one that he instinctively chose to emulate was Yorick. There are worse things than finding out your father is a fool; but of course people like Laertes and Fortinbras would't think so. Enough of that, but I do have something to take up with Ron Moyer: Wittgenstein, in discussing the limitations of Frazier's *Golden Bough*, says that the chief defect in Frazier's thinking was his tendency to treat earlier and less technologically advanced cultures as if they were fumbling, each in its own benighted way, toward the perfection of 19th Century English society (and always getting it wrong!) I must say that I feel something like Wittgenstein's skepticism whenever I read remarks that seem to congratulate 20th C. Western culture for its superior understanding of gender roles and sexual equality--ESPECIALLY when those remarks represent other periods and cultures as pathological in their social organization. They weren't sick and we aren't all that healthy. Shirley Garner's work consistently assumes the superiority of modern hindsight. Felicitations to All and Sundry, Lonnie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 10:12:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0521 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0521. Thursday, 9 June 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 08 Jun 1994 20:50:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Canopies I'd like to add a note to David Kathman's posting. In ALPHONSUS KING OF ARAGON (printed 1599, written perhaps 10 years earlier), there is a canopy -- a real canopy -- as one of the essential properties. The reference in sonnet 125 may be to an acting -- a stage -- event. I wouldn't stake my life on this interpretation, but it's a possible reading. Perhaps the role of canopy bearer was a piece of cake. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 14:23:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0524 Job Announcement: University of Alabama Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0524. Saturday, 11 June 1994. From: David Miller Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 09:58:27 CST6CDT Subject: Job Announcement As you probably already know, David Miller has decided to leave the University of Alabama and has thus left us with the task of finding a new Director of the Strode Program in Renaissance Studies. We would appreciate your contacting us if you know of potential candidates who might be interested in the position. We are looking for a tenured faculty member at a senior rank, either a professor or advanced associate professor. Administrative experience is preferred, but not a necessity. If you can help us please contact us by letter, e-mail, fax, or phone; the relevant numbers are included below. Thanks for your help and suggestions. John P. Hermann and Harold Weber Co-chairs, Strode Search Committee Department of English P.O. Box 870244 University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0244 telephone: 205-348-5065 fax: 205-348-1388 e-mail: phermann@english.as.ua.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 14:48:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0525 Re: Bottom, Titania, Oppression Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0525. Saturday, 11 June 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 11:54:40 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0523 Re: Bottom, Titania (2) From: Ron Moyers Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 13:48:16 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Bottom, Titania, and stuff (3) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Thursday, 09 Jun 94 16:26:02 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0523 Re: Bottom, Titania (4) From: Scott Crozier Date: Saturday, 11 Jun 1994 16:56:04 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0508 Qs: Titania and Bottom (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 11:54:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0523 Re: Bottom, Titania > Enough of that, but I do have something to take up with Ron Moyer: > Wittgenstein, in discussing the limitations of Frazier's *Golden Bough*, says > that the chief defect in Frazier's thinking was his tendency to treat earlier > and less technologically advanced cultures as if they were fumbling, each in > its own benighted way, toward the perfection of 19th Century English society > (and always getting it wrong!) I must say that I feel something like > Wittgenstein's skepticism whenever I read remarks that seem to congratulate > 20th C. Western culture for its superior understanding of gender roles and > sexual equality--ESPECIALLY when those remarks represent other periods and > cultures as pathological in their social organization. They weren't sick and > we aren't all that healthy. Shirley Garner's work consistently assumes the > superiority of modern hindsight. I hope Lonnie Durham will amplify these remarks. Does he mean that the oppression of women isn't pathological? As a woman, I'd certainly want to disagree. Or, does he mean that modern scholars often overestimate the extent of women's oppression in earlier periods in order to overestimate the extent of their equality today? In that case, I'd agree. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyers Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 13:48:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Bottom, Titania, and stuff Lonnie Durham, I certainly don't want to get in a tiff with Wittgenstein; I basically agree with you; and I am not proposing that the Ciulei production and/or Garner article excerpt reflect all (or the majority) of my views of MND. As we sometimes criticize past eras for their culturally limited/limiting views, our own "enlightenment" is conditioned/limited by our culture. I sometimes wonder at the irony of folks who attack place-centrism while promoting era-centric views (I am not suggesting Garner does this, but, oh, it does happen). I don't care to characterize (not that dread word!) Garner's article too harshly, however, because I've read only an excerpt and because many of her ideas are stimulating. I think she taps a pattern in the script that has special resonance *in our era*. To me, her exploration damns neither the play nor the era, but illuminates characteristics of Shakespeare's and many other times, including our own. Like Ciulei's production, which had a strongly mixed reception, her article serves to broaden my awareness of the potentials for a rich script to speak with multiple tongues, and--in a stew of theatre, reading, and life experiences--of the potential for an auditor simultaneously to appreciate multiple, often conflicting, interpretations: thus, one's personal apprehension of a play develops. Both productions and articles must address contemporary audiences playing/discussing imperfectly understood works; sometimes the terms of address are irritating and rejected, sometimes...a pearl.... I keep reminding myself not to become too exasperated at a production/ writing pretending to be The Interpretation (or, even, The Method of Inquiry), but as an interpretation needing to be tested and assimilated in order to enrich appreciation of the script, past eras, and present times. Likewise, your labyrinthine descent to the Bottom of foolish fathers is delightful, illuminating, will be part of my future readings/viewings of these scripts, and may inform production if I get the opportunity to direct them again. --Ron Moyer (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Thursday, 09 Jun 94 16:26:02 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0523 Re: Bottom, Titania I had always thought the two had had sex in the bower, if only because Bottom wants some food and sleep after sex. Food, and sport (in this case, sex) and life-preserving rest are what the Abbess prescribes in COMEDY OF ERRORS, after all. Men, gotta hate 'em. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Saturday, 11 Jun 1994 16:56:04 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0508 Qs: Titania and Bottom If in a post-Brook world we believe that MND is has something to say about sexual awakening, then I'm sure that Oberon has his eye on more than one fairy: male or female. I'm also sure that Bottom's request for Hay could be post-coital. In a production of the play that I am directing, the fairies embody sexuality and the lovers discover that in losing their clothing, they also lose the civilised trappings of Athens. Titania and Oberon are the sexual libidos of Theseus and Hippolyta a la Brook. I am really surprised that it took around 300 years for the sexuality in the play to be recognised. Regards, Scott Crozier ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 15:14:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0526 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0526. Saturday, 11 June 1994. (1) From: Timothy Bowden Date: Thursday, 09 Jun 94 15:25:04 PST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0521 Authorship (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 10 Jun 1994 16:00:05 +1000 (EST) Subj: Canopies and conditionality (3) From: William Boyle Date: Friday, 10 Jun 1994 12:06:35 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Authorship (sonnet 125) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden Date: Thursday, 09 Jun 94 15:25:04 PST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0521 Authorship For your scrapbooks, and just off the top of my head, here are the occurances of `canopy' within the canon. Please clip and save; we will be referring to this index as we proceed. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= KING HENRY VI, PART III: King Henry VI: Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects' treachery? ............................................................................... ROMEO AND JULIET, ACT V, SCENE III: PARIS: Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,-- O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;-- Which with sweet water nightly I will dew, Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans: The obsequies that I for thee will keep Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep. ............................................................................... JULIUS CAESAR, ACT V, SCENE I: Cassius: Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 80 Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; Who to Philippi here consorted us: This morning are they fled away and gone; And in their steads do ravens, crows and kites, Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us, As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem A canopy most fatal, under which Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost. ............................................................................... HAMLET, ACT II, SCENE II: HAMLET: I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most 300 excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. ............................................................................... CORIOLANUS, ACT IV, SCENE V: Third Servingman: Where dwellest thou? CORIOLANUS: Under the canopy. Third Servingman: Under the canopy! CORIOLANUS: Ay. Third Servingman: Where's that? 40 CORIOLANUS: I' the city of kites and crows. Third Servingman: I' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is! Then thou dwellest with daws too? ............................................................................... KING HENRY VIII, ACT IV, SCENE I: {THE ORDER OF THE CORONATION.} 1. A lively flourish of Trumpets. 2. Then, two Judges. 3. Lord Chancellor, with the purse and mace before him. 4. Choristers, singing. [Music.] 5. Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then Garter, in his coat of arms, and on his head a gilt copper crown. 6. Marquess Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a demi-coronal of gold. With him, SURREY, bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl's coronet. Collars of SS. 7. SUFFOLK, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his head, bearing a long white wand, as high-steward. With him, NORFOLK, with the rod of marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of SS. 8. A canopy borne by four of the Cinque-ports; under it, QUEEN ANNE in her robe; in her hair richly adorned with pearl, crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London and Winchester. ............................................................................... KING HENRY VIII, ACT V, SCENE V: {Enter trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, NORFOLK with his marshal's staff, SUFFOLK, two Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christening-gifts; then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of Norfolk, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, &c., train borne by a Lady; then follows the Marchioness Dorset, the other godmother, and Ladies. The troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks.} ............................................................................... SONNETS XII. When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. CXXV. Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which prove more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent, For compound sweet forgoing simple savour, Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent? No, let me be obsequious in thy heart, And take thou my oblation, poor but free, Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art, But mutual render, only me for thee. Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul When most impeach'd stands least in thy control. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= `Canopy' might have real physical application, or be an image, or a concept, and it may be used as simple description, simile, and metaphor, in histories, tragedies, and poetry. Fairly common usage, wouldn't you say? It would seem to be a prohibitive task to parse two dependent clauses from a stanza, declare one to be realtime reified reporting, and allow the other image to float free. I mean, if there is no literal application for `laid great bases for eternity', can we be certain the `bore the canopy' pertains to actual history? A reach, at best, I'd say. I'd also like to cast my vote for mainstreaming the authorship thread, not so much because I think there is any merit to any of it, but because I like best reading about the actual humans involved in the time and place we are centered on here, like it even more than all about how parts be doubled in Akron or how masks are utilized in Sydney. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 10 Jun 1994 16:00:05 +1000 (EST) Subject: Canopies and conditionality A reply to Dave Kathman's latest on Sonnet 125: Dave's suggestion that I am being (1) dogmatic and (2) presumptuous in what I've said about the canopy raises some interesting questions about textual interpretation and scholarship. I'll take dogmatic first. I don't think I quite said that the first lines of the sonnet *must* be interpreted literally and declaratively; but it's true that there are limits to the pluralism I think is allowable in this case. To be specific, I think there's room for legitimate difference of opinion over whether the canopy is literal or metaphorical. I've given my reason for believing that (all reference to the Earl of Oxford aside) the action referred to is literal. But if Dave or anyone else could show me historical evidence that there were metaphoric meanings so firmly attached either to canopies or to bearing them that these could be activated without contextual cues, I'd accept that. Similarly if I could provide evidence that 'lay great bases for eternity' might have a specific literal meaning, I'd expect that to be taken seriously by the other side. Bill Godshalk's (literal) suggestion about the stage-canopy I take on board as well worth consideration. The question of declarativeness is another kettle of fish altogether. I am prepared to risk being thought slightly dogmatic on this: the first line *cannot* be read as a conditional - unless, of course, you want to argue that Shakespeare or his editor was grammatically incompetent. This is, I confess, a bit more complex than I originally represented it as being. 'Were't aught to me' is, of course, a conditional construction, precisely synonymous with 'If it were aught to me'. (It doesn't, in other words, mean "Was it aught to me'). But the conditionality applies to the question of whether the action of bearing the canopy meant anything to the poet, not to the question of whether the action is or was performed or not.. (A question does arise, it's true, about where to find the other term - Is it the protasis? - of the condition, but this doesn't need to be decided for the moment, and I feel I may already have broken this poor butterfly to a pulp). The point is, readings of the kind 'Would it make any difference if I bore a canopy' are strictly not allowable for the text as it stands. It really isn't a matter of opinion. Which leads to the matter of scholarship. Dave thinks it's presumptuous and disingenuous (why this?) to ignore centuries of Shakespeare scholars' readings of the lines as hypothetical. I haven't had a chance to check his Variorum reference yet, but I assume his statement is accurate, in which case this is a fact of considerable historical interest in terms of what it reveals about the power of a dominant paradigm to disarm the reading competences of generations of literary scholars. It really is astonishing, and I say that without a trace of irony. But the fact that so many have been forced into a gross misreading doesn't make me feel I should go and do likewise. Pat Buckridge. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Boyle Date: Friday, 10 Jun 1994 12:06:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Authorship (sonnet 125) I have also been looking at Sonnet 125 this past week, and would like to make a few comments about it that may answer Pat's question about the couplet. In consulting three different editions of the sonnets I found three different punctuations for the last couplet. The original punctuation, taken from the reproduction of the 1609 original in *Book Know as Q*, was: Hence, thou suborn'd informer, a true soul When most impeached, stands least in thy control. It appears to be one sentence. Two editions have punctuation that make the couplet two sentences (one used a semi-colon after informer, and a second used an exclamation point after informer). The third edition (*Riverside Shakespeare*) maintained the original punctuation after informer while dropping the comma after impeached, and provides this footnote: "Suborn'd informer, i.e. Jealousy, who prompted the charges the poet is answering in lines 1-8." These variations are a result, I believe, of how one reads the word "Hence", used most often in the sense of "away from here", as in "Get thee hence". The two instances of changed punctuation in some sonnet editions seem to be taking "Hence" as a verb saying "Go away". However, "hence" can also mean "therefore" (*The Oxford Universal Dictionary's* last definition, is: "(as an inference) from this; therefore 1586".). There are, I believe, a handful of such uses in the plays (*Measure for Measure* I.iii.53 and IV.ii.110 are two that I feel sure about). The *Riverside* version of the sonnet could be read either way (Go away or therefore); but their footnote clearly indicates that the "suborn'd informer" is not a person. I believe that if one reads "Hence" as therefore, then the couplet is one sentence and makes much more sense, especially if (unlike *Riverside*) the "thou" of line 13 and the "thy" of line 14 are taken to be the same "thou" as line 12, the same "thy" as line 9, and the same "thee" as line 11. Shakespeare is addressing one person, and lines 1-12 lay the groundwork for what that he really wants to say (in the couplet) to the person he is addressing: Therefore, you who have been suborned into informing against me, [understand this]: I am a true soul, and even though you thought you might be able to control me through this suborned informing, you cannot...I am so true that such an attempt to impeach me through informing only strengthens my ability to resist your control. The whole sonnet would then read: in lines 1-8 the Shakespeare lists things he does not value in himself and in others, then in lines 9-12 he says that "you and I have a special relationship that I *do* value", and then the couplet rather bluntly and resoundingly says "So do not treat me the way you have been treating me - it cannot work, and it will not work." But, of course, the Stratford actor could not be addressing his patron this way, so such a literal reading of the couplet is simply out of the question, and the whole sonnet, from canopy to suborned informer, becomes simply one metaphor after another. For Oxfordians, a literal reading of the sonnet from beginning to end fits right in with everything we have come to learn about Oxford and his dealings with his peers. I find the couplet rather similar to "I am that I am, and they that level at my abuses reckon up their own" (sonnet 121). The broader point involved here, I believe, is that authorship *does* matter when trying to figure out what any sonnet is really about, and it matters as much to Stratfordians as to Oxfordians. One's understanding of who the author is influences how the sonnet is read. I was about to post this when David Kathman's response to Pat was posted. So let me add this: The long history of critical consensus that he cites is itself, I believe, influenced by the authorship debate. This difference between what is literal and what is metaphor is a big part of why the authorship debate has been around for two centuries, and why it is today going stronger than ever. I do not insist that any given interpretation *must* be true, or by itself *proves* any case. But I'll be interested to see any comments on the argument I have just made in this post: is Shakespeare calling the person this sonnet is addressed to a "suborn'd informer"? And is the answer to this question grounded in having knowledge of the words themselves and literary conventions, or in having some knowledge and/or opinion of who wrote it, why he wrote it, and to whom it was written? William Boyle 10 June 1994 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 15:33:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0527 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0527. Saturday, 11 June 1994. (1) From: Martin Zacks Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 16:32:06 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Nudity in Shakespearan Performance (2) From: Christine M Gordon Date: Thursday, 09 Jun 1994 20:08:34 -0500 (CDT) Subj: nudity in shakespeare (3) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Friday, 10 Jun 1994 08:50:36 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0517 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performances (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zacks Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 16:32:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Nudity in Shakespearan Performance The nudity in Prospero's Books was the least of its problems. Not having the actors speak the lines made for interesting tableaus, but lousy scenes. The criticism I heard the most, and heartily agreed with, was not "gratuitous" nudity, but "self-indulgent." On the other hand, I know people who appear perfectly reasonable who sat through it twice. Martin Zacks lalalib@class.org (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine M Gordon Date: Thursday, 09 Jun 1994 20:08:34 -0500 (CDT) Subject: nudity in shakespeare Since *Prospero's Books* is the only one of Peter Greenaway's films I have seen, I can't speak to how it relates to the rest of his work. What I was aware of as I watched it (and I've only seen it once at this point) was how absolutely valid a reading it seemed. The nudity became almost immediately irrelevant AS nudity; the juxtapositions of text and body throughout the film offered a fascinating look into two artists' visions (three, if we count John Gielgud). I found myself moved by it much more than I had thought possible, and recommended it to the class I was teaching that term. After some of them had seen it, the one questions they asked was "Why didn't you mention all the nudity?" I hadn't mentioned it because it didn't seem gratuitous at all. I, too, would be interested in seeing Jarman's version, since his interpretation of *Edward II* was another of my more memorable film experiences of recent years--I couldn't speak for fifteen minutes after that one ended. Speaking of Jarman, does anyone know if his film interpretation of the sonnets (I forget its title) is available on video? (Another aspect of Greenaway's nudes that I appreciated was their VARIETY; not everyone was young, lovely, and with a perfect Playboy/girl figure.) Vague memories of three other (theatrical) productions: I saw two *MND* productions at the Guthrie: the 1972 version with the nearly nude fairy court and the vaguely Jan Kottian (?) reading--very impressive and exciting (I wasn't aware of any local controversy, but then I had just moved into town late that summer and the run was well underway; their more recent production had no nudity per se, though it did include a very dramatic "stripping" of Hippolyta in the opening "pre-show"--her Amazon warrior garb was removed and she was dressed in a suitably feminine gown; the actor playing her looked all the while as if she were ready to murder the people engaged in doing this to her. She was never nude, but did get down to some sort of bodysuit, very minimal. This was an astonishingly powerful scene in terms of foregrounding the feminist reading that was at least a part of the production's point. In 1990, I saw the touring Renaissance Theatre Company productions of *MND* and *Lear*: no nudes in MND, but Edgar as Poor Tom began with the barest of loincloths, although he acquired a shirt soon thereafter. His first entrance, though, did offer a vivid portrait of human fraility and vulnerability. Chris Gordon (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Friday, 10 Jun 1994 08:50:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0517 Re: Nudity in Shakespearean Performances Noel Chevalier asks where the Jarman TEMPEST can be leased. So far as I know it's available from Glenbuck Films (for "hire"), which is located at Glenbuck House, Glenbuck Road, Surrey KT6 6 BT U.K. (1 399 0022/5266). In the States it was for a time available from Kit Parker Films, 1245 Tenth St., Monterey CA 93940 (800-538 5838). I've lost track, though, and the last time I checked around no one in the U.S. seemed to have it in stock. A close comparison of the Jarman and Greenaway versions would make a fascinating study. I hope someone has time to do it. Ken Rothwell ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 15:38:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0528 Q: *Richard II* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0528. Saturday, 11 June 1994. From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Thursday, 9 Jun 1994 16:43:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: 'Richard II' I know I'm wading into waters through which I can already see dorsal fins slicing, but having just read 'Richard II' for the first time, I have a few questions that I hope some one here will address. First, there's an obvious polarization in the ways in which Richard and Bolingbroke see the world; if Richard's world view is essentially poetic and Medieval, is Bolingbroke's more pragmatic outlook therefore to be construed as typically Elizabethan? Further, are their respective world views consistent with the contrast between a belief in kingship by divine right as opposed to inheritance of the title through bloodline? And how does this connect with the image of Richard as the sun either ascending out of - or being eclipsed by - a mass of clouds? Secondly, the commonwealth-as-garden device is treated quite perfunctorily in the background texts I've read; has the interpretation of this metaphor remained more or less constant in this century, or are there recent variations? Finally, there seems to be a textual refusal of the play to fit obediently into its genre-slot; it is obviously a tragedy for the protagonist (if it is agreed that that is Richard) - yet the play in its entirety is certainly a chronicle. Must the two be reconciled? And in that vein, should the link between 'Richard' and the 'Henry IVs' be considered only chronologically, or is there an affective continuum I'm not seeing, due to my neophyte status? Thanks to all who respond, Greg McSweeney ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 21:56:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0529 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0529. Monday, 13 June 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 11 Jun 94 18:12:02 CDT Subject: authorship/canopy I see the canopy issue has taken on a life of its own, so let me add my thoughts to the din, in the event that anyone cares. First, Pat Buckridge is, I think, justified in taking some umbrage at the wording of my last post. I dashed it off in a hurry, and in my rhetorical flurry I used some terms, such as "disingenuous" and "presumptous", which I would have left out of the posting had I reflected on it for a day before sending it. Mea culpa. I should perhaps mention that I knew from our previous private correspondence that Pat would not be offended by such rhetorical flourishes, and that he has informed me that he was not, in fact, offended by them, despite his disagreement with the substance of what I was saying. But I still think Pat is being at least a little dogmatic on the issue of conditionality. I believe him when he says he can't get the conditional reading of the first four lines of Sonnet 125, but I think his characterization of this reading as a "gross misreading" is just not accurate, and that his implication that generations of scholars have been blindly led into such a reading by their Stratfordian assumptions is a little unfair to those scholars. Let me try to explain how I, at least, can get the conditional reading. I apologize for the tedium of what follows. First of all, these four lines are not particularly easy to parse. Let me give them for reference as they appeared in the 1609 Quarto: Wer't ought to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honoring, Or layd great bases for eternity, Which proves more short then wast or ruining? I think it's the "or" in line 3 that throws me. Leaving aside the subordinate phrases in lines 2 and 4, under one reading (which Pat seemed to be suggesting in an earlier posting), the main sense can be paraphrased as, "Does it mean anything to me that I bore the canopy, or laid great bases for eternity?" To me, that would sound better with an "and" instead of the "or", i.e. "Does it mean anything to me that I bore the canopy and laid great bases for eternity?"; however, I can see this reading as a possible one. As near as I can figure out, Pat now seems to be suggesting a reading along the lines of, "Would it mean anything to me that I bore the canopy, or laid great bases for eternity?", based on the "were" of line 1 being conditional. I find this a little less plausible, since the second part of the condition appears to be missing (I find myself asking "Would it mean anything --- if what?"), but I wouldn't object to someone reading it that way. The combination of "were" in line 1 and "or" in line 3, though, suggests to me another reading which can be paraphrased roughly as "Would it mean anything to me had I borne the canopy or laid great bases for eternity?", regardless of whether the word "if" is overtly present or not. I could try to dig though English grammars to try to justify this reading, but I don't think that's really necessary. I'm a native speaker of English, I've read some poetry in my lifetime, and the conditional reading seems fine to me as one of several possible ways of interpreting the ambiguous syntax here. It's a poem, for God's sake; you can't put the grammar under a microscope and dissect it. Poets take all kinds of liberties with grammar, word order, etc. when it suits their purpose, and Shakespeare is no exception. When I mentioned all the commentators listed in the Variorum who got the conditional reading, I wasn't trying to hurl a thunderbolt from on high, to say in effect, "Look at all these authorities who say it's so; how dare you question them?" Rather, I was saying that if all these speakers of English independently got this reading, there might be at least something there, despite Pat's undoubtedly genuine astonishment at such an interpretation. As any linguist knows, people can vary greatly in whether they accept a given sentence as grammatical, or what interpretation they put on an ambiguous sentence; I've sometimes been genuinely astonished in linguistics classes at the syntactic intuitions of other native speakers of English. I think Pat's implication that all those scholars in the Variorum only got the conditional interpretation because the "dominant paradigm" had "disarmed their reading competences", while undoubtedly reflecting his genuine beliefs, involves an unwarranted assumption that there is only one "right" reading of these four lines (namely, Pat's reading). In that sense, I still think he is being a bit presumptuous, though I'll gladly withdraw "disingenuous". I think I've rattled on long enough, so I won't go into any of the other issues that have been raised. Timothy Bowden's list is a useful addition to the discussion, and I could go on all day in reply to William Boyle, so I won't even start. I hope the above is clearer than my last, admittedly hasty posting. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 22:11:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0530 Re: Devils; Nudity; *R2*; Bishop of Winchester Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0530. Monday, 13 June 1994. (1) From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 09:35:27 Subj: devils (2) From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 10:04:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: naked coed acting (3) From: Tom Jensen Date: Monday, 13 Jun 94 10:59:12 MDT Subj: Mr. McSweeney's Comments on RII. (4) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 15:51:13 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Bishop of Winchester (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 09:35:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: devils Re those devils: This may be a potshot, but what about MACBETH's Hecate? Do you want only male devils? Or only devils so-called? I mean no offense, but it seems to me that "devil" is not so narrow a topic as you seem to have defined it. I'm interested in hearing more about this project. James McKenna University of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 10:04:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: naked coed acting I've followed these nudity postings with fairly high interest, and I was a little surprised to hear that they are merely the fallout of "silly season." A couple of nights ago, I saw the recent Australian film SIRENS, in which there is pleeeeenty of nudity (nearly all female, unfortunately), and, combined with these postings, I've been thinking about the whole concept of "gratuitous" nudity. A couple of postings have noted that part of the dislike of nudity in Sh'n productions is that it conflicts with high art. Putting aside the question of whether Sh is high art, I'm interested in the assumptions that nudity is in any way degrading; that it equals sex or anything else. It seems to me that it equals what it's made to equal. Or more accurately, it does what an actor and a director make it do. This talk of Sh'n productions in which bodies force their immediacy on the audience sounds exhilarating to me. For all my romantic enjoyment of sumptuous costumes, I think hugging the shore by relentlessly robing the body lets Sh sit comfortably in the past (comfortably for us). I'm not sure whether I'm saying that we need lots of nudity. I think that would become as boring as buckets of stage blood. Perhaps we need to think about "nakedness" instead, and, rather than brood over what's "appropriate," let the nakedness we imagine become present on stage. Is the real problem that when an actor steps naked into our presence, they break character because they reveal THEMSELVES rather than the nakedness of the character? Unashamedly, James McKenna University of Sincinnati (Censornati--but don't blame me!) mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Jensen Date: Monday, 13 Jun 94 10:59:12 MDT Subject: Mr. McSweeney's Comments on RII. I'm no critic and recommend you consider my remarks in that context. I'm not sure what you mean when you classify Richard's world view as poetic and medieval. Is it poetic because he speaks in verse? So do many others, including Bolingbroke. Shakespeare uses verse in the histories for a variety of reasons, i.e as indication of the formality of the situation, but in and of itself it is no indication of Richard's character. As for Richard being medieval, many of his actions, such as the confiscation of the Lancasterian lands, is hardly consistent with that. Richard, like Bolingbroke, is complex. I believe he is more interesting as an individual human character than as a representation of a set of abstractions. There is a ghost between the lines and that's Richard's father, Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince. As for the genre issue, I suggest you be more precise. When you talk about genre-slot are addressing the issue of how well RII agrees with the Aristotelian model of tragedy? If so, fine, if that's what you want to think about. Again, I recommend precision in your definitions. Lastly, I'm not sure I know what you mean by "affective continuum." But you'll find Henry V praying about Richard's untimely death, just before Agincourt and Richard of York recalling the incident when he attempts to depose Henry VI. The deposition and murder of Richard is one of the central "personal" causes of the Wars of the Roses." Certainly, it is preeminent in the minds of Shakespeare's Plantagenets. But there are others as well, such as the material cost of being a late medieval/early renaissance king. It's a great play. By the way, I recommend the BBC version on video with Derek Jacobi and Jon Finch. Finch's portray of Bolingbroke in R2, H4 part 1 and H4 part 2 is one the high points of then entire series. Thomas Jensen (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 15:51:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Bishop of Winchester The Bishop owned most of Southwark, I believe, and ran whorehouses for his own profit. The Museum in The Clink, the riverside prison in Southwark, has a lot of information and displays related to the treatment of `Winchester geese' or whores of the area. Hence too, I think, the jokes about `nunneries'= whorehouses. Helen Ostovich McMaster University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 22:13:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0531. Monday, 13 June 1994. From: Lisa Schnell Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 12:33:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: How many children... I'm getting a course packet ready for the fall and am trying, with no success, to locate the Dover Wilson essay "How Many Children Hath Lady Macbeth?" Can anybody point me in the right direction? Does anyone know of any other (maybe more current) essay that addresses the problem of characters and "real life"? I'm trying to include something in the packet that speaks to my students' persistence in interpreting the characters in the plays as though they are real people. You can reach me at lschnell@moose.uvm.edu. Thanks, Lisa Schnell University of Vermont ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 22:18:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0532 Revised Internet Theater Guide Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0532. Monday, 13 June 1994. From: Deborah Ann Torres Date: Monday, 13 Jun 1994 15:12:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Updated Version of Internet Theater Guide NOTE: This message has been cross-posted to theater-related listservs. Apologies for any duplication of messages. __________________________________________________________________________ ** ANNOUNCING REVISED THEATER GUIDE ** Guide to Theater Resources on the Internet Version 2.0 June 13, 1994 by Deborah Torres & Martha Vander Kolk We are pleased to announce a revised version of our guide to theater and theater-related resources that reside on the Internet. Version 2.0 of our guide features a simplification of the guide's organization to eliminate redundancy; the inclusion of new resources announced since the first edition; and the use of URLs (uniform resource locators) to provide access information for information on gophers and ftp sites. Section 2 of the guide includes resources organized by tool (listserv, gopher, archives, etc.) with access information and a description of each resource. Section 3 of the guide organizes the resources by tool and contains access information only. The following gives the ways the guide may be accessed: ______________ Clearinghouse of Subject-Oriented Resource Guides URLs: http://http2.sils.umich.edu/~lou/chhome.html or gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/00/inetdirsstacks/theater%3atorresmjvk ______________ Via U of Minnesota Gopher: menu: North America/USA/Michigan/Clearinghouse of Subject-Oriented Resource Guides/All Guides or Guides on the Humanities/Theater; D.Torres, M. Vander Kolk ______________ anonymous FTP: host: una.hh.lib.umich.edu path: /inetdirsstacks/theater:torresmjvk Login: Password: ______________ Through electronic mail: Send a message requesting the guide to: dtorres@umich.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 22:31:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0533 Re: "How Many Children . . ." Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0533. Tuesday, 14 June 1994. (1) From: Charles Lyons Date: Monday, 13 Jun 94 21:22:08 PDT Subj: "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth" (2) From: David M Richman Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 11:32:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." (3) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 08:31:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." (4) From: Fran Teague Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 94 09:00:10 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." (5) From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 19:19:14 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Lyons Date: Monday, 13 Jun 94 21:22:08 PDT Subject: "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth" You are probably thinking of L. C. Knight's essay, "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth," which was originally in SCRUTINY, I believe, in 1933. It is reprinted in Knight's EXPLORATIONS, a collection of essays (1947), reprinted by NYU Press in 1964. As you probably know, the essay confronts A. C. Bradley's notion of character. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 11:32:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." The essay "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth" was composed in the 'thirties by L. C. Knights. It has often been anthologized. I found it in one of Robert Corrigan's collections: either "The Craft and Context of Drama" or "Tragedy, Vision, and Form." Knights expands upon his views in his own collections "Explorations" and "Further Explorations." Having said this, let me add a caveat. Knights provides an important corrective to the "character"-based stuff of Bradley and his metaphoric children. But Knights can be at best confusing and at worst damaging to us poor sods who are trying to speak the stuff from a stage. As a corrective to Knights, have your students read the chapter on Lady Macbeth in "Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare's Women Today." The actor Sinead Cusack argues (and convinces me) that the "access and passage to remorse" is her sexual center. Like her husband, she curses herself by getting what she wants. She does unsex herself. She once had children, but can have no more. Is this extra-textual? Of course. Does it help in performance? Better believe it!! David Richman University of New Hampshire (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 08:31:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." The essay, written by L. C. Knights, originally appeared in *Explorations* (London: Chatto and Windus, 1946). One of the places it's reprinted is in Alvin Kernan's anthology, *Modern Shakespearean Criticism* (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970). (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 94 09:00:10 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." When I began to read Shakespeare criticism, I had a terrible time keeping straight the critics Dover WILSON, G. WILSON KNIGHT, and L.C. KNIGHTS because of the common elements in their names. I think Ms. Schnell is having the same problem perhaps, for the essay she want is written by L. C. Knights. The piece first appeared under the title, "How Many Children, etc." in 1932 in Scrutiny, I believe. It then was reprinted in Knights' book Explorations under "Shakespeare's Dramatic Poems." I've taught with this essay to good effect: students became engaged and enraged and lively. In fact older criticism often seems to elicit excellent discussion, particularly when the class can spot the critic's assumptions and prejudices. The Frank Kermode anthology in paperback, Four Centuries of Shakespearian Criticism (NY: Avon, 1965) was an inexpensive sampling of items that was a useful teaching tool. But it's long out of print. The new editions with intros to recent theory are useful, but I miss the sort of book that tucked Aristotle next to Coleridge, then seated Carolyn Spurgeon and Harry Levin at the table, and then let the ideas go at it. The class read snippets out of context and badly introduced, but they did get a sense of range and of openness. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 19:19:14 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." That essay was by L.C. Knights. It was published in 1933, by itself. It should be listed in most places under Knights. Dover Wilson wrote The Fortunes of Falstaff and What Happens in Hamlet, among other things. Very different kettles of fish, these two! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 22:42:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0534 Re: *R2*; Nudity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0534. Tuesday, 14 June 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 08:20:34 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0530 Re: *R2* (2) From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 09:55:58 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: naked coed acting (3) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 09:53:21 -0400 (EDT) Subj: nudity (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 08:20:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0530 Re: *R2* Although the First Folio calls *R2* "The life and death of King Richard the Second" and lists it among the English histories, the Quarto title pages call it "The Tragedie of King Richard the second." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 09:55:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: naked coed acting For my part, I have always admired the human body, but we have placed a societal taboo on it. This my not effect some people, but as a whole, the placement of a naked human body on a stage is an extreme statement. Often times this is squandered by beginners, who have one or more of their actors naked because they "like the look". Let's face it, not too many people in everyday life walk around naked, and it hasn't become a stage and screen standby (yes, there are movies with nudity in them, but it isn't like murder, which happens on children's shows). It neccesarily becomes a major statement, because there are so many things that an audience will bring with it about nudity. Yes, there is a sexual aspect to it, as well as a certain discomfort, trying to respect the person's privacy. There is also the concern for the rest of the audience's reaction to you watching this naked person. After all, even pornography is indulged in private (by most people). Putting a person on stage naked is certainly an option, but every aspect of what an audience will bring to it needs to be considered. If you want to reinforce an idea of purity, perhaps the worst way to do it would be by having your lead naked. Yes, it is the most pure form of a human being, but that is not the impression an audience will bring to it. Chris Langland-Shula UCLA Theatre chrisls@netcom.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 09:53:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: nudity To James McKenna: Let me put my snide remark about the silly season of nudity in context by recalling that the question posed was, What is this discussion about? It COULD be about the naked and the nude, and the difference between the two (see Robert Graves's poem, "The Naked and the Nude"), and difference between both and those who are clothed, but up to that point, it hadn't been. I'm glad to see that it is now. Underneath the clothes, we are all the same; and my biologist wife asserts that, underneath the genitalia, we all are, too, all shaped by the same embryonic anatomy and the same hormones. Thus to explore the layer after layer of rank and separation and difference we all don, as well as the effect of stripping these away, is to explore a basic element of the human condition. I think of Virginia Woolf, whose concerns ranged from the patent artificiality of the academics with the golden pots on their heads (in *Three Guineas*, wasn't it?) to Orlando, whose sex change in mid- (well, young-mid) life made surprisingly little difference to her/his sense of self. What does each layer mean? And how are we, the audience, affected when we see the layers (of crowns or of cloth) stripped away. Where does titillation fit into the "fear and pity" formula? When is "Hamlet, nude, on swings" a sign of directorial interpretation run amok, and when does it serve as a windown into the soul? And how much do we need to see to get the physical and emotional effect? Good questions. Jim Schaefer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:20:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0535 Re: "How Many Children . . ." Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0535. Thursday, 16 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 13:58:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Lady Macbeth's kids (2) From: Balz Engler Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 00:09:47 +0200 Subj: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 14 Jun 1994 13:58:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Lady Macbeth's kids Lisa, I should sit on my hands, and let Terence Hawkes return this one. BUT you might look under the works of L. C. Knights rather than John Dover Wilson for the essay I think you are looking for. Or, perhaps you are thinking of the original A. C. Bradley essay in SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY -- a volume that I cannot find at my bedside. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Balz Engler Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 00:09:47 +0200 Subject: SHK 5.0531 Q: "How Many Children . . ." The essay "How many children had Lady Macbeth?" is by L(ionel) C(harles) Knights rather than Dover Wilson--Wilson Knight may have got in your way. Balz Engler engler@urz.unibas.ch ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:28:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0536 Re: Nudity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0536. Thursday, 16 June 1994. (1) From: John Collick Date: Sunday, 12 Jun 1994 12:43:02 JST Subj: nudity, radical movies (2) From: Jon Enriquez Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 13:08:01 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0530 Re: Nudity (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Collick Date: Sunday, 12 Jun 1994 12:43:02 JST Subject: nudity, radical movies This may be a bit late but here's a couple of points about Shakespeare, movies and nudity that may be of interest. First of all Jarman's _Tempest_ is definitely out on video, I've rented it from the local video store here in Tokyo. Celestino Coronado directed two Shakespeare movies with some interesting results. His MND was based on Lindsey Kemp's theatre production and made the Oberon/Indian prince relationship overtly sexual. He also changed the scenes with the lovers lost in the wood so that the two male characters ended up chasing each other (I'm citing from memory here and it's a long time since I saw the film). In the mid 80s he also directed a video of Hamlet for Channel 4 which was very interesting. Hamlet was played by two twins struggling with each other as good/bad sides of the same character. The video was overtly sexual with a lot of nudity. MND was closer to Jarman's film in its evocation of a baroque chiascuro 'painterly' world. I thought that Hamlet was too self-indulgently bohemian and that it lacked the shrewd political ideas of Jarman's films. Still, the sight of two naked half-Hamlets fighting behind gauze was quite impressive. John Collick Waseda University melmoth2@twics.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Enriquez Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 13:08:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0530 Re: Nudity James McKenna writes on the subject of nudity: >Is the real problem that when an actor steps naked into our presence, >they break character because they reveal THEMSELVES rather than the >nakedness of the character? To some extent, yes. I recently read a profile of Steve Martin in which he quoted Groucho Marx along these lines: If I did a nude scene, it wouldn't be the character nude but S*T*E*V*E M*A*R*T*I*N N*U*D*E! It's interesting that JMcK mentions *Sirens*, because every review of this movie I've read makes a reference to the fact that Supermodel Elle MacPherson is naked as a jaybird therein. Many times the identity of the actor overrides the identity of the character; in Greenaway's *Prospero's Books*, we recollect that John Gielgud and a bunch of other actors are naked (not Prospero and some other characters). If a college group presented a naked Lady Macbeth, her friends, the theater community, etc. would rush off to see the actor nude. Thus, JMcK's assertion >It seems to me that it [nudity] equals what it's made to equal. >Or more accurately, it does what an actor and director make it do. is only partially correct. What the audience does with the fact of nudity matters an awful lot. Of course, what the audience does with any convention -- buckets of stage blood, ribbons representing blood, etc. -- matters an awful lot. If we are going to present more nudity, for whatever valid dramatic reason, we must also account for our audience and how they will interpret it. Jon Enriquez The Graduate School Georgetown University ENRIQUEZJ@guvax (Bitnet) ENRIQUEZJ@guvax.georgetown.edu (Internet) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 09:34:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda; Submitting an Essay Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0537. Thursday, 16 June 1994. (1) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 09:32:48 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Prospero and Miranda (2) From: Leslie Harris Date: Wednesday, Jun 15 14:31:23 EDT 1994 Subj: Submitting an Essay (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 09:32:48 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Prospero and Miranda As much as I hate departing from this fascinating subject, nudity, I'd like to tap some opinion about an interpretive strategy re *The Tempest*. First, I assume that Prospero has always had a distaste for the soiled usages of this fallen world, and that is why he was so easily deposed. The island is a natural extension of his flight from the world and the flesh. Second, I assume that any New World offers the prospect of starting all over again, reinventing society (as Gonzalo proposes) starting from this recovered Eden. However, the return to Eden is a return to a world outside of, or previous to, all notions of law. Here, strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as rape or incest or insubordination. In other words, without P.'s dragging in precepts from the old corrupt society, there is no reason whatsoever that Caliban should not be the New Adam to Miranda's Eve. Therefore, the first thing P. does in response to signs of Miranda's sexual maturity is to project his incestuous impulses onto the "native" and use the excuse of the savage's uncontrollable appetite to harness him in involuntary servitude (all of which Miranda heartily agrees to). I imagine all this is old hat, but I don't like to leave it there. I also want to argue that the chief aim of P's machinations is to change his own nature, transforming his possessive, incestuous longings toward Miranda, brought on by his desires to keep her from being corrupted by the Great World, into a selfless, relinquishing love. That is, to change the Edenic (therefore lawless) Caliban into the courtly, rule-governed, chess-playing Ferdinand. P. is so angry throughout this process because it is so painful to have to agree with Sebastian's and Antonio's mockery of Gonzalo that utopian schemes cannot avoid transporting the old Adam to the New World. What I want to know, being an old poop, is how such interpretive moves are regarded these days. Has Richard Levin (that IS his name, isn't it?) frightened every one off such allegorical play? Yours expectantly, Lonnie Durham (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Wednesday, Jun 15 14:31:23 EDT 1994 Subject: Submitting an Essay Hi, folks. This isn't a Shakespeare posting _per se_, but I thought I would reach lots of people with a background in the English Renaissance, one of whom might be able to help me. In about a week, I'm presenting a paper at the University of Wyoming Conference on English. I call my paper "Cultural Ethnocentricity: A Renaissance Critique of _Cultural Literacy_." I critique Hirsch's argument in his book, and then I set his work (very briefly) within the tradition of the Renaissance courtesy book. My basic argument is that, like the courtesy book, _Cultural Literacy_ is really an attempt by a dominant class to maintain its privileged status. I originally thought that this would just be a conference paper and go no further, but now that I've written the thing, I kind of like my argument, and I'd like to submit it to a journal. I was wondering if anyone (perhaps with a background in editing or evaluating articles for academic journals) would be willing to read my essay and give me some feedback on it. This could all probably be done via e-mail, since I can attach text files to my messages. Since I've only just finished my first year as an assistant professor, a publication in my field would help me considerably. Thanks. Leslie Harris lharris@einstein.susqu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 12:15:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0538 Re: Prospero, Miranda, and *The Tempest* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0538. Friday, 17 June 1994. (1) From: Stephen Orgel Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 08:37:27 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda (2) From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 12:49:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda (3) From: Piers Lewis Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 07:19:02 -0600 (CST) Subj: Prospero & Miranda (4) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 08:10:47 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda (5) From: William Russell Mayes Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 09:28:27 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Orgel Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 08:37:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda Never mind about Richard Levin; I think Lonnie Durham's speculations on The Tempest are terrific. Thanks! S. Orgel (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 12:49:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda Lonnie Durham ought to have a look at Mark Taylor's *Shakespeare's Darker Purpose: A Question of Incest* as well as Stephen Orgel's introduction to the Oxford *Tempest*. This question goes back to recent network discussion about character. To what extent can Prospero be considered to have incestuous desires, if he has no character? Particularly, how can be considered to change, if he has no character? Is he, in fact, a he, i.e., a person of any kind, rather than a stage configuration? Are undogmatic answers to these questions possible? I ask them seeking undogmatic answers, in any case. John Cox (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 07:19:02 -0600 (CST) Subject: Prospero & Miranda I have to admit it never occurred to me that Prospero really lusts after Miranda but has sublimated his lust into something higher and finer. May I ask for supporting evidence in the text? Or is this a purely theoretical insight? Piers Lewis (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 08:10:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda > . . . the return to Eden is a return to a world outside of, or > previous to, all notions of law. Here, strictly speaking, there can be no > such thing as rape or incest or insubordination. In other words, without > P.'s dragging in precepts from the old corrupt society, there is no reason > whatsoever that Caliban should not be the New Adam to Miranda's Eve. I wonder how "Edenic" a world without prohibitions against rape would be for the rape victims. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Russell Mayes Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 09:28:27 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0537 Qs: Prospero and Miranda Without tackling the subject of "allegorical play" as a general interpretive move, I would like to point out one possible problem with Lonnie Durham's proposed reading of _The Tempest_. He writes that it is Prospero's goal to turn "the edenic (thus lawless) Caliban into the rule following, chess playing Ferdinand" (I think I garbled that quotation a bit, but I believe it's close to Durham's original). As I see it, the problem with this neat construction is that when we discover Ferdinand and Miranda playing chess in Act V, he appears to be cheating! So much for following the rules. W. Russell Mayes Jr Dept. of English University of Virginia wrm2b@faraday.clas.virginia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 12:22:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0539 Re: Nudity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0539. Friday, 17 June 1994. (1) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 09:15:53 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0536 Re: Nudity (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 13:29:53 EDT Subj: RE: [Nudity] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 09:15:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0536 Re: Nudity I agree with Jon Enriquez when he writes, "If we are going to present more nudity, for whatever valid dramatic reason, we must also account for our audience and how they will interpret it." I'd take that even farther: given the role of the audience (in today's theatre at least) as potentially scopophilic voyeurs, we can create theatre pieces from existing early modern scripts and make them ABOUT how the audience sees and interprets the events on stage; and such spectacles as nudity and (I'd like to suggest) violence, because they are most culturally charged as problematic objects of display, can raise questions about spectatorship in the theatre most profoundly. Much of my work (with student casts) in this repertoire here at Penn has been designed to raise these questions: am I supposed to ENJOY watching the Duchess of Malfi get strangled (not to mention watching it every night of the run), especially when all the other men in the play spend much of the play TRYING to watch women (Ferdinand so much so that he vows NOT to watch)? I gather that this same question was raised via nudity in the recent Duchess of Malfi at ACT in San Francisco, in which (I'm told) the Duchess was naked from the waist DOWN while she was murdered, generating (let's hope) all sort of cognitive dissonance in an audience of watchers. I also explored this question of spectatorship in the deposition scene of _Richard II_ (Richard's line about "all of you that stand and look upon me," like the Duchess of Malfi's line about "YOUR whispering," was addressed to the audience), in a production some years ago, in which SHAKSPER's own Jon Enriquez played the Duke of York. Cary M. Mazer University of Pennsylvania (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 13:29:53 EDT Subject: RE: [Nudity] In regard to nudity: wouldn't a nude Hamlet provide a distracting reading for the line a bout achieving quietus with a bare bodkin? The line might get a laugh. ELEpstein ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 12:29:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0540 Re: Bottom, Titania, Sex; Student Editions; Light Reading Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0540. Friday, 17 June 1994. (1) From: Donald Foster Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 16:57:51 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Bottom, Titania, and sex (2) From: Michael Field Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 10:51:15 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Student Editions (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 07:51:51 -0500 Subj: light reading (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donald Foster Date: Wednesday, 15 Jun 1994 16:57:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Bottom, Titania, and sex Wishful thinking. At first, Bottom can do nothing but blab ("Tie up my lover's tongue, bring him silently," says Titania). Then, like the ass that he is, he falls asleep. Oberon exhibits some sexual jealousy over the Indian boy, but he doesn't show much anxiety about getting cuckolded by Bottom the weaver. Shakespeare presents Titania as all too eager to be ravished (read: raped), to be counted among those women whose "enforced chastity" is lamented by Diana, even if she needs to round up the necessary aphrodisiacs for her would-be lover ("Feed him with apriCOCKS and DO-BERRIES, / HONEY-BAGS, etc., / To have my love to bed and to arise..." But alas, not even Titania can make Bottom arise so as to be purged of his "mortal grossness." It may thrill modern audiences when the players choose to hint that Bottom and Titania are making hay offstage, but Shakespeare rarely seems titillated by the prospect of heterosexual intercourse. Don Foster. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Field Date: Friday, 17 Jun 1994 10:51:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Student Editions Last month, David Wilson-Okamura continued a conversation begun, I think, by William Godshalk, concerning suitable modern editions of the plays that clear away the cobwebs of 18th century editing and tinkering. After hearing editor John F. Andrews talk about his work on the EVERYMAN SHAKESPEARE series I was intrigued; having purchased and studied the series' R&J I am convinced it is the best version currently on the market. Andrew's introduction alone (which, conveniently, was essentially the text of the remarks he presented here at Hopkins) is worth the price of the book. The glosses are superb and easily understood, the text a pleasure to the eye. Were I a teacher (I am not) I would prefer his versions above any others I am familiar with for high school or college students. In directing R&J this summer I will be referring all my actors to it. My only disappointment is that the series is a work-in-progress, and as yet there are only 4 or 5 (to my knowledge) of the plays available. Mike Field pmf@jhuspo.ca.jhu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 07:51:51 -0500 Subject: light reading For those of you who have been following the fortunes of Edward Marston's creation, Lord Westfield's men, and their book holder, Nicholas Bracewell, the sixth book in the series, *The Silent Woman* has just appeared on my local library shelves and I managed to secure myself a copy. For those not familiar with the series, the books are mysteries set in the midst of a theater company in Elizabethan England. Great fun as well as historically and theatrically interesting. Check your local library or bookstore, and happy reading! --Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 09:01:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney; Bristol Essay and More Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0541. Sunday, 19 June 1994. (1) From: Lynn A. Parks Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 09:08:19 CST Subj: Shakespearean Disney? (2) From: James Nielson Date: Friday, 17 Jun 94 12:35:37 PST Subj: How many authors had Lady Macbeth? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lynn A. Parks Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 09:08:19 CST Subject: Shakespearean Disney? My son, upon recent emancipation from the hospital, received from a friend a boxed set of Disney's "The Lion King" action figures. On the back of the box was a synopsis of the movie's action. It seems a good king has a young son and an evil brother. The evil brother kills the good king and usurps the throne. The young son, now in danger, leaves the court for the backwoods, where he is tutored by good-hearted but low-class characters (including a warthog). When matured, the son returns to confront the usurping uncle. I could not help but think of parallels with _Hamlet_ and _I Henry IV_ while reading the synopsis. Am I stretching things too far? Has anyone seen the movie yet? Happy viewing, you parents, Shakespeareans, and Disney fans! P.S. I tried to tell my son the story of _Hamlet_, so that he would have a framework for viewing the movie, but I had trouble boiling it down to a three-year-old's sensibilities. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Nielson Date: Friday, 17 Jun 94 12:35:37 PST Subject: How many authors had Lady Macbeth? My colleague Rob Holton has been giving some thought to the authorship question and it seemed to me that his take on it demanded some consideration. I am sending along the most recent and lapidary statement of his view that I have received from him. P.S. Michael D. Bristol at McGill has a paper on the Knights essay "HOW MANY CHILDREN HAD LADY MACBETH." I don't believe it is in print anywhere yet, but he might be willing to share it with you. (Arthur Quilted-Couch) Since von Daniken was the only one smart enough to understand that true high points of our culture are gifts from aliens, the question _must_ then arise: how did he know? Only one explanation is possible. Von Daniken himself is a member of this vastly superior and highly advanced alien race! No other explanation holds up! And in his (its) own quiet way, that's what he's been trying to tell us all this time. Now, this has a very direct bearing on the authorship question of course. At the very least, von Daniken is related by blood to the author of the so-called "Shakespeare" plays. At the very least! And, given the possibility (nay, the probability) that this highly developed alien species possesses a longevity undreamt of in this quaint hinterland of the universe, is it not possible/probable too that von Daniken himself--who has after all shown himself to be so aware of human life forms-- IS THE TRUE AUTHOR OF THOSE PLAYS!!! No other explanation holds water! At last this "shakespeare" chicanery can be halted. The question now becomes one of disseminating this explosive information. And how will von Daniken react to being unmasked? Since he is one of Them, anything is possible. I think we ought to proceed carefully on this. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 09:05:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0542. Sunday, 19 June 1994. From: E. H. Pearlman Date: Saturday, 18 Jun 1994 07:52:39 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [Similarities] Has anyone yet noted the similarities between Othello and O. J. Simpson: black male and white woman, history of spousal abuse, murder of wife and friend, claims he loved his wife "too much," etc? E. Pearlman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 09:14:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0543 Re: Iachimo; Prospero and Miranda; Titania Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0543. Sunday, 19 June 1994. (1) From: Linda Woodbridge Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 94 15:45:40 MDT Subj: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box (2) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 18 Jun 1994 07:50:43 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Prospero, Miranda (3) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 18 Jun 1994 20:30:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0540 Re: Bottom, Titania, Sex (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Linda Woodbridge Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 94 15:45:40 MDT Subject: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box Bill Godshalk -- you recall my being "skeptical" about your Iachimo-in-a-box -- actually, I rather like the idea, and I can also visualize a staging of *A Chaste Maid in Cheapside* where, in the rather camp scene in which Moll Yellowhammer and Touchwood Junior rise from their coffins, the actors could pop up like jacks-in-the box--it would suit the tongue-in-cheek aura of this "resurrection," I think. Cheers! Sincerely, Linda Woodbridge (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 18 Jun 1994 07:50:43 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Prospero, Miranda Thanks to those who have so quickly and generously responded to my question about one approach to *The Tempest*. I don't mean to mount an elaborate defense of my remarks, but I would like to respond to some of the early questions before the discussion (if it continues) becomes too complex to handle. First, John Cox's trenchant reminder of the "character" problem: You are right; Prospero has no psychology, but you and I do, and so had Shakespeare. Thus, the configuration of elements (especially when taken together with the example of *Lear*) becomes the mandala for a meditation upon the relationship between a daughter and her father and the development of a grammar of motives appropriate to the circumstances provided by the text. Some considerations for that meditation: there is no sign of a mediating mother. The father is extremely skeptical of the society into which he is sending his beloved daughter, especially so, given the background mourning of Alonzo for the daughter HE has lost to the greater world. Powerfully implicit is the enormous temptation to keep her in isolation to himself. The perversity of such a choice (and Miranda's sexual maturity) are signalled by Caliban's attempted rape. Throw in whatever "historicizing" one wishes to this configuration, we still have but a mandala. Piers Lewis's question about "evidence" in the text pointing to the transformation of Caliban into Prince Ferdy: being an old Barberian (C.L., that is) I have always paid close attention to the elements of "disorder" that allow for the drift of identities and the need (and possibility) for all kinds of redefinitions--the dream-world setting of hallucination and illusion; the revolt of underlings, death by water, etc.--but especially the humiliation of the powerful: making Ferd take Cal's place in the menial tasks of water and wood fetching. I.e., Ferdinand is made to take on Caliban's identity. Sexuality is transformed from attemted rape into the elaborate dance of courtship, with all the inhibitions attending the symbolic barrier of virginity. And finally, to Phyllis Rackin's comment: "I wonder how Edenic a world w/o prohibitions against rape would be for rape victims." Precisely. Civilization and its Discontents all over again. The persistence of rape across cultural and historical boundaries argues the necessity for the protection of women from men by powerful symbolic and physical restraints, thus laying the ground for the subordination and possession of women by their protectors. Our present struggle is to make this fatal configuration seem less inevitable, less dependent upon irrational taboos and more available to reason and personal identification: "I, too, am victimized by such attacks upon human dignity." Pray God deliver us from the inchoate rages and compulsions that we have recently taken to calling "the rape culture" (in hopes of making it seem more available to social therapies) and into a new era of tender mutuality (but my hopes are not very high). In MY Shakespeare, visiting the monster in the underworld is always the first step toward release from fear and resentment into compassion and generosity. In other words, recognition does more for us than repression ("I know you all, and will for a while [time?]..."--or however that goes.) Regression to a symbolic madness or savagery may be the condition for the reinvention of a failed system of restraints. Oh, and about Ferdinand supposedly cheating at chess: I think there are much too many indicators of his capacity for selfless affection to consign him already to the pack of cynics to whom Miranda is being delivered. But enough blabber from me. Thanks, all, for the lovely conversation. Lonnie (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 18 Jun 1994 20:30:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0540 Re: Bottom, Titania, Sex Topic: "Enforced chastity" again I think that Don Foster may be misreading "enforced chastity" as "forced chastity," i.e., rape. I take Titania at her word: "enforced chastity" means "forced to be chaste." Bevington's note (3.1.195) gives both readings, but comments: "Titania at this moment is hardly concerned about chastity." I agree, and Titania sees the moon as weeping for all those maidens who must remain virgins. The tradition of the chaste moon is turned upside down. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 11:46:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0544 Re: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0544. Monday, 20 June 1994. (1) From: Robert S. Cohen Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 09:32:57 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 15:33:49 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 94 18:28:14 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 20:12:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert S. Cohen Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 09:32:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities And sunglasses in place of the handkerchief. Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell. (O.J. the hell-o). (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 15:33:49 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities Where's the "history of spousal abuse" in Othello? It seems altogether alien and, to Desdemona at last, utterly surprising when it occurs. That said, it's a pretty interesting comparison. Cheers, Sean Lawrence. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 94 18:28:14 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0542 Q: Similarities I applaud E. H. Pearlman's trenchant observation of the similarities between O. J. Simpson and Othello. These parallels are much too striking to be the result of coincidence; we all know Samuel Schoenbaum was off his rocker when he said that "life and art are full of cunning parallels". Thus, I think we should acknowledge the inevitable conclusion: O. J. Simpson wrote *Othello* (or at least the parts that weren't written by Erich von Daniken). Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 20:12:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Similarities Elihu Pearlman forgot the the "suicide" theme in his list of similarities. Oscar Wilde told us that life imitates art, but I find this particular instance too sad for my usual frivolity and quips. Sadly, I remain, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 11:59:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0545 Re: Shakespearean Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0545. Monday, 20 June 1994. (1) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 15:38:23 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney (2) From: Larry Schwartz Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 19:46:44 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney (3) From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 22:33:50 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Shakespearean Disney (4) From: Milla Riggio Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 23:41:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 15:38:23 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney Regarding parallels with The Lion King: What about Morgan, et. al, in Cymbeline? They seem to form a sort of academy that the heirs (Posthumous and Imogen) pass through and learn from. I don't know what Imogen learns, but Posthumous seems at least partially redeemed in my eyes by his association with these foils to the poisoned court. Anyway, just my 2c worth. Sean Lawrence. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Schwartz Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 19:46:44 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney Today's (6/19) NYTimes' Arts & Leisure section has a front-page, above-the-fold story about "The Lion King," addressing its Shakespearean parallels, as well as its suitability for children. As Joe Bob Briggs would say, "check it out!" Larry Schwartz, Humanities Librarian North Dakota State University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 22:33:50 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Shakespearean Disney I saw "The Lion King" last week, and there are allusions to "Hamlet". In fact, the NY Press commented on it before the film opened (and I believe the Disney Organization is confirming the Shakespearean influence). I do think that, while there might be some loose referencing to Henry IV, Part, I, it is a stretch. The companions are not evil, and in fact, aid Simba in his attempt to recover his throne. By the way, a few years ago, I was with a very young (3 and 1/2 years old) friend of mine, and I wanted to watch a version of "Hamlet" that was airing on PBS. I explained the plot to her, in advance, as the story of a man whose father was killed by his uncle. That the uncle then married the man's mother, and that, as a result the man didn't like his uncle at all. She accepted that plot summary (brief as it was), watched the story with me (we explained Ophelia when we got to it), and the next day was the only child in her nursery school who knew who Shakespeare is. Patricia E. Gallagher (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 23:41:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0541 Shakespearean Disney To Lynn Parks: The front page of today's Arts and Leisure section of the NY Times is headlined "A Bambi for the `90's Via Shakespeare" and contains a story about the "Hamlet" animated film THE LION KING. The point is to defend the film against those who think the death of the father too brutal for young eyes. But your point is clearly made as well. Best, Milla Riggio ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 12:16:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0546 Re: Prospero, Miranda, *Tmp.*, and Character & Dogma Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0546. Monday, 20 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 20:50:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Prospero and Miranda (2) From: Piers Lewis Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 21:10:42 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Prospero and Miranda (3) From: Steven Marx Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 08:53:56 -0700 (PDT) Subj: "kiss the book" Tempest 2.2 (4) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 11:35:01 SAST-2 Subj: Character and Dogma (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 20:50:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Prospero and Miranda Topic: Morality on the Island Lonnie Durham has started an interesting debate over THE TEMPEST, and he himself has made some perceptive comments about the play. Caliban's alleged attempt on Miranda's virginity and "honor," as Phyllis Rackin points out, is especialy problematic. Prospero asserts: "thou didst seek to violate/The honor of my child" (Bevington 1.2. 350-51), and Caliban does not deny the charge: "Would 't had been done!/Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else/This isle with Calibans" (352-54). I'd hate to be Caliban's lawyer, and Miranda (354-365) issues a strong indictment. But the problem is that we, the audience, do not see what happened. (And Terence Hawkes will be quick to tell us that nothing happened. There is no pre-play action.) We either accept or do not accept these statements. I, of course, am not defending rapists. But what are we, the audience, to think of Caliban's attempted rape? Was it a violent attempt? Or would ANY sexual advance made by a non-European male be interpreted as "rape"? We all know the offensive nouns used for the non-English. (Dagoland begins on the French coast!) In Caliban's case, we may assume that any sexual overture would be direct, crude, and pointed. But was it attempted rape, or ethnocentric prejudice against the sexualized alien? (Compare Brabantio's comments on Othello.) I think Prospero's usurpation of the Caliban's island is similarly questionable (1.2.333-347). Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 21:10:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Prospero and Miranda My apologies to Lonnie Durham and the list for failing to get my question pointed in the right direction. I was not asking about Caliban but Prospero: what is there in the words he, Prospero, uses that might lead us to suppose that he is really lusting after his own daughter, appearances to the contrary? Piers Lewis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Marx Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 08:53:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: "kiss the book" Tempest 2.2 In Tempest 2.2, Stephano's bottle of celestial liquor is the source of enlightenment, medicine and power. When he says _kiss the book_ in offering drinks to caliban, I hear a Falstaffian mockery not only of Prospero's magic scriptures but also of the colonial practise of bringing the natives the miraculous technology of print (in the Bible) and of fermentation (in the communion wine). It's the experience of drinking this unearthly liquor, preserved in a _bottle of bark_ made _with mine own hands_ by Stephano that leads Caliban to worship him as a god. My question is whether there is any evidence of this kind of reception and exploitation of communion wine --an ecclesiastical variant of trading whiskey for pelts--in the historical records? (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 11:35:01 SAST-2 Subject: Character and Dogma John Cox's quest for a non-dogmatic discussion of the question of literary character is to be welcomed. I would like to suggest that the issue is not theoretical, but rather what Wittgenstein would call "grammatical". In other words, no matter what *theory* one may hold about whether Prospero can or cannot have a character, if one wishes to talk about the significance of literature for our lives one cannot help invoking the *grammar* of human action, psychology, ethics, politics and sexuality. There are of course ways of talking about literary texts that do not involve reference to human action (and all the conceptual paraphernalia that that involves): one can plot the distribution of finite verbs in a Shakespeare sonnet, trace the purely formal relationships between novels, or look at the changes that were made to Shakespeare's texts in the 18th century. But perhaps certain concepts are *inescapable* if we wish to see any relationship between the words on the page and human life. In one sense this endorses Stanley Fish's claim that theory makes no difference, although I would treat this claim much more circumspectly and carefully than he himself does. My point may be illustrated by Thomas Cartelli's essay, "Prospero in Africa" (in _Shakespeare Reproduced_). Cartelli laudibly attempts to foreground African readings of _The Tempest_, notably those of Ngugi wa Thiongo, in order to address Shakespeare's possible complicity in the play's appropriation by colonizing powers. Throughout his discussion of _The Tempest_ he carefully maintains a terminology that strictly complies with the theoretical conception of the "death of the author". Cartelli ascribes all agency or activity not to Shakespeare the man, but to the disembodied "text". Notions of the liberal humanist subject are carefully avoided. When he turns to a discussion Ngugi's readings of Shakespeare, however, Ngugi appears again and again by name, imbued with a powerful moral and political agency. Not once is *his* equally textual intervention ascribed to the "text". Now I do not wish to accuse Cartelli of theoretical incompetence. On the contrary, given the project of his essay, which is to allow the colonized to speak, to recognize their suppressed and ignored moral and political agency, he has no choice but to resort to the grammar of what we might call the "liberal humanist subject", in spite of the anti-humanist theoretical credentials of his discussion of Shakespeare. (We could also note that the conceptual framework of agency and morality is not eradicated by speaking simply of "the text": it is shifted on to the text, now imbuing it with the grammar of all that has been withdrawn from the human subject. This, I take it, is one of Richard Levin's major points in his notorious _PMLA_ critique of theoretical readings of Shakespeare.) Theory can do many important things. There are, however, certain things that seem to escape the reach of its tendency towards the dogmatic, and which even theorists invoke unless they manage to delimit their mode of talking about texts strictly from what we call the "human". "Character" (like the "real world") is possibly one of these. David Schalkwyk PS. The position I am suggesting may be accused of promoting a dubious conservatism: we can't change our "grammar", so best just go along with it. I am not at all opposed to changing what is oppressive: it is one of the reasons I like Cartelli's essay. I'm interested in trying to trace the limits of the theoretical, and remain enough of a materialism to doubt that theoretical ways of writing about texts can change what is after all the outcome of material practice. The "grammar" to which Wittgenstein alerts us certainly changes when practices change, and that is because it is the product of such practices. (Nor should we maintain too hasty and dogmatic a distinction between theory and practice. (There, covered, ... I think ...) English Department University of Cape Town ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 12:19:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0547. Monday, 20 June 1994. From: Charles Edelman Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 14:58:00 EDT Subject: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Hamlet's first soliloquy is so well known that one tends to gloss over lines that are possibly not as explicit as might be assumed. I would appreciate feedback from all and sundry as to exactly WHY Hamlet must 'hold his tongue?' Respect for Gertrude's feelings? Fear of offending the court? etc. etc. Charles Edelman, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia C.Edelman@cowan.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 09:59:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0548. Tuesday, 21 June 1994. (1) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 10:41:50 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Shakespearean Disney (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 20:37:59 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0545 Re: Shakespearean Disney (3) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 19:14 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0545 Re: Shakespearean Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 10:41:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Shakespearean Disney Dear Lynn Parks, I've not seen *The Lion King*, but an article in the Arts and Entertainment section of this Sunday's New York Times briefly addresses the parallel to *Hamlet*. *Lady and the Tramp*, for you true trivia lovers, has a few borrowings from *Romeo and Juliet*. Perhaps we can look forward to Disney's Bardworld coming soon to a rural countryside near you? Imagine the rides: Comedy of Errors bumper cars, Prospero's Isle o' Fun and Redemption, Macbeth's House o' Blood, the Hall of Critical Precedents. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us paws. Cheers, Do(u)g Lanier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 20:37:59 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0545 Re: Shakespearean Disney Patricia Gallagher writes >I do think that, while >there might be some loose referencing to Henry IV, Part, I, it is a stretch. >The companions are not evil, and in fact, aid Simba in his attempt to recover >his throne. Are the 1H4 boon companions really so evil as that, Patricia? They may be non-conform, but they DO help Hal to achieve his own conception of kingship (I keep repeating my students that the key-line in 1+2H4 and H5 is 'I know you all'). Falstaff is a surrogate father, as trillions of others have said before me, and that Erlkoenig (or Harlequin) is indeed both an evil and a beneficient agent in the symbolic economy of the play. To get back to the Disney flick of more than Hamletish after- (or afore-) taste, I think that anti-stratfordians and stratfordians alike (I like to reconcile enemies with irony, which is indeed ironical) should be reconciled on this issue! The Whats-His-name-again Birthplace Trust, the heirs to Anthony Bacon and the umpteenth Earl of Oxon. should all sue the Disney sharks for pillaging the family jewels, and claim royalties. Irony apart, I think this flick should be added to the spinoff list, if the people who see it think it should. I don't think it will reach the shores of FroggishLand before Christmas, but as I unfortunately have no kids I shan't go to see it (I don't like long toon films). Enjoy yourselves and drink it cool (but strong)! Luc (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 19:14 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0545 Re: Shakespearean Disney Can't we get real? Disney is the total negation of what, I think, we are all about. This is more than a joke; it shows, I fear, what the study and teaching of Shakespeare has sunk to. I mentioned "The Lion King" and +Hamlet+ to my grad. students this morning. They groaned!! These are the shock troops; they teach our 16s and plus. Let us not give aid and comfort to the enemy! William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 10:04:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0549 Re: Nudity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0549. Tuesday, 21 June 1994. (1) From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 12:37:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: bodies (2) From: Elise Earthman Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 16:02:07 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: Nudity (3) From: Ralph Cohen Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 17:26:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 16 Jun 1994 12:37:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: bodies Thank you, James Schaeffer, for your broadening response to my musing. The tendency to view the naked body in theater as a view into the soul is certainly more common than I allowed. But in leaping right to the soul, I think I've missed something. I guess I was avoiding the question of pornography, which you boldly put right out front. It struck me, as I read your posting, that the direction you took was the one I'd suggested, but that wasn't what I meant. I think I'm groping toward something both less and more cerebral. Perhaps the word that comes closest is _engagement_. Can't the body grab us by the body as poetry grabs us by the mind? Or let me try again: don't we open ourselves to more thorough grabbing by a production when bodies are used to put forth body questions? I think Peter Greenaway's films are probably a good example. I've seen only THE DRAGHTSMAN'S CONTRACT, and, although I resent Greenaway's view of the world, I like how he makes free with the body. I guess I have a little more of a sense of the sacred than Greenaway does, but I don't equate _sacred_ with _hidden_. Things don't need to be taboo to be sacred. Enough mental skinny-dipping for today. James McKenna University of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 16:02:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Nudity Having seen ACT's Duchess of Malfi, I can attest that the Duchess was naked not only from the waist down but up as well, that she was wound round and round with ropes and had blood thrown on her. The entire production was an assault on the audience, and this scene was no different. I'll agree with the previous posts that in this case, at any rate, as an audience member I was thinking not of the story but of the actress, how she felt, how *I* felt about her nudity--it pushed me out of the production rather than drawing me into it, though given the rest of the production this doesn't surprise me. It was a very disturbing experience. Elise Earthman (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ralph Cohen Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 17:26:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0485 Qs: Nudity in Shakespearean Performance For Doug Lanier, In 1981 the RSC did a *Measure* in which Barnadine appeared entirely nude. I do not have details here at my office, but I'll try to get them for you. Ralph Cohen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 10:18:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0550 Re: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0550. Tuesday, 21 June 1994. (1) From: John Boni Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 12:09:17 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 19:16:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy (3) From: Skip Shand Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 14:05 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy (4) From: Robert O'Connor Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 10:42:03 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 12:09:17 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy In response to Charles Edelman's query regarding Hamlet's "But break my heart..." ending to the first soliloquy: I wonder if it is not a consequence of Hamlet's seeing the entrance of Horatio, Barnardo, and Marcellus. In his current state he trusts no one. (Note how Hamlet seems happy to welcome anyone not from Elsinore--Horatio, R & G, the Players--since to be from Elsinore-Denmark is to be corrupted.) Since he can trust no one, he must hold his tongue until an auditor can be proven to be trustworthy. ] I realize that this interpretation may appear to violate the convention of the soliloquy, but that convention is shunted aside when hearers approach. I will be interested in others' reaction to this viewpoint. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 19:16:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Charles Edelman asks an interesting question: why DOES Hamlet have to hold his tongue? First of all, I assume that he's using a metaphor. He's not walking around the court with his tongue firmly clutched by his hand. What requires Hamlet, who apparently likes to talk, to be silent about his mother's hasty marriage? Should we compare the King to Henry VIII, and understand that it is extremely dangerous to criticize a king openly? Is the implication that King Claudius is a tyrant? And why are Gertrude's tears "unrighteous?" In what sense are they "unrighteous"? Yours, Bill Godshalk P.S. Certainly Hamlet's suit of black is a SILENT protest, especially when mom asks him to cast his nighted color off. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 14:05 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy One very usual answer to Hamlet's abrupt silence comes via the staging: Horatio and the guards enter, and Hamlet has to clam up. Soliloquy interruptus. It doesn't address your search for a more psychologised motive, but it has the elegance of immediacy and playability. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 10:42:03 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0547 Q: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Dear All, Charles Edelman (Hi, Charles!) asked about sent a query about the Danish prince: >Hamlet's first soliloquy is so well known that one tends to gloss over lines >that are possibly not as explicit as might be assumed. I would appreciate >feedback from all and sundry as to exactly WHY Hamlet must 'hold his tongue?' >Respect for Gertrude's feelings? Fear of offending the court? etc. etc. I agree that these may be factors, Charles - but have you considered it in the light of what he says later: . . . . .This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must like a whore unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing like a very drab, A scullion! It is evident, I think, that one of the reasons why Hamlet must 'hold his tongue' is that to rant and rave does not constitute 'manly' action, but womanish inaction. The same idea is explored and rejected by Macduff. Robert O'Connor Australian National University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 11:26:48 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0553. Tuesday, 21 June 1994. From: Dan Colvin Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 12:50:34 -0500 (CDT) Subject: British weather My wife and I are about to leave on our first visit to Great Britain -- a tour of England, Wales, and Scotland, as well as several plays in Stratford. We are wondering if any Shaksperians could advise us about weather conditions in the next few weeks (advice about packing, etc.) as well as any other travel hints. You can post or send privately to mfdlc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu Thanks. Dan Colvin Western Illinois University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 10:41:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0551 Re: *Tmp.*; Helena; Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0551. Tuesday, 21 June 1994. (1) From: John Boni Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 12:21:15 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: Prospero, Miranda, *Tmp.*, and Character & Dogma (2) From: John Cox Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 14:15:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Iachimo; Prospero and Miranda; Titania (3) From: Scott Crozier Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 17:37:32 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Iachimo; Prospero and Miranda; Titania (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 18:47:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Character and Dogma (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 12:21:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Prospero, Miranda, *Tmp.*, and Character & Dogma Regarding Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda: No one has yet suggested what has seemed a salient point to me--the concepts of honor (most certainly) and rape (judging from his response) are foreign to Caliban's nature. "Honor' is an abstraction far from his realm of thought. And in response to Prospero, Caliban uses the biological or natural--in having sex with Miranda he would have "peopled this isle with Calibans." (I choose "having sex with " deliberately.) Caliban exists in a world different from that of his European master and mistress. The language Shakespeare gives him: 'water with berries in it,' 'how to name the bigger light and the less,' provides further evidence of this difference. My point also is not to minimize rape (the correct caveat must be entered) but to reflect conceptual differences inherent in among the (dare I say it?) characters. BTW, one odd directorial effect I witnessed a few years back had Miranda advancing towards Caliban even as she stated that he is "A villain, sir,/I do not love to look on." Odd. Doubly odd, since the text suggests that Caliban is not yet on stage. John Boni ujboni@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 14:15:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Iachimo; Prospero and Miranda; Titania Following Henry Luce's observation in the original Arden edition of *The Tempest*, several people have pointed out a considerable age difference between Caliban and Miranda: she was three when she reached the island, at the same time that Caliban was about twelve. He must therefore have matured sexually long before she did. This raises the possibility that what Prospero reacted to was not a rape per se but what he perceived to be a young man's sexual interest in a child, and that that is why Prospero sees Caliban as a monster and a devil. I mention this possibility not to rule out others (such as incest or cultural misunderstanding) but to rule this one in *as a possibility*. What happened between Caliban and Miranda is simply unknowable, because the play raises so many interesting possibilities without allowing any of them to be definitive. That's why it is such a rich play. John Cox (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 17:37:32 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0543 Re: Iachimo; Prospero and Miranda; Titania Having read the discussion prompted by Lonnie Durham with much interest, I was triggered into excitement about the comments that Lonnie made on June 18 about disorder and rape. I am up to my "ass's" ears in MND at present and I couldn't help thinking of Helena's plight in the forest in connection with what has been discussed about about Miranda. Like Miranda, Helena is motherless (as are most of S's ladies) except that Terence Hawkes would like us to think otherwise - but that is a different tack altogether - and like Miranda Helena is subjected the unwanted affections of men. Tantamount to rape, Helena is subjected to the psychological mawling of two sexually dysfunctional (at the time) men and all this happens in the chaos of the fantastic world of faery outside the bounds of the civilised city. We know the rest of the story: the lovers return to the world they know, comforted in the warmth of the security of the old world of parents from which they had run. It seems that this theme runs through a number of the plays MND, Tempest, Pericles, Cymbeline are a few. Should we find New Historicist interest in this, or is this just me finding connections which have more to do with my interest in MND than in Shakespeare's post-structuralist criticism. Regards, Scott Crozier PS Terence Hawkes's essay "OR" on MND is worth the read if you haven't done so! (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 18:47:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Character and Dogma I find David Schalkwyk's response to theory and character very interesting. But I wonder if it is ever possible for humans to approach anything without the "grammar" of human actions, etc. Our languages are so metaphorical that we constantly introduce action, values, etc. into our discussions. (Notice I didn't say "discourses.") Even if we discuss word usage and formal relationships, wouldn't our metaphors betray us? In fact, David himself seems to make this point later in his comments when he discusses "text." When the author is excluded, the text itself takes on human characteristics. "The text demands that we . . . . " And, of course, the text makes no such demand; the text does nothing on its own. Nor, indeed, does the author -- after she's dead. The reader, the actor, the audience: they are the active ingredients. Until a text comes in contact with one of these it's has no life. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 11:20:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0552. Tuesday, 21 June 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 12:56:54 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0544 Re: Similarities (2) From: Christine M Gordon Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 21:28:30 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.042 Similiarites (3) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 16:24:35 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0544 Re: Similarities (4) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 11:08:14 EDT Subj: Life and Art (5) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, June 21, 1994 Subj: Re: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 12:56:54 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0544 Re: Similarities A quick apology to any who might have been offended by my flip comments on O. J. Simpson/Othello. Like Bill Godshalk, I find the whole situation sad and tragic, but sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. Dave Kathman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine M Gordon Date: Sunday, 19 Jun 1994 21:28:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.042 Similiarites To E. Pearlman: Yes, yesterday morning as we read our local paper, my spouse (who's "not even in the lit biz," as he put it) said "This is like a Shakespearean tragedy." To which I replied, "Yes, *Othello.*" I'm sure we're not the only ones who had this conversation. The only question is, who's Iago? Chris Gordon (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Monday, 20 Jun 1994 16:24:35 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0544 Re: Similarities Regarding the parallels between O.J. Simpson and Othello: Wow! I guess they all are alike! Also, I just met an alcoholic Dane who had murdered his brother and married his sister-in-law. I guess all Dane's are that way! And what about those Jews? A gentile friend had just asked me for a loan, and before I knew it, I had suggested to him a merry bond in lieu of collateral. The next thing I knew, the sonofabitch's friend had eloped with my daughter, so when he defaulted on his loan, I figured, what the hell, I'd hold him to his bond after all . . . Seriously, folks: without reopening the universalist/historicist debate, may I ask my fellow SHAKSPER subscribers to be cautious about airing their racist assumptions in this semi-public forum of ours. Some thoughts had better be kept to one's self. Cary M. Mazer (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 20 Jun 94 11:08:14 EDT Subject: Life and Art Two recent posts suggest similarities between Shakespearean plays and both the O.J. Simpson case and the new Disney film "The Lion King". I'm tempted to suggest that there are simply a finite number of plots, but that does seem a little reductive. As for "The Lion King": the articles I've read suggest that there was a conscious attempt to give something of the flavor of Aristotelian tragedy. While there are certainly parallels to _Hamlet_, I was struck more by the similarities to the Orestes story. Chacun a son gout, je suppose. Then again, there is plenty of precedent for the evil brother of the good cartoon lion king attempting to seize the throne: remember King Leonardo (and his skunk confidant Odie Colonie) and the nefarious Itchy Brother and Biggy Rat? The Simpson story is just too weird. But life does sometimes imitate art in bizarre ways -- it happened to me a couple of years ago when a Pirandello play I was directing opened on the very night the Congressional hearings were re-opened on the Clarence Thomas nomination in light of the testimony of Anita Hill. The second act of the play began with a sequence of "Which one do we believe, him or her" lines, leading to the quasi-raisonneur character saying "Believe them both!". My wife and I, however, have developed the ultimate explanation of the Simpson case, in light of recent events in the sports world, literary parallels, and the current vogue of conspiracy theories. There can't be a real _Othello_ parallel without a Iago character. He doesn't have to be a direct equivalent, but there needs to be a figure of evil to mitigate the hero's actions. We decided to take things a step further: Simpson was framed by an evil colleague. Remember that damning evidence was found in CHICAGO. The conclusion, obviously, is that the culprit was a Walter Payton fan who wanted to diminish Simpson's claims to being the best running back ever. [This theory is infinitely flexible, by the way -- had the evidence been found in Cleveland, it would've been a Jim Brown fan, and so on.] We're going to get Oliver Stone to make the movie -- but we need a paltry $40 million or so for start-up costs: I feel confident that fellow SHAKSPEReans will raise that sum in a matter of days. With too much time on my hands... Rick Jones strophius@aol.com (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, June 21, 1994 Subject: Re: Similarities I too share many of Cary Mazer's misgivings about this particular discussion. I loath talk-radio, talk-television, and tabloid television, and the last thing I want SHAKSPER to become is like them. Thus, I do not want to prolong this thread at all, but I would like to respond to something Bill Godshalk mentioned. I do not consider Othello's death a suicide -- rather I see it as a public execution carried out by the very person who traduced the State. In a like manner, I also view Cleopatra's death as a noble act rather than as a suicide. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 13:14:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0554 CFP: Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association Conf. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0554. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. From: Libby Smigel Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 13:12:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: CFP: Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association Conference CALL FOR PAPERS -- Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association Conference Friday, Oct. 28, to Sunday, Oct. 30, 1994 Oglebay Park Resort, Wheeling , West Virginia Papers, abstracts, and complete panels on all topics related to Popular Culture are sought for the 1994 meeting of the Mid-Atlantic PCA in Oglebay Park, Wheeling, WV, from Oct. 28 to 30. Send abstracts (150-word minimum), full-length papers (no more than 15 pages for a 20-minute presentation), or complete panel description (with titles, abstracts and authors) by JULY 1 to an area chair below or to the conference program chair. Medievalism: Veronica Kennedy, St. John's University, Grand Central & Utopian Parkway, Jamaica, NY 11439 Performance Studies (including theatre and dance): Ted Bain, English/ Theatre, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 14456; e-mail: bain@hws.bitnet Women's Lives and Letters: Marie Campbell, 823 Buchanan Trail East, Greencastle, PA 17225-9575 Conference program chair: Stanley S. Blair, Wesleyan College, 4750 Forsyth Road, Macon, GA 31297 Undergraduate and graduate students who want their papers considered for the two annual student prizes should send two copies of the completed paper by JULY 1 to: Stanley Blair, MA PCA program chair, Wesleyan College, Macon, GA 31297. Please include your audio-visual requirements in your proposal. You will be notified by the beginning of August on whether your paper has been accepted. For a complete list of area chairs of all periods and disciplines, contact Libby Smigel at smigel@hws.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:15:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0557 Re: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0557. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 11:01:51 CDT Subj: o.j./Othello (2) From: Martin Green Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 21:30:05 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 11:01:51 CDT Subject: o.j./Othello Eric Zorn, in his column in today's (Tuesday) Chicago Tribune, mentions the O.J. Simpson / Othello parallel. He also points out that the situation is a tragedy not only in the vernacular sense of "a terrible thing", but also in the classical sense of "a fall from grace by a prominent figure due to a tragic flaw". Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Green Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 21:30:05 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities Come on now, Cary Mazer! Every person who's ever read Othello thought, when he or she heard of the charges against O.J. Simpson (and so far they're only unproven charges), of the similarity between the day's news and the 300 year old play. Can we not talk about it, without being accused of indulging in "racist assumptions"? Honi soit qui mal y pense! And yes, if you were to try to collect on the collateral of a pound of flesh, I'd feel impelled to discuss with anyone who'd listen the similarity between your action and Shylock's. Also, if you fell in love with the daughter of your father's enemy, etc., etc., etc. Sadly, M. Green ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:27:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0558 Re: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0558. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 09:25:21 -0500 Subj: Hamlet's first soliloquy (2) From: Paul Hawkins Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 16:19:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0550 Re: Hamlet's First Soliloquy (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 09:25:21 -0500 Subject: Hamlet's first soliloquy Some very preliminary thoughts: Hamlet has been home from Witteberg for two months; he came home, presumably, for his father's funeral. He was, according to his own and others' report, devastated by his father's death. Sunk in gloom and grief, he may not have been paying careful attention to what was going on around him, i.e. any indication that Gertrude and Claudius might be developing a relationship (or, indeed, continuing one that had developed earlier). Mom's wedding comes as another major blow to his "image" of his family-- he starts to pay attention; he begins to suspect that all is not well ("it is not, nor it cannot come to good"), but has no real proof at this point beyond his own feelings about the events, and he may not be sure he can trust those. Enter the ghost and possible "evidence" to confirm his suspicions. This all goes to prove just how drastically things change (or appear to change) at home once you've gone off to college (ask any freshman of your acquaintance). Apologies to those who don't like discussing characters as if they were real people, but there it is. Happy solstice to all! --Chris Gordon (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Hawkins Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 16:19:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0550 Re: Hamlet's First Soliloquy Though Hamlet holds his tongue temporarily at the approach of he knows not whom, he lets it go again, introducing the subject that disturbs him early on in his scene with Horatio and in the presence of Marcellus and Barnardo. He does so indirectly--"I prithee do not mock me, fellow student,/I think it was to see my mother's wedding"--and then says rather grandly, "Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven/ Or ever I had seen that [the wedding] day, Horatio." Perhaps what's motivating his actions is his shame, shame for his mother's actions--as well as for his womanish sensibility, as Robert O'Connor writes. Hamlet silences himself, and yet he loves to talk, as William Godshalk observes, and even about the distressing subject, but only if he can achieve some distance from it, through witty solicitations of other people's reactions or through poised pronouncements. Paul Hawkins ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:33:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0559 Re: Nudity; Helena Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0559. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 15:03:44 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Naked Bodies (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 17:15:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Helena (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 15:03:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Naked Bodies James McKenna: Your further musing on nakedness in performance raise a slew of what must be eternal questions, since they sound (and I DON'T mean to sound like the middle-aged drone I probably am!) the same things friends and I used to say in innocence about our involvement in theatre and photography -- and in not-so-innocent self-justification about our involvement in "other relationships" (a 60's code word for sleeping around -- which is itself a euphemism ....). I jumped from the body to the mind in my posting to avoid addressing political issues, but I know that they are inevitable, because any two (or more) people ARE political in balancing what they want with what they can get, and naked bodies are loaded symbols (when not the object itself) of what many people WANT REAL BAD -- and what many other people decidedly DO NOT WANT, or, at least, do not want foisted upon them. I say naked bodies are political even as I find the politicization of sex to be a gross offense against our common humanity. We do not commonly walk about naked in this culture and do not usually expose certain parts of our bodies except for medical examination, sexual play, or shock value (including intimidation, up to and including rape). There may be other reasons, but these come readily to mind. Can we see a naked body without one of these emotional panniers we carry around flying open and seizing control of our reactions? I would like to think so, and have always admired the work of certain photographers whose work seemed to catch the spark of arousal without clinical distance, clammy voyeurism, or abusive control. Edward Weston is the perfect example ... but then some claim his work was clinically distant, that his camera was a peep hole -- and that he was a jerk toward all those women, besides. Where does this leave me as I look at his photos? And how far is it from his nudes to those of Robert Mapplethorpe there in Cincinnati? those exquisitely printed large-format photographs of body parts connected in ways that most people did not even think possible, let alone erotic. Bodies are not just bodies, and any use of nakedness in a performance will resonate with meanings that derive from multiple contexts -- the ones I try to control, if I am the director, and the ones my audience will bring with them, over which I have no control. Theatrical productions DO "embody" body questions -- but the "body" of plays that explicitly address naked-body questions is not that large. Setting aside how I might react to _those_ works, I consciously look for consciously-applied extra-textual meaning (read: political meaning) when naked bodies turn up gratuitously (?) on other stages. Now has this added anything to the discussion? I'm not sure. To use an ill-considered term, I'm groping, too: Some of us in the 60's thought we had brought naked truth and naked beauty into life and onto the stage ... then got burned. Of course, we also thought we had invented sex, only to find that the radicals of the 30's (or the 20's, or the '90's) had been there before us. A final note: you wrote, "Can't the body grab us by the body as poetry grabs us by the mind." WHOAA! Poetry is an exquisitely physical form of literature! Poetry theory, too (at least, old theory): have a look at R. P. Blackmur's "Language as Gesture." Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 17:15:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Helena I'd like to remind Scott Crozier of an earlier passage in MND: 2.1.188-244 (Bevington). We have names for what's going on here: sadism and masochism. Helena says: "I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,/The more you beat me I will fawn on you" (203-4). And later Demetrius promises: "I shall do thee mischief in the wood" (237). The passage is full of masochistic submission and sadistic promises. I will assume that Helena and Demetrius are consenting adults. If so, it seems that Helena wouldn't mind a little rough love from Demetrius. What she doesn't like is being teased (as she sees it) by the two men and Hermia. Yours (from the steamy Ohio valley), Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:39:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0560 Re: British Weather Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0560. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. (1) From: Edward Dotson <0003963467@mcimail.com> Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 16:43 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather (2) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 11:45 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather (3) From: David Banks Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 17:31:05 BST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Dotson <0003963467@mcimail.com> Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 16:43 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather Take an umbrella and a jacket or raincoat. Go out and buy yourself a good pair of walking shoes. I like Rockports. Don't buy a cheap umbrella because it is going to get a workout. Sharpen your taste buds for beer because Britain is a beer drinker's paradise. Every variety you can imagine. If you are a stout drinker, find a pub that serves Beamish Stout. One of the best. Don't get your hopes too high for british cooking. But you can always find good Indian food. You will enjoy Britain, a wonderful country, lovely people. Ed Dotson 3963467@mcimail.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 11:45 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather Dear Dan Colvin, I'm afraid you've missed our summer. It was last Thursday afternoon. However, visitors to London are still urged to try the famous echo in the Round Reading Room of the British Library. Just sit at one of the desks and utter the word 'Godshalk' loudly, several times. T. Hawkes (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Banks Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 17:31:05 BST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0553 Q: British Weather On-off torrential rain in Scotland today. Warm too, humid therefore. Suggest you take an umbrella large enough for two, encouraging intimacy between sunbursts. Have a great time! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 13:39:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0555. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. (1) From: Steven Marx Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 08:47:20 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney (2) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 13:35:51 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Marx Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 08:47:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney William Proctor Williams says "Disney is the total negation of what we're all about." I disagree. In fact, I generally begin my first class of "Introduction to Shakespeare" by comparing Shakespeare to Disney--both masters of public media, of corporate show business, of national and international cultural traditions, and of multiple worlds of the imagination. Steven Marx Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 13:35:51 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney I guess I'm confused about what William Proctor Williams would have us do: deny or ignore the apparently self-conscious Shakespearean references in Disney films? Chastise the nearest seven-year-old for preferring "The Lion King" to "Hamlet"? Insist that only the originator of a plot idea may use it (thereby wiping out the entire Shakespearean canon)? I have no desire to "give aid and comfort to the enemy": but please, someone, lest I stray again: tell me who that enemy might be, and how I am betraying the cause. Sidebar: I have this recurring vision of the academic response to the premiere of "Comedy of Errors"... a group of bejowled, terminally constipated "scholars" complaining about "this new play I heard about... a re-arrangement of perfectly good Plautus and... (sit down, you're not going to believe this) in (GASP!) the VERNACULAR!!! Aaaaiiieeeee!!!!" Perversely yours, Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:01:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0556 Re: Suicides Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0556. Wednesday, 22 June 1994. (1) From: John Boni Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 12:48:05 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 21:10:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Suicide and/or Noble Act (3) From: John Drakakis Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 11:17:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Boni Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 12:48:05 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities To Hardy Cook: I will not quarrel with your desire to curtail the "O.J. Simpson" thread, which I took in a lighthearted vein, though not everyone did, obviously. However, you make a dual assertion about Othello and Cleopatra and about suicide. I don't believe that suicide need be regarded as inglorious. In that sense, Othello's suicide need not be termed ignoble. Certainly, there exists enough of the noble suicide in the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries as well as his own. The idea of Othello as judge and executioner as well as criminal makes sense; after all, how could such a man (oh, oh, am I making him into a character with human traits?), how could such a construct allow others to judge him? As with Cleopatra, the poetry enforces the nobility of her act. We may have varying attitudes toward suicide, but at least one of them should include nobility, if only for historical reasons. John Boni ujboni@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 1994 21:10:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Suicide and/or Noble Act I gather Hardy Cook takes me to task because of the negative connotations of suicide. But my position is: if you kill yourself, you've committed suicide. Ergo, Othello and Cleopatra have both committed suicide. I am not commenting on the nobility of either suicide. Eliot, of course, was not convinced by Othello's final act of justice, when he identifies himself with the Turkish enemy and smits himself as a turbaned and malignant unbeliever. I find this suicide ambiguous rather than clarifying. I have argued (and still believe) that Caesar convinces Cleopatra to kill herself. Dolabella and Thidias enter the play together, and Thidias is the first agent Caesar sends to Cleopatra; Dolabella is the second, and his job is to get her to be noble to herself. Taking Cleopatra to Rome would be like taking Mary, Queen of Scots, to London: not a good idea. Caesar wants to get rid of her, but he does not want to appear in the deed. Dolabella works her prefectly, and in the end Caesar turns to Dolabella: bury 'em. (There's more to my argument, but enough for now.) And so Cleopatra's death is at best ambiguous. (I'm sure this is Hardy's tactful way to get us off of contemporary events and back to arguing about the plays!) Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 11:17:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0552 Re: Similarities Two brief points on Hardy Cook's comments on Othello's and Cleopatra's "suicides": It seems to me, Hardy, that you're right and wrong. In a literal sense Othello kills himself, that is to say, the actor playing the role of Othello kills Othello at the end of the play. T.S.Eliot, who should have known better, thought that Othello's speech at the end was some attempt by the "character" to "cheer himself up". In fact here is the kind of evidence that always rattles essentialist character-specialists that Othello is a "decentred character", that he is both "the noble Moor" AND "the circumcised dog", and that the one kills the other. In this context, then it's a very peculiar suicide indeed, since Othello is not taking his own life but an identity that is accorded to the figure of Othello by Venice. The death is cast in the form of a summary execution, the protector of Venice and Governor of Cyprus killing the "turban'd Turk" who traduced the State. Cleopatra is even more complex, since her death follows Antony's botched heroic death. I question whether it is a "noble act" in the Roman sense of that phrase. I prefer to see this as an act of appropriation; Cleopatra takes Roman suicide and appropriates it for Egypt. She transforms a particular manner of death into an erotic Egyptian equivalent which has the effect of radically questioning the masculine terms within which the tragic mood of the play seems to be cast. Her death then becomes a tragedy which undercuts Roman tragedy, a gesture which undoes the heroics that we associate with Antony. All this from a figure in the play for whom, undermining, undercutting, subverting, are means of political survival. Anybody looking for a feminine counter to the masculine discourse of tragedy need look no further than Cleopatra, it seems to me. Again, the actor playing the role of Cleopatra kills the "character", but then the rhetoric of the process demands that we see this death in terms other than suicide. The point is, surely, that characters killing THEMSELVES here is a very misleading formulation indeed- and before Bill Godshalk tells us that what he sees happening on the stage is what actually happens on the stage, maybe we should ponder our own commitment to a naively mimetic principle that the plays themselves, and these two in particular, fly directly in the face of. This is another way of pointing up the crass stupidity of those who would wish to make ignorant connections between Othello and O.J.Simpson. Now if they wish to make connections between Othello and Detective Nordberg, then we might have a more serious debate. Cheers, John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 11:44:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0561 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0561. Thursday, 23 June 1994. (1) From: James P. Saeger Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 10:03:17 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Shakespearean Disney (2) From: Jon Enriquez Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 09:53:56 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney (3) From: Tad Davis Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 08:36:34 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney (4) From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 23:26:28 +1000 (EST) Subj: [Disney] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James P. Saeger Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 10:03:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Shakespearean Disney In reply to William Proctor Williams: I was a bit confused by your suggestion that Disney is the total negation of what, I think, we are all about. This is more than a joke; it shows, I fear, what the study and teaching of Shakespeare has sunk to. Notwithstanding plot similarities that others have noticed, I see Disney (a big player in the for-profit, mass-market, popular entertainment industry and one that has produced pieces of enduring cultural interest) as extremely relevant to Shakespeare. As the members of the list well know, Shakespeare's position as shareholder in the Chamberlain's/King's Servants made him, along with the company, a big player in 16th- & 17th-century London's for-profit, mass-market, popular entertainment industry. And Chamberlain's/King's, like Disney, produced pieces of enduring cultural interest. James P. Saeger jsaeger@mail.sas.upenn.edu English Dept, U of Pennsylvania (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Enriquez Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 09:53:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0548 Re: Shakespearean Disney And here I was thinking that *The Lion King* sounded a lot like *The Spanish Tragedy*... Jon Enriquez Georgetown University ENRIQUEZJ@guvax (Bitnet) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 08:36:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney Steven Marx and Rick Jones suggest that Disney is not necessarily the enemy. I have to agree. In my cubicle at work, I have three decorations. One is a poster of the young Walt Disney standing in a doorway, with the shadow of Mickey Mouse greeting him. Another is a trading card from Gladstone Publishing, showing a pacing, ranting Uncle Scrooge (card #15 in the series of Carl Barks' Heroes and Villains). A third is a poster reproducing the Folio portrait of Shakespeare, advertising "Mr. William Shakespeares Documentary Life set forth by S. Schoenbaum and Printed according to the True Originall Copies." Why do I have these on my wall? Because Walt Disney, Carl Barks, William Shakespeare, and Samuel Schoenbaum are my heroes. Why are they my heroes? Because they are all MASTERS OF STORY. They can all, in their own way and in their own chosen medium, produce a "ripping good yarn." Masters of Story and ripping good yarns are hard to come by. Meet them early in the form of cartoons by Disney and comics by Barks; learn to recognize and appreciate the Real Thing; and you may go on later to recognize and appreciate the Real Thing in more "adult" contexts. Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 23:26:28 +1000 (EST) Subject: [Disney] Am I the only member who is offended by the use of the names Shakespeare and Disney in such close conjunction? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 12:10:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0562 Re: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0562. Thursday, 23 June 1994. (1) From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 08:40:30 EDT Subj: Othello and spouse abuse (2) From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 16:50:30 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0557 Re: Similarities (3) From: Robert George Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 09:25:09 EST Subj: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 08:40:30 EDT Subject: Othello and spouse abuse Contrary to the recent "Similarities" discussion, the best performance of Othello that clearly incoported spouse abuse that I have ever seen, cast Iago as the abuser, and Emilia as the abused. It was a film, directed by Janet Suzman, using a South African cast (other details escape me). Though I had some problems in other areas of the performance, for the first time, I found the character of Emilia to be interesting as a whole, in every scene. Her flashes of bitterness and subservience finally fit, and she was able to create tension between a strong, clear Emilia (who emerged in the final scene) and a battered, confused Emilia. I'd be interesting in hearing what others thought about this and other aspects of that film. Mez (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 16:50:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0557 Re: Similarities I don't wish to continue this thread of the discussion any longer except to say that I've read and thought about Othello; I didn't see the connection Friday night, and I don't see it now. I was shocked at the initial postings on this topic, and I'm glad Cary Mazer has the courage to speak up. Kimberly Nolan knolan@umiami.ir.miami.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert George Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 09:25:09 EST Subject: Similarities [Editor's Note: Although I normally do NOT post submissions from people who are not members of the conference, I found the following of sufficient interest to send out to all. --HMC] I hope I am not committing any sort of faux pas, but I stumbled across your bulletin board by accident (forgive me, I am quite the neophyte). The comments from Hamlet to Lady Macbeth to Prospero and the "Lion King" were all fascinating. But it is the Othello/O.J. Simpson paralell that made me feel the urge to contribute. First and foremost, I will say for the record that I am what is currently referred to here in the U.S. as an African American. I say this only to underscore my following comments. Mr. Mazer should not feel that merely because people note the similarity between the two "Os" that it is necessarily racist. Barely two days after this sad drama had begun to play out (before the freeway chase), "Othello" first came in to my mind. (O.J.'s actual first name is "Orenthal," which is fairly close to his counterpart, if you think about it.) The comment to friends was, "Which pretentious reporter will make the first Othello reference?" The truth is, however, few journalists have the intellectual depth to make that comparison (journalists reading this -- consider yourselves one of the few!). The American edition of TIME called this saga "An American Tragedy." One of the few times, it seems to me, that the word ("tragedy") has been used correctly. The truth is, we rarely see true tragedy anymore. The Bard's stage where we were merely players has today become little more than extended soap opera. For a brief moment, this is true tragedy, with true human horror and emotion playing itself out in the public sphere. But, all too soon (in fact, it has already begun), the classically tragic elements will be smothered in late-20th Century psychobabble including: the racial angle, the battered spouse angle, the pampered athlete angle, the offspring of a single parent angle, and of course the various legal angles. The O.J. Simpson story will go the way of Menendez/Bobbitt/Buattafuoco and goodness knows how many other sorry American melodramas. Don't get me wrong, many of the social elements are important in today's world, but it seems to me we've lost something in perpetually dissecting Man to innumerable influences. Othello is a tragic hero and remains fixed so in our minds--flawed, of course, yet heroic nonetheless. A 90s "celebrity" cannot even begin to equal a Shakespearean "hero." Sadly had O.J. actually killed himself, he might almost have touched the Moor. Now, as he lives (barring any miracle exoneration), his image wavers. The difference between this modern day celebrity and a Bard "hero" is that O.J. Simpson, at one time, was a hero to many. He is that no more. He is now a "fixed" as a "celebrity" -- famous, infamous, or otherwise. Which begs the question, are there any heroes today? Or are they all only mere "celebrities"? A question for another time (and probably another place). I apologize for taking up this space. This forum is a good thing. Never be afraid of saying what you believe or feel; if it is an observation honestly met, we all learn from your gift. Thank you for your time. Robert George (rgeorge@hr.house.gov). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 12:25:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0563 Re: Nudity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0563. Thursday, 23 June 1994. (1) From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 12:42:03 EDT Subj: Nudity (2) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 18:09:56 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0559 Re: Nudity (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Tuesday, 21 Jun 94 12:42:03 EDT Subject: Nudity I think that Elise Earthman's posting points out that, in terms of performance values, female nudity and male nudity may have different impacts. Different audience members may empathize, and I believe our culture is far more accepting of nudity in women than men (a while back, wasn't full frontal female nudity in USA an R, while the same for men was an X? or still is?). Mez (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 18:09:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0559 Re: Nudity I'd like to propose that we historicize the discussion of nudity/nakedness and consider differences between the "meanings" (emotional as well as cognitive) an unclothed body might have had in Shakespeare's time and those that it has for us. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 12:40:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0564 Re: Soliloquy; Devils; *Tmp.*; Suicides; Hal Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0564. Thursday, 23 June 1994. (1) From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 14:00:51 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0550 Re: Hamlet's First Soliloquy (2) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 16:48 CDT Subj: Devils (3) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 18:32:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0551 Re: *Tmp.* (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 20:47:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0556 Re: Suicides (5) From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 20:13:06 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Hal and his companions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Jane Miller Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 14:00:51 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0550 Re: Hamlet's First Soliloquy RE HAMLET'S " break my heart" . How about... a) the court of Claudius is a dangerous place to express doubts about an 'o'er hasty marriage', even for the heir apparent all ungartered later on. b) he can't prove a thing about his surmise [ which is ?]- and hasn't talked to the ghost yet c) as Prince Hamlet anything he says has political ramifications - and a trusted friend, Horatio hasn't arrived either - though pat he comes to break off the soliloquy d) his Mother has been 'Niobe all tears' so he can't find it in himself to express his grief or fears publically for fear it may also seem hypocritical or overdone. e) Despite the fact that its Claudius who later says'His father lost, lost his...passing through nature to eternity' that is also the truth of the matter - and Hamlet recognises that he should be trying to achieve some equilibrium, however tenuous, as time goes on. and so on . As ever, Hamlet keeps his own counsel when questioned - Mary Jane Miller P.S. Thanks to all for so many thought provoking ideas and some bouts of delighted laughter this past academic year. I'm away for a while but I look forward to catching up when I return Mary Jane Miller (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 94 16:48 CDT Subject: Devils This should, I suppose, be sent only to John Cox, but the Devils question seems to have gotten the list's attention. I have another Devil. It is in a set of plays (6) I am editing which were written by Cosmo Manuche (sorry about the name, but he was English--Merchant Taylors' School and officer in the Royalist army) three of which were published in 1652 and three of which exist only in manuscipt. In any case, in +The Banished Shepherdess+ written in very early 1660 there is a stage devil who not only causes great difficulties for the other characters but who is also a textual crux. If anyone, most certainly including John Cox, wants more information would they please send me a message off the list. Send it to the BITNET address not the INTERNET address as I currently have to pay for the latter out of my own pocket. Northern Illinois University is currently the disused off-ramp on the Information Superhighway. William Proctor Williams Department of English Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 bitnet: TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET internet:TB0WPW1@CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU Telephone: (815) 758-4565 or (815) 753-6608 Fax: (815) 753-0606 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 18:32:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0551 Re: *Tmp.* I think it would be useful to think about Caliban, not as an actual inhabitant of a colonized place, but as an early seventeenth-century representation of such a person, produced in England for English consumption--i.e., for the entertainment of compatriots of the people who were actually engaged in colonizing (stealing land, enslaving its inhabitants, raping indigenous women, etc.). Native men had far fewer opportunities to rape European women than European male colonizers had to rape native women. Moreover, in at least one captivity narrative written by an American female settler, she expresses her surprise that her native captors did not attempt at any time to violate her. Apparently, her experience with European culture had led her to believe that this would happen, but it didn't. The representation of Caliban as rapist helps to justify the colonial project. In other words, I think we have to take at face value Miranda's and Prospero's claims that Caliban tried to rape her. That's written into the play to prove that Caliban "deserves" to be enslaved. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 20:47:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0556 Re: Suicides I am amused to read John Drakakis's rather romantic accounts of Othello's and Cleopatra's suicides. But for Drakakis, these are not suicides; they are murders. Othello kills, not himself, but some secondary identity imposed by Venice. Drakakis's account of Cleopatra is more complicated, but again the actor kills the "character." But which character? The Egyptain Cleopatra? No, the Romanized Cleopatra (I guess). Drakakis says that I believe what I see. But he should know that Americans believe only one half of what they see, and nothing of what they hear. Cleopatra, of course, is not the romanticized tragic female-character described by Drakakis. Like Lear, she ends deceived. She is Caesar's dupe. As Cleopatra deceives Antony by sending word of her suicide, Caesar deceives Cleopatra into killing herself by sending word (through Dolabella) of her imminent departure for Rome. With her death, Caesar wraps things up in Egypt, and the time of universal peace is near. A cynical reading? You bet. But the Cultural Materialists should love it. It's a story about POWER, not sentimentality. Yours for golden days and purple nights, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 20:13:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Hal and his companions In reference to Luc Borot's comments about Hal and his relationship to his companions. I agree - evil is too strong a word, but I resist calling them merely non-conformists. They are liars, thieves, and, if we follow Falstaff's thread far enough ("fodder for cannons"), murderers. Yes, Hal does "know [them] all", and as a result, rejects them and their principles. And I doubt he sees Falstaff as a father figure. Hal HAS a father; I think Falstaff shows him how NOT to be a father, and gives him another more important lesson. By 2HIV, Hal has begun to realize that his father is not as narrow-minded as he had always assumed. That Hal will ultimately allow one of these "boon companions" to die by the hangman's noose demonstrates how much regard he has for their system of values. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 12:49:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0565 Re: British Weather Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0565. Thursday, 23 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 20:55:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0560 Re: British Weather (2) From: Avraham Oz Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 08:00:44 +0300 (IDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0560 Re: British Weather (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 22 Jun 1994 20:55:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0560 Re: British Weather Topic: The Famous Echo in the Round Reading Room Yes, you should use my name because if you use "Hawkes" everyone covers his head with his or her newspaper. Yours, Bill Godshalk P.S. Remember the famous expletive in PACO'S STORY. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Avraham Oz Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 08:00:44 +0300 (IDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0560 Re: British Weather Dear Terry Hawkes, At the risk of being dubbed an absolute knave let me specify (as a veteran Round Reading Room echomonger) that the 'Godshalk' echo effect is effective but north-north-west.At any other corner of that cornerless room one should mutter 'Lenin', to hear the echo coming from seat S16, which is the traditional hoax (as in Terence F) played upon innocent tourists by local guides as having been the regular seat of reader Ulyanov (a record of his order slips is available from centre desk). To Dan Colvin: Please ignore T. Hawkes's weather tips; the guy is known to have insisted on taking his umbrella to an open air restaurant in the Middle East in the middle of August. Take your umbrellas, however. Rain in Britain is not a matter of weather but ideology. A. Oz avitaloz@ccsg.tau.ac.il ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 14:50:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0567 Re: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0567. Friday, 24 June 1994. (1) From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 13:34:48 -0400 (EDT) Subj: 'The Juice' gone sour (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 14:48:26 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0562 Re: Similarities (3) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Friday, 24 Jun 94 16:35:31 +0100 Subj: SHK 5.0557 Re: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory McSweeney Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 13:34:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: 'The Juice' gone sour I find Robert George's post eminently reasonable; noting the parallels between a current news story (along with its background and context) and a Shakespearean play is hardly tantamount to racism. To make assumptions about an individual based on her skin colour is racist; to pretend that everyone's skin is the same colour is simply an affectation - and one of which its proponents are quickly disabused outside of the academic community. Those who believe that a reference to an individual's status as a non-Caucasian is an insult had better examine their own innate racism, rather than projecting it onto others. The Simpson story *is* a tragedy, of course, though I'd substitute 'celebrity' for 'hero', and 'monomania' for 'hubris'; its context of power, gender, aggression, and guilt are not in the least race-related - it just so happens that some of the superficial details of the Othello story parallel those of Simpson's. So what? No, the Simpson thread is not going to enrich Shakespearean study by one iota, and as such may be considered an estival digression; but to chill the discussion based on its potential for veering into racist territory seems to me unnecessarily cautious. Racists, like ragweed, are everywhere, and some of them are involved in the study of Shakespeare. When they make racist statements they expose themselves for the idiots they are, whether on this conference or elsewhere. I fail to comprehend the atmosphere of censure and self-righteousness that has surfaced occasionally in connection with this thread. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 14:48:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0562 Re: Similarities A story Robert George will appreciate, I should think: When Johnston Forbes-Robertson was playing Othello at the Lyceum early this century -- considered a highly naturalistic performance -- he had the misfortune to be so good one night when he came to kill Desdemona a gentleman in the front row of the Dress Circle jumped down into the Orchestra Stalls aisle, ran up the steps at the side of the small orchestra pit, proceeded onstage, rushed the famous actor, grabbed him by his white gown and shook him, saying savagely "Leave her alone, you big black brute!" An inappropriate response to art, as Arthur Koestler who relates the incident would say. When I told this story to a Shakespeare class as part of an explanation of some of the conventions of the theatre, they laughed as all the other drama classes had. Afterwards, however, a young girl from the Caribbean came up to me and said, "I hope you won't tell any more racist stories like that." "Racist?" I asked her, taken aback. "Yes," she replied. "I'll have you know that black men are not brutes." (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Friday, 24 Jun 94 16:35:31 +0100 Subject: SHK 5.0557 Re: Similarities How appropriate that Martin Green should sign his missive thus: "Sadly." His comments made me sad too. "Everyone who's ever read Othello"? No room for alternative readings in THAT pronouncement. "My way or the highway," eh, Martin? So Bravissimi to Cary Mazer for calling what he saw--and he's right. With all due appreciation to Mr. Robert George at his H.R. e-mail address, one (among many) of the problems with the quick and easy O.J.-Othello link is that it is fair to neither O.J. nor the representation that is Othello. It is simplistic, reductive, categorical--i.e., yep, racist. Even if we (God forbid) set aside such tired old assumptions as the assumption of innocence pending proof to the contrary, what Othello and O.J. have in common is-- what? Go on: and so what? Like white men don't kill their wives? Or if they do, that's not the stuff of tragedy? Or maybe it's just not so INTERESTING that way? I've read an awful lot of daft stuff (inter alia) on SHAKSPER lately, and usually desist/resist/keep quiet in hopes that if I ignore it, maybe the daftness will go away. But in the tabloid press that SHAKSPER is increasingly in danger of becoming, it does seem likely that, whereas Othello indicted himself and for nearly 400 years thereafter reasonable folks have devoted many words to "explaining" that indictment, O.J. Simpson will get very short shrift--and not much justice. I guess a fictional representation gets a fairer deal than a real man does. And frankly, I find that embarrassing. Thanks, again, Cary, for saying what needed to be said. Naomi Liebler ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 14:58:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0568 Re: Caliban Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0568. Friday, 24 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 14:11:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Ban, Ban, Caliban (2) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 1:34:54 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0564 Re: *Tmp.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 14:11:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ban, Ban, Caliban Phyllis Rackin suggests historical parallels. But even though I have (even recently) suggested historical parallels, I remain skeptical of their value in dictating an interpretation. "So many people, so many minds," as the popular Renaissance proverb (almost) has it. Historical readers should never expect uniformity of interpretation in any past age. All the evidence stands for diversity. I'm sure that some of Shakespeare's seventeenth century audience thought that Caliban deserved to be enslaved because he had attempted the honor of Miranda. But I'll also bet that some other of those auditors had different reactions. I'll bet there was a spectrum of audience reaction, a spectrum that approximates the twentieth century spectrum, in width if not in proportions. Obviously, Shakespeare put these words in the mouths of the actors who played Prospero, Caliban, and Miranda because they -- the words -- would create a tension in the play. In drama, tension and conflict are the names of the game. If drama were a series of cultural cliches, it wouldn't be drama. If we and they are and were caught in our respective histories, how can anyone historicize? How can we transcend our own time in order to "historicize" theirs? Is such transcendence possible? Thoroughly placed in time and matter, decentered and unsure, I remain, relatively yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 1:34:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0564 Re: *Tmp.* Phyllis Rackin has put her finger on what underlies the accusation of rape against Caliban. I would also suggest that Caliban's behavior towards Prospero and Miranda before the actions that lead to the accusation of rape are fairly clearly delineated by Caliban. He "loved" the two Europeans, he says, and particularly the one who taught him language-- i. e. Miranda. That the "love" may have moved him to physical contact is not surprising. Given Caliban's benevolence at that point, I have to think that whatever the contact was must have been "innocent." As I see it, it's Prospero's interest in his daughter's virginity that converts Caliban's physical language of love into plain old English "rape." Impractical as it may be, Gonzalo's vision of utopia is equally "innocent"--and Sebastian and Antonio do to it the same thing that Prospero does to Caliban's innocence. The demonization of the "native" that justifies the colonial project is, in *Temp*, very closely associated with the objectification of women as tokens in the exchange (or recovery) of property and power. Recall Ferdinand's qualification of his passion for Miranda: "if a virgin," he says, she will make a toothsome bride for him. At any rate, that Caliban comes to accept his physical gesture of love as "rape" is part and parcel of his profit in learning Europeanese. In the heat of the night, Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 14:37:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0566. Friday, 24 June 1994. (1) From: Ann Cox Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 12:19:28 EST5EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney (2) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 12:15 ET Subj: The Shakespeare/Disney horror (3) From: Lynn A. Parks Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 14:22:58 CST Subj: Disney and the stage (4) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 94 13:48 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ann Cox Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 12:19:28 EST5EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney The first time I saw the commercial of The Lion King, the part which featured Irons as the evil uncle...it was so obvious that Hamlet was the inspiration. I have never been a fan of the Disney pieces, and this film will certainly not change my mind. What so infuriates me about the Disney features is the predictability...the little outcast wins in the end amist great song and dance, even if the original tale does not end in such a manner (The Little Mermaid, for example). Sometimes, as in the case of Beauty and the Beast, they change the story so much that the original point of the tale is lost amid all the song and perpetual cuteness. It's as if they afraid that a sad ending might turn their audience of children into future Ted Bundys. Suffice it to say, I was not amused by Disney's use of the Hamlet theme. Ann M. Cox, B.A., M.L.I.S. COX@LIBSCI.LAN.MCGILL.CA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 12:15 ET Subject: The Shakespeare/Disney horror Regarding the recent comments on the "inappropriateness" of mentioning Shakespeare and Disney in the same breath: this past year when Kenneth Branagh released his film of *Much Ado* he spent a good deal of time in interviews railing against the idea that "Shakespeare must be delivered in a small glass bottle." I honestly got annoyed by this proselytizing. Surely it is a bit of a cliche, in these modern times, to think that anyone seriously believed that Shakespeare had to be kept "above" the fray of modern popular culture. Did Branagh really think he was being revolutionary with these diatribes? I thought it was all a bit much. Apparently not. Maybe I'm just too wet behind the ears, but posts like "Disney is contrary to everything Shakespeare stands for" strike a sourly realistic note into my dewy-eyed perception of the current state of Shakespearean academia. The posters haven't really explained their positions further (perhaps their perception of the cultural significance of Disney is far different from mine), but come on...haven't we outgrown this attitude yet? I'm disappointed. I have to wonder just how Mr. Williams plans to train his "shock troops" to vigorously instill a love for Shakespeare into 16-year-olds without dropping and breaking that precious glass bottle. Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lynn A. Parks Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 14:22:58 CST Subject: Disney and the stage I'm sorry I offended anyone by mentioning Shakespeare and Disney in the same breath, but allow me to point out a peripheral connection that has gone unnoted--the fact that Disney's _Beauty and the Beast_ has been successfully adapted to the stage, a measure of quality that Shakespeare himself would surely appreciate. And no wonder-- the clever characterizations, sparkling lyrics ("No one plots like Gaston/Takes cheap shots like Gaston/Plans to persecute harmless crackpots like Gaston," etc.) and beautiful animation make the movie captivating, and the miraculous transformation at the end from tragedy to triumph should appeal to any lover of Shakespeare's romances. Sure, some Disney is insipid, but at its best--and _Beauty and the Beast_ should be right up there--Disney films are fine art in every sense. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 94 13:48 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0555 Re: Shakespearean Disney What I object to is the Disneyfication of Shakespeare--yes, we have quite a bit of it in Stratford now--; the mugs, dolls, Macdonalds' promotions, etc. etc. I am not (I +hope+ my students would attest to this) a foe of popular culture. Shakespeare's plays +are+ popular culture. But I am against the cheap and unthinking sort of stuff we frequently get from such sources. A good example of the marriage of Shakespeare and popular culture is the recent film +Renaissance Man+. A bad example would be two-inch rubber models of "Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, / Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester / Be in their flowing cups (of coke with fries in our "happy meal") freshly remembered." We all should expect better than that. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 Jun 1994 15:07:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0569 Re: Jachimo-in-the-box; Characters Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0569. Friday, 24 June 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 19:57:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Jachimo-in-the-box (again) (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 11:50:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: People in Plays (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 23 Jun 1994 19:57:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Jachimo-in-the-box (again) Most of the last year's volumes of ESSAYS IN CRITICISM in the city of Cincinnati have been at the binder until just a few days ago. And I have now had a chance to read John Pitcher's "Names in CYMBELINE," EIC 43 (1993):1-16, and Pitcher writes the following: "When Iachimo is in the Princess's bedroom in II.ii, the first thing he does is to get out of the box, and the last, to count off the chimes of a striking clock. He is literally, a jack-in-the-box -- not a toy in 1611, but rather a device for swindling people out of money -- as well as a jack-of-the-clock of clockhouse" (7). Pitcher also notices the "jack" references (9). And so Pitcher anticipates my comments by at least a year! But was the Jack-in-a-box a toy in 1611? Henley and Farmer think it was; the OED thinks it was not. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 11:50:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: People in Plays To those who still insist on going on about what characters feel --- In *Language and Literature*, Vol.2 No.2 (1993), Neil Bennison of Lancaster University, UK, writes in his abstract of "Discourse Aanalysis, pragmatics and the dramatic `character': Tom Stoppard's *Professional Foul*": Is there any way in which dramatic characters in dramatic texts may be considered a worthwhile object of criticism? The dearth of recent critical material would suggest not, but. . .the study of dramatic character may be effectively achieved by the application of theoretical principles derived from the linguistic analysis of conversation. The difficulties of accounting precisely for how readers of the play text get from the words on the page to judgments concerning the `personalities' of characters are overcome, to some extent, by the analysis of their conversational behaviour and using the powerful interpretative apparatus of discourse analysis and pragmatics to this end. . .[he goes on to cite Grice's Co-operative Principle, Brown and Levinson's Politeness Phenomeon and Leech's Politeness Principle.] . . . In addition, this article addresses the problematic notion of character `development' and argues that this may be accounted for in terms of a change in the conversational strategies used by a character, from which changes in attitude are inferable. His article is evidence of a renewed "old-fashioned" view that ultimately implies that Form is Content, which has always struck me as particularly obvious to anyone seriously and informedly interested in the theatre as a place where emotions are played out. His article -- although again I must say I find his conclusions self-evident and needing such elucidation as he gives only for the very prevalent deaf ears that rattle and clink away about characters as if they were living people and plays as if they were only historical/political statements fraught in Shakespeare's case with a rich poetic imagery that is part of the shape of human reaction and thought and that also encourages rather too much bumbling on in the scholarly world. I suppose I shall be tarred again with the brush of dogmatism. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 13:33:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0570 Qs: *AYI*; Comparable Groups; Stratford Festival Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0570. Saturday, 25 June 1994. (1) From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 12:24:26 -0400 (EDT) Subj: AYLI request (2) From: Kathryn Murphy Anderson Date: Friday, 24 Jun 94 17:54:30 -0400 Subj: Info. Highway Query (3) From: LaRue Sloan Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 14:28:39 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Stratford, Ontario Festival (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 12:24:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: AYLI request I will be teaching *As You Like It* this fall as the final work in a freshman drama course organized (in reverse-temporal sequence) under the general theme, Who Am I? I would appreciate any recommendations from other SHAKSPERians regarding critical works that approach the play in light of the issues of sexual/political (or other?) identity/ambiguity. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathryn Murphy Anderson Date: Friday, 24 Jun 94 17:54:30 -0400 Subject: Info. Highway Query Dear SHAKSPEReans: This group is a great resource for queries about Shakespeare, his contemporaries, etc. Are there comparable groups that might be particularly apt for queries re: (1) Renaissance/Early Modern History or (2) Reformation/church/theological history via email? I will appreciate any information or suggestions, and reviews of groups you've been connected to would also be helpful. Is there anything as useful in these other fields as SHAKSPER is in our own? Thank you for your help. Kathryn Murphy Anderson kmur-and@acs.bu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: LaRue Sloan Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 14:28:39 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Stratford, Ontario Festival My husband and I are considering going to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, probably the third week in July. We hope to see *Hamlet*, *Othello*, and perhaps *Twelfth Night*. While we do have the Festival Guidebook, which offers a wealth of information, we'd probably benefit from a veteran's advice. After all, we are practically off the map down here in Louisiana. Any suggestions about lodging, local transportation, or the productions themselves would be most welcome. While we do have the Festival Guidebook, which offers a wealth of information, we'd feel more comfortable with a bit of "veteranly" advice. For direct replies, my e-mail address is ensloan@merlin.nlu.edu Many thanks to anyone who is willing to fool with this. LaRue Sloan Northeast Louisiana University ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 13:41:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0571 Re: Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0571. Saturday, 25 June 1994. (1) From: Roy Flannagan Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 , 16:06:50 EST Subj: Emilia, Othello, OJ, pop culture, and Disney (2) From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 08:52:52 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0562 Re: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roy Flannagan Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 , 16:06:50 EST Subject: Emilia, Othello, OJ, pop culture, and Disney Emilia is such an interesting character nowadays because she (like Bianca) is the used woman, the abused (certainly by defamation and denigration, if not by force) woman. Iago's evil painting of Desdemona is what makes Othello become the savage, which he was not before. Othello *is* like O.J. Simpson in that his appearance on the public stage has been one of self-confidence, poise, and charisma. His athletic grace under pressure somehow made the transition into his TV announcing. Othello's generalship likewise somehow translates into private courage when he is accused by the racist Brabantio of bewitching his daughter. Simpson wrote in his "suicide" note that he was "different" from Nicole and left the reader free to interpret the difference. Something in the relationship (there was no Iago, we presume) drove Simpson to do insane and violent things like break down doors or hit his wife or his ex-wife. I see the downfall of O.J. Simpson as being potentially tragic, though I certainly have sympathy for those people who may have been the victims of his uncontrolled rage. A portrait of an insanely jealous man-otherwise a mild and sweet personality--emerges from the bits of evidence we have so far, someone who rages over pictures of old boyfriends or who wants addresses of new boyfriends, the syndrome of "If I can't have her, nobody will," which Othello also expresses, with some significant changes as "Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men." The fight for battered wives is a legitimate one and should not be forgotten in the case of Nicole Simpson, but Othello must be driven to abuse Desdemona. Before the devil breathes in his ear, he is the soul of kindness to his wife. Unlike William Proctor Williams, with whom I usually agree, I see no problem in noting the relation between events in the marketplace or the commonplace as being like Shakespeare's tragic plots. Jealousy, fratricide, spouse abuse, mental cruelty all still flourish, as they did in 1600. And archetypes of evil, like Iago, Claudius, Milton's Sin and her counterpart Disney's Ursula (my favorite character in {The Little Mermaid}), still can be represented visually or in words or music (compare Moussorsky's "Night on Bald Mountain and Disney's visualization of it in {Fantasia}). If we can tolerate the transition from Goethe to Gounod, can't we tolerate the transition from {Hamlet} to {The Lion King}? After all, imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery. Roy Flannagan Ohio University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 08:52:52 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0562 Re: Similarities I hesitate to join the debate on the comparison between Othello and OJ Simpson because it is so terribly difficult not to simplify one's perception of a play over e-mail. Still, I am tempted to give a cryptic response. Making a one-to-one comparison between the two is simply misleading about Shakespeare's *Othello*. Such an approach misses key questions which the play raises--for example, whether the supposed universality of Christianity can overcome the distrust of the citizen for the outsider or the degree to which martial virtue can translate into Christian action. O. J. Simpson is not a man trying to enter a culture foreign to him. Moreover, as Mary Ellen Zurko points out, Iago, not Othello, is the one guilty of chronic spousal abuse. On the other hand, Othello mistakenly thinks he can judge as a god judges rather than as a man. He cannot recognize the evil in himself. O. J. Simpson must have been subject to the same blindness when he murdered his wife. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 13:51:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0572 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0572. Saturday, 25 June 1994. (1) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 20:58:37 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (2) From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 14:16:33 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0561 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (3) From: Jason Hoblit Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 13:47:28 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 20:58:37 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Ready to be shot down in flames--- Yes, I just saw *The Lion King.* I am very fond of Disney movies (gasp!) and wouldn't miss it. Candidly, those who are worried about the purity of the Bard needn't worry--it has about as much in common with *Hamlet* as a cake does with an omelette--I understand they both use eggs. Now I'm really in trouble. I enjoyed it. The score is not up to the old Howard Ashman-Alan Mencken standards, and the film is rather uneven. However, the voice talent is phenomenal. Fellow Rowan Atkinson fans have a definite treat in store. While I'm sawing off the branch I'm sitting on, I might as well add that the sanctimonious tone here is incredible. Is this really the same list that's been carrying on about the tabloid miseries of football celebrities and *Othello*--and Disney is beneath us? Even if Disney were to do an animated *Hamlet* (and they didn't--it's an original story) would it be so terrible to expose children to the plots of classic plays at the tender age of four or five? We seem to be forgetting that animated ripoffs of Shakespeare are not new--Bugs Bunny, Mr. Peabody, etc. have all done it. At least this is done semi-seriously and well and not the tired old "Wherefore art thou" (always misread as "Where are you") again. Wearing my asbestos suit-- M. Aaron ("Then know that I one Snug the Joiner am/ A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam.) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elise Earthman Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 14:16:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0561 Re: Shakespeare and Disney I just returned from dropping my son off at the S.F. Shakespeare Festival's summer camp for young people; while there, I begged them for a copy of this year's poster which shows Shakespeare in the crossed-arms/ finger-signal pose now familiar from rap groups, and calls him "the original rap-master" or some such thing. I'm sure this could be offensive (perhaps even moreso) to people who are offended by the obvious (and widely publicized) links between Disney and Shakespeare, but come on--if seeing The Lion King inspires one kid to read Hamlet on his own, or if an "M.C. Shakespeare" poster sparks curiosity in a young person unlikely to think of him otherwise, shouldn't we rejoice? Can Shakespeare possibly be diminished by these connections? Tad Davis, I have the same poster of Walt Disney as a young man on my wall (now next to my Shakespeare poster)--on my campus, the flak I get for it is over having a picture of a fascist on my wall. Sigh. Elise Earthman (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jason Hoblit Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 13:47:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney > A good example of the marriage of Shakespeare and popular culture is > the recent film +Renaissance Man+. A bad example would be two-inch > rubber models of "Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, / Warwick and > Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester / Be in their flowing cups (of coke > with fries in our "happy meal") freshly remembered." > > We all should expect better than that. So, is a 'good' appropriation one that appeals to Mr. Williams, and a 'bad' or a 'shameful/disappointing/offensive' appropriation of Shakespeare determined only by taste? Does the 'shock' of Disney's appropriations extend to _Black Adder_'s note in the credits "Additional Dialogue Provided by William Shakespeare"? It sounds as if the people disturbed by mentioning 'Disney and Shakespeare' in the same breath are crusading against immorality rather than expressing a difference in taste. The hidden implications of 'We should all expect better than that' seem to be that >we all< should share the same aesthetic values, and that such UNacceptable uses of Shakespeare should be put to a stop. I find this reaction more disturbing than any poor appropriation of any writer's work could ever be. Jason Hoblit University of Washington - Seattle hoblitj@u.washington.edu| ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 13:57:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0573 Re: Characters (People in Plays) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0573. Saturday, 25 June 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 18:10:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: People in Plays (2) From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 09:08:29 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0569 Re: Characters (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 24 Jun 1994 18:10:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: People in Plays I don't understand Harry Hill's recent discussion of "people in plays." Apparently it is not okay to treat characters "as if they were living people." But it is okay to hear them as linguist phenomena that get us (readers, auditors) to think that they have personalities when they don't. I must be missing the point because I don't see how these two positions are in any conflict. Or, perhaps I've misread the distinction being made. May I ask Harry Hill to explain very slowly and carefully for the puzzled? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary M. Mazer Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 09:08:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0569 Re: Characters To Harry Hill, I for one never said that dramatic character are real people. I WOULD say that dramatic characters are materials from which actors create "real" people. The people that actors create are "real" because actors are real--at least they seemed to be the last time I had dinner with one--and audiences, perceiving real people calling themselves by the names of fictional people, speaking in the voices of these people, and (in twentieth-century paradigms of acting, at least) appearing to feel the emotions (i.e. playing the emotional actions) of these people, conventionally accept the actors as the people they are pretending to be, for the purposes of experiencing the conventional fictons of the theatre event. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 09:41:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0574 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0574. Monday, 27 June 1994. (1) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 94 19:45 CDT Subj: Re: Shakespeare and Disney (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 22:46:14 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0572 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (3) From: J F Knight Date: Sun, 26 Jun 1994 20:04:51 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 94 19:45 CDT Subject: Re: Shakespeare and Disney RE: SHK 5.0566: Well, I have taken the flak I assumed I would take. But, has anyone answered my question? Mere abuse is easy. What do you say when your students write "it were good" and tells you he/she heard/read it in +The Lion King+. RE: SHK 5.0572: I am really sorry I mentioned it!@#$% In any case, thanks to Roy Flannigan for saying he sometimes agrees with me. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 22:46:14 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0572 Re: Shakespeare and Disney ked up! ELEpstein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Sun, 26 Jun 1994 20:04:51 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0566 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Disney stands for stone castles made of polystyrene, animals with large eyes and no genitalia and packaged junk food. There is a difference between being able to relate to the popular culture and wanting to eat pabulum. All that glisters is not gold, and discrimination can, on occasions, be the most important tool in the survival kit. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 10:14:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0576 Re: *AYL* Request Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0576. Monday, 27 June 1994. (1) From: Charles Edelman Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 11:08:00 EDT Subj: AYLI Request (2) From: John Mucci Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 09:01:34 -0400 Subj: *AYLI* resonances (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Edelman Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 11:08:00 EDT Subject: AYLI Request While I am not sure Jim Schaefer will find exactly what he is looking for about AYLI in terms of 'sexual/political (or other?) identity/ambiguity' discourse, I would still enthusiastically recommend (to anyone doing work on the play) Alan Brissenden's excellent introduction in his just published New Oxford edition. While I am typing, thanks to all so far for responses to my Hamlet soliloquy query. Please keep those cards and letters coming in. Charles Edelman, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. C.Edelman@cowan.edu.au (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 09:01:34 -0400 Subject: *AYLI* resonances Regarding *As You Like It* and the further study of the confusion of roles, manners, dress, and sexual orientation, there is a lovely use of Shakespeare's play, sunk in a large part of the novel *Mademoiselle de Maupin,* by Theophile Gautier. In the book, the main character can only reveal herself truly to her lover when playing the role of Rosalind, while at other times must be dressed and act as a man to achieve the power and comfort she desires. The guilt which her lover feels, upon finding himself being attracted to what appears to be a young man makes up an interesting character study in itself, and his poetic descriptions of de Maupin performing a perfect Rosalind--to his Orlando, make up some of the best parts of the book. John Mucci GTE VisNet ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 10:08:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0575 Re: Groups; Similarities; Stratford; Deaths Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0575. Monday, 27 June 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 14:54:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0570 Qs: Comparable Groups (2) From: Jean Peterson Date: Sunday, 26-JUN-1994 12:17:51.81 Subj: Simpson (3) From: Duke Pesta Date: Sunday, 26 Jun 94 13:52:47 EST Subj: Stratford Shakespearean Festival (4) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 12:39:00 BST Subj: [Deaths of Cleopatra and Othello] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Saturday, 25 Jun 1994 14:54:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0570 Qs: Comparable Groups For Kathryn Anderson, try "RENAIS-L@ulkyvm.bitnet" for Renaissance or Early Modern History. And you may want to try "FICINO@utoronto.bitnet". There's not much going on now in these groups, but you might get in there and ask a few provocative questions, e.g., "Is John Calvin in hell or Brazil?" Or you could start a "most provocative question" contest. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Sunday, 26-JUN-1994 12:17:51.81 Subject: Simpson I have been holding back from entering the O.J./Othello debate in the hopes that if I ignored it long enough it would disappear, but I can no longer refrain from pointing out a few things that the O.J.-as-tragic-hero-camp seem to be missing: There's nothing noble, uplifting, or even extraordinary about men who brutalize their lovers/wives, not in this country, where what we now euphemistically call "domestic abuse" puts more women (and children!) in hospitals than anything else. What is striking about the Simpson case is not that it is a tragic aberration, but its horrific ORDINARINESS, when one considers the number of men who beat up and or/kill women (fully a third of women homicide victims are killed by their spouse/lovers, fully a quarter of domestic abuse situations end in homicide). Leaving aside the fame issue, the race issue (Thank you, Naomi Liebler, for pointing out that white men DO kill their wives, in fearsome numbers--by the way, Iago kills his, which no one has mentioned), and even for a moment the guilt issue (no conviction yet, folks, let's show some restraint), and what you have is horrifyingly common: a bully who brutalizes the woman he "loves." Even the emotional/psychological connundrums involved are common as dirt: the outward "nice-guy" persona, the delusional lack of self-awareness, the inverted--perverted?--sense of grievance ("I'm the battered husband"), the self-pitying rage, and especially the if-I-can't-have-her-no-one-will mentality, (paid any attention lately to the phenomenon of "stalking"?--the increasing numbers of men who follow, threaten, rape, batter, and/or kill women who leave them). The sick truth is that what Simpson did to his ex-wife is what thousands of men do to women every day, and what he MAY have done to her ultimately is only slightly less common. Just don't try to tell me there is anything noble, heroic, or aesthetically pleasing about it. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Duke Pesta Date: Sunday, 26 Jun 94 13:52:47 EST Subject: Stratford Shakespearean Festival To interested Shakespeareans: Having attended the Stratford Shakespearean Festival for the previous five seasons, I can offer the following observations. I hope they are helpful.The company itself is touted as "North America's Premier Classical Repertory Theatre." My modest exposure to live classical theater has included plays in New York, California, Cleveland, Washington and Chicago, but for my money the Stratford Festival is tops. The Festival's three theaters offer a wonderful mix of classical theater, Canadian drama, musicals, and modern drama. Surprisingly (considering that this is the Festival's 42nd season), one never knows what to expect from one performance to the next. Last season, for instance, I saw a matinee performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that included secret service agents, day-glo sets and rapping fairies (I was sceptical at first, but the enthusiasm and accessibility of the performance won me). The same evening I saw a riveting performance of "King John" that, except for the Edwardian dress, was as compelling as it was conventional. The very next afternoon I saw Euripedes '"Bacchae," a performance that utilized modern dance and classical Greek costuming (complete with exaggerated masks), to create an incredibly sensual, powerful dramatic experience. The town of Stratford is charming. Scattered along the banks of the meandering Avon you will find quaint antique shops and remarkably well stocked book stores (I realize I'm starting to sound a bit like a travel agent!). The dining is generally not extraordinary, but this only becomes a concern if you are planning a prolonged stay. Unfortunately, as government funding has dwindled, prices have risen dramatically. Five years ago, ticket prices were about one third of what they are now! Local businesses, sadly, have raised prices dramatically as well on everything from books to the price you pay to park. Don't be fooled by a favorable exchange rate (though this, too, is dwindling), that has been more than compensated for! The Festival Book Store (located opposite the Festival Theater) is a MUST visit. Stratford is not the place to go if you crave a lively night life. This transmission is really too long already, but I must include the following caution, for whatever it's worth. The park area that surrounds the Avon river is lovely, and it had been my custom, after evening performances, to take a walk around the river. Unbeknownst to me, the river area, after dark, has become a notorious pick up area. Twice last year, walking home from evening performances, I encountered local youth, who frequent the park after dark. Because I was alone, they obviously assumed that I was there looking for a liason of some sort. They weren't violent, but they were very verbally abusive. But this episode is NOT indicative of my experiences in Stratford. The people have really been great, and the kind of incident reported above, alas, is all too common everywhere. Finally, for those interested, here is a list of this season's productions: Twelfth Night, Othello, Hamlet, The Comedy of Errors, Cyrano de Bergerac, A Moliere Double Bill (The School for Husbands and The Imaginary Cuckold), Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Pirates of Penzance, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and In the Ring. I would be happy to address any individual queries about the Festival. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 12:39:00 BST Subject: [Deaths of Cleopatra and Othello] Sorry Bill, Your ascriptions of "romantic" won't wash. My comments about the deaths of Cleopatra and Othello were designed to counter a romantic and essentialist notion of "character" to which you evidently subscribe. You will insist on a hierarchy of identities for characters, grounded on the groundless grounds (if I can put it like that) of character as personality. Similarly, your curious question about "which Cleopatra", is a shade disingenuous, since it wants to disguise a rather naive empiricism. All the more surprising then that you should come to a "cynical" reading of A&C. Especially in view of the fact that your own reading of Cleopatra's "character" (sic) depends upon an acceptance of her "deception"; I guess that you need that kind of aunt sally to make your point about "Cultural Materialists". If this is a story about power- and I suppose that in some ways it is- then you might want to consider the AFFECTIVE power of the play's "poetry", the conditions within which it is produced, the curious aporias which result from those productions, and the very complex politics within which a universalized (and imperial) peace may be secured at the end. As for Americans believing only half of what they see, and nothing of what they hear...let me draw your attention to Brian Friel's play TRANSLATIONS where the representative of imperialism is more ignorant than those over whom he would seek to establish rule. Rest secure in your myths of intellectual virtue! The purple nights must finally be catching up with you! Cheers, John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 13:10:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0577 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0577. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. (1) From: Jon Enriquiz Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 10:28:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0574 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (2) From: Pete McCluskey Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 16:53:50 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0574 Shakespeare and Disney (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Enriquiz Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 10:28:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0574 Re: Shakespeare and Disney *The Lion King* is by no means remotely acceptable as a substitute for *Hamlet*. But I would feel no hesitation in mentioning *TLK* if I were teaching a unit about plots, plot points, and copies/ homages/ripoffs of the same. As I once said pithily, there is nothing new under the sun. Disney has an important place in culture, and some of that place is positive. The same is true for Shakespeare. Sometimes those places intersect. Sensible people can enjoy both, intersecting or not. Let's don't turn this into a discussion of the relative merits of Disney. Jon Enriquez Georgetown University ENRIQUEZJ@guvax (Bitnet) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pete McCluskey Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 16:53:50 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0574 Shakespeare and Disney William Proctor Williams poses a challenging question about how we should react when our students justify writing "it were so" by citing _The Lion King_. Stumped by this puzzler, I can only answer with other questions for Professor Williams. First, what does any of this really have to with the Shakespearean plot elements of _The Lion King_? Are there movements afoot in the public schools to dispense with Shakespeare and replace him with the more accessible Disney? On a more serious note, I would like to know how Disney (and by Disney, I mean the corpus of films, not the fiberglass castles and rodent wristwatches) poses such a threat to everything we stand for? Is Disney--or any other studio--capable of killing the imaginations of children and turning them into homogenized philistines? (While some would argue yes, I disagree that Disney is harmful.) Disney's appropriation of Shakespeare may be odious to some, but does it really harm Shakespeare studies, the quality of student writing, education as a whole, or (gasp!) our own credibility? Finally, to those who complain that Disney is formulaic, overly optimistic, and that his animals don't have genitalia, all I can ask is, "Dost think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" In other words, lighten up! There are greater threats to who we are and what we do as educators than Disney. Now it's time to say goodbye, Pete McClusK-E-Y M-O-U-S-E ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 13:59:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0580 Re: *AYL* Request Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0580. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 10:44:57 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0576 Re: *AYL* Request (2) From: Gareth Euridge Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 13:05:04 CST Subj: [*AYL* Request] (3) From: David M Richman Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 13:49:04 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0570 Qs: *AYI* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 10:44:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0576 Re: *AYL* Request A good place to look for work on gender roles in AYL would be Philip C. Kolin's *Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism:An Annotated Bibliography and Commentary* (New York:Garland, 1991), which has fairly detailed abstracts as well as an excellent index. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gareth Euridge Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 13:05:04 CST Subject: [*AYL* Request] In response to Jim Schaefer's request about materials on *AYLI* . . . Elaine Hobby's "My affection hath an unknown bottom": homosexuality and the teaching of *AYLI*. *Shakespeare and the Changing Curriculum*, edited by Lesley Aers and Nigel Wheale, 1991. This, with an interesting pedagogical angle, on constructions of what Rosalind is, both genderedly and sexually, with particular reference to the politics of the the English classroom in which now, through the notorious declamation of Section 28, it is now not permitted to "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship." Of course, I'm not sure how useful or applicable this will be, given the enlightened, liberal, and tolerant nature of the US classroom. Gareth Euridge Ohio State (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 13:49:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0570 Qs: *AYI* On James Schaeffer's "Who am I" question re *As You Like It*, I highly recommend the discussion by Fiona Shaw in *Clamorous Voices; Shakespeare's Women Today* ed. by Carol Rutter. The book, dealing with several plays, is a gem. David Richman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 13:26:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0578 Re: Stratford Festival Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0578. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 13:04 ET Subj: Stratford Festival (2) From: Bill Dynes Date: Monday, June 27, 1994 Subj: Stratford (3) From: Harry Hill Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 09:19:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: More words on Stratford Ontario (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 13:04 ET Subject: Stratford Festival For the Sloanes of Lousiana and other interested SHAKESPEReans. Stratford is under stress but still great, a pleasant place to spend a few days, and offering this year as in the past outstanding classical theater. If your wallet can stand it (around $95 American/night) I recommend the Festival Inn, large comfy rooms, many with refrigerators (save a few bucks on breakfast), quiet, well-maintained. B & Bs are numerous but highly various--from super rooms in handsome old houses with views across the lake to the theater to hot little cells in tract houses on the edge of town. Dining is various, too: The Old Prune (prix fixe about $45 Canadian, and a very interesting wine list) is, I think, a great restaurant; Rundles (roughly same price) a good one. Wolfies, a few doors down the street from the Avon (venue for ) is cheeky, fun, and reasonably priced. Picnics beside the lake are a Stratford tradition; excellent stuff from a place whose name I forget on the west side of the Square. If you are driving I recommend a morning trip to St. Mary's, a handsome stone town 15 miles south-west; there is good antiquing in Shakespeare, 8 miles east. These days they do more non-Shakespeare than Shakespeare, reflecting the economics of the classical theater in 1994, but also the reality that actors and audiences alike can get tired even of --though this year's is a good one. If you can, see --a truly great heroic actor, Colm Feore, in a role he was born--and trained--to play, and a sumptuous, generous-spirited production. Also a rivetting "Long Day's Journey," with a couple of great Stratford veterans, William Hutt and Martha Henry--the latter in particular gives a memorable performance in a wonderful role. I first saw them as Prospera and Miranda in 1962, which says something about the tradition of the place. A word to the wise about clothing: it can be stifling or quite nippy, so come layered. (All three theaters are fully air-conditioned.) The Stratford reservoir (a few hundred yards east of the Festival theater, where the art gallery is, has a splendid pair of black swans, to balance the white ones on the lake. Enjoy! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Dynes Date: Monday, June 27, 1994 Subject: Stratford Let me add to Duke Pesta's endorsement of Stratford's productions. I took a small class up to Stratford just as this season was getting started, but the experience was tremendous. Because of timing problems, we were only able to see one of the festival's Shakespearean productions, *Twelfth Night*, which we thoroughly enjoyed (Brian Bedford plays a marvelous world-weary Feste). We missed *Hamlet*, though we heard rumors that it was cut to a 2 and 1/2 hour productions. *Long Day's Journey* was absolutely riveting, and *Cyrano* and *Pirates* were a lot of fun, too. The Bed and Breakfasts are really the most pleasant way to enjoy Stratford, I think; my wife and I haven't had great luck with the inexpensive hotels in the area on previous visits. The park along the river is very pleasant; hopefully the Shakespeare Gardens will be more fully in bloom for the summer travellers than they were for us. Enjoy! Bill Dynes University of Indianapolis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 09:19:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: More words on Stratford Ontario Duke Pesta is to be thanked for reminding us about that magnificent theatre building at Stratford Ontario and the good work that can occasionally be seen on its stage, as well as alerting us perhaps unwittingly to where we can find post-show entertainment in the park along the river. Robin Phillips' direction of "King John in 1993" was a fine instance of a play choreographed within an inch of its life, practically down to the performers' eyebrows. Nicholas Pennell made a King John of complex magnificence and exemplary vocal restraint and variation, his bearing and demeanour giving at every turn an accurate and moving reliving of the difficult text on the difficult stage of the Tom Patterson Theatre -- the Stratford indoor tennis and sports courts. Many others in the cast offered like satisfaction. But this group doesn't to hear me describe the work a brilliant director did twelve months ago. But the group might well be interested in the fact that, despite the presence of a handful of vocal coaches, the great richness of design capabilities on the main thrust stage that Tyrone Guthrie and Tanya Moiseiwitsch built in the fifties, the technically superb refurnishing of the old Avon Theatre, the general quality of the actual performing is lamentably poverty- stricken unless under the near-tyrannical direction of someone of the calibre of Robin Phillips. There are very capable young actors such as Marion Day, Marc Ruel and others, but we were presented with amateurish grimacing, posturing, "indicating", laboured speaking, incomprehensible speaking and many kinds of plain bad acting from most. "Antony and Cleopatra" is best left undescribed, fatally directed and acted as it was. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was, as Duke Pesta says, enthusiastically mounted under the Abbey Theatre's Joe Dowling. "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Avon was lacklustre, lacking style and, worse, without the truth that Wilde gave it. In some ways the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival can be as good as the RSC, whose younger actors are only slightly better than Ontario's and that mainly because they largely know what to do with the verse. Maybe I find it increasingly hard to be moved emotionally or aesthetically by most Shakespearean productions unless the words are clearly said and "truthfully" acted. I am very far from deaf, usually sitting in the front rows because I want to be in the play as much as possible. But at Stratford Ontario in 1993 and at the RSC in 1991 I mostly wanted out. This is note is not intended to be unkind, but merely to inform in a cautionary way. Harry Hill ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 13:42:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0579 Re: Similarities (Life and Art) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0579. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. (1) From: Ann Cox Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 13:58:06 EST5EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0571 Re: Similarities (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 14:12:27 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0575 Re: Similarities (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 19:11:15 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0575 Re: Similarities (4) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 19:06:52 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Life and Art (5) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 94 09:42:29 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0575 Re: Similarities (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ann Cox Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 13:58:06 EST5EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0571 Re: Similarities For a while now I have been reading all of this "stuff" concerning supposed similarities between the O.J. Simpson case and Othello, and I find it just a bit much. The only similarity that I can see which could have spurred such a comparison is that Simpson is a Black male who married a fair blond haired beauty. Numerous White men (with more circumstances in common with Othello than skin colour) murder their wives each year, and I have yet to hear anyone remark on how similar their situations might have been to Othello. No one knows the circumstances of their marriage, relationships with friends, family and so forth, to be able to make such a judgement of the couple's relationship. And may I remind you that in your "Great" country, one is "supposedly" innocent until proven quilty. Ann M. Cox, B.A., M.L.I.S. COX@LIBSCI.LAN.MCGILL.CA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 14:12:27 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0575 Re: Similarities >There's nothing noble, uplifting, or even extraordinary about men who brutalize >their lovers/wives. . . Even the emotional/psychological connundrums involved >are common as dirt: the outward "nice-guy" persona, the delusional lack of >self-awareness, are common as dirt: the outward "nice-guy" persona, the >delusional lack of self-awareness, the inverted--perverted?--sense of grievance >("I'm the battered husband"), the self-pitying rage, and especially the >if-I-can't-have-her-no-one-will mentality, (paid any attention lately to the >phenomenon of "stalking"?--the increasing numbers of men who follow, threaten, >rape, batter, and/or kill women who leave them).. . Just don't try to tell me >there is anything noble, heroic, or aesthetically pleasing about it. >Jean Peterson Thank you for saying what desperately needed saying and which I was too gutless to say. Anyone who's spent any amount of time with battered women knows exactly what you're talking about. Desdemona's "No one. . .I myself" frankly gives me the cold chills nowadays. M. Aaron (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 19:11:15 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0575 Re: Similarities I don't know that I would consider myself a member of the "O.J.-as-tragic- hero-camp", but, at the risk of being a wet blanket and/or seeming to defend a sleaze like O. J. Simpson, I'd like to respond to Jean Peterson's posting. For the most part, I agree wholeheartedly with what Jean Peterson says. The phenomenon of spousal abuse is tragically common all over the world (ovewhelmingly men abusing women, but it does exist the other way around, though in much smaller numbers) and is something to be deplored and vigorously fought. O. J. Simpson is virtually a textbook case of an abuser, for all the reasons Ms. Peterson noted; I didn't have much of an opinion of him one way or the other before, but from everything I've seen over the last couple of weeks he's a sick, violent man, regardless of whether he did in fact kill his ex-wife, and while the civil libertarian in me wants to see him get a fair trial, the rest of me is glad to see him behind bars. All that being said, I think Ms. Peterson is being a bit too harsh on the people (including, briefly, me) who have contributed to this thread. Sure, comparing O. J. Simpson to Othello is facile and superficial. Whether it's racist or not is a minefield I don't particularly want to step into; I will say that I don't think the comparison is *inherently* racist, but there are all kinds of ways it can become so. But apart from that, I don't believe that calling the O. J. Simpson story a tragedy has anything to do with considering it noble, uplifting, heroic, or aesthetically pleasing. I know *I* certainly wouldn't apply any of those adjectives to O. J. Simpson (see above), and I don't think many of the other posters would either. Shakespeare's tragic "heroes" come in all stripes, and many if not most of them are not very pleasant people (e.g. Macbeth or Richard III). Othello is more corrupted than corrupt, so maybe he's not the best comparison to O. J. Simpson despite the superficial similarities. But the essence of a Shakespearian tragedy is (I know I'm oversimplifying) a prominent figure, generally powerful and admired by a lot of people, who plunges from this exalted position into the depths of despair due to a tragic flaw. It's tragically and horrifically true that the way O. J. Simpson treated his wife is not unusual or extraordinary, and that if he is guilty of killing her, that, unfortunately, is not unusual either. What makes this case different is the fact that O. J. Simpson is very famous, a lot of people admired him before this and some, unaccountably, still do (yes, their reasons for admiring him are/were superficial, but they admired him all the same), and now he's sitting alone in a jail cell. No, of course it's not the same as Othello, or any Shakespearian tragedy, but the parallels, however superficial, are there. I do not consider this case noble, heroic, or aesthetically pleasing in any way; I am in fact sickened by it, just as I am sickened every time I open my morning paper and read about some psycho who stalked and killed his ex-wife or -girlfriend. Different people have different ways of dealing with and trying to make sense of horrible things; unfortunately, in a heterogeneous forum like this, someone is likely to take offense at someone else's coping mechanism. I hope we can all agree that the fact that two people are dead for no reason, and two children are without parents (their mother dead, their father in jail, possibly for a very long time) is a tragedy --- in the vernacular sense, even if not in the classical sense. I'm sorry to have gone on so long, but I wanted to get this off my chest. It wouldn't bother me a bit if this thread died out, and if this message serves to prolong it, I apologize. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 19:06:52 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Life and Art Just a note to second, as strenuously as possible, Jean Peterson's comments about violence inflicted upon women in the real world. Please, people, Tragedy is a LITERARY category denoting works that contextually arrange representations of disastrous human events into conventional patterns for the purpose of provoking aesthetic responses in an audience. The Simpson thing has no more meaning than a pile-up on the highway. On the other hand, the remark that one sometimes gets from students--"I see no point in reading about another wife-killer", i.e. Othello--is a similar confusion of categories. Yech! The intellectual ground that has been laid waste in the name of relevance. Yours as ever, Lonnie Durham (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 94 09:42:29 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0575 Re: Similarities Thank you, Jean Peterson of Bucknell University, for saying all that needs to be said about the far-fetched OJ/Othello comparison. If OJ, the hero with the tragic flaw (give me a break), had pleaded no contest to drug abuse rather than spousal abuse, I'm sure that Hertz, NBC, Hollywood et.al. would have dropped him in a microsecond. Now can we all move on? Norman Myers Bowling Green State University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 14:33:06 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd"; RSC Reviews; Feminist Performance Crit. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0581. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. (1) From: John Massa Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 09:24 CST Subj: MSD: Demetrius is "wood" by Helena? (2) From: Tom Jensen Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 09:54:55 MDT Subj: Q: Reviews of current RSC H5 and H6 part 3 and hotels (3) From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Tuesday, June 28, 1994 Subj: [Feminist] Performance Criticism - query (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Massa Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 09:24 CST Subject: MSD: Demetrius is "wood" by Helena? [Enter Demetrius, Helena following him. DEMETRIUS I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. Where is Lysander, and fair Hermia? The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me. Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood, And here am I, and WOOD WITHIN THIS WOOD Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Hence get thee gone, and follow me no more. It seems to me that the first "wood" in "wood within this wood" (Demetrius to Helena in MSD 2.1.191) could mean "woo'd" (i.e., pursued romantically) since Demetrius is definitely being woo'd in a big way by Helena. I have seen notes that the first "wood" means essentially "very angry" (e.g. Arden edition) but the pun on "woo'd" seems obvious and not a reach at all, especially on stage for the actor. Does anyone else see "woo'd" as a possibile interpretation, or know of any reason to exclude this meaning? Any references? John Massa John-Massa@uiowa.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Jensen Date: Monday, 27 Jun 94 09:54:55 MDT Subject: Q: Reviews of current RSC H5 and H6 part 3 and hotels Has anyone seen the current RSC productions of H5 and H6 part 3 at Stratford-upon-Avon? I'd be interested in any reviews and comparisons. Also, I'm looking for a hotel. On previous visits I've tried the White Swan (tf-sigh), the Stratford House (acceptable), the Moat House (could be a Holiday Inn) and a several of the B&Bs. There must be something better. I'd be interested in any suggestions and particularly any information about the Arden Thistle (the hotel across from the theatre.) Thanks. (If the news isn't of general interest, feel free to E-Mail me directly at tjensen.dsd.es.com. Thomas Jensen (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Tuesday, June 28, 1994 Subject: [Feminist] Performance Criticism - query Can anyone point me towards some good performance criticism that might highlight the kinds of issues that come up in performing Shakespeare? Also, any pointers to feminist performance criticism would be deeply appreciated. I've read a fair amount (for a lay person) of Shakespearean [and feminist] criticism, but I find myself at a loss when people start translating what I consider to be textually-centered discussions of character to performance-centered discussions of the same thing (unless they use pragmatic examples, which I also have some experience with). Thanks. Mez ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 Jun 1994 14:36:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0582 Re: Essentialism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0582. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Monday, 27 Jun 1994 13:42:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Essentialism Yes, John Drakakis, I am an essentialist, and I'll bet you are too. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to be a materialist without being an essentialist. And, yes, I realize that calling someone an essentialist is merely an insult, not an attempt to define. I read your razzle-dazzle insults with amusement and perplexity. I imagine what you say has little or no content --- little or no intellectual content, that is -- and so impossible to answer intelligently. And so let me respond in kind: John, you are a romantic essentialist. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 16:02:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0583 Re: "wood"/"woo'd" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0583. Wednesday, 29 June 1994. (1) From: John Senczuk Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 12:36:57 +1100 Subj: RE: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd" (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 14:37:46 +1000 (EST) Subj: 'Woo'd/Wood' (3) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 10:37:20 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE SHK 5.0581: "woo'd/wood" in MSD (4) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 11:48:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd" (5) From: Greg Grainger Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 07:53:00 -0400 Subj: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "woo (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Senczuk Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 12:36:57 +1100 Subject: RE: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd" It seems to me that Helena picks up on this meaning later in the scene We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. (2.1.242) just as she pursues the pun on wood/iron/steel and magnetism (also acceptable may be the pun on *slay* and *draw ... true as steel* cf Theseus Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries (1.1.16) but Demetrius, in repeating himself (at 2.1.236), threatens her with ... and wood(mischief) within this wood Because I cannot meet my Hermia. Demetrius cannot intend woo'd. With desperate abandon Helena reductively pursues her end! John Senczuk University of Wollongong (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 14:37:46 +1000 (EST) Subject: 'Woo'd/Wood' In response to John Massa's query about the wordplay in Demetrius's speech: surely the line following, (viz. 'Because I cannot find my Hermia') effectively precludes 'woo'd', since it supplies a reason for Demetrius's 'rage', but has no logical function at all in connection with 'woo'd'. Pat Buckridge. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 10:37:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE SHK 5.0581: "woo'd/wood" in MSD I like John Massa's suggestion of a play on "woo'd" and "wood" in MSD 2.1.192, though it does make causality a bit difficult to construe. Demetrius says he is wood within the wood "_Because_ I cannot meet my Hermia." It's easy to see that he is agitated and beside himself because of his failure to find Hermia, less easy to see that Helena woos him because of this failure. Q1 (1600: ordinarily the copy-text for modern editions) has "wodde, within this wood," which might make a pun on "woo'd" less likely, though I don't suppose it would rule it out. I confess I like the play with "wood" in the sense of "mad" (in both modern senses) and "wood" in the sense of "forest," because it conflates subjective states and objective locale, superimposes inside on outside, and that sorts nicely with the tricks of strong imagination, the bush-as-bear psychology which is everywhere so pronounced. But in a play so pervaded by metamorphoses, where everyone/thing seems in the process of becoming someone/thing else, I have no trouble in believing that homely "wood" is becoming two other separate and distinct words simultaneously. --Ron Macdonald (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 11:48:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd" The "wood" / "woo'd" pun is certainly plausible, but equally plausible is a pun on the archaic meaning of the adjective "wood" (pronounced WODE), meaning "lunatic, crazy." The evolution of "wood"'s meaning parallels that of "mad," from general lunacy to a more specific form of lunacy, violent anger. Thus the Arden edition's gloss, though both the general and the specific meanings of the word are in general play in the late 16th century. Certainly that meaning would resonate with the various "lunacy" themes of the play; in fact, a triple pun on "wood" [forest] / "wood" [lunatic] / "woo'd" would rather nicely sum up the concerns of the play's middle acts. The "wood" [forest] / "wood" [lunatic] pun is at least as old as *Beowulf*, by the way. If it's common currency this late, it might explain how Shakespeare's audience could hear the triple pun as it rushed by in performance. Cheers, Douglas Lanier (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Greg Grainger Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 07:53:00 -0400 Subject: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "woo On Monday, June 27, John Massa wrote: DEMETIRUS SPEAKS: H> And here am I, and WOOD WITHIN THIS WOOD [ . . . ] H>It seems to me that the first "wood" in "wood within this wood" (Demetrius to H>Helena in MSD 2.1.191) could mean "woo'd" (i.e., pursued romantically) since H>Demetrius is definitely being woo'd in a big way by Helena. I have seen note H>that the first "wood" means essentially "very angry" (e.g. Arden edition) bu H>the pun on "woo'd" seems obvious and not a reach at all, especially on stage H>for the actor. H>Does anyone else see "woo'd" as a possibile interpretation, or know of any H>reason to exclude this meaning? H>Any references? This is a good call - I very definitely see 'wood' as 'woo'd', but also as 'would', i.e. 'I intend to stay here until I find the people I seek - to kill one and love the other'. The OED says that 'wood' used to mean 'in a difficulty, trouble or perplexity'. (2nd ed., p 2334.) They have quotes from 1658 and 1664. Apparently this is the origin of our expression 'out of the woods', to mean 'out of difficulty'. In variant forms 'wood' also used to mean 'mad'. There are quotes from Spenser's 'Faery Queen' (sp?) 1590 and Skene, 1609. Clearly it could have been understood all these ways by Shakespeare's contemporary audience. Interestingly, this same passage is quoted in the OED as a reference to 'wood' meaning 'violently angry or irritated, enraged, furious'. (p. 2335) Just my $0.02. Greg, 'semantics is my life'. Greg Grainger, Toronto, Ontario. 6:58:59 pm, Tue 06-28-1994. greg.grainger@canrem.com or grainger@io.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 16:10:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0583 Re: Disney; Feminist Crit.; Adriana's Speech Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0583. Wednesday, 29 June 1994. (1) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 94 13:34 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0577 Re: Shakespeare and Disney (2) From: Sarah Werner Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 22:56:06 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Feminist Performance Criticism (3) From: John Senczuk Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 14:32:50 +1100 Subj: RE: ADRIANA's speech (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 94 13:34 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0577 Re: Shakespeare and Disney Well, maybe I'm wrong. I have been known to be in the past. I didn't mean to trivialize the list and I apologize to those who may think I have. On the various questions, points, positions raised perhaps the only answer is to just wait and see. +TLK+ is probably no worse than +Shakespeare Boiled Down+, issued by the New Home Sewing Machine Co. of Chicago, but it is certainly no better. I suppose my concern, some would say worry, is whether the item of popular culture leads, eventually, to a better experience of culture (whatever that may be, some would say) or whether it acts to lower (I know these are culturally loaded terms but I can think of no others right now) that experience. Will all those who think that every day and every way we are getting better and better please raise their hands and or paws? Thank you very much. You will be happy to learn that for a number of days I will be away from my terminal by which time we may have move on to another subject. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Werner Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 22:56:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Feminist Performance Criticism For Mary Ellen Zurko: The best place to start with feminist performance criticism of Shakespeare is Lorraine Helms' "Playing the Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism and Shakespearean Performance" _Theatre Journal_ 41 (1989): 190-200; also try looking at work by Barbara Hodgdon and Ellen O'Brien. For non-Shakespearean performance criticism, you can't beat Elin Diamond's "Brechtian Theory / Feminist Theory: Toward a Gestic Feminist Criticism" _TDR_ 32 (1988): 82-94. Some other things to look at: Rhonda Blair "Shakespeare and the Feminist Actor" _Women and Performance_ 2:2 (1985): 18-26. Gay Gibson Cima's _Performing Women: Female Characters, Male Playwrights, and the Modern Stage_ (Cornell 1993) has a good general introduction. Lizbeth Goodman's _Contemporary Feminist THeatres_ (Routledge 1993) is not about SHakespeare, but is full of details about British feminist theater. For other non-Shakespearean fem. perf. criticism, Lynda Hart & Peggy Phelan's _Acting Out_ (Michigan 1993) is a good recent anthology. And back to Shakespeare, look at Carol Rutter's _Clamorous Voices_ for what some RSC actors have to say about playing Shakespeare's female characters. have fun-- Sarah Werner University of Pennsylvania (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Senczuk Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 14:32:50 +1100 Subject: RE: ADRIANA's speech My thanks to both William Godshak and Harry Hill for their contribution to my understanding of Adriana's lines (2.1.103-116) and I enclose the following as my resolutions in performance. Adrian's lines are prompted by an insecure, forced marriage: ADRIANA May it please your grace, Antipholus my husband, Whom I made lord of me and all I had, At your important letters...(5.1.136) cf ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Justice, sweet prince, against that woman there! She whom thou gavest to me to be my wife ... (5.1.190) which is deteriating. She has just been informed that Antipholus knows ... no house, no wife, no mistress and at 2.1.86 speculates at to the reason for the breakdown concluding, vainly, that Antipholus is ... the ground Of my defeatures. My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair... She questions, and is insecure about, her own beauty (how things look, the images are visual and to do with seeing) which fuels the jealousy. In paranoia, she asks of herself the question I know his eye doth homage otherwhere, Or else, what lets it but he would be here? cf Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects She concludes Since that my beauty cannot please his eye, I'll weep (what's left away) and weeping die. cf I am not Adriana, nor thy wife... The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow ... That never object pleasing in thine eye, That never touch well welcome to thy hand... Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee. The intervening lines are her arguments for and against her rhetorial question. Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain, Would that alone, a toy he would detain, So he would keep fair quarter with his bed: I see the jewel best enamelled Will lose his beauty. Adriana was promised a chain by Antipholus (which we discover has been ordered but not delivered) and here she decides that she would prefer not to have the chain/jewel, (a shrewd wife) as even the best will tarnish,if Antipholus would only, as she says directly too him later, Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed, I live unstained, thou undishonoured. (I can't accept that *the jewel* is or is directly being compared to Antipholus. It is Antipholus/husband, versus the chain/jewel/gold) 1. He can keep the chain if he pays appropriate attention to his marriage. Yet the gold bides still That others touch, and often touching will, 2. On the other hand, should she take the chain (as gold will, although tarnish, endure; it will even endure persistant handling) it at least will, perhaps, be more lasting token. Where gold and no man that hath a name, By falsehood and corruption doth it shame 2a. If she takes the chain (where gold has these enduring properties) it follows that no husband, who has a reputation for being an adulterer, will ever be able to take it away from her whereas (the very powerful and currently relevant) I am possess'd with an adulterate blot, My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: For if we two be one, and thou play false, I do digest the poison of they flesh, Being strumpeted by thy contagion (2.2.140) I used the Folio punctuation. This simple decision making process was accessable in performance, contibuting much to the nature of Adriana's consistantly selfish and vain personality. It also allowed the next two scenes (2.2 and 3.1 both typified by each Antipholus having the first lines which picks up both sides of Adriana's *gold* argument) to logically build on and explore each other. cf ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up Safe at the Centaur (2.2) ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all, My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours; Say that I linger'd with you at your shop To see the making of her carcanet, And that to-morrow you will bring it home. (3.1) Each scene pursues Adriana's black and white argument cf BALTHAZAR Have patience, sir, O let it not be so, Herein you war against your reputation, And draw within the compass of suspect Th'unviolated honour of your wife. (3.1.85) 3.2, of course, abruptly extends and repeats the cycle. The Prince of Morocco's casket choice is much in mind, as is the constant reference to gold in the early plays and in the Elizabethan period generally. John Senczuk University of Wollongong ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 16:13:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0584 CFP: Graduate Student Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0584. Wednesday, 29 June 1994. From: Jason Hoblit Date: Tuesday, 28 Jun 1994 14:52:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Call for Papers This is being cross-posted, please excuse duplicates. Graduate Student Conference Call for Papers Abstracts are welcome for the annual MEMSOP (Medieval to Early Modern Student Organizations of the Pacific) conference to be held February 17th-19th, 1995, at the University of Washington in Seattle. The subject of the conference will be medieval to early modern "Communities" in an interdisciplinary forum (literary, linguistic, historical, religious, archaeological, etc.). This conference is being co-organized and co-funded by the University of Washington, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Los Angeles. Please send abstracts by November 1st, 1994 to one of the following: John Eby Britta Simon Linda Wright History, DP-20 Germanics,DH-30 Classics, DH-10 Univ. of Washington Univ. of Washington Univ. of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 Seattle, WA 98195 Seattle, WA 98195 Or, by email: jeby@u.washington.edu lwright@cac.washington.edu Questions may also be sent to any of the above addresses. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 09:36:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0585 Re: "wood"/"woo'd"; Query *MV* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0585. Friday, 1 July 1994. (1) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 18:35:03 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Woo'd (2) From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 30 Jun 94 10:25:29 EDT Subj: MND & MV (3) From: Louis Scheeder Date: Thursday, 30 Jun 1994 11:08:10 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Wood/woo'd (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 1994 18:35:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Woo'd Not to prolong this thread unduly, but I'm not at all certain that Demetrius' line "Because I cannot meet my Hermia" precludes the possibility of a pun on "woo'd." One of the reasons (of course, not the only) Demetrius is desperate to find Hermia is because he assumes that once the two are together, Helena will leave him alone. (If he delivers the line opening line of this passage with an emphasis on "thee"--"I love *thee* not; therefore pursue me not"--this reading becomes a bit more audible.) Certainly the entire scenelet stresses Demetrius' irritation at Helena, and allows for him tossing the barb that once he's found Hermia, he'll have done with Helena for good. To paraphrase, "And here am I, and woo'd [by you, Helena] within this wood / Because I cannot meet my Hermia [and get rid of you]." Of course, such a reading tends to stress the Demetrius-as-jerk reading at the expense of the Demetrius-as-lovesick- Petrarchan reading, but the former seems to be what Oberon reacts to at the end of the scene. I would support the possibility of the pun because it makes audible, and very succinctly, both sides of Demetrius at once. Cheers, Douglas Lanier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 30 Jun 94 10:25:29 EDT Subject: MND & MV On the subject of wood/wode/woo'd: an actor whom I directed was most unhappy with this line because, as he rightly pointed out, the audience was not going to understand it and he didn't either. We talked about it for a good while and finally agreed that he would read it as "woed (i.e., woeful) in this wood." It helped him, though I doubt anyone in the audience perceived the fine distinction that he did. On a separate subject: for a symposium that the Georgia Shakespeare Festival is doing on MV, I want to refer to Hermann Sinsheimer's book and the story behind its publication. Can anyone tell me what happened to Sinsheimer after he escaped Nazi Germany and reached London? I know he re-published his History of Shylock in 1940, but don't know what happened after that. Many thanks. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louis Scheeder Date: Thursday, 30 Jun 1994 11:08:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Wood/woo'd I'd like to suggest that "wood" could refer to the state of Demetrius's sexual arousal in the "wood" as his sexual desires/appetites are intsneified/ transformed as are the actions/desires of others in the wood. In performance, this intention not only produces a good laugh, but also serves to drive the scene forward as Helena can respond to his sexual readiness. Louis Scheeder scheedrl@acfcluster.nyu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 09:48:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0586 Re: Jachimo; Character; Query re: New Edition Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0586. Friday, 1 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, June 29, 1994 Subj: Jachimo in the Box (again) (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 30 Jun 1994 15:27:25 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (3) From: Edna Boris Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 94 19:13:36 EDT Subj: [New Edition] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, June 29, 1994 Subject: Jachimo in the Box (again) Antonia Fraser, A HISTORY OF TOYS (1966; London: Spring Books, 1972) 159, writes: "The jack-in-the-box . . . a toy whose origins are obscure but whose sixteenth-century name of 'Punch-box' may connect it with the puppet -- the faces of the Jacks are often asonishingly similar to that of Punch -- is another typical toy of the Victorian child." Unfortunately, Antonia gives no reference for any of this. She seems certain that the toy was available in the sixteenth century, but "Punch-box" does not appear in my copy of the old 13 volume OED, and "Punch" is given an 18th century or late 17th century date. The search for Jack-in-the-box goes on. Reporting from Cincinnati, I remain, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 30 Jun 1994 15:27:25 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character A few slightly irritable thoughts about the character controversy: I think it's about time the standard-bearers of the tired and predictable British neo-Brechtian orthodoxy (Hawkes, Drakakis et al.) took time out to reflect on whether their unchanged assumptions and formulaic pronouncements about 'realist illusions' have quite the political edge they obviously think they have, and that I suppose they may have had, fairly briefly, ten to fifteen years ago, before it became pretty obvious to everyone but them that texts that expose their mechanisms to audiences or readers actually aren't noticeably more politically transforming than texts that don't. Realism is not false consciousness, as Raymond Williams, at least, was well aware. One of the things I find annoying about the 'constructivist' critique of character is its patronising assumption that people don't know, at least implicitly, that characters are constructed out of conventional signs. Of course they are. Writers, directors, readers or audiences may, for particular reasons, choose to foreground this axiomatic textual fact; for different (and equally 'political') reasons, they may choose to background it. In certain historical conjunctures, exposing the text's means of production may be a genuinely progressive thing to do; in others, it can be likened to the sin of Onan. It has no consistent and portable political value. Furthermore (indeed, a fortiori!) it has no epistemological advantage either. It is not 'truer' to say that Othello is a cluster of conventional signs than to say that Othello is an imitation of a Moorish general. (Of course, to say that he *is* a Moorish general is false, but nobody believes that anyway; it's a straw man). The difference between these two, equally true, descriptions of the character Othello is the same as the difference between the cluster of signs which is Othello, and the black marks on the page which 'are' these same signs at an earlier point in the decoding process. It's all just a matter of which codes you decide to pretend you don't have the key to - and there may be good pedagogical, performance-related, or even political reasons for feigning ignorance of particular codes in particular circumstances. Adrian Kiernander (hi Adrian) thinks it's theatrically interesting to feign ignorance of parts of the first code; e.e.cummings thought it was poetically interesting to feign ignorance of parts of the second. I have no problem with either. Let a hundred flowers bloom! One effect of the neo-Brechtians' insistence on the greater material 'truth' of a semiotic description of character - ironically, in view of their 'no-nonsense' rhetorical stance - is to uphold a basically sentimental distinction between fictional characters and real people. The constructed-ness of the former is routinely emphasised by contrasting it with the flesh and blood reality and wholeness of you, me and the people in the row behind. But in fact all of those people are just as constructed as the characters on stage - much more complex and ongoing constructions, no doubt, but constructions all the same. You don't *have* to see people that way, of course, but it's certainly possible to do so, and a great deal of social science research, psychological therapy and social policy would grind to a halt if it weren't. You can also, if you like, see them as unique individuals; there are uses for that perspective as well. But if you're going to adopt a constructivist view of fictional characters you may as well follow through with a constructivist view of social and psychological 'characters'. Once you do that, of course, you notice that there is no clear boundary within the cultural field between fictions and social realities, and that there's absolutely no reason why, for certain purposes, a 'realist' view of both characters and people might not be more useful. For some of the above reasons I strongly disagree with whoever it was (I don't mean to be rude, but I've deleted it) who suggested that tragedy is a purely literary category, which it's somehow illegitimate to look for in the social world. I'd go further than Dave Kathman on this. I don't even think a person or event has to be out of the ordinary to be a legitimate subject for tragedy, which is to say (at least) potentially tragic. Neither did Arthur Miller. But on the particular question of tragedy as a *social* fact, people should read (or reread) the first chapter of Raymond Williams' 'Modern Tragedy', a book which I find improves with age. Pat Buckridge. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edna Boris Date: Wednesday, 29 Jun 94 19:13:36 EDT Subject: [New Edition] Recently someone referred to an excellent new edition, I thought of Romeo and Juliet, and I thought from Everyman, but I got nowhere in trying to check it out. Is more specific information available? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Jul 1994 10:19:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0587 Re: "wood"/"woo'd" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0587. Sunday, 3 July 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 01 Jul 1994 10:00:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0585 Re: "wood"/"woo'd" (2) From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Saturday, 2 Jul 1994 21:49:33 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Friday, 01 Jul 1994 10:00:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0585 Re: "wood"/"woo'd" A tiny reminder to Douglas Lanier that "I love *thee* not" as a line-reading onstage would go quite against the metre, which is of course in itself the best guide to the clean interpretation of such moments. Harry Hill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Saturday, 2 Jul 1994 21:49:33 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0581 Qs: "wood"/"woo'd" In Elizabethan times *wood* meant "madness" as well as "forest." Love often was seen as a kind of madness, and so your rendering of the word fits nicely with this Elizabethan alternative. Diana Akers Rhoads (dar5w@virginia.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Jul 1994 10:33:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0588 Q: Brazilian or Cuban *Othello* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0588. Sunday, 3 July 1994. From: Peter Paolucci Date: Friday, 01 Jul 94 15:12:36 EDT Subject: Brazilian or Cuban *Othello*? I'm trying to get more information about a Cuban or Brazilian film version of *Othello* that was done (apparently) sometime in the 1960's However, the time frame may be off slightly (age can do that). I'm looking for the director, the year and any other pertinent information. Peter Paolucci York University Toronto, Ontario, Canada ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Jul 1994 10:37:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0589 Q: Textual Transmission Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0589. Sunday, 3 July 1994. From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 2 Jul 94 11:00:51 CDT Subject: Skepticism and Shakespeare's Text Does _King Lear_ (Q1) represent foul papers? Does the Folio text represent authorial revision? Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine observe that "as scholars reexamine all such narratives about the origins of the printed texts, we discover that the evidence upon which they are based is questionable, and we become more skeptical about ever identifying with any certainty how the play assumed the forms in which it was printed" ("An Introduction to this Text," New Folger _King Lear_ [1993], lxi). Is this true? Can anyone name names? Which scholars are skeptical? I've said a lot of nice things about the New Folger editions, but they do not give footnotes in the introductions, and the only textual criticism they cite in the Bibliography is _Division of the Kingdoms_, a study which is _not_ very amenable to the eclecticism that Mowat and Werstine enjoin. Any suggestions? Discussion? Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Jul 1994 10:49:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0590 Re: Art and Life, Character, Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0590. Sunday, 3 July 1994. (1) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 02 Jul 1994 10:03:08 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Art and Life (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 03 Jul 1994 01:33:12 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0586 Re: Character (3) From: Tim Bowden Date: Saturday, 2 Jul 1994 14:31:40 PDT Subj: [Similarities] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Saturday, 02 Jul 1994 10:03:08 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Art and Life I'm afraid I'm the person to whom Pat Buckridge refers in his last posting who holds the antiquated opinion that life ain't art. I am, of course, fully ready to admit that at one removal or another we all become "text," but let me suggest a few possible differences between one kind of text and another: First, we know once and for all EVERYTHING there is to know about, say, Othello. Tomorrow when you go to read his tragedy again, you will not find that some old letters from his mother-in-law to her daughter have been uncovered. Any literary representation of personhood is a finite patterned abstraction or schematization. Second, when a biographer or historian or journalist undertakes to "heroize" a historical figure, the conventions of selection, limitation and arrangement are clearly LITERARY. There is no such thing as a hero in real life. Ms. Peterson's point was (without prejudging the Simpson case, per se) that everyday violence against women is extremely unlikely ever to involve the dimension of tragic dignity (which, incidentally, is NOT a matter of social class; that's a red herring here) that we find in *Othello*, and that celebrity alone, no matter how hyped by the media, does not equal tragic dignity. And finally, although we all may be reduced to mere text, there's an enormous difference in the quality of the rendition. To be limned by Truman Capote or Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams is one thing; but by Oprah, Giraldo and Sports Illustrated? Yours as ever, Lonnie Durham (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 03 Jul 1994 01:33:12 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0586 Re: Character Here, here to Pat Buckbridge! The question of characters not existing is, indeed, a very old question. As a high school student, I lived in a town which had both white and red Russians, still unable to speak to one another. One in a while, during the "character" controversy, I felt a little like I was sitting on the sidelines again, while old men fought ideological struggles long out of date. Much as I respect the scholarship of Godshalk, Hawkes, Drakakis, et. al., the whole matter leaves me feeling like I'm studying critical history through original documents. Respectfully, but young, Sean Lawrence. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tim Bowden Date: Saturday, 2 Jul 1994 14:31:40 PDT Subject: [Similarities] For it is written: Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0579. Tuesday, 28 June 1994. For a while now I have been reading all of this "stuff" concerning supposed similarities between the O.J. Simpson case and Othello, and I find it just a bit much. The only similarity that I can see which could have spurred such a comparison is that Simpson is a Black male who married a fair blond haired beauty. Well. How about an arrogant warrior taking a trophy wife and then being led by that overweaning pride to destroy her when she detracts from his masculine credit according to the sovereign rules of the barracks? If there were one of those blue-blazered boys of the studio chiding O J because his woman is not his own, then the comparison would be perfect. Numerous White men (with more circumstances in common with Othello than skin colour) murder their wives each year, and I have yet to hear anyone remark on how similar their situations might have been to Othello. We haven't met, have we? I have remarked on Othello as my least favorite character in the canon for just the reasons that appear here; as a well-spoken cretin who kills a woman to salve his pride. And may I remind you that in your "Great" country, one is "supposedly" innocent until proven quilty. Common misconception. Othello Jerk Simpson is innocent before the law at this point, but nobody not a jurist is required to pretend to suspend all mental faculties and common sense in the interim. I happen to think he's a murdering scum just like over 1,400 others of his ilk, if not his skin color, in this great country ever year. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Jul 1994 10:56:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0591 The New Everyman Editions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0591. Sunday, 3 July 1994. From: David Scott Wilson-Okamura Date: Saturday, 2 Jul 94 10:39:39 CDT Subject: The new Everyman editions I found the Everyman _Hamlet_ at the downtown Kroch & Brentano's last week. I was not especially impressed. To my mind the text is an uncomfortable compromise between modern and old spelling. John F. Andrews, the Everyman _Hamlet_ editor, makes a big deal of old spelling puns, and so preserves the base text spelling where he thinks it significant. The Everyman text also makes "bountiful use of capitalized words . . . in the hope that today's audiences will be made continually aware that the works they're contemplating derive from an earlier epoch" (xliii). Now to my mind it is a good thing to preserve puns and maintain some historical distance. I also think the past as such is romantic, so I am predisposed (on purely aesthetic grounds) to like _any_ edition that preserves so-called accidentals. Unfortunately, the Everyman text does not preserve them consistently. Old spelling is preserved only where the editor finds it significant; capitalization is usually guided by the First Folio, but not always: "In some instances the Folio capitalizes words that the Everyman text of the same passage lowercases; in other instances Everyman capitalizes words not uppercased in the Folio. The objective is merely to suggest something of the flavour, and what appears to have been the rationale, of Renaissance capitalization" (_ibid._). It may be that the editor only steps in to add a capital when there is an obvious _printer's_ error--the Everyman introduction does not say. But a half-normalized text strikes me as dangerous to the very "awareness" of historical distance that the editor is trying to inculcate. The text is trying very hard to look like something it is not: a verbatim report of the plays as first published. For the scholar who knows that he is not looking at a consistent transcript the edition is merely useless. For the undergraduate, however, the edition is something worse, because it inspires the reader with more confidence in his text than is really justified by the editorial principles. This is not to say that students should all read old spelling editions; nor need students who read Shakespeare in modern spelling editions miss out on any of the puns that Andrews wants to point out: these can all be put in the notes. And in fact the notes that Andrews does give are quite good, in my opinion, and include some good defenses of the Q2 variants. Moreover text and notes are conveniently arranged on facing pages. But then so are those of the Folger editions (old and new), which sell for the same price, have cool pictures, a color cover, _and_ mark out IN THE TEXT all the lines and phrases that derive exclusively from Q2, all the lines and phrases that derive exclusively from F, and all the lines and phrases that derive exclusively from editorial tradition. Still the best student edition for my money. Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura dswilson@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 12:24:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0593 Klingon Shakespeare; Saskatchewan Festival Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0593. Tuesday, 5 July 1994. (1) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Sunday, 03 Jul 1994 12:12 ET Subj: Klingon Shakespeare (2) From: Peter Scott Date: Sunday, 03 Jul 1994 10:18:58 -0600 (CST) Subj: Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival '94 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Sunday, 03 Jul 1994 12:12 ET Subject: Klingon Shakespeare Forgive me if someone on SHAKSPER has already mentioned this, but I was browsing through Gopher the other day and came across some translations of various Shakespeare works into Klingon, the language invented for Star Trek by linguist Marc Okrand. There appeared to be complete translations of *Much Ado About Nothing* and *Hamlet* as well as five or six of the sonnets. Unfortunately, I don't read Klingon too well , nor do I own the official Klingon dictionary which can be bought in bookstores (there are Trekkies who actually >speak< Klingon), so I can't tell exactly how the plays were translated (presumably to make sense to a Klingon audience; Beatrice probably throws heavy objects at Benedick, for example). But I imagine there are some interesting cross-cultural things going on... Also, I don't know exactly WHERE in "gopherspace" this archive is. If you do a search of Gopher via "veronica," though, you should come across it with no trouble. (If someone knows where this archive is located, please let us know.) Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Scott Date: Sunday, 03 Jul 1994 10:18:58 -0600 (CST) Subject: Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival '94 The Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival '94 (July 7th to August 21st) presents: Hamlet by William Shakespeare Opens July 7 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Tom Stoppard Opens July 22 The Merry Wives of Windsor opera sung in English by Otto Nicolai Opens July 17 [rotating schedule of performances] Festival Box Office: 306-652-9100 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 12:17:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0592 Re: Life and Art, Character, and Similarities Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0592. Tuesday, 5 July 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 4 Jul 1994 16:31:14 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (2) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 11:10:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0586 Re: Jachimo; Character; Query (3) From: Christine Gilmore Date: Sunday, 3 Jul 1994 20:35:21 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: Simpson as Othello (Aaargh!) (4) From: Robert George Date: Tuesday, 05 Jul 1994 09:38:09 EST Subj: the misbegotten thread (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 4 Jul 1994 16:31:14 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character "Life ain't art" has a good commonsensical ring to it, but would Lonnie Durham be equally confident is asserting that "art ain't life"? Because if it ain't, then what is it? Pat Buckridge (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 11:10:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0586 Re: Jachimo; Character; Query I think that Pat Buckridge is allowing his irritation to obscure his vision. I can't imagine what "predictable British neo-Brechtian orthodoxy" is being referred to here. If "people"- and I include in that category a large number of professional Shakespeareans- DO know, implicitly or otherwise "that characters are constructed out of conventional signs" then why do they persist in using a vocabulary that flies directly in the face of that knowledge. The effect of Buckridge's argument seems to me to be an unbridled relativism which frankly would not pass muster in the face of a rigorous postmodern interrogation. Letting a hundred flowers bloom is fine, if you own the nursery, but I think in these complicated times you'll need a little more than the first chapter of Raymond Williams's Modern Tragedy to ward off the evil spirits. Maybe if Pat Buckridge spent a little less time trying to put those who provoke his irritation into pigeon-holes, and concentrting a little more on what they say, then that irritation might have some real focus. Maybe I could suggest that in addition to Modern Tragedy, a glance at Problems in Materialism and Culture might be of some use. It won't make the irritation go away...but... Yours irritatingly, John Drakakis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Gilmore Date: Sunday, 3 Jul 1994 20:35:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Simpson as Othello (Aaargh!) Re: Tim Bowden comments of Sunday, 2 Jul 1994: Ok, I'm new to the list, but how does this type of discussion further our knowledge of Shakespeare and human tragedy save that we understand that one can be an Iago by thrilling at another's fall? Further, this last comment of Bowden's I'm going to understand as a slip of the tongue. Can we get away from this subject for a while, inundated as we are by the media with every particular of a woman's (and man's) horrid death? Thx. cg (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert George Date: Tuesday, 05 Jul 1994 09:38:09 EST Subject: the misbegotten thread While I might not have been so blunt, I thank Tim Bowden for his statement regarding O.J./Othello. The feeling among conferees seemed to be to let the thread die. However, as Mr. Bowden points out, if you really want to examine it, you don't have to dig too far--and its more than just the racial element. That said, I am somewhat taken aback by how much conferees wish to avoid this element. Let's get the obvious caveats aside: 1)Spousal abuse is not to be tolerated on any level. Neither is spousal murder. If Simpson is guilty, he should be punished to the fullest extent. 2)Comparisons between "real life" and literature always fail, if only because literature is nice and complete. Life, *current events*, moves along at its own unpredictable fashion. Stepping outside ongoing developments to make objective statements is a near-impossibility. The Simpson/Moor comparisons will ultimately collapse as we learn more about the football player than we ever wanted. There will be little trace of anything even close to nobility left by the time the trial and the media examination is complete. Those caveats aside, it seems that to dismiss all comparisons between the fictional character and the football player (or even the *image* that the public has been "sold" over the years) is not particularly wise. One person says that, race aside, the similarities between O.J. and Othello fall apart pretty rapidly, not the least because O.J. is "not an outsider." Perhaps not in the sense of a Moor in Venice, however, the media was quick to point out how O.J. grew up poor, "in the projects." The cameras move to dramatize as much as possible to display the difference between where O.J. came from and where he ended up (pre-murder): from project to multi-million dollar mansion. Does this movement qualify him as an "outsider?" I leave it for consideration. Finally, even if an initial comparison because of the race/ethnicity element is made, what of it? There seems to be an attitude that we are to be excoriated for merely making the observation. Perhaps those who are drawn to make this particular comparison and contrast are being respectful to the man whose work inspires this forum. Either there is a reason why Othello is a Moor and Desdemona is a "white goddess"--or there is not. Race is a difficult thing to discuss, but so are questions of class and gender and we don't completely shy away from them (or at least as I've so far ascertained). True, this can sometimes lead to certain unsavory associations, just as the Jewish element in *The Merchant of Venice* does in other discussions, but we should at least be aware that there is something that we are avoiding discussing. If this misbegotten thread is to die, so be it. But it seems to me that those who close their eyes to the full dimensions of race in a particular comparison do as much a disservice to the art of honest conversation as those who are so blind that race is all that they see in any situation. As ever, Robert A. George ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 12:35:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0594 Re: Essentialism; Brazilian *Othello*; Textual Transmission Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0594. Tuesday, 5 July 1994. (1) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 10:42:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0582 Re: Essentialism (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 4 Jul 1994 10:08:11 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0588 Q: Brazilian or Cuban *Othello* (3) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 05 Jul 94 00:58:15 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0589 Q: Textual Transmission (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 10:42:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0582 Re: Essentialism Sorry Bill, You'd lose if you bet on it! It seems to me that you have a choice. Either you insist that no matter what position anyone else takes up it can always be annexed to yours- at best a liberal gesture. Or when they are in danger of challenging THAT position, then you want to pick up your bat and ball and go home. Now if you are telling me that no matter what, everybody is an essentialist, then I think my advice to you would be to go away and do a little more reading and thinking. Then, when you've done that we might be able to have an intellectual conversation. Just for the record when I use terms such as "essentialist" and "liberal" I have particular conceptual frameworks in mind. I don't agree with them, but what I register is my imaptience that those to whom I ascribe such terms frequently (but not always) are reluctant to enter into intellectual debate. So, I'm afraid I deny your major, Bill. Aren't you surprised!! Have a good summer, John Drakakis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 4 Jul 1994 10:08:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0588 Q: Brazilian or Cuban *Othello* Dear Peter, Are you referring to the 1984 OTELO DE OLIVEIRA directed by Paulo Grissoli for Brazil's GLOPBO/TV and starring Roberto Bonfim as Othello and Julia Lemmertz as Denise (Desdemona)? It's a stylish "Latinization" set in a shanty town section of Rio de Janeiro. Otelo is the leader of a samba band, Emilia an agreeable black woman, Cassio a guitar player, and Iago a malevolent presence. The handkerchief gets entangled in voodoo rites. Several years ago the New York office of Globo/TV helped me out with this one. Write 909 Third Ave., NYC, NY 10022. Call 212-754-0440. Globo/TV does truly excellent work by the way. Their production standards put US networks to shame in many instances. There's also a partial list of credits and a brief note in my (w. Annabelle Melzer) SHAKESPEARE ON SCREEN: AN INTERNATIONAL FILMOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY (New York and London: Neal Schuman, 1990). Ken Rothwell (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 05 Jul 94 00:58:15 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0589 Q: Textual Transmission David Wilson-Okamura quotes the Barbara Mowat - Paul Werstine introduction to Lear where they argue that we can't really know exactly how the Q and F LEAR texts were generated. Fifteen years ago, in that lost golden age when WWGreg safely floated in the firmament above, I argued that Q1 was drawn from foul papaers and F derived from a promptbook. We've all since learned that such neat labels ought not be applied to those early entities. Somehow two different bundles of paper got set into type. But now we can, if warned, look at the texts. In our modern darkness, editors continue generally to print conflated texts of LEAR. I can only suggest that in my experience sometimes little sparks and some times bright flares erupt illuminatingly when you or your students or your actors or your voice coaches take Q LEAR and F LEAR and rub them together, hard. But like one hand clapping, it's very difficult to get those sparkles when all you have is one text and a list of variant readings. Enthusiastic reading seems necessary to build meaning from playtexts; the modes of tehatrical interpretation that have produced exciting performances and experiences for single-text plays or for modern editions will also generate delight and insight for comparing Q and F LEAR or HENRY V or the other multiple text plays. By all means you should use whatever text you find valuable, but please continue to hold editorial arguments that claim the final authority for their own editions as good-humoredly suspect as Heminges and Condell's claims at the opening of the First Folio. As ever, Steve Urquartowitz, City College of New York ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 00:36:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0596 Q: The Red Lion Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0596. Wednesday, 6 July 1994. From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 21:33:03 EDT Subject: Q: Red Lion I'm working on a review of a book which asserts that The Theatre, built in 1576, was the first public theatre in Elizabethan England. But recent research has shown convincingly (to my mind, at least) that the Red Lion was built some nine years earlier. To my knowledge, no one has disputed these findings. Before I suggest in print that the author didn't do his homework, however, I thought I'd better do MY homework -- does anyone on the list know of a serious (recent) study which contends The Theatre held more than a sort of metaphoric primacy? Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 00:40:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0597 Announcement: Fulbright Scholar Program Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0597. Wednesday, 6 July 1994. From: Date: Wednesday, 6 Jul 1994 15:40:58 -0400 Subject: Announcement Fulbright Scholar Program - Professional Opportunities For Faculty And Professionals (Note: August 1 deadline approaching for U.S. applicants) What follows is a description of Fulbright grants for lecturing and advanced research worldwide. These grants are excellent professional development opportunities and provide funding to pursue professional interests abroad. Fulbright Grants for Faculty and Professionals Description: 1,000 awards for college and university faculty and nonacademic professionals to lecture or pursue advanced research and/or related professional activity abroad. For U.S. candidates, grants are available to nearly 148 countries. Application: U.S. candidates have an August 1 deadline for lecturing or research awards. Non-U.S. candidates apply in their home country for awards to come to the United States. Areas of Interest: Opportunities exist in every area of the social sciences, arts and humanities, sciences, and many professional fields. Range of Consideration: Undergraduate and graduate teaching; research collaboration; field and laboratory research; creative and performing arts endeavors; professional collaboration in library management, business/ government capacity building; and much more. Eligibility: Most awards are at the postdoctoral level. Ph.D. is the typical requirement. Opportunities also exist for professionals who have comparable professional qualifications or individuals in the arts, library science, law, etc., who hold the normal terminal degree in the field. Masters in TESOL/TEFL is also appropriate for some awards. Successful candidates have been two and four-year faculty, lawyers, journalists, academic administrators, government officials, independent artists and scholars, nonacademic scientists, etc. Grant Duration: Awards range in duration from two months to a full academic year. Language: Required in certain countries for certain areas of activity. The majority of teaching assignments are in English. Action: U.S. candidates may receive detailed descriptions of award opportunities and application materials via cies1@ciesnet.cies.org (requests for mailing of materials only). Non-U.S. candidates must contact the Fulbright Commission or U.S. embassy in their home country. Reply: cies1@ciesnet.cies.org (application requests only) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 00:33:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0595 Re: Transmission; Brazilian *Oth.*; Life, etc.; "wood" Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0595. Wednesday, 6 July 1994. (1) From: E. P. Werstine Date: Wednesday, 6 Jul 94 10:54:38 EDT Subj: skepticism (2) From: Peter Paolucci Date: Tuesday, 05 Jul 94 23:58:55 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0588 Q: Brazilian or Cuban *Othello* (3) From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 06 Jul 1994 10:54:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0592 Re: Life and Art, Character, and Similarities (4) From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 22:51:33 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0587 Re: "wood"/"woo'd" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. P. Werstine Date: Wednesday, 6 Jul 94 10:54:38 EDT Subject: skepticism For David Wilson-Okamura, who inquired of a statement in our intro. to the New Folger edition of King Lear ("as scholars reexamine all such narratives about the origins of the printed texts, we discover that the evidence upon which they are based is questionable, and we become more sceptical about ever identifying with any certainty how the play assumed the forms in which it was printed") "is this true? Can anyone name names? Which scholars are sceptical?" Here is a very rough and ready bibliography of some sceptics--mind you these are not all connected to Lear in particular, but they all bear on the problematic of identification of the MSS behind early printed texts. The bibliography is not complete, and I apologize in advance to everyone I have left out and ask them please to put themselves in. Thanks for the question. Orgel, Stephen. "The Authentic Shakespeare." Representations 21 (1988): 1-25. ---. "What is a Text?" Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 24 (1981): 3-6. Goldberg, Jonathan. "Textual Properties."\Shakespeare Quarterly\37 (1986): 213-17. Long, William B. "'A bed / for woodstock': A Warning for the Unwary."\Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England\2 (1985): 91-118. ---. "Stage-Directions: A Misinterpreted Factor in Determining Textual Provenance."\TEXT: Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship\2 (1985): 121-37. De Grazia, Margreta and Peter Stallybrass. "The Materiality of the Shakespearean Text." Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993): 255-83. De Grazia, Margreta. "The Essential Shakespeare and the material book." Textual Practices 2 (1988): 69-86. Werstine, Paul. "'\Enter a Sheriffe\' and the Conjuring Up of Ghosts."\Shakespeare Quarterly\38 (1987): 126-130. (See also\SQ\37 [1986]: 98-100 and\SQ\38 [1987]: 124-26, 130.) ---. "'Foul Papers' and 'Prompt-books': Printer's Copy for Shakespeare's\Comedy of Errors.\"\Studies in Bibliography\41 (1988): 232-46. ---. "The Textual Mystery of\Hamlet\."\Shakespeare Quarterly\39 (1988): 1 -26. ---. "Narratives about Printed Shakespearean Texts: 'Foul Papers' and 'Bad' Quartos" Shakespeare Quarterly 41 (1990): 65-86. P.S. I do not think of the Folger edition as either eclectic or conflated. It is not eclectic in any usual sense (as for example are the Arden or the editions of my good friend David Bevington) because it does not prefer what the editors think is the "better" reading from either Quarto (1608) or Folio (1623) every time there is a choice. Instead it sticks with Folio until it is driven from the Folio by the conviction that the Folio is in error--it lists and discusses all these cases in the intro.--not just in the textual notes. It is not a conflated edition either (as again are the Arden and the Bevington editions I have used myself often). It does not "blow together" (the literal meaning of "conflate") Quarto and Folio versions--instead it marks the Folio-only and Quarto-only passages in the text with brackets so that the reader can keep them apart, if that's what the reader wants to do. That way the reader can conflate the texts (ignore the brackets) if she wants, or keep them separate (attend to the brackets) if she wants. This policy is used because we cannot decide if the Quarto and Folio should be kept apart or put together since we don't know where either came from-- that's the editorial aporia. (I acknowledge that this policy is not perfect because Folio and Quarto readings are often mutually exclusive--to print one is to consign the other to the textual notes at the back--a regrettable but unavoidable situation in anything resembling the conventional edition format that is marketable today.) The edition claims no authority--that is, it does not claim necessarily to be closer to what the "author" wrote than either of the early printed texts; it could hardly do so, of course, since we don't know what the "author" actually wrote. All the edition tries to do is present (in a form accessible to today's reader) the Folio version with the Quarto-only passages bracketed in. Re Division of the Kingdoms: if one reads this book carefully, one sees that not all the essays can be appropriated for the book's provocative title and thesis--essays by McLeod, Michael Warren, and myself make no pretension to knowing what kind of MSS the two texts of Lear were based on or of knowing whether "Shakespeare" is the "origin of the differences" or not. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Paolucci Date: Tuesday, 05 Jul 94 23:58:55 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0588 Q: Brazilian or Cuban *Othello* Ken ... thanks SO much for your prompt and accurate response to my query about this film. I'm surpised that it's SO much later than I had guessed (the 1960's/70's are a long way from 1984 -- all puns intended) but I found the texture of the film to be so un-North American ... that's what may have thrown me off. The NY address and the SHAKESPEARE ON SCREEN are two further leads I will most surely pursue. Cheers. Peter Paolucci York University Toronto, Ontarion, Canada (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 06 Jul 1994 10:54:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0592 Re: Life and Art, Character, and Similarities When scholars do with pedants vainly strive Amid the network's daily welcome talk And Godshalk from false Cardiff news receives Of further falsity of person, heart and bone That make a character an emblem high Sans voice, sans being -- extratext'al thing, A wordless wonder that gives air a grace But wooden O's an airy nothingness-- We reach the bottom of the malmsey butt And with old arguments once more tell o'er The difference twixt life and art and stage 'Til brains with bombast try to tell the dance From dancer. "It's a play, for God's sake, Bill," And thus more real than real. Thus simple sense In actor, playwright and the unwash'd mass That pays its pound and knows the play refers To life but is not it, will through the craft Of well-trained movers, speakers, motivated By the rhythms of the script and situations there, Tell us all the stage is life and life's a stage That's echoed *other ways* upon a page. To you who know our little time here's not a book But one that's acted, greetings, Hardy Cook. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Monday, 04 Jul 94 22:51:33 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0587 Re: "wood"/"woo'd" Harry Hill is of course absolutely correct in suggesting that "I love *thee* not" would run counter to the metre. But it seems to me that such an observation does not necessarily invalidate the reading. It makes it a stronger (read: "bolder", not necessarily "better") choice, but surely a strict adherence to metre subjects actors and directors rather too much to "rules". Indeed, changes in metre occur frequently throughout Shakespeare: ranging from Rosalind's "And I for no woman" (substituting prose for the regular iambs which surround it) to Hamlet's "that is the question", which is *generally* read as beginning with trochee rather than an iamb: i.e. the reading suggests that H has just come to a realization, not that he is re-asserting an idea articulated but discounted earlier. (I've seen it done convincingly using the latter interpretation, though.) In my acting classes I have often started students' work on Shakespearean verse with this assignment: assume that anyone who could the language as well as Shakespeare did could have written "pure" iambs if he'd really wanted to. Identify every foot that isn't an iamb and determine why Shakespeare would choose to play changes on the rhythm in this particular place. Not surprisingly, students generally find that the "aberrant" feet mark changes of intention, occur in moments of particularly strong emotion, etc.: i.e. precisely when Shakespeare wishes to call attention to a particular line. Coincidence? I think not. I generally tell actors that deviating from "pure" iambic pentameter in blank verse sections is often necessary but seldom adviseable when not necessary. Still, there's a difference between "seldom" and "never"... As a director, my temptation would be against the particular reading in question, but I'd certainly want to listen to the argument of an actor who chose this interpretation... Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 22:10:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0599 Q: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0599. Thursday, 7 July 1994. From: Andreas Schlenger Date: Thursday, 7 Jul 1994 12:35:41 +0200 (MESZ) Subject: [Q: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] Dear SHAKESPEARians: I am writing on behalf of a friend of mine, who is going to become a SHAKSPER-member soon, but who needs help even sooner. For a seminar on *Hamlet* she is working on a paper dealing with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as characters (*not* the Stoppardian "tramps"!). She has been desperately looking for any material on the topic, but only found one or two books which might be helpful, and a few articles. Could someone out there help her with some piece of bibliographical advice? Any suggestion would be deeply appreciated. Yours thankfully, Andreas Schlenger. e-mail-address: a2271001@hpw1.rrz.uni-koeln.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 22:04:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0598 Re: Production of Q *Lear*; Character; Metrics Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0598. Thursday, 7 July 1994. (1) From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 7 Jul 1994 14:01:46 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0594 Re: Textual Transmission (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 7 Jul 1994 14:59:36 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 07 Jul 1994 08:14:15 -0500 Subj: metrics, readers, actors (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J F Knight Date: Thursday, 7 Jul 1994 14:01:46 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0594 Re: Textual Transmission The New Theatre here is Sydney (which grew out of worker's collective / general leftie movements of the fifties and is our oldest theatre group) recently mounted a production of Lear in which the straight Quarto text was used. The director David Ritchie argued in the programme notes that this was probably Shakespeare's considered, amended version after testing on the stage. The production was not HUGELY different from a normal Lear as you might imagine, but was shorter and seemed leaner, tauter and more gripping, certainly than the other Lear playing concurrently with a conflated text at the Sydney Theatre Company (the main state subsidised company in town) which offered a fairly misguided reading based on recent events in Eastern Europe (huge statue of Lear which topples as the state totters, that sort of thing). STC tends to render the 'hard bits' into modern Australian - that doesn't help, either. JFK. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 7 Jul 1994 14:59:36 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character Apparently when John Drakakis categorises intellectual positions this is a good thing, and it's called 'having particular conceptual frameworks in mind', but when I do it it's a bad thing, and it's called 'pigeon-holing'. We don't have to agree on a nomenclature, but I find it hard to believe John doesn't have some inkling of what I have in mind in using the phrase 'British neo-Brechtian orthodoxy'. Would it help if I named some more names - MacCabe, Heath, Belsey? I'm well aware that 'neo-Brechtian' doesn't sum up the intellectual affiliations of these people (or 'people' if John prefers it); it wasn't meant to. What it does is isolate the salient feature of the intervention they and others made in the late '70s and early '80s for our present discussion of character, namely their critique of the 'classic realist text', with its antecedent in Brecht's polemics against Lukacs. This remains an orthodoxy in British cultural studies, and a significant presence, as recent postings by Hawkes and Drakakis make plain, in the 'progressive' wing of canonical literary studies. My previous comments on its limitations as a way of looking at fictional character stand (at least until - shudder! - the 'rigorous postmodern interrogators' arrive). The answer to Drakakis' question as to why scholars and other theatre-goers persist in using a realist vocabulary is surely obvious: because that's how they experience the text; and they experience it that way because the text (usually) encourages or at least allows them to. If it didn't, they wouldn't. Maybe this is what Drakakis means by 'unbridled relativism'; it's hard to be sure. But in any case I won't take the libertarian bait. Making texts mean something is not a violation of the civil rights of signifiers, but it is a political act, in a very broad sense, and a necessary one. Drakakis seems to imply here (as he and Hawkes have in earlier postings) that semiosis is curbed not politically but epistemologically, by the superior truth of constructivist (e.g. emblematic) readings of character over mimetic (or realist) ones. The basis for this alleged superiority is the asserted (but never documented) radical alterity of the Renaissance mentality. This is a highly debatable assumption in itself, but even if it weren't it's not clear why it should impose any particular obligation on later dramatic realisations of Renaissance texts. If discussion continues on this theme, I'd be happy to explain why I think Williams' _Modern Tragedy_ makes a useful contribution. Meanwhile, perhaps John might indicate which particular essay in _Problems in Materialism and Culture_ (a book I know very well) he thinks supports his position. And let me reciprocate by suggesting that he have a look at the _Keywords_ entry on 'realism' and try to guess which pigeonhole I'm popping him into. Yours cathartically, Pat Buckridge (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 07 Jul 1994 08:14:15 -0500 Subject: metrics, readers, actors Rick Jones notes that Shakespeare knows what he's doing when he varies the regularity of the iambic pentameter line, and I'd just like to note my agreement. Having spent some time this spring teaching the sonnets to an undergraduate class, I came to realize once again how very carefully they are constructed. The same, of course, holds true (even more so, perhaps) for the plays. I am currently having the wonderful opportunity to sit in on the final class being taught here by emeritus professor G.T. Wright on "Techniques of Poetry." We spent some time on Shakespeare and Donne, and have rapidly moved back and forth through the centuries to look at (especially) meter and form. If any of you are not familiar with Ted's book, "Shakespeare's Metrical Art," I recommend it with awe and enthusiasm. Sweltering in Minneapolis, Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 15:15:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0600 Re: Editions; Characters; R & G; Klingon Translations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0600. Friday, 8 July 1994. (1) From: Tom Davey Date: Thursday, 07 Jul 94 23:02 PDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0595 Conventional Edition Format (2) From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 08 Jul 94 13:11:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0598 Re: Characters (3) From: Fran Teague Date: Friday, 08 Jul 94 10:02:21 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0599 Q: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (4) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 08 Jul 1994 10:35 ET Subj: *The Tragedy of Iago* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Davey Date: Thursday, 07 Jul 94 23:02 PDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0595 Conventional Edition Format E.P. Werstine writes, regarding the necessity of consigning an unfavored quarto or Folio reading "to the textual notes in the back," that this is a regrettable but unavoidable situation in anything resembling the conventional edition format that is marketable today. What kind of page format might we prefer? Is this an argument for superior typographic design, or for an electronic text where an abundant apparatus can be invoked with a click? Tom Davey/UCLA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 08 Jul 94 13:11:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0598 Re: Characters Dear Pat Buckridge, Now I am beginning to understand where you're coming from- the late 70s and early 80s! I would never have thought of linking Belsey, MacCabe, and Heath together in the way that you do, and MacCabe's occasional use of Brecht notwithstanding, your description of a "neo-Brechtian orthodoxy" is hopelessly inadequate. Nor was it the "salient feature" of their intervention in the 70s. In fact the Heath and Belsey to which you are referring owed more to Lacan, and the Screen ethos was built around the explosion of French theory in the late 60s. You only have to contrast their work at this time with that of, say, the late Margot Heinemann (who WAS more Brechtian (see her essay in Political Shakespeare on "How Brecht Read Shakespeare") to see how wrong you've got it. Also your ascription of "progressive" to Hawkes and myself is misleading; are you concerned here to place us in a Hegelian context, and if so, on what grounds? Moreover, I'm not sure I understand what you mean when you say that I imply that "semiosis is curbed not politically but epistemologically, by the superior truth of constructivist (e.g. emblematic) readings of character over mimetic (or realist) ones. A cursory reading of Foucault will, I am sure, reveal that politics and epistemology are necessarily intertwined, and that knowledges are constrcuted within the parameters of the political. What you seem to want to do is to lump together historical difference- which is well documented- with some sort of transhistorical human nature, to the extent that you can assert that there are "characters" in Renaissance plays because that's the way we experience them. The question is how to get out of this piece of tail-chasing, and the answers are very complicated. We can't make a Shakespearean text mean anything we want it to mean. I think it was Terry Eagleton who said (in 1982 I think) that King Lear isn't about Manchester United (I think he originally said Leeds United). There is, of course, nothing stopping us from reading these texts mimetically, except that when we do so we need to be aware of what it is that we edit out in order to make such a reading possible. As an avid reader of Raymond Williams you should know that it is misleading to separate texts from their histories- hence his attempt to prize Tragedy free from the straitjacket that someone like George Steiner constructs for it in The Death of Tragedy. You can't have it both ways: you can't on the one hand claim a senstitivity to historical difference and then dismiss that as some sort of "British neo-Brechtian orthodoxy" when you want to insist on the permanence of "character". On the subject of Problems in Materialism and Culture, try reading Williams's critique of the Marxist base-superstructure model. Then switch to the Politics and Letters volume for a critique of Williams. (Well, you did ask!) Finally, catharsis is a way of managing the emotions! It's very political indeed!! Cheers, John Drakakis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Friday, 08 Jul 94 10:02:21 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0599 Q: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern I can't help with Rosencrantz and Guldenstern as "characters." Like a number of other, more vocal participants, I don't care for that term in discussing drama. I can, however, comment on them as "roles." They are among the roles most frequently cut from _Hamlet_ and your friend might enjoy/profit from/find material on the reasons that they appear in or disappear from various productions. There are interesting shifts of these roles in the Garrick, Olivier, and Gielgud productions (Gielgud both as actor and director), and all of these are well-documented. Bernice Kliman's wonderful study of performances on film, etc., has much to say about the way the roles are presented. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 08 Jul 1994 10:35 ET Subject: *The Tragedy of Iago* A few days ago I posted about the "Klingon Shakespeare Restoration Project" I discovered on Gopher. I've since been in contact with someone who is interested in translating more of the plays from a Klingon POV. It seems that *Othello* in particular might have a rather skewed reading by the typical Klingon critic or audience: it would only make dramatic sense to Klingons if it were called *The Tragedy of Iago*, about a noble warrior named Iago who must struggle to kill his captain, Othello, who has clearly shown himself too dishonorable for command. Klingons (for those unfamiliar with Star Trek) are a warrior race who value honor, duty, single-mindedness, battle prowess, ambition, boasting, and rather disgusting food. The best thing that can happen to a Klingon is to die in battle against an enemy; the worst thing that can happen is to be taken alive by the enemy and not executed. In discussing the "Klingon Shakespeare Restoration Project" we tried to fathom which of Shakespeare's plays would be most popular or interesting to this fictional Klingon audience -- sort of a hypothetical "Shakespeare in the Bush" exercise. *Othello* struck me as the one play which would mean something totally opposite to a Klingon audience than to a human (Western, Eurocentric) audience. Iago, to Klingon audiences and critics, would even have a tragic flaw -- his willingness to destroy Othello through clever schemes rather than outright force (Klingons value intelligence, but not when force is a viable alternative). He suffers what is to Klingons a terrible end -- he is captured at the end by his enemies and presumably not executed (at least not on stage). To Klingons, Iago might be as compelling and controversial a figure as Hamlet. One could translate *Othello* (rather, *The Tragedy of Iago*) in a bowdlerized Klingon version (a few scenes cut, others a bit transposed etc.) to "restore" the play to a version that would be popular and interesting to a Klingon audience. Other possibilities include the uproarious comedy *King Lear*, the stirring conquest story *Henry V* (not much bowdlerization in store for THAT one), and the Henriad featuring that vilest of all Shakespearean villains, Jack Falstaff... Not sure how close this comes to Disney and Shakespeare, Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Jul 1994 09:05:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.05601 Poculi Ludique Societas Tour '94 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0601. Sunday, 10 July 1994. From: Helen Ostovich Date: Saturday, 9 Jul 1994 10:31:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Poculi Ludique Societas Tour '94 (fwd) [This announcement, forwarded by Helen Ostovich, originally appeared on PERFORM. --HMC] From: jon terry wade Date: Wednesday, 6 Jul 1994 13:48:50 -0400 Subject: Poculi Ludique Societas Tour '94 Dear Perform Friends, Poculi Ludique Societas is touring again! In these times of economic restraint, we have still found it possible to mount a touring production in the PLS tradition of Robin Hood and the Friar, which toured Canada and the United States--even Great Britain--to great acclaim in the 1970's and 80's. Now PLS is pleased to present a touring production of John Heywood's comedy John John. John John, blustering but henpecked, is tricked by his wife Tyb into inviting her lover, the priest, to...supper. While Sir John and Tyb gorge themselves on pie, the frustrated John John must sit by the fire, trying to mend a hole in his wife's...pail. Running time of the show is apporximately 30 minutes, and it can be performed in almost any setting, indoors or out. The complete cost is only $250 plus travel expenses from Toronto and meals and accomodation for a cast and crew of four. (And these don't have to cost a lot.) John John is available now and through Winter '94-'95. To arrange a performance, contact PLS by mail, by phone, (416) 978-5096 or by sending an e-mail message to jwade@epas.utoronto.ca We look forward to renewing old friendships as we again take PLS on the road in the great tradition of the travelling companies of Tudor England. Sincerely, Jon Terry Wade Poculi Ludique Societas 39 Queen's Park Crescent East Toronto, Ontario M5S 2C3 (416) 978-5096 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 10 Jul 1994 09:08:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0602 Re: Metre and Readings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0602. Sunday, 10 July 1994. From: Paul Hawkins Date: Saturday, 09 Jul 1994 11:03:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Metre and Reading Rick Jones is to be thanked for reminding us that iambic pentameter lines, as any metrical verse lines, contain inverted feet and other variations on the basic pattern. But let's remember the line--and the reading of it--that began this thread: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not (MND, II, i, 188) The delivery suggested by Douglas Lanier was "I love *thee* not." Presumably the second part of the line would then be delivered, "therefore pursue *me* not." Rick Jones would seem to hold that this delivery is defensible, even perhaps "bold" and "strong." The only problem is that it makes no sense at all. Usually the stressing of personal pronouns at the expense of a verb is nonsensical, but especially when one is found in an unstressed position in verse. In this case, and as is often the case in Shakespeare, the metre guides us to the antithesis in the line: I *love* thee *not*, therefore pur*sue* me *not* "Thee" can only sensibly be stressed if "love" and "not" receive equal or greater stress. The line could then be delivered, "i LOVE THEE NOT, therefore purSUE me NOT," though this strikes me as unnecessarily insistent, and in performance would give the actor nowhere to go (the scene, for Demetrius, should probably build towards his threat of violence some lines later, and not begin too near that note). One could also say "i LOVE THEE NOT, therefore purSUE ME NOT", though again, I think it inappropriate. Shakespeare does vary the regularity of the iambic pentameter line for particular reasons, or better, to particular effect. He also exploits its regularity, as this example demonstrates. The second point is probably the one we're in danger of forgetting. It is easy to be fond of placing stresses where we wilfully want them (or rather, where WE wilfully want THEM); it is difficult and demanding, and perhaps feels too reverential, to surrender to the complex rhythms of verse. What does the regularity achieve here, in this entrance line? A clean setting of the scene, which reminds us who these characters are and what the terms of their conflict. Neatly done in 10 syllables. Douglas Lanier urged the delivery in question to remind us that Demetrius loves another. Of course, Demetrius himself reminds us in the next two lines. Stressing "thee" in isolation is plainly wrong, stressing it at all unnecessary. Harry Hill reminded us that the metre "is of course in itself the best guide to the clean interpretation of such moments." Further, it is clearly inadvisable to urge *any* reading without considering a line's metre. Paul Hawkins ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 11:35:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0603 Re: Metre; Red Lion; Characters Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0603. Monday, 11 July 1994. (1) From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 10 Jul 1994 12:45:53 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0602 Re: Metre and Readings (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 10 Jul 1994 17:50:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0596 Q: The Red Lion (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 10 Jul 1994 18:23:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0600 Dramatic Figures or Characters? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 10 Jul 1994 12:45:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0602 Re: Metre and Readings I once had the pleasure of spending a little time with the now late, veteran actor Arnold Moss. Mr. Moss was a wonderful player, unfortunately best known for his guest appearance as the Shakespearean Actor on an episode of the original Star Trek series, way back when. Later in his career, he was touring universities doing one-person readings from Shakespeare. Over drinks after a performance, I complimented him on his stunningly rhythmic and metrical interpretations, and asked him about his approach to the texts. His response was simply, "I don't know about all that stuff. I just read the words." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 10 Jul 1994 17:50:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0596 Q: The Red Lion Rick Jones's question MAY be answered by Andrew Gurr, THE SHAKESPEAREAN STAGE 1574-1642, 3rd edition (Cambrige University Press), 117: "The first Middlesex amphitheatre, the Red Lion, built before the players had any government protection and probably as temporary in its playing life as in its design, was set up to the east, in Stepney. The first durable building, the Theatre, was built on land leased for twenty-one years in Shoreditch . . . ." The words to emphasize here are "temporary" and "durable." Gurr seems to indicate that the impact of the Red Lion was negligible -- and he does not list it in his index! Is that worth noting in a review? Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 10 Jul 1994 18:23:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0600 Dramatic Figures or Characters? I've just been reading John Drakakis's reply to Pat Buckridge, and I wonder if part of the problem is the ambiguity of the category "character." I take character simply as a literary category, i.e., a human construction. Daisy, Gatsby, Nick, Jordan, and Tom are characters in a certain novel. I like Wallace Martin's comments in RECENT THEORIES OF NARRATIVE (Cornell, 1986), esp. 122. But would it be helpful to use Manfred Pfister's "fictional figure" (modified to "dramatic figure") (THEORY AND ANALYSIS OF DRAMA, Cambridge, 1988)? Pfister briefly discusses "the relationship between actor and figure" (23). If those of us who are interested in contesting this ground could agree on a fairly neutral word or term (cf. Fran Teague's "roles"), perhaps we may better understand what we are fighting about. I suggest it would be helpful to begin with a text, an early seventeenth century text: John Manningham's description of part of TWELFTH NIGHT: "A GOOD PRATICE IN IT TO MAKE THE STEWARD BELEEUE HIS LADY WIDDOWE WAS IN lOUE WTH HIM BY COUNTERFAYTING A LETTR/AS FROM HIS LADY IN GENERALL TEARMES/ TELLING HIM WHAT SHEE LIKED BEST IN HIM / AND PRESCRIBING HIS GESTURE IN SMILING HIS APPARRAILE / &c/. AND THEN WHEN HE CAME TO PRACTISE MAKING HIM BELEEUE THEY TOOKE HIM TO BE MAD/:/" (Arden Edition, xxvi). (I do not vouch for my transcription.) To my ear, Manningham seems to be describing the actions of real humans, not emblematic figures, and yet he is describing the actions of dramatic figures. I would argue from this text that some early modern auditors did NOT interpret contemporary dramatic figures emblematically. Can I ask John Drakakis for his response to Manningham's account? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 11:39:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0604 Announcement: *TDR* 142 Available Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0604. Monday, 11 July 1994. From: Richard Schechner Date: Monday, 11 Jul 1994 00:12:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Announcing TDR-142 ...You probably heard of us but when is the last time you read... ______________________________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ######| ######\ ######\ ##| ##| ##\ ##|__##| ##| ##| ##| ######/ ##| ##|__##/ ##| ##\ ___________________ ##| ######/ ##| ##\_______________________ -- The Journal of Performance Studies - T142 (Summer 1994) -- TDR is the only journal that explores the diverse world of performance with an emphasis on the intercultural, interdisciplinary and experimental. It covers theatre, music, dance, entertainment, media, sports, politics, aesthetics of everyday life, games, plays and ritual. The journal is edited by Richard Schechner of the Department of Performance Studies, New York University, and is published quarterly by The MIT Press. Although TDR is not yet an electronic journal, you can browse through sample articles available on-line through the Electronic Newsstand and order via e-mail from The MIT Press (see directions below). Check out our table of contents! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- // In this issue (T142 Summer 1994) \\ -------------------------------------- // TDR Comment \\ Cuba: Lift the American Embargo Now - by Richard Schechner An Open Letter to President Clinton & to the Congress - by Johannes Birringer Peter Schumann Advocates Air Strikes to Lift the Siege - by Peter Schumann // Letters \\ Junebug Environmental Justice Festival - by John O'Neal // Articles \\ Tradition, Innovation, and Politics: Chinese and Overseas Chinese Theatre Across the World - edited by William H. Sun with Huang Zuolin, Fan Yisong, Stan Lai, Chung Mingder, Daniel S.P. Yang, Daniel Yung, Tisa Chang Shanghai Revisited: Chinese Theatre and the Forces of the Market - by David Jiang Transcending the Cultural Divide: Westerners Performing Indian Classical Dance - by Leela Venkataraman Pancoli Capatam (The Vow of Draupadi): Images of Ritual and Political Liberation in Tamil Theatre - by Richard A. Frasca A Report on the _Stories of Mulberry Village_ - by Xu Xiaozhong, translated by Faye C. Fei Selections from _Stories of Mulberry Village_ - by Zidu Chen, Yang Jian, and Zhu Xiaoping _Stories of Mulberry Village_ and the End of Modern Chinese Theatre - by Faye C. Fei and William H. Sun The Arrest of Malayali Indians in the United Arab Emirates: When Performance, [Inter]Culture, and Human Rights Collide - by Jose George Community Process and Performance of Muharram Observances in Trinidad - by Frank J. Korom and Peter J. Chelkowski // Book Reviews \\ The Politics of Theatre and Drama (edited by Graham Holderness), The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (by Baz Kershaw), Theatre & Politics (by Zygmunt Hubner) - reviewed by Randy Martin Presence and Resistance: Postmoderism and Cultural Politics in Contemporary American Performance (by Philip Auslander) - reviewed by Nick Kaye The Secret of Theatrical Space (by Josef Svoboda) - reviewed by John Bell Women in Power in the Early Modern Drama (by Theodora Jankowski) - reviewed by Mita Choudhury Critical Theory and Performance (edited by Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach) - reviewed by David J. DeRose Each TDR issue is filled with photographs, artwork, and scripts that illustrate every article. The journal, founded in 1955, is 7 x 10 and a 184 pages per issue. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- // Come browse and subscribe \\ ------------------------------- 1. For subscription prices and ordering information, contact the publisher: MIT Press Journals 55 Hayward Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel: 617-253-2889 Fax: 617-258-6779 Email: journals-orders@mit.edu Or, access the MIT Press Online Catalog: telnet techinfo.mit.edu, under Around MIT/MIT Press/Journals/Arts/ or via gopher by typing "gopher gopher.mit.edu". 2. To browse through an article from our current issue, logon to the The Electronic Newsstand: via telnet: gopher.internet.com (login name: enews). via gopher: gopher.internet.com (port 2100). Via the gopher menu, go to: North America/USA/general/ The Electronic Newsstand/all titles/ TDR: The Drama Review //-----------------------------------------------------------------------\\ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 09:33:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0605 Re: Metrics; Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0605. Tuesday, 12 July 1994. (1) From: Kurt Daw Date: Monday, 11 Jul 94 10:04:38 EDT Subj: Metrics (2) From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 94 13:14:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0603 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kurt Daw Date: Monday, 11 Jul 94 10:04:38 EDT Subject: Metrics At the risk of becoming incredibly pedantic, I want to make a few observations about metrics. A. It is true, as pointed out by my always intelligent colleague Rick Jones, that Shakespearean lines don't always proceed in straight iambs. The typical variations, however, are far from random. Nearly all departures from the iambic pattern fit into two categories: 1. a trochaic foot at the beginning of a line or immediately after a caesura, or 2. a feminine ending at the end of a line or immediately before a caesura. Jones' example "*that* is the quest(ion)" displays both of these variations. These variations are so common in blank verse lines that an actor needn't really worry about adopting such a reading when it is the natural scansion, but more significant variations need to be approached more warily. The proposed stressing of the Midsummer line, "I love *thee* not" does not follow one of the typical variation patterns, and is quite suspect. 2. These two common patterns of variations are actually quite musical, giving lines a little extra push at their start, or a gentle stretch at their end. Variations buried in the middle of lines and phrases are rare because they interupt the musical flow, make the line hard to speak, and make it harder to hear. 3. Just because Shakespeare introduces variations into his lines occasionally, does not automatically mean that we are equally free to do so, especially when a perfectly valid, regularly metrical reading is available. This leap of logic, the usual argument against relying too heavily on scansion, has quite a few holes in it. If Shakespeare is purposely violating meter for meaning on occasion, we obscure that by violating meter at our whim. This, I believe, is the point Paul Hawkins makes about the specific line reading in question in his posting of Saturday. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 94 13:14:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0603 Re: Character Bill Godshalk is right in that "character" is a very slippery category. I'm not sure that within the field of Shakespeare Studies it's all that ambiguous, though, since L.C.Knights' rebuff of Bradley in the early 1930s. We habitually associate "character" not with function, but with the concept of expressive subjectivity, and hence with INDIVIDUALITY. Now if we apply this to Renaissance drama then we are in danger of slipping into anachronism. Terms such a "role" or "dramatic figure" would do, but what they obscure are those textual phenomena which I tried to identify a long while ago in this debate as "character effects", that is, details which we are given which might suggest an extra-dramatic life for the fictional speaker. What L.C.Knights's Macbeth essay does is to extrapolate this concern to give Lady Macbeth a whole "other" life, and the same could be done for Gertrude, or Claudius, or Othello, or Lear. Oddly enough it is only Coriolanus which tells us something in detail about the protagonist's pre-dramatic life, and even that is repeated on the stage in the figure of his son. On a stage where there was no scenery, where the dominant dramatic mode was not naturalism, and in a culture that was attuned to the social semiotics of costume, the likelihood, it seems to me, was that audiences READ dramatic roles NOT as expressions of the individuality of the speaker. This brings me to the example that Bill Godshalk offers. Surely, the point is not that this description has to do with REAL HUMANS. I don't think that the issue of "realism" is what is interesting here. Manningham's description is of social types: "the Steward", "his Lady Widdowe" etc. There's nothing individual about this, and a lot that is emblematic. The question as I see it here isn't to do with mimesis; if the stage did not in some way or another offer a recognizable representation of social life, then it would have been difficult for audiences to read what went on. For us the problem is that we tend to graft onto Elizabethan notions of "realism" our own preconceptions. And it's here that the concept of "character" becomes problematical. There is nothing in the example that Bill Godshalk offers us that would challenge an emblematic reading. In fact we could trace this way of talking about "character" through Overbury, Wye Saltonstall, John Earle, and all those who wrote descriptions of social types in the Theophrastan mode. My guess is that for Elizabethan audiences emblematic figures as "real humans" were the same thing, and that is very clearly a point of difference between sixteenth-century culture and our own. Of course, if you insist that "human nature" is a transhistorical constant, then you obscure that difference. Over to you Bill Cheers, John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 12 Jul 1994 09:37:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0606 CFP: Shakespeare at Kalamazoo Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0606. Tuesday, 12 July 1994. From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 11 Jul 1994 10:50 EDT Subject: Call for Papers: Shakespeare at Kalamazoo *** Announcement for SHAKSPER and other lists; please forward as appropriate: "Shakespeare at Kalamazoo," a group that sponsors sessions at the annual International Conference on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University during the first weekend in May, announces its sessions for May 4-7, 1995. Please post the following call for papers and forward to other appropriate lists: Session 1 "Medieval/Renaissance Looks and Sounds in Shakespearean Films" Explanation: An invitation to scholars in all disciplinesQincluding but not limited to architecture, art, art history, music, theater history, theater arts, cinema studies and literature. The topic is meant to be as open as possible, to invite contributions that enrich the discussion of Shakespeare on film. Papers on films from non-English speaking countries are welcome; feature and documentary films, full length and short, are acceptable subjects for papers. Papers might discuss the interpretive use of dance, music, song, and other aspects of movement and sound; costume, setting, stage space, color, and other aspects of design; the problems of contemporary acting style in a medieval or Renaissance setting; modern interpretive choices and historical design; and more. Papers should plan to use visual or aural aids (e.g., video clips, recorded sound). Session 2: "Persuasive Speech/ Persuasive Silence in Shakespeare" Explanation: Papers discussing such topics as medieval and Renaissance rhetorical traditions; staging strategies for speech (including formal oratory) and silence; editorial treatment of silences and potential silences; ethnic, class and gender issues (women speaking/women silent); and more. Four copies of abstracts (or, preferably, complete papers) are due by September 10, 1995). A committee of four selects the program. The Medieval Institute at WMU asks that each proposal be accompanied by an agreement to present the paper in person if it is accepted, a pledge to adhere to a twenty-minute limit for papers, and a statement about the need for A-V equipment. In addition, graduate students, who are encouraged to propose papers, are requested to include a statement of approval by their professors or advisors. Please send abstracts, papers &c. to Bernice W. Kliman, 70 Glen Cove Drive, Glen Head, NY 11545. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 11:30:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0609. Wednesday 13 July 1994. From: Michael Friedman Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 17:20:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Locating Academic Discussion Groups] I wonder if anyone could help me. I'm going to be teaching Intro to Research to our graduate students in the fall, and I decided that, as one of their weekly assignments, I would like to have them monitor an Internet discussion group devoted to a particular author or period and report back on the types of issues that arise and the ways in which the discourse is conducted. However, I've been having trouble identifying how my students might determine the existence of such lists and go about subscribing to them. I found out about SHAKSPER by talking to Ken Steele directly, but I imagine that there must be somewhere, either in print or on line, a resource that would give the addresses of discussion groups devoted to literature. Does anyone have any idea where I might go for this information? Michael Friedman FriedmanM1@jaguar.uofs.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 11:19:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0607 Re: Metrics; More on Saskstchewan Festival Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0607. Wednesday 13 July 1994. (1) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 10:21:39 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0602 Re: Metre and Readings (2) From: Peter Scott Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 20:16:55 -0600 (CST) Subj: More on Shakes on the Saskatchewan (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 10:21:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0602 Re: Metre and Readings As one whose metrical competency has now come in for attack, let me direct readers back to my original posting. My argument was primarily aimed at making a particular reading of another line, "wood within this wood," audible, NOT at legislating a particular performance reading of the line "I love thee not." (Note the wording of my original posting--note the "if.") That is, my aim in stressing "thee" was *heuristic*, to underline the love triangle which is very much in play in this passage, a point on which Professor Hawkins seems to agree with me. It was not to suggest that when these words are uttered they MUST be said in that fashion, though the reading Professor Hawkins finds possible though "unnecessarily insistent"--I LOVE THEE NOT--I find useful for clarifying the emotional dynamic of the scenelet. (That dynamic was not so apparent to other posters, hence my trying to point it up.) Of course, strictly speaking--and we are apparently speaking strictly here--even that reading is metrically untenable. What then allows it at all, even as a possibility? Is meter, strictly speaking, so final a determiner of meaning and readings? Is it not rather one of several determiners (a powerful one, of course), each of which is in interplay with others, the interplay of which may allow for exceptions, gradations in stress, or performative variations? Cheers, Douglas M. Lanier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Scott Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 20:16:55 -0600 (CST) Subject: More on Shakes on the Saskatchewan The Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival has been awarded one of the American Bus Association's 1994 Top 100 Events in North America. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 11:27:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0608 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0608. Wednesday 13 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 13:23:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0605 Character (2) From: Jimmy Jung Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 94 14:25:00 edt Subj: RE: Character (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 14:02 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0598 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 1994 13:23:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0605 Character That's very clearly put, John Drakakis. My point about using the term dramatic figure is that we can then dispense with the inverted commas or quotation marks (depending upon which side of the pond you are writing from) around "character." We can then debate the dramatic function of dramatic figures in Elizabethan and Jacobean plays and/or playtexts. Are dramatic figures emblematic or mimetic? I assumed that you would interpret Manningham's use of "steward" and "lady widow" (please excuse my modernizations for the time) as emblematic. But could it be that Manningham, after hearing the play once during a night of revels (was he drunk?), had forgotten the names of Malvolio and Olivia -- even though they are often named in the text? I find that I rarely remember the names of dramatic figures after hearing a play once. Overbury: yes, Theophrastan types. We in the latter days of the twentieth century still have types. We in this country have the popular types of the dumb jock, the silly housewife, the corporate go-getter, the effete artist, and so on and on. These are often used in contemporary drama. (I can give you examples if you need them.) Because playwrights use types, does this fact lead inevitably to the audience interpreting their plays emblematically? I don't think so, and I don't think Mannigham describes the incident in TN emblematically. Look at an emblem book: emblematic picture plus verbal interpretation. You can pick up your Whitney and look. I challenge anyone to convince open-minded old me that Manningham's description is anything like an emblematic interpretation. Where's the emblematic hook in Mannigham's description? But, John, you really want to get away from emblematic theatre, I think, and on to the question of individuality in early modern England. You want to deny this concept to the period; it's anacronistic to project post-Freudian ideas of the self (i.e., subject) onto early modern plays and dramatic figures. Am I getting close to the essential point? Let's assume that no one can transcend her or his historical moment. Are you simply arguing that Shakespeare's sense of selfhood (i.e., subjectivity) would have been conditioned by his experience of his time, his life, his reading, his family life, his politics, his religion (if any), his genes? No, of course, you are not simply arguing this point; you are arguing that Shakespeare and his audience were rendered incapable of mimesis because of their historical moment. Or are you? And, finally, since I assume that John Drakakis cannot transcend his historical moment any more than I can or Shakespeare could, how can John Drakakis be such an authority on early modern selfhood and drama? Isn't he also limited, confined, by our time? Isn't his view of the past as anachronistic as yours or mine? If anyone has read all or any of this, thanks for your time. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jimmy Jung Date: Tuesday, 12 Jul 94 14:25:00 edt Subject: RE: Character I've no desire to pull on my wellies and wade in the character muck, but there were two questions I thought might help me follow the conversation. 1. Should I be regarding Godshalk, Hawkes and Drakakis as characters or dramatic figures? Without knowledge of any extra-dramatic existence outside the confines of my computer, I'm not sure I can regard them with any more realism than Snoopy, Murphy Brown or any other fictional construct that I enjoy periodically. I apologize if I'm asking the obvious or if my naivete slows down the fireworks. 2. What are wellies? Jimmy "never-understood-deconstruction" Jung (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 14:02 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0598 Re: Character Pat Buckridge's confection "British neo-Brechtian orthodoxy" presents conspiracy theory at its most flat-footed. The attack on simple-minded 'realistic' notions of character in Shakespeare is emphatically NOT the work of wild-eyed cultural materialists, and is certainly not of recent origin. L.C.Knights's essay appeared over sixty years ago. Its conclusions have been explicitly or implicitly endorsed by scores of entirely respectable scholars since then. These have included F.R.Leavis, M.C.Bradbrook, S.L.Bethell, G. Wilson Knight and many more. Brecht himself, as I recall, looked to Elizabethan drama as the source of his notions of 'epic' theatre. Buckridge, Godshalk et al. must know this, surely? What's the full SP? T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 09:38:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0610 Re: Locating Academic Discussion Groups Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0610. Thursday, 14 July 1994. (1) From: Mickey Lynch Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 12:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups (2) From: Michael Clark Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 16:19:31 -0500 Subj: Reply to SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups (3) From: J. M. Massi Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 14:21:12 PDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups (4) From: Hilve Ayers Firek Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 19:06:26 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups (5) From: Bruce Sajdak Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 08:24:14 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mickey Lynch Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 12:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups Regarding Michael Friedman's request for discussion groups devoted to literature: try "The Guide to Theater Resources on the Internet", which is obtainable via: URL: gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu:70/00/inetdirsstacks/theater:torresmjvk Many discussion groups and mailing lists are described in this excellent guide. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Clark Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 16:19:31 -0500 Subject: Reply to SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups Diane Kovas of Kent State University Libraries has been keeping (and updating) an extensive list of lists. If you gopher to the University of Michigan, you can find files grouped by subject area (literature, music, etc.). Michael.Clark@cyber.widener.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. M. Massi Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 14:21:12 PDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups RE: Locating academic discussion groups I maintain an Internet newsgroup here at WSU for my undergrad Shakespeare class and I am sending along my posting from that group on how to find these groups. Mailing Lists II: Lists of Interest to Those Studying Shakespeare Any computer nerd worth her or his salt knows that a complete list of Internet mailing lists--the infamous "list of lists"--can be gotten for free from the network. To get a copy of this **ENORMOUS** list by email, send a message to the following address: MAIL-SERVER@NISC.SRI.COM The message should say the following: send netinfo/interest-groups You can also ftp the list from the anonymous ftp: ftp.nisc.sri.com. At this ftp, the list is called netinfo/interest-groups. A compressed version is also in there and is called netinfo/interest-groups. Or, if you are a major chicken about jamming up the mainframe (like I am), you can buy a printed version of the list for about thirty dollars. The (non-MLA formatted) reference is as follows: Internet Mailing Lists. Edward Hardie & Vivian Neou, editors. PTR Prentice Hall, 1994. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hilve Ayers Firek Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 19:06:26 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups Re: where to find discussion lists. Check out the book _Internet: Mailing Lists_, PTR Prentice-Hall, inc. You can find the same information on some gopher servers, but having a book on hand is more convenient. Hilve Firek, (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce Sajdak Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 08:24:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups Michael, I hope I have your answer on finding electronic discussion lists on the Internet - but I must warn you in advance that a small portion of this answer is a good-natured paid political announcement. (I'll let you know when we get there.) First, to your question. Although no single location on internet has everything one in particular stands out - not only as a source for discovering the identity of electronic discussion groups - but as a repository for much good information which your graduate students will also find useful. This is the so-called English-server at Carnegie Mellon University. If your system is hooked up to gopher software, you should be able to type gopher english-server.hss.cmu.edu to gain entry. Choose "Internet" from the main menu and then "LISTSERV list of lists" from the next menu. You'll get lots of other good suggestions from the SHAKSPER membership; surfing the net is an art - not a science. Now to the paid political announcement. It's quite simple, and it may be coals to Newcastle. Establish a good working relationship with a reference librarian and a member of your university's computer information office. No graduate student should escape a research class without a working knowledge of - not only the standard printed texts - but with computer competence in locating resources on internet. Your librarians are highly-trained professionals who along with the computer staff can instruct your students in a class session and individually throughout the term on the art of locating and obtaining electronic texts and - well, answering very good questions like the one you just asked. Thus endeth the paid political announcement from the librarian. Happy hunting for good lists (none better than this one!) - have a great class! Bruce Sajdak Reference Librarian Smith College Northampton, MA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 10:10:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0611 Announcements: Med-Ren Conf; MARDE; TDR; HUMBUL Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0611. Thursday, 14 July 1994. (1) From: Thomas M. Costa Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 14:11:20 EDT Subj: Medieval-Renaissance Conference (2) From: Marjorie Keyishian Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 14:05:13 -0400 (EDT) Subj: MARDE (3) From: Lucia Ruedenberg Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 21:59:42 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Announcing: TDR_forum 142 (4) From: Stuart Lee Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 10:59:42 +0100 Subj: HUMBUL - The Humanities Bulletin Board (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas M. Costa Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 14:11:20 EDT Subject: Medieval-Renaissance Conference [Note Shakespeare session on Saturday. For details, contact Dr. Costa.] Medieval-Renaissance Conference VIII Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia October 6-8, 1994 Tentative Program Thursday, Oct. 6 6:00 PM-- Reception Friday, Oct. 7 8:00 AM-- Late Registration 8:30 AM-- Call to Order and Welcome 8:45 AM-- History Nicolas Agrait, Fordham University "Geography, Arab Internal Warfare, and Monarchy: The Development of the Kingdom of Asturias during the Early Middle Ages" Kathy L. Pearson, Old Dominion University "The Exercise of Territoriality in Early Medieval Bohemia" William L. White, Bluefield State College "Crusades Against the Cathares and Vaudois: Social and Economic Rationale for the Divergent Treatment of these Heresies" Kelly DeVries, Loyola College in Maryland "God, Admirals, Archery, and Flemings: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat at the Battle of Sluys, 1340" 10:45 AM-- Literature Martha Hayes, Southern Connecticut State University "Heloise's Tenet of Love: An Amalgamation of the Carnal and the Spiritual" Kim D. Gainer, Radford University "New Visions from Old: Conservative Innovation in Narratives of Journeys to the Otherworld" Anne M. Wiles, James Madison University "Justice and Caritas in Dante's Paradiso" Shari Rambo, Clintwood, Virginia "Very Tragical Mirth: Images of Violence against Women in Jonson's Volpone" 1:00-- Lunch 2:00 PM-- Images and Reflections Ivan Castaneda, University of Virginia "The Human Figure as Transcendental Beauty: Michelangelo and the Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas" Julia Horseman, East Tennessee State University "The Brancacci Chapel, Florence" Douglas W. Shrader, SUNY, Oneonta "Reflections in the Mirror of Eternity: Medieval-Renaissance Views of Spirit, Self, and the Afterlife" 3:30 PM-- Reading the Middle Ages Ljiljana Milojevic, East Stroudsburg University "Cronica Sarracina by Pedro de Corral as a Historiographic Work" Wendell Frye, Hartwick College "Franz Guillparzer's King Ottokar's Rise and Fall and Ein Bruderzwist in Habsburg" 4:30 PM-- Keynote Address Achim D. Koddermann, State University of New York, Oneonta "Why the Medieval Idea of the University is Still Modern" 5:30 PM-- Reception 6:30 PM-- Banquet 8:00 PM-- Faculty Recital Saturday, September 25 8:30 AM-- Coffee and Pastries 9:00 AM-- Spenser's Faerie Queene Craig Dionne, Bluefield State College "Archimago's Magic Spells and Una's Angelic Face: Spenser's Faerie Queene and the Protestant Discourse of Iconoclasm" James W. Broaddus, Indiana State University "Faerie Queene and Physiology" 10:30 AM-- Shakespeare Pamela Walters, University of Vermont "Henry V: Ideal Monarch or Master Manipulator" Deborah D'Agati, University of Vermont "Melancholy and the Macbeths" Robert L. Reid, Emory and Henry College "Fortunate Wheel: King Lear's Three Cycles of Humiliation" Richard Vela, Pembroke State College "Portentous Things: Knowledge and Death in Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra" 12:30 PM-- Light Luncheon 1:15 PM--Milton's Paradise Lost James Stone, University of California, Berkeley "The Imperfect Whole: Androgyny and Loss in Paradise Lost" Mary Grabar, Georgia State University "Satan's Tears to Adam's Tears: Symbolism and Intersubjectivity in Paradise Lost" 2:30 PM-- Adjourn Tom Costa Clinch Valley College tmc5a@clinch.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marjorie Keyishian Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 14:05:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: MARDE *The Journal Medieval and Remaissance Drama in England* resumes publication with volume 7 om December 1994. The deadline for submissions to volume 8 is August 31, 1994. Send to: Leeds Barroll, Editor; Department of English; University of Maryland; 5401 Wilkens Avenue, Baltimore MD 21228-5398. To order volume 7 (cost $52.50) write Associated University Presses, 440 Forsgate Drive, Cranbury NJ 08512; or call (609) 655-4770 (Fax # 609 655-8366). To order back issues of MRDE. write AMS Press, 56 East 13 Street, New York NY 10003. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lucia Ruedenberg Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 21:59:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Announcing: TDR_forum 142 ______________________________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ######| ######\ ######\ ##| ##| ##\ ##|__##| ##| ##| ##| ######/ ##| ##|__##/ ##| ##\ ___________________ ##| ######/ ##| ##\_______________________ The Journal of Performance Studies T142 (Summer 1994) TDR_FORUM ON PERFORM-L TDR is a quarterly journal that explores the diverse world of performance with an emphasis on the intercultural, interdisciplinary and experimental. The TDR_FORUM occurs on Perform-l, a discussion list for Performance Studies. Every quarter, we focus on one article from TDR's latest issue. Our discussion for the summer features: "Shanghai Revisted: Chinese Theatre and the Forces of the Market" - by David W. Jiang ______________________________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ######| ######\ ######\ ##| ##| ##\ ##|__##| ##| ##| ##| ######/ ##| ##|__##/ ##| ##\ ___________________ ##| ######/ ##| ##\_______________________ The Journal of Performance Studies T142 (Summer 1994) TDR_FORUM ON PERFORM-L As many of you know by now...the TDR_FORUM occurs on Perform-l quarterly to stimulate discussion and exchange with the authors. This summer we feature the following article: "Shanghai Revisted: Chinese Theatre and the Forces of the Market" - by David W. Jiang David Jiang is a theatre and TV director/actor, who is educated in Shanghai, China. He was a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council and a visiting scholar in New York University, Performance Studies from 1989 to 1991. He is now doing a theatre research project with the University of Leeds, U.K. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Excerpt from: TDR T142 Summer 1994 Shanghai Revisited: Chinese Theatre and the Forces of the Market David W. Jiang Summer 1993 in Shanghai, China's biggest city and cultural center: I had not been there in four years, since I left for America. I must say, I was impressed by the newly built-high rises and the vibrant appearance of the business districts, but when I opened a newspaper all I saw were ads for Hong Kong films, Taiwan pop stars, night clubs, and of course karaoke. No theatre. When I walked by theatres I knew full well nothing theatrical was happening. Box offices were empty, posters advertised everything but theatre, entrances led to clothing stores, fast food shops, expensive cafes, discos, and karaokes. Theatres have set up businesses like these on their premises. Auditoriums were used for non-theatre events: no rehearsals, no artists. "Call them at home," the receptionists suggested, "because they never come here." What happened? -----------------------------------------------end of excerpt--------- Subscribe to Perform-l by sending e-mail to: mailserv@acfcluster.nyu.edu, with one line in the body of the msg: sub perform-l yourrealname. To download Jiang's artictle via anonymous ftp: ftp acfcluster.nyu.edu, cd perform get tdr_jiang.txt. quit To get Jiang's article via e-mail: Send e-mail to: mailserv@acfcluster.nyu.edu Leave subject blank. Put only this line, just as it appears, in the letter: send [anonymous.perform]tdr_jiang.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Direct questions or problems subscribing to the discussion list to: Lucia Ruedenberg ruednbrg@acfcluster.nyu.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stuart Lee Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 10:59:42 +0100 Subject: HUMBUL - The Humanities Bulletin Board HUMBUL - The Humanities Bulletin Board (Report) For some years now the Office for Humanities Communication has been maintaining an electronic Bulletin Board for the Humanities, known as HUMBUL (now based at Oxford). When established it was seen that there was a need for a central location at which humanities academics could access (remotely) information on various associations, institutions, projects, etc, of interest to humanities computing. Such a central resource was clearly lacking in the mid-eighties and HUMBUL was designed to fill this gap. Written under the USERBUL software (designed at Leicester University) HUMBUL ran successfully for nearly eight years. For the last three years it has been my responsibility to edit and maintain the various sections. At its peak it attracted over 5,000 subscribers and was accessed nearly 1,000 times a month. However, due to the substantial increase in electronic resources, gopher sites, world-wide-web pages, and software to aid the accessing and searching of the Internet, HUMBUL began to look like a bit of a dinosaur. This, coupled with the fact that USERBUL was no longer operational with the installation of new software at Oxford University, has meant that the policy of maintaining such a large resource has had to be reviewed. Before considering the possibility of moving HUMBUL to a gopher site I researched the resources available to academics through the Internet. It was clear that whereas in the mid-eighties HUMBUL was a good central point for most scholars, now, with the advent of WWW, Gopher, VERONICA, etc, the gap that needed to be filled all those years ago was no longer there. Consequently, the decision has been taken to close down HUMBUL as of July, 1994. Nevertheless, the name still lives on. As part of the growing need for gateways to other resources, I have established the HUMBUL Gateway which provides a means of accessing international resources applicable to the humanities with relative ease. The time and effort spent on maintaining the old bulletin board will now be diverted to the updating of this web service. To access this you need a WWW viewer such as Mosiac, Lynx, etc. The address is: http://www.ox.ac.uk/depts/humanities/ I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have helped in the running of HUMBUL for so long, be they support staff, or contributors. Particular thanks to the following without whom HUMBUL would not have been the success it clearly was: Paul Bryant, Marilyn Deegan, Dave Hastings, Susan Hockey, May Katzen, Jim Morris, and Chris Mullings. Stuart Lee HUMBUL Editor, 1991-1994 **************************** Dr Stuart Lee Research Officer CTI Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Tel:0865-273221/283282 Fax:0865-273221 E-mail: Stuart.Lee@oucs.ox.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 10:25:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0612 Summer Shakespeare Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0612. Thursday, 14 July 1994. (1) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 15:41:47 CST Subj: WS in Montreal/Illyria in Florida (2) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 94 07:45:00 EDT Subj: Merriness in Central Park (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 94 15:41:47 CST Subject: WS in Montreal/Illyria in Florida To Interested SHAKSPERians: I have just heard on the CBC (my only contact with the outside world apart from discussion groups!) that a Montreal group is performing *Macbeth* and *Twelfth Night* as part of their *Shakespeare in the Park* series. The take on *TN* is interesting--it is set in a club on the Florida coast. There was a discussion some months back about what Malvolio might wear instead of yellow cross-garters in a modern- dress production, and that came to mind as I was hearing about this production. If anyone happens to find themselves in Montreal (and there are worse places to be in July, believe me!), and happens to see this production (I've forgotten the name of the troupe--sorry!), I'd love to hear about staging, costuming, &c. It's unlikely this production will tour Saskatchewan. Keeping my ear to the radio, Noel Chevalier chevalie@max.cc.uregina.ca (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 94 07:45:00 EDT Subject: Merriness in Central Park If you can, come on into Manhattan to see the current production of Merry Wives in Central Park. Great fun, tough and delicate, brilliantly designed and used set, costumes, music, stage action. But best of all, the strongest American playing of Shakespeare I've seen in a while. The reviews for opening night, I hear, were not good (I haven't seen them myself), and I spoke with a neighbor who had been there: she agreed. Anyway, when I saw it Tuesday night the packed theatre laughed and rolled and giddied with silliness and kind affection for everyone onstage. There's a new ticket policy: still free. They distribute tickets at the Delacort Theatre in Central Park starting early in the afternoon (I'm not sure just when--Help! someone!!) & at the Public Theater on Lafayette Street at the same time. No more interminable wait in the sun. Enjoy! (Also, good food for sale at the playhouse.) As ever, Steve Urkowitz, City College of New York ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 10:28:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0613 Re: KLlingon Translations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0613. Thursday, 14 July 1994. From: Sean Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 13 Jul 1994 21:51:07 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0600 Re: Klingon Translations Hi, I liked your ideas of translations (of a sort) into Klingon. Only I think you're pigeon-holing (whatever that means, don't drag me into the character crap again) the Klingons. I mean, they have a highly developed sense of humour, as Riker discovered when transferred to a Klingon vessel, and might appreciate Falstaff's ability to insult his comrades manliness. They might also think Iago's end perfectly just. They're relationships are traditionally monogamous (witness the fuss Worf makes over the death of his mate, or his insistence that they have to marry after sex), so they'd probably understand Othello's (initial) devotion. An Othello both loving and militaristic is being presented at Stratford Ontario at the moment, and is one of the best productions of anything by Shakespeare that I've ever seen. If Iago had a problem with Othello's presumed incompetence he should have challenged him outwardly. Scheming is the ultimate dishonourable act, as shown by the succession problems Picard had to face as elector of the Klingon empire. As a criminal, he doesn't deserve an honourable end; he deserves to "die slowly," as Worf once threatens an enemy. As someone pointed out when "Shakespeare in the Bush" came up a few weeks ago (months, actually) most of the responses are reflected somewhere in the vasty deeps of western critical tradition. I can't help but worry that you're working from the (very un-Trekker) assumption that other cultures are so different that they couldn't possibly see what we do in a work of literature. Anyway, let me know how the Klingon editions come together. I'll be interested in seeing a few (though not in the "original Klingon" to which Christopher Plummer (I think) made reference in the latest movie. Cheerio! Sean Lawrence. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Jul 1994 10:31:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0614 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0614. Thursday, 14 July 1994. From: John Drakakis Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 94 11:55:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0608 Re: Character OK Bill, So far so good. BUT I think you're allowing your imagination to run away with you if you have to speculate that Manningham "after hearing the play once during a night of revels (was he drunk?), had forgotten the names Malvolio and Olivia" in order to account for his description. On the one hand, you want to modernize this evidence in every respect, regardless of any scholarly protocols for validating it, but on the other you want to ask what I think are more interesting questions about mimesis. Let's leave aside the formalist stuff about "the drmatic function of dramatic figures", since I don't think that's an issue. I think the key feature about emblems is that they need to be read symbolically. Also, your example of "emblem books" offers us an extreme case, although in some instances those cases may well have been part of the Elizabethan psyche. That is to say, I am speculating that this may have been one of the main ways in which Elizabethans read/made sense of the world around them. Now it may well be that an Elizabethan auditor did what you habitually do- that is graft onto what you see a whole range of values, motivations, perceptions, which have their grounding in your own general view of how individuals live their lives. So, if you have a night out at the theatre you view the action through inebriated spectacles, you remember the general jist of the action but forget the names of the characters. You and Manningham together. Let's get back to basics (!) What do you think was the semiotic significance of the Elizabethan theatre as a space and as a building. It was round, had "heavens", a "hell" etc. The motto of Shakespeare's Globe was "Theatrum orbis terrarum". Don't you think that that invites an emblematic reading? There was, as I said earlier, no scenery on the stage, so reading space perspectivally may well have been alien to a spectator. All this (and more) begs the question of what MIMESIS would have been for an Elizabethan audience. You seem to think, Bill, that what mimesis shows is some kind of transhistorical essence that we can all recognize because we're human. The question of what was SHOWN (and also of what was narrated) on the Elizabethan Stage is far more problematic than you seem to think. Moreover, caricatures of materialisms of various kinds won't make this problem go away either. My point all along has been that what evidence we have points to DIFFERENCE, not similarity, and while this frightens universalists who like to imagine that when they read a Shakespeare play they are getting into an intimate relationship with some oceanic mind, it does seek to address historical questions. What Bill Godhalk will need to describe is what precisely was SHOWN on the Elizabethan stage. He thinks, persons, who, if I understand him correctly, are the same throughout time. My point is that IF "character" is to be regarded as something more than a formal dramatic category, then we need to be a lot clearer about what it is that is being represented. I don't know where he gets the notion that subjectivity is an anachronistic Freudian category from. I think he's confusing Freud and the Romantic conception of expressive individuality. The point is that this issue isn't one that can be resolved wholly empirically. In answer to Jimmy Jung: wellies come in different colours, some of them have different flavours too, and they can be bought in packets of three. Cheers, John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:09:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0615 Re: Thanks (Groups); Disney; Klingon Shakespeare Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0615. Friday, 15 July 1994. (1) From: Michael Friedman Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 16:55:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: [Thanks] (2) From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 12:35:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Disneyolotry (3) From: Hilve Ayers Firek Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 94 18:29:39 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0613 Re: Klingon Translations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 16:55:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Thanks] Thank you very much to everyone who responded, both publicly and privately, to my question about e-mail discussion groups devoted to literary topics. In case anyone is interested, I found exactly what I was looking for through gopher at the University of Michigan in the list compiled by Diane K. Kovacs, which was suggested by some of you on the list and one of the reference librarians here at the U. of Scranton. Perhaps, in a few months, I'll send in a posting about how the assignment worked out. Thanks again! Michael Friedman FriedmanM1@jaguar.uofs.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James McKenna Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 12:35:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Disneyolotry Dear all, I'm catching up on a month's worth of mail, so this is way late for the discussion, but I want to note the irony of any intelligent discussion of an animation technique that results in heroines who look like a cross between Barbie and Precious Moments figurines ("something about those eyes..."). If there is any achievement at all in _B&B_ (or _LM_ or _Aladdin_), it is in such production numbers as "Be OUr Guest" and "Under the Sea." Artistically, Disney since, say, _Snow WHite_, has specialized in pat storylines w/ such minimal or banal complications that they really leave nothing to talk about aesthetically. If we hadn't all seen them in our dewy childhoods and remembered them now with nostalgic affection, most would die their long-deserved deaths--following _The Black Hole_ to the Sargasso of film. History of film? yes. Interesting moments? Yes. Cultural artifacts? For what that's worth, yes. Great movies? Sorry. Unapologetically, James McKenna University of Cincinnati mckennji@ucbeh.bitnet P.S. Perhaps if Voy_IxM (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hilve Ayers Firek Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 94 18:29:39 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0613 Re: Klingon Translations Speaking of Shakespeare and Klingons, several years ago when I was a poor college student, I saw a t-shirt that had a drawing of Shakespeare with a Klingon forehead. The caption read: "You haven't read Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Klingon." Now I'm employed, and I have the 12 bucks to buy the shirt. But I can't find it. If you know where I can find this must-have t-shirt, please e-mail me or post to the list. Many thanks. Hilve Hilve Firek, ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:18:48 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0617 Re: Summer Shakespeare Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0617. Friday, 15 July 1994. (1) From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 16:49:18 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0612 Summer Shakespeare Productions (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Fridaay, 15 Jul 1994 13:18:28 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0612 Summer Shakespeare Productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 16:49:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0612 Summer Shakespeare Productions In addition to the previous postings on Summer Shakespeare productions, I might mention that Buffalo has its own "Shakespeare in Delaware Park" each Summer, which is now in its (I believe) 18th season. This weekend *Macbeth* is closing and *Taming of the Shrew* opens in two weeks. I have seen many of the productions and, while Saul Elkin tends to "update" a bit beyond my tastes, they are generally quite good. It is also commendable that theyemploy a combination of professional and university performers. Cheers, Matt Smith (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Fridaay, 15 Jul 1994 13:18:28 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0612 Summer Shakespeare Productions Noel: I don't know about the Montreal production, but there was a brief run of *Twelfth Night* here in Halifax, at the Cambridge battery of Point Pleasant Park. Malvolio wore yellow lycra cycling pants, with those strap-like things that people wear to keep their pants cuffs from getting dirty when cycling. In any case, he was certainly the high-point of the production. Cheers, Sean Lawrence. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:29:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0618. Friday, 15 July 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 11:38:58 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 16:40:47 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (3) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 15 Jul 94 18:10:16 EST Subj: [Character] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 11:38:58 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character I can't imagine what 'conspiracy' Terence Hawkes thinks I've been 'confecting' [sic] by associating him and John Drakakis with what was, in its own way, a quite powerful, coherent, productive (and *explicitly* Brechtian) tendency in in British cultural studies. But if he wants to disavow that in favour of an association with Knights, Knight, Bradbrook et al, so be it. Since the L.C.Knights essay seems to have emerged as a kind of fons et origo for this tradition I thought I'd better refresh my memory of it. I'd have to say I found it a rather underwhelming experience. I'd say more, but since Hawkes and Drakakis seem unwilling to address any of the substantive points I've made in recent postings, I thought I'd hide behind a comment on Knights's essay made by one of their compatriots. After a fair and neutral digest of Knights's argument that 'we cannot guess at Lady Macbeth's previous life for the simple reason that she has no previous life; her being begins and ends with what Shakespeare sets down for her to say', A.D.Nuttall offers the following assessment, with which I largely agree: | 'It is strange that so coarse a piece of reasoning should have passed for a great stroke of destructive theory. Knights's singular presumption that humane inference is inapplicable to drama is simply mistaken. When a character sits up and yawns we infer that he has been sleeping. When another character gives a certain sort of start we infer that he is guilty (readers of _Macbeth_, especially, should be aware of this). If no inferences whatever are allowed, certain negative conclusions, on the other hand, can always be drawn about Hamlet. For example, he has no legs. For Shakespeare never mentions them - or may we infer one leg from a down-gyved stocking? This may be thought silly, but a large part of Knights's case really does depend on the absolute exclusion of inference . . . A dramatist faced with an entire audience who austerely repressed all inferences and bayed for image-patterns might well despair. Of course, Bradley never supposed for a moment that Hamlet was a real man. . . . What remains strong in Knights's attack is his intuition that Bradleian critics occasionally carried their unverifiable surmises to ludicrous lengths. I cannot agree that the question about Lady Macbeth's children is as absurd as Knights would have had us believe, but certain of Maurice Morgann's observations on the military career of Falstaff are truly foolish. But the simple test of verifiability will not serve to distinguish an absurd from a reasonable surmise. All our inferences and suppositions with regard to fictitious persons are in terms of probability, not fact'. . . . [and finally] 'The . . critic who wonders why Cordelia cannot answer more warmly and thinks of other daughters, some of whom have lived outside the pages of books, is charged with confusing art and reality, but the charge is simply false. Where is the confusion? When Balzac sent for Dr Bianchon (a character in one of his books) to come to his bedside, he really did confuse art and reality. If he had merely asked "What would Bianchon have said about a case like this?" no eyebrow would have been raised. The question is perfectly rational.' (A.D.Nuttall, _A New Mimesis_1983, pp.82-3) I think I'd give Knights a bit more credit than Nuttall does for the strategic value of the essay, in directing critical attention to the poetic and thematic dimensions of Shakespeare at a time when this probably needed doing. Apart from that I think it's a good comment. While I'm agreeing with people, let me also say that I entirely agree with Bill Godshalk's reply to John Drakakis on the Manningham example (with the possible exception of the first sentence). I await with real interest Drakakis' response to Bill's question about mimetic incapacity and history. On this point at least the 'neo-Knightsians' go well beyond their mentor. Pat Buckridge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 16:40:47 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character I hope nobody minds if I continue to yap away on the margins of this conversation. It is, after all, a public forum, so until I'm actually warned off I may as well continue to have my say. In his latest reply to Bill Godshalk, John Drakakis characterises as 'modernisation' of the Manningham description Godshalk's suggestion that Manningham may have been out on the town and forgotten the names of the dramatis personae and all but the general jist [sic: nothing to do with wellies I hope!] of the action. We do know that people did this sort of thing in the Elizabethan period. Let's not make historical reconstruction any more difficult than it needs to be. In any case, the suggestion is quite specific and makes no assumption about a 'universal human nature', or 'transhistorical essence' or 'oceanic mind' This is simply a red herring. But speaking of projecting one's own values and so forth, we have yet to hear by what miracle of timeless perception John Drakakis manages to do otherwise, and what completely alien world-view he has thereby discovered. So far we seem to have(1) a *speculation* (so designated) that symbolic reading 'may have been one of the main ways in which Elizabethans read/made sense of the world around them', and (2) a pure *assertion* that 'what evidence we have points to DIFFERENCE, not similarity'. Well, I'm afraid that until some of this evidence is presented some may take leave to doubt the assertion, however frequently it's made. Without having to rack my brain, I can think of at least two pieces of evidence - Hamlet's advice to the players, and the Prologue to _Every Man In His Humour_ - which seem to me to point to the mimetic effect Drakakis is disputing. (In the latter instance, I believe Jonson is defending a method that comes close to what might be called 'emblematic', but he does so with reference to a mimetic mode he wants to disparage. Actually, I think his own method could better be defined as a satiric variant of mimesis than as non-mimetic, but we'll leave that). What all of this suggests is that 'the Elizabethan psyche' to which Drakakis (somewhat disconcertingly) likes to refer actually accommodated several different ways of reading dramatic performances, and other texts. One of these is undoubtedly the emblematic, another the mimetic, and it's not difficult to subdivide each of those, and to single out some others as well. But the point about emblematic reading is that it's always *second-order* reading (as the dual structure of pictorial emblems clearly signifies). To suggest that an emblematic reading would ever be the *first* option for an audience of a literal drama (whatever the shape of the theatre) ignores this self-evident characteristic of symbols. It also, I have to say, bespeaks a not very detailed familiarity with the variety of social and devotional uses to which emblematic reading was actually put in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pat Buckridge. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 15 Jul 94 18:10:16 EST Subject: [Character] One obvious way to approach the questions about the Shakespearean expression of early modern subjectivity raised and chased by Bill Godshalk, John Drakakis, and others, is to look at the way the dramatic figures speak about each other and themselves. I'm teaching a seminar on this summer; last night the students and I spent a lively half-hour scampering around the text (Arden--I don't think current textual concerns bear on this issue, but I haven't taken time to investigate) looking at moments of address, and ended up persuaded that consciousness of social role much more than anything like the modern notion of personality governs almost all such moments. Only women, children, and servants have names--all the grown-up aristocrats but Lear are known only by their titles (Kent, Gloucester, Albany, Cornwall), and Lear is much more often "Lear" to himself than to others, who are more likely to call him "king". Within families, even women and children are mostly addressed in terms of family relationships- -father, daughter, son, named only to distinguish them from one another: "Our son of Cornwall, and you our no less loving son of Albany," "Goneril, our eldest born," "Regan, wife of Cornwall," "my son Edgar," "brother Edmund"; all the exceptions I can find occur in contexts where the speaker wishes to stress the bonds of intimacy and mutual reliance--moments where, to be sure, personal considerations override social ones. Figures are classed by age ("Idle old man"), by capability ("old fool"), by rank ("my gentleman," "my lord's knave"), by situation ("the whoreson," "banished Kent." Two figures (both servants) are given extensive characters, in the Theophrastan sense--Oswald by Kent in 2.2, Edgar as Mad Tom by himself in 3.4: both are normative, not distinctive. It is instructive that Edgar in disguise takes a generic, not a personal name. Kent repeatedly defines himself as a servant. And so on. By the same token the qualities by which we are accustomed to distinguish ourselves and others as individuals (consider how you go about describing friends to other friends) are largely absent. No physical characteristics except those ("gray beard," "her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low--an excellent thing in women") that place figures in social groups. No distinctive gestures. No favorite foods, colors, kinds of music, hobbies. No reminiscences. And so on. It is true that Edmund constructs himself somewhat differently (I am not the first, of course, to see in him signs of the emerging shift)--"my dimensions are as well compact, / My mind as generous, and my shape as true. . .". But even he goes on to speak of his brother and himself in social terms: "Legitimate Edgar," "bastard Edmund." This is only one play, of course, and a play in which issues of social role and function are especially urgent. It's also the case that drama is metadramatically sensitive to matters of role, as the metaphor itself implies. Still, I think a similar inspection of other texts will produce similar results. And if others show me wrong, we'll learn from that, too. Theophrastically, Dave Evett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:37:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0619 Re: Metrics Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0619. Friday, 15 July 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 21:58:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: "Metrics"? The Thing Itself! (2) From: Paul Hawkins Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 22:32:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Metre (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 21:58:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: "Metrics"? The Thing Itself! It is with amazement and pleasure in this time of post- colonial criticism following hard upon a time of psychological interpretation that resulted from new social perspectives, that I see posters speaking about actual lines, actual readings, and what Hopkins might have called their gear, tackle, and trim: their metres and rhythms, the life in them that makes them spring to explosive emotional sense. This finest of Renaissance playwrights has passed the tests of greatness and usefulness posited and refined by Horace and Longinus, has lasted and is still discussed, read and played, not just because he retold good stories, created and embellished memorable people, wrote some of the best poetry of his age, addressed implicity, specifically, ambiguously or directly political issues of the highest import, themes of domestic, spiritual, sexual and universal magnitude and consequence, but because he did all of this almost every time he wrote a play. Even from his start in the theatre. The question that has been raised on SHAKSPER in roughly this way, "how strict can we be when presented as an actor or an internal reader with lines the structures of which have been written -- possibly corruptly transmitted as many may be -- in unmistakably poetic/directorial/phonetic/rhythmical ways?"is a question of most exciting and enlightening significance and worth. I myself, as an actor, have had various experiences which have led me to conclude that the richest and most spiritually useful thing we can do is to absorb the lines as an interpreter of Brahms, Mozart, Stravinski, Scott Joplin absorbs and consumes the exact rhythms, beats, textures and dynamic markings either marked or implied and encouraged by those composers before he sits down or stands up to play or sing them. Verse plays are not written to spoken by prose actors. Those who would interpret them in the study or on the stage as if they were prose translations --among such readers are the thematic critics, of course, and often the political ones as well as the image-hunters, indispensable and thoughtful though they frequently are -- are simply not talking about the plays at all; certainly not as artistic artifacts, as they may like to call them. It is as if, listening to Debussy's "Nuages", they were to talk about cloud formations. It's gossip, talk, not criticism at its most useful, which in my perhaps limited view is writing that helps us to read. A distinguished colleague of mine has classed me as one who "whines about anapests" rather than espouse causes. I admire this colleague a great deal precisely because in his first book he showed, as he always does in conversation, a fine knowledge of prosody and the effects great writing has on the bone, or the back as Nabokov would have it. From the bones, from the tingling in the spine, the effect works its way in the receptive reader or audience out into the patterns of the heart in human behaviour. In Shakespeare, indeed in all the fabulously successful playwrights, this effect begins in the way the story is told by the people who experience it and express in the feel of their words a "music" that makes us experience it too. I think I told a story two months ago about the days when I could not afford to turn a part down, and was acting with a touring Shakespeare company on the West Coast of Canada, got to the first rehearsal ready to play Burgundy in Henry V and was given the typed-out script. I hadn't read the play for a few years, got to my bit, and found myself pausing in peculiar places and giving emphases that were not indicated on the page. "Wait a minute!" I said. "Doesn't that line end here?" "Look, Harry," said the director, "play for the feeling! Think of the situation!" .....the very sad point is that the play had been typed out in prose to save space and paper, and the director didn't care. At all. The care with which the lines are shaped is not an obsession with interior decoration. The words are not ornamental, but organic. If we "go for the sense", "go for the feeling", we are going for an utterly different sense and for a selfish and newly invented feeling. It is leftover children of the sixties who read these plays as if they were written by Macaulay or Enid Blyton. There is a disappointing dearth of plain poetic sensibility around, and it's been around for so many years now that like the new, like, use of "hopefully" it's become, like, part of our treatment of language to ignore the most basic facts about the rhetorical and poetic tradition in which these plays are firmly, loosely, humanely, beautifully rooted. Yeah for those who are writing in on this thread while the thin spun life of the plays is still with us. Harry Hill Montreal (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Hawkins Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 1994 22:32:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Metre When one suggests as part of a reading the placing of a stress, a part of the argument in favour of the reading should, I think, involve metre and rhythm, since they are the aspects of the text directly related to stress and its placement. At the very least, one cannot be surprised when one's reading is questioned in the light of the line's metre. I realize that the suggestion of "I love *thee* not" was peripheral to Douglas Lanier's comments on "woo'd/wood". But there it was, and I thought the problem raised some interesting issues, like the above, about the importance of metre as an interpretative tool. Of course, Harry Hill was the first to make the point. Kurt Daw stated in his excellent post that, metrically, many readings go but some don't. "What things go and why" remains, to some extent, an open question. I don't think metre prescribes *one* reading (my post suggested four distinct possibilities--and they are not exhaustive), but I do think it eliminates some. About interpretation generally, I suspect that any interpretation, even when it does not directly posit a delivery of a line, presupposes one, and that that delivery, as a rhythmic thing, has to be defensible in rhythmic terms. Metre is only one determinant of rhythm, but it's the main one, and in fact is a prime determinant of the meaning of a metrical verse poem or play, since it shapes the relationships of the words that are there. Likewise, a rhythmic interpretation has to be defensible in semantic terms, as do political, historical, physchological interpretations. Whatever interpretative strategy one employs, the reading generated can be countered by the application of other interpretative strategies. Rhythm and metre open up multiple readings. Of the four readings of the line that I suggested, I favour one for the reasons given, but entertain the others as possible. No one has spoken about the middle foot of the line ("therefore"), which can be treated as a primary stress, a secondary stress, or a pyrrhic iamb. Add those variations to the 4 readings, and one has 12 distinct readings--and we haven't even spoken about *other* aspects of the sound of the line, the phonemes and ways of treating them. But just as rhythm and metre open some readings up, they close others down. I don't think that what I'm asserting about metre is different than what anyone would assert about other aspects of the text--they can be read in many ways, but not in some. This discussion strikes me as a little strange, because in Shakespeare as in other poets there are abundant metrical ambiguities, such as one of Rick Jones's examples, "that is the question": regularity or trochaic inversion of the first foot quoted can both be effectively defended; "that is" could be delivered as a spondee; and probably someone has unstressed *both* words and said, "that is THE QUESTion." I can hear them all. And even the example from MND is metrically ambiguous in that there are ranges of reading possible, but not, I say, the stressing of "thee" and or "me" at the expense of the two verbs. It violates utterly the sense of the line and all known norms of metrical decency and rhythmic felicity. Yes, it's a matter of taste; please let's not say, "it's all a matter of taste" and end the discussion. Conflicting tastes should be disputed hotly. Without passionate commitment to those things that one feels are essential to passionate response to art, what on earth's a heaven for? Leaving personal pronouns unstressed except for a particular reason, which this example doesn't involve, is to me (pathetic as it sounds) one of those things. But of course, the larger question is, do we feel constrained by metrical verse, and so abandon it, asserting that stresses can at any time fall where we want them to, metre and sense be damned, and so effectively rewrite Shakespeare as prose--because when at any time we ignore the metre we turn the verse into prose, whether or not the right margins remain jagged--or do we celebrate and revel in the constraints, and through them find the freedom to mean and to be? My earlier arguments in favour of *one* reading--a metrically regular one--of the line are just that, arguments, not the last word. My argument against *one* reading I don't think can be disputed (please prove me wrong if I am). If critics cannot agree that metre does sometimes preclude *some* readings, and most of the time guides a range of readings that can be "played within" by critics minds and pens on the inner ear and by actors' voices on the audience's ears, then metrical discussion is bound to be more difficult than I had earlier imagined--and more vital a task for criticism. Paul Hawkins ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:41:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0620 TEI Guidelines Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0620. Friday, 15 July 1994. From: C. M. Sperberg-McQueen Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 12:23:23 CDT Subject: TEI Guidelines Readers of this newsgroup (or list) may be interested in the recent publication of the Text Encoding Initiative's Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange. The material below describes what the Guidelines are and why you might care about them; appended is a description of how to acquire them in paper form or retrieve them in electronic form. Please feel free to re-post this material to other appropriate lists and groups. My apologies if this information is tangential to the interests of the list, or you have already seen it before, especially if it has already been posted here --- my record keeping has been disrupted. Thanks. -CMSMcQ ----- TEXT ENCODING INITIATIVE PUBLISHES GUIDELINES In May, the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) published its "Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange." This report is the product of several years' work by over a hundred experts in fields ranging from computational linguistics to Ancient Greek literature. The Guidelines define a format in which electronic text materials can be stored on, or transmitted between, any kind of computer from a personal microcomputer to a university mainframe. The format is independent of the proprietary formats used by commercial software packages. The TEI came into being as the result of the proliferation of mostly incompatible encoding formats, which was hampering cooperation and reuse of data among researchers and teachers. Creating good electronic texts is an expensive and time-consuming business. The object of the TEI was to ensure that such texts, once created, could continue to be useful even after the systems on which they were created had become obsolete. This requirement is a particularly important one in today's rapidly evolving computer industry. To make them "future-proof", the TEI Guidelines use an international standard for text encoding known as SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language. SGML was originally developed by the publishing industry as a way of reducing the costs of typesetting and reuse of electronic manuscripts but has since become widely used by software developers, publishers, and government agencies. It is one of the enabling technologies which will help the new Digital Libraries take shape. The TEI Guidelines go beyond many other SGML applications currently in use. Because they aim to serve the needs of researchers as well as teachers and students, they have a particularly ambitious set of goals. They must be both easily extensible and easily simplified. And their aim is to specify methods capable of dealing with all kinds of texts, in all languages and writing systems, from any period in history. Consequently, the TEI Guidelines provide recommendations not only for the encoding of prose texts, but also for verse, drama, and other performance texts, transcripts of spoken material for linguistic research, dictionaries, and terminological data banks. The Guidelines provide detailed specifications for the documentation of electronic materials, their sources, and their encoding. These specifications will enable future librarians to catalogue electronic texts as efficiently and reliably as they currently catalogue printed texts. The TEI Guidelines also provide optional facilities which can be added to the set of basic recommendations. These include methods for encoding hypertext links, transcribing primary sources (especially manuscripts), representing text-critical apparatus, analyzing names and dates, representing figures, formulae, tables, and graphics, and categorizing of texts for corpus-linguistic study. The Guidelines also define methods of providing linguistic, literary, or historical analysis and commentary on a text and documenting areas of uncertainty or ambiguity. The TEI Guidelines have been prepared over a six-year period with grant support from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities, Directorate General XIII of the Commission of the European Union, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The effort is largely the product of the volunteer work of over a hundred researchers who donated time to share their experience in using computers and to work out the specific recommendations in the Guidelines. The project is sponsored by three professional societies active in the area of computer applications to text-based research: the Association for Computers and the Humanities, the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, and the Association for Computational Linguistics, which have a combined membership of thousands of scholars and researchers worldwide. Many projects in North America and Europe have already declared their intention of applying the TEI Guidelines in the creation of the large scale electronic textual resources which are increasingly dominating the world of humanities scholarship. The Guidelines are available in paper form or electronic form over the Internet. For more information see the description of availability and distribution mechanisms appended below. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Availability and Distribution of the TEI Guidelines TEI P3, the Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange, is available in the following forms: - in paper (1300 pp., 2 volumes), at a cost of $75 US, 50 pounds sterling, or 7500 yen. Order form below. - electronically in an SGML-tagged form (ca. 5.6 Mb) using the TEI DTD documented in TEI P3, with minor extensions; this form is available without cost via Listserv or anonymous ftp. More info below. - electronically in a formatted 'ASCII-only' version (ca. 3.1 Mb) suitable for display by those without an SGML-aware rendering engine; this form is available without cost via Listserv or anonymous ftp. The TEI document type definition (DTD) files are available electronically via Listserv or anonymous ftp. 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ORDER FORM Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) Text Encoding Initiative Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange (TEI P3, May 1994) Name: Organization: Street: City: Postcode/ZIP: Please supply ..... copies of TEI P3 at (check one) .. Standard Price: ($75/50 pounds/7500 Yen) .. Discount Price, for members of ACH, ACL, or ALLC: ($50/35 pounds/5000 Yen) ...... Shipping and handling Charges Parcel Post (no charge) Surface/first class ($10 per copy/10 pounds per copy) ...... Express delivery within Europe/North America only: ($30 per copy / 20 pounds per copy) ...... Total sum enclosed: __________________ Send this form to the nearest of the following: C. M. Sperberg McQueen University of Illinois at Chicago Academic Computing Center (M/C 135) 1940 W. Taylor, Rm. 124 Chicago IL 60612-7352 U.S.A. N.B. Payments to the Chicago office must be by check in US Dollars payable to the Association for Computers and the Humanities. OR TEI Orders Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN N.B. Payments to the Oxford office must be by cheque or money order in sterling or US Dollars, payable to Oxford University Computing Services. OR Prof. Syun Tutiya Faculty of Letters Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho Inage-ka Chiba 263 JAPAN fax: +81 (43) 256-7032 N.B. Payments to the Chiba office must be in yen; for details, please contact Prof. Tutiya by email (tutiya@culle.l.chiba-u.ac.jp) or by fax: +81 (43) 256-7032. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:12:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0616 Q: Shakespeare's Greening Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0616. Friday, 15 July 1994. From: Terence Martin Date: Thursday, 14 Jul 94 12:51:04 CDT Subject: Shakespeare's greening I would like to solicit some comments from SHAKSPEReans on the recent article in the TLS (7/8/94), "Shakespeare's greening." I am especially interested in Barbara Everett's interpretation of "ore-greene" in Sonnet 112. Terence Martin UM - St. Louis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Jul 1994 21:48:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0621 CFP: 18th-C. Shakespeare Editing Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0621. Friday, 15 July 1994. From: Robert M Zimmer Date: Friday, 15 Jul 94 18:55:16 +0100 Subject: Call for Papers on Eighteenth-Century Shakespeare Editing A call for papers on any aspect of Shakespeare editing in the eighteenth century, to complete a book formed from papers written for an SAA seminar entitled "Editing Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century: Territoriality, Anonymity and Erasure." Submission deadline: October 1 but early enquiries are strongly encouraged as to the special suitability of particular essay topics. ----------- Submissions will be accepted in any of the following forms (ordered by preference): Macintosh Disks (MS Word, Word Perfect, or Macwrite) PC Disks (Word Perfect) email (with a paper backup with formatting information) paper -------- email submisions or enquiries to: Robert.Zimmer@brunel.ac.uk paper or disks to: Joanna Gondris 4 Selwyn Court Church Road Richmond Surrey TW10 6LR England --------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 09:45:06 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0622. Monday, 18 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 20:18:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0614 Re: Character (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 11:54:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character (3) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 18:51:35 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 17:57:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character (5) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 94 19:19 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character (6) From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 18 Jul 94 13:01:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 15 Jul 1994 20:18:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0614 Re: Character For John Drakakis, once more John, I think that you and I are not in total agreement, BUT further I think that most of our disagreement comes from positions that you and I attribute to each other, positions that we do not, in fact, hold. I am apparently caricaturing your position on materialism and historical limitations, and you are distorting my point about mimesis. I have maintained and will continue to maintain that shit is transhistorical -- if I may use that four letter word. My point is, purely or impurely, there are certain things that animals do. If your body does not carry out its natural functions, you are dead. That seems to be the paragmatic view. I do not believe in a transhistorical "essence" nor an "oceanic mind." I gather that we both feel that humans are a product of their historical moment, that we can not transcend anything. Of course, emblem books conditioned the sixteenth and seventeenth century response to life. And, of course, I agree that the sixteenth and seventeenth century playhouses were "emblematic" in that they suggested that all the world (the Globe) was a stage. They (and, let's face it, we) all play roles. They prepared a face to meet the faces that they met. And in the sixteenth century, those people said many times, "so many men, so many minds." I think that means -- among other things -- that there is no such thing as the "Renaissance mind." (And, John, I'm NOT accusing you of suggesting that there was such a thing!) I gather that in the early modern period there was a range of possible response to ANYTHING, including a play. I don't believe that early modern people AS A WHOLE had ONE habitual response. I have plenty of scholarly evidence (enough to satisfy anyone's protocols) for this statement. There may have been "main ways," but there were also byways. I like the byways. "The question of what was SHOWN (and also of what was narrated) on the Elizabethan [and Jacobean and Caroline?] Stage is far more problemtic than you seem to think," you say, John. Now, this sounds like something I'd like to hear about. Are you talking about stage directions? Or business that we seem to read from the words? Not as much animal blood as we've been led to believe? I'd like to know what I seem to think. And, John, you mention the "scholarly protocols for validating" evidence. Are these "protocols" like the "canon," impossible to buy at the local bookstore? Maybe we should decide what evidence will be admitted in this case. Jimmy Jung's wellies, I take to be Wellingtons. What he means is "the bullshit that John Drakakis and Bill Godshalk have generated is getting too deep for ordinary shoes." And so, John, you and I even read our own time in different ways, and I'm sorry to hear that you are a tea-totaller. The French have conclusively proven that red wine is good for your heart, and --- you've got to have heart! Yours, Bill Godshalk P.S. And, John, I'm sorry that I misread your take on sixteenth and early seventeenth century selfhood or subjectivity. Did those folks develop their sense of self in the same way we do, perchance? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 11:54:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character Pat Buckridge has done us a service by quoting Nuttall's response of Knights, and I think Nuttall has the best of this argument. Surely, most of us distinguish between our real world and fictional worlds. Thomas Pavel in FICTIONAL WORLDS discusses the possibilities. Playgoers have to make inferences about the fictional world of the play. Dramatic figures have implied histories; otherwise, they would know nothing. The playgoer does not know if Lady Macbeth has had children or, if she has, how many she's had. What the playgoer knows is that she claims to have given suck, and Macbeth doesn't respond by saying, "rot." David Evett's examination of LEAR is interesting, but is he confusing the fictional world or worlds of the play with the real world of early seventeenth century England? Shakespeare DOES emphasize social roles and role-playing in his plays. Jaques claims that all the world is a stage, and that all men (not women, according to him) play similar roles. But Harbage used to claim that this account was undercut by the appearance of old Adam at the end of his speech, and Adam does not fit into any of Jaques's categories. But, even so, the plays recurrently emphasize social roles, and rarely mention physical attributes, as David notes. But could these facts have more to do with the repertory system than the social system? The actors had to keep many roles in mind, had little time to rehearse new plays, and needed some stability of role -- a speciality. They were type casted. And physical attributes were not emphasized because a different actor might have to take the role next year. I suspect that these final comments will please John Drakakis! Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 18:51:35 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character David Evett: Thank God someone is looking at empyrical evidence amongst all these declarations of creed! I'm wondering, though, where your evidence points us. Kent may insist on referring to himself as a "servant," but isn't there an irony in this? The fact that people can change roles, or that disjunctions can exist between a character's (for want of a better word) role and her or his situation seems to be predicated on an identity that transcends social or metaphysical "role". In one of my few lectures (I'm a grad student) I told my (captive) audience that Hamlet is fighting the efforts of others such as his mother, Claudius, and Ophelia, to prescribe his being to him, metadramatically enough. 1.3 seems to exemplify his difficulty: as the usurped heir, he either carries far too much responsibility to "carve for himself, as unvalued persons do," or he's so free of cares that he can "with a larger teder walk," as Polonius thinks. In either case, others take it upon themselves to define him, without much consistency, and Hamlet himself is left standing beyond these definitions as "courtier, soldier, scholar." I suppose what I'm saying is that everyone in the plays, as in life, have roles which they act, but against which they can also rebel, and their ability to rebel shows that they can, as Pico della Mirandola (or Michel de Montaigne, if we insist on a reference available to Shakespeare) believed, choose their being. This is just a few thoughts, of course, but I'll be interested in what anyone says. Cheers, Sean Lawrence. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 17:57:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character I've been thinking more about Dave Evett's comments on LEAR. He comments that the dramatic figures have "No favorite foods, colors, kinds of music, hobbies." Now, Lear certainly has a hobby, a hobby that the upper classes have had from Roman times until the present: hunting. And Gloucester, I believe, has had a similar hobby: womanizing. Regarding food, Kent claims that eats no fish -- whatever he may mean by that. And I'm wondering if a careful analysis wouldn't uncover other individually defining characteristics. And I further wonder how many contemporary plays tell us about the favorite foods, colors, music, and hobbies of the dramatic figures. Pinter's THE DUMB WAITER does, but there are others that don't. As to plays that are different from LEAR, what about HAMLET where Horatio is named thirty times (according to the Harvard concordance), and Horatio's social and family ties are not carefully defined in the play. All in all, I think Dave may be right when he surmises that what he has found in LEAR helps to define the specific fictional world of the play. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 94 19:19 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character What this exchange demonstrates is that Shakspeareans, without any reference to having seen the playscripts, "otherwise known as works" cannot shut up their collective faces. Could we, in future, have only people on this particular net who know something about the text, the stage, and the meaning of the plays to HIS audience and to ours. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET PS: I do not wish to shut +real+ students off from this list, but I am getting damned tired of writing their term papers for them. (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Monday, 18 Jul 94 13:01:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character I was wondering when someone would throw into the discussion Hamlet's advice to the players, though I'm a little surprised to find Pat Buckridge also throwing in the prologue to EMH. I guess what grabs him here are the lines: But deeds and language, such as men do use, And persons such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes. I leave aside the fact that the prologue itself is in couplets, and that in the 1601 quarto version the names are Italian. Surely the point here is that Jonson is offering a REPRESENTATION. Perhaps Pat Buckridge has been influenced too much by Tony Nuttall's A New Mimesis, and by its dogmatic adherence to a referential model of language. Hence, of course, his impatience with anything that might savour of symptomatic reading. I would want to argue that what I've just said about Jonson could also apply to HAMLET; suiting the action to the word etc. holding "as `twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure." (III.ii.22-4). The assumption is that what we are looking at here is an unmediated "showing", whereas a number of details to which I have already referred militate against this. What Pat Buckridge refuses to entertain is the prospect that Elizabethan culture in all its diversity and contradictoriness, may well have been very different from our own. Perhaps he might kile to ponder some "evidence": that the majority of Elizabethan auditors were non-literate. Now it needs no Levi-Strass to tell us that that "fact" insofar as we can establish it, may well be critical. Moreover, what if (and there's plenty of evidence to support this) we are looking at a conjuncture when the non-literate and the literate exist side-by side? Now I'm not suggesting that we run headlong into cultural anthropology to solve these problems, but a cursory look at Goody and Watt's essay "The Consequences of Literacy" in LITERACY IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES (Cambridge, 1967) might throw some light on the discussion. Buckridge seems intent, like Godshalk, upon focussing upon WHAT is shown, and they persist in entangling that with their own expectations and assumptions. I don't expect either of them to accept my reading of their assumptions and values, just to entertain the possibility that they might be skewing the evidence in the direction of an untheorized empiricism. I don't expect them to accept that either, but one never knows! My concern is with HOW that showing takes place, and I want to treat referential statements of the kind that Buckridge isolates within plays (and he could have added Heywood's Apology for Actors (1612) to his list) with some degree of caution. So much for my "assertions". The mention of L.C.Knights does, I think, at least, focus the history of an anti-character criticism. I does, however raise a number of problems, particularly connected with the notion of "themes" criticism. I'm afraid that Buckridge is really clutching at straws if he thinks that either Terry Hawkes or I raise the L.C.Knights essay as some kind of shibboleth. I suppose it's what happens when you don't take the trouble to try to establish some kind of context for a discussion. Finally, Pat Buckridge is right to pick me up on my uncritical deployment of the phrase "the Elizabethan psyche". The only problem is that I don't recall using the phrase! I did refer to Elizabethan spectators, and I must confess to a residual Harbagitis there. I see no reason to assume that the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries "democratized" theatre audiences. We do need another model for this which might have some pretentions to greater sociological accuracy. That's more than enough from me. John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 09:50:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0623 Q: London/Stratford Contacts and Info Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0623. Monday, 18 July 1994. From: David R. Maier Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 1994 00:21:38 -0700 Subject: Vacationing Artistic Director seeks London/Stratford contacts and info This message is posted for Jan Powell, a member of the List: I am the Artistic Director of the Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company in Portland, Oregon. I will be vacationing with my 9 year old daughter in England from July 29 through August 15 and am interested in making contact with the theatre community in London and Stratford, in seeing good theatre and in finding reasonably priced B&B type accommodations. Tygres Heart produces uniquely American Shakespeare in an intimate, blood- red experimental theatre in Portland's Center for the Performing Arts. My company trains together in Shakespearean stagecraft, the cornerstone of our work being textual analysis based upon a specific technique of disciplined metrical interpretation. After a study of the text, we approach the work as though it had never been performed, the concept springing from a sense of love and irreverence. (As a side-note, Tygres Heart is hosting the 1995 annual meeting of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America.) It is important to me to establish a network of theatre scholars and practitioners to broaden our work and incorporate influences from around the world. I would like to establish contact with members of the British theatre community to discuss interpretation, production and the possibility of collaboration. 1) I would like to talk with production people at the RSC and the National; also any directors, producers, etc. who are taking unique approaches to the interpretation of Shakespeare. If anyone could suggest names and a way to make contact, please let me know. 2) The York Mystery Plays: Are they being produced this year? We hosted them in Portland several years ago and would like to reestablish contact. 3) I would also appreciate a run-down on current productions and any suggestions or recommendations of what to see and what to avoid. 4) If anyone knows of any reasonably priced, cozy B&B type accommodations close-in to London I would appreciate a referral. 5) I would also appreciate a referral if anyone knows of a family in London with a 9-ish year old child who might like to make an American friend (when my daughter completely loses patience with all of my other activities). 6) I am directing a production of Henry V this season and have been giving some thought to a trip to Agincourt and/or Harfleur. Having never been to either of these places I have no idea whether there is anything there which would make such a trip worthwhile. Any suggestions on those or other particularly pertinent Henry V-related sites would be helpful. 7) I would like to contact Clare West, a choreographer with, I believe, either the English National Opera or the English Touring opera. Her notable work recently has been with Phillip Glass. Does anyone know how to reach her? Please respond either to the List or by e-mail to dmaier@ednet1.osl.or.gov. Thank you for your assistance. Jan Powell -- David Maier dmaier@ednet1.osl.or.gov ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 09:53:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0624 Using Academic Discussion Groups Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0624. Monday, 18 July 1994. From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 16 Jul 94 18:17 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0609 Q: Locating Academic Discussion Groups I got my students (graduate) interested in INTERNET last term by giving the hardcopies of the initial stuff on SHAKSPER about Q1 +Hamlet+ and then seeing to it that all who could got an account with our CSO and let them, and it run for a bit, and then asked them to discuss what they had learned. It was very good for all of us (students and teacher). You might want to start there, but the bottom line (did I really say that?!) is how many have the hardware ability to get on the net. If you want to know more please let me know (off net, probably). William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 17:39:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0625 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0625. Tuesday, 19 July 1994. (1) From: Ben Schneider Date: Monday, 18 Jul 1994 10:03:43 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character (2) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Monday, 18 Jul 94 16:23 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 18 Jul 1994 21:16:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character (4) From: Terence Hakwes Date: Tuesday, 19 Jul 94 14:05 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character (5) From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 19 Jul 1994 16:03:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Emblematic Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Monday, 18 Jul 1994 10:03:43 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character If the plays in question were written by Kwakiutls, Bantus, or Maoris, or some really anthropologically studiable group, would we be so quick to apply our behavioral standards to the plays? I suggest that Shakespeare, his audience, and perforce his characters, are as different from us in presuppositions, motives, inclinations, and so forth as Kwakiutls, and that to study them as if they were us is ethnocentric. Right on Drakakis, Evett, May you live long! And Hawkes. Yours ever BEN SCHNEIDER (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Monday, 18 Jul 94 16:23 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character I am sorry. I did not make myself clear. These 'texts' are 'playscripts'. We must read them as such. That is all, and all anyone, should wish to say about them. William (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 18 Jul 1994 21:16:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0622 Re: Character For Pat Buckridge, Pat, do you sometimes feel that arguing a point with John Drakakis is like fighting with the tar-baby? He tell you that Jonson is "offering a REPRESENTATION," as if mimesis is not representational. Kendall Walton's MIMESIS AS MAKE-BELIEVE is subtitled: ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF REPRESENTATIONAL ARTS. The point of mimesis is that it represents "deeds and language, such as men do use." When John Drakakis says, "The assumption is that what we are looking at here is an unmediated 'showing,'" I'm not sure who makes this assumption. Is it Hamlet's assumption? Or yours? I certainly would say that there is no unmediated "showing." As far as humans are concerned, there is no unmediated experience, since all experience is mediated by our sensory system. And in plays, we also have the mediation of the actors -- between us and the script. I'm not sure what point is being made; John Drakakis is also subject to this mediation. His knowledge is also second-hand, if you will. John Drakakis also asserts "the majority of Elizabethan auditors were non-literate." I assume that he means "auditors of plays." John makes no reference to Andrew Gurr's PLAYGOING IN SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON nor to Ann Jennalie Cook's THE PRIVILEGED PLAYGOERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON. Although Gurr questions Cook's conclusions, his own list of "Playgoers 1567-1642" (191ff.) suggests a literate audience. In wonder if John is here entangled by his "own expectations and assumptions" -- his charge against us. And I think that John has to be clearer in his distinction between "WHAT is shown" and "HOW that showing takes place." I don't see how these two elements can be divorced on the stage. I will not try to imagine what John means by this distinction because everytime I try to interpret him, I misinterpret him. But, note, my interpretation does not seem to be LIMITED what John says or how he says it! For Sean Lawrence, Since Dave Evett's comments on LEAR reminded us both of HAMLET, I found your comments very interesting. But is it possible that Kent's transformation from nobleman to (almost) nameless servant might question the assumption that "identity . . . transcends social or metaphysical 'role'"? In other words, if you believe in a stable society with stable social positions, would reminders that "you can be replaced" fill you with tension and conflict? Hamlet has been replaced as heir, has a new father, and others are trying to force a new identity upon him -- as you justly point out. Could one of the basic conflicts be between a stable concept of identity ("I know not seems") and the reality of unstable identity? And could this conflict in the play key into a conflict in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century society? And, in turn, does this confict mirror a conflict in our contemporary society between those who see identity as a cultural construct and those who see identity as innate? In any case, Shakespeare comes back to this conflict recurrently -- and always with a slightly different take. Orsino substitutes Viola for Olivia without dropping an iamb. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hakwes Date: Tuesday, 19 Jul 94 14:05 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0618 Re: Character To Pat Buckridge: Nuttall's rather flat-footed account of L.C.Knights at least indicates a sense that he was intervening in a long-standing debate -something to which the TLS reviewer (11 May 1984) also responded -rather deftly I thought- when he nailed tall's arguments as 'Bradley and water'. The occlusion of this sort of historical dimension still strikes me as regrettable in the discussion of Shakespearean 'character'. It aids the construction of an easily dismissed 'Cultural Materialist' bugbear and thus plays into the hands of that pernicious mode of teaching archly concerned to flatter, rather than confront and engage with, the naivety of its students. As for wellies, young Drakakis's mischievous attempt to conflate two quite different sorts of prophylaxis may mislead -if not injure- the unwary. the injunction 'Give it Some Wellie' (heard regularly on the terraces of Football Grounds north of Watford) urges greater effort and commitment rather than the reverse. I'm delighted to see that you're responding and presume that the World Cup has made an appropriate impact. T. Hawkes (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 19 Jul 1994 16:03:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Emblematic Character Most helpful to me in the recent discussion of character has been John Drakakis's mention of "emblematic" characterization. I think he means social emblems in particular (rather than moral emblems), as his canny reading of the Manningham report of Twelfth Night suggests. In other words, he sees characters as conceived by playwrights on the basis of social roles, which are assumed to be fixed and therefore revelatory of whatever the person is--servant, lady, king, clown, "greasy Joan," etc. Bill Godshalk's citing of Lear's gray hair does not refute Drakakis's point but reinforces it, since gray hair is an emblem of old age- -"four score years and upwards"--just as grease is an emblem of scullery maids. But confining emblematic characterization to social roles is unhistorical, given the conscious fascination with moral emblems as keys to "personality." Falstaff's girth and dagger of lath are cases in point: they indicate gluttony and a well-worn stage emblem (the Vice) that derive from moral emblem-making, not from social roles. And once one acknowledges moral emblem-making, the case becomes much more complex. Volpone as an emblem of avarice is easy to see, and he has a long stage tradition. Consider his ancestor in the late-fifteenth-century play *Wisdom*, for example. When Understanding is corrupted by Lucifer, he becomes avaricious in terms that strikingly anticipate Volpone, especially in the sensuous suggestiveness of his adoration of gold: And my joy ys especyall To hurde uppe ryches, for fer to fall, To se yt, to handyll yt, to tell yt all, And streightly to spare! (581-84) As in Jonson's play, wealth creates unnatural social competition: "Ryches makyt a man equall / To hem sumtyme hys sovereyngys wer" (587-8). Wealth also makes a man deceitful and grasping: The ryche covetouse wo dare blame, Off govell [usury] and symony thow he bere the name? To be fals, men report yt game; Yt ys clepyde wysdom, "Ware that" quod Ser Wyly. (601) But are we to say that Volpone is "merely" Avarice--that Jonson has done no more than the author of *Wisdom* did 150 years ear- lier? Surely we can see something of "real" people in Volpone that we can't see in the corrupted Understanding, and what we're seeing is what Jonson put there on the basis of his observation of "real" people. The risk of emblematic reading, as I see it, is reductiveness. Lear is Old Man, Tyrannical Father, King, and he is also Mankind, in his offense against Cordelia and his readiness to repent of it and ask her forgiveness. "Thou hast one daughter that does redeem nature from the curse that twain have brought her to" (quoting from memory). That's all fine and good, and Maynard Mack has explicated it well. But where does Lear's heartbreak come from? Are we to say that he is an emblem of one who puts his faith in the wrong thing? Is that morally censorious response to Lear's grief appropriate to the play? Not for me, anyway. Lear's heartbreak seems to me to come from careful observation of human attachment and the emotional life for which moral and social emblems are inadequate. John Cox ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 21:03:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0626. Wednesday, 20 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 19 Jul 1994 20:37:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Some Questions (2) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Wednesday, 20 Jul 94 11:53:20 +0100 Subj: SHK 5.0625 Re: Character (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 20 Jul 1994 12:20:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0625 Re: Character (once more) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 19 Jul 1994 20:37:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Some Questions I have three questions that relate fairly directly to John Drakakis's posting of 18 July: (1) What is a "symptomatic reading?" (2) How can empiricism, a theory, be "untheorized?" Isn't this a logical impossibility? (3) Can anyone give a brief, but serious, emblematic reading of HAMLET (the play, not the dramatic figure)? We've been arguing over the concept of emblematic reading of Renaissance (or early modern, or sixteenth and seventeenth century) plays, but what would such a reading look like? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Wednesday, 20 Jul 94 11:53:20 +0100 Subject: SHK 5.0625 Re: Character Memo to Billy G., Pat B., Johnny D, and a few other guys: If you boys can't learn to play nicely, you will be sent to your rooms without supper. Your recent hijacking of this network for what appears of late to be little more than a schoolyard fistfight has denegerated beyond what even the most generous eavesdropping should have to tolerate. Look, you all have each other's e-mail addresses, and if you really want to "educate" each other, I request that you carry on your great reckoning in some little room where the rest of us are not made captive audiences. Go duke it out in private. This is not to say that the CONTENT of some of these exchanges, where it is separable from the ad hominem slagging-off, is not in itself valuable. But the ad homininity has gotten downright stupid, and the potentially valuable content has long since been obscured by your private slugfest. Note too the gender-specificity of the term "ad hominem." Notice who among this list's subscribers have NOT been participating? I assure you that our silence has NOT sprung from a lack of interest or of contributing intellgence to a real discussion of characterological issues. Billy G. notes that "shit is transhistorical." Sorry, Billy, it isn't even infra-historical; the specific biochemical composition of feces depends greatly on nutritional and other environmental differences, as one who lives and works at the confluence of 3 once-badly-polluted rivers should know (I hear they've cleaned up Pittsburgh in the last couple of decades). Moreover, as the noted anthropologist Mary Douglas has written in *Purity and Danger (London: RKP, 1966), pollution, or, more specifically, "dirt," is culturally defined (and culturally specific) as "matter out of place." Primary among substances capable of such variant definition are bodily substances like blood, urine, milk, feces. So shit in one cultural context is not the same in another. Which brings us back to the question of what constitutes pollution in an intentionally scholarly and collegial discussion group. Cheers, Naomi C. Liebler (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 20 Jul 1994 12:20:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0625 Re: Character (once more) I'm not sure if Ben Schneider is pretending to miss the point, or if he genuinely does not understand that Pat Buckridge and I are NOT saying that Shakespeare drove a Chevy to the levy, drank bourbon, and dated Miss American pie. OBVIOUSLY, the world of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century was different from ours, and the people who inhabited that world are different from us -- well, most of us. (Hardy assures me that John Calvin is alive and well in Maryland.) But making contact with Shakespeare's world is not like making contact with aliens from outer space. Some traditions (e.g., Christianity) connect us with that world. And we can -- I know that this, too, is an act of faith -- we can understand that world. Even John Drakakis seems to admit that we can understand the "Elizabethans" -- as he calls them (even if they are "Jacobeans"). At least, he professes to understand how they thought, i.e., emblematically. In contrast to John Drakakis's assumption, I assume from the evidence of the written material (we have only artefacts to guide us) that the humans (circa 1600) had the concept of mimesis, that mimetic art was not unknown to them and that an auditor might respond to this art. I am NOT denying that certain other auditors (especially the pious, I assume) might respond "emblematically." When Clifford Gertz encounters a human culture different from ours, he makes sense of that culture in human terms, i.e., other human cultures including our own. Humans have one important thing in common: we are all language makers. And we have similar mammalian needs and desires. Those similarities allow us to understand across cultures. These are the contact points. And so it is possible that Jews can understand (and talk with) Bantus. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 16:07:10 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0627. Friday, 22 July 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 12:26:30 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (2) From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 94 10:31:35 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character (3) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 23:42:48 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 12:49:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character (5) From: Martin Mueller Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 15:50:32 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character (6) From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 94 22:31:24 EST Subj: [Character] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 12:26:30 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character Could I start by saying that I appreciate the conciliatory tone of John Drakakis' latest and will try to do likewise. Secondly, yes, I like Nuttall's book a lot; in fact I think it's brilliant. But I'm not in a position to have been influenced by it, since I only discovered its existence last week, the day before I quoted it on the list. Sometimes things just fall into your lap, don't they? John has correctly identified the lines in both EMI and Hamlet that I had in mind, and I agree that Jonson is less helpful to the 'realist' cause than Shakespeare. I think this is because he is setting out to do something different from the established 'Shakespearean' theatre, something which takes him closer to a theatre of emblems. The Jonsonian theory of Humours is not just a theory of social types: it posits a whole additional level of (physiological) classification and abstraction of characters, and to that extent encourages an 'emblematising' way of looking at the characters (i.e. not just as social types - 'a greedy man' - but as iconic metaphors embodying particular concepts - 'greed'), and does this against the backdrop of a drama which, since the morality plays went out of fashion, had not been emblematic (or metaphoric) but had been *literal*. I'm sure John is right that the late Elizabethan audience was quite heterogeneous, in its literacy as in other respects, and that most of them probably didn't look at Jonson's characters any differently just because Jonson harangued them through his Prologues and mouthpieces (though I'm not sure how Goody and Watt's baseless and speculative generalisations about the effects of literacy can help us to understand this situation. Now there's some *real* universalising for you!) And by the way, I have nothing at all against 'symptomatic' readings (though I don't quite see how this got into the discussion). All I ask is that, we recognise them as being, like emblematic readings, metaphoric. I think David Evett's view of _King Lear_ as a play of social types is so counter-intuitive as to be perverse (and he seems to conflate social types, which are not metaphoric, with emblematic figures, which are; John Drakakis does this too). Sean Lawrence's response to Evett seems to me exactly right: the major characters of Shakespeare's mature plays tend to define themselves *with reference to* social types, but are made to exceed or contradict the types they approximate. My erstwhile mentor Bob Turner (whose pardon I beg for dragging him into this) was talking twenty-odd years ago about the distinction in Shakespeare's early plays between 'tautological' characters (i.e. types who are what they do, and do what they are) and 'non-tautological' characters (those who behave with a margin of unpredictability, outside or beyond their type), and tracing what appears to be a controlled progression from the former to the latter in the major characters of these plays. (See his _Shakespeare's Apprenticeship_1971). I continue to find this very persuasive and helpful. Pat Buckridge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 94 10:31:35 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character Like Naomi Liebler, I found some of the recent discussion of interest. There is a fair amount, however, that seems more appropriate to private postings. From past experience, I suspect NL will be assailed by posters who assure her she's the only person in the world who could possibly feel as she does. She isn't. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 23:42:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character Hear hear for Naomi Conn Liebler!!!! Al Cacicedo (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 12:49:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character What Naomi Liebler says about feces is correct, I believe (unless convinced otherwise). And it was just as correct 400 years ago. People eat and people defecate -- same as 400 years ago. People have different feelings about feces. Farmers may welcome it as fertilizer, and people who live in cities may find it a definite problem -- same as 400 years ago. Would digestion be a better example? As Joseph Wood Krutch comments, not many people make digestion into a "human value." Isn't digestion a basic biological fact -- putting aside the variables? If you don't have food to digest (no matter what you think about eating), you will starve to death (no matter what you think about the pros and cons of starvation). My feces example was used to make two points: (1) material phenomena pre-exist interpretation. (2) These phenomena are not necessarily changed by historical change. I BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION, but the human species has not evolved significantly in the last 400 years. And that means I do not buy theories of radical discontinuity between 1600 and 1994. We do have a chance of understanding Shakespeare's playtexts. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 1994 15:50:32 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0626 Re: Character Naomi Conn Liebler may have a point in playing the stern mother that sends the naughty boys to their rooms. On the other hand, her refutation of "Billy G's" claim that "shit is transhistorical" not only contradicts the impartiality that should go with that role but is highly problematical. To be sure "the specific biochemical composition of feces depends greatly on nutritional and other environmental differences. It is also the case that dirt is culturally defined as matter out of place and that cultures differ considerably in what counts as dirt and how it counts. But problems arise with the sentence: "Primary among substances capable of such variant definition are bodily substances like blood, urine, milk, feces. " If this is taken to mean that these bodily fluids are more or less free variants for inclusion in the category of dirt according to the patterns of particular culture, that seems highly implausible. I would very much like to see reliable evidence about a human culture that has a concept of dirt and does not include feces in it. I'd also like to see evidence about a culture that puts milk and feces in the same category. And while "shit in one cultural context is not the same in another," it's probably pretty much the same, and the variability of of its functions moves within quite narrow and cross-culturally stable parameters. Martin Mueller Northwestern University martinmueller@nwu.edu (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Thursday, 21 Jul 94 22:31:24 EST Subject: [Character] A brief extension of my earlier remarks. I meant to suggest that on the evidence of and other Shakespearean texts, for whatever that is worth, early modern Britishers tended to DEfine one another and themselves in terms of social role. (You might think here of the striking formality of almost all the surviving early modern British correspondence.) I would not at all wish to argue that Shakespearean characters (to say nothing of actual persons) were CONfined by such roles. Indeed, all the plays give central focus to characters displaced from their initial roles by accident, villainy, or their own free choice and thereby forced to find or develop new ones. Many of these--the usual comic pattern-- then return to their original roles, perhaps at some normal later developmental stage (e.g. daughter to wife)--thus Rosalind climbing back into her skirts; others--the usual tragic pattern--cannot do so. The beginning of is a mad round of sociological musical chairs in which nearly every character participates, willy-nilly, some (Kent and Edgar) more radically than others. Hamlet, adduced by Bill Godshalk as a character who does not fit the pattern, seems to me, in fact, an interesting case in point. At the outset, he is the Prince--skills and qualities enumerated by Cordelia, job description implied by Fortinbras. In the Denmark of the play it is a role he does not wish to fill, and he keeps trying to rewrite it (I once heard the character described as a variant on the old nightmare in which you're on stage in a play you've never rehearsed, having to improvise all your lines, only in Hamlet's case they keep changing the genre, too). By the end, however, he marks his readiness to move on to the next normal stage, King ("For he was likely, had he been put on, / To have proved most royal"), by doing the definitively kingly things, righting wrongs in the community and defending it against its enemies (internal, in this case). In a comedy, he would be crowned (as happens to Edgar in the Tate revision of ); it's a tragedy, so he dies instead. To be sure, such structural/mythic ideas about characters having to move from center to margin and back again are almost as old hat as L.C. Knights. Marginally yours, Dave Evett p.s. A propos the prophylactic gloss on Wellies, I will be happy to share with anybody who cares to solicit it directly the fine joke about the American suddenly widowed in Paris. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 12:46:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0628 Q: Ride from London to Stratford Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0628. Saturday, 23 July 1994. From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 22 Jul 1994 08:00 EDT Subject: Q: Ride from London to Stratford Can anyone give me a ride from London to Stratford on Sunday August 21? I would be happy to help pay expenses. I will be staying at James Madison House, 49 Gower Street, WC1E 6HH 071-323-5884 or 631 4381 from August 10th to the 21st. and can be reached there or, preferably, via e-mail before then. Thanks! Bernice W. Kliman 516-671-1301 KlimanB@SNYFARVA.bitnet ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 12:50:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0629 CFP: Shakespeare at Kalamazoo (Correction) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0629. Saturday, 23 July 1994. From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 22 Jul 1994 08:00 EDT Subject: CFP: Shakespeare at Kalamazoo (Correction) CORRECTION: Papers (or abstracts) for "Shakespeare at Kalamazoo" are due by Sept. 10, 1994. "Shakespeare at Kalamazoo," a group that sponsors sessions at the annual International Conference on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University during the first weekend in May, announces its sessions for May 4-7, 1995. Please post the following call for papers and forward to other appropriate lists: Session 1 "Medieval/Renaissance Looks and Sounds in Shakespearean Films" Explanation: An invitation to scholars in all disciplines, including but not limited to architecture, art, art history, music, theater history, theater arts, cinema studies and literature. The topic is meant to be as open as possible, to invite contributions that enrich the discussion of Shakespeare on film. Papers on films from non-English speaking countries are welcome; feature and documentary films, full length and short, are acceptable subjects for papers. Papers might discuss the interpretive use of dance, music, song, and other aspects of movement and sound; costume, setting, stage space, color, and other aspects of design; the problems of contemporary acting style in a medieval or Renaissance setting; modern interpretive choices and historical design; and more. Papers should plan to use visual or aural aids (e.g., video clips, recorded sound). Session 2: "Persuasive Speech/ Persuasive Silence in Shakespeare" Explanation: Papers discussing such topics as medieval and Renaissance rhetorical traditions; staging strategies for speech (including formal oratory) and silence; editorial treatment of silences and potential silences; ethnic, class and gender issues (women speaking/women silent); and more. Four copies of abstracts (or, preferably, complete papers) are due by September 10, 1994). A committee of four selects the program. The Medieval Institute at WMU asks that each proposal be accompanied by an agreement to present the paper in person if it is accepted, a pledge to adhere to a twenty-minute limit for papers, and a statement about the need for A-V equipment. In addition, graduate students, who are encouraged to propose papers, are requested to include a statement of approval by their professors or advisors. Please send abstracts, papers &c. to Bernice W. Kliman, 70 Glen Cove Drive, Glen Head, NY 11545.. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 12:57:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0630 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0630. Saturday, 23 July 1994. From: Ben Schneider Date: Friday, 22 Jul 1994 10:22:57 -0600 (CST) Subject: Character Yes, Bill, I am saying that you and Pat Buckridge think Shakespeare drove a chevy to the levee. But that's only for the purpose of discussion. Suppose we are both responding to Henry V, and you and Pat say the king comes across as a cold cruel Machiavellian warmonger? I claim that he and his audience would only see his very great virtues. It takes peace-oriented people like us to see the Machiavel, whereas Shakespeare's contemporaries basically approved of war. For example, Montaigne thought war was the best possible training ground for making men out of boys and that death on the battlefield was much preferable to death in bed. Castiglione thought that demonstrated courage on the battlefield was the only ticket of admission to courtierdom. And Plutarch, the Renaissance best seller? No other way to succeed in life but by overthrowing enemies in battle, or not giving up until the last man is dead. Maybe Shakespeare and his friends were really, as hinted earlier in this discussion, more like Klingons in this respect than they are like us. On other important topics, such as property, health, and safety, the conduct books also show attitudes radically differing from ours. You say Shakespeare isn't discussing these things? Maybe he is, but, devoting all our energies to finding support for our own ethical predilections, we miss all the true signals. I say that as a corrective to our late capitalist ethnocentricity, we should be studying 16th century conduct books and their sources in antiquity. (which is what I am doing, of course: bibliography on request, but see also Ruth Kelso's 2 books on doctrine for gentleman and for lady in 16th C, particularly preface to the latter) Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER Lawrence University Appleton, Wisconsin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 Jul 1994 13:04:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0631 Q: Grouping Shakespeare's Plays Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0631. Saturday, 23 July 1994. From: John E. Perry" Date: Friday, 22 Jul 1994 21:40:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: May we start another discussion? Eavesdropping on the Godshalk, Buckridge, Drakakis melee is fascinating and educational for me, but, while I'd like to see it continue to some sort of conclusion or even agreement, I'd also like to see something else. So, while GBD wallow in their deliberations, I'd like to ask a naive, hopefully not silly question. (Be assured that I'll continue to read and learn from their messages -- but I have other interests, too.) I just rented Branagh's _Much Ado About Nothing_, and it took its place just behind _Taming of the Shrew_ as my favorite comedy for the same reason that _T of S_ is my favorite. Specifically, I naively classify some of Shakespeare's plays into plot groups (in order of my preference). Brilliant girl and boy meet, trade barbs until they find they are worthy of one another, and hook one another: --Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing Brilliant girl meets marginally worthy boy, saves him from some awful fate, hooks him. --Merchant of Venice, (there's another, but I can't remember!) Several people play around for a while, we all have lots of fun. --Midsummer Night's Dream, Merry Wives of Windsor Lest I become tedious, I'll quit here. Are there other plays in the first and second groups? Are there other identifiable groups? Feel free to ridicule my naivete: I freely admit I'm both uneducated in most of the Shakespeare plays, and naive in matters dramatic. I'll profit from whatever comes my way. john perry jperry@cebaf.gov ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 09:28:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0632 Re: Character (plus War and Peace) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0632. Sunday, 24 July 1994. (1) From: Zachary Lesser Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 94 14:00:56 EDT Subj: Response to Godshawk and Schneider (2) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 15:36:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0630 War and Peace (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 17:48:40 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0630 Re: Character (4) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 00:09:20 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0630 Re: Character (5) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 01:29:55 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Zachary Lesser Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 94 14:00:56 EDT Subject: Response to Godshawk and Schneider The question of whether or not we can *understand* Shakespeare's playtexts seems to me to have little to do with whether or not our biological circumstances are similar enough to the Elizabethans. Certainly some things don't change that dramatically. But if by understand we intend *find meaning in*, then we cannot help but understand them, for we find meaning in everything. If we intend the stronger sense of understand, i.e., *determine the intent of Shakespeare* (for the New Critics and others) or *determine the meaning found in the play by its contemporary viewers* (which I don't believe is New Historicism but which some of its critics and practitioners do seem to think), then it seems still possible for us to understand the play. I simply think it would be one hell of a lucky guess. Considering the variety of interpretations of our own contemporary texts, I can't doubt but that Shakespeare's contemporaries would have had a similar variety of intepretations, and I believe the contemporary documents about the theater bear this out. Whether an interpretation on of us happens to put forth is in fact Shakespeare's own or his audience's (whatever that means) is not only luck, however, but simply unknowable. As we will never be able to ascertain this, why do we continue to search for it? If we post-modernists (among whom I count myself) take our theory seriously, we must admit that *we* and not just other critics are not *finding* meaning, but *making* meaning. At the moment, I find the meaning New Historicism makes to be the richest, most useful available. Soon that will certainly change. Texts can only be read profitably ($$) so many times with the same theory. And once New Historicism has been enshrined in the Renaissance Studies discipline, the meaning it makes will surely come to seem passe, and other theories will spring up to assist. On the matter of the Tudor and Stuart view of war, I think the evidence is highly ambiguous. Just because the conduct books glorify the virtues of war does not mean everyone felt that way. Not everyone thinks and certainly not everyone behaves as recommended in _Everything I needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten_. Further, who read these conduct books? Who was their audience? In the Civil War, at least, the populace appears to be overwhelmingly in favor of peace -- most towns elect to remain neutral. Perhaps this is a special case because it is a civil war, I'm not sure, but the evidence for "peace-loving" is there. Zachary Lesser st101105@brownvm.brown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 15:36:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0630 War and Peace Ben Schneider might be interested in Steven Marx's essay "Shakespeare's Pacificism," _Renaissance Quarterly_ 45 (Spring 1992) 49-95. Schneider's assertion that "Shakespeare's contemporaries basically approved of war" is subject to considerable qualification, much of it stemming from some far from obscure figures who, while not exactly contemporaries of Shakespeare, were still having an effect in his time: More, Erasmus, Castiglione, Vives. "Shakespeare's contemporaries" comprises a pretty various group. I'd want to know _which_ contemporaries before attributing common attitudes, and even then I'd expect to find many exceptions. --Ron Macdonald (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 17:48:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0630 Re: Character I would like to agree with Ben Schneider. We can find many Renaissance writers who are in favor of war -- for various reasons. In fact, Ben could have quoted Machiavelli, who advocated hunting as a pastime because it prepared the prince for war. War was big in the Renaissance. But I think you could find other Renaissance voices that were not in favor of war -- perhaps a minority, but still a presence, if not a very vocal one. And at present no famous name pops into my head. Perhaps someone will help me out. Of course, manners change from decade to decade. And when I was a graduate student I used to read Ruth Kelso, and I still read Miss Manners. What I'm arguing is that we can understand English Renaissance culture; we have enough in common with them so that we can understand the differences. We no longer burn people at the stake because they have a different religious believe; now we use napalm. Think of Northern Ireland and Bosnia and so on. So, Ben, when you talk about "us," you mean those of us who do not believe in war. There are many, many people in our world who do believe in war. In fact, perhaps, we passivists are still in the minor -- the same as 400 years ago. I don't believe in a universal human nature, but I call 'em the way I see 'em. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 00:09:20 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0630 Re: Character Hello, all. I read with interest Ben's comment on conduct books, and agree that his work really sounds very worthwhile indeed. I have a problem with it, though. You mention their classical origins. Might this indicate that some of their content could have been repeated, without much reference to the surrounding ideological structure, for quite a while? I suppose I'm just rather suspicious of using prescriptive works of literature as historical evidence. After all, if the United States is ever studied through (say) the sermons of Oral Roberts, whoever makes the study will end up with a image at least partially skewed. And we spend a lot of time in most countries doing lip service to various traditional or pseudo-traditional values that have long since ceased to have any but the most cosmetic effect on our lives. Incidentally, I also read Henry V and find him a hero, so perhaps I'm just very much out of step. Anyway, just a thought. Cheers and good luck with the conduct books, Sean. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 01:29:55 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character Hello, To David Evett: I'm very sorry if I read your original post incorrectly. I don't, though, agree with your description of Hamlet. After all, being a prince when you feel that you're supposed to be king is a somewhat equivocal self-definition. The characteristics listed by Ophelia sound like a hodge-podge of other roles--soldier, scholar, courtier. Fortinbras' actions are prescribed by Old Norway, and damned to hell by his own sergeant. Hamlet is criticized by Gertrude, supposedly for not living up to her image of a son, if not a prince. But perhaps I've misread you again. To Bill Godshalk: I tend to see the big story in Shakespeare as being the inappropriateness of ideals (and, by extension, "realism" in the medieval sense) to reality. Starting with Titus Andronicus, there's a pattern in which established laws and ideologies are subverted, often by their over-rigorous, or over-confident application (Lear's or Richard II's overestimation of royal power, Titus' sacrifice of what's-his-name). This leaves a fairly nihilistic vacuum, in which people, who were defined by the old order of roles (the great chain of being), seem to experience a sort of angst (which is an anachronistic word, I'm afraid) and must find a new, and more individualistically Renaissance, self-definition. Call it self-fashioning, if you like Stephen Greenblatt. Right, on to Hamlet. For the first three acts (and maybe four) he bounces around in despair, desperately trying to *do* things, ecstatic over the mission which his father gives him as though it were a key to his renewed existence, exaggerating his feelings for Ophelia in the hopes of giving himself a role as lover, and so on. In fact, he contrasts his supposed love of Ophelia to the new and alien vision of a universe in which the earth is displaced from the centre. As Dave Evett said, it's like a nightmare of not knowing your lines. In his letter to Claudius, however, he describes himself as "naked" and "alone." In the passage on board the pirate ship, robbed of all but the resources of his self, Hamlet discovers a sense of individuality quite apart from his role. Instead of fighting the failure of the great chain of being to give him a purpose, he's willing to accept fate, knowing that "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will" (quoted from memory). He enters the play as a disillusioned medieval, and leaves it as a Renaissance man. To John Drakakis: I was just reading some Huizinga on a plane trip recently, and stumbled across his chapter on formalism in regards to realism and anthropomorphic allegory in 14th century Burgundy. He argues that in one poem by Deschamps (Le Miroir de Mariage, incidentally) "The personification has more or less absorbed the idea which gave it birth." I thought of *The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman* and how the anthropomorphism of the (supposed) allegories tends to take over from whatever the allegory was meant to express. The parade of deadly sins is almost a case in point, in which they repent, which should be impossible for something without independent personality. One might also think of *Gelosy* in *The Faerie Queen*: "It woxen so deform'd that he was quight / Forgot he was a man, and Gelosy is hight" (3.10 last lines). This seems to draw a fairly definite line between allegories and people. But perhaps the allegories to which I refer are not like the emblematic characters to which you refer. To Terry Hawkes: Thanks for explaining why my toes have turned black. Anyway, back to writing that last thesis chapter! Cheerio, Sean ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 09:37:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0633 Re: Grouping Shakespeare's Plays and so on Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0633. Sunday, 24 July 1994. (1) From: Laurie White Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 17:53:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0631 Q: Grouping Shakespeare's Plays (2) From: Christine M Gordon Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 18:16:59 -0500 (CDT) Subj: another discussion, naivete, and ever on (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Laurie White Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 17:53:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0631 Q: Grouping Shakespeare's Plays Dear John Perry, I like your exuberant reaction to Shakespeare. I, too, am untutored but very willing to learn. I would put _As You Like It_ into your second group--and possibly _Love's Labours Lost_. --Laurie White (WHITEL@steffi.uncg.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine M Gordon Date: Saturday, 23 Jul 1994 18:16:59 -0500 (CDT) Subject: another discussion, naivete, and ever on For John Perry: I think *As You Like It* would fit nicely into your first (or maybe second) category, depending on how you read Orlando, *Twelfth Night* probably into the second, *LLL,* *Two Gentlemen,* *Comedy of Errors* into the third. From then on, I think most of the plays take on a more serious edge that wouldn't quite fit into any of these categories. Glad you liked *Much Ado*: I find it quite wonderful still, even after eleven or so viewings. As to your naivete: thank God for it! I'm so glad I've managed to retain some remnant of mine, the most recent evidence being the frank disbelief of a graduate student in English here at the University of Minnesota who was stunned to discover that I "get emotionally involved with these characters." Always have (since my first introduction to stories); hope I always will. That's one reason I've been delighted and amused by the "character" discussion (even though, at times, I too was muttering to myself, "Ah--boys, boys . . . "), like Naomi Conn Liebler. Thanks to Dave Evett for his comments on *Hamlet,* which I find fascinating and will probably draw upon when I teach the play later in our upcoming second summer term (sonnets and five plays in five weeks, with two-and-a-half hour evening sessions twice weekly; I've never taught in this format before, and am moderately concerned for my sanity and that of the students; I look forward to the discussions here to keep me both alert and amused). Re Ben Schneider's comment: I don't think only "people like us" (whoever we are) would necessarily be the only ones to see Henry V's manipulative side. I think that might be the interpretation we focus on, while earlier ones might have assumed that SOME members of their audience found war glorious and great training for courtiers. But Shakespeare himself gives us Williams et al. to confront Henry with the impact of war on the ordinary soldier and surely other members of audiences from the 16th century to nearly the 21st would find themselves responding to that. I'm of the contingent that finds us not all that different from the Elizabethans (or from people today in very different cultures), and that's why I think multiple readings are inherent in the plays: think, too, of the father and son who kill one another in *Henry VI*: they remain nameless, yet who does not respond to the horror and poignancy of that scene? Affectionately, Chris Gordon University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 17:22:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0634 Re: Shakespeare's Greening (Sonnet 112) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0634. Monday, 25 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 12:02:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0616 Q: Shakespeare's Greening (2) From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 09:08:43 -0600 (CST) Subj: s.112 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 12:02:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0616 Q: Shakespeare's Greening Terence Martin asked us to consider Barbara Everett's "Shakespeare's greening" (TLS 8 July 1994, pp. 11-13) in which she suggests that that line 4 in Sonnet 112: "So you ore-greene my bad, my good allow" is a reference to Robert Greene. She reads the line: "With you for a lover, who needs Greene?" (p. 13). To make this reading feasible, Everett suggests an early dating for the sonnets -- before 1594. I find the suggestion fairly far-fetched. Shakespeare uses the word "green" over 100 times, from TITUS to TEMPEST, and surely not each is a reference to Robert Greene. Let's take MACBETH's "making the green one red" (2.2.60) as an example. Why not read this line to mean, "I wish I had bloodied Robert Greene"? I think this is a relatively paranoid reading of literature, in which each refers to all. I think Stephen Booth's reading of the line is adequate: "o'er-green" = overgreen, cover over (as a patch can be returfed or reseeded, or become over-grown by neighboring plants). The green is filling "th'impression . . . stampt vpon my brow" by "vulgar scandall" (112.1-2). Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 09:08:43 -0600 (CST) Subject: s.112 Your love and pittie doth th' impression fill, Which vulgar scandall stampt upon my brow, For what care I who calles me well or ill, So you ore-greene my bad, my good alow? You are my All the world, and I must strive, To know my shames and praises from your tounge, None else to me, nor I to none alive, That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong, In so profound Abisme I throw all care Of others voyces, that my Adders sense, To cryttick and to flatterer stopped are: Marke how with my neglect I doe dispence. You are so strongly in my purpose bred, That all the world besides me thinkes y'are dead. I've been scratching my head over this poem since Terence Martin asked us about it ten days ago. As you may remember, he asked us to comment on Barbara Everett's argument, in TLS (6/8/94), that 'ore-greene' refers to Robert Greene who, dying in rage and penury in 1592, got in his last licks at Shakespeare in his _Groats-worth of witte_. Now that she's pointed it out, the connection is obvious and I for one am greatly indebted to her for making it. How could Shakespeare NOT have had Greene in mind in coining this nonce- word? And the connection works in the poem: "With you as a lover, who needs Greene?" is Everett's pertinent paraphrase. Would this be Shakespeare's only direct reference, by name, to a contemporary writer? Or any contemporary person, for that matter. The reference to Marlowe ("Dead shepherd, now I approve thy saw of might . . .") in AYLI, while unmistakable, doesn't name him. Everett says this is one of the difficult sonnets and she's right. While her own prose is not always clear or free of difficulties, I find her arguments convincing. I particularly like her point about the self-referentiality of the last line, which makes it into a sourly ironic joke like the one about Greene. The line that gives me the most difficulty is line 8. As far as I can see, it only works syntactically if 'right' and 'wrong' are verbs with a period at the end of the line and a colon after 'tongue.' Thus the difficult syntax of lines 7 & 8 points up the difficult lesson the poet strives to learn in line 6 and creates the sense of a syntactical abyss (required by "In so profound abysm . . . ) where he can "throw all care/ Of others voyces." Or is that going a bit too far? Piers Lewis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 17:29:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0635 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0635. Monday, 25 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 17:22:21 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Character and the Intentional Fallacy (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 21:38:26 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Lear and Hamlet (5.0627) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 17:22:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Character and the Intentional Fallacy I find Zachary Lesser's ideas and attitudes very congenial, especially his skepticism, and I'm sorry that he finds my New Biologism besides the point. (Nevetheless, keep your eyes on Gail Paster's latest work!) I'd like to make two points. (1) Skepticism should not keep us from the search for truth -- even if we doubt the existence of any absolute truth. (2) The New Critics did not try to determine the intention of Shakespeare. Instead, we -- yes, I am one of the Old Critics -- espoused the Intentional Fallacy, i.e., "the error of judging the meaning and the success of a work of art by the author's expressed or ostensible intention in producing it" (Holman and Harmon, s.v. "Intentionalo Fallacy"). In fact, we too were and are rather skeptical of intention and tend to concentrate on what we can make of the text. We knew and still know that texts don't read themselves -- although many critics talk as if they do. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 21:38:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Lear and Hamlet (5.0627) Although Sean Lawrence has basically answered David Evett's comments on HAMLET, I would like to clarify my position. David wrote about LEAR, "all the grown-up aristocrats but Lear are known only by their titles (Kent, Gloucester, Albany, Cornwall) and Lear is much more often 'Lear' to himself than to others, who are more likely to call him 'king'" (5.0618). Later (5.0622), I remarked that Horatio in HAMLET is different: named 30 times, his social and family ties are not carefully defined in the play. Claudius is not recognized in the HARVARD CONCORDANCE as a name appearing in the text, but I seem to recall that he is mentioned once. (Check me.) But Hamlet, Gertrude, Ophelia, Laertes, Polonius, and so on are NOT known by their titles. And the play begins with the identification of soldiers by name: Bernardo (4) and Francisco (7). And Francisco is identified by that famous line: "I am sick at heart" (9). He does not identifu himself as a member of a category (soldiers), but as a person who is sick at heart. Not all soldiers are sick at heart. Hamlet is not simply identified as prince. He is a playgoer, dramatic critic, amateur director and playwright, poet, actor, fencer, scribe -- in fact, a figure so various that he might be not one, but all mankind's epitome. It seems to me that you are arguing (contra John Drakakis) that what we see as "emblematic" may very well have been "mimetic" to a Renaissance audience. If a Renaissance person felt that selfhood depended on identification with a social type, then plays that represented this kind of selfhood would be realistic, not allegorical. Unfortunately, I can't agree with you that HAMLET falls into this category. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 17:47:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0636 Qs: E-Shakespeare; Elizabeth at Theatre; Rs: Groupings; Ride Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0636. Monday, 25 July 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 22:30:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Electronic Shakespeare Journal (2) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 25 Jul 94 15:01:49 SAST-2 Subj: Elizabeth at the Theatre (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 22:01:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0633 Re: Grouping Shakespeare's Plays and so on (4) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 10:24:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0628 Q: Ride from London to Stratford (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 22:30:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Electronic Shakespeare Journal With the promised advent of the virtual library, I've been wondering if it might be a good idea to consider having an electronic Shakespeare journal. Obviously, SHAKSPER is excellent for discussing ideas, asking question, getting quick responses, etc., but, as Dave Evett has recently written, SHAKSPER is not a good medium for long and intricate arguments. I'm NOT proposing myself as editor, but isn't it perhaps the right time to explore the merits and the possibilities of an online Shakespeare journal (perhaps like EJOURNAL?). Or is such a journal already in the pipeline? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 25 Jul 94 15:01:49 SAST-2 Subject: Elizabeth at the Theatre A colleague has sent me the following question, and I wondered if anyone on the list could help: A recent critic makes the point that Elizabeth was (virtually at least) "present" at every performance of a play during her reign. Can anyone help with the reference? David Schalkwyk P.S. The latest discussion of "Character", which has predictably been overwhelmed by the gravity of "Universalism", should surely address, not the chemical components of shit, but rather the relationship between objects of experience and concepts. Does anyone agree that Robert Weimann's historical analysis of different concepts and practices of representation in tension on the English Renaissance stage might avoid the reduction of character to emblem and emblem to character? I.e. the idea that there is a single concept/practice of representation at work? (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 24 Jul 1994 22:01:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0633 Re: Grouping Shakespeare's Plays and so on I would put ALL'S WELL into John Perry's second group: brilliant girl goes after marginally worthy boy. But there are many other interesting groupings. Years ago I read an essay in MLR the author and title of which I've forgotten; in any case, the author asserted that tragedies move from heterosexual to homosexual in character groupings. My initial response was skeptical, but, upon reflection, I saw that the assertion had some validity -- although not all the tragedies fit. But the comedies seem to begin with the female characters and the male characters in different groups and end with them in heterosexual groupings. I guess that's fairly obvious, but perhaps worthy of some contemplation. Is each of Shakespeare's plays sui generis, or can we isolate patterns of action? Irving Ribner, among others, though we could. Are the comedies all heterogenerous? Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 10:24:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0628 Q: Ride from London to Stratford Dear Bernice, Take a bus from Heathrow at 1:10 PM on Sunday to Warwick, and then from there, a taxi to Stratford. If you can meet me in Warwick to share the cab, let me know. Apparently, there is no direct connection to Stratford on Sunday. Love, Ken ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 10:53:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0637 Re: Ride; Peace; Dirt; Elizabeth; E-Journal Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0637. Tuesday, 26 July 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 13:04:32 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0628 Q: Ride from London to Stratford (2) From: Steven Marx Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 12:46:18 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0632 Re: Character (plus War and Peace) (3) From: Nina Walker Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 16:54:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character (4) From: Ed Pechter Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 20:06:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0636 Qs: Elizabeth at Theatre (5) From: James Zeiger Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 21:18:34 -0600 (MDT) Subj: Re: E-Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 13:04:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0628 Q: Ride from London to Stratford Dear Everybody, Bernice's signal about a ride to Stratford from London on Sunday August 21st inspires me to point out that I will be taking the 12:05 bus from Heathrow (#205) arriving near Warwick at the "Little Chef" restaurant on the Warwick By-Pass, about 8 miles from Stratford, at 2:20 PM. There, I am to take a taxi to Stratford. Anyone else out there in the same boat (bus) and interested in sharing the taxi fare? Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Marx Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 12:46:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0632 Re: Character (plus War and Peace) In addition to the strong pacifist sentiments of the "London Reformers"--Colet, Linacre, More and Erasmus--documented by Robert P. Adams in _The Better Part of Valor_ by Robert P. Adams, and the attitudes expressed by Williams and Burgundy in _Henry V-, King James made his personal motto "Beati Pacifici," blessed are the peacemakers. His reputation as one of these extended as far as Poland and Spain, and he and his son Charles went to great lengths to establish anti-militarist culture at court. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nina Walker Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 16:54:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character Although I am in agreement with those who find the current conversation about emblematic character going nowhere fast, I must protest the misinterpretation of Mary Douglas's definition of dirt as matter out of place. All fecal matter outside the body (which is where it is made and is natural) becomes dirt because it is outside of it's place. The same becomes true of urine and in particular blood. Culture be damned. As soon as it comes out of the body, it's dirt. This has led to real problems with human attitudes about menstrual blood, since blood ought to be in its proper place--in the body. This is a particularly dirty piece of business as most cultures would have it.(Tell me of one that has thought differently!) From that rather universal (God forgive me for use of the word) attitude cultures then derive their own methods of handling 'things out of place' and thus we have the multitude of differences in ritual and taboo. But clearly, Douglas's rule was a general one. Whether I plant it or pitch it is determined by environmental and historical forces. However, I don't think Douglas had in mind that I would love it. If I did, then it is not dirt according to her theory. This may be true also of, as Ben Schneider puts it, "some really anthropologically studiable group" (as if we weren't) like those Maori's who share no human attributes with 16th century Englishmen or 20th century Shakespeareans. For my part, I believe I share a common distaste for "dirt" especially when it gets on my shoe. The fact that I wear shoes becomes a point of departure determined soley by my environment and my mother's wishes Nina Walker nwalker@lynx.nu.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ed Pechter Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 20:06:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0636 Qs: Elizabeth at Theatre I think the "recent critic" referred to in David Schalkwyk's letter is probably L. A. Montrose in an essay on *A Midsummer Night's Dream*, that appeared in vol2 of *Representations* and has been frequently reprinted. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Zeiger Date: Monday, 25 Jul 1994 21:18:34 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: E-Shakespeare W. L. Godshalk brings up an interesting point. SHAKSPER, as one of the most active lists on the Internet, certainly comes close to qualifying as a complete journal. Undoubtedly, a very respectable journal could be fashioned from its contents. However, as the co-editor of the first electronic theatre journal, THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL (tpi), I can tell you that such an undertaking can become quite a time-consuming project. A chance for a trial run exists at this time since tpi will be spotlighting Shakespeare in our third issue, due for release Sept. 30. We invite submissions from all SHAKSPER readers on any aspect of the subject. We also would like to invite performance reviews of the productions to be seen this summer at the various Shakespeare festivals worldwide. While THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL intends to cover the full spectrum of theatrical performance, theory, and criticism, our Fall issue may provide an ideal opportunity to test W. L. Godshalk's idea. Send ideas and submissions to: Jim Zeiger zeigere@ucsu.Colorado.EDU or David Reifsnyder reifsnyd@ucsu.Colorado.EDU We also welcome inquiries from anyone wishing to receive copies of our first two issues, or needing information on our listserv. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 Jul 1994 10:57:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0638 Q: MLR article Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0638. Tuesday, 26 July 1994. From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 08:50:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0636 Rs:Groupings Does anyone have a full citation for Bill Godshalk's refernce to an article in MLR on the tragedies as movements from "heterosexual to homosexual"? PLease post it if you do. Cheers. Matthew Westcott Smith PhD, Lecturer, The Civic Education Project ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:21:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0640 Re: Groupings; Greening; E-Journal Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0640. Thursday, 28 July 1994. (1) From: Martin Zack Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 09:14:45 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Groupings (2) From: Terence Martin Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 94 11:43:24 CDT Subj: Greening (3) From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 94 13:44:05 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0637 Re: E-Journal (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Zack Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 09:14:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Groupings Grouping the plays in various categories is a handy way to keep track of them. And I am always fascinated in how others group plays that I never think share many of the same characteristics. Most difficult, for me at least, is fitting Measure for Measure in with the other "comedies." I believe that there is merit in the idea that Shakespeare had essentially exhausted the structure of the comedy, whose final marriage scene neatly wrapped up the action. Certainly Isabella's triumph at the end of the play is a personal one, and the marriage proposal of the Duke seems such an inadequate response or reward. So I would be curious where John Perry would slip in M4M in his groupings. I would group Merchant with M4M simple because they share a sense at the end of the play that things are not neatly resolved, but remain troubled. Martin Zacks lalalib@class.org (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Martin Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 94 11:43:24 CDT Subject: Greening Thanks to Bill Godshalk and Piers Lewis for their comments on s. 112. The divergent tracks of their thoughts clearly illustrate the sonnet's difficulty though I too prefer the simpler interpretation of "ore-greene." I also wonder if in line 8 that "or changes right or wrong" could be "o'er changes right or wrong"; thus keeping them as nouns rather than verbs. Terence Martin UM - St. Louis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 94 13:44:05 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0637 Re: E-Journal The slightest of all corrections. While Theatre Perspectives International is indeed an excellent on-line publication, I don't think it was in fact, as James Zeiger suggests, the first on-line theatre journal. The first that purports to cover ALL of theatre, yes. But I believe the first issue of *Didaskalia: Ancient Theatre Today* preceded TPI by a week or two. And there may be others... A good idea, though! Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:09:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0639 Re: Character: Dirt, Titles, Conduct Books Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0639. Thursday, 28 July 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 11:23:57 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character (2) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 94 12:59:51 +0100 Subj: SHK 5.0637 Re: Dirt (3) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 94 11:43:51 SAST-2 Subj: character (4) From: Ben Schneider Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 1994 20:50:54 -0600 (CST) Subj: character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 11:23:57 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0627 Re: Character In re Mueller: the Hottentots of south eastern Africa equated milk with feces and urine and would not drink it. ELEpstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 94 12:59:51 +0100 Subject: SHK 5.0637 Re: Dirt Nina Walker rightly refers to Mary Douglas's specific language in citing dirt as "matter out of place," but then muddies up the intended distinction by saying "Culture be damned." Citing menstrual blood as what she thinks is a safe example of a substance "universally" eschewed, Ms. Walker says "Tell me of one [culture] that has thought differently." Douglas herself cites the Walbiri of Central Australia: "Even menstrual blood is not avoided, and there are no beliefs that contact with it brings danger" (*Purity and Danger* Pelican edition, p. 168). Elsewhere in the same book Douglas reminds us that "Blood [not menstrual, in this instance], in Hebrew religion, was regarded as the source of life, and not to be touched except in the sacred conditions of sacrifice" (p.144 . Douglas goes on to cite a large number of very specific examples of various body substances that are, in various cultures, variously valued as instruments of dirt OR purification. Other anthropologists make observations about other populations (sorry, I'm away from home and haven't got the citations handy). The point is that culture cannot be damned in these discussions: specific cultural distinctions define what constitutes "in place" or "out of place," and thus what constitutes purity or pollution. The idea that what is so in YOUR place or MINE must be so everywhere on the planet and at all times is a regrettable form of ethnocentrism. One more quotation from Mary Douglas seems apposite here: "Each culture has its own special risks and problems. To which particular bodily margins its belief attribute power depends on what situation the body is mirroring. It seems that our deepest fears and desires take expression with a kind of witty aptness. To understand body pollution we should try to argue back from the unknown dangers of society to the known selection of bodily themes and try to recognize what appositeness is there" (p. 145). Her cautionary advice serves us well. In discussions of culture, whether early modern or any other, we need to look more closely at what is being signalled by this or that allusion, citation, aversion, occlusion, or attention. "Yuck" is not a useful critical distinction. Cheerio. Naomi C. Liebler (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 94 11:43:51 SAST-2 Subject: character The discussion of the status of names and titles in _King Lear_ set me thinking about the titles of the plays in general. Is there any significance in the fact that while none of the comedies has the names of protagonists as a title, all of the tragedies do? And is there any significance in revisions which change _Much Ado About Nothing_ to _Beatrice and Benedick_, but _Antony and Cleopatra_ to _All For Love_? A shot in the dark. David Schalkwyk University of Cape Town (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 1994 20:50:54 -0600 (CST) Subject: character To those who questioned my appeal to conduct books. Many thanks for your good thoughts. Cannot respond in detail now because using borrowed hookup. Will continue my argument about August 1. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 12:30:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0641 New Folger Editions; Qs: Washington, DC, and WT & Oth. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0641. Thursday, 28 July 1994. (1) From: Tad Davis Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 21:31:55 -0400 (EDT) Subj: New Folger Shakespeare (2) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 94 09:13:00 edt Subj: Washington/Winter Tale, Othello (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Tuesday, 26 Jul 1994 21:31:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: New Folger Shakespeare I know I've done this before, but I feel the need to do it again. Those who are embarrassed by cheerleading should read no further. Speaking strictly as an amateur -- I'm a programmer at Penn, with no connection to either the English department or the Furness collection (much to my chagrin)... anyway, as an amateur, I want to express my appreciation to Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine for the work they've done on the New Folger Shakespeare. The text is interesting, with a clear rationale and not too radical a departure, and with a creative solution to the Folio/Quarto problem for several of the plays; the notes are informative and accessible; the illustrations are great; and the annotated bibliographies are a treat. I now have all the available volumes to date except "The Tempest." I'll pick that one up this week or next. I'm also collecting the new Oxford editions, and take great pleasure wallowing in the notes there; but when I want to read the plays for enjoyment, the Folger is the one I find myself turning to again and again. Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Wednesday, 27 Jul 94 09:13:00 edt Subject: Washington/Winter Tale, Othello Two questions about Shakespeare resources in the Washington, DC, area and one thought about Winter's Tale and Othello. Washington: 1. Do any of the local libraries have any of the Multimedia /Hypermedia Shakespeare applications that they will let folks use? (e.g., Best's Shakespeare's Life and Times, Mullin's Our Shakespeare, Schafer's Macbeth) 2. Do any of the local bookstores stock the Oxford or Cambridge editions? Othello/Winter's Tale: While I'm sure comparisons between the two plays abound, yesterday it occurred to me that, if we move from Othello to The Winter's Tale, we could consider the male characters as merging, while the female characters come apart. Leontes could be considered a combination of Othello's tragic concern for his honor and Iago's irrational malice, while Desdemona is the angelic Hermione, but also the pushy Paulina (especially with regard to her lobbying on Cassio's behalf). [This actually started when I was trying to decide if Desdemona could share any of the blame for the tragic conclusion. The only fault I could find was her suit for Cassio, and that's hardly enough to implicate her.] I'm not sure any of this holds up if you look at it too long, but I thought I'd let the list chew on it. thanks jimmy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 12:56:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0642 Q: Renaissance Studies Web Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0642. Friday, 29 July 1994. From: Zachary Lesser Date: Thursday, 28 Jul 94 14:23:56 EDT Subject: Renaissance Studies Web Does anyone out there know of a good web for Renaissance Studies, something akin to the (wonderful) Labyrinth for Medieval Studies at Georgetown? I've looked around the web for a while, but all I've found are some on-line Shakespeare sites. I wonder if there's anywhere out there which puts early modern documents (historical and literary) into a web. Zachary Lesser st101105@brownvm.brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 13:11:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0643 Re: Character: Milk and Titles Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0643. Friday, 29 July 1994. (1) From: Martin Mueller Date: Thursday, 28 Jul 1994 14:18:29 -0500 Subj: Milk (2) From: Thomas Ellis Date: Thursday, 28 Jul 1994 23:09:43 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0639 Re: Character: Dirt, Titles, Conduct Books (3) From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 29 Jul 94 11:30:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0639 Re: Character: Dirt, Titles, (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Thursday, 28 Jul 1994 14:18:29 -0500 Subject: Milk EL Epstein writes that the Hottentots of south eastern Africa equated milk with feces and urine and would not drink it. I would want to know a lot more about this culture to move from the fact that they didn't drink milk to the conclusion that they "equated" it with feces and urine. All milk? The milk of cattle? Do infants in that culture drink the equivalent of urine from their mothers' breasts? Source? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Ellis Date: Thursday, 28 Jul 1994 23:09:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0639 Re: Character: Dirt, Titles, Conduct Books Response to David Schalkwyk: The observation you make about the titling of the comedies and tragedies is indeed germane to the ongoing discussion of the construction of "Character" in Shakespeare's time. I would begin by observing how many of the comedies' titles are genre-markers, intended to specify what the audience's generic expectations should be as they approach the play: "Comedy of Errors;" "Midsummer Night's Dream;" "As You Like It"; "Much Ado About Nothing"; "All's Well That Ends Well." All of these titles convey variations of the same message: NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY (although, in the latter two instances, this genre-directive may well have an ironic twist). Conversely, as you note, the major tragedies all focus on one (or two) dominant characters in their titles; this practice seems to have been conventional at the time (consider Jonson's "Sejanus" as opposed to "Every Man In His Humour", for example). From this practice we can reasonably hypothesize that, on the characterological continuum from mimetic (or life-like) to emblematic (or typological), Shakespeare and his contemporaries intended the tragedies to be approached more mimetically and his comedies to be approached more emblematically. Putting it probably too simply, we are intended to identify and empathize with Hamlet, Lear, and Othello, and to laugh with and at the antics of Puck, Beatrice and Benedick, Rosalind and Orlando, and Parolles. At the same time, as many of the contributors here have observed, the mimetic and the emblematic can never be separated, for theatre, like all art, embodies the paradox that, according to Gregory Bateson, defines "play" as a mammalian behavior: "This is not what it is." When a dog, in play, nips your ankle, for example, it is sending the message, "This is, and isn't, a bite." At an infinitely higher level of complexity, all dramatic artists are doing the same thing: This (i.e. Hamlet, Lear, Cordelia, etc. etc.) is, and is not, a person. The paradox is beautifully embodied in Shakespeare's most playfully recursive and self-referential play, The Winter's Tale, when Hermione's statue comes to life: "That she is living, were it but told you, would be hooted at like an old tale, yet it appears she lives." Yet the play IS an "old tale" and it only "appears" she lives, because, after all, this is only a play. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 29 Jul 94 11:30:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0639 Re: Character: Dirt, Titles, For David Schalkwyk, It was Charles I who identified Much Ado as the comedy of Benedick and Betteris, so there isn't very much authority for textual revision there. The general question you raise is an interesting one though insofar as tragedy is concerned with establishing individual identity (though there may be exceptions to this rather crass generalization), and comedy is concerned, at least at the level of manifest content, with a more inclusive social harmony. That's true of Much Ado too. What the Restoration does with these examples is another matter altogether- see Mirabell and Millamant in Congreve's The Way of The World for a version of the Benedick-Beatrice conflict. Those tragedies which share titles e.g. Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra raise very large questions about the relationship between tragedy and gender. On the questioon of comedies though, what about The Merchant of Venice? Granted that there appear to be two of them, Antonio and Shylock; or what about The Merry Wives of Windsor? If you think of the way titles are used in the History Plays, then this raises an even more complicated set of questions: is I Henry IV a comedy? for example? One of the issues which your query raises is the extent to which the tragedies- and I'm thinking of Othello in relation to Much Ado here, or Romeo and Juliet in relation to MND- rework in another mood the material of the comedies. It seems to me that this might be a good place to start. Cheers, John Drakakis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 10:00:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0644 Re: Greening Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0644. Monday, 1 August 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 29 Jul 1994 17:56:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0640 Re: Greening Terence Martin has said (5.0640) that he likes the simpler interpretation of "ore-greene" (Booth, ed., 112.4). I'm not sure which interpretation is the simpler or the simplest! But Terence's reading of "or" as "ore" is certainly a possibility. According to MacD. Jackson, Library 1 (1975): 24, George Eld's compositor B set G4, and compositor B "would seem to have been rather more prone to error than A" (9), especially literal errors and misunderstanding/misreading of his copy. So says Jackson. And if we believe Jackson, B may have misread 112.8. Some years ago, I wrote the following paraphrase of lines 7 and 8 in the margins of Booth: "No one else in the world changes his 'steel'd sence" with regard to 'right or wrong' -- or vice versa." If "steel glass" means "perception of reality," then "steel'd sence" may have a similar meaning -- or may mean "impregnable sensitivity." I don't find this reading very convincing 17 years later, but I thought I'd throw it out for debate. And I would like to ask Piers Lewis to offer a paraphrase of lines 7-8, using his idea that right and wrong are verbs. I'm having a difficult time with that reading. Yours, Bill Godshalk P.S. to Greening Pier Lewis says, "I particularly like her [i.e. Everett's] point about the self-referentiality of the last line, which makes it into a sourly ironic joke like the one about Greene" (5.0634). I've been looking for that passage in Everett and can't find it. She does say, "Presumed perceptions of the real, like the last line of Sonnet 112's 'the world,' dissolve into a hole in the page: a disturbance faithfully registered by editorial emendation" (13). Is that the passage? If so, I miss the joke, so I gather there's something else. Is the ironic joke of the last line ("That all the world besides me thinkes y'are dead.") the idea that "all the world besides" means "in contradistinction to the rest of humans"? Thus, "in contradistinction to all the other people, I think you're dead." Is that the joke? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 10:23:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0645 Re: Character: Titles, Categories, and Milk Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0645. Monday, 1 August 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 29 Jul 1994 18:40:29 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Generic Expectations and Titles (5.0643) (2) From: Scott Crozier Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 18:35:56 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0643 Re: Character: Milk and Titles (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 30 Jul 1994 18:04:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Categories (4) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Friday, 29 Jul 1994 21:16:04 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0643 Re: Character: Milk and Titles (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 29 Jul 1994 18:40:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Generic Expectations and Titles (5.0643) Thomas Ellis makes some good points in his recent comment on David Schalkwyk's question about titles. But how serious is his label for comedies: NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY? Don't we always laugh at things we take seriously? Isn't comedy based on very serious tensions and conflicts in society (or culture if you wish)? I'd says "yes" to both questions. Which leads me to another question about generic expectations. I've heard scholars say that they must determine the genre in order to interpret the text. And I've heard other (equally opinionated) scholars say that genre is meaningless to interpretation. Do playgoers really carry a big bag of generic expectations along to a play? One example: last night my 13 year old child and I went to see TAMING OF THE SHREW. When Jesse heard Katherine say she would be revenged, he believed that Katherine would kill Bianca at the end of the play. Or so he told me afterward. (Jesse has seen many contemporary plays, but this is his first experience of a Renaissance play). (1) Do I have a peculiarly dense child? (2) Will he acquire "generic expectations" as he grows older? (3) Might anyone who heard this play for the first time have a similar reaction? (If you answer yes to [1] you are in big trouble!) Yours, Bill Godshalk P.S. The production of TAMING by Fahrenheit Theatre Group (Cincinnati) was excellent. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 18:35:56 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0643 Re: Character: Milk and Titles In reply to Thomas Ellis's assertion that all the comedy titles signify: NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. I wonder at the worth of trying to group the plays anyway. Nevertheless, "Midsummer Night's Dream" may suggest frivolity to many but it was also the season of maypoles, and festivls which celebrated fertility and sexuality. The lovers may think that by leaving Athens that they are leaving the precinct of a restrictive court and thereby hope to have fun, but what awaits them in the forest, especially for Helena, is a tantamount to molestation. MND is fun but there is enough meat in it to make it more than a party pie! Regards, Scott Crozier (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 30 Jul 1994 18:04:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Categories Martin Mueller is right to be skeptical of category inclusion. Before we assert WHY certain fluids are categorized together in a certain culture, we should remember George Lakoff's discussion of women, fire, and dangerous things -- one category in one Australian aboriginal culture. With western eyes, this suggests that women are firey and dangerous, but, not so, Lakoff teaches us. We must learn HOW and WHY a category is constructed inside a certain culture. So if a certain alien culture has a category that links milk, mud, feces, and blood -- we say, "Ah, ha. They think milk is DIRTY." However, once we find the deep structure of the category, we find out that the culture has linked all dense liquids that are essential to communal life. (This is a culture of my own construction so don't ask for references.) My point is, following Lakoff, that categories are tricky things. And, as far as I can tell, all humans use categories to structure their knowledge, etc. Categorically yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Friday, 29 Jul 1994 21:16:04 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0643 Re: Character: Milk and Titles In re Mueller: Hottentots (Khoisan) equate Milk with feces and urine because in cattle the milk comes from approximately the same part of the cow's body. ELE ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 10:37:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump; Pericles; Hypertext Dissertation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0646. Monday, 1 August 1994. (1) From: Jim Serchak Date: Friday, 29 Jul 94 16:30:56 PDT Subj: Richard III's Hump (2) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Saturday, 30 Jul 1994 12:13:51 -0500 Subj: query: Pericles (3) From: Carey Cummings Date: Sunday, 31 Jul 94 18:34:35 EDT Subj: Hypertext (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Serchak Date: Friday, 29 Jul 94 16:30:56 PDT Subject: Richard III's Hump I'm currently working on an adaptation of Richard III at a directing workshop in Berkeley. We have arrived at an impasse regarding Richard III's deformities. Basically, two camps have developed within the group. One believes that Richard's deformities are primarily physical and range from hunchback, crippled walk, twisted face, etc... The other camp feels Richard's deformities are psychological in nature. We would appreciate any commentary regarding productions you've seen, directed or acted in. Also, any references to the historical Richard would help. Our production is slated for 8/22/94, so if you have a moment, please respond. Thanks, Jim Serchak San Francisco jrsn@pge.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Saturday, 30 Jul 1994 12:13:51 -0500 Subject: query: Pericles Dear SHAKSPEReans: In beginning to think about directing *Pericles* this fall, I'm out searching for good fodder for my brain. I am most interested in the play as storytelling (emphasis on Gower's role). I'm also quite interested in it as a fable of sorts (perseverence wins in the end). I'd be most grateful for any suggestions as to critical works that might be an important read for me. Many thanks in advance. Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf College pinnow@stolaf.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carey Cummings Date: Sunday, 31 Jul 94 18:34:35 EDT Subject: Hypertext Help. I'm posting this message for a friend who is preparing her dissertation in hypertext. She is almost through and finds that UMI does not appear to take dissertations on disk or any media other than paper. Does anyone out there know of anyone doing similar work who may have gotten UMI to accept their work. Needless to say my friend, who is almost through with her work, is upset at the prospect of not being able to follow through on her project. SUNY Albany requires a copy of the dissertation for UMI and if UMI won't take it maybe SUNY won't either. While she is working out the politics does anyone have any advice that I can pass along to her. Thanks in advance for any help. As we on the fabulous internet know paper is passe. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Aug 1994 10:41:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0647 Oregon Shakespeare Festival 1995 Season Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0647. Monday, 1 August 1994. From: Robert Teeter Date: Saturday, 30 Jul 1994 15:51:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 1995 Season, Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland) The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland) has announced its 1995 season. Elizabethan Stage (outdoors) Macbeth Richard II Merry Wives of Windsor Angus Bowmer Theater (indoors) Twelfth Night The season runs from February to October (outdoors June to October). For more information, write or call OSF P.O. Box 158, 15 S. Pioneer Ashland, OR 97520 (503) 482-4331 If you want to know about the non-Shakespearean plays or ask other questions about the festival, e-mail me. I have no connection with the festival except as a long-time (mostly) satisfied customer. Robert Teeter San Jose, Calif. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 07:52:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0648 Re: Richard's Hump and *Pericles* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0648. Monday, 1 August 1994. (1) From: Chris Ivic Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 13:13:32 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 16:14:23 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump (3) From: A. G. Bennett Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 15:25 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump (4) From: William Kemp Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 15:51:16 EDT Subj: Re: Richard's Hump (5) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 17:26:04 -0500 Subj: Richard III (6) From: Tom Loughlin Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 21:33:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump; Pericles (7) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 94 06:37:34 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Ivic Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 13:13:32 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump For an excellent discussion of Richard's hump see M. Garber's essay "Descanting on Deformity: Richard III and the Shape of History," in _The Historical Renaissance_ (eds. H. Dubrow and R. Strier). Garber reads Richard's physical and psychological "deformity" as an articulation of the disfiguring inherent in the writing of history. For references to the "historical" Richard see her endnotes. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 16:14:23 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump In reply to Jim Serchak, I would have to say that Richard's physical deformity leads to his psychological deformity. His rejection by his family (even his nephew has learned to laugh at him) and by his courtly society, whose demands for beauty are as great as those with which North American women are bombarded, he rejects both familial and romantic love. It is because he is unable to play a lover, that he determines to play a villain. Of course, Shakespeare was probably also appealing to a lower sensibility, that was prejudiced against the (even mildly) disabled, and would make a more direct connection between (for instance) his teeth growing in his head at birth, and his devouring of his family. Good luck with your production! Sean Lawrence MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A. G. Bennett Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 15:25 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump Just a quick note re: Richard's hump-- some interesting sources to look at might be the contemporary-ish portraits of Richard (in the National Portrait Gallery, I think, but many are reprinted in works and exhibition catalogues), which seem to hint at a slightly scoliotic shape. Josephine Tey does some interesting things with this in her detective novel/exoneration of Richard _The Daughter of Time_. Also, I've recently finished reading Antony Sher's book _Year of the King_, in which he describes the events leading up to his performance of Richard for the RSC in 1984 (I think). Not only is the book wonderfully amusing and an interesting look into the backstage world of life in the RSC, but Sher seems to have pondered similar kinds of issues that you mention in your post. Just my tuppence'orth-- break a leg! Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Kemp Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 15:51:16 EDT Subject: Re: Richard's Hump Actors and directors weighing the physical and psychological dimensions of Richard's deformities should study the relevant scenes in Neil Simon's THE GOODBYE GIRL carefully. Shakespeare's Richard is both physically and psychologically deformed, his physical abnormalities expressing his moral ones. As far as we know, the historical Richard was physically normal. Saccio's SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH KINGS is a good, quick introduction to differences between Shakespeare's histories and "true" history. The attraction of the play, of course, is that Richard is a charming and audacious monster. The best production I've seen (with Stacy Keach at the Folger) encouraged the audience's ambivalence about Richard. The less interesting (and less enjoyable) productions metaphorized Richard into a power-hungry fascist or victim of prejudice and ostracism. Bill Kemp wkemp@s850.mwc.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 17:26:04 -0500 Subject: Richard III I've only seen two Richards--Olivier's film and Ian McKellen on tour several summers ago. Olivier is dramatic, compelling, and definitely humped; McKellen was much more subtle--the left side of his body appeared to be slightly paralyzed, and he couldn't use his left hand at all, but there was no conspicuous "deformity." What he did with his body language was nothing short of amazing--clearly here was someone who had come to terms with his physical problem and went on to "glory" nonetheless. The psychological subtlety reflected the physical manifestation: a very powerful performance. Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Loughlin Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 21:33:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump; Pericles To Jim, I don't know why anyone would argue that R3's deformities are anything but physical.. He's called a "poisonous bunch-backed toad" by at least one other character, either in R3 or 3H6, and in his first soliloquy in R3 describes himself as "deformed, unfinished,...scarce half made up." I can't recall a single performance by anyone who has not played the role with some sort of physical deformity, either a withered arm or a hunchback or both. I'm sure the more literary types will cite the historic references, as WS usually followed Holinshed closely. I'm very curious to know why anyone thinks the deformities are not physical but psychological. WS was not a writer of psychological realism; when he wanted you to know something he wrote it flat out. To Tim Pinnow, Two years ago (1992) in one of the summer issues of American Theatre, there was a good article about *Pericles* in several productions around the country. For some reason *Pericles* was very popular that summer. I knew of at least four different productions, including the one we did that summer at the Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival. (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 94 06:37:34 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump Jim Serchak raises the question about Richard's deformity as either psychological or physical (sorry for the simplification here). You might have a lot of fun and also get some valuable tools for rehearsing the play be looking back at the earliest printed texts, Q1 and F, not just of RICHARD III but especially 3 HENRY VI. At the end of 3.2, there's the wonderful soliloquy for Richard where he outlines his reasons for seeking the crown. Following earlier traditions, Olivier jobbed it into the opening of his RICHARD III movie. In the Q text, Richard gives psychologically valid explanations for his ferocity, but they are laid out in elegantly rational discourse, like a recipe for a freshman composition. In the Folio version, the same argument or plot for the speech happens, but here it reads like a script for a horror movie. Psychological rationalities erupt as nightmarish projections of self-hatred and mutilation. Wheeee! Throughout 3 HENRY VI references by Richard to his own troubled inner life appear only in the later text. Whoever was responsible for the changes, they show that some very thoughtful folks were looking at the same issues in the 1590s that you are concerned with in the 1990s. Now we just have to find ways to encourage today's readers, actors, and directors to lay their hands on those early texts. By the way, at least some of the debate about CHARACTER smoking through the SHAKSPER net might be illuminated or at least annotated by looking at how the alternative scripts of early plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, etc., shape and reshape the words and actions for players. A critter in motion tells more about its goals and organizing principles than that same critter stopped in time, even if that time were a very propitiously chosen moment. Into the heat of the day, Steve Urkowitz SURCC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 08:38:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0649 Re: Sonnet 112 (Greening); Milk Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0649. Tuesday, 2 August 1994. (1) From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 10:43:53 -0600 (CST) Subj: S.112 (2) From: Martin Mueller Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 15:03:12 -0500 Subj: Milk (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 10:43:53 -0600 (CST) Subject: S.112 I offer the following in the hope that it will go at least part of the way toward answering Bill Godshalk's questions. My first response to Everett's essay was simple delight at finding an exception to the rule about contemporary reference: Shakespeare never refers (directly at least) to any person of his own time, except for the reference to Marlowe in AYLI and now this one to Greene in S.112. Then I noticed that the pun on 'greene' enriches both the line and the poem as a whole by complicating the relationship between the speaker and spoken-to, the 'I' and the 'you'. Everett's gloss, "With you as a lover, who needs Greene?" gets it about right, it seems to me. The rest of her essay extends and amplifies this insight: that for this poet at least, love cannot be simple or clear or direct. It is an important essay, it says something important not only about this sonnet but, by implication, about the sonnets as a whole, and we should not allow ourselves to be put off or distracted by the occasional obscurity of her prose. The difficulty of this sonnet, Everett says, is related to the difficulty of its subject: the doubleness and duplicity, ironies and ambiguities of love which can connect us to others or isolate us from them, shrinking or enlarging the boundaries of our social worlds. (Some of the other reviews in this issue of TLS explore this subject also.) Love can be a consuming passion and it can consume us, the beloved as well the lover. Any time you make another your all-in-all you run certain risks: the obvious risk of betrayal, the not so obvious risk that one of you will be obliterated, absorbed by the other. That's what the joke in the last line is about. "You are my All the world," says the speaker of this sonnet, so who else should he hear his shames and praises from? Yet the word 'shames' jars us slightly: should we expect, as a matter of course, to be shamed as well praised by those we love? Perhaps: if you make your beloved your all-the-world, you give her or him absolute power and must expect that it will be used, sometimes well, sometimes badly, which is the way it is with power. That is the lesson that the speaker "strives" to learn for he can't make the other his "All the world" unless he does: "You are my All the world, and [therefore] I must strive to know my shames and praises from your tounge [alone]." It is not an easy lesson to learn, however; it takes self- discipline, he has to work at it. So the next line repeats the lesson, dutifully: "None else to me, nor I to none alive" and here's where things get really tough because in order to narrow the world down to a single person he has to shrug off his responsibilities, obligations, duties to everyone else--all those whom, in the normal, natural, changing course of life, he (like everyone else) rights or wrongs i.e. treats justly or unjustly, which is everyone, all the world. In particular, he not only has to turn away from his other friends and associates but he has to accept the fact that by doing so, by hardening (i.e. steeling) himself towards them, he will be injuring some and helping others. I admit that this is not an entirely satisfactory reading of lines 7 & 8 but it's the only way I can make sense of them. And the rest of the poem follows from it. For if you've made up your mind that no one but your beloved matters, you inhabit a moral abyss where no other voice can reach you and you become deaf to the needs, claims, pleas of others. We don't need to know that "Adders sence" may derive from the deaf asp of Psalm 58 to know that this is not a good place to be, but it does have its advantages: what a blessing to find oneself suddenly deaf to critics and flatterers! Everett glosses the next line, "Marke how with my neglect I doe dispence", as "Watch me getting out of my neglect of you" (or "your neglect of me") but I don't see how that can be quite right. This laconic instruction faces both ways: back, over the way the speaker has managed to distribute his neglect of others' voices so as NOT to have to hear his critics and flatterers, and forwards to the last, ironic twist of the poem's central conceit in the final couplet: far from being consumed by love, the speaker has so thoroughly consumed his beloved who has become virtually a part of him, that he or she has simply disappeared and is no 'greene' is the first indication that this lover--Shakespeare, we presume--is a sleight-of-hand-man who can quietly, coolly take back with one hand what he gives in seemingly passionate abandon with the other. Looking back over this laconic, difficult poem, we can see that it is, in part, a poem about not giving in to the all encompassing demands of love; about holding back and keeping a corner of the self in reserve; about a sort of duplicity, indeed, which is Everett's point. The pun on 'greene' is the first indication that this lover--Shakespeare, we presume--is a sleight-of-hand-man who can quietly, coolly take back with one hand what he gives in seemingly passionate abandon with the other. Piers Lewis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 15:03:12 -0500 Subject: Milk I must say that all my skeptical instincts about anthropological field reports come to the fore when I read that "Hottentots (Khoisan) equate Milk with feces and urine because in cattle the milk comes from approximately the same part of the cow's body."I am sure the Khoisan know that cows do not pee through their udders, and I also suspect that they see the resemblance between nursing babies and calves. So if in that culture milk is in some ways like feces and urine, I would suspect that in this culture people find it inconceivable that anybody but an infant would drink milk and the idea of an adult drinking milk of another species appears as in some way obscene. Or perhaps there is another explanation. I don't know the literature, but I expect the explanation to involve fairly complex ideas about milk as an appropriate food for non-infants. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 08:51:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0650 Qs: Shakespeare Graphic; London Housing Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0650. Tuesday, 2 August 1994. (1) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 16:01:23 -0300 Subj: Shakespeare graphic. (2) From: Sarah Werner Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 11:23:44 -0400 (EDT) Subj: London housing (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Monday, 01 Aug 1994 16:01:23 -0300 Subject: Shakespeare graphic. I remember a couple of years ago, someone found a GIF of Shakespeare's coat of arms through an Archie search. I can't. If someone would be kind enough to give me the FTP address for the site, I'd like to retrieve it. I think it might look good on a facsimile cover page. Thanks a lot, Sean Lawrence. MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Werner Date: Monday, 1 Aug 1994 11:23:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: London housing I have a quick housing question that I'm hoping someone on the list can help me with--I am moving to London in September to do research on Shakespearean acting for my dissertation. The accomodations I had hoped to set up have fallen through, and I'm now rather desperately looking for a place to live. If you know anyone who's looking for someone who's going on sabbatical and needs a house-sitter, or someone who has a room or flat to let, I'd love to know. I'm very flexible--anything from a month to a year is doable. As for location, near King's College would be ideal, but anywhere would be great. Any leads or suggestions about cheap places to stay while flat hunting would be wonderful-- Thank you, Sarah Werner University of Pennsylvania swerner@english.upenn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 12:50:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0651 Q: Directing *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0651. Wednesday, 3 August 1994. From: William Proctor Williams Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 94 19:05 CDT Subject: Directing *MND* Dear All, I am sorry for this omnibus question, and if I did not find this graduate student and high school teacher of more than usual ability I would not ask. He is directing an HS performance of MND in the autumn. What advice can you give him of what to do and what not to do? I have said the play is director and actor proof,--I would hate to be proved wrong. His name is Verry Sebold, but I believe he is not electronic so you can route your stuff through me. Use only the BITNET or FAX address at present. William Proctor Williams Department of English Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL 60115 bitnet: TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET Fax: (815) 753-0606 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 13:02:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0652 Re: Correction (S.112); Milk; Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0652. Wednesday, 3 August 1994. (1) From: Piers Lewis Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 1994 08:46:19 -0600 (CST) Subj: s.112 (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 1994 10:27:33 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0649 Re: Milk (3) From: Noel Chevalier Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 94 09:51:06 CST Subj: Generic expectations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 1994 08:46:19 -0600 (CST) Subject: s.112 [Below is a correction to Piers Lewis's posting of yesterday (SHK 5.0649). The following the is the correct version of the last sentence of the second-to-last paragraph. --HMC] This laconic instruction faces both ways: back, over the way the speaker has managed to distribute his neglect of others' voices so as NOT to have to hear his critics and flatterers, and forwards to the last, ironic twist of the poem's central conceit in the final couplet: far from being consumed by love, the speaker has so thoroughly consumed his beloved who has become virtually a part of him, that he or she has simply disappeared and is now considered dead. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 1994 10:27:33 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0649 Re: Milk In re Mueller: he would do better looking up anthropological texts on the Hottentots than spinning conjectures out of the void. My contact with the subject derives from a lecture in the Anthropology-Linguistics department at the University of Buffalo forty years ago. The speaker made the point that when, during the New Deal, reactionaries mocked at humanitarian aid to the Third World as providing "milk for the Hottentots," the reactionaries were (then as now) completely ignorant in their criticisms, because the Hottentots would reject milk with horror. To the Hottentots especially, of all peoples, the milk of animals came in the same category as feces or urine, because they considered that the udders of the beasts were very close to their cloacal regions. In this historical case, the mental regions of the reactionaries were (as they are now) also close to their cloacal regions. E.L.Epstein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Noel Chevalier Date: Tuesday, 02 Aug 94 09:51:06 CST Subject: Generic expectations In reply to Bill Godshalk's partially leading questions: I won't speculate on [1]--but your son's expectation that Katherine could kill Bianca is perfectly acceptable--and not just for a first-time *SHREW* watcher. I have always thought that WS plays with our sense of generic expectation, so that "comedy" and "tragedy" are, at many points, indistinguishable. Yes, I think we do carry a bag of generic expectations with us to plays, but the author reserves the right to frustrate those expectations in the course of unfolding the play. If *TS* were re-written as tragedy, Katherine's revenge could conceivably become main business of Act V. One problem with viewing any play is that we rarely get the opportunity to witness it without any prior information: posters, reviews, reports from friends, &c. all fill up that bag of expectations we carry with us to the theatre. If the play is one we are intimately familiar with, the bag is even fuller. An equally interesting question to me is, "Could *TS* still remain a comedy even if Katherine did take her *revenge* in the way your son expected?" And does the author reserve the right to extend the definitions of genre beyond what we as an audience expect? Keep in mind that Chekhov's *The Seagull* is labelled "A Comedy," even though the last scene of the play ends with Konstantin's suicide. Perhaps one reason why we go to so many different productions of familiar plays is that we secretly expect things to turn out differently each time (and I'm not talking about missed cues!) Exiting (without flourish) Noel Chevalier chevalie@max.cc.uregina.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 09:57:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0653. Thursday, 4 August 1994. From: Jim Helfers Date: Wednesday, 03 Aug 1994 15:42:44 -0700 (MST) Subject: Shakespeare and Computers I figured that for my first posting to this conference, I'd share some information and ask some related questions. First, the information. I'm presenting a workshop session on Shakespeare and computers to a group of junior high and high school teachers during the Arizona Shakespeare Festival's InterACTive Shakespeare conference in Flagstaff on August 12. I've compiled as complete a list of Shakespeare programs on computer as I can, using both regular paper research tools and the Rice University Gopher list of Electronic Text Projects. Here are the programs I found, with as much information as I have: Orem, UT: Electronic Text Corporation, 1989. (Riverside Shakespeare bundled with WordCruncher software). Bureau Development, Inc. Narrations, music, pictures and footnotes. 70 works of Shakespeare included. CD-ROM, IBM and Macintosh. VTGA Publishing Studio. IBM Multimedia Publishing Studio, 1993. (Animation, sound). CD-ROM, IBM. Roanoke, VA: Quarto Software, 1993. IBM. Michael Mullin. Clifford Skoog. Munster, Germany: Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat, 1989. Clinton Corners, NY: Shakespeare on Disk, 1989. (ASCII files import into word processors.). IBM. Garden Grove, CA: World Library Inc. (Text and illustrations only. Includes read, print, search, and view illustrations functions). IBM. Michael Best. Intellimation Library for the Macintosh. Macintosh. Portland, OR: CMC Research, 1989. CD-ROM, IBM. Ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. New York: Oxford Electronic Publishing, Oxford University Press, 1989. World Library, Inc. CD- ROM, IBM. I've also come across indirect references to , the Shakespeare Project, Stanford, Eliot Sollaway, and U. of M. MediaText. Now the questions: Does anyone have a program to add to this list? Have any of you used any of these programs? If so, what's your opinion of the ones you've used? Please add any information I've left out or correct any errors I've made. Thanks for any help you can give me (and all those hardworking public school teachers). --Jim Helfers Grand Canyon University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 10:00:50 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0654 Re: Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0654. Thursday, 4 August 1994. From: W. L. godshalk Date: Wednesday, 03 Aug 1994 21:13:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0652 Generic Expectations I think Noel Chevalier's comments on our expectations of genre are excellent. Figures like Malvolio and Caius, who refuse to accept comic reconciliation, deny my expectations. But do they deny another auditor's expectations? Obviously, expectations are built up by previous experience, and since we all have different experiences, can a playwright rely on each auditor coming to the theatre with the same or even similar expectations? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Aug 1994 11:08:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0655 Searching SHAKSPER Using the DATABASE Function Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0655. Thursday, 4 August 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, August 4, 1994 Subject: Searching SHAKSPER Using the DATABASE Function SHAKSPEReans: Thanks to SHAKSPERean Terry Ann Craig, I can now give you directions on how to search the SHAKSPER's logs as one large DATABASE. First, send the following e-mail message, filling in the KEYWORD you wish without the square brackets, to the LISTSERV address, LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search [Keyword] in SHAKSPER Index /* For example, if you wished to see all occurrences of "Pericles," you would send the following message: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles in SHAKSPER Index /* You will then get back two things: an e-mail message that tells how the job went and the output file called DATABASE OUTPUT. You'll see how many hits there were in a list, a sort of index. The DATABASE OUTPUT for the Pericles search looks like this: Subj: File: "DATABASE OUTPUT" > Search Pericles in SHAKSPER --> Database SHAKSPER, 28 hits. > Index Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 000075 90/10/13 00:25 245 SHK 1.0075 New On-Line Shakespeare Resource! (247) 000118 90/11/21 15:37 54 SHK 1.0115 Shakespearean Spinoffs 000228 91/03/12 23:50 63 SHK 2.0082 More on "Shog" 000376 91/09/20 15:28 130 SHK 2.0230 Oxford Text Archive 000382 91/09/24 11:06 88 SHK 2.0236 Sample Files on the SHAKSPER Fileserver 000501 92/01/25 18:29 75 SHK 3.0023 Rs: Ohio/NY/Pen Prodns; Multiple Ariels+ 000536 92/03/11 23:49 146 SHK 3.0058 FREE PD Shakespeare Corpus 000628 92/06/24 16:11 373 SHK 3.0150 Request for Information for SHAKSPER Fi+ 000644 92/07/07 19:17 142 SHK 3.0165 Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival 1992 Sea+ 000743 92/10/17 20:37 50 SHK 3.0262 Shakespeare's Play-Crafting 000874 92/12/17 20:53 305 001014 93/03/03 12:54 315 001318 93/07/14 13:32 132 SHK 4.0429 Latest Re: *Cardenio* MS 001320 93/07/16 07:18 30 SHK 4.0432 Q: The Canon 001565 93/10/27 15:29 406 SHK 6.0676 Shakespeare Videos 001601 93/11/04 09:29 17 SHK 4.0716 Q: *Pericles* 001708 93/11/19 11:00 34 SHK 4.0821 Q: *Pericles* 001715 93/11/22 08:35 25 SHK 4.0828 Re: The Battle in *Pericles* 001716 93/11/22 08:59 72 SHK 4.0829 Re: Electronic Research and Texts 002058 94/03/05 11:06 96 SHK 5.0189 Re: Most Popular Play 002067 94/03/07 11:28 141 SHK 5.0197 Re: Transmission of the Quartos 002126 94/03/22 08:33 192 SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men 002325 94/05/26 09:25 62 SHK 5.0458 Qs: Late Romances; Curses and Cursing 002339 94/05/30 09:22 294 SHK 5.0472 Authorship 002366 94/06/05 23:20 108 SHK 5.0500 Re: Signed Shakespeare 002419 94/06/21 10:41 125 SHK 5.0551 Re: *Tmp.*; Helena; Character 002514 94/08/01 10:37 74 SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump; Pericles; Hypertext+ 002516 94/08/02 07:52 193 SHK 5.0648 Re: Richard's Hump and *Pericles* Then by sending the an e-mail message in the following format, you can get printouts of the particular digests you are interested in or for that matter all of the digests that generated "hits." // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search [Keyword] in SHAKSPER Print all of [Item number] /* Thus by sending the following to LISTSERV // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles SHAKSPER Print all of 2516 /* you will receive the August 4, 1994, digest SHK 5.0648 Re: Richard's Hump and *Pericles*, which consists of 193 lines. Similarly, by sending the following to LISTSERV // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles SHAKSPER Print all /* you will get a printout of all twenty-eight digests that generated "hits." You can also order several digest hits at the same time by sending a message like this: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles SHAKSPER Print all of 2366 Print all of 2419 Print all of 2514 Print all of 2516 /* Have fun and thanks again to Terry Craig. Hardy M. Cook Editor of SHAKSPER HMCOOK@boe00.minc.umd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 11:22:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0656 Re: Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0656. Friday, 5 August 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 1994 10:36:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0654 Re: Generic Expectations (2) From: Gareth Euridge Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 1994 13:12:52 CST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0654 Re: Generic Expectations (3) From: Rick Jones Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 94 14:22:01 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0652 Generic Expectations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 1994 10:36:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0654 Re: Generic Expectations Bill Godshalk asks how a playwright deals with the experiential heterogeneity of the audience. In much the same way as an actor deals with it, perhaps. I worked years ago in Scottish satirical revue with a director whose stellar ability was his excellence in getting scriptwriters and actors to provide what he called "levels". "It's verra funny," he would say in his Aberdeen accent, "but you need mair levels. We've got fishwives an' bank managers comin' tae this show, as weel as lecturers an' students frae the university, an' the sketch disnae get onto all their levels. An' Margaret isnae playin' the sketch tae a'o' them folks. When she takes the pie oot o' her oven, I want tae see how mony times afore this she's done the same boring thing. That'll get a laugh oot o' the fishwives an' an appreciation oot o' the students, most o' whom have mithers who make pies. The bank managers might be a bittie mair polite tae their wives, as weel. Noo, we can dae a'this withoot rewritin' the sketch, I think. If we rewrite it, it wid be affa *obvious*, an' we dinna want that. We want levels withoot havin' tae bang them ower their heids. So we dinna need mair writin the noo, just mair levels in the actin'." [ A glossary should not be necessary. ] Harry Hill Montreal (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gareth Euridge Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 1994 13:12:52 CST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0654 Re: Generic Expectations On the subject of generic expectation/assumption. I am currently teaching *Othello* and a particularly bright and potentially embarrassing student asked me about why Iago, Othello, switch so readily from prose to blank verse . . . in a discussion of *The Tempest* I had, cavalierly I fear, simply established the distinction between major characters and "low" characters. Could it simply be that in the epilepsy scene, say, Othello forgets to speak "poetically"? Do the other characters speak prose to Iago (mainly) because they consider him little more than a bluff (though terribly honest) soldier "little blest with the set phrase"? Ultimately, could anyone out there tell me precisely, or even vaguely, what we can assume when characters speak in verse or prose because it was with an inward cringe that I realized that my explanation to my student didn't really pass muster. Gareth Euridge geuridge@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rick Jones Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 94 14:22:01 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0652 Generic Expectations Noel Chevalier's contemplations of the nature of genre are interesting and cogent. I would add only (and I mention this advisedly) that generic definitions change with the times. I have come to believe that in pre-Restoration (or at least pre-Jonsonian) England, the term tragedy meant simply "somebody [important] dies"; comedy, "somebody [important] gets married" (or, as in _Shrew_), affirm their marriage). Are these over-simplifications? Sure. But they're also pretty accurate. No one denies that _Hamlet_ is a tragedy, despite several comic scenes and characters (oops... I mean "roles"). And many if not most of the comedies provide scenes that are very serious indeed. But neo-Classical ideals about katharsis and anagnorisis and decorum and purity of form had not yet infiltrated the mindset of playwrights, and generic distinctions seem to have been based on plot alone at least until the 1610's or '20s. Hence we can smile at the full title of _Cambyses_ (_A lamentable Tragedie mixed full of plesant mirth..._), but the play is ultimately termed a tragedy simply because the title character dies ("by Gods Iustice appointed"). Subsequent definitions of tragedy have changed the terms of the discussion: to structure, to the dramatis personae, to characterization, to whether the audience laughs, etc. So modern critics term _The Seagull_, _The Playboy of the Western World_, and _Crimes of the Heart_ comedies, although none is universally funny and none ends in marriage (_Playboy_ in fact ends in its negation). Finally, one is tempted to wonder whether anyone in Shakespeare's original audience really cared how a play was classified. Although I have my doubts about the romantic view that Shakespeare's audience represented a cross-section of the London population, I do suspect that the general audience response to any play might have been like that of Godshalk the Younger, devoid of any consideration of classifications. And of course to treat any audience as a monolithic entity is to invite Big Trouble. I am not suggesting here that questions of genre ought to be abandoned by modern scholars, or that the original audience ought to be the only determinant of a play's intentions and/or expectations. But I am uneasy at the thought of concentrating on Shakespeare, whether in terms of genre or socio-political attitudes or whatever, in relation to definitions which did not exist in his own day. In other words, it is reasonable to write feminist criticism of Shakespeare, but not to suggest that he had a feminist or anti-feminist agenda. Similarly, I don't see Shakespeare as either radical or reactionary on the subject of genre. He wrote plays; somebody slapped labels on them; those labels may not be in complete accord with our own understanding of the terms. So? Rick Jones strophius@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 11:30:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0657 Re: Directing *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0657. Friday, 5 August 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 1994 10:42:34 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0651 Q: Directing *MND* (2) From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 10:23:53 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0651 Q: Directing *MND* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 1994 10:42:34 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0651 Q: Directing *MND* Professor Williams, Not to quibble but no play is director/actor proof, least of all the works of Shakespeare. Difficulties in MND: Much of the languague between Oberon and Titania is complex and rich in metaphor and allusion. Uninformed, non-specific delivery of their scenes can quickly disengage an audience. The conflict between O and T must be a palpable one of power and a primal, carnal attraction (difficult at the high school level, raging hormones notwithstanding) as it is the engine to much of the frivolity in the forest. The mechanicals must never become cartoons. One must be very good to be very bad. The four lovers have an easier time of it, but the most successful productions find the humor and truth of the physical actions within the language. Gratuitous layering on of "schtick" detracts from their appeal. Puck, perforce, must be an actor (male or female) who can directly engage an audience. No small feat. Finally, many argue that the play does not start until the lovers enter the forest. Bringing the opening scene to life is always a challenge. Hippolota as a generic Amazonian is never enough. As with any good play there is never any one way to do it. Only and ever pitfalls and challenges of which to be aware. Please extend my wishes of a broken leg to Mr. Sebold. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 10:23:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0651 Q: Directing *MND* I have directed MND twice, with professional performers in 1985, and with students earlier this year. The play is not quite "director- and actor-proof." Any delicate thing can be damaged, and this play is a delicate thing indeed. My advice: Let the sublime speeches be heard. Get good performers who speak beautifully for Oberon, Titania and Puck. Make sure your lovers have exquisite comic timing. III,ii, a complex scene, mixes farce with real passion. Let the language and imagery guide you, even in the "Pyramus and Thisby" scene. This scene can literally have an audience in tears, if the actors don't condescend to it. Remember that the rude mechanicals believe they are doing their best. (Pace, those who rightly argue that one can not know what a fictional construct "believes". This is a useful note for performers, and intended as such.) Many productions cut or cuten the Oberon-Titania speeches. One may trim them, but don't undercut them with stage business that deliberately draws attention to itself, and away from the words. Many productions, including the otherwise intriguing ones of Peter Brook and of the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express used such business. I wish they hadn't.) Our production of *MND* played to many high schools, and the students (mirabile dictu) did indeed listen to the story of the mermaid on the dolphin's back. Good luck. I will be glad to respond with more detail if needed. David Richman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 11:51:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0658 Re: Shakespeare and Computers Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0658. Friday, 5 August 1994. (1) From: Tom Davey Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 94 22:28 PDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers (2) From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Friday, 5 Aug 94 10:05:52 +0100 Subj: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Davey Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 94 22:28 PDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers In response to Jim Helfer's query about Shakespeare programs on computer: I own a copy of _Karaoke Shakespeare: Macbeth_ from IBM Multimedia Publishing Studio (1993). But first my disclaimer. I'm personally acquainted with several of the contributors to the Voyager Company's upcoming hypermedia edition of Macbeth (for the Macintosh), and I've seen a demonstration of that program. The Voyager Macbeth (when it's released) and the IBM version are competitors. My version of the IBM Macbeth runs under plain DOS. It works fine for me in an OS/2 2.11 DOS session. It requires a sound card, CD-ROM drive, and VGA with 256k of video memory. The documentation is contained partly on the 3-page jewel case packaging, partly in a read.me file, and partly in help screens. There are no credits for the British actors who perform the lines. There are no sources for the illustrations (19th-century woodcuts?) that accompany the text version of some scenes. There is no provenance for the text, nor for the 2-minutes or so of spoken "Notes" that precede each scene. These notes are pitched at the high school level, and discuss one or two issues pertaining to the scene. The program operates in two modes: karaoake and point-and-click. The point-and-click mode accesses plain text. It includes proximity searching, printing scenes or saving them to floppy disk, and changing fonts for reading. A table of contents organizes the text by act and scene. The text has no line numbering. Proximity searching brings up a window holding the hits, from which the reader can jump to the hit in the text. The karaoke mode is a performance of the play using animation and sound. The karaoke function mutes the lines of one character for the reader to perform. A small text box (two or three lines at a time) scrolls in sync with the actors performing the lines. The speed of the scrolling can be slowed for practicing. The audio track includes sound effects like thunder and battle sounds. The animation is full-screen only when setting the mis-en-scene, usually with swooping and panning effects. A character's face appears in a window in the upper left. Only lips move. The British actors do a good enough job, but their work is harmed by the timing of exchanges. The rhythm of the turns is rather mechanical. My bottom line: this program's implementation is often crude. Navigation controls are rudimentary and ignore hypertext possibilities. Given the price (I paid somewhere around $70 direct from IBM) it seems impoverished with respect to learning resources. Licensing costs for the product were obviously nil. Actors learning parts would find this useful, but the price seems steep for that. Perhaps it is being discounted now. Tom Davey/UCLA (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Conn Liebler Date: Friday, 5 Aug 94 10:05:52 +0100 Subject: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers I have used with great ease the ETC Computerized Bookshelf/ Riverside/ Word Cruncher Complete works. It's permanently installed in my Macintoshes (desk and Powerbook both), and it's wonderful for cutting and pasting quotations into whatever I'm writing. With the Mac, at least, it works well as a handy concordance, using the "find" tool, within a given play or poem. Hardy Cook (inter alia) has mentioned a number of errata in this text, but I have to say that every time I've checked a line from computer-text to the printed Riverside I've found it accurate. Hardy, could you tell us where the errors are? Incidentally, it took a computer-maven at my university (Montclair State) to "un-crunch" the "WordCruncher" and put the texts into Mac-readable files. Not for the uninitiated, but well worth the effort (and a 6-pack) once it's done. I was sent a copy of the Quarto company's MND and ran it on a borrowed PC. It seemed to me a little too cute for university-level students, but I think it might be wonderful for junior-high/high school students, or intro-level college students just for fun, and to ease the anxiety of confronting THE BARD. As a committed MacUser, I won't be able to avail myself of these disks, should others become available, but I would recommend them to IBM users at the secondary level certainly, and at the university level as a fun study-aid. What's the story on the Oxford texts? Available for Mac? How much $$? Hope this has been helpful. Cheers, Naomi Liebler [Ken Steele, SHAKSPER's founder, compiled a list of the Riverside errors. You can obtain it from the SHAKSPER fileserver by sending the following one-line e-mail message -- GET RIVERSID ERRORS SHAKSPER -- to the LISTSERV address: LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET. Those interested in electronic versions of the text may also wish to order Ian Lancashire's essay, "The Public Domain Shakespeare," by sending the "GET LANCSHIR PD_SHAKE SHAKSPER" command to the LISTSERV address. This paper surveys existing electronic versions of the texts and discussing the upcoming Public-Domain, Old-Spelling, Electronic Shakespeare project of the Centre for Computing in the Humanities of the University of Toronto. The first volume in this series will be my edition of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS and A LOVERS COMPLAINT. I have also appended below the complete list of files available from the fileserver. --HMC] The Current Contents of the SHAKSPER Fileserver ----------------------------------------------- Updated August 1, 1994 File Package for New Members: ------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWMEMBR PACKAGE Order this file to receive the entire package (including several recent logbooks and recent biography files). SHAKSPER GUIDE The Information Manual for members of SHAKSPER. SHAKSPER MEMBERS Current list of all SHAKSPER members and their electronic addresses. SHAKSPER FILES A descriptive listing of the SHAKSPER Fileserver's contents (this file). DISCUSS INDEX_1 An index to the first year's discussions on SHAKSPER. DISCUSS INDEX_2 An index to the second year's discussions on SHAKSPER. DISCUSS INDEX_3 An index to the third year's discussions on SHAKSPER. DISCUSS INDEX_4 An index to the fourth year's discussions on SHAKSPER. DISCUSS INDEX_5 An index to the fifth year's discussions on SHAKSPER. Member Biography File(s) and Retrieval Program: ------------------------------------------------------------------- BIOGRAFY PACKAGE Order this file to receive the complete package. SHAKSPER BIOGRAFY The first file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-00 BIOGRAFY The second file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-01 BIOGRAFY The third file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-02 BIOGRAFY The fourth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-03 BIOGRAFY The fifth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-04 BIOGRAFY The sixth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-05 BIOGRAFY The seventh file of SHAKSPER member bigraphies. SHAKS-06 BIOGRAFY The eight file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-07 BIOGRAFY The ninth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-08 BIOGRAFY The tenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-09 BIOGRAFY The eleventh file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-10 BIOGRAFY The twelfth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-11 BIOGRAFY The thirteenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-12 BIOGRAFY The fourteenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-13 BIOGRAFY The fifteenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-14 BIOGRAFY The sixteenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-15 BIOGRAFY The seventeenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-16 BIOGRAFY The eighteenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-17 BIOGRAFY The nineteenth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-18 BIOGRAFY The twentieth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-19 BIOGRAFY The twenty-first file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-20 BIOGRAFY The twenty-second file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-21 BIOGRAFY The twenty-third file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-22 BIOGRAFY The twenty-fourth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-23 BIOGRAFY The twenty-fifth file of SHAKSPER member biographies. SHAKS-24 BIOGRAFY The twenty-sixth file (in progress). BIOGRAFY EXEC A CMS retrieval program for the SHAKSPER biography files, by Jim Coombs. BIOGRAFY HELPCMS A help file for the CMS biography program. Network Resources of Interest: -------------------------------------------------------------------- CHOICE REVIEWS Valuable information on accessing CHOICE (Current Reviews for College Libraries) book reviews via Internet and the University of Colorado's CARL system. INTERNET TEXTBASE How to access the Shakespeare-on-Disk textbase via Internet at Dartmouth. HUMBUL ANNOUNCE Description and instructions for accessing HUMBUL, the Humanities Computing Bulletin Board. Network Conferences: -------------------------------------------------------------------- NETWORK LISTS An annotated listing, with recommendations, of Bitnet and Internet discussion groups of relevance to SHAKSPEReans. SHAKSPER ANNOUNCE An introduction to the SHAKSPER Conference, and instructions on becoming a member. [This file is available for redistribution.] FICINO ANNOUNCE An introduction to the FICINO Bitnet seminar, operated by the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies (CRRS), Toronto. Also includes a membership application form. ANSAXNET ANNOUNCE An introduction to the ANSAX-L Seminar, dedicated to discussion of Anglo-Saxon research, and instructions on becoming a member. REED-L ANNOUNCE An introduction to the Records of Early English Drama project's Bitnet seminar, REED-L, and instructions on becoming a member. EXLIBRIS ANNOUNCE ExLibris, the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Electronic Discussion Group. Reference Files: -------------------------------------------------------------------- DIRECTRY INSTITUT A directory of Shakespearean institutes, organizations, journals, and libraries. Additions welcome. RIVERSID ERRORS A listing of errors in the Electronic Text Corporation WordCruncher Riverside Shakespeare compiled by Ken Steele. Additions welcome. WATERLOO TEXTBASE Detailed information supplied by the Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary, at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. The project combines the Oxford University Press electronic Complete Works of William Shakespeare (modern spelling) with the retrieval software prepared for the generation of the New OED. SPINOFF BIBLIO A bibliography of poems, novels, plays, and films inspired by Shakespeare's life and works. Begun by Lawrence Schimel; updated by Hardy Cook. Additions welcome. CHARACTR BIBLIO A bibliography of works in which Shakespeare figures as a character. Begun by Lawrence Schimel; updated by Hardy Cook. Additions welcome. MONSTERP SPINOFF A Sesame Street "Monsterpiece Theatre" version of *Hamlet* with Mel Gibson. MILTONQ REVIEWS A list of recent books received for review by Milton Quarterly, especially books of relevance to Shakespeare and Renaissance studies. Scholarly Papers: -------------------------------------------------------------------- Cacicedo, Al. "Private Parts" Preliminary notes for an essay on gender identity in Shakespeare. (PRIVATE PARTS) Cook, Hardy M. "Two *Lear*s for Television: An Exploration of Televisual Strategies." *Literature/Film Quarterly*. 14 (1986): 179-186. Reprinted in Bulman and Coursen *Shakespeare and Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews*, 122-129. (TWOLEARS FOR_TV) ---. "Jane Howell's BBC First Tetralogy:Theatrical and Televisual Manipulation." *Literature/Film Quarterly*. 20 (1992): 326-331. (HOWELL BBC) ---. "A Shakespearean in the Electronic Study." A paper. submitted to the computing approaches seminar of the 1990 SAA conference in Philadelphia. (ELECTRON STUDY) ---. Review of Janet Adelman's *Suffocating Mothers: Fantasies of Maternal Origins in Shakespeare's Plays, HAMLET to THE TEMPEST* (New York and London: Routledge, 1992). *Shakespeare Newsletter* (42.2, Summer 1992, 29-30). (MOTHERS REVIEW) ---. "Valuing the Material Text: A Plea for a Change in Policy Concerning Selection of Reference Texts for Future New Variorum Shakespeare Editions, with Examples from the 1609 Quarto of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS." A paper submitted to the "Shakespeare's Sonnets: Mapping Uncertainty" seminar of the 1994 SAA conference in Albuquerque. (MATERIAL TEXT) Evett, David. "Remembering Death: Deathbed Scenes in Shakespeare's Plays and the Visual Tradition." Seminar Paper for Shakespeare and the Graphic Arts. 1994 Annual Meeting of SAA. (DEATHBED SCENES) Godshalk, William Leigh. "*Twelfth Night*: All or Nothing? What You Will, It's All One -- Or Is It?" (12NIGHT ALLONOTH) Green, Douglas E. "New-Minted Shakespeare: Old Currency in a New Classroom Economy." 1993 SAA seminar paper. (CLASSRM ECONOMY) Horton, Thomas B. (Thesis Abstract) A stylometric analysis of Shakespeare and Fletcher. (STYLOMET FLETCHER) Lancashire, Ian. "The Public Domain Shakespeare." Paper presented at 1992 MLA Session on Electronic Archives. (LANCSHIR PD_SHAKE) Lakowski, Ramuald I. "The Misogyny of Richard III in More's History of King Richard III and Shakespeare's King Richard the Third." (MORESHAK RICHARD3) Lamonico, Michael. "Teaching Shakespeare with a Computer" and "Seek Me Out By Computation." (COMPUTER TEACHING) Loughlin, Thomas W. "Shakespeare by Mail: An Experience in Distance Learning Using Electronic Mail." (LEARNING BY_EMAIL) McKenzie, Stanley D. "The Prudence and Kinship of Prince Hal and John of Lancaster in 2 Henry IV." (PRUDENCE KINSHIP) Matsuba, Stephen. "`The Cunning Pattern of Excelling Nature': Literary Computing and Shakespeare's Sonnets." A paper presented at the ALLC/ICCH conference, "The Dynamic Text," Toronto Canada, June 1989. (COMPUTER SONNETS) Oliveira, Marta. "Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXIII and Love." (SONNET73 AND_LOVE) Schneider, Ben Ross. "Granville's Jew of Venice (1701): A Close Reading of Shakespeare's Merchant." (GRANVILL JEW_OF_V) Shand, G.B. Skip. "Queen of the First Quarto." Performance-oriented study of the Queen in the first Quarto *Hamlet*. Abstract: SHAND ABSTRACT SHAKSPER Paper: HAMLETQ1 QUEEN SHAKSPER Steele, Kenneth B. "Vowing, Swearing, and Superpraising of Parts: Petrarch and Pyramus in the Woods of Athens." Paper delivered at the 14th Annual Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Villanova, Pennsylvania, September 1989. (PETRARCH PYRAMUS) ---. "`This Falls Out Better Than I Could Devise': Play-bound Playwrights and the Nature of Shakespearean Comedy." An expanded version of a paper contributed to the ludic elements seminar at the 1990 SAA Conference in Philadelphia. (SURROGAT PLAYWRIT) ---. "'Leaden Contemplation': Ambiguous Evidence of Revision in Q1 Love's Labour's Lost." Textual study of passages of duplication in Q1 LLL. Abstract: STEELE ABSTRACT SHAKSPER Paper: LLL-Q1 REVISION SHAKSPER ---. "`The Letter was not Nice but Full of Charge': Towards an Electronic Facsimile of Shakespeare." A paper presented at the ALLC/ICCH conference, "The Dynamic Text," Toronto Canada, June 1989. (DYNAMIC SHAKSPER) ---. "`Look What Thy Memory Cannot Contain': The Shakespeare Electronic Text Archive." _Shakespeare Bulletin_ 7:5 (September/ October 1989): 25-8. (WCRUNCHR SHAKSPER) Strickland, Ron. "Teaching Shakespeare Against the Grain." A shorter version appeared in *Teaching Shakespeare Today: Practical Approaches and Productive Strategies*. Eds. James Davis and Ronald Salomone. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993. (AGAINST THEGRAIN) Urkowitz, Stephen. "'Do me the kindnes to looke vpon this' and 'Heere, read, read': An Invitation to the Pleasures of Textual/ Sexual Di(Per)versity." Paper presented to the 1991 SAA in Vancouver. (URKOWITZ RJ-MWW) Waller, Gary. "Teaching the Late Plays as Family Romance." (FAMILY ROMANCE) Public Domain Shakespeare Files: -------------------------------------------------------------------- SONNETS 1609Q A transcription of the 1609 Quarto of Shakespeare's *Sonnets*, contributed to the public domain by Hardy M. Cook. Untagged Version. SONNETS TAG1609Q A fully tagged text of the 1609 Quarto of Shakespeare's *Sonnets*, contributed to the public domain by Hardy M. Cook. Tagged Version. HENRY8 FOLIO1 A thoroughly tagged text of the 1623 First Folio text of Shakespeare's *Henry VIII*, contributed to the public domain by Thomas B. Horton. CORNMARK ERRORS Text of Thomas Hull's (1728-1808) adaptation of Shakespeare's *Comedy of Errors* entered from Cornmarket Press's 1971 facsimile, contributed to the public domain by Thomas B. Horton. CIBBER R3 Text of Colly Cibber's *Richard III* transcribed by Thomas Dale Keever. Scripts: --------------------------------------------------------------------- WIVES SCRIPT An adaptation of *Merry Wives of Windsor* by David Richman, prepared for the ARTSREACH program of the University of New Hampshire's Department of Theatre and Dance. "Shakespeare and the Languages of of Performance" Electronic Workbook: --------------------------------------------------------------------- PEFORM PACKAGE The PERFORM PACKAGE contains an Electronic Workbook record of the work of "Shakespeare and the Languages of Performance" -- an NEH Seminar that met at the Folger Shakespeare Library from September 1992 through May 1993. PERFORM PACKAGE SHAKSPER (Order this file to receive the entire package) PERFORM1 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The first part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM2 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The second part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM3 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The third part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM4 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The fourth part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM5 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The fifth part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM6 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The sixth part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM7 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The seventh part of the Seminar Workbook) PERFORM8 SEMINAR SHAKSPER (The eighth part of the Seminar Workbook) *Cahiers Elisabethains*: --------------------------------------------------------------------- CAHIERS INDEX Subject Index to the first twenty years of *Cahiers Elisabethains*, volumes 1 to 40 (1972-1991). The index was compiled by Angela R. Maguin and prepared for electronic distribution on SHAKSPER by Luc Borot. PC-Shakespeare Hypertext Demo: --------------------------------------------------------------------- PCSHAK PACKAGE Order this file to receive all 26 UUencoded files of the PC-Shakespeare Hypertext demo program for the IBM PC and compatibles. Demo includes the complete text of six history plays (1H4, 2H4, H5, H8, KJ, R2). PCSHAK INFO A plain text file describing PC-Shakespeare and explaining how to UUdecode and decompress the executable files. Also includes ordering information for the complete works in hypertext. PCSHAK1 UUE PCSHAK24 UUE Twenty-four UUencoded files which can most easily be requested as PCSHAK PACKAGE. (If you lose one file, they can be ordered individually.) Oxford Text Archive Information and Sample Texts: --------------------------------------------------------------------- OTA PACKAGE Order this file to receive the complete package OXFORD ARCHIVE Medieval & Renaissance English electronic texts available from the Oxford Text Archive, and details regarding sources and formats. (Updated October 25, 1990) OXFORD BROCHURE A general introduction to the Oxford Text Archive, accompanied by ordering forms and ordering information. SHAKSPER TEXTLIST The latest information on the origin of Shakespearean texts available from the Oxford Text Archive. SPECIAL OFFER A very special offer: you can order *all* of the quarto and folio texts of Shakespeare from the Oxford Text Archive for only $90. Order form and instructions included. Sample Quarto Comedies: ----------------------- LLLQ1 SAMPLE Love's Labour's Lost Q1 - 1598 MAANQ1 SAMPLE Much Ado About Nothing Q1 - 1600 MSNDQ1 SAMPLE A Midsummer Night's Dream Q1 - 1600 MVQ1 SAMPLE The Merchant of Venice Q1 - 1600 MWWQ1 SAMPLE The Merry Wives of Windsor Q1 - 1602 Sample Quarto Histories: ------------------------ CONTENTN SAMPLE The First Part of the Contention (2H6) Q1 - 1594 1H4Q1 SAMPLE Henry IV Part 1 Q1 - 1598 2H4Q1 SAMPLE Henry IV Part 2 Q1 - 1600 EDWARD3 SAMPLE Edward III H5Q1 SAMPLE Henry V Q1 - 1600 HENRY5Q1 SAMPLE Henry V Q1 - 1600 (Different Tagging) R2Q1 SAMPLE Richard II Q1 - 1597 R3Q1 SAMPLE Richard III Q1 - 1597 TRUETRAG SAMPLE The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (3H6) - 1595 Sample Quarto Tragedies: ------------------------ HAMLETQ1 SAMPLE Hamlet Q1 - 1603 HAMLETQ2 SAMPLE Hamlet Q2 - 1604 KLQ1 SAMPLE King Lear Q1 - 1608 OTHQ1 SAMPLE Othello Q1 - 1622 RJQ1 SAMPLE Romeo and Juliet Q1 - 1597 RJQ2 SAMPLE Romeo and Juliet Q2 - 1598 TCQ1 SAMPLE Troilus and Cressida Q1 - 1609 TITUSQ1 SAMPLE Titus Andronicus Q1 - 1594 Sample Poems & Romances: ------------------------ 2NKQ1 SAMPLE The Two Noble Kinsmen Q1 - 1634 PERICLES SAMPLE Pericles Q1 - 1609 POEMS SAMPLE Shakespeare's Poems SONNETS SAMPLE Shakespeare's Sonnets PILGRIM SAMPLE The Passionate Pilgrim Corrections for the Oxford Text Archive Files: ---------------------------------------------- OTALLLQ1 CORRECTN Corrigenda for Q1 Love's Labour's Lost - k.s. OTALLLF1 CORRECTN Corrigenda for F1 Love's Labour's Lost - k.s. SHAKSPER Monthly Logbooks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- All conference transmissions are automatically logged by ListServ in rather mechanically-named monthly notebooks. 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For further information, consult the appropriate section of your SHAKSPER GUIDE, or contact the editor, or . ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 12:05:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0659 Re: R's Hump; OJ Shrew; Thanks; Greening (S.112) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0659. Friday, 5 August 1994. (1) From: John C. Mucci Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 1994 14:54:33 -0400 Subj: Richard's Hump (2) From: Kate Caldwell Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 94 10:28:34 MDT Subj: The OJ Version of The Shrew (3) From: Terrance Kearns Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 94 20:34:13 CST Subj: Thanks (4) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 1994 21:56:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0649 Re: Sonnet 112 (Greening) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John C. Mucci Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 1994 14:54:33 -0400 Subject: Richard's Hump There is an excellent article in a 1984 *Smithsonian* by Robert Wernick titled "After 500 Years, Old Crookback can still Kick Up a Fuss," which thrashes the idea about of a deformed/not-deformed Richard with examples given from many sources. Apparently there is a Richard III Society in the UK which has 3,000 members, and which works "indefatigably to put up plaques and statues in his name and win a fair hearing for their hero everywhere," believing Richard has been maligned in actions as well as physical description. Says Wernick, "one of the few things that seem reasonably certain about Richard is that he was not deformed. The hunchback, the withered arm, the malignant face, the twisted dwarfish body were all inventions of Tudor propagandists. The only contemporary reference to anything odd about his appearance was one statement that his right shoulder was higher than his left." Of course, dramatists have one of their most effective uses of displaying the internal goings-on of a character through external devices such as body-shape or affliction, and as such Shakespeare's Richard III can be anything the writer wished. It is the *choice* of physical detail which is of interest. John Mucci GTE VisNet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kate Caldwell Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 94 10:28:34 MDT Subject: The OJ Version of The Shrew The recent messages about The Taming of the Shrew got mixed up in my dreams last night with news reports about the OJ Simpson case. The result was a dream in which Katherine is mentally and physically abused by a husband who keeps telling her he's doing it for her own good. In the final scene, Katherine is a quivering, bruised lump who fears her husband so much she submits to his most minute whim. An interesting interpretation and one I hadn't previously considered. Any thoughts? --A Kate who considers herself Bonnie Kate, not Kate the Curst (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terrance Kearns Date: Thursday, 4 Aug 94 20:34:13 CST Subject: Thanks Dear Prof. Cook, This is to thank you and Terry Ann Craig for the new DATABASE search function that has been added to the SHAKSPER list. Since subscribing to the list last spring, I have been one of the thousands of subscribers who have never posted anything but who have followed the exchanges with regularity and (I hope) profit. (I might say that, upon one or two occasions, Drakakis and Hawkes have sorely tempted me to enter the fray, but I've resisted so far). My current research interest is _Coriolanus_, and I've wanted to search the whole SHAKSPER archive for references to that play, but the pressures of my administrative duties have precluded doing that manually. The new service you've enabled has now allowed me to search for references to that late Roman tragedy, and I look forward to surveying the material tomorrow. You and Terry Ann Craig have rendered a great service to those of us out in the provinces, and I want you know that your work is appreciated. In addition, I hope that your institution appreciates the value of your contribution to Shakespearean studies around the world. With very best wishes, Terry Kearns [Thanks, and a slight correction. The Database Function has been available; it is just that no one quite could figure out how to use it. Now we all know. --HMC] (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 04 Aug 1994 21:56:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0649 Re: Sonnet 112 (Greening) I've been thinking about Piers Lewis's reading of Sonnet 112 (SH 5.0649), and I think it's a good reading. In fact, if you place it in the context of Shakespeare's (apparent) conflict with Greene, the sonnet makes sense. "For what care I who calles me well or ill,/So you ore-greene my bad, my good alow?" (112.3-4). Unfortunately, we don't have a complete and circumstantial 16th century account of Shakespeare versus Greene, and our narrative is pieced together with texts that allude and don't name names directly. And I can't be sure that the speaker, the lover of the sonnets, is Shakespeare speaking in his own voice. I'd rather take the sonnets as another of Shakespeare's fictions, a playful take off on ASTROPHEL AND STELLA and other heterosexual sonnets. I can't take the sonnets as the heart of Shakespeare's mystery. And if Shakespeare is not the speaker of the sonnets, the Greene reference would be more problematic -- though, of course, not impossible. As I was pondering the sonnet last night, I noticed the recurrent oppositions: "loue and pittie" (1), "well or ill" (3), "my bad, my good" (4), "shames and praises" (6), "None . . . to me, nor I to none" (7), "right or wrong" (8), "To cryttick and to flatterer" (11). The Beloved as "All the world" (5) is set against "all the [social] world" (14). And I wonder if "my steel'd sence" is set against "my Adders sence" (8, 10). And, of course, there is the opposition between "your tounge" (6) and "others voyces" (10). And in the final line "all the world" is set against "me." I simply throw this out as an observation at this point, and, since I haven't down my homework (beyond Booth), I don't know what others' voices have said about "Binary Opposition in Sonnet 112." I like Piers's reading of line 12: "Marke how with my neglect I doe dispence." I think the speaker's "neglect" is on public opinion, and as Booth points out "dispence" can mean "condone" or "disregard." But as Piers suggests, after I read the last two lines, the "neglect" seems to come forward and include them. And I wonder if the final two lines are an ironic put-down: the Beloved is so busy monitoring the lover, praising and blaming, that the world thinks the Beloved is "dead" -- and that fact excuses the lover. And if we do read the final lines this way, isn't the rest of the sonnet reversed in meaning? The lover is apparently praising the Beloved for the "shames and praises" that he receives from "your tounge," but actually he's pointing out what a drag it is to be so carefully watched and criticized by one's Beloved. And in the final words the speaker/lover turns the tables: "me thinkes y'are dead." Is the Beloved the "so profound _Abisme_" (9)? A real deep hole? Praise or blame? Yours in the ranks of the mesmerized, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 12:08:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0660 Announcement: Folger Institutite Seminar Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0660. Friday, 5 August 1994. From: Georgianna Ziegler Date: Friday, 05 Aug 1994 09:20:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Folger Seminar The Folger Institute would like to advertise the following seminar: "The O-Factor: Voice, Media, and Community in Early Modern England," a semester seminar at the Folger Institute This seminar will study the ways in which media including handwriting, printing, musical notation, pictures, and part-books for plays vary in registering the human voice. The seminar will further attend to early modern ideas about speaking and listening, discuss some recent forays into post-phenomenology, attempt an acoustical reconstruction of the Globe theatre, and argue about the political implications of hearing versus seeing. The seminar will meet Friday afternoons at the Folger Shakespeare Library, from 23 September to 9 December. For application information, please contact the Folger Institute at 202-675-0349. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 13:28:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0661 Re: Computers; Trains; Lines; Joyce List; *MND*; Greening Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0661. Monday, 8 August 1994. (1) From: James Harner Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 9:28:48 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers (2) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Friday, 05 Aug 94 15:14:25 EDT Subj: Train service to Stratford (3) From: Peter Paolucci Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 15:30:34 -0400 Subj: Prose & Verse (4) From: Lee A. Jacobus Date: Saturday, 06 Aug 94 16:36:01 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0429 Re: Character; Masks; Double-Casting (5) From: Scott Crozier Date: Sunday, 07 Aug 1994 18:54:01 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0657 Re: Directing *MND* (6) From: Piers Lewis Date: Sunday, 07 Aug 1994 08:23:42 -0600 (CST) Subj: S.112 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 9:28:48 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0653 Shakespeare and Computers An addition to the list: +World Shakespeare Bibliography on CD-ROM 1900-Present, edited by James L. Harner. Cambridge UP, 1995-. The first disk, covering 1990-93, is scheduled for 1995. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Friday, 05 Aug 94 15:14:25 EDT Subject: Train service to Stratford Since accurate train and bus schedules are apparently covered by the Official Secrets Act many of you will be as surprised as I was to learn that Thames Trains recently began direct train service from London's Paddington Station to Stratford-upon-Avon. Their trains cost considerably less than the old train/bus "Shakespeare Connection" via Coventry that even the RSC box office is still likely to tell you is the only way to get there. The earliest trains leave Paddington Mon-Sat morning at 9:18 and arrive in Stratford about 11:30. There are afternoon trains at 1:48pm and 4:50pm. For evening trains check a schedule. There are no trains to Stratford on Sunday, but there is a train back at 4:45 Sunday afternoon if you would like to stay over a weekend. (A new schedule goes into effect 25 September 94 that includes a train/bus combo for Sundays.) Weekday evenings you can catch a bus across the street from the RSC after the evening show that will take you to the 11:15 train, but you must take a bus all the way back to London on Saturdays if you miss the 7:33 train. The Thames Trains go via Ealing Broadway, Slough, Maidenhead, Reading, Oxford, Banbury, Leamington Spa and Warwick. At Reading they connect with trains from Heathrow and Gatwick Airports if you would like to go straight from the plane to the theaters. The cost from Paddington is 17 pounds for an Adult Day Return (8.50 for a child), 8 quid less than the old train/bus combo. So unless your trip to Stratford just wouldn't be complete without that twenty minute bus ride from Coventry ring Thames Trains at 071-262-6767 for details or pick up a schedule at Paddington station. As I said above, a new schedule goes into effect in late September. The bus connection from the theater to Stratford station is run by the same company that runs the bus from Coventry and the local scenic bus tours. For an additional 4 quid ( 2.50 child ) you can get the bus tour of the local sights, including Ann Hathaway's immortal thatched roof, added to your day return ticket. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Paolucci Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 15:30:34 -0400 Subject: Prose & Verse I was interested in Gareth Euridge's predicament which arose from explaining to a student that Shakespearean prose is (usually) spoken by lower characters and verse by social superiors. There are interesting parallels which also emerge in the study of Shakespearean language through syllabic meter. If the decasyllabic line is a norm, how do we make sense of truncated (9 syllable) lines or tumbling (11 syllable) lines or Alexandrines? Clearly, shifts in the *level of language* (prose, verse, blank verse) are like shifts in *syllabic counts* (ie) more often that not they both signal, indicate or mirror others kinds of shifts in *content*. Stylistic analysis must always, in the final analysis, be context sensitive (although empirical stylists would undoubtedly disagree with me). There are some strategies however, that might prove helpful in encouraging students to think about what they read. How many lines of prose/verse/blank verse (or decasyllabic, tumbling or truncated lines) does a particular character *normally* speak? What percentage of a character's lines are delivered in this (or that) particular way? Does the shift from one level of language (or syllabic count) vary in public or private speeches? does it vary according to whom that character is speaking? to what extent does the content have any impact on the style of delivery (do characters who tell lies abandon their normal mode of speaking?) Then of course there are plays like *RII* which is stylistically homogeneous because it is (almost) entirely in blank verse. Most "principles" of |stylistic analysis (gleaned from other plays and abstracted into generalities) have to go out the window in this play. In short, what I'm suggesting is that the *meaning* of shifts in levels of language (or syllabic stresses for that matter) can be determined by the established precedents that a) the characters themselves set as we watch them in different settings with different kinds of people or b) other characters around them set. *Meaning* comes through adherence to (and departure from) these larger patterns of speech in the individual character and in the play as a whole and of course, from what the larger issues in the play might be. Peter Paolucci York University, Toronto (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lee A. Jacobus Date: Saturday, 06 Aug 94 16:36:01 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0429 Re: Character; Masks; Double-Casting This is to Matthew Vail Smith. There is a Joyce list. One is Joyce@es. unizh.ch (Fritz Senn) and is the Zurich Joyce institute. Another is FWAke at Trinity College Dublin. Sorry, I cannot remember its address, but a search of the lists will give it to you. The Wake list is very busy and I ultimately logged off because I am not now working on the Wake and the listers were explicating it page by page. There is yet another Joyce list, but I do not have its address at the moment. Good luck. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Sunday, 07 Aug 1994 18:54:01 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0657 Re: Directing *MND* To Professor Williams, I have just directed a University production of MND and must agree with both David Richman and Arthur Pearson in their suggestions. I would, however, claim that the lovers are not the buffoons that some productions make them. We discovered the horror that Helena suffers in the wood; she came to woo and ends up being molested. The performance was uncut and ran for 3 hours and 20 minutes. The mechanicals, I believe, had integrity and during the performance of P & T's tragedy worked the tragedy rather than the comedy which naturally occurred through the staging. Oberon, Titania, Puck and the fairies were very sensual and to this end we doubled Oberon with Theseus and Titania with Hippolyta. The production was such a success (it sold out) that it will be restaged for the Melbourne Fringe Festival in October. Good luck, Scott Crozier (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Sunday, 07 Aug 1994 08:23:42 -0600 (CST) Subject: S.112 Here's some interesting information, for those of you who are hanging on every word of this discussion. Thom Gunn says (TLS, 7/29) John Berryman anticipated Barbara Everett, re the Greene- "ore-greene" connection, by almost 60 years, in "Shakespeare at thirty" (1935), reprinted in -The Freedom of the Poet_. Piers Lewis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 13:35:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0662 Qs: *Cymbeline*; Quotation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0662. Monday, 8 August 1994. (1) From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 05 Aug 1994 12:15 ET Subj: *Cymbeline* question (2) From: Orlando A Pabotoy Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 15:43:09 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Help (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Friday, 05 Aug 1994 12:15 ET Subject: *Cymbeline* question Actually this isn't a question so much about the play itself, but about an Elizabethan (?) notion apparently evidenced in the elegy for Imogen and Cloten: "Fear no more the lightning flash/Nor th'all-dreaded thunder-stone." It was believed that something solid or heavy accompanied lightning, correct? Can someone direct me to any references about this belief? Ellen Edgerton Syracuse University ebedgert@suadmin.syr.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Orlando A Pabotoy Date: Friday, 5 Aug 1994 15:43:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Help Hello all... I was wondering if there is anyone out there who will know which play this phrase is taken from. I have touche'd the highest point of all my greatness and from that full meridean of my glory I haste now to my setting, I shall fally like a bright exhaulation in the sky and no man see me more. A small clue would help me tremendously. Orlando A. Pabotoy. opabotoy@mason1.gmu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Aug 1994 13:47:10 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0663 Re: Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0663. Monday, 8 August 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Friday, 05 Aug 1994 15:07:29 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0656 Re: Generic Expectations (2) From: Marie Myers Date: Monday, 8 Aug 1994 07:17:13 -0500 Subj: Generic Expectations (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 10:42:11 -0500 Subj: a miscellany (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Friday, 05 Aug 1994 15:07:29 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0656 Re: Generic Expectations Isn't there some danger that spectators at contemporary performances of S, listening for generic or emblematic structures will be attempting to press S into cliche? ELEpstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marie Myers Date: Monday, 8 Aug 1994 07:17:13 -0500 Subject: Generic Expectations Rick Jones's comments on Noel Chevalier's posting prompt me to point out that "generic" does not inevitably point to "Genre"-based expectations. As audience, we don't bring along fixed and inflexible definitions for the kinds of entertainment we are prepared to see/hear. But clearly, we do carry the considerable baggage of generic expectations that we have acquired throughout our lives, from the knowledge that ice is cold to the expectation that the crotchety rich old guy is going to be the first victim. The thirteen year old may not have as many generic expectations as the adult (though I doubt that); the fairy tales we got with our first solid foods gave us what we need to understand "I'll be revenged." So while I agree that what we call genre is a convenient label not significant to our experience of a work, Noel Chevalier's point remains valid: Shakespeare gets a lot of energy out of using and abusing our generic expectations. Marie Myers chalc@chmrs6.chem.olemiss.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 10:42:11 -0500 Subject: a miscellany I have been teaching *The Merchant of Venice* and one of my students brought in a tape of the film *The Man Without a Face,* in which the title character, a former teacher played by Mel Gibson, uses the play as one of the texts in the tutoring project that provides the focus of the film. He does a wonderful reading of Shylock's "Hath not a Jew. . ." speech, but what I found most intriguing was that the lead in to the speech was Antonio's line, "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano / A stage, where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one." While this does a certain injustice to the play, it also provides an interesting perspective (especially since I see both Shylock and Antonio as men who lose what they most cherish by the end of the play). The film as a whole is quite good. In relation to a recent discussion on the conference, it occurred to me that *Merchant* doesn't fit our comedic category in terms of its title (since we just finished *A Midsummer Night's Dream* and are going on to *Much Ado,* this just leapt out at me). So why does this comedy have as its title a character (or role), even if not a named one? We do have a few other examples, of course, in *TGV,* *Taming of the Shrew, * and *MWW,* but this is rather interesting, especially given Antonio's central, yet relatively passive role in the play. Following up on the *Richard III* discussion: I always preferred reading historical fiction to history as a young person and find myself drawn back to it again (given our contemporary skepticism with regard to the accuracy of history, perhaps my predilection was an odd sort of prescience). Sharon Kay Penman's novel *The Sunne in Splendour* is a wonderful retelling of Richard's story that I read last summer; Shakespeare's version will never be quite the same. And, finally, a set-up-your-videorecorders note: Bravo is broadcasting the production of *Othello* done in South Africa with Janet Suzman directing this week, on either Wednesday or Thursday evening, starting here (Minneapolis, central daylight time) at 8 or 8:30 pm. Best to all, Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 13:24:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0664 Re: Quotation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0664. Tuesday, 9 August 1994. (1) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Monday, 08 Aug 94 14:24:00 edt Subj: RE: SHK 5.0662 Quotation (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 13:55:42 -0500 Subj: SHK 5.0662 quotation (3) From: Constance Relihan Date: Monday, 8 Aug 1994 14:12:05 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Quotation (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 21:31:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Henry VIII (5) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 9 Aug 1994 08:50:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0662 Qs: *Cymbeline*; Quotation (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Monday, 08 Aug 94 14:24:00 edt Subject: RE: SHK 5.0662 Quotation I have touche'd the highest point of all my greatness and from that full meridean of my glory I haste now to my setting, I shall fally like a bright exhaulation in the sky and no man see me more. Henry 8, III, 2, 224 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 13:55:42 -0500 Subject: SHK 5.0662 quotation *Henry VIII* 3.2.223-227 (from the Riverside edition). The speaker is Cardinal Wolsey: I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness And, from that full meridian of my glory, I haste now to my setting. I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more. --Chris Gordon (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Constance Relihan Date: Monday, 8 Aug 1994 14:12:05 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Quotation Orlando Pataboy's quotation is from _H8_ 3.2.223ff. -Constance C. Relihan, Auburn University (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 21:31:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Henry VIII The passage that Orlando Pabotoy is looking for is in HENRY VIII, 3.2.224ff. (Bevington ed.). It's Wolsey, but it reminds me of Richard II's sun imagery. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 9 Aug 1994 08:50:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0662 Qs: *Cymbeline*; Quotation Dear Orlando, The lines you're inquiring about are Cardinal Wolsey's in HENRY VIII (3.2.223-27), the Riverside edition. Nice speech, isn't it? Ken Rothwell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Aug 1994 13:47:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0665 Re: *Shr.* & Domestic Violence; Antonio & Shylock Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0665. Tuesday, 9 August 1994. (1) From: Stefanie DuBose Date: Monday, 08 Aug 94 12:33:07 EDT Subj: OJ version of the Shrew (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 21:51:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: Antonio and Shylock (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stefanie DuBose Date: Monday, 08 Aug 94 12:33:07 EDT Subject: OJ version of the Shrew In response to Kate Caldwell's question of OJ/Shrew: yes, I have seen the strong similarity between the psychological dynamics of domestic violence and the undercurrents between Kate and Petrucchio in Shrew. However, when I tried to discuss this in my graduate level class, only 1 other student agreed with me while my professor and the rest of the class (politely) snubbed my idea, arguing the comic nature of the play. . . .However, humor can be a method of distancing oneself from the horror of reality ("When was the last time you beat your wife??" comes to mind), and the renaissance was not known for the overall humane treatment of women. In fact, the law of thumb which stated that a husband could not beat his wife with a stick larger in diameter than his thumb stems from the British (when, I don't know but I will check on it if anyone is interested in this topic). I work with battered women and have studied the brainwashing tactics of domestic violence; the same tactics are more than apparent to me in TS. When I last read the play, I found many instances which could easily be interpreted as the subtle development of domestic abuse. My apologies for not being more specific; I need to look over the play to note the various examples and I have not done this yet. Regards, Stefanie DuBose (gpdblf@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 08 Aug 1994 21:51:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Antonio and Shylock I like Chris Gordon's comment on MERCHANT, though it remains to be seen what each of the old men cherish and lose. Shylock is dispensed with by the Christians in Act IV, and Antonio is put in his place by Portia in Act V. Shylock loses his religion, and a good bit of his capital; Antonio loses Bassanio as well as his hold over Bassanio -- if I can separate the two. And I suppose that Antonio and Shylock no longer have the bond of hatred that seems to bind them earlier in the play. Since Shylock has had Christianity forced on him, Antonio can no longer spit on him and kick him. Antonio loses both his love object and his hate object. Or does he? If Shakespeare had written a sequel to MERCHANT, would we find Antonio and Shylock in business together? Perhaps they argue over whose name goes first on their stationery. Do Antonio and Shylock finally realize that the passion that has bound them for so long is actually love? Does Bassanio sneak from Belmont to Venice to see Antonio? Does Portia really care? Tune in next week for the further adventures of your favorite merchants. Fantastically, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 10:20:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0666 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0666. Wednesday, 10 August 1994. From: Ben Schneider Date: Tuesday, 09 Aug 1994 14:00:50 -0600 (CST) Subject: Character Fellow SHAKSPERians: On July 18th, in reference to the topic of "character" I made the claim that if we were talking about Kwakiutls instead of Shakespeare, we wouldn't be insisting on the universal and everlasting human character. On July 21st Bill Godshalk rejoined that I was wrong to suggest that he and fellow universalist Pat Buckridge "drove a chevvy to the levee." Indeed (he went on) they fully realized that in minor outward things, like choice of beverage, Shakespeare and his contemporaries differed greatly from us but that they were essentially the same inside. On July 22, just for the sake of argument, I alleged that "Yes, Bill, I do claim that you and Pat Buckridge think Shakespeare drove a chevvy to the levee." I then claimed that, though it is now widely held that Shakespeare's Henry V is a cold cruel Machiavellian warmonger, he and his audience would have seen only his very great virtues. In support, I cited 16th-century authorities on conduct who thought war was good for the soul. I closed by suggesting "that as a corrective to our late capitalist ethnocentricity, we should be studying 16th century conduct books and their sources in antiquity (which is what I am doing)." Since then I have not been hiding as might be surmised, but incommunicado; partly in transit and partly out of commission. And very sorry I am to have lapsed until now. My remarks on Henry V did elicit some objections, and I am happy to be able at last to respond to them. Bill, I despair of convincing you of anything because you are a true believer--not that it appears I can convince anyone else, either. I wish you were more of a skeptic. Thanks for the benefit of your great erudition, in this instance and day by day. I will answer your direct communication directly. David Evett: I very much admire your social role theory. Pat Buckridge says you "conflate social types, which are not metaphoric." But you don't consider social types. Falstaff is a social type--braggart soldier--but his role is Troop Commander, and it is in this capacity that he is examined. Plutarch's declared project is the evaluation of each worthy's performance of his job, and I think Shakespeare's mind works the same way. Plutarch didn't leave us any comparison of Caesar and Alexander as generals, so Montaigne took it upon himself to complete the job, giving us an almost perfect rendition of the master's method. If we knew more about early modern standards of behavior for princes, we'd know better what _Hamlet_'s about. I agree with you also about Lear: a very astute discovery. Steven Marx claims (25 July), that there was a significant group of thinkers who had "strong pacifist sentiments"--Colet, Linacre, More, Erasmus and James I--documented by Robert P. Adams in _The Better Part of Valor_. I note that the work of these pacifists spoke largely to the self-glorifying wars of Pope Julius and Henry VIII, that it did not rule out wars of self-defense, and that the movement tapers off after 1535. Adams's book also documents just how strong the warrior ethic was. James I approved of "warres upon just causes" (Basilikon Doron) which is exactly the position of Henry V. In one sense Henry V and his father are pacifists--in their tactic of securing civil harmony by foreign campaigns. And Henry V makes peace by sharing the English crown with the French. Steven also cites as pacifists Williams and Burgundy in the play. Williams has a theological problem about those who die in a battle. Grotius, _Laws of War and Peace_, and Henry in the play give adequate answers to this question. The real point of the Williams episode is that Henry does not give himself up for ransom as Williams said he would, but puts his life on the line as he asks his troops to do. The episode also shows that Henry can forgive and even reward an honest man's doubts, as a good king should. Burgundy, in another of Shakespeare's anti-war speeches, is indeed most eloquent at the peace table, Henry IV having made a similar one at the beginning of part 1. But from the English point of view, France became the cause of these miseries when she usurped English territory. From a dramatic standpoint, Burgundy lays the groundwork for Henry's would-be everlasting peace to come, he dying too young to see it through. Remember I claim only that it would look like this to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Obviously it's full of holes from our point of view. Nina Walker (25 July) rightly chastises me for suggesting we should view Elizabethans as "anthropologically studiable groups" like Maoris or others radically unlike us--as if we are the norm and these are the others. Apparently one cannot speak of differences between cultures without opening oneself to the charge of prejudice. Like Montaigne, I tend to prefer the savages. But there is a human race, each member of which we consider equally sacred, however different he or she may be. Democracy argues for a common denominator of all humankind. But only by a sympathetic understanding of the differences between cultures can we settle the differences between them. I would suggest that there are always common denominators between cultures, but that they are not always and everywhere the same ones, like those Shakespeare is said to have comprehended in his genius. Yours ever, BEN SCHNEIDER ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 10:29:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0667 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0667. Wednesday, 10 August 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 09 Aug 1994 21:07:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: SHREW and the Rule of Thumb (2) From: Diana Rhoads Date: Tuesday, 9 Aug 1994 23:16:33 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0665 Re: *Shr.* & Domestic Violence (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 09 Aug 1994 21:07:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: SHREW and the Rule of Thumb I'm sorry that Stefanie DuBose brought up the rule of thumb which was hotly debated -- last year I think -- by other groups. Apparently "rule of thumb" did not originally have anything to do with sticks to beat wives, but meant what we always thought it meant: a rough and ready way of measuring (i.e., the width of the thumb equals about an inch). THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, obviously, deals with the abuse of Katherine. Petruchio deprives her of her name, sleep, food, sex, clothing, etc. As one of my students (a social worker) pointed out, today the police would have him in jail for attempted murder. But most students refuse to see it this way. Class after class vindicates Petruchio. "Well, he doesn't get any sleep either," one student told me. Another students said, "Petruchio loves her enough to want to change her." And so on it goes. And, I suppose what makes the play interesting is its ability of slip away from any hard and fast category. It certainly is not totally about the submission of wives since Kate hardly submits when she tells Petruchio that his mind changes even as the moon (i.e., he's a lunatic) and then soon after, upon meeting Vincentio, points out that it really is the sun, not the moon. And it's only Hortensio's entreaty that gets her to "voice" submission in the first place. She seems quite willing and able to fight on -- without food or sleep. And we have to remember that Katherine really is just a figure in a play, a play being presented to Christopher Sly, who is being brainwashed by the nameless Lord. Upper class privilege? You bet. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Rhoads Date: Tuesday, 9 Aug 1994 23:16:33 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0665 Re: *Shr.* & Domestic Violence RE: The "rule of thumb" as mentioned by Stefanie DuBose According to Christina Hoff Sommers (*Who Stole Feminism?*), the "rule of thumb" is a myth originating with two Southern judges who alluded to an "ancient law" allowing a man to beat his wife as long as the implement was not wider than his thumb. Sommers argues that there was no "rule of thumb" in British common law. She quotes Blackstone, who says that in the reign of Charles II a wife has "the security of peace against her husband." Sommers quotes, but does not point to, Blackstone's assertion that a husband "by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction." A man had to use "the same moderation...allowed to correct his apprentices or children." See pp. 203-07 of Sommers' book for Sommmers' whole argument and for the Blackstone quotation mentioned above. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 10:46:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0669 Re: Antonio and Shylock Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0669. Wednesday, 10 August 1994. From: Sean Lawrence Date: Tuesday, 09 Aug 1994 22:38:40 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0665 Re: Antonio & Shylock Bill: Don't forget to mention that Portia is really a man, spying on Venice's business class for their Florentine competitors. As a result, she'll probably want Bassanio to be close to Antonio, as a way of gaining information if she's unable to seduce him herself (or himself). Sean (I read too many conspiracy theories) Lawrence MAFEKING@AC.DAL.CA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Aug 1994 10:42:35 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0668 Re: The Bishop of Winchester Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0668. Wednesday, 10 August 1994. From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 09 Aug 94 22:21:49 EDT Subject: Winchester In two June posts regarding the character of The Bishop of Winchester in the *H5*, I plays raised some interesting issues about Shakespeare's uses of history. I accidently deleted the posts, but the first asked if Winchester had been as awful as he is portrayed and a reply pointed out that "Winchester geese" was a term for prostitutes and referred to the fact that the brothels in Southwark were located on land owned by the Bishop. In Shakespeare's day the name of the Bishop of Winchester was associated with the Southwark stews and Shakespeare draws on this association when Gloucester uses the term "Winchester goose" in his confrontation with the churchman in 1H6, i, 3, but I wonder if he's indulging in some creative anachronism. Southwark had a shady reputation dating back to the 13th century, but I think that its most disreputable industries, e.g. prostitution, taverns, theaters, etc, grew in response to London's staggering 16th century population explosion, a Tudor phenomenon caused largely by the upheavals in the agrarian economy sparked by the "privatization" of the monastic lands. The 14th and 15th century Winchester of 1&2H6, Henry Beaufort, was guilty of many things, but I wonder if whore-mongering was one of them. Does anyone else know when the prostitution industry got to be a major part of the Southwark economy and when it came to be associated in common jargon with the Bishop? Though "Winchester goose" is glossed by some as meaning a prostitute, Andrew S. Cairncross, editor of the Arden edition of 1H6, defines it as "a swelling in the groin, the result of venereal disease," and "one so affected." Can anyone out there resolve this? Shakespeare's Winchester managed to parlay his church position into the largest private fortune in the land, after the crown's, and made his money work for him. He does not appear as a character in HENRY V, but the military campaign that culminated in Agincourt was only possible because of the cash he was willing to lend, at a generous rate, to his nephew Harry. Though his friendship with Henry V had its ups and downs, it really isn't fair to say, as Gloucester does in 1H6, that his sovereign "ne'r could brook" him. His support for the crown, under both Henry V and his son, was unwavering. Shakespeare's artful blackening of Winchester shows how skillful he was at creatively "misreading" his sources even early in his career. He doctored the record to create a thoroughly villainous figure. Winchester was vain, ambitious, and ruthless enough and there were plenty of contemporaries who hated him, but it is safe to say he had nothing to do with Gloucester's death, if only because he had nothing to gain by it. Late in their lives they even seemed to be getting along a little better. Despite his preference for a negotiated peace Winchester backed Gloucester's final campaign in France with a loan - at interest, of course. Accounts of his last days by a source who was there give no evidence of the guilty deathbed torments we read in 2H6. Shakespeare learned early on that bad history could make good theater. Gloucester's taunt, "Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh..." does ring true, though. Beaufort was famed for the luxury in which he lived, and, though Shakespeare's references to lechery are exagerations that link him in the popular mind to his successors in the See of Winchester and their South Bank whores, he was hardly a celibate. He fathered at least one bastard in his youth and may have sired more he didn't admit to. The one he acknowledged would have been hard to deny - he knocked up Lady Alice FitzAlan, daughter of the powerful, and dangerous, Earl of Arundel. Their daughter, Joan Beaufort, was my 17th great grandmother. Beaufort is hardly the most admirable of my forebears but he's far from the worst. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 11:00:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0670 Searching the SHAKSPER Archives (Revised) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0670. Thursday, 11 August 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, August 11, 1994 Subject: Searching SHAKSPER Using the DATABASE Function (Revised) SHAKSPEReans: A week ago, thanks to Terry Ann Craig, I sent you directions on how to search the SHAKSPER's logs using the LISTSERV DATABASE Function. Jim Serchak noted that in two of my examples I had forgotten to include "in" as required. Below, you will find a corrected description of the functions I described last week with the addition of searching with Boolean operators and by dates. I hope you will find these additional instructions useful. ******************************************************************************* SEACHING THE SHAKSPER ARCHIVES First, send the following e-mail message, filling in the KEYWORD you wish without the square brackets, to the LISTSERV address, LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search [Keyword] in SHAKSPER Index /* For example, if you wished to see all occurrences of "Pericles," you would send the following message: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles in SHAKSPER Index /* You will then get back two things: an e-mail message that tells how the job went and the output file called DATABASE OUTPUT. You'll see how many hits there were in a list, a sort of index. The DATABASE OUTPUT for the Pericles search looks like this: Subj: File: "DATABASE OUTPUT" > Search Pericles in SHAKSPER --> Database SHAKSPER, 28 hits. > Index Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 000075 90/10/13 00:25 245 SHK 1.0075 New On-Line Shakespeare Resource! (247) 000118 90/11/21 15:37 54 SHK 1.0115 Shakespearean Spinoffs 000228 91/03/12 23:50 63 SHK 2.0082 More on "Shog" 000376 91/09/20 15:28 130 SHK 2.0230 Oxford Text Archive 000382 91/09/24 11:06 88 SHK 2.0236 Sample Files on the SHAKSPER Fileserver 000501 92/01/25 18:29 75 SHK 3.0023 Rs: Ohio/NY/Pen Prodns; Multiple Ariels+ 000536 92/03/11 23:49 146 SHK 3.0058 FREE PD Shakespeare Corpus 000628 92/06/24 16:11 373 SHK 3.0150 Request for Information for SHAKSPER Fi+ 000644 92/07/07 19:17 142 SHK 3.0165 Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival 1992 Sea+ 000743 92/10/17 20:37 50 SHK 3.0262 Shakespeare's Play-Crafting 000874 92/12/17 20:53 305 001014 93/03/03 12:54 315 001318 93/07/14 13:32 132 SHK 4.0429 Latest Re: *Cardenio* MS 001320 93/07/16 07:18 30 SHK 4.0432 Q: The Canon 001565 93/10/27 15:29 406 SHK 6.0676 Shakespeare Videos 001601 93/11/04 09:29 17 SHK 4.0716 Q: *Pericles* 001708 93/11/19 11:00 34 SHK 4.0821 Q: *Pericles* 001715 93/11/22 08:35 25 SHK 4.0828 Re: The Battle in *Pericles* 001716 93/11/22 08:59 72 SHK 4.0829 Re: Electronic Research and Texts 002058 94/03/05 11:06 96 SHK 5.0189 Re: Most Popular Play 002067 94/03/07 11:28 141 SHK 5.0197 Re: Transmission of the Quartos 002126 94/03/22 08:33 192 SHK 5.0257 Re: A Few Good Men 002325 94/05/26 09:25 62 SHK 5.0458 Qs: Late Romances; Curses and Cursing 002339 94/05/30 09:22 294 SHK 5.0472 Authorship 002366 94/06/05 23:20 108 SHK 5.0500 Re: Signed Shakespeare 002419 94/06/21 10:41 125 SHK 5.0551 Re: *Tmp.*; Helena; Character 002514 94/08/01 10:37 74 SHK 5.0646 Qs: Richard's Hump; Pericles; Hypertext+ 002516 94/08/02 07:52 193 SHK 5.0648 Re: Richard's Hump and *Pericles* Then by sending the an e-mail message in the following format, you can get printouts of the particular digests you are interested in or for that matter all of the digests that generated "hits." // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search [Keyword] in SHAKSPER Print all of [Item number] /* Thus by sending the following to LISTSERV // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles SHAKSPER Print all of 2516 /* you will receive the August 4, 1994, digest SHK 5.0648 Re: Richard's Hump and *Pericles*, which consists of 193 lines. Similarly, by sending the following to LISTSERV // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles in SHAKSPER Print all /* you will get a printout of all twenty-eight digests that generated "hits." You can also order several digest hits at the same time by sending a message like this: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Pericles in SHAKSPER Print all of 2366 2419 2514 2516 /* You can search using the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD Search Pericles OR Cymbeline Index /* Further, you can limit your search by dates: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD Search Pericles from 93/1/1 to 93/12/31 Index /* OR // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD Search Pericles since 94/1/1 Index /* Hardy M. Cook Editor of SHAKSPER HMCOOK@boe00.minc.umd.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 11:06:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0671 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0671. Thursday, 11 August 1994. (1) From: Christine Gilmore Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 09:52:06 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0667 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb (2) From: William Free Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 94 14:00:19 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0667 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Gilmore Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 09:52:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0667 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb In re: to Diana Rhoads' comment on The Taming of the Shrew and Domestic Violence of August 9th. I suggest that Christina Hoff Sommer's "Who Stole Feminism?" is not a sufficient source on this topic. It may well be true that this notorious bit of common law, the "rule of thumb" is nowhere provable, but I must question the motivations of the quoted "authority," who is a well-known anti-feminist feminist. She's a professor of philosophy at Clark College, I think, and I've used sections of of her anthology on ethics in classes, but I first heard her on NPR where she attempted to present evidence that elementary school girls were not under-called upon in schools. She further claimed that in her own classes the women do not have any difficulty in being heard over the men. I submit she wouldn't recognize sex discrimination if it hit her on the head simply because it isn't politically tenable for her. She's kind of an academic Camille Paglia, who is always called to appear on shows where she claims that feminism now is merely about claiming oneself a victim. Therefore, she is always battling "feminists." I guess this a bit too far off the topic of Shakespeare, but I just want to mention this, not merely as ad hominem (which I admit it is) rather as a reminder that some "authorities" carry more weight than others. Christine Gilmore (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Free Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 94 14:00:19 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0667 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb Will we never get over thinking dramatic characters are real people living in our time? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 11:12:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0672 Final CFP: McMaster's Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0672. Thursday, 11 August 1994. From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 13:48:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: McMaster Conference FINAL CALL CALL FOR PAPERS "Expanding the Canon: New Dimensions in English Renaissance Studies", this year's McMaster University English Association Conference, will be held on November 18, 1994. Scholars are invited to submit papers which rediscover and explore neglected areas of English writings, 1560-1625, such as lesser known dramatic, poetic, and prose works, travel literature, emblem books, women's writing, masques, and popular culture. Plenary speaker: Jean Howard (Columbia). Respondent: Paul Stevens (Queens). Send completed 10-page/20-minute papers by OCTOBER 3, 1994, to Dr Helen Ostovich or Dr Mary Silcox, Dept of English, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4L9 e-mail inquiries: ostovich@mcmaster.ca Registration packages will be sent out in September. If you wish to register for the conference, and have not received a previous mailing of the call for papers, please contact Mary Silcox by snail-mail, or phone, 905-525-9140, ext. 27314, or send an e-mail request to ostovich@mcmaster.ca The full programme for the conference will be available after October 15. If you wish to receive a posting by e-mail, send a brief request in October. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 12:22:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.06773 Re: Winchester (Correction); Henry V Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0673. Thursday, 11 August 1994. (1) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, August 11, 1994 Subj: Winchester Correction (and Apology) (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 21:29:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: True Believer, Henry V, and so on (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, August 11, 1994 Subject: Winchester Correction (and Apology) As I edited Tom Dale Keever's posting (SHK 5.0668) of yesterday, I miss read what Tom had written. Tom's first line should have read this way: The two June posts regarding the character of the Bishop of Winchester in the *H6* Plays raised some interesting issues about Shakespeare's uses of history. My apologies to Tom Keever. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 21:29:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: True Believer, Henry V, and so on It's nice to be called a true believer by Ben Schneider, especially since my fifth wife once told me that I didn't truly believe in anything. I rather think of my self as an empiricist. I don't believe that Tudor culture is entirely different from ours because it goes against my experience of the existing artifacts, i.e., books, manuscripts, paintings, clothes, etc., as well as my experience of twentieth-century American culture. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the same theological heresy as John Milton. And I could draw a number of other parallels, which I am sure would not be accepted as parallels at the deepest level. Concerning HENRY V (4.1.128ff.), I think Williams does indeed have the best questions, and I think Henry's arguments by analogy are worthless. He argues that there is an analogy between a father sending a son on a trip "about merchandise" (Bevington, revised ed., 154-55) and a king leading an army into a battle. I (old empiricist) see and felt a difference between going on a trip and going into battle. I don't expect to die because I go traveling; I do expect to die when going into battle. Actually Williams's argument is about a just war -- "if the cause be not good" (140), and about the king's guilt if he gets men killed in an unjust war. Check what he says -- really. Henry does not argue that he is fighting a just war. In fact, Henry is at some pains to blame this war on everyone (including God) but himself. And Henry does not directly respond to Williams's question about the justice of this offensive (in both senses) war. This is not a war that defends the integrity of England. Even pacifists believe in defending themselves -- or at least some do. I don't see Shakespeare writing a play about an heroic monarch taking responsibility for his political actions. He doesn't even take responsibility for negotiating the peace at the end of the play. And a parting shot: I don't think Shakespeare had much use for power mongers no matter what their stamp: Bolingbroke, Falstaff, Hal, Hotspur, each is willing to give up a piece of his humanity for political power, and each has at least a touch of rot at the core. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Aug 1994 12:39:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0674 Re: Responding to Request; Generic Expectations; *MV* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0674. Thursday, 11 August 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 94 16:59:52 EST Subj: [Reponding to Request] (2) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 94 17:00:37 EST Subj: [Re: Generic Expectations] (3) From: John Gardiner Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 15:41:24 -0700 (PDT) Subj: [*Merchant of Venice] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 94 16:59:52 EST Subject: [Reponding to Request] To those kind SHAKSPEReans who looked up and reported the reference to sought by Orlando Paboloy, I propose this question: would it not have been more truly educational to have sent him on his own to pursue his Angelica through the pages of one of the concordances? And in general, to take that approach to requests on the net for factual information of a relatively accessible kind? Furiously, Dave Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 94 17:00:37 EST Subject: [Re: Generic Expectations] We can develop generic expectations on the basis of experience and on the basis of prescription; that's one of the differences between popular and learned culture. Bill Godshalk's son may not have been sure what to expect from , but if he watches commercial TV I bet he could identify most particular shows as action-adventure or sitcom or soap on the basis of one-minute or even 30-second samples. On the other hand, the poets I know who use strict forms usually do the first couple of sestinas or whatever with somebody's codification at their elbow. They can then, like Sidney, experiment with hexameter sonnets and double sestinas. For, despite Rick Jones' warnings against imposing late C20 notions of genre on early modern texts and his doubts that playwrights of the period were much concerned with it, there is plenty of evidence that both experiential and prescriptive notions of genre were active in early modern English theatrical culture. On the prescriptive front, Shakespeare himself uses the term "comedy" 10 times, if my Spevack is to be trusted (ll if you count Sly's "comonty"), and the term "tragedy" 12; some of the uses are clearly reflexive. It's true that the concept gets mocked when Polonius spouts his list, and perhaps mocked in another way when that old-fashioned instrument creaks onto the stage identifying its genre in its prologue. But parody, as we know, is a form of love, and the presence of the terms on all those title pages, up through the Folio, surely testifies to a conviction that they have some kind of value. As to experience, in an article that attracted admiration while still a conference paper but that editors have so far failed to approve, I argue that those Shakespearean plays that have pairs of lovers in their titles work with generic expectations in ways that come close to establishing a new genre, the comi-tragedy. most obviously and most subtly start off acting like comedies--I speak here not just of the presence of funny-ha-ha jokes and character-types but of the activity of essentially improvisational views of the world--and struggle on in that mode long after causality begins to overwhelm improvisation and things go sour; I am persuaded that for early modern audiences as well as for us the sustaining of hope that strict causality will in the end be suspended is an important part of most viewers' response to the works. (I also share with John Drakakis and others a conviction that the two genres are in important ways structured by conceptions about gender--in the case of these works summarized in the male-female pairings of the titles.) The problem with analysis along these lines, of course, is that it can prove merely reductive. But intelligent criticism, like the work of Susan Snyder on that got me thinking about these things, can remain informative despite the attempts of some poststuctural theorists to dismiss genre as just another patriarchal straitjacket. Comi-tragically, Dave Evett (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Gardiner Date: Wednesday, 10 Aug 1994 15:41:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [*Merchant of Venice] I am picking up this thread late, so please forgive me if these ideas have been previously expressed. The title of "The Merchant of Venice" is purposely vague. It begs the question: who is the merchant? Both Antonio and Shylock both trade upon the Rialto and are in the literal sense the most obvious merchants. Yet the play's other figures also engage in various merchandising. Bassanio seeks Antonio and Shylock's help in his endeavor to wive and thrive. Lorenzo seeks his own romantic and financial betterment by eloping with Jessica and her father's fortune. The themes of love and commerce are both juxtaposed and interchangable in the play. "The Merchant of Venice" is as a title ironic in that there is no one merchant in the play, but many who employ means of trade to obtain their goals. The name also leads us to question what it is that is being merchandised. Is it merely love that Lorenzo is after? Or is love the means to his desired financial ends? When Shylock cries "My daughter, my ducats", which loss does he lament the most? Or are they for him one in the same? In "Merchant", the world is a perfect market in which love is exchanged for money, money is used to obtain love and love and respect are gained and lost as financial ventures succeed or collapse. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Aug 1994 12:14:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0676 Spinoffs: Summer Reading Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0676. Friday, 12 August 1994. From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 1994 16:03:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Spinoffs SHAKSPERians in search of some light, entertaining summer reading might enjoy the collection of short stories entitled *Weird Tales from Shakespeare*, ed. M. Greenberg (and others), which just appeared in paperback. In it a number of fantasy and science fiction story writers make very crative adaptations of Shakespearian plots and biography; some of the stories are quite good. A great vacation book, but don't expect the sequel to Charles Lamb. [Disclaimer: I have no connection with the book, its publishers, or contributors.] Cheers, Douglas Lanier dml3@christa.unh.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Aug 1994 12:10:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0675 Re: Character: Henry V, Thumbs, Chevys, People, and so on Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0675. Friday, 12 August 1994. (1) From: Stanley Holberg Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 94 22:38 EDT Subj: Henry V (2) From: Chris Kendall Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 1994 14:10:17 -0600 (MDT) Subj: Thumb and Chevy (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 1994 22:46:14 -0500 (EST) Subj: People! (4) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 12:32:22 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stanley Holberg Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 94 22:38 EDT Subject: Henry V Certainly Bill Godshalk's view of Henry V is completely on target. Doesn't the process of "blaming this war on everyone (including God) but himself run through the entire play, starting with Henry's supposedly asking the Archbishop of Canterbury if his claims against France are legitimate? --stanley holberg holberma@snypotva.bitnet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Kendall Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 1994 14:10:17 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Thumb and Chevy >Will we never get over thinking dramatic characters are real people living in >our time? I doubt anyone on this list is guilty of such a gross fantasy. On the other hand, if we cannot compare the characters in these plays to ourselves, of what value or interest, other than drily academic, are they to us? If Shakespeare drove no Chevy, he did cast a keen eye. You may say that I cannot borrow it to make sense of my world, but I say I can. I can reject Petruchio's stick or Hal's war club without rejecting the author's work. By the same token, I can compare Fluellen to my theatre history prof without having to dress him up in a tweed jacket. Cheers, Chris Kendall (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 11 Aug 1994 22:46:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: People! William Free asks if we will ever get over (his words -- like getting over a cold?) thinking of dramatic characters as real people living in our time? My answer: of course not. I have no desire to be cured. I thought Christine Gilmore's attack on Christina Hoff Sommer was a bit mean spirited. I don't know Hoff Sommer's work, and I do not remember hearing her on NPR. But she, as a scholar, certainly has a right to her own conclusions, even if those conclusions are not politically correct. In fact, I would like to believe that young girls and young women (well, all young people) are not discrimated against by their teachers. I can't quantify this observation, but I believe, in my classes, women answer my questions more often than men. And, in terms of grades, I can make the case that women are consistently my best students. But, then, I don't teach grade school. Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 12:32:22 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character Re-enter Ben Schneider, with all guns blazing! A few points in reply: On social types/social roles. Ben is right, I think, that these two concepts are distinct, and that David Evett was using the latter, not the former in his comments on _Lear_. In associating him with John Drakakis, whose comments on the Manningham description *were* about social types, I was making a broad distinction between literal and metaphoric representations of persons. The way I see it, types and roles are both literal; emblematic representations are metaphoric. That's not to say they don't come together in practice. I suspect that most examples of emblematic characters one could think of, even from the morality plays proper, and certainly from the later Elizabethan drama, are literal as well. Emblematic effects, it seems to me, are very much a matter of isolated tableaux and passing resonances, at least in Shakespeare, and it would seem odd for an actor or director to attempt to articulate a whole major character in terms of one or another such effect. With playwrights like Jonson and Tourneur, I guess the emblematic effects are more systematic and pervasive than they are in Shakespeare, and the choice might make more sense. On 'universalism'. Ben should reread some of the responses to his earlier assertion about how we moderns all agree that war is a bad thing, and how Shakespeare's apparent approval of Henry V's warmongering marks the great gulf between him and us. This really is a bit much. Forget about the Tudor pacifists; does Ben's modern 'we' include Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Al Haig, Oliver North (need I go on) and their millions of admirers? I think the currently fashionable insistence on the radical alterity of the past is actually a kind of Orientalism, a discovery (but not really a discovery) of an exotic otherness in the past which is precisely analogous to the European 'discovery' of exotic otherness in the mysterious East. It has little interest, finally, in finding out what these other cultures are, or were, really like since it has its own models of desirable otherness to which it will insist they conform. The truth is, of course, that the past (like the East) is open to investigation and at least partial understanding. What puzzles me about the opponents of so-called 'universalism' is how they explain to themselves the fact (I presume it's a fact) that they *are* able to understand and identify with so much of what goes on between people in a Shakespeare play. Surely the statistical probability of our being able to project hundreds of anachronistic understandings onto the text without producing total incoherence (since the 'misreadings' are presumably not systematically related to the 'true' readings, whatever they might be) would be somewhat less than that of Washo the chimp and his friends writing *Hamlet*. One final point. I'm currently reading Patricia Fumerton's book _Cultural Aesthetics_(Chicago, 1991), a fascinating exploration of the Renaissance aristocrat self and its cultural construction of 'privacy' in terms of the trivial ornaments of court life. I have no difficulty with, or resistance to, the degree of otherness she is able to evoke. The sorts of adjustments to our reading that her investigation would suggest are not difficult to accommodate (and quite important, since it is hardly deniable that Shakespeare spent most of his career dramatising aristocratic characters). On a related point, her analysis of the way of representing the elusive private self (in miniatures, sonnets, and masques) through a series of 'public' frames, might usefully be applied to Shakespeare's way of representing major characters. Just a thought. Pat Buckridge. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 16:17:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0677 Re: Character (Huff Sommers) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0677. Sunday, 14 August 1994. (1) From: Christine Gilmore Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 16:39:42 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0675 Re: Character (2) From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Saturday, 13 Aug 1994 15:36:44 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0671 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb (3) From: Andrea Austin <3AJA1@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Date: Friday, 12 Aug 94 18:41:47 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0675 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Gilmore Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 16:39:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0675 Re: Character In reference to W. Godshalk's response to my comment on the need to look closely at one's source: This may well be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. I certainly don't think my comment was meanspirited at all. Certainly Hoff Sommers is welcome to her conclusions; however, if her conclusions are wrong, well . . . you may certainly accept them, but I will not. Certainly we would all like to believe that some students are not discriminated against in classes; however, sometimes reality does not match our beliefs. Further, I note that you insinuate that my comment is political correctness. If political correctness means that I want to see the world as it is and not as I might like it to be, so be it. In any case, I'm not certain why my remark should prompt a comment from you, but I will take in the spirit of all your responses on SHAKSPER. Ciao! cg. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Saturday, 13 Aug 1994 15:36:44 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0671 Re: *Shrew* and the Rule of Thumb I mentioned Sommers' argument about the rule of thumb because I truly am curious about the origin of the idea. If the idea occurred to two Southern judges, where did they get the idea? The last two sentences of my previous communication mention parts of Blackstone which suggest that physical chastisement of wives had been acceptable in law before the seventeenth century. I'd be interested in suggestions for following up on the question. Diana Akers Rhoads (dar5w@virginia.edu) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andrea Austin <3AJA1@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> Date: Friday, 12 Aug 94 18:41:47 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0675 Re: Character It's interesting to find the subject of Hoff Sommer's _Who Stole Feminism_ cropping up on this list, esp. since a fascinating debate about the work was recently played out on WMST-L. Of course, she, like anyone else, has a right to draw her own conclusions, and if others don't like them, then they certainly don't have to read, or continue reading, the book. True, she has come under attack for a political position that is unpopular with many feminists (actually, I detest the term "political correctness," since it is so often used these days as a catch-phrase meant to belittle the gains and goals of feminist movements; note please that I don't accuse Bill Godshalk of using it this way, I only wish to point out that there are people who do.) As I understand it, though, quite apart from the issue of political viewpoint, the work contains inaccuracies, and so its scholarship has come under suspicion (I will leave it to those far more knowledgeable than I to continue to demonstrate where, and why.) I don't intend this as an impolite and personal attack on the author, and I hope it is not taken so, but I do think that we have a responsibility to alert others when there is a possibility that a work presents certain things as fact that are not. After all, by way of example, what would the rest of us say if a Victorianist asserted as fact, without providing us with supporting evidence, that Charlotte Bronte had a torrid love affair with Thackeray? Andrea Austin Dept. of English Queen's University 3aja1@qucdn.queensu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 17:43:48 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0678 Re: *MV*; Summer Reading; Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0678. Sunday, 14 August 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 22:47:47 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0674 Re: *MV* (2) From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 16:59:39 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0676 Spinoffs: Summer Reading (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 23:04:14 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0674 Re: Generic Expectations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 22:47:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0674 Re: *MV* I would like to add two points to John Gardiner's comments on MERCHANT OF VENICE. (1) "Merchant" was a term of abuse in the 16th century. Nashe in CHRIST'S TEARS writes: "when any man hath cosened or gone beyonde us [we say] hee hath playde the merchant with us" (from Farmer and Henley). So in one sense a "merchant" was a cheat, and that definition fits into the play also. (2) Shylock does not say, "O, my ducats! O, my daughter" (Bevington 2.8.15). Solanio says these words and claims that he has heard Shylock say them. Do we trust Solanio to quote Shylock correctly? I don't. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hope A. Greenberg Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 16:59:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0676 Spinoffs: Summer Reading > SHAKSPERians in search of some light, entertaining summer reading might enjoy > the collection of short stories entitled *Weird Tales from Shakespeare*, ed. ...and oddly enough I just came across a place on the Web that sells it. The Future Fantasy Bookstore at: http://www.commerce.digital.com/palo-alto/FutureFantasy/home.html ------------ Hope Greenberg Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu University of Vermont http://moose.uvm.edu/~hag (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 12 Aug 1994 23:04:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0674 Re: Generic Expectations Following Dave Evett's comments on Renaissance generic expectations (5.0674), I would like to ask a question about 16th and 17th century titlepages. When George Eld printed TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (1609), he printed two different titlepages for the quarto, and on both titlepages TROILUS AND CRESSIDA is called a "history." I can't remember ever seeing the play grouped with the histories in a 20th century collection, although you could argue that it was grouped with the histories in the Folio (1623). The play was first intended to be placed solidly with the tragedies, but now has an anomalous place between HENRY VIII and CORIOLANUS. Why it was moved and placed here, we can only conjecture. But if the Renaissance was very conscious of genre, should we pay more attention to the designations of the titlepages in determining genre? Is TROILUS really a "history"? And did Jaggard, Hemings, and Condell move the play not because of some copyright dispute, but because they had misplaced it among the tragedies? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 15:29:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0680 Re: *MV*; *Shr.* and Domestic Violence; Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0680. Monday, 15 August 1994. (1) From: Anthony Haigh Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 12:39:23 -400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0665 Re: Antonio & Shylock (2) From: Stefanie DuBose Date: Monday, 15 Aug 94 12:11:16 EDT Subj: Shrew (3) From: Anthony Haigh Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 13:47:46 -400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0656 Re: Generic Expectations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Haigh Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 12:39:23 -400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0665 Re: Antonio & Shylock In reply to Bill G's comments on the relationship between Shylock and Antonio in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ... he might be interested in the English/Jewish playwright Arnold Wesker's 1976 reworking of the story - THE MERCHANT. He wrote the play after seeing Olivier's Shylock and being offended by the lack of understanding of the Jewish character that was shown. Wesker's comment on leaving the theatre was "no Jew I know would behave that way..." (or words to that effect) His play has Antonio and Shylock as friends. The bond is made almost as a joke in mock defiance of the Venetian law that requires any dealing between Jew and Christian to be written down. In Wesker's play it is Antonio who demands the carrying out of the terms of the agreement. I think it is a fine play. It did not have a long run in New York, partly because Zero Mostell, who played Shylock, died during the rehearsal process. Has anyone seen it in perfromance? Sincerely, Tony Haigh (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stefanie DuBose Date: Monday, 15 Aug 94 12:11:16 EDT Subject: Shrew I would like to thank everyone who responded to my comments with useful comments and suggestions regarding _Shrew_. I do want to respond to some of William Godshalk's ideas. He noted, quite correctly, that Kate does tell Petruchio that "the moon changes even as your mind," and that her submission occurs only after Hortensio's plea. True enough, this can be, and is, played comically with wonderful effects. But in my work with abused and battered women, I have heard numerous stories concerning the unpredictable nature of the abuser, in both his (or her) behavior and expectations (from the victim). Throughout the play, Petruchio seeks to throw Kate off-balance through his unpredictable behavior in order to force her submission. One need look no further than the wedding scene in which Petruchio manages not only to humiliate Kate but abuse the minister as well. This unpredictability is the cornerstone of the abuser's power. The victim is forever unable to please because she never knows what her abuser wants. With respect to the point of her submission, many women finally submit to their abusers when someone else (usually an authority figure) tells them that they have no choice but to do so. And truly, Kate has no choice; she has been sold to the only bidder who will have her. William Godshalk also mentions his belief that Kate is hardly submissive Petruchio in his insistence that she regard the sun as the moon. The reason she tells Vincentio that the sun dazzled her eyes is because Petruchio demanded that she greet the old man as a fresh, youthful maiden. When she does so, Pet- ruchio chastizes her for being "mad" and then demands that she recant her stat- ment; in doing so, she must assume responsibility for what has become "her mistake" rather than Petruchio's order. Finally, the argument that Petruchio suffers as much as Kate does or that he abuses her only because he loves her enough to change her does not excuse his behavior. Abuse is abuse, whether it is only a female figure in a comedy or a poor, drunken tinker simultaneously watching that comedy while unknowingly acting in another for the benefit of some lords. Perhaps an underlying mes-sage can be read here: there are two distinct social groups who can be (and are) abused expressly for the purpose of entertaining those exercising "upper class privilege," who, by the way, are all men. I realize that many people will probably be irritated at my "too-serious" reading of the play; I am by no means suggesting that this is such a dark play since there are comments throughout from the characters suggesting the humor of the situation between Kate and Petruchio. But since this is an open forum for debate and discussion, I just thought I'd elaborate on some ideas I've had during the tenure of this particular subject. One quick question: has anyone read _Queering the Renaissance_, ed. by Jonathan Goldberg? I would be interested in hearing your comments. Regards, Stefanie DuBose (gpdblf@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Haigh Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 13:47:46 -400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0656 Re: Generic Expectations In reply to Gareth Euridge's question about verse and prose... I would recommend that he read Cicely Berry's book THE ACTOR AND HIS TEXT. Berry is the vocal director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and I guess knows more about how Shakespeare's texts work than anyone. Her point is, in general, that the character speaks verse or prose depending on their mental state. The general comment about social class being the primary determiner generally holds true - like all general statements. But what is interesting is the way characters loose their control of the verse when they loose control of their emotions. The obvious way a character can loose control is through madness; but love, hate, and anger also play a part here. When a character speaks in verse he/she is not just in control of themselves, they are also showing us that they are able to function on a number of different levels. A complexity of meaning and imagery is available to a verse speaker in a way that is not available to a prose speaker. A rude mechanical will speak in prose because he is saying what he means. A king will speak in verse because he is saying what means (or hiding what he means) as well as showing us what he thinks and feels. He can only do this in verse. It is also interesting to look at who is in control when the metre is split between two speakers. The speaker who finishes the metre is in control and, by definition, is sane. Look at Hamlet and Ophelia. There should be no question about who is in control and who is sane. As an actor I find that the text will usually tell me everything I need to know about my character and his relationships. All I have to do to get the starting point or yardstick for my interpretation of the role is to decode the structure of the text. The clues are all there. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Aug 1994 15:13:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommr Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0679. Monday, 15 August 1994. (1) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Sunday, 14 Aug 94 21:52:35 EDT Subj: Re: Character (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 02:30:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Apologies (3) From: Jean Peterson Date: Monday, 15-AUG-1994 10:03:16.42 Subj: *Who Stole Feminism* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Sunday, 14 Aug 94 21:52:35 EDT Subject: Re: Character I left on a European tour in May and just returned to find a few score SHAKSPER posts, including the entire "Great 'Character' Massacre." (The only posts in the lot that were as entertaining were the ones from Terence Hawkes, et al, advising anyone coming to London this summer to bring an umbrella and expect it to get a work-out. I spent three weeks in London last month and saw only one brief light shower.) It looks like the "Character" furor has died down, but I'd like to make a belated entrance to the fray. A few years back a director who had cast me in a major role in an Early Modern play Off-Off-Broadway assigned the company a common rehearsal exercise. She told us all to write short biographies of our characters laying out whatever in their pasts we thought relevant to understanding their actions. Armed with the insights I had gathered as a Lit Crit major I pounced as eagerly as Terance Hawkes did on the unsuspecting Ms. Bunn. I won't rehash what I wrote for her - you've read it all if you've been following this thread. I laid out L.C. Knights' line though I don't recall citing him by name. Once I felt I'd sufficiently intimidated her, though, I showed myself a good conscientious craftsman and did just what my director told me to. The exercise was amusing enough, though I didn't for a moment think it would help my performance, and resulted in quite a steamy little opus which, but for recent legal decisions regarding pornography on the Net, I'd be happy to share with you. The role I was rehearsing was Lussurioso in Middleton's REVENGERS TRAGEDY ( oops, don't want to get cast into "Authorship" limbo! ), as "emblematic" a character as any since the York Mystery Cycle. The director inserted other modern rehearsal techniques as the work went on. I participated gamely in all the character and situation improvs, but worked in my own way on my role, concentrating on language of the text. Because the relevance of modern approaches had come up at the beginning of the process I thought about it as I did my work and was more than usually conscious of how "modern" questions of past life and character motivation affected the way I thought about my role. Despite my conviction that questions like "How many sexual conquests had Lussurioso?" were not relevant to the play, I found I could not work out my relations with the other fictional beings I shared the stage with, be they "characters" or "emblems," without creating some sort of imagined past to make sense of our present actions. I finally accepted my dependence on the techniques in which I had been trained, entangled as they were with concepts of personal identity and theatrical mimesis I knew were alien to Middleton, Shakespeare and their contemporaries. I rethought the approach I had always taken to renaissance plays and the next time I was cast in one, playing several small roles in CYMBELINE for the NY Shakespeare Festival, I created a fictional past for each "character" I was portraying, though I had little more to do than fight as a soldier and fill out the crowd scenes. I found the exercise personally satisfying - it made the effort of being a bit player more rewarding than it might have been - but doubted it made any difference to anyone else until I was accosted in the wings after I had carried Iachimo on for the bedroom scene by the actor who lugged the other end of the trunk. "Hey," he said, "you're IN CHARACTER out there, aren't you!" He was astonished that I had gone to the trouble to create a character for this palace servant and assured me that it really showed. I wasn't mugging or playing an exagerated attitude toward what I was doing and would have done nothing to upstage Joan Cussack, but my fellow player got the distinct sense that I was playing a "character" in the scene, not just signifying an "emblem" of a menial social role or carrying out a bit of necessary practical business. And why not? What else should an actor on a twentieth century stage do, regardless of the age of the text he is bringing to life? Though I still regard verse texts as special problems with vocal requirements foreign to modern plays and would not tell an actor to play a Shakespeare role just as if it were something by Tennessee Williams, I no longer think that current approaches to "character" are inappropriate to work on an Early Modern text. Those approaches are often attributed willy nilly to Stanislavsky and his disciples but they arise inevitably out of what Goodfield and Toulmin called "The Discovery of Time," the nineteenth century's major legacy to our age. The Russian director, like the Viennese doctor, or the French novelists, was only reflecting his own age when he insisted that we understand a "self" as a being with a formative individual past, not just an assigned social role. As citizens of our age we cannot help but play "selves" as we understand them when we go onstage. We're not doing Shakespeare or his text any service by forbidding a modern actor the use of whatever tools he may have when he constructs a role. For critics to insist that modern artists must reconstruct Shakespearean roles as "emblems" and eschew the techniques that have grown out of centuries of theater practice since The Globe burned down, rooted as they are in eighteenth and nineteenth century concepts of "self" or "character," is to adopt an ahistorical stance many of these same critics would deplore. As one of my favorite critics has pointed out, "What can never be reconstructed is the major ingredient of all Shakespeare's plays, the factor that completed them and made them work: their original audience." The denizens of The Globe or The Rose may well have defined a "self" in terms of relatively rigid concepts of social role and consequently reacted to an actor playing a role on stage in ways far removed from ours, but I don't expect to play to such an audience any time soon. A modern playgoer comes to the theater with attitudes formed by, among other things, a lifetime of reading novels or absorbing the novel's progeny, films, TV drama, etc., media that mold and enforce the concepts of individuality and self that are part of our times and material culture. It is the modern audience that completes a modern stage production and makes it work, not Shakespeare's. That audience expects a degree of realism, however heightened and embellished, in fictional characters and that degree of realism is best achieved by the post-Meinegen acting techniques of our own century. The valuable insight that Knights, Hawkes, the New Historicists and others have had into Early Modern texts, that they are inevitably rooted in the material culture from which they arose, has a concomitant implication - every staging of those texts is an artifact of its own age and that period's material culture, not a re-creation of Shakespeare's. If it is a mistake, as Knights said, for Bradley to force a ninteenth century novel's concept of "character" onto the work of Shakespeare, it is no less a misunderstanding of a twentieth century theater artist's work to insist, as Terence Hawkes did in his response to Ms. Bunn, that an actor working on a post industrial production of Lear must adopt the attitude toward a dramatic role proper to an early seventeenth century Londoner. If Hawkes is insisting that Ms. Bunn recognize that the lines she is to speak were written to delineate an "emblem," not create a "character," adopt the appropriate attitude and not imagine Cordelia has any extra-textual life, must she not go further - acknowledge that the lines were not written for a woman to speak at all, and insist that the director allow her to abdicate in favor of a boy soprano? If not then we are approving the projection onto Shakespeare's play of the post-Restoration convention of casting women but forbidding post-Stanislavsky techniques for building a character and ignoring the audience's post-Romantic expectations defining one. Why does one anachronism have favored standing over others? Tom Dale Keever keever@phantom.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 02:30:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Apologies I would like to apologize to Christine Gilmore for suggesting that her criticism was "mean spirited," and for raising the spectre of "political correctness." As I admit, I know nothing about the immediate subject, and my concerns are general and abstract. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Monday, 15-AUG-1994 10:03:16.42 Subject: *Who Stole Feminism* Anyone interested in an evaluation of Hoff-Sommers' book might want to check out Nina Auerbach's review in *The NY Times Book Review* (June 12). In a review that seemed to me not particularly acrimonious or "mean-spirited, Auerbach characterized the book as sloppily researched, inaccurate, and depending on unfounded generalizations and tunnel vision ("all's right with me, as a white, fairly successful professional, so why do women complain about injustice?");this generated a number of responses the following week, led by La Paglia, deploring the "shamefully inept and biased tactics" of "radical feminist academics" (an inaccurate definition of Auerbach by any standards, as she notes in a rebuttal.) Barbara Ehrenreich says pretty much the same thing about H-S in *Time* (Aug 1), citing a number of inaccuracies, errors, and "unsisterly smugness" about the problems of women less fortunate than middle-class professionals. And according to Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Cady Stanton "spoke out passionately" against "the rule of thumb" as wife-discipline in 19th-century America--another tidbit on the trail, though it may take some searching to track down. Cruising on the info-mation highway... Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 22:02:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0682 Q: Authenticity of Texts Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0682. Tuesday, 19 August 1994. From: Brenda Danet Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 16:44:03 +0300 (WET) Subject: Help on the authenticity of texts (cross-posted to Perform-l, Ortrad, Folklore, Humanist) I am writing on behalf of a former student, Roni Biran, who is writing a doctoral dissertation in Yiddish folklore, on a storyteller called Berl Werblunsky. She seeks help in assessing whether texts of stories attributed to him are in his personal style. Any help you could provide in directing her to material on establishing the authenticity of texts--written or oral/transcribed--would be greatly appreciated. Please write to me privately. Thanks! Brenda Danet Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology, Dept. of Communication & Journalism Hebrew University of Jerusalem msdanet@pluto.mscc.huji. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 21:57:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0681 Re: Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0681. Tuesday, 19 August 1994. (1) From: Tom Ellis Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 21:07:53 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0678 Re: Generic Expectations (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 11:37:26 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0680 Re: Generic Expectations (3) From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 12:08:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: genre and title pages (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Ellis Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 21:07:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0678 Re: Generic Expectations In Response to Bill Godshalk's query about Troilus... It seems likely that for Shakespeare and his audience, as for modern audiences, genre was a "fuzzy set". Hence the ambiguous placement of T & C in F1 may reflect nothing more than Hemings & Condell's own perplexity about how to classify the play (something critics have been arguing about ever since!). In the 16th-17th centuries, the meanings of "history" and of "story" were not as far apart as they are now (viz. Hamlet's retort "Sir, a whole history")--especially since both words derive from the same greek root HISTORIA. And several of the "tragedies", including King Lear, have the words "tragicall history" on either Q or F title pages. It is the context of the Folio alone which justifies restricting the dramatic meaning of "history" to "English Chronicle Play." Furthermore, there is ample evidence of Shakespeare's lifelong interest in "pushing the envelope" of genre, testing the outer bounds of comic decorum in M of V, M for M, and All's Well--and more subtly, even in "festive" comedies such as Twelfth Night Perhaps The Winter's Tale pushes the envelope the farthest, feigning tragic closure in mid-play, only to bring back the dead queen at the end and rub the audience's nose in their own presuppositions about the hitherto inviolate covenant between author and audience (i.e. that the audience will be able to trust that it is in possession of all the information the characters are missing--See Bertrand Evans on this). The TIME prologue in W/T could, in fact, be read as Shakespeare's ironic comment on the whole matter of generic expectations: "Impute it not a crime...Your patience this allowing..." --Tom Ellis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 11:37:26 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0680 Re: Generic Expectations Re: Anthony Haigh on generic expectations I agree with Anthony Haigh on the importance of Cicely Berry's reflection on her practice with the actors; her successor at the RSC, Andrew Wade, has a similar approach. On the link between social rank and prose/verse language, one must also bear in mind the shock effect which a breach with the general principle outlined by Haigh and Berry is likely to produce. Take *R2*, for instance: the garden scene is spoken in allegorical verse by two 'mechanicals' who debate matters of state. Allegory and hyperbole are the two rhetorical marks of royal and noble characters in that play (and in most of the 2nd tetralogy), "in general" as Anthony says: when mechanicals use the metre and rhetoric of princes, then do they convey a message worth our notice. The constables in *MM* or *MAN*, who confuse words, cannot convey truths; they provide 'comic relief', like Macb's porter. Yet, Macb's porter conveys deep truths, on the theme of equivocation, which is the metaphysical core of the play; so much for the exceptions to generality: the porter speaks prose. No obvious comic relief in the garden scene of *R2*; the presence of the eavesdropping queen casts a shadow over the scene. The allegorical rhetoric of their verse speeches is more important than the discrepancy between the nobility of the form and the professional language of the allegory, which wouldn't be 'proper' to that device which is elsewhere the apanage of princes. Fare ye well, Luc (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 12:08:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: genre and title pages Regarding Bill Godshalk's suggestion that Renaissance title pages might be a clue to Renaissance generic expectation, I recommend David Kastan's comments in *Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time*, pp. 38-39. Admittedly, Kastan focuses exclusively on "histoy" as a clue to genre, but the wild variation he finds in the application of that term is not encouraging for the idea that title pages might be helpful in establishing generic expectation. John Cox ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Aug 1994 22:18:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0683 Re: Shylock; Huff-Sommer; *Shrew* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0683. Tuesday, 19 August 1994. (1) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 94 01:57:06 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommer (2) From: Tom Ellis Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 21:33:40 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommer (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 17:26:40 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shrew (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 94 01:57:06 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommer Subject: Wesker's Shylock, and others Wesker and his reply to Shakespeare came up last spring when the RSC's production of MERCHANT was brought to the Barbican and the inevitable controversy followed in its wake. The Guardian published a debate between Wesker and, I think, the production's director, David Thacker, about whether the play was inherently anti-Semitic or could be staged in such a way that the issue of its racism could be avoided. Wesker insisted that Shakespeare's play was so marred by bigotry that it was better not to even try to stage it and suggested that his course, to write a whole new play, was the proper one for anybody who wanted to revive the story for a post-Holocaust audience. Thacker felt that he had succeeded in producing a staging in which the anti-Semitic elements did not detract from the overall impact of the play. I saw the Barbican staging and felt it handled the play's antiSemitic content as well as can be expected. The issue was partially defused not by minimizing Shylock's negative qualities, but by portraying them as endemic in *The City,* the modern financial center in which the action took place. The *Christian* characters, from the Duke on down, behaved with such meanspirited cruelty their pious condemnations of Shylock seemed so much sanctimonious hypocrisy. David Calder's Shylock carried himself with pride and straight-forward determination and the the scheming of his antagonists put them on no higher moral plane than his. The last MERCHANT I had seen, also modern dress, had placed the action in the world of modern commerce, too, but this production had been performed by the Netherlands National Theater Company in Amsterdam. I wondered how the play's most controversial issue would be handled in a theater in the Stadsplein, just down the Prinsengracht from the Anne Frankhuis. I was surprised to find Shylock's Jewishness and the play's inherent attitude to it presented with few punches pulled, indeed with less side stepping than was later apparent at The Barbican. I regret that my performance schedule in Germany last February made it impossible for me to see Peter Zadek's new KAUFMAN VON VENEDIG produced under Heiner Muller's management at the The Berliner Ensemble. Did anyone out there get to it? If so, how did the Germans handle the issue? Who took over from Mostel in the New York production of Wesker's play, Anthony? Tom Dale Keever keever@phantom.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Ellis Date: Monday, 15 Aug 1994 21:33:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommer With all due respect, I fail to see what this quarrel between feminists, neo-feminists, and quasi-feminists has to do with the presumed topic of this list--Shakespeare. I haven't read Hoff-Sommers nor her detractors, and until someone comes up with some reliable historical data, speculation on the provenance of the "rule of thumb" must remain merely idle speculation. So please: if you wish to carry on this particular discussion, try another list. I trust I speak for most other SHAKSPERians in preferring that the topic focus remain at least indirectly related to Shakespeare. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 17:26:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shrew Actually, I agree almost entirely with Stephanie DuBois's analysis of Petruchio's abusive treatment of Katherine. Where we begin to disagree is in Act IV, scene v. I tend to emphasize Katherine's strength and endurance. Although she has been deprived on food and sleep, and although she has had to put up with Petruchio's erratic, violence behavior swings, she is not about to submit to his nonsense until Hortensio requests her to do so (IV.v.11). I think her "submission" -- peppered with insults (e.g., 20) -- is actually a courtesy to Hortensio. Earlier in the scene, she had asserted: "I know it is the sun that shines so bright" (5 in the Riverside edition), and after the submission, when she is kidding Vincentio, she asks pardon for her "mistaking eyes,/That have been so bedazzled with the sun" and, she continues, "every thing I look on seemeth green" (45-47). Obviously she reasserts her former position, and, if she stares at Petruchio, when she declares that everything seems "green," then we may feel that Katherine is hardly submissive. And, of course, I would like to deconstruct her long speech in V.ii., or, at least, read it as ironic. For example, she makes it clear that she expects "painful labor" and lack of sleep from the husbands (V.ii.149-50). And, as one actress told me, she wouldn't make this speech unless she could force Petruchio to pick up her cap at the end of the scene. Of course, Katherine is being perfectly "sisterly" in this scene. This is the scene in which Katherine gets her own. So in the sibling rivalry between Katherine and Bianca, Bianca is the clear winner. She gets to "swinge" her sister in the room, and then give her a lecture on obedience. And, further, Katherine finally gets her father's approval. Now I realize there's a downside to this reading. Katherine may have strength and endurance, but it can certainly be argued that she has joined the males -- or, at least, her abuser, Petruchio -- against her sister and "Hortensio's widow." And we might be happier with the lines from A SHREW. When Polidor tells his wife Emilia that she's a "shrew," she replies: "Thats better then a sheepe" (scene 18, 60). Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 19:32:08 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0684 Re: Rule; *Shrew*; Wellies; Generic Expectations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0684. Thursday, 18 August 1994. (1) From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 22:40:16 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommr (2) From: Catheri Fitzmaurice Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 19:29:07 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0680 Re: *Shr.* and Domestic Violence (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 94 12:41 BST Subj: [Wellies] (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 1994 17:33:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0681 Re: Generic Expectations (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 22:40:16 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0679 Re: Character and Huff-Sommr Thanks to Jean Peterson for her information on the "rule of thumb." I'd be grateful for any other early references to the rule. Diana Akers Rhoads (dar5w@virginia.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Catheri Fitzmaurice Date: Tuesday, 16 Aug 1994 19:29:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0680 Re: *Shr.* and Domestic Violence Charles Marowitz wrote a version of Shrew which played in Los Angeles about eight years ago, in which Petruchio's financial need for a rich wife was stressed; he raped her on the table on which she ate her meagre meal; and Baptista shoved his elbow into her bruised body, prompting her while she desperately tried to remember a learned text at the end. It was counterpointed with scenes from a modern abusive relationship. Catherine Fitzmaurice Kozubei cfk@bach.udel.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 94 12:41 BST Subject: [Wellies] Tom Dale Keever should have been in London last week, when an immense downpour flooded several Tube stations, to great national relief and the baptism of many a wellie. God is not mocked. Terence Hawkes (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 1994 17:33:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0681 Re: Generic Expectations The truth to tell, when I asked the question about titlepage indications of genre, I was expecting a vigorous negative response, basically because I don't find titlepages very helpful in determining genre. And I think this observation suggests that literate Renaissance publishers, correctors of the press, and readers did NOT pay much attention to generic distinctions. If they had been super-sensitive to these distinctions, they would have been more careful in distinguishing the genre of the plays they were printing, selling, and reading. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Aug 1994 19:48:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0685. Thursday, 18 August 1994. (1) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 1994 14:37:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0683 Re: Shylock (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 1994 17:46:54 -0500 (EST) Subj: MERCHANT and Rule of Thumb (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 1994 14:37:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0683 Re: Shylock The last production of *Merchant* that I saw was the RSC production with Anthony Sher as Shylock. In general, I think, the production was not well received, but I found its treatment of the "racist" issue positively enlight- ening. In particular, the way that Portia (I forget who played the part) treated Jessica when she first shows up at Belmont, and the way that Lorenzo disses (a technical term, which many of you may know) his bride as soon as it becomes clear to him that she's run out of money, made the Christians even more unpalatable than I had ever suspected them to be. In any case, I think it not very useful to say that the racism or potential racism of a work of art makes it unususable. If indeed there is racism in *Merchant* or in *Jew of Malta*, or if Eliot's Bleistein or Hemingway's Cohn indicate the racist assumptions of Euro-America just before WW II, then I think it incumbent on me to have my students read those works specifically to see the racism that Eliot and Hemingway, and perhaps Shakespeare and Marlowe, take so easily for granted. If we excise those works from our collective syllabus, we are falsifying history. On a different note, someone who is near and dear to me assures me that when her mother went to a priest (of the Catholic persuasion) to ask what she could do about her physically abusive husband, the priest told her that she had no recourse but to go back to him and endure, because God would not have given her a burden too heavy for her to bear. And she did in fact go back to the man and continued to be abused until she died of cancer. An anecdote, to be sure, but certainly in keeping with comments made about *Shrew*. Tropically depressed in Penna., Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 17 Aug 1994 17:46:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: MERCHANT and Rule of Thumb In response to Tom Dale Keever, I think that MERCHANT is anti-Christian rather than anti-Semitic. Antonio drives Shylock to seek revenge by kicking him and spitting on him, as well as trying to disrupt his business deals. If Shylock doesn't act like a good Jew, Antonio hardly acts like a good Christian. Has MERCHANT ever been stage with the Christians as Nazis? Harbage used to claim that the "Hath not a Jew" speech was never spoken in Nazi Germany. And in reponse to Tom Ellis's plea, let me say again that the rule of thumb has been discussed at length on other networks (I think the History of Ideas group was one), and most, if not all, of the relevant material was made available there. We really don't need to repeat it here -- or do we? The phrase can be found in the OED. Yours, Bill Godshalk [Editor's Note: Regarding Bill's Mention of Harbage's Claim: I cannot but be reminded of Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 *To Be or Not to Be*, in which "Hath not a Jew," while spoken in Hollywood occupied Poland, significantly has a role in the unraveling of the plot and in the outwitting of the Nazis present. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Aug 1994 10:23:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0486 T.P.I. Announcement Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0686. Saturday, 20 August 1994. From: David Reifsnyder Date: Thursday, 18 Aug 1994 16:00:29 -0600 (MDT) Subject: TPI Announcement Because of the high number of recent requests for information regarding Theatre.Perspectives.International we are posting a brief description and subscription notice. This is heavily cross posted so delete it if you've seen it. T.P.I is a quarterly electronic theatre journal dedicated to exploring theatre related topics in the most timely manner available today by exploiting the full resources of the internet for submissions and distribution. We publish both articles and reviews and welcome immediate feedback from our readers. We are currently accepting submissions for our next three issues which are Shakespeare (Sept. 94), Performance Theory (Dec. 94), and Theatre of the Holocaust (Mar. 95). Submissions should be sent to Dave Reifsnyder or Jim Zeiger . Subscriptions to T.P.I are free and available by sending a subscription request to . To request a subscription, leave everything but the address blank until the message section and send the message "sub tpi " with no quotation marks or brackets and your full name where where indicated. If you have any questions or would like to see back issues of the journal send mail to Dave or Jim. Dave Reifsnyder Co-Editor, T.P.I ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Aug 1994 10:38:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0687 Re: Shylock and *MV*: *To Be . . ."; Nazis; Anti-Semitism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0687. Saturday, 20 August 1994. (1) From: Cary Mazer Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 09:33:27 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* (2) From: Fran Teague Date: Friday, 19 Aug 94 09:22:45 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* (3) From: Greg Grainger Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 07:31:00 -0400 Subj: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* (4) From: John Gardiner Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 08:35:21 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Mazer Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 09:33:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* Bravo to Hardy Cook for reminding us all of Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, an absolutely delightful movie (though surely the "To be or not to be" speech would NOT be a good time for the actress playing Ophelia to have her admirer come back stage without her husband/Hamlet noticing, since, as well all know, Ophelia is on stage during that speech). And Felix Bressart, playing a bit-part Jewish actor, speaks the "Hath not a Jew" speech, the crux of an elaborate escape plan, to great effect. Two things to note about this, though: Bressart's character has a Jewish name, and (about the actor playing Claudius) says "What he is, I wouldn't eat"; but the word "Jew" is never mentioned in the movie. And when the actor, detained by a (fake) squadron of SS guards in the theatre lobby, confronts (a fake) Hitler, he says "Have _we_ not eyes," etc., without mentioning the word Jew. So, what was Hollywood's problem in 1942? (The lead actor in the film was, as you all probably know, Benny Kobelsky ... er, I mean Jack Benny). Cary M. Mazer (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Friday, 19 Aug 94 09:22:45 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* Regarding anti-Semitism in _The Merchant of Venice_: the Georgia Shakespeare Festival is producing the play this summer. Portia and Nerissa are Nazis; the Venetians are followers of Mussolini. The word Christian is frequently replaced by the word Fascist; thus Shylock says of Antonio, "I hate him for he is a Fascist" early on. It's been a most controversial production; the festival hosted a lively and exciting symposium on the production and the issues that it raised. One of the speakers was Rabbi Sugarman from the Temple; those of you who have seen _Driving Miss Daisy_ will recognize that the topic of anti-Semitism in Atlanta has resonance. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Greg Grainger Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 07:31:00 -0400 Subject: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* On August 18, Al Cacicedo wrote: [ . . . ] >In any case, I think it not >very useful to say that the racism or potential racism of a work of art makes >it unususable. If indeed there is racism in *Merchant* or in *Jew of Malta*, >or if Eliot's Bleistein or Hemingway's Cohn indicate the racist assumptions o >Euro-America just before WW II, then I think it incumbent on me to have my >students read those works specifically to see the racism that Eliot and >Hemingway, and perhaps Shakespeare and Marlowe, take so easily for granted. >we excise those works from our collective syllabus, we are falsifying history Very good point! As one who occasionally engages in debate with non- teachers on this subject, I am grateful for such a cogent argument in favour of leaving 'controversial' works on the syllabus. Greg, goes double for 'Huck Finn', too. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Gardiner Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 08:35:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0685 Re: Shylock and *MV* It is my understanding that there is a film version of *MV* in which the Nazis round up Jews and force them to stage a production of the play. I do not know particulars about who directed the film or when it was released. Can anyone else help me out here? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Aug 1994 10:54:36 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0688 Moonlighting *Shrew* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0688. Saturday, 20 August 1994. From: Lynn A. Parks Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 09:39:26 CST Subject: Moonlighting's Taming of the Shrew It's obviously tough to make *Taming* palatable to modern sensibilities. One way to do so is just change the ending so that Kate comes out on top--or, well, equal, at least. Such was done on the defunct TV series "Moonlighting" several years ago. I taped the episode and showed it to my 12th grade English classes as a counterpoint to their reading of *Taming*. The paired pieces can make for some lively discussions on various topics--feminism, Shakespeare vs. popular culture, etc. I think the "Moonlighting" version is quite funny, but then, I liked "The Lion King," too. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Aug 1994 11:22:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0689 Re: Generic Expectations (*Tro.*) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0689. Saturday, 20 August 1994. (1) From: Simon Morgan-Russell Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 11:58:59 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: Generic Expectations (2) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 19 Aug 94 18:11:36 EST Subj: Re: Generic Expectations (3) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, August 20, 1994 Subj: *Tro.* Placement in F1 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Simon Morgan-Russell Date: Friday, 19 Aug 1994 11:58:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Generic Expectations (In response to Godshalk's comments on the determination of genre from title-page): I've been reading quite a bit of Restoration drama this summer, and one of the things that struck me was the difference in title-page representation. The designation of genre is often the most prominent piece of text on the page, often in larger type-face than the title of the play, in fact. After reading Godshalk's comment, I guess the question that occurs to me is "Why? What happened to change the expectation of genre represented on title-pages?" (and I'm thinking in more specific terms than glib platitudes like "The English Civil War" et al.) Speculations? Simon Morgan-Russell Department of English Bowling Green State University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 19 Aug 94 18:11:36 EST Subject: Re: Generic Expectations Thanks to Bill Godshalk for his observations about , identified as a "Historie" on the titlepages of both quartos, and initially intended to go among the tragedies in the Folio but then moved to a usefully anomalous spot between the histories and the tragedies; the uncertainty is usually attributed to problems with copyright, but might just as well have arisen from doubts about genre. In any case, the case seems to me to afford additional evidence for a pervasive if not urgent early modern concern with genre: the issue is not whether early modern authors and editors were "supersensitive" to genre (Bill's customary hyperbole, I trust), but whether it was something that made part of the way they thought about texts as they worked with them. Generic labels, at least the big ones, are pretty much always loose; consider "historical novel," and the range from Thackeray and Tolstoi to Doctorow and Byatt. And there are always going to be marginal texts--recall Chekhov vs. Stanislavsky--contemporaries, friends, professional associates--on how to look at . Anyway, calling a history makes sense to me in connection with an earlier contribution to this discussion (sorry I've forgotten whose) calling attention to the presence but also the kinds of death as a generic indicator though not a generic determiner. In tragedies, death is violent and in some sense unpredictable--murder (, , , ) or suicide (, , ). In histories, old men die of natural causes (Gaunt, Henry IV) and people of various ages after judicial trial or on the battlefield (Joan la Pucelle, Grey, Scroop, Nym; both Talbots, Lancastrians and Yorkists in vast numbers, Hotspur). But plays about historical figures that include murders and suicides as well as natural, judicial, and battlefield deaths incline toward tragedy----and are often so denominated in quarto titlepages or running titles--<1 Henry VI>, , . That doesn't mean that the writers and performers and printers didn't think about genre, or call on generic expectations as they wrote and performed and published, only that they didn't have any firmer definitions than we do. belongs to a set of stories long denominated as history (thus Lydgate's Troy book was published in 1513 as ); the deaths in it are battlefield deaths (however murderous Achilles' killing of Hector may seem to the chivalric mentality it makes excellent military sense). Shakespeare's contemporaries seem to me likely to have been as hard pressed as we are to call it a comedy, full as it is of elements normally associated with that genre, or a tragedy, though it has, periodically, those elements, too. But title page custom said they had to call it something; and the Folio editors had to put it somewhere. It doesn't surprise me that they chose the generic label with the widest, loosest range, and a location in the no-person's land between history and something else. Musingly, David Evett (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, August 20, 1994 Subject: *Tro.* Placement in F1 Peter Blayney in his catalog for the 1991 exhibition of First Folios at the Folger Library -- *The First Folios of Shakespeare -- argues that negotions with Henry Walley is the reason for the "last-minute reinstatement of *Troilus and Cressida*: Whatever the precise details of their new arrangement with Walley, within a few days of making the Register entry the publishers themselves in a position to include *Troilus* after all. By then, all the rest of the Folio had been printed. The exact order in which the preliminary leaves were set is uncertain, but the sheet containing 'A Catalogue of the seuerall Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies contianed in the volume' was either the last or last but one. That sheet must have been printed before Henry Walley changed his mind, because the Catalogue lists only 35 plays, and does not mention *Troilus and Cressida* at all. (21) This point may, in fact, be the explanation for the placement of *Tro.* in F1. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Aug 1994 22:01:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0690 Re: Generic Expectations (*Tro.*, Blayney, and More) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0690. Monday, 22 August 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 1994 23:10:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0689 Re: The Printing of Folio TROILUS (2) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Monday, August 22, 1994 Subj: Printing of Folio *Tro.* and Blayney Catalog (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 21 Aug 1994 21:47:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Genre (4) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 22 Aug 94 09:44:29 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0689 Re: Generic Expectations (*Tro.*) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 1994 23:10:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0689 Re: The Printing of Folio TROILUS Peter Blayney's explanation should surprise no one. Greg and Hinman have used it, as well as Kenneth Palmer in his Arden edition of TROILUS. The story of Walley's resistance to Jaggard has been told so often that it has taken on the status of truth. Walley, sometimes known as Walleys, was indeed one of the two publishers (the other was Richard Bonion or Bonian) who commissioned Eld to print the first quarto -- and Walley may possibly have had some rights in TROILUS. Bonion/Bonian, as I recall without checking, was gone from the publishing scene by 1623. Nevertheless, as far as I know -- and Blayney may have access to records that I don't know about, there is no substantial proof that Walley was responsible for the delay in the Folio printing. The evidence that I have seen can hardly be called "evidence." That Walley dragged his feet may seem "reasonable," but when analyzing human actions, "reason" may be the wrong criterion. Further, in the time between the first aborted printing and the final printing, Jaggard apparently got hold of a different text from which to continue printing. The first aborted printing had been a reprint of Q1. The final printing shows signs of Q1, but also signs of a manuscript -- and the changes are sometimes extensive. Philip Williams counted approximately 5000 differences between Q1 and F1 Troilus. I don't think we can be sure that the new copy-text did NOT have something to do with the postponement of the printing. My hypothesis is that Jaggard (or Heminge and Condell) had a new manuscript copy-text prepared, a copy-text that used both Q1 and the newly acquired manuscript. This hypothesis accounts for all the phenonema (I think). Why Jaggard or Heminge and Condell had the new-copy text prepared is a matter for further hypotheses. But printers did (during this period) have poorly prepared manuscript copy recopied by a scribe before setting. Perhaps not always, but it was a common enough practice. Howard-Hill has suggested a similar hypothesis for KING LEAR in Library 4 (1982):1-24. Is Blayney's catalog still available? I haven't seen it, but I surely would like to. Biographically yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Monday, August 22, 1994 Re: Printing of *Tro.* and Blayney Catalog I simply do not have the background to enter into a defense of Peter Blayney's contentions other than to say that problems with publishing rights seem as plausible an explanation to me as Jaggard's or Heminge's or Condell's inability to assign a genre to *Troilus and Cressida* as the reason for the final placement of *Tro.* in F1. Blayney mentions Greg but tags as "hardly likely" that "the Roberts entry would have enabled Jaggard 'to snap his fingers at Walley' and reprint *Troilus* without further ado." Blayney also discusses Hinman's evidence regarding the sheet with the surviving crossed-out *Romeo* page and his contention that the inclusion of the prologue was "an excuse for eliminating the crossed-out page of *Romeo*." Finally, Blayney addresses the consequent three issues of the First Folio. To Blayney, these incidents appear as a self-evident, seamless series of activities: there seems to be no NEW evidence beyond Peter Blayney's considerable expertise. As for the availability of the Blayney catalog, it is a Folger Library Publication (ISBN 0-9629254-3-8), and I saw a few copies of the hardbound copy in the Folger Bookstore/Gift Shop when I was at the Library a few weeks ago. One could write -- 201 East Capital Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003 -- or FAX -- (202) 544-4623 -- for further information. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 21 Aug 1994 21:47:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Genre Following Dave Evett's musings, I would like to suggest a plan of attack. First, let's use Greg's BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ENGLISH PRINTED DRAMA to see what generic designations are actually used on 16th and early 17th century titlepages. Second, let's use Yoshiko Kawachi's CALENDAR OF ENGLISH RENAISSANCE DRAMA 1558-1642 to see what generic designations are used presently. The results might be surprising. In 1592, TITUS ANDRONICUS was listed as a "Romaine Tragedie." In the 1611 printing and thereafter, it was called the "Lamentable Tragedie." Kawachi labels it "tragedy." In 1594, ORLANDO FURIOSO (the play) was called a "Historie." Kawachi calls it "romantic comedy." I won't go on. But it seems to me that, if we want to be sure about Renaissance genre labels on titlepages, someone will have to analyze a significant number of them. Or has someone already done that work? Dave suggests that my style is hyperbolic, and cites "supersensitive" as an example. Strangely enough, I was under the impression that it was Dave's thesis that the early moderns had been particularly sensitive to genre! (Note my hyperbolic exclamation mark!) Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 22 Aug 94 09:44:29 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0689 Re: Generic Expectations (*Tro.*) In response to David Evett's suggestion that modes of death may be an indication of genre, I wonder if anyone has heard (or read) Stephen Greenblatt's latest thoughts on death in Shakespeare. He suggests that no-one ever dies of "natural causes" in Shakespeare. David Schalkwyk University of Cape Town ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Aug 1994 22:08:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0691. Monday, 22 August 1994. (1) From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 1994 14:58:20 -0700 (PDT) Subj: ACT's "Shrew" (2) From: Mike Young Date: Monday, 22 Aug 1994 08:35:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0688 Moonlighting *Shrew* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Langland-Shula Date: Saturday, 20 Aug 1994 14:58:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ACT's "Shrew" I was particularly impressed with a videotape of ACT's 1978 (I think) production of "Shrew". It had enough energy and physicality to carry (in my mind) a rather bulky plot, and make the characters actions make sense in this strange little world they inhabited. If anyone has a copy of this (I saw it in a class, and alas, it was rather scratchy), I would love to get my hands on it. After seeing endless dreary, disturbing, or just plain stupid bits of "Shrew" done in various scene classes, it would be wonderfully refreshing. Thanks! Chris L-S chrisls@netcom.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Young Date: Monday, 22 Aug 1994 08:35:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0688 Moonlighting *Shrew* I can second the notion of using the Moonlighting "Shrew", known as "Atomic Shakespeare" in class. The contemporary jokes help the medicine go down. It has worked well in courses ranging from First Year Composition/Literature, where it has been part of a comparison/contrast with such things as the BBC "Shrew" with John Cleese of Monty Python, to the full blown seminar. An added note, though: unless the current students have a very good memory or happen to catch Moonlighting on some stray cable channel, they do not know the series' characters' contexts. When I pulled it out of retirement last Spring, some people went "That's Bruce Wills?!? Was this before Die Hard 1?" or "Is that the older lady who does hair dye commercials?" How's that for the reading of a text changing with time? Michael Young Davis & Elkins College ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Aug 1994 20:38:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0693 Re: Generic Expectations (Death by Natural Causes) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0693. Tuesday, 23 August 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 22 Aug 1994 22:32:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Natural Causes I think David Schalkwyk is asking us to consider "death by natural causes" in the plays. In LOVE'S LABOURS LOST, the king dies offstage apparently of natural causes. Don't Gloucester and Lear die of natural causes? But I haven't read Greenblatt's essay, and so I don't know how he defines "natural." But Mortimer in 1 HENRY VI (2.5) dies of natural causes. Or does Greenblatt give the play to Tom Nashe? Over to you, David. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Aug 1994 20:35:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0692 Re: PC and ACT *Shrew*s Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0692. Tuesday, 23 August 1994. (1) From: Peter Paolucci Date: Monday, 22 Aug 1994 22:08:39 -0400 Subj: Political Correctness & The Shrew (2) From: Fran Teague Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 94 09:42:18 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s (3) From: Larry Soller Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 06:45:00 -0700 (MST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Paolucci Date: Monday, 22 Aug 1994 22:08:39 -0400 Subject: Political Correctness & The Shrew Good solid feminist criticism (and its weaker sister, political correctness) have indeed made *The Taming of the Shrew* a potentially uncomfortable play in this day and age. The argument has already been made that the humiliation Kate experiences is really a kind of psychological violence. I don't have any problem with this possibility in interpretation. I was quite surprised this summer, however, when a good many of my 3rd year students insisted (quite vigorously) on reading Kate's "be it moon, or sun, or what you please" speech (IV.v.) not as an appalling example of mental cruelty, but rather as a crafty woman responding ritually (and rather "shrew"dly) to a man who has power over her. In this sense, these students were arguing that the "taming" is actually being done by Kate and not by Petruchio. She gives him what he wants to hear (something many students seem to be sympathetic to in their own classes). The *possibility* of this "other" meaning seems to be further supported in the OED which offers one meaning of "shrew" as "a wicked, evil-disposed, or malignant *man*" as distinctive from it's female denotation. I like *both* meanings and I *want* both possibile meanings. All of this brings me also to the recent discussion on play titles and title pages. On the one hand, *all* of Shakespeare's titles provide us with important decoding information (generic and otherwise) about the plays. On the other hand, the function of titles and title pages seems to be to *open* possibilities (ambiguities) rather than close or resolve them. Peter Paolucci York University Toronto, Ontario (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 94 09:42:18 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s The American Conservatory Theatre production of Shrew appeared on PBS as part of the Theater in America series. A good copy of that videotape is deposited in the University of Georgia Library since UGa awards the Peabodys and that program was nominated. It's unlikely that the library could copy and send out such tapes, but the librarian in charge is John Miley, who can be telephoned at 706-542-7360. If someone has seen the videotape of the production at another site, it may well be legally available through a company that markets PBS materials. The production, a commedia delle'arte influenced version, is great fun; students adore it. In fact two of my graduate students went to see it, started laughing, and wound up making such a racket they were nearly thrown out. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Soller Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 06:45:00 -0700 (MST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s I have an average 3/4 inch video of the ACT Shrew. Send me a tape and I will attempt to have my media area dub it...I assume it is public domain??? Best Wishes Larry Soller Theatre Phoenix College 1202 W. Thomas Rd. Phx. Az. 85012 soller@maricopa.pc.edu [Editor's Note: I would check the legal status before offering to copy. Personal use allows wide latitude, but distribution is another matter, and none of us would like SHAKSPER to get into trouble by aiding and abetting -- or whatever legal term applies. Safely your, Hardy] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 20:35:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0695 Q: Shakespearean Opera Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0695. Wednesday, 24 August 1994. From: David R. Maier Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 20:08:23 -0700 Subject: Shakespearean Opera In a recent discussion with a friend, I was told that there were in excess of sixty operas written which were based upon *The Tempest*. While I do not doubt the accuracy of my friend's quote, it has generated some interest on my part regarding Shakepeare as source material for opera. Does anyone know of any resources which compile operas based upon Shakesperean texts? Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Dave Maier -- David Maier dmaier@ednet1.osl.or.gov ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 20:32:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0694 Re: Blayney Catalog; Natural Causes Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0694. Wednesday, 24 August 1994. (1) From: Leslie Thomson Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 21:25:50 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0690 Re: Blayney/Folger Catalogue (2) From: Dan Collins Date: Wednesday, 24 Aug 1994 11:07:54 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: Generic Expectations (Death by Natural Causes) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Thomson Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 21:25:50 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0690 Re: Blayney/Folger Catalogue There are plenty of Peter Blayney's catalogue of his Folger exhibition in stock at the Folger bookshop, and no doubt available my mail. It's $7.95 and well worth it. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Collins Date: Wednesday, 24 Aug 1994 11:07:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: Generic Expectations (Death by Natural Causes) Yeah, obviously the question is, what constitute natural causes? As an emergency room physician told me once, it's natural to die with five bullets in your head. If Gloucester and Lear die of natural causes, then Enobarbus naturally must die of natural causes, too. Characters eaten by offstage bears bear deaths quite naturally, and Mutual of Omaha may have an interest in providing us with interludes. In some versions, Lear's natural dies naturally a cold death for a play in which humor (unless Lear's last scene strikes one as funny) and its defences have been cruelly banished from a plot finally committed to tragedy. Falstaff's death, according to some commentators, was as natural as Greene's, whose afterlife was quite unnatural. What to do? Maybe I've read too much systems theory--or Wilde--but being alive at all seems the most unnatural thing possible. Contemplatively, Dan Collins ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 20:40:42 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questios Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0696. Wednesday, 24 August 1994. (1) From: Diana Henderson Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 17:40 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s (2) From: E. H. Pearlman Date: Wednesday, 24 Aug 1994 11:29:58 -0600 (MDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0692 Re: PC and ACT *Shrew*s (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson Date: Tuesday, 23 Aug 1994 17:40 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0691 Re: ACT and Moonlighting *Shrew*s The video of William Ball's commedia-influenced ACT "Shrew" was broadcast first in 1976 and then repeated in 1979, on PBS (Great Performances/Theater in America series); unfortunately, I don't believe it is available for sale. You may run into similar comments as mentioned re. Bruce Willis, since Marc Singer went on to grade-B action movie fame, of a sort. They certainly use his body to effect in "Shrew," and it is a great antidote to the BBC. So is "Moonlighting," which works even if students don't know about Maddie and David. With enough interest perhaps we could get someone at PBS & ABC to release and market them? In the meantime, I'd recommend taking another look at Zeffirelli's movie, or at least parts of it. An inquiry on a related note: I'm confused about the release date for the (very long) CBC video of the 1981 Stratford Ontario performance w/ Sharry Flett and Len Cariou; Rothwell & Melzer give it as 1981, but I believe that the copy I watched at the Folger was packaged as a 1986 release. Maybe I'm missing something obvious or have misremembered..clarifications welcome. Thanks, Diana Henderson (dianah@midd.cc.middlebury.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. H. Pearlman Date: Wednesday, 24 Aug 1994 11:29:58 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0692 Re: PC and ACT *Shrew*s Concerning the Shrew, does anyone have a theory about why TS has been filmed twice with the world's most famous theatrical couples of the time (Mary Pickford- Douglas Fairbanks 1928 and Elizabeth Taylor- Richard Burton 1965) and each time the marriages exploded soon afterward. What is the proper sociological-psychological gloss for this phenomenon? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 19:54:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0697 Re: *Shrew* Questions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0697. Friday, 26 August 1994. (1) From: Diana Henderson Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 13:05 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questions (2) From: A. G. Bennett Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 13:39 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 13:05 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questions Re: E.H Pearlman's question about Shrew stars & their rocky marriages: this is something I've been thinking about, since I'm writing on film/video Shrews; and it is all too tempting to engage in pop psychology. Both couples not only got divorced afterwards but had each left spouses to marry one another. But after a closer look, I'd say doing Shrew had a direct effect only on Pickford/Fairbanks: it was the sole time they co-starred, and Pickford felt her husband had become Petruchio offstage as well (maybe she only saw it once she had the script or had to work with him, because the possessive & inconsiderate behaviors she describes in her autobiography well precede the filming...). Her description of playing Kate prefigures Fiona Shaw's more detailed account (in Clamorous Voices) of how actresses can feel uncomfortably like Kate as their perspective is ignored or discounted. By contrast, Elizabeth Taylor appears to have enjoyed the role, and she & Dick looked back on the filming as an Italian honeymoon (see Zeffirelli's autobiography--it was his idea to remake the Pickfair Shrew before he thought of using the Burtons [he'd been thinking of Loren and Mastroianni, until his British agent said he needed English speakers]). But enough film gossip...all of which, since it is based on the principals' accounts, should be taken with a handful of salt. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A. G. Bennett Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 13:39 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questions In response to Diana Henderson's question about CBC broadcasts of Stratford productions of _Shrew_-- I don't recall a production from 1981, but I do remember one starring Colm Feore which was broadcast in what might very well have been 1986 (I was in high school at the time, so my memory might be a little off). Perhaps that might be part of the confusion? Incidentally, I highly recommend the Feore production if you get a chance to see it (I have most of it on video somewhere, I think)-- set in Dolce Vita Italy, and Petruchio arrives for his wedding by driving a gaudily decorated moped onto the Festival stage...a hilarious moment! Hope this helps, if only incidentally. Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 19:59:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0698 Re: Shakespearean Opera Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0698. Friday, 26 August 1994. (1) From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 94 13:23:41 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0695 Q: Shakespearean Opera (2) From: James Harner Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 12:08:47 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0695 Q: Shakespearean Opera (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 94 13:23:41 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0695 Q: Shakespearean Opera David Maier asks about musical versions of Shakespeare. The most complete bibliography I'm familiar with is Edward R. Hotaling's Shakespeare and the Musical Stage published by G. K. Hall. It's 517 pages of entries. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 12:08:47 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0695 Q: Shakespearean Opera Bryan N. S. Gooch and David Thatcher, eds., +A Shakespeare Music Catalogue+, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991) is THE source for identifying operatic adaptations of Shakespeare. The +New Grove Dictionary of Opera+ has a selective list (by play) in the Shakespeare entry. Jim Harner World Shakespeare Bibliography ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 20:05:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0699 Re: Titlepages Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0699. Friday, 26 August 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 17:52:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Titlepages Peter Paolucci may be right in asserting that titlepages give us ambiguous information -- if I may translate him into the "former language." But rather than using this as a "theory," let's use it as an hypothesis to be tested against material texts. Perhaps I have a perverse sense of what's interesting, but I'd be fascinated to read a hard-core anaylsis of 16th and early 17th century titlepages. Renaissance authors (those who oversaw the printing of their books), publishers, and printers must have had some concept of what goes into a "good" titlepage. Or, more probably, they had more than one concept of what a good titlepage should look like! What did they quarrel about when a titlepage was being set? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Aug 1994 20:10:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0700 Q: Homoerotic Roleplaying in *JC* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0700. Friday, 26 August 1994. From: Elihu Pearlman Date: Thursday, 25 Aug 1994 14:38:31 -0600 (MDT) Subject: [Q: Homoerotic Roleplaying in *JC*] Does anyone of you learned folk out there remember a recent essay on the subject of homoerotic roleplaying in *Julius Caesar*, the main argument of which is that the assasination of JC can be understood as sexual penetration? Please reply privately to ehpearlman@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu. Thanks very much. Elihu Pearlman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 21:31:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0701 Re: Titlepages Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0701. Sunday, 28 August 1994. (1) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 27 Aug 94 12:48 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0699 Re: Titlepages (2) From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Sunday, 28 Aug 94 10:05:22 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0699 Re: Titlepages (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Saturday, 27 Aug 94 12:48 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0699 Re: Titlepages On the question of title-pages, of which we may be all growing weary, I think that very little can be believed about what they say. Usually the imprint information will be correct; the generic designation is likely to be either the whim of the Stationer (what's fashionable at the moment, though that would be an interesting study) or the way the play was designated in the copy; statements about newness, revisedness, places played, etc. are to some extent fabricated (in any age before advertising when the only advert for a book would probably be the title-page would a Stationer say, "same old stuff you've seen before" or would he say "newly revised and augmented"?; the F1 statement about true and original copies is a case in point, what sells books?); as we all know the author and title statements are either odd, not there at all, or are very various. Just as we would not buy petrol today based upon the claims of the petrol companies, I do not think we can place much serious faith in the claims of title-pages then or now. However, the way these claims are made, and why they are made is probably worthy of more study. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Sunday, 28 Aug 94 10:05:22 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0699 Re: Titlepages Tom Berger is working on Shakespearean title-pages, and how they shaped his reputation; he gave a paper on such at the Society for Textual Scholarship meeting in April 1993, and might be persuaded to answer Bill's query? NR. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 21:41:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0702 Re: Tempest Operas Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0702. Sunday, 28 August 1994. From: John Mucci Date: Saturday, 27 Aug 1994 14:45:58 -0400 Subject: Tempest Operas I am sure all the operaphiles on SHAKSPER will jump on the question of the TEMPEST as a libretto, and will more than likely quote the excellent book by Gary Schmidgall *Shakespeare and Opera* (1990, Oxford). In it he mentions that "No other Shakesperean play has tossed as often and as vehemently on the high seas of music as *The Tempest*. Winton Dean discovered over 30 versions in 1966, and the number continues to rise." I bet there is hardly a person alive who can hum an air from any of them, but some of the composers who attempted it are Purcell (1695, but from Dryden's adaptation), J.C. Smith (1726), Halevy (1850), Nicholas Gatty (1920), Alois Haba (1933), Frank Martin (1956), John Eaton (1985) and Lee Hoiby (1986). Giuseppe Verdi and Felix Mendelssohn spent much time and effort on versions of *The Tempest*, but they came to nothing. Perhaps worth noting, Mozart was considering making a setting of it just after Die Zauberflote. Although the prospect seems tempting to have operatic situations and aria-like soliloquies, no one has been able to leave the story--especially the love interest--alone, and in re-writing it, the whole thing falls apart, into air. Into thin air. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Aug 1994 21:44:28 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0703 Q: Player Dialogue Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0703. Sunday, 28 August 1994. From: Judie Porter Date: Sunday, 28 Aug 1994 8:53:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Hamlet I am new to the SHAKSPER LISTSERV, but would like to ask the following question. Does anyone know of a study of Hamlet that includes a comprehensive explication of the Player King-Player Queen dialogues (III.ii.155-228)? Thanks, Judie Porter, Media Specialist, Portsmouth Schools, R.I. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Aug 1994 10:57:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0704 Re: Natural Deaths; Shrew(d)ness Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0704. Tuesday, 30 August 1994. (1) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 29 Aug 94 09:36:57 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0693 Re: Generic Expectations (Death by Natural (2) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 29 Aug 94 10:03:38 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0692 Re: PC and ACT *Shrew*s (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Monday, 29 Aug 94 09:36:57 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0693 Re: Generic Expectations (Death by Natural I think I've got myself into a bit of a mess here, but I'll try to return Bill's service. I'm not sure that I would be doing Stephen Greenblatt a service by trying to recount what I heard in an hour-long lecture some months ago. I was simply wondering whether anyone has heard him on the topic of death in Shakespeare elsewhere. Perhaps we in South Africa were blessed with a Greenblatt "scoop"! *As far as I remember*, Stephen was suggesting that even "natural" deaths in Shakespeare are all (or almost all?) presented as being the outcome of the actions of the person's life. I've already said too much, and perhaps should wait until Greenblatt publishes the essay or disseminates the idea more freely. David University of Cape Town (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 29 Aug 94 10:03:38 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0692 Re: PC and ACT *Shrew*s Kate is, of course, like Beatrice in _Much Ado_ both "shrew" and "shrewd". I'd like to think that the latter is the result of the former. If one takes the gender-neutrality of "shrew" seriously, then of course Sly is the first shrew in the play, Kate the second, and Petruchio the third and most consummate one. What I find interesting about this play is the way in which the notion of shrew(d)ness, the social nature of comedy and the relations of characters to their society are interrogated. Whatever one's view of the psychology of the action (and I'm entirely sympathetic with those who feel revulsion at the mental and physical torture that Kate is forced to endure) the structure of the play offers a strange view by which shrew(d)ness (being both insight into the nature of a society and its rejection) offers a way to transcend the kind of ideological incorporation that comedy as a genre involves. What kind of ending do we have? Is there any other Shakespearean comedy in which only two out of six "city copulatives" make it to bed in the end? There is nearly a disaster at the end of _Merchant_, but for at least all the heterosexual couples consummation as act and symbol is finally achieved. The point is surely not that Kate wins out against Petruchio (and men) in the end by only pretending to acquiesce, but rather that Kate and Petruchio win out against a society they both despise. That's the fantasy offered by the strange, etiolated comic structure of the play. It may not be any more PC than other interpretations, but it draws the lines in different places, and is more interesting (I think) because it circumvents many of the old questions. I'd be happy to have any responses to this very sketchy view, since it is the basis of an essay I'm writing at the moment, and it would be good to get either some encouragement or firm indications that it's rubbish. One is rather isolated down here. David Schalkwyk University of Cape Town ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Aug 1994 16:05:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0707 Michigan Fest; 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0707. Wednesday, 31 August 1994. (1) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 94 16:39:37 EST Subj: Michigan Fest (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 20:35:15 -0500 (EST) Subj: 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 94 16:39:37 EST Subject: Michigan Fest Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan (just outside Grand Rapids) is holding a Shakespeare Festival, September 23 to October 2, 1994. MND will be produced, acted by college students and two pros. We'll have a number of film showings, with discussions of film/theater differences. There'll be garden performances of scenes and Shakespeare spin-offs. John Andrews will be lecturing and visiting classes. Some Renaissance music and a Renaissance dinner finale. Please stop in, if you're in the area. I can send a full schedule by snail mail to anyone who is interested. Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 20:35:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference I just received a letter from Sam Crowl, Ohio University, who is organizing the 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference. The dates for the Conference are now set: May 11-13, 1995. Phyllis Rackin and Janet Adelman are the featured speakers. Unfortunately, I do not have the official topic for the Conference. Perhaps, if Phyllis is reading this, she can help me. For further information, write directly to: Sam Crowl Department of English Ohio University Athens, OH 45701-2979 Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Aug 1994 16:00:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0706 Re: Shrews; Natural Death (Greenblatt Argument) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0706. Wednesday, 31 August 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 16:11:06 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shrews in SHREW (2) From: Judiana Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 31 Aug 1994 13:41:04 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0704 Re: Natural Deaths (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 16:11:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shrews in SHREW David Schalkwyk is certainly right in saying there is more than one shrew in SHREW, but I'd added a few more -- at least. Bianca is a closet shrew, or, perhaps, her suitors don't seem to notice her words of cool command. If Petruchio is a shrew, then possibly the nameless lord also has a touch of shrewishness. Tranio is surely shrewd; is he a shrew as well? Tranio is "tamed" by the end of the play, put back in his place as servant. Perhaps Shakespeare should have named the play SHREWS ABOUNDING. And David's vision of Petruchio and Katherine (or Kate?) uniting to hoodwink conventional society is possible. Given that vision of the last scene, a director would have to play down the potential violence of Petruchio's "taming" of his wife. Petruchio would have to be played, during the taming scenes, as a kind of humours character who is "odd," but not vicious. And, I suppose, given his initial entrance into the play (and the contrasting entrance of Lucentio), Petruchio has potential as a humourous gentleman -- who is looking for a wife to match him. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judiana Lawrence Date: Wednesday, 31 Aug 1994 13:41:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0704 Re: Natural Deaths From a fellow South African working in Rochester, New York: I'm afraid you did not get a Greenblatt scoop. I heard what sounds like the same paper at the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America three years ago in Vancouver. I remember finding it fascinating but I couldn't paraphrase it. There was something Geertzian in there about a belief in some remote corner that an enemy can eat one's soul, which Greenblatt somehow applied to Shakespeare. Best, Dia Lawrence ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Aug 1994 15:52:06 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0705 Qs: *Err.* Research; Hamlet Trial; Holme Citations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0705. Wednesday, 31 August 1994. (1) From: Robert Miola Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 14:35:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: [Q: *Err.* Research] (2) From: Leslie Harris Date: Tuesday, Aug 30 13:58:45 EDT 1994 Subj: Hamlet Trial (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 21:24:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Randle Holme (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Miola Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 14:35:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Q: *Err.* Research] Am editing The Comedy of Errors volume for the Garland Critical Essays series and would like to know of any interesting work being done on the play. My e-mail address is Miola@Loyola.edu. Thanks. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Tuesday, Aug 30 13:58:45 EDT 1994 Subject: Hamlet Trial Hi, Folks. I was talking to a colleague in our Math Department, and he told me about a program he saw on television (most likely on PBS) relating to _Hamlet_. On that program, several Supreme Court justices debated the issue of whether Hamlet was guilty of murder as a result of his actions during the play. Questions of intentionality and of Hamlet's sanity came up, as they always do when discussing the play. Has anyone seen that program, and would you know how to acquire copies of it? I'm teaching _Hamlet_ in a course this semester, and I think the video would be a great way to stir discussion. Thanks for your help. Leslie Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einstein.susqu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 30 Aug 1994 21:24:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Randle Holme Recently, I've spent some time reading around in Randle Holme's ACADEMY OF ARMORY, OR, STOREHOUSE OF ARMORY AND BLAZON (Chester, 1688), a volume that has something for everyone. In the Second Book (paginated independently), I found a section on gilliflowers (Shakespeare's "Gilly-vors," WINTER'S TALE 4.4.82). Holme records two rather suggestive names for "Gilliflowers mixed with red and white": "The painted Lady" and "Crown of Bohemia" (p 64, H4v). In THE WINTER'S TALE, Polixenes, who normally wears the crown of Bohemia, argues that Perdita should cultivate the flowers. She responds: "Ile not put/The Dible in earth, to set one slip of them:/No more then were I painted, I would wish/This youth should say 'twer well" (1623 Folio, Hinman, TLN 1912-15). Obviously an allusion to "the painted Lady"? Were these names for the gilliflower available to Shakespeare? It's attempting to think so. Or did the names develop from Shakespeare's play, proving the popularity of WT in the seventeenth century? Or is this merely a coincidence? I've check Pafford's Arden edition and, after a quick reading of footnotes and appendix, I can't find a reference to these names. And, to change the subject completely in Book Three, Holme has a section on seventeenth-century printing (a subject he would know first hand) with definitions and social customs (pp. 113ff., P1r). I can't recall seeing Holme cited very frequently as a source on this subject. Am I wrong? The Scolar Press reprinted THE ACADEMY in 1972. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Sep 1994 21:22:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0708 New on the SHAKSPER Fileserver: ETHICAL TREATISS Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0708. Thursday, 1 September 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook or . Below is the first entry in Ben Schneider's annotated list. ******************************************************************************* A List of Pre-eminent Ethical Treatises of the 16th Century in conjectural order of importance Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0467. Friday, 27 May 1994. Compiled by Ben Schneider, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI August 1994 Cicero's *De Officiis*: "Tully's *Offices*," was well-qualified to become the gentleman's manual of the age, being short and imparting all a schoolboy needed to know, from how to make war and peace to how to behave in company. It was the first classical text ever printed, at the Monastery of Subiaco in 1465. The *British Museum Catalogue* lists 11 printed editions of it before 1600--8 interlinear translations, 1 English without Latin, and 2 in Latin, bound with Cicero's *De Amicitia* and *De Senectute*. 18 more editions were published before 1700. For comparison, the *BMC* lists no edition of any dialogue of Plato in any language printed in England before 1600, and only one edition of Aristotle's *Ethics*, a translation into English of Brunetto Latini's compendium of its "preceptes of good behauour and perfighte honestie." Erasmus prefaced and anno*tated an edition of *De Officiis* in 1501. Sir Thomas Elyot, in his popular *Governour* (1531), lists three essential texts for bringing up yuoung gentlemen: Plato's works, Aristotle's *Ethics*, and *De Officiis*. "Those three bokes," Elyot says, "be almost sufficient to make a perfecte and excellent governour" (1.47-8). King James I's own version of *De Officiis*, *Basilikon Doron* (1603), in which he tells his son Prince Henry his duties as man and ruler, refers him to Cicero 55 times, 16 of them to *De Officiis*. In *The Complete Gentleman* (1622), *Henry Peacham implies that *De Officiis* is a standard beginning Latin text (29). In the preface to his translation of 1681 Sir Roger L'Estrange calls it "the commonest school book that we have," and goes on to observe, "as it is the best of books, so it is applied to the best of purposes, that is to say, to training up of youth in the study and exercise of virtue." Voltaire said of it, "No one will ever write anything more wise." (Wells, *Wide Arch*, p. 142) And Hume preferred its moral teaching to that of Allestree's *The Whole Duty of Man*, a standard Christian competitor. (MacIntyre, p. 214). It gave Wordsworth his first aquaintance with a morality of nature, when he studied it at Hawkshead school (Schneider, *Wordsworth, 72ff). T. W. Baldwin, after exhaustive researches into Shakespeare's learning, could be certain only that he read one classic: *De Officiis*, in grammar school (Martindale 7). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 10:21:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0709 Qs: *JC*; *Ado* Video; Sh. Societies; Gaia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0709. Saturday, 2 September 1994. (1) From: Pedro Rubim de Pinho Accioli Doria Date: Wednesday, 31 Aug 1994 22:53:45 -0300 Subj: Caesar! (2) From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 01 Sep 1994 14:56:18 -0500 (EST) Subj: Branagh's *Much Ado* (3) From: James O'Meara Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 1994 13:53:50 -0 Subj: Shakespeare Societies (4) From: Tom Ellis Date: Friday, 02 Sep 1994 21:53:52 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Quid Shakespeare cum Gaia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pedro Rubim de Pinho Accioli Doria Date: Wednesday, 31 Aug 1994 22:53:45 -0300 Subject: Caesar! I'm writing an article on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". Since it is basically on a review of one setting that's taking place in Rio de Janeiro, I'm interested to know about other theaters around the world that have performed it or even movies (yes, I've seen both the BBC TV's and Marlon Brando's -- outstanding! -- versions). What would Shakespereans comment about it? I'll surely list everybody that's able to help me with some sort of info. Thanks a lot, Pedro R. Doria director to "Nos Enquanto Eles" group pdoria@ax.ibase.br (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 01 Sep 1994 14:56:18 -0500 (EST) Subject: Branagh's *Much Ado* Does anyone know if Branagh's *Much Ado* is commercially available on videotape? If you have a price and address, I'd be grateful. John Cox (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James O'Meara Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 1994 13:53:50 -0700 Subject: Shakespeare Societies I obtained your name/address from "The Internet Directory." I am a librarian in New York City. I have been asked to locate associations in NYC dealing with Shakespeare. Incredibly, neither the Encyclopedia of Associations nor the New York Public Library can turn up any evidence of them! Any assistance would be appreciated; do you know of any, or would it be possible to post this query to you e-list? Cordially, James O'Meara [NOTA BENE: Mr. O'Meara is NOT a member of SHAKSPER. If you respond to this query, please address or forward a copy of your response DIRECTLY to James O'Meara at . --HMC] (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Ellis Date: Friday, 02 Sep 1994 21:53:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Quid Shakespeare cum Gaia This may seem (and probably is) completely off the wall, but I am currently pursuing a new slant on the hoary old "nature/nurture" dichotomy in Shakespeare. I'll begin with two pertinent passages (1) "The Earth that's Nature's mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb, children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find; Many for many virtues excellent; None but for some, and yet all different. O mickle is the powerful grace that lies In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities. For nought so vile that on the Earth doth live But to the Earth some special good doth give; Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied; And vice sometim's by action dignified..." (2) PERDITA: For I have heard it said there is an Art that in their piedness shares with Great Creating Nature. POLIXENES: Say there be; Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean. So over and above That art which you say adds to Nature Is an art that Nature makes... [You all know the rest. This is from memory; my anthology is downstairs] I often bring these passages to my students' attention because I feel they anticipate, in interesting ways, many of the epistemological and ethical issues confronting us in today's global ecological crisis. Which brings me back to my original query (or koan, perhaps): Quid Shakespeare cum Gaia? What hath Shakespeare to do (if anything) with contemporary debates about the relationship between humanity and nature, as these affect our (dwindling) chances for survival into or beyond the 21st century. Is this a non-issue? Or can one legitimately talk about Shakespeare's moral ecology? Teasingly, --Tom Ellis ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 10:38:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0710 Re: Copulatives (Shr.); Gillyflowers; Hamlet Trial Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0710. Saturday, 2 September 1994. (1) From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Wednesday, 31 Aug 1994 16:09:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHAKSPER Digests - 28 Aug 1994 to 30 Aug 1994 [Copulatives] (2) From: Peter Paolucci Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 1994 16:57:50 -0400 Subj: Gillyflowers (3) From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 1994 18:52:11 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0705 Qs: Hamlet Trial (4) From: Edward Gero Date: Friday, 2 Sep 1994 09:39:59 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0705 Qs: Hamlet Trial (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Wednesday, 31 Aug 1994 16:09:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHAKSPER Digests - 28 Aug 1994 to 30 Aug 1994 [Copulatives] "If she and I be pleased, what's it to you?" "But what a fool I am to chat with you/When I should bid good morrow to my lovely bride" "Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,/Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves." Petruchio's contempt for the society that has shamed Kate seems beyond dispute -- "If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me." As to plays in which a low number of copulatives make it to bed, in *Love's Labors Lost* the score is no better than 0 for 8. That's a breathtaking bit of genre defiance by Shakespeare. Ralph Alan Cohen James Madison University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Paolucci Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 1994 16:57:50 -0400 Subject: Gillyflowers Bill Godshalk was wondering about Shakespeare and Gillyflowers. You may want to have a peek at Spenser's *Amoretti*, #64 for what seems to be a fairly conventional use of this flower as an image of sensual love. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 1994 18:52:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0705 Qs: Hamlet Trial The program was aired on PBS sometime in the Spring or Fall of !993. PBS should be able tp provide transcripts and/or copies. Imtiaz Habib (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Gero Date: Friday, 2 Sep 1994 09:39:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0705 Qs: Hamlet Trial Dear Leslie, The "Trial of Hamlet" was organized for the benefit of The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C. Hamlet's case was performed in the Supreme Court Chambers with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Anthony Kennedy presiding. Most of the justices are frequent patrons of the Shakespeare Theatre. The event was recorded on C-Span and questions concerning a tape may be directed to The Shakespeare Theatre (202) 547-3230. I'm not sure if one is available, but the office could answer your questions. Edward Gero Resident Company Member Shakespeare Theatre Washington, DC ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 10:48:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0711 Announcements: SAA Seminar 31; CFP Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0711. Saturday, 2 September 1994. (1) From: James Yoch Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 94 15:54 CDT Subj: Conference Announcement (2) From: T. Scott Clapp Date: Friday, 02 Sep 1994 08:26:26 -0700 (MST) Subj: Call for Papers (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Yoch Date: Thursday, 1 Sep 94 15:54 CDT Subject: Conference Announcement Please re-distribute freely: ********************************************************** Shakespeare Association of America Conference in Chicago 1995 ********************************************************** This conference includes a seminar (#31) on Shakespeare illustrations hypertext, multimedia in the 20th Century. "Imaginary Puissance: Picturing Shakespeare in the Twentieth Century" A verbal-visual inquiry as it applies to Shakespeare, the seminar will focus on art moving beyond the borders of text. The discussion will draw on twentieth-century illustrations and book arts, paintings and photographs, comics and movies and interactive videos and hypermedia. Participants may wish to consider the roles of pictures in transgressing the text, in competing with the past, in reshaping the canon. If you wish to participate, please contact: The Shakespeare Association of America Department of English Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 75275 If you see anything of interest to this topic on the Internet, please send it to me directly at: JJYOCH@aardvark.ucs.uoknor.edu If you know of any videos or CD-ROMs on Shakespeare, I'd like to know about them. Thanks. James Yoch Department of English University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 73019 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: T. Scott Clapp Date: Friday, 02 Sep 1994 08:26:26 -0700 (MST) Subject: Call for Papers CALL FOR PAPERS Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods February 16-18, 1995 The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University invites papers for an interdisciplinary conference on the general topic of how the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have been viewed through the centuries and how they defined themselves. (Norman Cantor~s work on the concept of the Middle Ages in various historical periods may be used as a model.) Possible session topics include: periodization as it affects views of the past revivalisms Gothicism national differences twentieth-century views continuities/changes in attitudes to allegory Renaissance views of the Middle Ages medievalism/the Renaissance in the modern periods (Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, modern, post-modern, etc.) medieval views of the Middle Ages Renaissance views of the Renaissance continuities between the Middle Ages and Renaissance survival of antiquity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Professor Norman Cantor will present the conference's keynote address. The conference will be held at the Radisson Mission Palms Hotel, two blocks from the ASU campus in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. The high temperature in the ~Valley of the Sun~ during February averages 70 degrees. Proposals for sessions and detailed abstracts will be accepted beginning August 1, 1994. The final deadline will be December 1, 1994. Please send two copies of proposal for papers and sessions to the program committee chair: Robert E. Bjork, Director, ACMRS, Arizona State University, Box 872301, Tempe, AZ 85287-2301. Email: atreb@asuvm.inre.asu.edu. Phone: (602) 965-5900. Fax: (602) 965-2012. T. Scott Clapp, Program Coordinator Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Arizona State University Box 872301 Tempe, AZ 85287-2301 Phone: (602) 965-5900; FAX: (602) 965-2012 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 10:56:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0712 "Nude" Hamlet; WWW Cambridge School Editions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0712. Saturday, 2 September 1994. (1) From: Margaret Jayko Date: Friday, 02 Sep 94 17:37:01 EDT Subj: "Nude" Hamlet (2) From: Peter Scott Date: Saturday, 03 Sep 1994 08:20:15 -0600 (CST) Subj: The Cambridge School Shakespeare Series (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Margaret Jayko Date: Friday, 02 Sep 94 17:37:01 EDT Subject: "Nude" Hamlet For those of you collecting "nude" Shakespeare, I offer the following review from the *London Evening Standard*, Friday, 12 August 1994: Headline: "To Bare or not to Bare? "It had just turned midnight beneath a blue-black , starr-scattered sky--truly a brave o'er-hanging firmament--at the Acropolis in Athens when Stephen Dillane began to close Act III of Hamlet by disposing of the body of Polonius and lead us to the interval. "He pulled off his blood-stained clothing after lugging the remains of the 'foolish, pratting knave' to a nearby room and then pulled off his pants as well as he finished his farewell speech to his mother (Gertrude) and streaked across the 50-meter arena stage into the wings" Michael Owens, the reviewer, was unable to get the Dilane or director Sir Peter Hall to say if the streaking would occur at the theater's London presentation (at the Guilgud Theater). However, Dillane intimated he has been toying with the idea of a "cross-dressing" Hamlet but has not yet introduced this into the current production. If anyone is interested in the complete review drop me a note at SHAKESPR@AOL.COM (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Scott Date: Saturday, 03 Sep 1994 08:20:15 -0600 (CST) Subject: The Cambridge School Shakespeare Series Cambridge U Press has a very useful WWW page at http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/ with a link to The Cambridge School Shakespeare Series at http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/Reviews&blurbs/SchoolShake.html Certainly worth a look, particularly if you have a graphics WWW browser. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 17:14:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0713 Yet Another Landmark for SHAKSPER (713 Members) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0713. Saturday, 3 September 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, September 3, 1994 Subject: Yet Another Landmark for SHAKSPER Dear SHAKSPEReans, On October 3, 1993, I announced that SHAKSPER's membership had passed the 400 mark; on Friday, February 4, 1994, I announced that SHAKSPER had than 500 members. At that time I wrote, "This phenomenal growth reflects the vitality of our conference. With this growth comes new ideas, new questions, and new perspectives from which we all benefit. On the administrative side, however, more members can mean more work for me as your editor and for the University of Toronto's LISTSERV Maintainer, Steve Younker, to whom we all owe an enormous debt. To reduce the number of error messages that are sent to me and to Steve Younker, it particularly important that if you are going to be away from your accounts for an extended period that you use the NOMAIL option and that if your account is going to become inactive that you SIGNOFF at that address." It is my pleasure to announce that as of today, Saturday, September 3, 1994, we have 713 members from 21 countries: Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States. It goes without saying that I am extremely pleased by our growth and our diversity and that I want to thank all of you for making SHAKSPER the exciting international conference it is. I also promise not to make another SHAKSPER Landmark Announcement until we surpass 1000 active members. In August, in The Washington, DC, area, all psychiatrists and members of Congress are on vacation. I say this because many SHAKSPERans have set their option to NOMAIL of late and are now joining up again; if you have posted a query and have gotten no response, please consider reposting in a few weeks -- you may still get answer to your questions. Well, my wife and eleven-month-old daughter (YES, she's almost a year old; the teenaged daughter is at a Labor Day Festival) are downstairs playing the Indigo Girls, which will soon arrive at their cover of the Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet" -- thanks Ralph Alan Cohen for providing the information after I saw last season's SSE *Rom.* and asked about the song that segued into the play -- so I think I'll go down and listen now. Thanks to all for making my labor of love so much fun, Hardy M. Cook Editor ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994 07:17:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0714 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0714. Tuesday, 5 September 1994. (1) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, September 5, 1994 Subj: Apologies (2) From: Pedro Rubim de Pinho Accioli Doria Date: Saturday, 3 Sep 1994 19:23:30 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0712 "Nude" Hamlet (3) From: Ken Colston Date: Monday, 05 Sep 94 13:20:17 EDT Subj: Ralph Finnes on Tour in Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, September 5, 1994 Subject: Apologies My apologies to Carey Cummings for misattributing her posting about the "Nude" Hamlet. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pedro Rubim de Pinho Accioli Doria Date: Saturday, 3 Sep 1994 19:23:30 -0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0712 "Nude" Hamlet If there's interest on nude Hamlet reviews I'd like to share with you my appointments on "Ham-Let" staged by director Jose' Celso Martinez Correa in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo/Brazil. (1) Ham-Let is a 5 hour play, divided in three acts (instead of the original five). (2) There are plenty of nude scenes, even an almost-explicit sex one (between Claudius and Gertrude as King Hamlet's ghost talks to his son on the beginning of Act I). As an actor, I don't see any problem on nudes; as a director I rather not use them. Yet, I've heard about some Midsummer Night Dream's stagings that were extremely poetic on these. It is not the case of Ham-let. Most actors are simply bad actors (that includes Hamlet himself). The homosexual relationship between the prince and Horatio is exposed on a shocking (and unnecessary) half-a-minute kiss. Hamlet strips off his pants and walk around the stage on his shirt for a while... Yet there is one single scene which is extremely beautiful, the one of Ophelia's suicide. On a white see-through dress she falls into a pool (it's an open air presentation) singing. For some moments there's a tender mood on the audience. Then, two men jump desperate on the pool, they yell a little. It is terror we see on their eyes. One of them comes back with dead Ophelia on his arms. It's a pity that on a five-hour play this is the only shot I'll keep on notes. The show simply isn't worth it. Anyone interested on more details on this, simply send me a mail. I'd be glad to help with newspaper reviews and other comments. There's been a lot of talking about Ham-Let around here. Pedro R. Doria Director to "Nos Enquanto Eles" group pdoria@ax.ibase.br (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ken Colston Date: Monday, 05 Sep 94 13:20:17 EDT Subject: Ralph Finnes on Tour in Hamlet I have heard that Ralph Finnes is/will be on tour playing Hamlet in the United States. Does anyone know company and the schedule? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994 07:30:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0715 Re: *Ado* Video*; CBC *Shrew* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0715. Tuesday, 5 September 1994. (1) From: A. G. Bennett Date: Saturday, 3 Sep 1994 22:33 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0709 Qs: *Ado* Video (2) From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Sunday, 04 Sep 94 11:43:21 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0709 Qs: *Ado* Video (3) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 5 Sep 1994 13:49:32 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: A. G. Bennett Date: Saturday, 3 Sep 1994 22:33 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0709 Qs: *Ado* Video John: Yes, Branagh's _Much Ado_ is available on video. I got mine by selling my soul to the Columbia House Video Club, but you can probably get a copy for somewhere around $30 or so. Cheers, Alex Bennett (bennett@binah.cc.brandeis.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nicholas Ranson Date: Sunday, 04 Sep 94 11:43:21 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0709 Qs: *Ado* Video I got my "Ado" from Columbia House Video Club, 1400 North Fruitridge Ave., P.O. Box 1111, Terre Haute, IA 47811 as part of a package. There's a toll free no. 1-800-262-2001 for information. I have also seen it in the Playboy Video catalogue; and last March on this network someone announced it, I think, as available from their local video store for about $29.95. My package price was more like $19.95, but I bought a bundle under the agreement. Cheers, NR. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 5 Sep 1994 13:49:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0696 Re: ACT *Shr.* and *Shrew* Questions Dear Diana, I'm not surprised that you're confused about the "release date" of the CBC SHREW starring Len Cariou and Sharry Flett. There was the original 1981 stage production reviewed in SQ (33.2) by Ralph Berry; the 1985 educational cassettes based on the production (which are listed separately in my videography--item 606, pg. 280); and the 1986 television transmission on CBC reviewed by Herb Coursen in his SHAKESPEARE ON TELEVISION (pg. 286+). I'm always glad to hear about problems like this in the event that there's ever a second edition. Yours for total clarification, Ken Rothwell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994 07:33:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0716 Q: Shakespeare's Shortest Play Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0716. Tuesday, 5 September 1994. From: Blair Kelly III Date: Monday, 5 Sep 1994 14:46:40 -0400 Subject: Which is Bill's shortest play? I believe the answer is Comedy of Errors. However if any experts would like to correct me, I would appreciate the education! (Am I overlooking differing quarto versions, variant texts, etc?) I am basing my conclusion on a line and word count of the corpus of 37 plays that I have on-line. line count word count 1. 6051 hamlet 32253 hamlet 2. 6004 anthony 31692 richard-3 3. 5841 coriolanus 29342 coriolanus 4. 5781 richard-3 28981 cymbeline 5. 5531 lear 28003 henry-4.2 ... 33. 3704 john 18368 verona 34. 3611 verona 18310 macbeth 35. 3405 tempest 17450 tempest 36. 3121 midsum 17203 midsum 37. 2943 errors 16263 errors The reason for my asking is that as part of the Maryland Renaissance Festival (now ongoing and which I recommend to anyone in the area), the actors of "Shakespeare's Skum" (presenting fractured - and hilarious - renditions of the Bard's plays) this year presented "Shakespeare in Double Jeopardy" - a take off on the popular quiz show where in this version all the topics are about Bill's plays. Unfortunately, I was not chosen as a contestant (much to the disappointment of my friends who know me to be a Shakespeare groupie). So I sat in the audience and told my friends - sotto voice - the answers to the questions of which play or which character the actors were presenting in short (and funny) skits. I had a perfect score until the final Jeopardy question "Which is Shakespeare's shortest play?" - and the answer judged correct was Macbeth! (my guess at the time was Comedy of Errors). Help me save my reputation with my friends! Blair Kelly III bfkelly@afterlife.ncsc.mil ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 12:59:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0717 Re: *Ado* Video; Shortest Play Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 717. Wednesday, 7 September 1994. (1) From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Tuesday, 06 Sep 1994 13:08:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0709 Qs: Video *ADO* (2) From: Michael Field Date: Tuesday, 6 Sep 1994 16:56:04 -0400 (EDT) Subj: [Shortest Play] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Tuesday, 06 Sep 1994 13:08:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0709 Qs: Video *ADO* Branagh's *Much Ado* is available from The Writing Company for $79.50 plus $2 shipping/handling: 1-800-421-4246 or 10200 Jefferson Boulevard, Room 1, P.O.Box 802, Culver City, CA 90232-0802. No need to buy a pkg. deal to get it. James J. Hill, Towson State University, IN%"e7e4jjh@ TOE.TOWSON.EDU" (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Field Date: Tuesday, 6 Sep 1994 16:56:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Shortest Play] [Lady Weakbody of Shakespeare's Skum asked me to pass on the following message to members of the list, and in particular, Blair Kelly III -- mike field] Swounds! You are indeed correct, my lord. After reading your note, I did go back to Master Shakespeare. He hit me over the head and muttered, "Wrong again, Weakbody!" Comedy of Errors is indeed the shortest play. My confusion began after I had read that the Scottish play was the shortest of the *tragedies.* Shakespeare's Skum is mortified at the mistake, and shall correct it for this week's show. I shall be happy to call all of your friends and tell them that, yes, you are in fact quite a smarty-guy! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Sep 1994 13:06:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0718 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 718. Wednesday, 7 September 1994. (1) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Tuesday, 06 Sep 1994 16:03:27 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0714 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) (2) From: Barbara Correll Date: Tuesday, 6 Sep 1994 20:11:23 -0400 (EDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0714 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Tuesday, 06 Sep 1994 16:03:27 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0714 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) A recent postcard from a friend in the UK said that Ralph Fiennes will be playing Hamlet at the Hackney Empire. No mention of a US tour. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Also an article in the TATLER mentioned a Radio 3 version of KING LEAR done in honor of Sir John Gielgud's 90th birthday. Aside from Sir John, it listed Dame Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins as Goneril and Regan and Emma Thompson as Cordelia. Does anyone know if this will be available in the US any time soon? Thanks in advance, Elizabeth Schmitt (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Barbara Correll Date: Tuesday, 6 Sep 1994 20:11:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0714 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) I'm probably going to be sorry for responding to this. I haven't, of course, seen "Nude" Hamlet. I don't know Pedro Rubim de Pinho Accioli Doria, and I can't even imagine what my reponse will produce. Still, this: When I read that nude performances of homosexual relationships, half-minute same-sex onstage kisses are shocking and unnecessary; but that a female nude, suicidal Ophelia in "a white see-through dress" is "beautiful" and produces "a tender mood in the audience"; then I think that it is a shame that this person privileges what sound like homophobic and rather sexist attitudes. I would, furthermore, encourage him to question those attitudes. I have more than a few graduate students who would take the homoerotic aspects of this performance very seriously; more than a few who would be deeply troubled, not tenderized. It seems difficult, in this day and age, to think of continuing to aestheticize female self-destruction. Whether the production was worthwhile or not, I hope my comments are worth further reflection. Best intentions, B. Correll ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 22:00:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0719 Re: *Tmp.* Opera; Nude Hamlet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0719. Thursday, 8 September 1994. (1) From: Nina Rulon-Miller Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 94 14:14:31 EDT Subj: Tempest Opera (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 1994 19:29:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0718 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nina Rulon-Miller Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 94 14:14:31 EDT Subject: Tempest Opera A while back someone wanted information on Tempest operas. There was one at the Lawrenceville School, Lvlle, NJ recently: World Premiere of Peter Westergaard's Tempest, 6/18-7/16/94. At the time you could order a brochure by phone, (609) 936-1500. Regards- Nina Rulon-Miller RULONMIL@TSCVM.TRENTON.EDU (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 1994 19:29:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0718 Re: Hamlet (Nude and Otherwise) Barbara Correll ought to be feeling a little shame, having roused me as a member of at least three minorities to have to say that her attempt to dictate the moral and emotional response of any Hamlet's audience is rather sad. This Scots, homosexual, diabetic, ex-Episcopalian, actor-professor finds it distasteful to be told what to feel. How dare she imply that it is more virtuous to take pleasure in gay kissing in the play and find Ophelia's transparent nightie offensive than to object to the former and like the latter? I'm sorry. Harry Hill Montreal ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 22:09:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0720 Announcements: CFP; Gielgud Lear Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0720. Thursday, 8 September 1994. (1) From: Renee Pigeon Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 1994 13:09:26 -0700 Subj: CFP (2) From: Balz Engler Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 18:12:28 +0200 Subj: Gielgud Lear (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Renee Pigeon Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 1994 13:09:26 -0700 Subject: CFP CALL FOR PAPERS The Renaissance Conference of Southern California Southwest Regional Renaissance Conference 12-13 May 1995 The Huntington Library, San Marino, California 1995 RCSC Lecturer: Richard Helgerson Submissions are invited from scholars in all disciplines relating to Renaissance studies. Please send abstracts for papers (reading length twenty minutes), proposals for sessions, or ideas for non-traditional conference formats (e.g., workshops) for receipt no later than January 27, 1995, to: Prof. Renee Pigeon, RCSC President, Dept. of English, CSU San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA 92407. Please include a telephone number and/or e-mail address where you can be reached. Submissions by e-mail are welcomed: send to rpigeon@wiley.csusb.edu. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Balz Engler Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 18:12:28 +0200 Subject: Gielgud Lear The production of Lear for Gielgud's 90th birthday with a star-studded cast is available from Random House Audiobooks (ISBN 1-85686-202-X). Balz Engler University of Basel engler@urz.unibas.ch ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 22:16:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0721 Qs: MV Characters; 1 Contention Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0721. Thursday, 8 September 1994. (1) From: Robert Lloyd Neblett Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 00:58:48 -0500 (CDT) Subj: MERCHANT characters (2) From: Kate Egerton Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 94 10:46 EDT Subj: _The First Part of the Contention_ - a vocab ? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Lloyd Neblett Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 00:58:48 -0500 (CDT) Subject: MERCHANT characters I will be directing MERCHANT in the summer of 1995, and need a little advice. Please inform me of the debates regarding the characters of the "Salads" -- Salerio, Salarino, and Solanio. I know that David Bevington regards Salerio & Salarino to be the same person, but I would like to know about relevant arguments and positions. My main concern is: do I leave them as three characters and deal with casting another actor or do I combine Salerio and Salarino in order to tidy up the text for my audience and cast? Please respond. Robert Neblett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kate Egerton Date: Wednesday, 07 Sep 94 10:46 EDT Subject: _The First Part of the Contention_ - a vocab ? Greetings - I have a question about a phrase in _The First Part of the Contention of the two famous houses of York and Lancaster_, sometimes known as Q of _2 Henry VI_ (it's tempting, but I won't get into that right now). Rather late in the Cade business, there is a scene in _The First_ that has no analogue in F, between Cade, Dicke, and "a Sargaint." Dicke has "ravish'd" the Sargaint's wife, and the wronged lawman has come to Cade for "justice of this fellow here" (bad move on the part of the Sargaint). Now, my question has to do with the term Dicke uses to describe part of his action - "paper house." The only gloss I can find on this phrase is in the Wells & Taylor textual companion, and Gary Taylor thinks that "paper" is a misprint for "proper," meaning own, private, excellent, or some such. I can buy this (and since the scene isn't in F, it's not in _Shakespeare's Bawdy_ or any other glossary that I've found), Dicke is obviously referring to this poor woman's intimate anatomy, but might "paper" stand in the sense of the role of the Sargaint as a lawman, and agent of the court? And is the substitution by a compositor of "ro" for "a" especially understandable in Secretary hand? If anyone has thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them before I stick my neck out in my (very small and friendly) seminar next week. Kate Egerton UNC-CH egerton@uncmvs.oit.unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 22:23:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0722 Good Reads et al.; New Play Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0722. Thursday, 8 September 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 94 09:05:45 -0500 Subj: Good Reading & Other Opportunities (2) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 11:08:07 -0600 Subj: New Play (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 94 09:05:45 -0500 Subject: Good Reading & Other OpportunitiesFrom: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 94 09:05:45 -0500 Subject: Good Reading & Other Opportunities I just wanted to mention two worthwhile books I read this summer while teaching a Shakespeare class: Joseph Pequigney's *Such Is My Love,* a study of the sonnets and John Gross's *Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy.* While I occasionally disagreed with some of Pequigney's readings of particular sonnets, and am not quite as sympathetic as he is to the beloved friend (middle-aged cynicism, perhaps?), I found his discussion on the whole very persuasive. John Gross's work is equally wonderful, and particularly impressive in terms of the breadth of its inquiry. Both books are also beautifully written, a quality I find increasingly rare in academic writing. I'd like to invite any Shakspereans in the Minneapolis- St. Paul area (or anyone passing through) to an exhibit at the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota: it's called *The Stage Is All the World: The Theatrical Designs of Tanya Moiseiwitsch.* It will be here from September 29-December 4; it will then travel to San Antonio for exhibit from March 26-June 25 (it opened in Chicago this spring, then travelled to Toronto this summer). Moiseiwitsch designed many Shakespearean productions in Britain, Canada, and the U.S., and the exhibit promises to be quite wonderful. And if there are any true hearty souls out there among you, a group of us from the University and community here are planning a bus trip to Winnipeg the last weekend in January to see the Manitoba Theatre Centre's production of *Hamlet.* E-mail me directly if you're interested in going along or would like more information. We're affectionately dubbing the expedition "ABSOLUTE INSANITY." Chris Gordon University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 11:08:07 -0600 Subject: New Play I have recently completed a play inspired by (in addition to the works of William Shakespeare): *In Search of Shakespeare*, by Charles Hamilton, and *Everything and Nothing* by Jorge Luis Borges. The play is entitled *LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT* and chronicles the last days of Shakespeare revolving around the writing of his will. If anyone would like to receive an e-mail copy of this play, you may e-mail me directly at: apearson@great-lakes.net. Feedback and comments would be appreciated. Be advised the text is 56 type written pages in length, 122 K. *LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT* is copyrighted 1994. Brief bio: In addition to having performed many major roles in the canon, as playwright I am the recent first prize winner in the Midwestern Playwright's Festival for a play entitled *CAIRO* which will receive its professional premier with Toledo Rep in April 1995. Arthur Pearson Great Lakes Protection Fund apearson@great-lakes.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 14:42:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0723 CFP and Reviews TPI Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 723. Saturday, 10 September 1994. From: James Emory Zeiger Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 23:33:13 -0600 (MDT) Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS AND REVIEWS NOTE: The following message is heavily cross-posted. Apologies for the inevitable duplications. THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL (TPI) invites submission of papers for the third issue, release date Sept. 30. Subject matter will be the history, theory, dramaturgy, and the theatrical production of the works of Shakespeare. The editors aim to present a wide cross-section of current thought on Shakespeare and welcome non-traditional as well as traditional perspectives. TPI intends to provide a broad sampling of reviews of the past summer's Shakespeare festivals. Some reviews are already in-house and several are expected over the next two weeks. Individuals interested in submitting reviews should contact the editors via e-mail. Articles may only be submitted electronically, using one of three methods: 1. Upload via e-mail to the editors: David Reifsnyder (reifsnyd@ucsu.Colorado.EDU) or Jim Zeiger (zeigere@ucsu.Colorado.EDU). 2. Upload via the THEATRE LYNX BBS at the University of Colorado (303-530-5157). Please note that this is a new access number for THEATRE LYNX. New users wishing information via THEATRE LYNX will find easy on-screen instructions. Questions should be directed to the sysop, Richard Finkelstein. 3. Mail submissions on floppy disc (any format, Mac or PC, ASCII text preferred) to: THEATRE.PERSPECTIVES.INTERNATIONAL Dept. of Theatre and Dance University of Colorado Campus Box 261 Boulder, CO 80309-0261 USA Please do not make submissions via the listserv address. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 14:58:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0724 Re: MV Characters Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 724. Saturday, 10 September 1994. (1) From: David Collins Date: Friday, 9 Sep 1994 11:03:14 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re:SHK 5.0721 Qs: MV Characters (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 09 Sep 1994 15:19:38 -0500 (EST) Subj: MERCHANT characters (3) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 94 00:28:19 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0721 Qs: MV Characters (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Collins Date: Friday, 9 Sep 1994 11:03:14 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0721 Qs: MV Characters With regard to Robert Neblett's query about Salerio and Solanio, it seems to me that this is one of those occasions when there is a difference between the minor characters. I can't claim actually to have counted the lines, but Solanio impresses me as having more--and as having more speeches that go on for more than a line or two. What does he say? Whereas Salerio speaks more to get business done, Solanio offers more opinions, says more that suggests something about what kind of person he is. It's he, for example, who in the first scene brings up the possibility of "love" with regard to Antonio's troubles and goes on to quip that "Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time." He seems to me to be enjoying more lurid possibilities than the occasion really allows. And later (II.viii) it's Solanio who is most forward in terms of anti-semitic language. He's the one who speaks of the "villain Jew," "the dog Jew," and who most enjoys Shylock's quandry expressed in the "My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!" sequence. Perhaps he is just more vocal, and he certainly can't touch Gratiano or Bassanio for the depths of their anti-semitism. He doesn't spit upon or kick people like Bassanio, nor does he enjoy the ironies of the trial scene quite so much as Gratiano who positively delights in turning the knife Portia and company have stuck into Shylock. Nonetheless, Solanio seems to me a particularly nasty follower, all the more detestable because he lacks the imagination to lead. Salerio, of course, has his negative moments. But when he describes Shylock's obdurate nature (see III.ii.274ff.) there is a certain reserve in his description of which Solanio would probably not be capable--not to mention Gratiano. Is the difference big enough to worry about? I think so. If there's an actor available who has a talent for conveying sheer nastiness, he's the one to play Solanio! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 09 Sep 1994 15:19:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: MERCHANT characters It's now generally thought that that Salerio and Salerino are one dramatic figure -- or character if you wish. Montgomery and Wells discuss the problem in WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A TEXTUAL COMPANION, 232-24. But Robert Neblett may wish to look at David Bradley's FROM TEXT TO PERFORMANCE IN THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE for Bradley's idea of "dodging," i.e. one character played by more than one actor. Are Salerio/Salerino and Solanio important enough to demand the theatrical attention of ONE actor for each character? Bradley's position is (or might be if he had discussed this play) that the man who decided the roles might not think so. Both roles may have been "dodged" on the Renaissance stage. And thus, who cares what "character" "Sal." refers to? Sal. is "function" rather than "character." Just asking, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 94 00:28:19 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0721 Qs: MV Characters Merchant Characters: Ah, in my salad days I played all of those guys, somehow, very badly in my second (and last) effort as a performer. Whatever the serious criticism may be on those fellas, you should look at Stephen Leacock's giddy piece, "Saloonio." It appears in his LITERARY LAPSES, and I can send a xerox to anyone who asks, since I haven't seen it reprinted anywhere. It should be read aloud as an initiatory ritual at the opening moments of SAA Textual Seminars. Giggling, Steve Urgigglewitz, Chair of English, City College of New York ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Sep 1994 15:12:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0725 Re: Nudes; Shrews; Frogs; Deaths Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 725. Saturday, 10 September 1994. (1) From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Friday, 09 Sep 94 09:03:22 EDT Subj: Re: Nude Hamlet and PC (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 21:58 EDT Subj: Shrew (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 09 Sep 1994 15:36:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: Froggy goes acourting (4) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 12:09:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Natural deaths (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas L. Berger Date: Friday, 09 Sep 94 09:03:22 EDT Subject: Re: Nude Hamlet and PC Gosh, that's funny, Harry Hill; I'm a member of at least four majorities (white, middle-aged, dreary, heterosexual), and I agree with you entirely. But I'm not allowed to object to Barbara Correll's correct-think. Thank you very much, Harry Hill, for so doing. Tom Berger (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 21:58 EDT Subject: Shrew Does Bianca HAVE to be played as a shrew? I think not. Is a woman who uses tones of cool command a shrew? In 1590? Now? Isn't it time to rethink Bianca? Bernice W. Kliman (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 09 Sep 1994 15:36:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Froggy goes acourting Some while ago, when we were discussing the use of "frogs" as slang for French people, I quoted Farmer and Henley's contention that "the shield" of Paris "bore three toads." Luc Borot responded that this is not the case; there seems to be no evidence for a Parisian armorial shield containing three toads or frogs. I may have found the source of Farmer and Henley's mistake. On the titlepage of THE MISERABLE ESTATE OF THE CITIE OF PARIS AT THIS PRESENT (London, 1590), STC 19197, is what might pass for an armorial shield, and there are three toads. On page 6 (A3v) is an explanation of the three toads: "At the comming of the Prince of Parma into the French countries, it is reported there was visibly seene in the Aire to all his army, three raine bowes, and betweene euery one of them the forme of a toade . . . ." Is it possible that Farmer or Henley or someone reporting to them saw this titlepage and jumped to an incorrect conclusion? Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 12:09:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Natural deaths A brief footnote to a topic that seems to have lapsed. I too heard the talk by Stephen Greenblatt at the 1991 SAA that Judiana Lawrence mentions. I believe it was entitled "Eating the Soul" and argued that no death in Shakespeare is quite "natural." I was reminded of Simone de Beauvoir's account of the death of her mother, _A Very Easy Death_, and have only now gotten around to tracking down a pertinent passage that I dimly recalled. It is Beauvoir's conclusion: "You die not from being born, nor from having lived, nor from old age. You die from _something_.... There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation" (tr. Patrick O'Brian, New York: 1966, pp. 105-106). --Ron Macdonald ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 08:15:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0726 Re: Nude Hamlet and PC Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0726. Monday, 12 September 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 94 14:57:54 -0500 Subj: SHK 5.0718 (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 94 16:00:59 CDT Subj: Nude Hamlet and "PC" (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 94 14:57:54 -0500 Subject: SHK 5.0718 I think that both Harry Hill and Tom Berger are misreading Barbara Correll's concerns about the nude Hamlet which none of us have seen. I see her concern as a legitimate one regarding the way in which the deaths of young women are often eroticized, while at the same time other sorts of erotic expression (particularly those outside the hetero mainstream) are disturbing. I might well find both moments in the production Pedro Doria describes moving (unless the acting was really as bad as he reports it), or neither. We all will respond differently. Barbara is simply asking us to think a bit about the implications of one of these acts being beautiful and the other not, given what is actually happening. With respect for everyone's opinions, Chris Gordon (female, straight, feminist, and other categories too numerous to mention) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 94 16:00:59 CDT Subject: Nude Hamlet and "PC" Oh, come on, people. Harry Hill and now Tom Berger have indignantly accused Barbara Correll of being "PC" and indulging in "correct-think" for her posting on Nude Hamlet, but I just don't see it. I'd be among the first to poke fun and/or be alarmed at the excesses of those who want to stifle "non-PC" viewpoints and areas of discussion (and Lord knows there are plenty of such people, however well-intentioned), but I thought Ms. Correll's post was very reasonable and level-headed, as opposed to the nasty and (dare I say it?) self-righteous tones of Hill and Berger. I might be willing to consider reasoned objections to views expressed on this list (that's what it's for, right --- discussion?), but cut the venom, guys, and grow up. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 08:22:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0727 Re: Shrews and Frogs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0727. Monday, 12 September 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 16:04:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Is Bianca a Shrew? (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 22:46:23 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0725 Re: Frogs (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 16:04:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Is Bianca a Shrew? I suppose that Bernice Kliman is objecting to my suggestion that Bianca is a shrew. I did not make that suggestion merely on the strength of her rebellious behaviour as a student, though, since I'm a teacher, I'm sure that rebellion had something to do with my response. Bianca gets the command structure all wrong. Teachers tell students what to study and when. Why does Katherina have Bianca tied, and why is she striking her (II.1.1-22)? My answer is: because Bianca is being a shrew. "So well I know my duty to my elders" (7), she tells Katherina. And when the topic of conversation turns to Hortensio, Bianca offers to get him for Katherina. The subtext reads: my OLD sister can't get a husband for herself, but I can get one for her if she asks me to. Hinted at like a true sister. Well, if Bianca isn't a shrew, she's a spoiled brat. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 22:46:23 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0725 Re: Frogs Bill Godshalk reminds us of a very weird exchange we had some time ago about alledged French national dishes and the municipal crest of the blessed city of Paris, my home village (and the most magnificent city in the universe, but here I'm being partial, and there are many excellent reasons why I don't live there anymore...). His information sounds very interesting. When our library has moved into its new premises next week, I'll check STC n=B019197 and I'll ask me ole dad to go and check in the archives of the Hotel de Ville if he can find a crest with 3 somethings in the same position as the 3 frogs on the crest mentioned by Bill. Dad won't mind: he does a good deal of parish and family research there and has many friends in the place who can help if he can't go to the library. I can't think of any crest of Paris with 3 objects in it; 3 royal fleur de lys can appear in a triangle, but the fleur de lys is not Parisian in itself. It sometimes crowns the ship of the company of the merchants, but it cannot identify the city. That's why I need to see the picture on the title page. This information from Bill will solve that aquatic mystery for me and for him. Not very Shakespearean, is it????... But have you SEEN the titlepage yourself, Bill? the wording of your last paragraph suggest you haven't? suspense!!!!!!! Buvez frais, Luc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 08:40:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0728 Re: MV Characters Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0728. Monday, 12 September 1994. (1) From: Thomas Clayton Date: Sunday, 11 Sep 94 10:27:46 CST Subj: How Many Salads/Sallies in MV? (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 11 Sep 1994 21:25:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: MV Characters (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Clayton Date: Sunday, 11 Sep 94 10:27:46 CST Subject: How Many Salads/Sallies in MV? Re.: MV Characters in SEC Vol. 5, No. 724. Saturday, 10 September 1994. How many Salads (or Dover Wilson's "Sallies") Had/Has/Should Have _The Merchant of Venice_? According to M. M. Mahood in her Textual Analysis in the New Cambridge edition (1987), "all sub- sequent editors" followed Dover Wilson in reducing three to two, Solanio remaining as was, Salerio being conflated as "himself" and also "Salarino, who has not put in an appearance for the past sixty years" (179); see pp. 56 and 179-83, including a table of occurrences of the names in Q1, Q2, and F. In his individual Oxford edition (1993), Jay Halio configures the three slightly differently, in The Persons of the Play, as three "Venetian Gentlemen, Antonio's Friends" (101), where Mahood has Solanio and Salarino, together with Gratiano and Lorenzo, as "gentlemen of Venice and companions with Bassanio," Salerio listed separately as "a messenger from Venice" (56); but all three are still all there--because "the arguments against three Sallies are far from conclusive," among other reasons, and his "edition, therefore, follows Mahood in retaining Salarino" (87). This tripartite Venetian settlement may not be definitive, but it has scholarly currency in two of the three major editions, with the third, the new, new Arden, yet to be. Cheers, Tom (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 11 Sep 1994 21:25:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: MV Characters David Collins's comments on Solanio and Salerio sent me right back to David Bevington's text (4th edition), and I re-read the Solanio/Salerio portions of the play. And having done my homework, I still do not find that much difference between the two. If Solanio kids Antonio about being "in love" (1.1.46 [with Bassanio?]). Salerio twits him with his injudicious investment of all his capital in high risk ventures (1.1.8-14, 22-40), and Solanio joins him without breaking the rhythm of the line (1.1.22ff). They speak as one interlocutor. And when they leave the first scene, they leave together (68), but it is Salerio who comments, "I would have stayed till I had made you merry,/If worthier friends had not prevented me" (60-61), revealing his bitchiness. In fact, as Richard Levin (the younger) has pointed out, Solanio and Salerio are two rather bitchy characters. In 2.4, they join Lorenzo and Gratiano, and here, indeed, Solanio sounds a bit bitchier than Salerio (6-7), but not much. In 2.6, Salerio appears without Solanio, and he is the ironic commentator. In 2.8, they appear to report off-stage action: Shylock's reaction to Jessica's elopement -- surely not a reliable narrative! They appear again in 3.1. to question Shylock. They then split up -- Salerio heading for Belmont to deliver a message to Bassanio (3.2), and Solanio to be Antonio's interlocutor (3.3). Salerio has a brief comment in 4.1.15. Admittedly this is not a subtle analysis of the two dramatic figures, but it gives us a little overview of their function or functions in the play. I don't find the two very different, and I think of them as I think of Guildencrantz and Rosenstern, or knife and fork, or bottle and cork, or New York. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Sep 1994 08:43:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0729 Cincinnati *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0729. Monday, 12 September 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 11 Sep 1994 21:47:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: MND Performance Last night Robin and I saw a truly extraordinary performance of MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Directed by Martin Platt, it was stylish and perfectly paced. Theseus/Oberon, Hippolyta/Titania, and Philostrate/Puck were all doubled, a decision that led to some interesting theatrical moments. The set was designed by Russell Parkman: "a Belle Epoque mansion in Argentina" with "Greek-inspired columns" and a star-gate that opens onto fairyland. Bottom is a handsome pool player -- beautiful and not too bright. Titania mirrors him precisely. Lysander is a Moor, and the allusion to Othello is subtle, but definitely there. Brabantio or Egeus silently forgives the eloping couple near play's end. (I was moved.) If you live near Cincinnati, this play is worth the trip and the price of the ticket -- I think. Other playgoers seem not to have been quite so ecstatic as I! Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 08:47:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0730. Tuesday, 13 September 1994. (1) From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Monday, 12 Sep 94 10:02:48 EDT Subj: Re: Is Bianca a shrew? (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 10:59 EDT Subj: Bianca (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Monday, 12 Sep 94 10:02:48 EDT Subject: Re: Is Bianca a shrew? A shrew in essence, yes. It has seemed to me that Katherine's outward shrewishness is really a defense mechanism (albeit a rather unsuccessful one - and one which she improves upon by the end of the play) against Bianca's cloaked, subversive, and far more heartfelt (in its true heartlessness) shrewishness. Bianca's obvious manipulation of her father's love, in contrast to Kate's ferocious honesty -- a counterpoint perhaps somewhat reminiscent of Cordelia-Regan/Goneril -- seems to motivate and mold Kate's actions and temperament. Kate's shrewishness seems frustration and bitterness, the result of desiring her father's love and attention, but of seeing herself successfully alienated from both by her sister's maneuvers. Just a brief foray into discussion...I now return to the safety of the lurkers' lair... Liz Zeria English Dept. (MA program), VCU eng3eyz@hibbs.vcu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 10:59 EDT Subject: Bianca Is it worthwhile to remind B.G. that Bianca isn't ANYTHING until actors and directors decide HOW she will be portrayed? Intonation, body language and all the rest do count. I am suggesting merely that the tired idea of Bianca as shrew might be usefully rethought for an interesting production of the play. Bernice W. Kliman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:29:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0733 Q: Mary Wroth's *Urania* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0733. Tuesday, 13 September 1994. From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 94 10:59:43 SAST-2 Subject: Mary Wroth's Urania Can anyone tell me whether the complete edition of Lady Mary Wroth's _Urania_ has been published yet? If so, could you let me have the publication details, including price and ISBN no, if possible? Thanks David Schalkwyk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:18:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0731 Re: Assorted MV: Characters, Bassanio, Correction, Question Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0731. Tuesday, 13 September 1994. (1) From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 15:00:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHAKSPER Digest - 8 Sep 1994 to 10 Sep 1994 (2) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 10:17:50 -0600 Subj: Merchant (3) From: Tom Clayton Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 07:32:24 -0500 (CDT) Subj: MV Characters, etc. (4) From: Chip DuFord Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 18:05:00 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0724 Re: MV Characters (5) From: Robert Lloyd Neblett Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 13:39:06 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Peter Sellars' MERCHANT (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 15:00:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHAKSPER Digest - 8 Sep 1994 to 10 Sep 1994 David Collins ranks Bassanio with Gratiano as the play's chief anti-semites. I think he meant Antonio, since it is Antonio (not Bassanio) who spat at Shylock and kicked him. In fact, I am indebted to a former actor in the SSE, Darren Setlow, for his insight into Bassanio. I must have been going on about how all the gentiles in the play were anti-semitic, and Darren, who was playing Bassanio objected. He pointed out that Bassanio's use of "Jew" is always as a descriptive reference to Shylock, never as a substitute for his name, and that he never connects his angry epithets for Shylock to his Jewishness. And he does, afterall, invite Shylock to dinner. Somehow seeing the difference between Bassanio's habit of mind in thinking about Shylock's being Jewish helps make even clearer the differnce between hating someone for what he does and hating him for what he is. Ralph Cohen James Madison University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 10:17:50 -0600 Subject: Merchant Regarding Mr. Godshalk's comments regarding the minor characters Salerio and Salerino: while all characters serve a *function*, Shakespeare also gives them character. An actor cannot (or should not) play function else the play becomes little more than an itellectual exercise. The actor may (must) play character, in which case the play may come alive. Arthur Pearson Great Lakes Protection Fund apearson@great-lakes.net (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Clayton Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 07:32:24 -0500 (CDT) Subject: MV Characters, etc. Not for the first time or, I have no doubt, the last, a phrase dropped out of my communication where I intended to refer to the "three major INDIVIDUAL-PLAY editions" of Shakespeare's plays--as Arden, New Cambridge, and Oxford. I certainly did NOT intend to suggest that any particular collected edition such as the Oxford was _not_ major. If the Oxford is not a major edition in our time, whatever its readings or deferrals at any given point, I am an Oxfordian's uncle. Cheers, Tom (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chip DuFord Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 18:05:00 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0724 Re: MV Characters In response (and support) for Godshalk's (and others) references to Salerio and Salerino not being worth sweating over, I can speak from recent experience that the more an actor has to chew on as far as substance of role, the more he'll enjoy portraying the character (and the character will be richer as well.) I just played Salerio (sans Salerino) about 5 years ago, and the character was already thin enough as it was. We (I and the actor playing Solanio) affectionately referred to ourselves as the "scenario" brothers (basically coming on in between bits of interesting action - i.e. the two suitors - and delivering exposition about what happened off-stage.) My advice!! Stick to two characters, Salerio and Solanio. There's a script available from pelican or penguin with cuts and additions to support this. Chip DuFord (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Lloyd Neblett Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 13:39:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Peter Sellars' MERCHANT If anyone knows anything about the Goodman production of MERCHANT OF VENICE directed by the avant-garde Peter Sellars which is running in Chicago, please let me know about it. I want to see it, but before I make a trip to Chicago, I want to know what to expect. I love Peter Sellars' work (I watched 2 of the 3 Mozart operas he did on PBS and thoroughly enjoyed them), but am curious to see what he does with the Bard. If you know of any articles or reviews which have been printed regarding this production, please forward that info as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Robert Neblett rlneblet@artsci.wustl.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 09:28:06 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0732 Re: Characters (Ethnocentricity); Deaths; PC; Frogs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0732. Tuesday, 13 September 1994. (1) From: Ben Schneider Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 10:27:02 -0600 (CST) Subj: Ethnocentricity (2) From: Michael Conner Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 08:44:55 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Natural deaths (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 20:13:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0726 Re: Nude Hamlet and PC (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 20:19:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Frogs (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ben Schneider Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 10:27:02 -0600 (CST) Subject: Ethnocentricity Fellow SHAKSPEReans, My humble apologies for raising the old subject of character again, subheading ethnocentricity, but I have just now recovered some responses to my comments that disappeared during an "upgrade" of our computer in late July. I had said that our reading of Henry V is colored by our bias against war, not present in Shakespeare's society, which actually approved of military pursuits. In general, the responses accused me of reductivity both with respect to Shakespeare's plays and to his society. My comments on the just-recovered responses follow: Zachary Lesser says that we will never know what the plays really meant to their original audiences. We will always impose our own prejudices. Why do we on the one hand insist that all prejudices can be and must be overcome, and always on the other insist just as loudly that when it comes to textual interpretation they cannot possibly be overcome? Zachary, you (and most postmodernists) insist on either/or logic: either prejudice colors our readings or it does not. Actually isn't it a matter of prejudice coloring our reading more or less? The way to reduce prejudice, isn't it, is to understand the other fellow's point of view? To do one's best to see the world from the other fellow's side? How do we do that? Zachary also doubts my hypothesis about the prevalence of pro-war thinking in Shakespeare's time, or for that matter, of any kind of thinking at any time. I doubt that any "society" could exist without a consensus on certain main principles. In our society equality might be such a principle. And I doubt very much that you will find many Shakespeare scholars today who approve of war as a character builder. Violence is immoral. So is racism: an overtly racist play or movie is unthinkable today and would be universally condemned by the critics (though W D Griffiths could get away with one ages ago). I argue for the same kind of consensus on basic principles in Shakespeare's time. Ron MacDonald says "_Shakespeare's contemporaries_ comprises a pretty various group. I'd want to know _which_ contemporaries before attributing common attitudes, and even then I'd expect to find many exceptions." All right, let's rule out Quakers and Anabaptists, and puritans in general. Let's rule out the humanist philosophers. I'm talking about the main stream, not the fringes. And the philosophers are not against the virtues of courage, constancy, fortitude, generosity, etc, of which war happens be a good test and which Henry V demonstrates, despite the questionable field of action. See also my comments on consensus, above. Sean Lawrence objects that the preponderance of classical opinions in the conduct books may give a false impression of actual English culture in Shakespeare's time; much as if I were to propose Oral Roberts as a key to our time, or any prescriptive work for any time. How about the Declaration of Independence as a prescriptive key to U.S.? But I don't propose 16th-century Oral Robertses, I propose the non-fiction best sellers of the time. As evidence that this material is main stream I give you the Augustan Age, which comes close on the heels of Shaakespeare. But why don't I just deposit my list of basic books plus annotations on the listserver, and you can see for yourselves? Chris Gordon brings up Williams again as representing an anti-war position in Hen V. But what is more remarkable is that Henry rewards him for his honest doubts, thus demonstrating how a good king responds to criticism, as opposed to Lear, for example. The literature is extensive, and I think we miss the point of the episode from our ethnocentric point of view. Chris says she belongs "to the contingent that finds us not all that different from the Elizabethans . . . and that's why I think multiple readings are inherent in the plays." I continue to wonder what is the point of having an opinion if any other opinion is just as good. (Except maybe not mine.) I sometimes wonder if the point isn't just belonging. Sorry to have been so long in getting back to you. Yours ever BEN SCHNEIDER schneidb@lawrence.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Conner Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 08:44:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Natural deaths I'm new to the mailing list and haven't seen the original post concerning natural deaths, but it seems to me that John of Gaunt died a natural death in Richard II. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 20:13:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0726 Re: Nude Hamlet and PC I have long ago deleted the report on nude Ham-Let (as I recall, that is the spelling), and Harry Hill and Tom Berger may be misunderstanding Barbara Correll's concerns. But let's not, while defending Barbara Correll, miss the point made by Harry and Tom. A auditor may be moved by the suicide of Ophelia (even if she is in a see-through garment) without glorifying female suicides. Auditors at playshave a freedom of emotion that I might not condone outside off the theatre, especially when that emotion leads to acts of brutality. Am I opening a can of worms? Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 12 Sep 1994 20:19:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Frogs Yes, Luc, I have seen the titlepage, and, yes, on that titlepage, under three rainbows, are three toads or frogs. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 08:30:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0734 Re: Bianca as Shrew Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.734. Wednesday, 14 September 1994. (1) From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 94 10:56:20 EDT Subj: Re: Bianca as Shrew (2) From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 94 18:35:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew (3) From: Diana Henderson Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 13:49 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew (4) From: Tom Loughlin Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 16:10:51 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew (5) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 16:20:40 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew (6) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 19:57:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 94 10:56:20 EDT Subject: Re: Bianca as Shrew Bernice Kliman writes that: ...Bianca isn't ANYTHING until actors and directors decide HOW she will be portrayed? Intonation, body language and all the rest do count. I am suggesting merely that the tired idea of Bianca as shrew might be usefully rethought for an interesting production of the play. Good point. But my own judgement of Bianca as more true a shrew than her sister Kate was made prior to viewing any performance of the play, based on the spoken lines she is given in the script as contrasted to the actions assigned her therein. Bianca speaks gentle consideration, and acts selfish manipulation. She may not sound or seem the shrew without, but she has a shrew's intent within. Kate, on the other hand, suits action to word, word to deed (until taught to do otherwise by Petruchio) -- therefore acting the shrew without, but perhaps for purposes of remaining true to the heart within. I have yet to see a performance of the play which has been able to interpret Bianca any differently (or which has led me to any different interpretation at any rate). Whether Bianca is played with apparent malice, or with unerring sweetness, the inherent manipulative selfishness (essence of a shrew?) shines through. So, tired idea though it may be, I am inclined still to think it is an essential idea in the play which only rewriting can remove. Certainly such rewriting and restaging might be done, and quite interestingly. And, I remain open to the possibilities that my own interpretation is my own. Liz Zeria (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 94 18:35:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew I think all this debate about whether Bianca is a shrew or not is something of a red herring. Surely what she does is to UNDERMINE patriarchal authority and the result is a disclosure of some of the ways in which the feminine subverts the established order. Kate is coerced (she's threatened with violence, starved, deprived of clothing, and all by a Petruchio who deliberately counter-identifies with her shrewishness as part of a male strategy). Bianca accepts the authority of her father on the surface, but undermines it, and also later her husband's authority in refusing to come when she is called. I suppose we could say that patriarchy creates Bianca (as opposed to Kate's refusal to accept its limitations) but it also constructs a point of resistance, and that Bianca exemplifies. The real problem of the play, it seems to me is the extent of Kate's "knowing", or otherwise, acceptance of her ideological position. Cheers, John Drakakis University of Stirling (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 13:49 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew As Bernice Kliman observes, it would be nice if we could see Bianca played in ways other than as the "real" shrew (frequently with the implication that if one kind of woman isn't the shrew, the other must be). The ACT production handles this fairly well; Bianca even gets some claps and chuckles for her matter-of-fact response to Lucentio's wagering upon her honor ("the more fool you..."). And the 1929 movie, which basically silences Bianca, has Kate winking at her after the final speech (a sisterly underground, early on). Maybe Garrick's "Catherine and Petruchio," in which Kate rejects her married sister's attempts to keep her from submitting, provides another source in the acting tradition for the final vilification of Bianca. On a related note, it seems that "shrew" nowawdays (at least on SHAKSPER) has a very loose meaning (basically any behavior the label-user finds unpleasant). Lynda Boose's discussion of the slipperiness of this and other words, shifting from class to gender insults during Shakespeare's time, provides an Elizabethan corrolate --am I right in thinking that those who now use the term see it less as a gender than an ethical insult? [That of course raises all sorts of questions about the separateness and stability of those categories that I'll avoid by signing off.] Diana H. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Loughlin Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 16:10:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew I'd just like to thank Bernice for reminding the members of the list that Bianca is nothing until an actor makes her something. It's so interesting to me, as an actor, to note that scholars, when they do their mental and intellectual "thing," are actually doing basically the same thing an actor does; that is, they are trying to dissect the character's motivations and actions and consequently turning them into "real people", so to speak. The difference is that we try to make that come alive on the stage in real time before real people; scholars seem to actualize only at the level of the scholarly paper. Bianca can be anything any actor wants to make her. You may disagree with the results, but she is certainly not one "thing" nor one "person." I find nothing in the text in the words of Bianca's mouth, nor in her actions, which are indicitive of shrewishness. Spoiled, maybe, which would explain her actions in the final scene. In fact, she openly confesses to her father her deception, which doesn't appear to be the actions of a shrew. And if she is played as a shrew, where is the comparison/contrast effect? WS is careful in comparison/contrasts in language structure; why not in character presentation? The fact that Bianca is often played as a shrew has much more to do with actor temperment. Actors like attention, and playing Bianca as a shrew simply garners the actor more attention in what would otherwise appear to the actor as a dull role. I think that says more about the state of acting than WS' creation of character. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 16:20:40 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew >Is it worthwhile to remind B.G. that Bianca isn't ANYTHING until actors and >directors decide HOW she will be portrayed? Intonation, body language and all >the rest do count. I am suggesting merely that the tired idea of Bianca as >shrew might be usefully rethought for an interesting production of the play. > >Bernice W. Kliman It's refreshing to see someone acknowledge that Shakespeare wrote PLAYS for ACTORS. Thanks. Norman Myers (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 19:57:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0730 Re: Bianca as Shrew Bernice Kliman addresses a question without a question mark to everyone but B.G. She claims that Bianca isn't anything until actors and directors decide how she is to be portrayed. From my point of view, this claim leaves out a major element in the process: the script or, if you will, the playtext. Until the character is embodied on stage, Bianca exists as words on a page, and these words quite often suggest actions and attitudes. Liz Zeria (who should respond more often!) gets this right. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 08:36:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0735 *Twelfth Night* in Minneapolis Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.735. Wednesday, 14 September 1994. From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 94 09:10:18 -0500 Subject: *Twelfth Night* in Minneapolis This weekend I had the opportunity to see a new company in Minneapolis, The Burning House Group, perform *Twelfth Night* in a large warehouse-like space with a group of six actors: the result was quite remarkable. The group is interested in actor-driven (rather than director/ designer) theater, and the core founders have a terrific range of experience. This first production was directed by actor Christopher Bayes, currently a member of the Guthrie company, previously with Theatre de la Jeune Lune. It's a very physical production, especially in relation to the clowns (but not exclusively). The necessary doubling-tripling of roles worked beautifully most of the time, awkwardly in a few spots. (Maria/Malvolia were doubled, which was VERY interesting--and worked well.) The acting was wonderful all round. The show plays for one more weekend; I recommend it to anyone in the area. Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 08:40:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0736 Re: *Urania* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.736. Wednesday, 14 September 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 19:39:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0733 Q: Mary Wroth's *Urania* (2) From: Jean R. Brink Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 18:18:17 -0700 (MST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0733 Q: Mary Wroth's *Urania* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 19:39:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0733 Q: Mary Wroth's *Urania* David Schalkwyk is in luck (almost). Mario Di Cesare has recently announced Josephine Roberts's edition of LADY MARY WROTH'S URANIA -- the 1621 edition, which will appear, he says, in the next 12 or 18 months from MRTS, Dept. of English, SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton NY 13902-6000 (USA). Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean R. Brink Date: Tuesday, 13 Sep 1994 18:18:17 -0700 (MST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0733 Q: Mary Wroth's *Urania* Josephine Roberts, Professor of English, at Louisiana State University is the editor of Wroth's Urania. She has completed the notes, but I doubt that it is out yet. I suggest that you contact her concerning the details of publication. Jean R. Brink (602) 965-5900 English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 Jean.Brink@ASU.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 08:42:18 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0737 Re: MV Characters Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.737. Wednesday, 14 September 1994. From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 13:09:47 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: Sal/Sol I would like to make a plea for keeping all three roles. In a play where the question of alterity and its threats and accommodations figure prominently, I think it might be interesting for an audience to see the "central" white, male, Christian characters surrounded by a kind of chorus of three figures who are patently "the same" (as Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, but also as each other, in name and actions/opinions). I'd be fascinated to see Salerio, Solanio AND Salarino played something like identical triplets, sycophantically reinforcing the dominant prejudices about Jews and other others. And if actors can stop thinking about playing rounded, verisimilitudinous and psychologically deep "characters", I can imagine three good performers having a ball in the roles and making these apparently minor figures into a memorable feature of the production and making the world of "Venice" into something disturbing and uncomfortable without having to resort to Nazi uniforms or other useful but perhaps heavy-handed devices. Adrian Kiernander Theatre Studies, University of New England ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 21:53:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 738. Thursday, 15 September 1994. (1) From: Peter Paolucci Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 09:13:44 -0400 Subj: Bianca's Shrewishness (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 09:33:06 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0734 Re: Bianca as Shrew (3) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 10:35:25 -0600 Subj: Character (4) From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 11:59:35 EDT Subj: Linguistic Gaffe (5) From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 11:19:58 EDT Subj: Shakespeare as Actor (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Paolucci Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 09:13:44 -0400 Subject: Bianca's Shrewishness I don't think Bianca's shrewishness is a red herring at all. We come to a more complete understanding of other facets of her personality only in the last scene and therefore, we come to know her in hindsight -- for it is her recalcitrance at the end of the play that casts a rather ominous shadow over her earlier (and apparently) more genteel behaviour. What remains a wonderment for me, is that the "shrewish" side of her nature is revealed to us only (in a sense) after it is too late -- that is to say, only after the play is over. I suppose one could also argue that the shift in perception of Biana from a "daddy's girl" to shrew mirrors a shift in how we perceive Kate. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 09:33:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0734 Re: Bianca as Shrew Yes, of course, Shakespeare above all wrote PLAYS for ACTORS to perform. But he WROTE them, and the actor and director who would interpret them must know how to READ the action and relations Shakespeare encoded in his text. It is ABSOLUTELY WRONG, if anything in this sublunary world is wrong, to say that Bianca or any other character -- in Shakespeare, in Strindberg, in August Wilson's plays, in ANY play -- can be whatever an actor or a director wants. If they wish to invent their own plots and characters and motivations, by all means, they are welcome to do so, but let them bill themselves as playwrights performing their own works, not as interpreters of other's imaginative creations. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 10:35:25 -0600 Subject: Character Concerning the needling conversation of character, re: is she a shrew is she not a shrew? and a character is nothing until an actor and/or director decides who and what a character is. Some several years ago I attended a performance of Macbeth presented by a touring arm of the RSC. In the post show question and answer period, I was astounded that in the guise of "asking" a question, audience members, in fact, told the actress portraying Lady Macbeth who Lady Macbeth "really" was. One relatively clear-headed audience member finally had the gumption to ask said actress who she thought Lady Macbeth really was. After pausing for a moment, the actress replied something to the effect, "I really don't know. It is not my job to decided WHO she is. My task is simply to play the scene. I leave who she is to the audience to decide." Words to live (and act) by. Arthur Pearson Great Lakes Protection Fund apearson@great-lakes.net (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 11:59:35 EDT Subject: Linguistic Gaffe Well, perhaps not derivative -- shrew/shrewd, that is -- can any one help with the precise relationship? Afraid my etymological skills not well-honed these days...and haven't access to an OED just now. And with that admission, I WILL return to lurking/learning mode! Liz Zeria (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 11:19:58 EDT Subject: Shakespeare as Actor I think it not only unnecessary, but next to impossible to segregate discussion of these plays into Actor vs. Scholar camps. I (obviously) agree with Bill Godshalk that actors and scholars (that is, skillful actors and scholars) approach these plays/texts in precisely the same way. Both seek clues to characterization, situation, etc. in the words provided by the playwright. And Shakespeare, as both actor and playwright, may reasonably be assumed to have had a very vivid idea of how his words, characters, scenes would be played out onstage. I think we are not unreasonable, then, in thinking those words can provide us with fairly vivid, perhaps even precise, clues/cues as to characterization, setting, etc. It does, however, remain to us (and this no writer can control or anticipate) to interpret the implications of character and so forth in terms of our own perspectives (of culture/gender/ad infinitum). And as for the implications of the term "shrew" and of the characterization of Kate and/or Bianca as such: perhaps it might be constructive to consider the derivative of shrew -- shrewd. Perhaps we might consider Bianca more shrewd than shrew, Kate more shrew than shrewd...at the beginning of the play at any |rate. By the end, I think those roles have reversed...with some very interesting implications indeed! Liz Zeria (sorry, having trouble getting back into the lair on this one) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 22:02:25 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0739 Re: Bassanio; Henry V; Deaths Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 739. Thursday, 15 September 1994. (1) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 14:53 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0731 Re: Assorted MV: Bassanio (2) From: Terence Martin Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 13:37:50 CDT Subj: Henry V - War (3) From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 17:27:59 EST Subj: [Natural Deaths] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 14:53 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0731 Re: Assorted MV: Bassanio Does Ralph Cohen really have access to Bassanio's 'habit of mind'? How? I am agog. T. Hawkes (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Martin Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 13:37:50 CDT Subject: Henry V - War I certainly agree with Ben Schneider and his point about the Elizabethan attitude to war. Attitudes to war have changed generally even within this century in Europe and the US. Nonetheless, Henry V in particular has always been glorified in English poular culture and education for his warrior abilities at least up until my experiences as an English school boy in the 1950's. Perhaps now teachers are a little more critical of a monarch who spent most of his reign gallivanting around France rather than looking after England! Terence Martin UM - St. Louis (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 94 17:27:59 EST Subject: [Natural Deaths] Ron MacDonald, citing Stephen Greenblatt and others, proposes that there is no such thing as "natural" death: since life is our "natural" state, each of us perceives her or his death as an unnatural event, an alien intrusion. (No doubt this helps account for the traditional Western visual figuration of death as a walking skeleton, a being who both is and is not human.) This is a perspective, however, that like much other poststructural thinking privileges subjectivity. Yet we receive as well as make our language, after all, and almost all adults in our culture (I would guess that includes Greenblatt and MacDonald) also discriminate in their ordinary if not their academic discourse among three types of death, with respect to their perceived, comprehensible, articulable causes--(1) deaths caused by willed human acts (murder, manslaughter, suicide [it occurs to me that English does not have a distinct word for death caused by war--do such words occur in other tongues?]); (2) deaths resulting from a single perceivable event of a kind not predictable as part of the normal course of any particular life, even of the life of a deep-sea diver or steelworker or bomb defuser (accidents); (3) deaths caused by events so imperceptible, complex, or nysterious that they cannot be specified, and that share these qualities with so many other deaths that most of us can anticipate experiencing such a death, with the expectation that most people who survive the first few hours or days of life will survive the next few decades, so that some of the shock and dismay aroused by instances of types 1 and 2 attends unusually early versions of type 3. These are the deaths we call "natural," in this case meaning something like "common" or "usual"; we call them that also because we see that death is a part of nature, in that all things that live also die. (I'm afraid most of this is pretty obvious.) There is certainly much to be learned from thinking about any of the kinds of death terms of their subjectivity (especially as we try to understand the power that images of death have for moving us, as readers or spectators, over and over again). But there are also things to be learned from studying the social and institutional construction of death--the death of others, if you will. Literary artists, at least in the West, have, by and large, studied the first kind of death more extensively than the other two: Shakespeare shares this characteristic with Homer, Chaucer, and Dickens, to the point where most of the deaths in his plays are of type 1. Anticipation is part of it, but I suppose that the issue of (in)evitability is at the center of this process: we can see the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, Desdemona and Othello coming from a long way off, but along that way there are many opportunities--not taken, of course, perceptible to us but not to them--for avoiding the violent close. The paradigm is supplied by the old fable about the man still in the prime of life, warned that he would meet his early death in the marketplace so that he fled to Aleppo, meeting an equally surprised Death in the marketplace of Aleppo. It is restated in the rage of Mercutio (not that he oughtn't to have known better), sure that he could have handled Tybalt if not for the "accident" of Romeo's well-intentioned but ill-timed intervention. (The obverse of the process, it seems to me, allows many readers and spectators to register many suicides- -Juliet's, Cleopatra's--as at least partially triumphant.) By contrast, the deaths of Gaunt (who rails against Richard, not cancer or emphysema or whatever) and Henry IV (the two "natural" Shakespearean deaths given extensive stage time), for all that their unhappiness is perhaps one of the factors involved, seem not more avoidable than changes in the weather--and, as enacted in the plays, not much longer remembered. And the ways that they and those around them treat the fact of their dying strike me as different from the treatment accorded most other Shakespearean deaths. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 22:05:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0740 Q: *Ado* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 740. Thursday, 15 September 1994. From: Thomas Hall Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 1994 19:31:50 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [*Ado* Query] I am looking for information on the play, Much Ado About Nothing. Specifically pertaining to the role of women and outsiders. I am a student at Northeastern Illinois University, and we are looking into the role of women and outsiders. We are also covering The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Measure for Measure. We have a local discussion group going, but I am interested in more people's opinions. Sincerely Thomas Hall ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 12:12:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0741 Re: Universals; Character; *Ado* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 741. Monday, 19 September 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 15 Sep 1994 17:07:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: Generalizing about a certain species of ape (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 15:57:30 +1000 (EST) Subj: Character (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 16 Sep 94 12:58 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0740 Q: *Ado* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 15 Sep 1994 17:07:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Generalizing about a certain species of ape Denis Donoghue has recently written: "It would be more reasonable to claim that equality, universality and disinterestedness are sentiments to be imagined, not states of being or gifts of God to be enjoyed" (TLS July 15, 1994, pp. 4-5). He is writing about those "who want to sustain the notion that each of us is spiritually the same, at a level of being far deeper than that of our differences" (p. 4). Now perhaps "spiritually" is the operative word here, because later in his essay Donoghue baldly generalizes (or universalizes, if you will) about our species: "We are social animals" (p. 5). And so, apparently, we are absolutely "social animals" who lack any universal sentiments. Including the desire to socialize? Is there one species of anthropoid ape about which field biologists cannot generalize? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 15:57:30 +1000 (EST) Subject: Character Terence Hawkes wants (again) to know how Ralph Cohen has access to Bassanio's 'habit of mind'. The answer (again) is: by means of INFERENCE, a mental process familiar to everyone in the world except Cultural Materialists. But do we need to start that all over? And by the way - hear, hear to Bill Godshalk and James Schaefer for their defence of the text. Pat Buckridge (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Friday, 16 Sep 94 12:58 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0740 Q: *Ado* Dear Thomas Hall: For a perfect example of woman as outsider in Much Ado, have a look at Innogen. T. Hawkes ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 12:28:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0743 Qs: *Othello*; Sonnet 144 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0743. Monday, 19 September 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 17:59 ET Subj: Othello query (2) From: Mary Tyler Knowles Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 21:28:04 -0400 Subj: Sonnet 144, line 14 query (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 17:59 ET Subject: Othello query Iago tells Othello to strangle Desdemona (4.1.200 or thereabouts); according to the F stage direction he "smothers" her, and in all the recent productions I have seen uses a pillow ready to hand on the bed; the action seems consonant with his stated disinclination to "scar that whiter skin of hers than snow." OED,however, lists "strangle" as one gloss on both "smother" and "stifle," the s.d. in Qq. Nothing in the surrounding text helps resolve the question. Was strangulation the customary punishment for infidelity in some relevant society? Are there other proprieties, or other reasons besides the one he gives that might inhibit Othello from using his hands directly on Desdomona's body? Breathlessly, Dave Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Tyler Knowles Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 21:28:04 -0400 Subject: Sonnet 144, line 14 query I have just been teaching the sonnets and hoped someone could help me with the use of the verb "fire" in the last line of #144's couplet. The gloss in both my old Signet edition and in my newer Folger Library edition suggests that "fire my good one out" means "to communicate venereal disease." "To fire" in the OED is "to inspire with strong passion", "to inflame to passion"," to affect body the with a burning sensation". Partridge's Shakespeare's Bawdy glosse the noun "fire" as "sexual ardour" but provides no gloss for the verb form. So where does this sense of veneral disease come from? The use of fire is consistent with the images of hell (place of eternal punishment and female sexual organ) in the rest of this poem, but I'm baffled by the gloss. And, oh dear, what an attitude toward female sexuality is revealed here... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Sep 1994 12:22:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0742 Re: Bianca Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0742. Monday, 19 September 1994. (1) From: Tom Loughlin Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 00:41:05 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 15 Sep 1994 22:28 EDT Subj: Bianca and Zefirelli (3) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 16 Sep 94 08:56:38 EST Subj: Bianca as Bitch (4) From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 16 Sep 94 16:09:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew (5) From: Daniel M Larner Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 14:24:30 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Loughlin Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 00:41:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew > Yes, of course, Shakespeare above all wrote PLAYS for ACTORS to perform. But > he WROTE them, and the actor and director who would interpret them must know > how to READ the action and relations Shakespeare encoded in his text. It is > ABSOLUTELY WRONG, if anything in this sublunary world is wrong, to say that > Bianca or any other character -- in Shakespeare, in Strindberg, in August > Wilson's plays, in ANY play -- can be whatever an actor or a director wants. > If they wish to invent their own plots and characters and motivations, by all > means, they are welcome to do so, but let them bill themselves as playwrights > performing their own works, not as interpreters of other's imaginative > creations. > > Jim Schaefer > schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu I may be a bit too tired to be doing this right at the moment, but I get the feeling from the above that my artistic freedom is being squashed and that I should respond. Language is such a tricky and imprecise tool for understanding that I hope the day will come when we find another tool to make ourselves better understood amongst each other. As a practitioner of the art of theatre for better than 20 years of my adult life, I will defend to the death that I CAN, in fact, make any character what I want that character to be. I have the freedom to do this; I make the choices, I execute the action on stage. If you can't understand this concept, then the true nature of theatre from the point of view of the practitioner is lost upon you. HOWEVER, I will also defend to the death YOUR right, as an audience member, to disagree completely, vociferously, and heatedly, with my choices. They don't work for you, you think they violate the text, you think the character shouldn't be interpreted that way, etc. etc. OK. But the hell of playwriting - and it is indeed a hell - is that it requires, nay, demands that actors be the vehicles through which the play is interpreted and its meaning is conveyed. If a writer has trouble with this concept, then they shouldn't write plays; they should write novels or screenplays, where the action is far more under their control in terms of interpretation. Shakespeare indeed WROTE his plays, but he WROTE THEM TO BE ACTED BY ACTORS in the theatre, and we just can't separate the words in that phrase, because then only a partial reality of the theatre is being discussed. This idea implies a whole lot more than simply that he "wrote" them. Rather than suggesting to me that I should write different plays if you disagree with my artistic choices, I would respectfully suggest back that, if you want Shakespeare done "absolutely right," then you become the actor/director/producer and mount your interpretations of the works in the open artistic market as you see fit. It's a large sublunary world. Lest I be thought to be some kind of raving interpretive maniac, let me point out that I am a strong believer in the strength of the text as the primary source of an actor's inspiration in playing WS. But again, language is a tricky thing, even language as wonderful and rich as Shakespeare's, and I simply cannot close the artistic door to new possibilities by stating so boldly the "absolute" of anything in the theatre. My choices are mine, and I'll take responsibility for them, but I am loathe to let anyone tell me I can't make those choices. And while I'm at it: (stuff deleted) > After pausing for a moment, the actress replied something to the effect, "I > really don't know. It is not my job to decided WHO she is. My task is simply > to play the scene. I leave who she is to the audience to decide." Words to > live (and act) by. This answer is clever, but disingenuous and misleading (despite the fact that a member of the RSC said it). Anyone who knows anything about the craft will tell you that actors are always making decisions about who the characters they play are. You simply can't get on the stage unless you've done that. There is no such thing as "simply playing the scene" (what the hell does that mean, anyway?). There's no such thing as intellectually disengaged, neutral acting. We're not robots; we're people, human beings who are constantly making choices, regardless of whether those choices are conscious or unconscious. An actor's choices reveal who they think the character is (unless they're complete hacks). It's a good way to get out of fighting with the audience, however. ;-) OK - I'll go to bed now. Sorry to be so long. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 15 Sep 1994 22:28 EDT Subject: Bianca and Zefirelli How do BG and LZ KNOW that what they read in a text is exactly what is there? Words on a page are not much without what we bring to them: it's a corollary of the actor's work with a text. I know from my work on *Hamlet* how frequently scholars writing after Olivier show that they were influenced by the film: they READ in the text what the performance persuaded them to believe. As for LZ's claim that she discovered the meaning of Bianca BEFORE seeing any production, can she claim that she came to it without any preconceptions about woman's role as ...whatever? I agree with John Drakakis and think that a production that would show Bianca as taking the role of underminer and subverter could be a pleasnt antidote to the poison of Kate's actual or ironic acceptance of her place at her husband's fool. I'd like to say a good word about Zefirelli's film. which does a fine job throughout, it seems to me. Bianca is not a goody-goody. She is quite capable of a spiteful look at Kate (from the safety of her father's arms); then she amusingly is chagrined to think that she has been caught with that look on her face by Lucentio. Kate "abdication" to Petruchio Zefirelli explains well: it's the children. Kate and Pet. have not yet become reconciled at the wedding banquet. He's in quite a pet, in fact. Then she looks at the children and her face softens. Well, there's no help for it; if a woman wants a child she has to go to bed with a man, and so she soothes him and takes him off to bed. I am making this sound unsubtle, but Z doesn't. Where does the desire for children come from? Not from the text. Nevertheless Z uses that sub-subtextual desire to come to a satisfying conclusion. Thanks to all who responded, Cheers to all, Bernice (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Friday, 16 Sep 94 08:56:38 EST Subject: Bianca as Bitch It seems a little off to call Bianca a shrew. The animalistic term "shrew" implies a certain physicalness--perhaps even viciousness--which seems suitable for Kate but not for Bianca. Bianca's "shrewishness" is much more cunning and cerebral. The contemporary term "bitch" seems much more appropriate for Bianca by the end of the play (though I can imagine an actress playing her somewhat more favorably nowadays). (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 16 Sep 94 16:09:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew Bianca doesn't HAVE a "personality" John Drakakis (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel M Larner Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 14:24:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew Of course, the text is important, and of course we need to work hard, as we analyze, to be sensitive to what happens to the text in the playing. Mr. Pearson's Shakespearean actress who says it's not her job to know "who the character is" is being disingenuous. Of course it's her job. But it's far more important for her, as an actor, to be able to embody her understanding in her performance than to articulate it afterward in response to a question. We shouldn't forget that both readers ("playing" the scene in our heads) and actors do discover characters in the process of playing, and that process of discovery is dynamic, and may not aways come out the same way in every "performance." In fact, the bedrock of the existence of any dramatic character is the tissue of the play's action, as it happens. Analysis breaks down or dries up when it's not obvious that it arises from the living movement of the play. Questions like Bianca's proposed "shrewishness" need to be referred to the action of the whole to find out what their meaning might be. Those comments have been most interesting and useful which suggest to us what effect her behavior has on our understanding not just of her, or of Kate, but of the whole experience of the play, and what it might make us think and feel. Daniel Larner Fairhaven College Western Washingon University larner@henson.cc.wwu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 23 Sep 1994 08:02:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0744 [was 5. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.744. Wednesday, 21 September 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Friday, September 23, 1994 Subject: LISTSERV Problem SHASKPEReans, As I tried to report on Wednesday, there has been a problem with LISTSERV at the University of Toronto since Thursday, September 15, 1994. The UofT LISTSERV Manager unfortunately is on vacation in western China. Commands that I issued on Friday, still have not been processed. Apparently, also some messages in the spoiler were lost. I have decided to hold all posting until the problem is fixed -- not wishing to further contribute to the backlog. Again,I hope this post will arrive in a timely manner and that SHAKSPER can resume regular operations soon. Hardy M. Cook Editor of SHAKSPER ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 08:54:09 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0745 Re: LISTSERV Problem (Back in Business) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.745. Monday, 26 September 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Monday, September 26, 1994 Subject: LISTSERV Problem (Back in Business) Dear SHASKPEReans, It looks like the LISTSERV problem is cleared up at the University of Toronto. I am in the process of organizing into digest the submission I have received over the past week. I hope that by this evening I'll be caught up. However, I understand that 12,000 message were lost. If you submitted and do not see your submission in a digest over the next day or so, please resubmit. It is times like this past week that make me all to aware of the importance of Steve Younker, our LISTSERV Manager and world traveller, who because he was in western China was unable to get LISTSERV back as quickly as he normally does. Hardy M. Cook Editor of SHAKSPER ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 09:08:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0746 Re: MV Characters; Habits of Mind; EXTRACT/MAIL Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0746. Monday, 26 September 1994. (1) From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 20:59:30 -0500 (CDT) Subj: S&S (2) From: David Knauer Date: Sunday, 18 Sep 94 10:09:56 EST Subj: Peter Sellars' MV (3) From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Friday, 23 Sep 1994 14:01:17 -0500 (CDT) Subj: MV's Portia (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 21:44:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0739 Re: Henry V, Habits of Mind, and Death (5) From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 15:18:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHAKSPER Digest - 14 Sep 1994 to 15 Sep 1994 (6) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 14:47:21 EDT Subj: [Character] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 20:59:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: S&S As it happens, the recent discussions of Salerio and Solanio in *MV* coincided with my being cast as Shylock in a scene for a directing styles class. Perhaps because we'll be working only on Act I, my re-read of the play highlighted some things in my own mind. Foremost among these is that Shylock is justified in his anger and resentment up until the point at which he starts valuing (or saying he values) the bond more than the fulfillment of the contract itself, i.e. early in Act III. Obviously, this is not a startling new insight, but I was surprised at the degree to which Shakespeare goes out of his way to provide a legitimate explanation for Shylock's actions. He isn't exactly sweet and cuddly, but his only real offense is hating Antonio "for he is a Christian"; and of course Antonio clearly hates *him* for *not* being a Christian. More interesting to me, however, was the importance of S&S in all this. They have only one scene (III.i) in which they interact directly with Shylock. Salerino and Solanio remind me of junior-high brats who snigger incessantly in the back of the classroom, and consider it the height of fun to make the substitute teacher threaten detention. In the 20 lines immediately prior to the speech in which Shylock first really loses his cool, S&S admit that they were complicit in Jessica's elopement and insult Shylock's religion, age, profession, and sexual potency. When Shylock explodes in the "let him look to his bond" speech, they have won. I see them exchanging smirks to signal their triumph. And Shylock's *next* line after that is "Hath not a Jew eyes", which I fear is too well-known as a set-piece ever to be played as I would: in full righteous dudgeon at the simpering little fey twerps who goaded Shylock into the outburst. I'd go a step further, too: I'd suggest that S&S's petty viciousness is an important dramatic catalyst. Shylock first threatens holding Antonio to his bond not after sober and clinical deliberation, but in a fit of pique. Having done so, however, he cannot retreat without a significant loss of pride... which, for Shylock, means he can't retreat at all. In other words, Shylock does not conceive of the threat and then deliver it: he makes the threat and then must find a way to believe in its "truth". [I had a dean like that once, but therein hangs another tale.] I am fully aware of the uselessness of playing "if only" games when dealing with a fictive construct like a play: speaking only in formal (rather than "character") terms, though, I think it is clear that S&S are far more important than mere functionaries. Are they much different from each other? No, of course not -- but not because Shakespeare didn't bother to differentiate them. Rather, they're cut from the same cloth (again, in formal terms) so that one will always be available to act as audience for the other's bitchy witticisms. Too bad I don't get to do Act III... Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Knauer Date: Sunday, 18 Sep 94 10:09:56 EST Subject: Peter Sellars' MV Someone on the list last week wanted information about Peter Sellars' Chicago production of _Merchant of Venice_. According to a theatre note in today's Tribune, the show is in its second week of rehearsals at the Goodman Theatre and is currently seven and a half hours long (expect that to decrease). The cast includes an African-American as Shylock, an Asian-American as Portia, and a Latino as Antonio. The show opens Oct. 10. David J. Knauer djknauer@sage.cc.purdue.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Friday, 23 Sep 1994 14:01:17 -0500 (CDT) Subject: MV's Portia I am doing a paper on Portia's .."little body's weariness". Obvious, her frustration as a woman of that age and tediousness of interviews with inappropriate suitors, but any other ideas? Thanks. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 21:44:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0739 Re: Henry V, Habits of Mind, and Death Terence Martin seems to suggest that all English people (every last one of them) before 1950 thought that Henry V was a hero king. If this is true, I believe it is the first time in recorded history that all members of a nation have believed the same thing about an historical fact or figure. Like Terence Hawkes, I am agog. But, unlike Terence Hawkes, I hold with Ralph Cohen that habits of mind can be determined by words (and only words). Norman Holland had to (graciously) concede this point some years ago. And Dave Evett seems to be right that we do not have a common word for "death in battle," but at least one war developed slang words for death in battle (I've learned from Walker Percy). The Korean war used "bought it" or "bought the farm" to mean "died in battle." I think the phrase still has connotations of violent death. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Friday, 16 Sep 1994 15:18:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHAKSPER Digest - 14 Sep 1994 to 15 Sep 1994 Professor Hawkes is right: I should have written of the character's "habit of speech," not Bassanio's "habit of mind." My point was that an actor trying to understand the character he was to play found what he felt (and I agreed) was a significant difference in the pattern of that character's language from the language of similar characters in the play. I meant only to share his insight, not to claim any of my own. Ralph Alan Cohen, James Madison University (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 14:47:21 EDT Subject: [Character] (ELEpstein) in re character: Before we wrestle with the problem of character in fictional and dramatic contexts, we should first answer the question, "How do we recognize *real* people that we know?" The answer is that we recognize them, first by their physical configuration, the flesh and bone envelope that we have seen before, and by the tones of the voice. However, there is an even more crucial element in the recognition process: the impact of our friend's characteristic psychology, the type of mind that produced the utterances we hear or read, the "sort of things that old Charlie would say," the utterances of the *souls* of our friends and acquaintances. This second element lasts much longer than the physical appearance of these friends and acquaintances, which alas fades with the passing years. Of these two elements, the first--the physical envelope-is absent in fictional or dramatic characters: fictional characters do not have bodies or voices in any literal sense. Dramatic characters have bodies but only those lent them by the actors. However, the characteristic mind or soul of the fictional or dramatic characters is still there, and is as strong or even stronger than those of our friends and acquaintances. We have a much clearer idea of what Hamlet or Macbeth would do in circumstances other than those in which the playwright has shown them than we have for all but the most intimate of our friends and acquaintances. Hence, we can have at least half of the experience of recognition for fictional or dramatic characters than we have for recognizing *real people.* In fact, some people would say that in recognizing our friends by the configuration of theirs souls, we have the more characteristic, and certainly the longer-lasting, element in character recognition. The body changes, sometimes out of all recognition; the soul changes much more slowly. The soul forms the body, according to Aristotle, but the material of the body decays, while the forming soul remains a simple substance incapable of decay. If some religions that derive their notions of the soul from Aristotle are right, the soul changes not at all, assuming its final shape in eternity. Finally, by limiting our competence in experiencing contact with fictional or dramatic characters to recognition of accepted conventions or emblems, we are limiting ourselves to recognition of the most hackneyed cliche elements of their characters. If Falstaff is only the Miles Gloriosus plus the Parasite, what is the difference between Falstaff and the Miles Gloriosus plus the Parasite of the worst, the least talented Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights? If Shakespeare is only the producer of clothed dramatic conventions, the less Shakespeare he. Certainly Shakespeare's audience and the succeeding generations perceived the Miles and the Parasite, but they must have seen more, since some of them, at least, accorded Shakespeare a higher status than they gave to his hackneyed contemporaries. I would suggest that the perception of the soul, as opposed to the perception of the cliche conventional elements, is not a matter conditioned entirely by historical environment, but a process which can proceed unlimited by time. That is, if the perception of the souls of the character proceeds at all, it proceeds with minuscule change through time. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 10:34:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0747 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0747. Monday, 26 September 1994. From: Allen Cheadle Date: Tuesday, 20 Sep 1994 13:40:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Authorship] With prior apologies for stirring up what seems to be an unwanted issue... I have couple of, hopefully brief, requests regarding the "authorship" controversy, with particular reference to the Stratford v. Oxford debate. First, the issue seems important, in the sense that resolving it conclusively in favor of an "alternative" author would have a major impact on the interpretation of Shakespeare's works. At the same time, the question will probably never be resolved conclusively, given the lack of available evidence and amount of time elapsed. However, it does seem possible to get some consensus about what evidence is appropriate for resolving the issue, and to have it more systematically presented. (It probably IS systematically presented somewhere that I am not aware of). So, request #1: ** Could those of you with some interest or expertise on either side of the issue list the 5 or so best pieces of evidence (articles, books, etc.) that support your case? This would save me a good deal of time in investigating the controversy, and would also would give me a sense of the degree of consensus about what is considered appropriate evidence. Second, one interesting consequence of alternative authorship would be the re-interpretation of Shakespeare's works in light of their being written by someone else. This might be an interesting exercise even if one were not completely convinced of the claim. This kind of "counterfactual" reasoning is done often in economic history, and going through the process of imagining alternative scenarios ("what if the Civil War never happened?") can give a new perspective on what actually happened, even if the proposed alternative is far-fetched. Which leads to request #2: Is anyone aware of scholarship that offers a re-interpretation of one or more of Shakespeare's works under the assumption that they were written by someone other than Shakespeare of Stratford? I would appreciate the citation, copy of the draft manuscript (if unpublished), or reference to a conference paper. Thank you in advance for your help. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 10:32:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0746 Re: Bianca and More Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0746. Monday, 26 September 1994. (1) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Tuesday, 20 Sep 94 14:09:14 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 16:26:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0742 Re: Bianca (3) From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 12:56:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0742 Re: Bianca (4) From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 17:10:12 -0400 Subj: Bianca (5) From: Jon Enriquez Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 10:18:22 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Theatrical Collaboration (was: Bianca as Shrew) (6) From: Edward Gero Date: Sunday, 18 Sep 1994 11:31:17 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0734 Re: Bianca as Shrew (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Tuesday, 20 Sep 94 14:09:14 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0738 Re: Bianca as Shrew I think we also need to remember our own views of gender and shrewishness in comparision with those of the (mainstream) Renaissance. What I am suggesting is that an audience which believed that all women are at cursed by shrewishness might be at least a little amused to see their assumptions come true in the last act. Even the good Bianca, if given the chance, will prove herself in need a shrew. Just a thought from another lurker Annalisa Castaldo Temple University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 16:26:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0742 Re: Bianca I'm not completely sure what Bernice Kliman means by her question, which I will paraphrase to include us all: "How do we KNOW that what we read in a text is exactly what is there?" Is she suggesting that we need new glasses? Or is this an extremely skeptical question? I gather as I read along that she's talking about interpretation, the interpretation of what's "there," rather than the material ink on the material page. However, MY POINT was NOT that there is only one interpretation of anything, but that we do in fact have a script to interpret. And I would be the last one to believe that the brain is a blank tablet (or whatever image you may wish to use). Norman Holland has convinced me that there is something there before any cultural influences. But Bernice seems to want to have it both ways: "Words on a page are not much without what we bring to them," but what we bring to these words are "preconceptions about woman's role." Now, either the brain is active and has some freedom of interpretation, or it's merely governed by cultural preconceptions and has no freedom of interpretation. Which is it? I'd like to believe, along with Tom Loughlin and others, that it's the first. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 12:56:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0742 Re: Bianca To Tom Loughlin: Yes, language is rich, and it is subject to interpretation, all the way from the concept "CHAIR" vs. the real object I'm sitting on, to the meaning of "fire" and "smother" in today's postings. Language is rich -- but it is not arbitrary. Playwrights choose their words carefully to contain in them the actions and interactions they have imagined in the hope that actors will present these actions and interactions before audiences. These imagined (inter-)actions and the performed (inter-)actions need not have a 1:1 neoclassic relationship to one another (take three steps downstage left and raise your right arm...), but the deeper imagined movement of the soul, where *logos* as spirit expresses itself in *logos* as word through *dia-logos* (two souls, two words, in dialogue with one another) -- at that point, the imagined and performed actions must be the same, or the performer has violated the playwright's artwork and has cheapened his own. Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 17:10:12 -0400 Subject: Bianca The conversation about Bianca's "shrewishness" has perplexed me on a number of points, especially some of the comments last week about how Bianca ultimately demonstrates her shrewdom/bitchiness. I am surprised that so many readers seem willing to accept the idea that Bianca is a shrew/bitch because she gets what she wants: she outwits a moronic father and idiotic bunch of suitors, and won't let a couple of bogus schoolteachers or "even" her husband order her around. Without opening up the character connundrum, it seems that these stage actions do demonstrate a resistance to arbitrary male tyranny, as do her surface acquiescence and secret undermining of her father's rule. (Sure, there are problems with these tactics, but in a theatrical tradition where MARRYING to one's own liking must stand as a sign of sexual liberation, I'll take subversion where I can get it). I'm surprised at the willingness HERE AND NOW to read Bianca's refusal to come running like an obedient BITCH (female dog) when her husband calls as some indication of moral depravity, and even more so by the assumption that the problems of this play are solved once the label of shrew has been transferred from one sister to the other. Is a fringe theater company called ARTS THRESHOLD still surviving in London? They staged a *Shrew* in 1992 that was wonderfully subversive, witty, and funny, and showed that there are indeed other possibilities for Bianca than the "Little Miss Nasty-Nice" one sees ad nauseum. Like the ACT production, they used masks and costume pieces that suggested a Commedia del'arte atmosphere, and "characters" were thus clownishly exaggerated--caricatures, really. The potentially appalling "wooing" of 2.1., so often staged as a quasi-rape, happened mostly off-stage, to crashing noises (more Buster Keaton than Zeffirelli); the contrast between Kate and Bianca was also overblown: Kate was a fierce and chunky lass as likely to scratch her bum as pick her nose in public (now there's a definition of shrew for you), while Bianca was a comically overdone femme fatale--one with the brains to have the entire city of Padua on its knees. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Enriquez Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 10:18:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Theatrical Collaboration (was: Bianca as Shrew) I want to applaud and amplify Tom Loughlin's remarks in the latest installment of the Bianca thread. Jim Schaefer's and Arthur Pierson's remarks stimulated much the same response from me. Theatrical performance is a collaborative art. It requires the combined creative contribution of playwright, actor, director, and audience. No single member of that collaboration is necessarily superior to any other, and each has different functions. It is inappropriate for an actor or director to insert huge chunks of, say, Ibsen in the middle of *Shrew*; they have a responsibility to respect the text. However, they are perfectly justified in bringing their interpretive abilities to the text that does exist. Indeed, they have a responsibility to do so; I would not want to be in a company (as actor, director, or playwright) with Arthur Pierson's Lady Mac if she truly had no idea about Lady Mac's "character." Now, it happens that this list mostly discusses textual and literary matters, with an occasional slide over into performance issues. Each, certainly, is a legitimate field for exploration, and often they reinforce each other; resolving the problem of solid/sulli'd is not just for textual fetishists but also affects performance. But the differences between the two types of discussions are real. We should remember the difference between saying "there's no textual basis for it" and "it can't possibly be justified by the text," let alone the difference between "the text doesn't have it" and "you can't perform it that way." Jon Enriquez Georgetown University ENRIQUEZJ@guvax.georgetown.edu (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Gero Date: Sunday, 18 Sep 1994 11:31:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0734 Re: Bianca as Shrew To whom it may concern: I have been saving the Shrew discussion thread since the early days. However I am missing a few and wonder if you could send me any messages relating to PC and ACT Shrews prior to August 29. Our theatre is preparing for a production this spring and this conversation would greatly enhance our pre-production discussions. Thank you, Edward Gero [Editor's Note: Why limit yourself to the most recent discussion? By using the DATABASE function, one can retrieve citations from SHAKSPER's entire six years of discussions on any subject. If you no longer have the instructions, let me know and I will forward a copy to you. --HMC PS: SHAKSPERean, please forgive the typos in my earlier announcement today. Too little sleep, too much to do, and lots and lots of digests to get out. --Hardy] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 10:47:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0748 Re: Sonnet 114, Fire Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0748. Monday, 26 September 1994. (1) From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 13:46:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0743 Qs: Sonnet 144 (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 15:44:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0743 Sonnet 144, "fire" (3) From: Greg Grainger Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 23:18:06 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0743 Qs: Sonnet 144 (4) From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Sep 22 16:10:27 EDT 1994 Subj: Sonnet 144, line 14 query (5) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 10:52:39 +0059 (EDT) Subj: RE: Sonnet 144, line 14 (6) From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 24 Sep 1994 14:30:19 -0600 (CST) Subj: s144 (7) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 23 Sep 94 19:55:52 -0500 Subj: sonnet 144, line 14 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 13:46:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0743 Qs: Sonnet 144 In response to Mary Tyler Knowles's question about 'to fire': I don't think that 'to fire' in anyway connotes that there is something morally reprehensable about the female reproductive organs and the orifice attended thereto. Rather, I think it is the recognition and a rather clever way for a VD sufferer to say, "It burns when I pee." To be fair, perhaps we could blend the two theories so that we can read the verb, "to fire," as "It burns when I pee and that orifice is to blame!" By the way, I do not know this burning sensation first hand, thanks. Matthew Vail Smith Hobart College Geneva, New York (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 15:44:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0743 Sonnet 144, "fire" Mary Tyler Knowles may wish to look at Stephen Booth's long note on this passage in his edition (p. 500). Booth suggests a good deal of verbal play is going on here, but he doesn't give any analogues to "fire . . . out." In LLL (3.1.63) Shakespeare uses "fir'd from a Gunne." Could the submerged image be a projectile fired from the barrel of a gun? I leave the details to your imagination! Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Greg Grainger Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 23:18:06 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0743 Qs: Sonnet 144 > I have just been teaching the sonnets and hoped someone could help me > with the use of the verb "fire" in the last line of #144's couplet. The > gloss in both my old Signet edition and in my newer Folger Library > edition suggests that "fire my good one out" means "to communicate > venereal disease." > So where does this sense of veneral disease come from? It's a guy thing. Various forms of VD cause inflammation of the urethra; in males this causes a vary painful burning sensation while urinating. (This is what I have been *told*, you understand.) One of the standard questions I used to be asked by the family doctor was, 'Any smarting or burning of the urine?'. I never knew what he was talking about. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Sep 22 16:10:27 EDT 1994 Subject: Sonnet 144, line 14 query Hi, Folks. This is in response to Mary Knowles' question about "Till my bad angel fire my good one out." Now--let me assure you that I'm not responding from personal knowledge (and I pray that it remains that way). However, I imagine the "fire" image for venereal disease has to do with the burning sensation men feel in a certain part of their anatomy when they're suffering from venereal disease (primarily painful urination, I think). Part of the fun behind the title of Beaumont's "The Knight of the Burning Pestle" is the pun on "pizzle" or "bull's penis" (as the helpful note in my Fraser and Rabkin edition states). Rafe (as our fearless knight) thus suffers from venereal disease--another reason for his burning emblem. Booth (in his edition of the _Sonnets_) gives lots of other great readings for that line. It's a great edition! Hope this helps. Leslie Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einstein.susqu.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 10:52:39 +0059 (EDT) Subject: RE: Sonnet 144, line 14 As far as I know, the `fire' reference refers to that burning sensation in the private parts, caused by venereal infection -- as in, eg., THE KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE. Jonson, Middleton, Marston, and many others joke endlessly on this theme. Helen Ostovich McMaster University (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Saturday, 24 Sep 1994 14:30:19 -0600 (CST) Subject: s144 Mary Tyler Knowles: I wonder if the sense of the last line isn't, either: "he'll find her too hot to handle and will get out of there--out of her placket, out of her house, out of this relationship"; or, more plausibly, "she'll eject him in a rage when she finds out what a rat he is-- like firing a fox from its den." Either way, the speaker's doubt is resolved: he'll know he's been betrayed--not so much by his bad as by his 'good' angel--by the fact that he (or it?) is no longer on friendly terms with the other, the 'bad' one, so called. I don't think we ought to take editorial glosses on the sonnets too seriously; we can read the OED too and 'venereal disease' is certainly not the only possible or even the most plausible meaning of 'fire' in this poem, which sets out to explore an analogy and a question, not a fact. (Nor is 'vagina' the only possible meaning of 'hell', which was also the middle base in Barley-Break, a game something like Prisoner's Base.) "Two loves I have", he announces in this first line, "of comfort and despair", one of whom is fair the other dark ("colored ill"), but which is which? Conventional assumptions (fair=good, dark=bad) might seem to suggest, as he says, the conventional roles of good angel and bad angel: thus, "The better angel is a man right fair,/The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill." According to the conventional scheme, the woman as bad angel is the tempter; and what does she tempt him into? Despair, of course, a grave sin. And how does she do it? By corrupting the good angel i.e. seducing him: "Wooing his purity with her foul pride". (Or is it "fair pride" as in the version that appears in Passionate Prilgrim?) But who seduces whom? If purity is seduced by foulness it's because it wants to be; maybe this fellow isn't so pure after all. So the source of despair for the speaker is not the woman but the "man right fair", the supposed saint who betrays him and willingly becomes a 'devil' and worse; and the source of comfort, ironically, is the woman colored ill who smokes out this hypocrite. Lilies that fester, as we know from S94, smell far worse than weeds. (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 23 Sep 94 19:55:52 -0500 Subject: sonnet 144, line 14 Sorry if this is late in arriving, but we've just gotten back in session and all those OTHER people who weren't here this summer are slowing down our e-mail system horribly. Stephen Booth's edition of the sonnets (Yale, 1977) has an extensive gloss on line 14. Joseph Pequigney's book *Such Is My Love* (U of Chicago Press, 1985) also discusses the sonnet in several places. Hope this is helpful. Chris Gordon (missing her mail) University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:17:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0749 Re: Scholars, Actors, Readers, Authors . . . Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0749. Monday, 26 September 1994. (1) From: Dan Patterson Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 15:55:59 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Yet another actor (2) From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 94 9:58:14 EDT Subj: Readers, Actors, and Authors (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Patterson Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 1994 15:55:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Yet another actor I have felt somewhat dismayed, reading this list for some time now, to see how passionately and neatly people line up in the two stereotypical camps: Scholars vs Artists. This argument over whether characters exist completely within the text as defined by the playwright, or are simply incomplete sketches to be completely interpreted by actors, seems too simplistic. Doesn't the truth (as always), lie somewhere in the middle? Isn't the actor free to interpret when given the room to do so by the playwright? Wouldn't a good playwright be sensitive to the creative abilities of the actor by giving them a certain latitude? I believe I remember Tennessee Williams saying that he believed his plays were always skeletal in structure and fully expected and fervently hoped that they would find their "flesh" in production. Of course, Tennessee Willams isn't Shakespeare. But wasn't Shakespeare also an actor? I have been trained as an actor to try to flesh out any character I play as far as I can without compromising the intentions of the playwright, the focus of a scene, or the meaning of the play. As a Twentieth Century actor, I cannot work in any other way. If I am to be a messenger, I want to know how the messenger feels about the message. It may not matter to anyone else but me, but it gives me so much more to work with and makes me feel better about my work. If the audience sees it and it serves the intentions of the scene, so much the better. I have thirteen of the Bard's works under my belt as an actor, not counting the ones I have done more than once. No one has ever complained about the way I work, and I can modestly claim that more than a few of them have been very successful. To me the text is of utmost importance for providing me with the clues I need to make the character live on the stage. When I feel I have exhausted the information provided to me by the playwright, then I begin to flex my own creative muscles, always trying to move down the path indicated by the text. It usually works. That's my bottom line. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Y. Zeria Date: Wednesday, 21 Sep 94 9:58:14 EDT Subject: Readers, Actors, and Authors Tom Loughlin wrote: > Language is such a tricky and imprecise tool for understanding that I hope > the day will come when we find another tool to make ourselves better > understood amongst each other. Aye, aye. I continue to maintain that we are all arguing a non- argument, seeing dissension where at root there is none. I think the range in interpretation of the postings themselves proves the point of the discussion itself. As Bernice noted, we do indeed all come to text/performance with an individual perspective molded by our own lifetime of experience/reading/performing/etc. And most certainly that perspective helps mold our interpretation of text or play. I do think, however, that an educated perspective (educated in the sense of having read and experienced broadly enough to question both the object and our perception of it) allows interpretation both in light of and in spite of the cultural baggage we bring to reading/viewing. And Bernice, I never maintained (or never meant to, ah this tricky language) that what we read in text is "exactly" what is there, and all there is. I hoped to say that what we read in the text provides some pretty clear cues to performance/interpretation. Most certainly there is a range. But there is also a point at which interpretation leaves the page and rewrites the play. I have been speaking specifically of TS, and my comments pertained only to that play as one in which I think it is next to impossible, without altering the action and dialogue, not to view Bianca as at least shrewd, in some ways shrew, and certainly not the pliant being she would have her father and suitors see her as. Other plays offer more scope for varied interpretation...I think Lear is such a one. But back to TS...and Tom: > As a practitioner of the art of theatre for better than 20 years of my adult > life, I will defend to the death that I CAN, in fact, make any character what > I want that character to be. I have the freedom to do this; I make the > choices, I execute the action on stage. If you can't understand this concept, > then the true nature of theatre from the point of view of the practitioner is > lost upon you. > HOWEVER, I will also defend to the death YOUR right, as an audience member, > to disagree completely, vociferously, and heatedly, with my choices. They > don't work for you, you think they violate the text, you think the character > shouldn't be interpreted that way, etc. etc. OK. But the hell of playwriting > - and it is indeed a hell - is that it requires, nay, demands that actors be > the vehicles through which the play is interpreted and its meaning is > conveyed. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this! I don't think anyone has suggested that certain choices should NOT be made, or that the text is "violated" in making them. I certainly am not. "Violated" implies that the text is *harmed* in the altering. No. Though I do believe that certain interpretations can only be played by altering the text, I don't believe such alteration harms the original, is sacrilegious, whatever. I enjoy seeing how others interpret characters and texts. I too will defend your right and freedom to make any character what you want. And there are certainly instances when just altering action, movement, mannerisms will do that. There are also times when only altering dialogue or staging (as in deleting or rearranging scenes, dialogue, etc.) will effectively alter interpretation. I am not disallowing the latter -- only saying that some characters, and I tend to see Bianca as one such, allow less range of interpretation without alteration of text than others. And most certainly some productions/interpretations/characterizations ring "truer" -- play better -- than others. There is certainly a range, especially in Shakespeare (which is what makes his plays so satisfying to read and perform -- they are so densely layered with implications that they seem to grow with us, as cultures and individuals change and alter perspectives, still they find something with which to identify, something which speaks to their situation or state of mind). Nor am I saying that I frown on alteration of text. Not at all! We wouldn't have many of these plays if Shakespeare hadn't done so himself (both in sense of altering the texts of others and his own)! Art should and does build on itself. We must simply make clear, in our discussions, whether we are discussing how a character/scene/play might be altered, or what we think the range of performance as written might be. And I think we, as educated people, might allow that there will be some disagreement. I say I think Bianca, if played without alteration of scene or dialogue, can only appear to me shrewd/shrewish. That does not mean I think she must appear as such to all. I said earlier that I am open, very open, to the idea "that my interpretation is my own." And by the way, Bernice, I never said I "discovered the meaning" of this play or Bianca's role in it. I would never say that. I said I arrived at my "judgment" of it before seeing it performed. Again, I do NOT believe in the "one true meaning" tenet of literature...especially not in Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote for an incredibly diverse audience...he'd have been a fool to aim at only one distinct and possible interpretation/appreciation. Again, I believe there is range of possible interpretations of and ways to appreciate these plays. But I also believe there are some with wider range than others, and that in many cases those interpretations require alteration of the playwright's text (and probably differ from the performance the playwright had in mind as he or she wrote). As in the Kate-with-children version of TS...I like that...but you will admit it isn't written into the text. And I never said I thought that couldn't/shouldn't be done. I only, I repeat, I only said that it would take rewriting of text to make certain interpretations. And I also said it might be done "quite interestingly." Pardon, please, the extent of this response -- but as much range as I wish to give interpretation of literature (wherein lies its value, I maintain), I really hate to have my own remarks misread! Elizabeth Youngs Zeria ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:26:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0750 Qs: Neologisms; R&J Chorus; Tillyard; MND Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0750. Monday, 26 September 1994. (1) From: Jon Emil Gudbrandsson Date: Tuesday, 20 Sep 1994 12:23:05 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Shakespeare's neologism (2) From: Nick Clary Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 11:17:31 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Mercutio and the Friar in R&J (3) From: Bill McRae Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 08:24:38 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Tillyard Query (4) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 13:10:17 +0059 (EDT) Subj: MND video (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Emil Gudbrandsson Date: Tuesday, 20 Sep 1994 12:23:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Shakespeare's neologism I was just wandering how many of Shakespeare's invented words are still in use today and how many he made. If anyone has something about this subject I would appreciate any response. Jon Emil Gudbrandsson jongu@rhihi.is (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 11:17:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Mercutio and the Friar in R&J In our discussion the other day, a student in my class noticed that the Chorus in *Romeo and Juliet* did not reappear after the opening of the second Act. Pointing to Mercutio, on the one hand, and to Friar Lawrence, on the other, another student suggested that these two characters performed choric functions: namely, offering advice to the main character(s) and providing an interpretive vantage point on the action. After some discussion of the relative perspectives provided by these two choric figures, it has occurred to us that we might have, in these two characters, spokesmen for the cavalier and the metaphysical schools, respectively. Has anyone on the SHAKSPER list seen anything in print that makes a similar observation? I will be delighted to pass along to my students whatever you send my way. Thank you, Nick Clary clary@smcvax.smcvt.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill McRae Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 08:24:38 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Tillyard Query It's often noted that Tillyard's *Elizabethan World Picture* is a product of WWII and that its claims need to be read in light of that contingency. My recollection is that this subject has been treated in some detail within recent years, but I can't find exactly where. Anyone recall such a discussion? Bill McRae (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 22 Sep 1994 13:10:17 +0059 (EDT) Subject: MND video I think someone once gave this information before, but does anyone know where I can obtain a video of Peter Hall's MND, the one in which Diana Rigg played Helena? I think it was filmed way back in 1968 or thereabouts. Helen Ostovich McMaster University ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:34:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0751. Monday, 26 September 1994. (1) From: JC Stirm Date: Friday, 23 Sep 94 10:49 PDT Subj: Much Ado Q Response (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Sunday, 18 Sep 1994 13:06:26 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0740 Q: *Ado* (3) From: Thomas Hall Date: Friday, 23 Sep 1994 12:23:35 -0500 (CDT) Subj: *Ado* Question (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: JC Stirm Date: Friday, 23 Sep 94 10:49 PDT Subject: Much Ado Q Response This is the first time I've posted to this list, so I hope I'm doing it right... Thomas Hall recently asked about women and outsiders in *Much Ado*: Two good places to start spring to my mind: M.M. Mahood's *Bit Parts in Shakespeare's Plays* may give you some sense of how waiting women function on the stage to form a sense of both Hero's importance and of an alternate community of women. She also cites Barbara Everett's article in *Critical Quarterly* 3 (1961) 319-35 (which I haven't, alas, read). Also, Carol Thomas Neely has a chapter on the play in *Broken Nuptuals in Shakespeare's Plays*. Neither book is perfectly what you're after, but both may help. It seems like one possibility if you're looking for women as outsiders, is to consider the serving women and what they're doing in the plays also Jessica in *Merchant*. Margaret is both a loyal serving woman and something more; I'm not suggesting that she's complicit in a plot against Hero, but rather that she has a plot of her own which we don't see much of, but which involves at least some courtship... She's a vulnerable member of the alternative female community because? (That is, she makes that community vulnerable, but why?) I think her vulnerability has to do with marriage possibilities and the status of unmarried serving women; they were often in service while trying to put together a marriage portion or meet the right man. Service wasn't the kind of career it seems to be in TV productions about the 19th century, but was a more temporary part of life. That seems to mean that serving women are in an interesting position in plays. A lot of plays seem to have a real nostalgia for strong relations between women, especially *MSND* (Titania's speech about the Changeling Boy's mother and the twin cherry speech). *Much Ado* seems to show a moment when that community breaks down. I hope you find what you're after, Jan Stirm (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Sunday, 18 Sep 1994 13:06:26 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0740 Q: *Ado* >I am looking for information on the play, Much Ado About Nothing. Specifically >pertaining to the role of women and outsiders. > Thomas Hall You might like to look at Don John's position as a bastard, a periennally fascinating topic (at least to me). Parallels might be Edmund in *King Lear* and Spurio in *The Revenger's Tragedy*--not to get into the old "character" debate but rather how bastards were perceived in the culture and what work they do in a particular text. I suspect that they serve as a tool to voice fears about out-of-control sexuality and a consequent threat to inheritance, and the demonized position they hold in many tragedies personifies--and exorcises--these fears. (Interesting factoid--there was a tremendous upsurge in illegitimate births in the first decade of the 1600's, if Peter Laslett is to be believed.) The real question is--what are demonized figures like Don John doing in a "comedy?" Melissa Aaron (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Hall Date: Friday, 23 Sep 1994 12:23:35 -0500 (CDT) Subject: *Ado* Question >Dear Thomas Hall: For a perfect example of woman as outsider in Much >Ado, have a look at Innogen. > >T. Hawkes Dear Terence Hawkes: I apreciate the tip, any help I can get on the larger issue of women and outsiders is useful. However I am kind of new to all of this. Who is Innogen? And where do I find Innogen? Library or e-mail? Thanks: Thomas Hall ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Sep 1994 12:37:58 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0752 Shakespeare Database on WWW Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0752. Monday, 26 September 1994. From: H. Joachim Neuhaus Date: Friday, 23 Sep 1994 11:23:48 +0200 Subject: Shakespeare Database WWW Server installed The Shakespeare Database project at Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster, Germany posts project news and information on publications on its own WWW Home-Page. There is also a preview on the Shakepeare Database CD-ROM to be presented at the 1994 Frankfurt Bookfair. URL: http://ves101.uni-muenster.de/ H. Joachim Neuhaus neuhaus@mwz.uni-muenster.de ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 12:25:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0753 Re: Slang Quibble Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0753. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. From: Ellen Edgerton Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 09:45 ET Subject: A quibble on battle slang Re the recent comment on "buying the farm" being a slang expression that was a >product< of the Korean war: maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought the expression originated among bush pilots and early aviators when they would crash into a plowed field or barn and then have to literally buy the farm (that is, if they had not actually BOUGHT the farm in the process). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 12:38:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0754 Announcements: Fellowship and CFPs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0754. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. (1) From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Monday, 26 Sep 94 20:06:07 EDT Subj: Fellowship announcement (2) From: Vallee Jean-Francois Date: Monday, 19 Sep 1994 17:46:11 -0400 (EDT) Subj: CFP: Comp. Lit. Grad. Student Conference (3) From: Renee Pigeon Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 17:39:18 -0700 (PDT) Subj: CFP: Teaching Symposium (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Urkowitz Date: Monday, 26 Sep 94 20:06:07 EDT Subject: Fellowship announcement Please share this around to graduate students and new Ph.D.s, and I'd appreciate anyone forwarding the announcement to other lists (and also reporting back to me where it may have been posted. The CARL H. PFORZHEIMER ENDOWED FELLOWSHIP IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE. One year appointment to pursue research and teach one course per semester. Recent Ph.D. or advanced ABD in Dramatic Literature. Supplementary interests or prefessional experience in theatrical production or criticism desirable. Appointment as Assistant Professor, $29,931-$34,011 per year. Appointment contingent on budgetary approval. Send letter and c.v., postmarked no later than December 7, 1994, to Professor Steven Urkowitz, Chair, The City College, CUNY, 138th Street and Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031. The City College is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action employer and specifically invites and encourages applications from women and men of all ethnic and racial backgrounds. The College provides reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities upon request. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Vallee Jean-Francois Date: Monday, 19 Sep 1994 17:46:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: CFP: Comp. Lit. Grad. Student Conference Cross-posted : CALL FOR PAPERS THE BODY OF LITERATURE / LITERATURE OF THE BODY 6th Annual Graduate Student Conference of the CCLA (Canadian Comparative Literature Association) Department of Comparative Literature, Universite de Montreal March 31st & April 1st, 1995 Guest speakers: Peter Brooks, Yale University Nicole Brossard, writer Possible Topics: Love's Body in Cyber Space: when Meatpuppet meets Prosthetic Enhancement / Sex, Text and Literary Taboo / Body, Religion, Tradition / Current Readings into the Literary Canon / Culture and Context: Mind and Body Divided / Canadian Literature After French and English / Semiotization of the Body - Somatization of the story / Literary Discourse: (dis)service to the Nation / Bodies Beyond Sex? Writing Gender(s) / Writing the Self / Writing Illness / Violence and the Body / The Political Economy of the Body... Please send two copies of your abstract (in French or in English, 250 words maximum) before November 1st, 1994 to: Marie Lessard Organizing comitee for the 6th Anuual CCLA Graduate Student Conference De'partement de litte'rature compare'e Universite' de Montre'al C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-Ville Montre'al, Que'bec, H3C 3J7 info. : lessardm@ere.umontreal.ca (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Renee Pigeon Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 17:39:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: CFP: Teaching Symposium Call for Papers Renaissance Conference of Southern California Third Annual Symposium on "Teaching the Renaissance" Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA Saturday, Febuary 4, 1995 Some suggested topics: Using new media to teach the Renaissance Expanding the canon: successful strategies Approaches to teaching Shakespeare's comedies The Renaissance in multicultural curricula Proposals for workshops or roundtable discussions Proposals on these and other topics are invited from scholars and teachers in all disciplines dealing with Renaissance studies; all critical approaches are also welcomed. Ideas for proposals incorporating technology should be submitted as soon as possible to allow us to obtain necessary equipment. Please send abstracts for papers (reading length 20 minutes) or proposals for sessions for receipt by November 15, 1994 to: Prof. Renee Pigeon, RCSC President, Dept. of English, CSU San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA 92407-2397. E-mail submissions encouraged; send to: rpigeon@wiley.csusb.edu. Please be sure to include a telephone number and/or e-mail address with your submission. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 12:49:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0755 Re: Sonnet 114; Bianca; Character; MND Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0755. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. (1) From: Jean Peterson Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 22:16:08 -0400 Subj: RE: sonnet and Bianca (2) From: Geoff Pywell Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 11:02:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Character (3) From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 13:42:16 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0750 Qs: MND Video (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 22:16:08 -0400 Subject: RE: sonnet and Bianca So where >does this sense of veneral disease come from? The use of fire is consistent >with the images of hell (place of eternal punishment and female sexual organ) >in the rest of this poem, but I'm baffled by the gloss. And, oh dear, what an >attitude toward female sexuality is revealed here... See also *Comedy of Errors*, 4.3.55-59, where Dromio (S.) warns his master to stay away from the Courtesan because "light wenches will burn." The Signet & the Riverside both gloss "burn" as transmitting a veneral disease (consistent, it seems with the sense of warning in Dromio's words). I can recall being taught this particular "double-entendre" as far back as a high school shakespeare class, so it's an idea that's been around for a while--but it's unlike Partridge and the OED to "miss" this precise usage, if it were indeed common, no? Curiouser and curiouser... AND.... With all due respect to Ronald Dwelle-- "Shrew" is animalistic, but "bitch" is not???! Jean Peterson Bucknell University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geoff Pywell Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 11:02:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Character May I suggest the recent book by Bert O. States, Hamlet and the concept of character, as an elegant and illuminating examination of the whole vexed subject of what constitutes character. As always with States there is a great deal of common sense laced with humor. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 13:42:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0750 Qs: MND Video Try Facets Multimedia in Chicago on Fullerton Ave. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 12:59:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0756 Re: Habits; Tillyard; Urania Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0756. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. (1) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Monday, 26 Sep 94 18:09 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0746 Re: Habits of Mind (2) From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 19:38:07 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0750 Qs: Tillyard (3) From: Max Thomas Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 18:10:55 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0736 Re: *Urania* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Monday, 26 Sep 94 18:09 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0746 Re: Habits of Mind Ralph Cohen's statement that he should have written about Bassanio's 'habit of speech' rather than 'habit of mind' is of course wholly admirable. But will it wring the withers of those who rushed to defend 'habit of mind' on the grounds that mental states are readily inferrable from words? Still agog, T. Hawkes (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Imtiaz Habib Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 19:38:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0750 Qs: Tillyard Response to Bill Macrae's query about Tillyard/Elizabethan World Picture: See Robert Ornstein's A Kingdom for a Stage: The Achievement of Shakespeare's History Plays (1972). Ornstein showed convincingly that Elizabethan historical sources (Hall etc) do not contain evidence of grandiose anDd pretty cultural constructions such as the kind of thing that Tillyard tried to make us believe (and that some of his more naive readers today still would want us to believe) was a profound, historically specific and coherent idea that the Elizabethans uniformly held. The longevity of the "influence" of this bogus idea is astonishing! Imtiaz Habib (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Max Thomas Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 18:10:55 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0736 Re: *Urania* Although a bit belated, I hope this reply is still usefull. Those unable to wait for Josephine Roberts' edition of _Urania_ do have an option (besides the STC microfilm). The Brown Women Writers Project computer textbase includes a typescript of the 1621 (ie printed) text. It's not cheap ($35) but it is available and you can mark it up if you wish. Moreover, the royalty arrangements for teaching are quite reasonable ($1 per copy). You can reach BWWP at: Box 1841, Brown University Providence RI 02912 (401) 363-3619 WWP@Brownvm.Brown.Edu Bear in mind, however, that this is not an edition by any means. Not only does it come without an apparatus of any sort, it comes without editorial labor of any sort; indeed it even seems to lack copyediting (even w/o immediate access to the STC to check, I'm sure "re*s.pit" is a typo.) It's also nearly 600 pages (8 1/2 x 11) and the text is right-justified, presenting many formidable blocks of prose at a time. I mention this not simply as a caveat, but in fact as a segue into the question of editorial practice. For it seems in many ways that the BWWP text is a boon to any pedagogic situation which is attempting to maintain awareness of texts as culturally produced. In the class for which I'm using the BWWP _Urania_, students are also reading the Duncan-Jones editions of Sidney (the Oxford Authors volume) and of the Old arcadia, and Roberts' editon of Mary Wroth's poems. So they are exposed to a range of possible "modernizations" of the text, and as such are forced to confront not only the arbitrariness of the text, but the arbitrary and/or conventional nature of sign-systems in general--or rather, the extent to which the material sign-system can itself impinge upon the "immaterial" significations of the text. This isn't just an exercize in defamiliarization (which, to function as an anti-type, requires a type that is often not available to them), but rather an exercize in the historicity of words & significations, and in the contingency of meaning. Whose Wroth? we are able to ask, by posing exactly the question of the (hors) text, of how texts carry meaning, of how reading proceeds. Finally, I'm not sure which my students find "harder" to read: the "raw" page of the BWWP _Urania_ or the "cooked" sonnets in _Astrophil and Stella_. After all, the intial tendency to ascribe those difficulties to different orders of reading has been thrown out of skew by the our discussion of the texts qua texts. This is a rather longer post than I intended, and so I will not go into the issues of gender & canon that are also deeply imbricated in these texts, in their editing, in their opacity, but will suggest that it is precisely around figures such as Wroth (&, if Gary Taylor has his way, Middleton) that these issues are going to be addressed in the years ahead. Yours, Max Thomas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 13:07:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0757 Re: Actors on Acting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.0757. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 14:04:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0746 Re: MV Characters (2) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 10:05:08 -0600 Subj: Actor on Acting (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 14:04:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0746 Re: MV Characters Tom Loughlin is clearly a very articulate and sensitive actor and reader, and has contributed stimulating points about the relationship between the performer and the texts of Shakespeare as they exist. He reminds us that Shakespeare WROTE plays. No, he didn't do just that, in fact; he WROUGHT them. He was not a playwrite but a playwright, a maker. "Scop", the OE for God, was also the term for the creator, maker of art, and as a Scot I know the OS was "makar". There is a great artistic difference. The posts he decries from Jim Schaefer and others that seem to insist dogmatically on "playing the scene" are not as one-sided as he finds them, but timely reminders that fine creators of playscripts have provided considerably more than mere words with which actors are totally free to dally; these makers of plays have given the words in a certain order, with a certain phonetic and rhythmic structure to which sensitive actors may respond with the freedom that only an awareness of the discipline and form within the lines can grant. I, too, am an actor, but I would no more play Bianca as a fifty-three year old man than I would Macbeth as a Norwegian or Othello as a Greek. Bringing my own emotions (who could not????) to a role, I would reign them in by the delicious strictures, the sweet restraints and tasty chains of the text and thereby find the greater freedom. As John Drakakis, Terence Hawkes and others have tried in vain to say, Bianca does not have a "personality" until these chains are broken by having first been attached to them. I have a suspicion that Tom Loughlin subconsciously but unwillingly agrees. Harry Hill Montreal ...6.00am, running off to the TV studio to play a role as written while at the same time hoping to bring appropriate parts of my own personality to it. I am cast "against type" as an FBI plainclothesman with what I trust will pass as a Florida accent. The script does not have the mastery of *King Lear*, but it does have structire, and there *are* emotional points reflected in its rhythms. I'll let you know if the inspiration of the moment brought something newly new to it... which I agree it well may. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 10:05:08 -0600 Subject: Actor on Acting As both actor and playwright, I have read with great interest Mr. Loughlin's and Mr. Larner's passionate responses concerning the craft of acting. Believing I know a little about both, I believe, at heart, we are not that far apart. When most I see actors and directors fail it stems from a vehement protecting of their "right" of absolute creative freedom, rather than from striving to understand and realize for an audience (not for themselves) what has been written for them. What frightens me when I hear actors and directors speak of "this character is so and so" and "this one such and such" is that such talk, in addition to narrowing the full scope of a character, ususally has less to do with interpretation than imposition or (the dreaded word) "conception". Even if I vehemently disagree with an actor's interpretation of a character, as long as I see on stage the CHARACTER, one whose words/actions/emotions are supported by the TEXT, I will defend that actor's work til kingdom come. It is when I see on stage only THE ACTOR and the actor's God given right to do what the actor WANTS to do with, to or in spite of the text, that I flinch. Such self-centeredness is anathema to the communal, collaborative nature of theatre. True: a play does not exist as a play without actors to bring it to life. Every playwright knows this, counts on this. Yet, neither may actors act unless they first begin with a text (even Second City mainstage "improv" is scripted). At the very least, there should be no antagonism between actor and text. Especially with Shakespeare, in a battle between the two, the brilliance of the text either will reveal the presumption of the actor or become so obfuscated as to reinforce in many people's minds that Shakespeare is a foreign language as well as a boring night at the theatre. Yes. Make bold choices, reach for the heavens, yet only with your feet firmly fixed in the text. As I recall, via Hamlet, the clowns of Shakespeare's company were well chastized for straying from the text and calling too much attention to themselves. Peace. Arthur Pearson Great Lakes Protection Fund apearson@great-lakes.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 13:15:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0758 Re: Outsiders Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0758. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. (1) From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 94 10:34:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado (2) From: James P. Saeger Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 11:43:47 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0751 Bastards/Outsiders (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 94 10:34:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado For Melissa Aaron, Have a look at Christopher Norris & Richard Machen eds., Poststructuralist Readings of English Poetry (Cambridge 1987). There you will find questions of illegitimacy and "outsiders" addressed. John Drakakis (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James P. Saeger Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 11:43:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0751 Bastards/Outsiders As I am wrapping up my dissertation on bastards and bastardy, I wanted to second Melissa Aaron's fascination with the subject. I also wanted to add that while bastards do in part "serve as a tool to voice fears about out-of-control sexuality and a consequent threat to inheritance," it's important to make some distinctions about these fears/threats. The category of "out-of-control" sexuality is not one to be taken at face value. It is a heavily class- and gender-bound concept in which the culturally empowered use such ideological constructions as morality, economic entitlement, and "family values" to control and demonize the disempowered--i.e., poor women & especially poor single mothers. As my language indicates, we can see the currency of many of the same issues in our own (USA, at least) political climate. Also, the "threat to inheritance" is born of some of the same issues of ideological control. Since bastards are primarily associated with their mothers, any claim to inheritance by bastards (eg., Edmund and Spurio, among others) threatens the patriachalism founded on hierarchical among others) threatens the patriachalism founded on hierarchical distinctions between legitimate & illegitimate, father & mother, etc. That said, I think dramatic characterizations of bastards certainly do provide excellent "outsiders" for study. James P. Saeger jpsaeger@mit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 13:31:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0759 Re: Innogen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0759. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 22:24:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Innogen or Imogen in CYMBELINE (2) From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 15:05:21 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0741 Re: Universals; Character; *Ado* (3) From: Michael Friedman Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 15:56:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 22:24:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Innogen or Imogen in CYMBELINE Thomas Hall asks about Innogen which is the Oxford way to spell Imogen. There is no textual evidence that Shakespeare spelled the name in this way in this play. In MUCH ADO (in the first stage direction) Leonato's wife is "Innogen." And Holinshed, one of Shakespeare's sources for CYMBELINE, has "Innogen." By "textual evidence," let me make clear, I mean evidence in early texts of CYMBELINE. There's plenty of textual evidence other places! Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Monday, 26 Sep 1994 15:05:21 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0741 Re: Universals; Character; *Ado* Who or what is Innogen? I am in class with Tom Hall and would like to know more. Thanks Kitty Kendrick (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Fridman Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 15:56:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado Thomas Hall, Innogen is a character who appears in the stage directions of *Much Ado* at the beginning of 1.1 and 2.1 as Leonato's wife. She is excised from most editions of the play (although you might be able to find her in the notes on the text section of your edition). If you're interested, I wrote an article concerning her which appears in Theatre Journal 42 (1990): 350-63. Michael Friedman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 13:34:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0760 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0760. Wednesday, 28 Sept. 1994. From: Charles Adler Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 18:31:17 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0747 Authorship "SHAKESPEARE" IDENTIFIED IN EDWARD DE VERE, SEVENTEENTH EARL OF OXFORD by J. Thomas Looney, originally published in 1920 is the seminal book. Whatever one thinks of the conclusion, it is well written and tightly argued, much like reading a good legal brief (yes, there are some). My difficulty that I did not -- still don't -- know enough to assess the accuracy of the "facts" from which the argument develops. If the "facts" are accurate, the argument has persuasive force. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 17:58:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0761 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0761. Friday, 30 September 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 1994 22:30:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference The topic of 1995 Conference is STAGES FOR SHAKESPEARE: From Court to Couch, from Central Park to the Cottesloe, from Culture to the Classroom. Featured Speakers are Janet Adelman, Peter Donaldson, and Phyllis Rackin. The Conference will be held at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, on May 11-13, 1995. Papers or 750 word abstracts should be recived on or before January 15, 1994. Please send papers, abstracts, and/or inquiries to: Sam Crowl Department of English Ohio University Athens OH 45701-2979 For the Ohio Shakespeare Conference, I remain, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Sep 1994 18:09:01 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0762 Re: Sonnet 144; Bianca; ACT Shrew Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0762. Friday, 30 September 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 16:46:44 +1000 (EST) Subj: Sonnet #144 (2) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 94 08:19:08 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0755 Re: Bianca (3) From: Joyce Crim Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 15:29:34 -0600 Subj: Re: ACT Shrew (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 16:46:44 +1000 (EST) Subject: Sonnet #144 To Mary Tyler Knowles: There is what appears to be an analogous usage in Donne's Elegy, 'The Comparison': 'Thine's like the dread mouth of a fir'd gun' (The 'thine' being the genitals of his antagonist's mistress). Pat Buckridge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 94 08:19:08 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0755 Re: Bianca >With all due respect to Ronald Dwelle-- "Shrew" is animalistic, but "bitch" is not???! >Jean Peterson >Bucknell University In animal terms, "shrew" is vicious, "bitch" is not. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joyce Crim Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 15:29:34 -0600 Subject: Re: ACT Shrew The ACT production of Shrew, which I saw on televison, was the most enjoyable Shrew I have seen. The acrobatics around the ship's mast and pirate-type chorus with noisemakers are still vivid pictures in my mind. To me the key to success was in the casting of both Petruchio and Kate as young, attractive, lusty, physical lovers, who were obviously meant for each other. As I remember it, the actors were equally matched in their ability to torment each other. For me, their struggle represented a mating-dance, not sexual abuse. The physical comedy worked to create a sense of joy. Another production which played up the lusty side of Shrew was the Burton-Taylor movie. (I seem to remember struggles in haylofts and the omission of large chunks of text.) My point is that, for today's audiences, one can (if one WISHES) down-play the sexism of the "taming" by emphasizing the physical compatibility (even combatibility !) of the lovers. This is my first posting. As a reader and an audience member, I am a fan of both scholarship and theatrical productions. Go easy on me, please. If anyone knows of a legal way I can purchase a copy of the ACT Shrew, please let me know. Thanks. Joyce Crim ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 09:57:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0762 Re: MND Video; Character; Innogen; Habits; Actors Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0762. Friday, 30 September 1994. (1) From: Patricia E. Gallagher Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 20:48:17 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: MND video (2) From: Matthew Raften Dubroff Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 18:26:16 -1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0746 Re: Character (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 94 10:10 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 1994 22:55:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Habits and Withers (5) From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Friday, 30 Sep 94 10:49:14 +0300 Subj: Re. Actor on Acting (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia E. Gallagher Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 20:48:17 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: MND video I have no idea if the MND video (starring Diana Rigg, and directed by Peter Hall) is still available for sale. I picked my copy up (used) several years ago. However, that said, it was distributed by Warner Brothers Communications. Hope you are able to find a copy. Patricia Gallagher (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Raften Dubroff Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 1994 18:26:16 -1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0746 Re: Character In response to E.L. Epstein's suggestion of recognizing character through innate psychological qualities or a fixed soul, I would like to suggest that in any and every case, these qualities have as much to do with our own projections upon and readings of them as with their actual existence. Hence Macbeth may be a murderous maniac to one person and a tender lover to another. It is a bit dangerous to try and fix the psychology or the soul of a character as an absolute given. Especially in a play, when all we are ever given is a specific angle from which to view a character for a few short hours. A new Macbeth with a new character and a new soul will innevitably be created in each production. Shirley Kagan. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 94 10:10 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado Dear Thomas Hall, All you have to do is read Much Ado without Innogen (as most of the play's editors want you to do) and then read it with her included (she appears twice, and is referred to quite clearly). That should give you a sense of her as an 'outsider', which is what you asked about.It might also suggest some thoughts about the politics of editing, but perhaps you should keep these to yourself. Enjoy! T. Hawkes (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 1994 22:55:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Habits and Withers I have just checked the back of my neck, and I can assure T. Hawkes that I have found no sign of damage. I don't believe I said that habits of mind could "readily" be inferred by words; they can ONLY be inferred from words. If Mr. Hawkes has another method of determining habits of mind, he should immediately communicate this discovery to the world of science, especially psychiatry. As to dramatic figures, we could say that habits of mind are IMPLIED by a playwright, when she or he uses certain words in certain combinations. The actor then has the chance to make inferences from these implications. And after the actor has done her or his inferring, the audience gets a shot. Simple, eh? No reason to be agog. Simply yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Friday, 30 Sep 94 10:49:14 +0300 Subject: Re. Actor on Acting Arthur Pearson writes, >What frightens me when I hear actors and directors speak of "this character is >so and so" and "this one such and such" is that such talk, in addition to >narrowing the full scope of a character, ususally has less to do with >interpretation than imposition or (the dreaded word) "conception". It frightens me to _read_ "this character is so and so". I am often struck by the extent to which criticism of the plays seems intent on forcing closure, especially on the "characters". Of course, actors will have to settle on one or other of the many possible ways of realizing their role and I would understand talk of "this character is so and so" to be really a kind of shorthand for "this is how I intend to play it". But in working on the text we should surely keep our minds open to the range of possibilities and try to use an appropriate form of discourse. Is Bianca a Shrew? Well she _might_ be. She could be one of several Biancas. I would want to say (to my students) that it mainly depends on what sort of Kate you want to have. Ken Meaney University of Joensuu, Finland ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Oct 1994 10:16:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0763. Saturday, 1 October 1994. (1) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 94 12:33:17 EDT Subj: [Q: Contemporary Lear] (2) From: Kate Egerton Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 94 09:21 EDT Subj: R&J - Israeli/Palestinian (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 94 12:33:17 EDT Subject: [Q: Contemporary Lear] I know this has already been discussed, but I can't find it quickly in the backfiles and I figured someone would remember. What is the name (and author, if you have a really good memory) of the recent fiction novel about a modern day *King Lear*, told from Goneril's perspective? I seem to remember it took place on a farm in the Midwest. Thanks much. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kate Egerton Date: Wednesday, 28 Sep 94 09:21 EDT Subject: R&J - Israeli/Palestinian Greetings, all - Sometime this summer, maybe around the beginning of August, I heard a report on National Public Radio about a joint Israeli/ Palestinian production of _Romeo & Juliet_. The production was bilingual, and rather than play all the way through to the familial reconcilliation at the end of act 5, the actors at that point re-recited the prologue -- "From ancient grudge to break new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean" instead of "O brother Montague, give me thy hand." Or so I imagine, the report was quite brief. If anyone has more info (or leads to it), I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thanks much - Kate Egerton UNC Chapel Hill egerton@uncmvs.oit.unc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 21:42:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0764 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0764. Sunday, 2 October 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 94 14:26:16 CDT Subject: Authorship All right, I wasn't going to get into this on the net unless others did, but I feel I should rebut the tentative endorsement of Looney's *Shakespeare Identified*. I will admit that Looney's book may seem persuasive to the uninitiated if read in a vacuum, but despite his confidence and glib writing style, his arguments are baseless. (The same is true of Charlton Ogburn's more recent and comprehensive *The Mysterious William Shakespeare*.) I don't want to seem to be making ex cathedra pronouncements that anyone who believes these books is crazy, but I will say the following with confidence: 1) Looney/Ogburn attempt to show that William Shakespeare was unknown during his lifetime and too uneducated to write the plays. However, the same arguments they use on Shakespeare can, if used consistently, be used to "prove" that most Elizabethan playwrights were unknown and uneducated, including at the very least Christopher Marlowe, John Fletcher, and John Webster, to name some of the most prominent. The double standard used by Looney and Ogburn on this point is truly mind-boggling. 2) Looney/Ogburn also attempt to show that Oxford's life is reflected in the plays. However, the life of virtually any other given nobleman of the time is also reflected equally well in the plays. The events of *Hamlet*, for example, match the lives of the Earl of Essex and King James I at least as well as they supposedly match Oxford's life. Thus virtually any random Elizabethan nobleman can be "proven", by Looney and Ogburn's methods, to have written Shakespeare's or most any other Elizabethan plays. There have been a number of decent rebuttals to Oxfordian claims; among the most useful in terms of direct counterarguments are: Irvin Matus, *Shakespeare, In Fact*, published this year by Continuum. R. C. Churchill, *Shakespeare and His Betters* (1958), which rebuts a variety of anti-Stratfordian claims. J. M. Robertson, *The Baconian Heresy* (1913), old but still useful. No one of these books says all that can be said, but together they do a pretty good job. I don't have time to get into this whole discussion again right now, but anyone who reads Looney or Ogburn should also read the above books. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 21:47:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0765 Re: Outsiders: Don John in *Ado* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0765. Sunday, 2 October 1994. From: Edward Gero Date: Friday, 30 Sep 1994 10:14:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado In response to Melissa Aaron's query: > The real question is--what are demonized figures like Don John doing in a > "comedy?" I have had the pleasure of playing Don John three times and would suggest that he is present for a variety of reasons, not least among them because he is funny. He has one of the most exquisite first entrances in the canon. "I thank you, I am not of many words, but I thank you", gets one of the first big laughs in the play. It reminds of the dour "Hello yourself" of Judd Fry in Oklahoma. Secondly, I think he represents the shadow side of the male ego that is so gulled in the play. He, in fact, plays on that particularly male weakness of the fear of being cuckolded with ease, and to great affect in convincing both Claudio and Pedro of Hero's infidelity. He does so, interestingly enough, with another of the play's great laugh's "Leonato's Hero, your Hero, everyman's Hero". He acts with great understanding of an "outsider", knowing the male depth of insecurity and penchant to accept as true any insinuation that the "loved one" is false. It is only after the cataclysm at the wedding, and the insight that Friar Francis brings on a spiritual level (who, in my view acts as the compensatory influence of Don John) that Hero is indeed honest and innocent. (It seems no accident to me that it is at this meeting of the dark of Don John and light of the Friar that Don John completes his work and leaves.) It is only then that Benedik, Leonato, Pedro and Claudio can begin the painful acceptance of their "shadow" selves before it is too late, and bring about the "happy ending". The Nothing of the Much Ado is in their heads brought to the surface by that guy we all love to hate Don John. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 21:58:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0766 Q: Shylock Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0766. Sunday, 2 October 1994. From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 30 Sep 1994 21:40:50 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Two questions about Shylock I don't know how to ask this question in a way that will pay obeisance to those who argue that fictive personae don't have characters, intentions, or actions. So be it. The first question is simple (said the spider to the fly): why does Shylock concoct the "pound of flesh" bond? Surely he, like everyone else, expects Antonio to be able to fulfill the terms of the bond. So why pass up the opportunity to make a few ducats on the deal? To one-up Antonio by ostentatiously offering a deal *without* usance? On the off chance that he might actually collect? As a rather perverse joke? Because the slightest chance of revenge overwhelms business sense? And why, other than expediting the plot, does he make a big deal out of not eating with Antonio and Bassanio (I.iii.31 ff.) and then proceed to do exactly what he said he wouldn't (II.v), oh-so-conveniently leaving Jessica by herself? Just wondering... Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 22:03:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0767 Re: Slang Quibble Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0767. Sunday, 2 October 1994. From: Piers Lewis Date: Thursday, 29 Sep 1994 15:51:43 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0753 Re: Slang Quibble >Re the recent comment on "buying the farm" being a slang expression that was a >>product< of the Korean war: maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought the expression >originated among bush pilots and early aviators when they would crash into a >plowed field or barn and then have to literally buy the farm (that is, if they >had not actually BOUGHT the farm in the process). The point is, you buy the farm, and own it free and clear, when your life insurance pays off the mortgage. It's a joke in other words. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 22:06:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0768. Sunday, 2 October 1994. From: Daniel Mufson Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 12:00:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: *Twelfth Night* I'm working as dramaturg on a production of *Twelfth Night* at the Yale Rep, and it is very early in the production process. I was wondering if I could get feedback on any of the following questions: 1. Are there certain things that *Twelfth Night* productions always seem to wind up doing, things that you'd really like to see a new production avoid? 2. Could you recommend one or two of your favorite essays on *Twelfth Night*, essays that altered your conception of the play or of one or more characters? 3. Have you seen any knock-out productions of *Twelfth Night* that I should be sure to look at as part of a production history? 4. Is there anything you've always wanted to see a *Twelfth Night* production try to do, but haven't? Broad questions. Answers of any length welcomed. Thanks! -Dan Mufson Yale School of Drama ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 22:38:05 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0769 Re: Contemporary Lear and Much More Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0769. Sunday, 2 October 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 17:10:26 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear (2) From: Kate Egerton Date: Saturday, 01 Oct 94 18:46 EDT Subj: _A Thousand Acres_ (3) From: Frank Whigham Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 18:54:35 -0500 Subj: Goneril on the farm (4) From: Julie Dubiner Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 23:48:51 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J (5) From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 00:23:06 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J (6) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 13:28 EDT Subj: *MND* *100 Acres* *New Yorker Piece* (7) From: Stephen Buhler Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 15:08:12 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Adaptation and Performance Queries (8) From: J. Matthew Velkey Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 19:11:48 CDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 17:10:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear Dear Annalisa, You must be thinking about Jane Smiley, A THOUSAND ACRES (NY: Knopf, 1991). Perhaps you can write us and explain in 50,000 words or less why her characters are (a) real, (b) fictional, (c) factual, (d)imaginary, (e) None of the above. Have a good read, Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kate Egerton Date: Saturday, 01 Oct 94 18:46 EDT Subject: _A Thousand Acres_ The novel you're wondering about is Jane Smiley's _A Thousand Acres_ which sets the Lear story in the 1980's Iowa farm crisis and is told from Goneril's POV - her name is Ginny. Knopf, 1991, ISBN 0-394-57773-6 in cloth, also available in paper. Smiley won the Pulitzer for this, and I recommend it highly (also her novella/ story collections _The Age of Grief_ and _Ordinary Love & Good Will_). Smiley is on the faculty at Iowa State in Ames. Kate Egerton University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill egerton@uncmvs.oit.unc.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Frank Whigham Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 18:54:35 -0500 Subject: Goneril on the farm The midwestern *King Lear* is *A Thousand Acres*, by Jane Smiley (Ballantine/Fawcett Columbine, 1991). Excellent book. Frank Whigham University of Texas at Austin (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Julie Dubiner Date: Saturday, 1 Oct 1994 23:48:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J The new take on _Lear_ was by Jane Smiley - the title is _A Thousand Acres_ - Julie Dubiner jd121@columbia.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Akers Rhoads Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 00:23:06 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J The contemporary *Lear* you have in mind is Jane Smiley's *A Thousand Acres.* (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 13:28 EDT Subject: *MND* *100 Acres* *New Yorker Piece* Peter Hall's *MND* was recently re-released after being off the market for several years. It was recently available from Commedia dell'arte Coomunications, aka Classic Drama Video, at 11 Secor Drive, Pt. Washington, NY 11050. Phone 516-767-7576. Try 1-800-555-1212 to see if the co. has a toll-free phone. The new version has *enhanced coloring* and is copyright Walter Bearer Films, Inc. (1993). Jane Smiley's magnificent book (recently praised in an editorial by Anna Quindlan in the process of exposing the stupidies of censorship) is *1000 Acres.* In this past week's *New Yorker* magazine, an essay "Queen Lear" by David Denby, explores the author's changing perceptions of the play and familial relationships, specifically his own with a difficult mother. In the essay he describes classes he sat in on at Columbia, taught by Jim Shapiro and by Edward Taylor. It's interesting to think about what *Lear* DOES for each of these writers, Smiley and Denby--and in turn, what each does TO the play and one's [this one's] perception of the play. See *The New Yorker*, Oct. 3, 1994, pp. 88-96. Also in this issue is a review of Bergman's *Winter's Tale," now in Sweden but coming to BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music, which also produced Bergman's *Ham* a few years back) next spring. Sounds like it would be worth a special trip. Bianca: I've said enough about her lately, but I would like to applaud Ken Meaney's point. Of course a director should decide on the kind of Bianca s/he wants based on the kind of Kate s/he wants-- and according to the meaning that production wants to give to the play. Sunny day here, cool, crisp autumn. Now, back to work! Bernice (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Buhler Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 15:08:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Adaptation and Performance Queries The recent revision of >King Lear<, translated to the American Midwest and its farms and families, is Jane Smiley's >A Thousand Acres<. The original publisher was Knopf (1991), but it's also in paperback from Fawcett Columbine (1992). Would anyone who has used this book in class care to comment on how students reacted to it--and indicate if the students and their sense of Shakespeare profited from it? I'm strongly considering it for a course on Shakespearean adaptations >as< interpretations. For Helen Ostovich: The 1968 RSC >A Midsummer Night's Dream<, directed by Peter Hall, is listed in the latest catalog from Commedia Dell'Arte Communications of Manorhaven, NY. Their number is (800) 892-0860. I've ordered other materials from them. The video itself provides useful and productive contrasts to the BBC version. (8)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. Matthew Velkey Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 19:11:48 CDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear; Contemporary R&J This is regarding Annalisa Castaldo's inquiry about a narrative adaptation of _King Lear_ as through the point of view of Goneril and set in the Midwest. Sounds curiously like Jane Smiley's 1991 novel, _A Thousand Acres_. It's a Fawcett Columbine book published by Ballantine Books (New York), ISBN: 0-449-90748-1. Hope this helps. J Matthew Velkey Millsaps College ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 20:08:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0777 Re: Bergman's *WT* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0777. Monday, 3 October 1994. From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 23:21:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0769 Re: Bergman *Winters Tale* Thanks, Bernice, for tell of Bergman's *Winters Tale*. This is an exciting bit of news. Is there mention of when the production will land in the States? West Coast also, or only the East? I continue to be haunted and thrilled by memories of the Bergman *Hamlet*, as much Bergman's as Shakespeare's, and probably the most exciting evening of theatre I've known. Until that night at BAM, I was convinced that in a battle between Shakespeare and a heavy-handed directorial imposition, the loser was bound to be the audience. Not always! Though old news, are there other SHAKeSPEReans with reactions to that production? Don Weingust UC Berkeley ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 20:15:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0779. Monday, 3 October 1994. From: Doug Cummins Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 12:05:30 CDT Subject: Quizzing Glass I have encountered a term - quizzing glass- in a directing textbook. The text by Stuart Vaughn states that actors performing roles in Shakespeare's plays, should be able to handle, among other things, a quizzing glass. I cannot find any source that defines a quizzing glass. Is there a SHAKSPERian out there who can enlighten this South Texan on what in tarnation a quizzing glass may be? It has me and my colleagues plum hornswaggled! Gracias para sus ayudas. Doug Cummins, The University of Texas - Pan American, Edinburg, Texas dcummins@panam.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 14:36:26 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0770 Re: Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0770. Monday, 3 October 1994. From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 01 Oct 1994 18:20:07 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0762 Re: Character In re character in drama: Kagen, Godshalk, and Pearson, while insisting on relativism in interpreting fictional or dramatic *persons,* have effectively abandoned the notion that these characters are simply emblematic or conventional signs, so half the battle is won. The other half concerns the scope of interpretation, and we are back to the Hirsch-Kermode battle. However, as a rough guide, I find it unlikely that anyone has ever seen Macbeth as a *tender lover.* (*Did* anyone? Source here, if possible.) (However, I once did have a student who interpreted Donne's holy sonnet *Batter my heart, three-personed God" as an allegory on oil exploration--battering through the ground to the oil pool, and so on. And yet why did I reject this interpretation?) Another point against relativism: the worst villains in Shakespeare--Macbeth, Iago, Richard III, Edmund the bastard, let us say--are all villains of different types, different as *people.* If we were simply bound upon the leaden wheel of relativism, wouldn't it be just as likely that we felt free to see all of them as the *same* sort of *person*? It is just as likely that seven throws of a coin will come up with seven heads in a row as it is that they will come up alternate head and tail. Yet we do not, in my opinion, see all Shakespearean villains as the same example of villainy. Relativism in interpretation historically derives from cultural relativism which itself originated in the growth of anthropology. Yet I have found that cultural relativism in anthropology gives way when knowledge of the various peoples studied increases. The more we see of people, and the more deeply we understand their cultures, the more alike they seem. The bored middle-class American and the bored Inuit wanderer shake hands over the relativistic chasm. So it is with fictional and dramatic characters. E L Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 14:44:29 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0771 Videos: ACT *Shrew* and *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0771. Monday, 3 October 1994. (1) From: Peter Novak Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 10:20:52 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0762 Re: ACT Shrew (2) From: Terry Craig Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 15:57:43 -0400 (EDT) Subj: MND Video (3) From: David Glassco Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 10:52:49 -0400 Subj: Re: Brook MND Video (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Novak Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 10:20:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0762 Re: ACT Shrew As far as I know, the ACT production of "Shrew" is not available anywhere. ACT does not own the rights, but Great Performances did at one time. Neither Marc Singer nor his agent have a copy of the show. WNET in New York, I believe, owns the rights, but they will not release it because of cost. It's sad that there are so many resources that could potentially be used as educational tools which cannot be accessed. I understand that Great Performances, WGBH, WNET, et al., use their money for the creation and production of new shows, rather than maintenance of old ones. Does anybody have any access to the inner workings of these places and to how we could get them to release a few things? I'm frustrated. Peter Novak (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terry Craig Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 15:57:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: MND Video Another possible source for the MND video with Diana Rigg: Critics' Choice Video (listed at $24.95). The address is: P.O. Box 749 Itasca, IL 60143-0749 Toll-free order number: 1-800-367-7765. Terry Craig DIVHMF1@nccvax.wvnet.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Glassco Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 10:52:49 -0400 Subject: Re: Brook MND Video I know I've got this one confused, and I'm not sure that the question has not already been answered, but was there ever a video made of the Peter *Brook* production of MND? And if so does anyone know where it is to be found? Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 14:57:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0772 Re: Contemporary Lear Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0772. Monday, 3 October 1994. (1) From: Michael Friedman FRIEDMANM1@JAGUAR.UOFS.EDU Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 21:33:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear (2) From: Daniel Mufson Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 10:00:39 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear (3) From: David Middleton Date: Monday, 03 Oct 94 08:45:39 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear (4) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 11:59:22 -0600 Subj: Modern King Lear (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman FRIEDMANM1@JAGUAR.UOFS.EDU Date: Sunday, 02 Oct 1994 21:33:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear Annalisa, I believe the book you are thinking of is *A Thousand Acres* by Jane Smiley. Michael Friedman FriedmanM1@jaguar.uofs.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Mufson Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 10:00:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear Annalisa: Jane Smiley's *A Thousand Acres* is the novel you are thinking of, and yes, it did take place on a farm in the midwest. It's a fast and excellent read--it's easy to poke fun at the translation of the Lear myth into modern notions (somewhat stereotyped to the point of cliche) of dysfunction in contemporary American families, but Smiley's prose keeps the story and characters from becoming glib syntheses of King Lear and the Geraldo show. Definitely check it out. Sincerely, Dan Mufson Yale School of Drama (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Middleton Date: Monday, 03 Oct 94 08:45:39 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary Lear Reply Kate Egerton re: contemporary Lear--the novel is "The Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley. By the way, she's an excellent presenter of her own fiction. We had her visit our campus last year and she interacted very well with students. D Middleton, Trinity University. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 11:59:22 -0600 Subject: Modern King Lear In response to the request for the Modern day King Lear: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. Pulitzer prize winner. Wonderful novel. Enjoy. Arthur Pearson Great Lakes Protection Fund apearson@great-lakes.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 15:10:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0773 Re: *TN* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0773. Monday, 3 October 1994. (1) From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 22:26:28 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* (2) From: Doug Cummins Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 10:21:00 CDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* (3) From: David Middleton Date: Monday, 03 Oct 94 09:24:14 CDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 2 Oct 1994 22:26:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* I have heard tell of a brilliantly conceived production of *Twelfth Night*, done about eight or nine years ago by Sharon Ott, Artistic Director of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. It was described to me (by BRT Associate A.D., Tony Taccone) as completely re-envisioned without being deconstructed. The setting was turn-of-the-century Paris. I understand that the reviews were outstanding. The production helped establish Sharon here in the Bay Area. Sorry I can't give you more details; perhaps someone out there saw it and has more to say? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Doug Cummins Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 10:21:00 CDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* I saw a practically flawless production of Twelfth Night this summer at the Stratford Festival.. I suspect it is still running, so it might be worth a trip north to catch it. They placed the play in the Carribean with all its island mystery. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Middleton Date: Monday, 03 Oct 94 09:24:14 CDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* Regarding performances of TN and what to avoid, one might mention Toby's pickled herring belch (no pun). Yet I think of theater as being conservative about its oral traditions, and as a result I believe there are matters of convention of presentation as well as of business which one ought to keep and thus honor. As ritual, shouldn't theater recreate Garrick (and earlier performers) each time it re-presents the material in l994? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 20:03:49 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0766 Re: *Romeo and Juliet*s Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0776. Monday, 3 October 1994. (1) From: S. A. Brown Date: Friday, 30 Sep 1994 00:56:01 -0500 Subj: RE: SHK 5.0749 Re: Scholars, Actors, Readers, Authors . . . (2) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 01:48:04 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary R&J (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: S. A. Brown Date: Friday, 30 Sep 1994 00:56:01 -0500 Subject: RE: SHK 5.0749 Re: Scholars, Actors, Readers, Authors . . . I'm currently directing a production of 'Romeo and Juliet'. My attempts to conjure, create, encourage, and find a production that will speak to now (the 'now in which I perceive I am living) is a constant struggle in which I've found more joy than pain. (Lucky for me) I thank all responsible for the recent "discussions" on the network. They've kept me away from complacent choices and near to good common sense. I can't sense a right answer to the debate I've been following. Then again, I don't feel it's my responsibility to change the minds of anyone who thinks that one way is the right way to approach anything. I suppose, more than any outward show or thing that I would SAY to someone who thought that, I'd try to be very present with the integrity with which I did my work. However one channels expression from the impulses set down in Shakespeare's words, doing the work with great integrity and dignity is the best, I've found, that I can do. I've learned, in my experience of directing Shakespeare, that if someone needs to feel that you, (in your approach) are wrong or misguided and they (in their's) are right and 'on the money', sharing a pearl of wisdom beyond price would probably not change anything. If one expends too much energy endeavoring to expand a perception that draws it's strength from being limited and boxed, she/he drains on his own (energy) and takes himself out of his present moment. Thanks again to all for fueling my work with your words. S.A. Brown Theatre Miami Univ. Oxford, Ohio (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 01:48:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0763 Qs: Contemporary R&J For Kate Egerton, I, too, heard the NPR report about the joint Israeli/Palestinian -Romeo and Juliet-, although my memory of the report is that it was substantial rather than brief. That night, I made sure to tape record the report on the rebroadcast of -All Things Considered-, which I have at my desk. I've been meaning to transcribe it, and will take your request as the impetus I've been waiting for. Brad Berens berens@uclink.berkeley.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Oct 1994 20:11:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0778 BSA Fellowship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0778. Monday, 3 October 1994. From: Daniel Traister Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 13:09:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: BSA Fellowships PLEASE CROSS-POST TO OTHER INTERESTED LISTS! Bibliographical Society of America P.O. Box 397 Grand Central Station New York, NY 10163 (212) 647-9171 Organized 1904 -- Incorporated 1927 Fellowship Program 1995-96 The Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) invites applications for its annual short-term fellowship program, which supports bibliographical inquiry as well as research in the history of the book trades and in publishing history. Eligible topics may concentrate on books and documents in any field, but should focus on the book or manuscript (the physical object) as historical evidence. Such topics may include establishing a text or studying the history of book production, publication, distribution, collecting, or reading. Enumerative listings do not fall within the scope of this program. BSA fellowships may be held for one or two months. The program is open to applicants of any nationality. Fellows will be paid a stipend of up to $1,000 per month in support of travel, living, and research expenses. In 1994 the BSA awarded twelve months of support to nine scholars from a variety of disciplines. Applications, including three letters of reference, for this program will be due on January 31, 1995. Prospective applicants are invited to contact the BSA Executive Secretary, P.O. Box 397, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163, for application forms and additional information about the program. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:20:41 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0781 Re: Quizzing Glass Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0781. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 20:38:21 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass (2) From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 20:50:24 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Quizzing glass (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 22:56:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass (4) From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 94 14:49:55 +0300 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Kendrick Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 20:38:21 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass Dear Doug, I believe a quizzing glass is a monocle which is a one-eyed glass usually carried in a vest pocket. It was used for magnification and also as an affectation for the dandies back in the Victorian era. Hope that helps. Kitty (2)--------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Gallagher Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 20:50:24 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Quizzing glass I looked up "quizzing glass" in the OED. It is defined there as "a single eye-glass; a monocle". The term was first used in 1802. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 22:56:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass It just struck me that "quizzing glass" might be a misprint for "quizzing class," i.e., a class that quizzes the actor about his role. Of course, a quizzing glass may be a theatrical term! Yours, Bill Godshalk (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth Meaney Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 94 14:49:55 +0300 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass A quizzing-glass is a monocle. I wouldn't have thought they were used as early as Shakespeare's time. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:25:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0782 Re: Innogen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0782. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Monday, 3 Oct 94 17:06:36 EDT Subj: Re: Innogen (2) From: Thomas Hall Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 18:48:19 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Innogen (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Monday, 3 Oct 94 17:06:36 EDT Subject: Re: Innogen It is instructive to find even so unremitting an opponent of totalization and intentionality as Terence Hawkes inferring motive from text, when he advises a student to read with Innogen, rather than without, "as most of the play's editors WANT you to do" (my caps). Mournfully, Wayward Marl (aka David Evett) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Hall Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 18:48:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Innogen Terrence Hawkes--I have heard that Innogen is Leanato's wife in -MAAD-. However she is edited out of the version I have been reading. In fact I have heard over the net that she has no lines, and does nothing. Since Innogen does not do anything or speak, is she what you see as the ultimate "Woman as outsider in Shakespeare?" Very funny! Is this some kind of Bard barb? Thomas Hall ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:28:47 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0783 Position Announcement Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0783. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. From: Jean R. Brink Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 19:26:40 -0700 (MST) Subject: Advertisement for Position ADVERTISEMENT FOR VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH (SHAKESPEARE) Visiting Assistant Professor, non-tenure track. One semester appointment for spring 1995 beginning January 1, 1995. Specialist in Shakespeare to teach two upper-level undergraduate Shakespeare courses. ABD in English required; doctorate in English preferred. Post-secondary teaching experience in Shakespeare or Renaissance required. Letter of application, vita, and dossier or three letters of reference due by November 1, 1994, to Willis Buckingham, Department of English, Arizona State University, Box 870302, Tempe AZ, 85287-0302. All applications acknowledged. AA/EEO. If you have questions concerning this appointment, you may respond by e-mail to Jean R. Brink (Jean.Brink@ASU.EDU). Jean R. Brink (602) 965-7777 English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:46:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0785 Qs: Schiller's *Robbers*; Women's Roles Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0785. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: Julie Dubiner Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 02:06:13 -040 Subj: RE: Schiller's _Robbers_ (2) From: Michael Field Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 12:21:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Women's Roles (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Julie Dubiner Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 02:06:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: RE: Schiller's _Robbers_ I am dramaturging a production of _The Robbers_, and the director, adaptor and I have all picked up on allusions to Shakespeare - a little _Hamlet_, a bit of _Macbeth_, much _Lear_ - you name it. If anyone out there is familiar with the play, I would appreciate opinions as to whether this comes from conscious decisions on Schiller's part to use Shakespeare to make his point - or whether we're dealing with a tortured, overly well-read student first putting quill to paper - Thanks - Julie Dubiner Columbia University jd121@columbia.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Field Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 12:21:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Women's Roles In Sunday's NY Times an article about director Declan Donnellan's all-male production of As You Like It (coming to the Brooklyn Academy of Music starting 10/4), Mr. Donnellan was quoted as saying: "I've always been irked by the theory that it was pre-adolescent boys playing girls in Shakespeare. There's really very little evidence, though I'm intrigued by how hard the academics defend the idea. It seems to me that Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra could not be played by children with no sexual experience." I read this statement--particularly the last sentence--and thought, "Eureka! Of course he's right!" Now my question: is he? Is there any compelling evidence for boys playing all the women's roles? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:37:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0784 Re: Shylock and Sellars' *MV* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0784. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: Ron Moyer Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 17:07:05 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Shylock; Sellars' MV (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 04 Oct 1994 20:30:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shylock (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyer Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 17:07:05 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Shylock; Sellars' MV Have been away from the office for a while; some responses to last week's mail: To Rick Jones: You suggest that you would like to play Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech "in full righteous dudgeon"; the old texts tend to support your instincts: while this speech is frequently (usually?) given a careful, balanced--sometimes sentimental--treatment in modern produc- tions as an appeal to a common humanity, the speech is a rationale for revenge; while modern editions of MV usually divide the speech into controlled, balanced, even terse, statements (the Riverside is typical in breaking 3.1.53-73 into *fifteen* sentences), the quarto presents the same speech as a roiling outpouring of fury in a mere *four* tumultuous sentences ("To bail fish with all . . . we will resemble you in that" is presented as one sentence). WS's scenic architecture in the Q seems carefully to juxtapose the strongest verbal expression of rage (3.1) with the stronest verbal expression of love (Portia-Portia in 3.2). Re Peter Sellars' production of MV at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago: The production began previews on Friday, 30 Sept; will open about a week/week and a half later; after the Chicago run, it will be performed in the RSC/Barbican Centre's international "Everybody's Shakespeare" festival and in Hamburg and Paris. The production uses an uncut text, bare stage (to the cyc, with no wing masking), a few tables and chairs, full size coffins for the three caskets, several microphones (table stands, floor stands, shotgun, and body mics; nearly all of the dialogue is openly amplified), a live TV camera, and 6-7 large TV monitors showing various combinations of live onstage images (mostly actor closeups) and taped, "atmospheric" footage (ranging from a mysterious estate to the LA riots). Sellars refers to MV as "the most astute and shockingly frank analysis of the economic roots of racism that we have" and has chosen to invite "African-American actors to take the roles of the Jews, Asian actors to play Portia and her court, and Latino actors to play the Venetians [in order to] begin to touch the texture of life in contemporary America" (quotes from the Goodman's "OnStage"). I found the presence African American actors playing a policeman in the law court and a servent at Portia's court to be confusing in the context: are they meant to be Jews or African Americans (the latter, apparently, since Portia's maid sings gospel). While Sellars' writing emphasizes economic themes, the production dwells more on sexual imagery (perhaps to focus on themes of faithfulness/jealousy): the Antonio-Bassanio relationship--and Solanio/ Solario--is emphatically homoerotic, which Portia magically realizes before the end to 3.2; Launcelot Gobbo and Jessica mime fornicating as 1.3 occurs elsewhere onstage--allowing LG to be, later, portrayed as a bitter, vicious, spurned lover; in the sour Venice (Calif) of the production, all the principles are left adrift at the end, wandering the stage in mutual isolation. The production includes some powerful actors, some intriguing ideas and images (including the references to documentary television interviews of major characters); it is clearly spoken. It is also deliberately slow-- dress rehearsal on the 29th running 4:12, including one 20 minute intermission; important lines are repeated two or three times. It is an interesting production, certain to provoke discussion. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 04 Oct 1994 20:30:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shylock Recently Rick Jones asked us why Shylock offers Antonio the merry bond, and also why Shylock reverses his decision not to dine with the Christians. Could it be that he really does want to make friends? Richard Levin (the younger) has suggested that Shylock really does want to make friends with Antonio -- no matter what Shylock may say. And perhaps the merry bond is a peace offering, i.e., if you offer me your heart (the flesh nearest thereto), I will lend you money without interest. His decision to dine with the Christians may suggest that he is ready for integration -- though not perhaps the kind that Antonio gives him in Act IV. What changes Shylock's mind is the "kidnapping" of his daughter and the theft of his jewels -- especially those of sentimental value. The Christians have invited him to dinner only so that they can rob him, or so he may think. Do you think you could get those thoughts and feeling across to an audience? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:58:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0786 Re: *Shr.*; Don John; Bergman's *WT*; Buying the Farm Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0786. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Monday, 3 Oct 94 17:05:35 EDT Subj: [*Shrew* Productions] (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 19:04:34 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0765 Re: Outsiders: Don John in *Ado* (3) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 21:53 EDT Subj: Bergman's *WT* (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 22:37:49 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0767 Buying the Farm (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Monday, 3 Oct 94 17:05:35 EDT Subject: [*Shrew* Productions] A propos Joyce Crim's recent posting: almost the productions of I've seen in the last two decades have emphasized the physical elements of the relationship between Petruchio and Katherine, with physically prepossessing actors in both roles and lots of knock-down-drag-out stage activity, especially in [Riverside ed] 2.1, 4.1, and 4.3. In last winter's audience- pleasing production by the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival Colleen Quinn as K was almost as tall and strong as David Harum as P; she came on in boots and leather skirt and vest looking as though she spent her happiest hours bustin' broncs, and when the wooing scene in 2.1. escalated into hand-to-hand combat, gave almost (if not quite) as good as she got. At Petruchio's, following their master's lead, the servants had a blast throwing the food around. K and P's first kiss, at the end of 5.1, started out merely dutiful on both sides but turned evidently passionate and went on for what seemed a very long time, and was repeated for even longer at the end of the play, as the other actors not only left the stage but cleared it of the banquet furniture and props and left the couple still glued to one another as the lights came down. Most of us smiled on with avuncular or materteral approval. Quite apart from its audience appeal, the approach has some thematic appropriateness to a play that from the beginning emphasizes the unreliability of language (and other conventional sign-systems, such as costume): the language of the body becomes the only unambiguous speech. It may even afford a ground for rationalizing Katherine's speech to the other wives--if the connections between language and physical reality are as merely assertive as most of the speakers of the play at one time or another pretend, what does it cost her to utter foul words, such words being, as another resistant female, Beatrice, observes, mere foul breath? But as Swift reminds us in 4, most of us wouldn't want to return to an infantile world in which we only knew what we put in our mouths, even if we could. So--whether as readers, dramaturgs, directors, actors, or spectators--we are thrown back into the difficult problem of trying to find mutually convertible ways to distinguish between true and false speech. Which means that highly physicalized versions of , however agreeable, tend to beg the tougher questions of the play, such as whether (or in what sense) the Katherine-figure means what it says at the end of the play, and why, and what could or should our reaction to it be. Still chewing on this one, David Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 19:04:34 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0765 Re: Outsiders: Don John in *Ado* Thanks to Edward Gero for a fascinating actor's perspective on this--I really appreciated his insights. M. Aaron (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 21:53 EDT Subject: Bergman's *WT* Don Weingust asks for more information about the Bergman *WT*, now playing at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm: It's due to arrive at BAM in May, along with Bergman's *Madame de Sade" and possibly *The Misanthrope*. The review does not mention a tour of the US. Bernice (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 22:37:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0767 Buying the Farm Piers Lewis suggests that "buying it" refers to the insurance. Walker Percy in his essay "Metaphor as Mistake" in THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (NY: F,S and G, 1975) 65, calls it "the Korean War expression" and claims: "The farm the G. I. was talking about was six feet of ground," i.e., a worm farm. Does the expression pre-date the Korean War? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 00:12:42 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0787 Re: Tender Macbeth; Recent *Rom*; 1000 Acres; Brook *MND* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0787. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 94 23:58:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0770 Re: Character (2) From: Michael Field Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 09:08:44 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Palestinian R&J (3) From: Dave Collins Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 9:54:00 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0769 Re: 1000 Acres (4) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 10:10:30 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0771 Videos: ACT *Shrew* and *MND* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Tuesday, 3 Oct 94 23:58:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0770 Re: Character To ELEpstein who wonders whether anyone has "seen Macbeth as a "tender lover": if by "seen" you mean "in performance, check out (literally, from your neighborhood video store) the 1989 (+ or -) film adaptation, *Men of Respect,* whose director's name I can never remember, but someone on this list will surely do so. If memory serves, the lead was played by John Turturro. For my (rental) money, it's a terrific adaptation. And this Macbeth is completely, credibly, in love with his wife. But ELEpstein's posting piques more curiosity: "a bored Inuit wanderer"? As the query about *Macbeth* says, "Source here, if possible." Did you make that up to make a point, or is there a specific narrative to which you refer? --Naomi C. Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Field Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 09:08:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Palestinian R&J Dear Kate Egerton, The Washington Post ran a lengthy article with pictures about the joint Israeli-Palestinian production of R&J several months back. I was directing R&J at the time and so xeroxed the article and distributed it to the cast. I would be happy to send you a copy if you wish. In terms of production, what we found most useful was the observation of the Palestinian Lady Montague that, for her and her compatriots, the emotional peak of the play occurs just after the brawl, when Tybalt and Mercutio lie dead, and Romeo is banished by the Prince. Mike Field pmf@resource.ca.jhu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Collins Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 9:54:00 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0769 Re: 1000 Acres I'd like to take a moment to respond to Stephen Buhler's request for a word or two from people who had used 1000 Acres in class. I taught the novel in a course called "Visions and Revisions" in which we looked at pairs of texts drawn (usually) from widely separated times and cultures to see how the "same" story could/would be remade to reflect contemporary cultural conditions. Other pairs we read were Beowulf/Grendel, The Scarlet Letter/S (Updike), Dracula/The Vampire Lestat, The Return of Martin Geurre (text was the Harvard UP version by Davis)/French film of the same name/Somersby. But back to 1000 Acres. The Lear/1000 Acres combination may well have been the most successful pairing of the semester. I've read 1000 Acres four or five times now and I don't think I will ever read Lear again in quite the same way. Of course, Shakespeare's play is still Shakespeare's play and Smiley's novel is still Smiley's novel. But the latter work does cause one to re-envision the former. As I prepared the course I went back to look for critical essays that defended Goneril and Regan, essays of the sort I had read years ago but dismissed as "fringe" material. It's harder to do that now. I discovered this time through that there is and has been a thriving critical literature on Lear that delves into the incest theme, on occasion tracing it all the way back to the fairy tale roots of the story. Of that I wasn't aware. That alone has changed the picture. But perhaps the most significant thing for my students (and myself) was the opportunity to see things, however confusedly, through Ginny/Goneril's eyes. I don't for a minute trust Ginny as a narrator. She's too defensive, too anxious to make excuses for herself. In the opening pages, for example, she recounts her jealousy of Rose's children and claims blandly "Well, I felt it and I set it aside." Trouble is, her actions later demonstrate that she doesn't. She has her own "sense of the right order of things" and works, perhaps unconsciously or half-consciously, to implement that order. She claims to want no more than peace in the family circle, and perhaps she genuinely does, but to attain that peace she makes some very hurtful compromises and hides truths about her own attitudes (toward Rose, Caroline, her father) even from herself. After the family spat about dividing the farm, for example, she has a perfect opportunity to bring about a reconciliation. All she has to do is to call Caroline. But she keeps "forgetting," she keeps postponing, and the call never gets made. It's not her fault--it just "happens." And so it goes through the entire novel. The upshot is that I'm not sure Smiley's Ginny is any more innocent of what happens than is Shakespeare's Goneril. What shifts is the perspective from which we see her. Realizing that she doesn't have the strength to "come out" and fight for what she wants (and it is not altogether admirable, what she wants), we may not approve of what she does, but we are more prone to sympathize with the human weakness that is all too familiar to us from the smaller (sometimes) failures in our own lives. I think you and your students will both enjoy and learn a lot from the comparison of the two works. As my younger friends might say, "Go for it!" --Dave Collins (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 10:10:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0771 Videos: ACT *Shrew* and *MND* Regarding a video of the Brook MND, the answer to your question about a commercially available video is a resounding "No." The RSC, of course, has an extensive video archive, but that's pretty much the only way to get it. Also, a number of years ago (mid-late 80s) there was a BBC video series called "Hands Off The Classics" which had an episode dedicated to the Brook MND, with lots of neat footage. Finally, anyone interested in that production should read David Selbourne's "The Making of A Midsummer Night's Dream: An Eye-Witness Account of Peter Brook's Production From First Rehearsal to First Night" (London: Methuen, 1982). A nice account, although it doesn't address the question regarding whether what Brook and Co. were trying to achieve is the same thing as what the audience liked about the show. If I'm wrong about the video, will someone please TELL ME and I'll not only eat a healthy dinner of crow, but be first on the phone to order the thing. I'm sadly confident, however, that the thing isn't available. Regards, Brad Berens Dept. of English UC Berkeley claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 00:16:11 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0788 PUL Fellowships Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0788. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. From: Stephen Ferguson <0629212%PUCC.BITNET@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu> Date: Mondaaaay, 3 Oct 1994 14:16:07 EDT Subject: PUL Fellowships PLEASE CROSS-POST TO OTHER INTERESTED LISTS! VISITING FELLOWSHIPS 1995-1996 Princeton University Library The Friends of the Princeton University Library are sponsoring several short-term Visiting Fellowships in order to promote scholarly use of the research collections of the Library. The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, housed in the Harvey S. Firestone Library, has substantial holdings of materials pertaining to the western world and the Middle East from antiquity to the present. The Rare Book Division is especially strong in classical Latin texts, American history and literature, English history and literature, and French, German, and Latin American literature. The Manuscript Division holds Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and codices, and American and English literary and historical manuscripts. The Visual Materials Division services the Graphic Arts Collection, the Collection of Historic Maps, the Theatre Collection, and the Numismatic Collection. The Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library holds the Public Policy Papers and the University Archives. The Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology and the Gest Oriental Library and East Asian Collections are also located on the University campus. The Fellowships, which have a value of $1500 each, are meant to help defray expenses in traveling to and from Princeton and residing in Princeton during the tenure of the Fellowship. The length of the Fellowship will depend on the applicant's research proposal, but is normally one month. Fellowships are tenable from May 1995 to April 1996. There is no special application form. Applicants are asked to submit a rsum and a brief research proposal to Fellowship Committee, Princeton University Library, One Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08544. The proposal should address specifically the relevance of the Princeton University Library Collections to the proposed research. The applicant should also arrange for two confidential letters of recommendation to be sent to the Committee. The deadline for applications is 31 January 1995. This announcement contains all the information necessary to complete the application process. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 23:06:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0780 Re: *TN* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0780. Tuesday, 4 October 1994. (1) From: Anthony Haigh Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 13:17:35 -400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* (2) From: Dana Spradley Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 13:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 94 17:15:42 -0500 Subj: Re: *Twelfth Night* (4) From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 04 Oct 1994 12:43 ET Subj: TN (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Haigh Date: Monday, 3 Oct 1994 13:17:35 -400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* Ref: Dan Mufson and Twelfth Night When I was living in the north of England, twenty years ago, I remember seeing a touring production of Twelfth Night that was set in the British Raj period in India. Feste as an "untouchable" playing the sitar for Orsino etc. The Duke and his court were Indian royalty and Olivia and her household were British. The play took on a very exotic feel - which was exciting for the audience. The racial and cultural differences between Olivia and Orsino were interesting, but a touch problematic. It was a gloss that I felt uncomfortable with because of its lack of foundation in the text, but one that was certainly illuminating. Their racial differences gave a very solid reading for Olivia's refusal of Orsino. However, the racial issue was interestingly undercut by the complex mechanics of class. Orsino might be royalty, but Olivia was British! The comic characters had a field day with this setting. The audience was very much at home with the picture of inflated egos and bloated self importance that this setting offered Sir Andrew and Sir Toby. Chasing native girls (Maria) and making fun of the Indian servant who was trying to be more British than the British (Malvolio) was shown to be all in a days sport to these anachronistic, but familiar figures. The class/race issue was, and still is, an important part of the dynamic of everyday life in England. If each production of the play is to speak to its own audience, then this unique interpretation seems appropriate for that time and place. When I directed the play myself I was drawn to setting the play in the golden days of the English Edwardian era. The "Brideshead Revisited" mania was upon us at the time. This period offered me as a director an era that was both foreign, but familiar. The gentle politics of the weekend houseparty provided a fertile background for the play. The character of Feste took on an interesting twist in this setting. We played him as belonging to the same class as Olivia and Orsino, but because of a family scandal and a war wound he had an air of iron bitterness about him. He was of the class, but not part of the group. He was tolerated for his breeding and his wit. The quiet pain of his final song was really very moving. Another interesting reading in this production revolved around the character of Olivia. She rejects Orsino's advances because she is in mourning. In an era when women were regarded as the property of either a husband or a father the only time women had any freedom at all was when they were in mourning. Society would demand that the patriarcy be restored and her estate put in the hands of a man. However, while she is in mourning she is free to reject all suitors and live a life of her own choosing. Her freedom of action is expressed by her flirting with a passing boy - a catalyist that ironically begins the chain of events that will "restore" Olivia to a man and thus bring (patriarcal) order to the chaos of comedy. Good luck with your production. I hope these thought have been of some help. Tony Haigh (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dana Spradley Date: Monday, 03 Oct 1994 13:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* There was an excellent production of 12N at the ART in Cambridge, MA, in 1990 or 1991, I think, directed by Andrei Belgrader if memory serves. It ran to 3 1/2 hours, necessary to avoid the pitfall into which too many other productions descend: tossing off the wordplay as if the jokes are transparent and require little thought on the audience's part. Sir Toby has a mean drunk side that I don't require seeing in another production, and the conception given to Sebastian's and Antonio's first meeting was also both apt and novel: they meet in the Illyrian equivalent of a gay bar, into which Sebastian has naively stumbled. One thing I hope you avoid is the conventional emendation of the 1st Folio's "O Frailty is the cause, not we, / For such as we are made, if such we be" to the 2nd Folio's "Our frailty is the cause, not we, / For such as we are made of, such we be." I also hope you spend some time solving the "MOAI doth sway my life" riddle and let the solution guide your production of Malvolio's gulling scene (a character for whom, by the way, it might be best to excite as little undeserved sympathy as possible). Since I never got around to publishing a note on this before my search for a tenure-track job came to an end, I might as well offer the solution I arrived at in grad school: M[alvolio]--Oh [or + Olivia, the way one writes inside a heart] Ay! [/I, i.e. Malvolio asserting his subjectivity, /eye, the organ through which Sir Toby imagines he should assert the same, but then he'd see his detractors behind him]. PS: Whoops! By Antonio's and Sebastian's first meeting, I meant their first appearance on stage--and I guess Antonio must have taken the unsuspecting Sebastian to the bar in question. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 94 17:15:42 -0500 Subject: Re: *Twelfth Night* For Daniel Mufson (what a delightful task you have!) The *Twelfth Night* I've always wanted to see would cast identical twins (either male or female) in the roles of Viola and Sebastian; that may not be an option for your production, but I'm waiting patiently (we actually have twin sisters who are fine actors in the Twin Cities--how apt--who could do it beautifully, but at the moment they are members of different companies). This second request from my colleague James Norwood in the Theatre Arts department: PLEASE, PLEASE, when Viola becomes Cesario, let the actor demonstrate some familiarity with maleness beyond putting on a cap. The best *Twelfth Night* I've ever seen was at the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis probably 15 years ago: the ending conveyed such a powerful sense of sadness (with Antonio and someone else, Fabian? Sir Andrew? joining Feste on stage at the end for the final song) that I found myself in tears. Suddenly the play took on multiple new dimensions for me. Best of luck with the show. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 04 Oct 1994 12:43 ET Subject: TN This year's at Stratford, Ont., had Lucy Peacock as Viola personfully and passionately trying to find an authentic way through the social and emotional maze into which the shipwreck had delivered her, and getting her assertiveness training on the job, as it were. David William was wonderful as a Malvolio as arrogant and stupid as a llama, so armored against the world and the flesh that he wore white gloves to bed. In the same role, same theater, 10 years back or thereabouts, Nicholas Pennell drew a huge laugh when, coming in cross-gartered, the things so constricted his yellow legs that when he sat down they stuck straight out before him. That show had Edward Atienza (for my money the best interpreter of the great clown roles of our time) as an unusually melancholy Feste, underscoring the elegiac improbability of the whole thing by taking "When and I was" alone, sitting down, accompanying himself on the guitar, in a thin, tired, and deeply moving voice. No play, it seems to me, interrogates the relationship between theater and the rest of life in such a searching if largely unarticulated way. David Evett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 08:59:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0789 Re: Innogen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0789. Friday, 7 October 1994. (1) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 94 16:41 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0782 Re: Innogen (2) From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 11:18:09 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0782 Re: Innogen (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 94 16:41 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0782 Re: Innogen Dear Thomas Hall, The fact that Innogen has no lines certainly does not mean that she does nothing. The irony of her silent presence on the stage is intense, for instance in scenes which contain exchanges such as Don Pedro: ...I think this is your daughter Leonato: Her mother hath many times told me so. Ask yourself: what does Innogen (she is the mother directly referred to by Leonato, her husband, here) do at this moment? All eyes must be on her. For any competent performer the gestural, kinesic posibilities are considerable --and this in a play in which one of the central issues is the silence traditionally urged on married women. Think about it. By the way, I'm by no means the first to make these observations, nor are others who make them Cultural Materialists, revolutionaries, or otherwise obviously undesirable. Perhaps you need a better edition of the play. T. Hawkes (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 11:18:09 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0782 Re: Innogen At the risk of stirring a soundly-sleeping dog, I remind SHAKSPER readers that John Drakakis and I went ten rounds over the question of Innogen's status a couple of years ago. Whether or not the discussion was exhaustive, it was at least exhausting, and those interested in the question may trace its ins and outs in the SHAKSPER archive. I have no idea what the number of the back-volume would be, though Hardy Cook could perhaps say. Cheers, Tom Bishop Editor's Note: In response to the above, I sent the following to LISTSERV@UTORONTO.BITNET: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Innogen in SHAKSPER Index // This is what I go back: > Search Innogen in SHAKSPER --> Database SHAKSPER, 16 hits. > Index Item # Date Time Recs Subject ------ ---- ---- ---- ------- 000759 92/10/29 08:02 47 SHK 3.0278 Re: Hero's Mother 000764 92/10/29 22:29 100 SHK 3.0280 Rs: Hero's Mother 000765 92/10/30 17:46 89 SHK 3.0285 Re: Hero's Mother 000768 92/10/31 10:18 85 SHK 3.0287 Re: Hero's MotherCURRENT 000770 92/11/01 09:49 36 SHK 3.0289 Qs: ASTR-L; Hero's Mother 000771 92/11/01 20:08 72 SHK 3.0290 Much Ado About . . . (Was Hero's Mother) 000772 92/11/01 20:21 42 SHK 3.0291 Rs: ASTR-L Address; Innogen Pun, Plus a+ 000775 92/11/02 14:21 100 SHK 3.0294 More on Hero's Mother 000776 92/11/02 14:25 24 SHK 3.0295 R: Doubling Claudius and Ghost 000781 92/11/03 20:43 86 SHK 3.0300 Hero's Mother Again 000786 92/11/06 17:46 59 SHK 3.0305 Rs to Doubling Issues 002609 94/09/19 12:12 67 SHK 5.0741 Re: Universals; Character; *Ado* 002620 94/09/26 12:34 99 SHK 5.0751 Re: Women and Outsiders: Ado 002628 94/09/28 13:31 58 SHK 5.0759 Re: Innogen 002632 94/10/01 09:57 120 SHK 5.0762 Re: MND Video; Character; Innogen; Habi+ 002649 94/10/04 23:25 45 SHK 5.0782 Re: Innogen --Hardy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 09:03:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0790 Re: Buying the Farm Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0790. Friday, 7 October 1994. (1) From: Don Rowan Date: Wednesday, 05 Oct 94 09:45:46 -0300 Subj: Buying the farm (2) From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 1994 11:17:20 GMT-6 Subj: Re: 5.0767 Buying the farm (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Rowan Date: Wednesday, 05 Oct 94 09:45:46 -0300 Subject: Buying the farm I served in the Army Air Corps during the second world war and heard "buying the farm" many times, often in poker games when you lost a big pot. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 1994 11:17:20 GMT-6 Subject: Re: 5.0767 Buying the farm Listen up, Godshalk W L, I can't point you to a print source, but I have heard WWII vets refer to "buying the farm", meaning specifically cashing in the $10000 life insurance policy required of troops after they began drawing combat pay. Speak, old soldiers. Regards, Tom Hodges ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:18:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0791 Q: Shakespeare in Yiddish Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0791. Friday, 7 October 1994. From: Mitchell J. Brown Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 08:04:00 CDT Subject: Shakespeare in Yiddish I recently finished reading John Gross' SHYLOCK which gives a very thorough analysis of the way that character has been regarded and played over the centuries. One of the more intriguing passages for me concerned the presentations of MERCHANT OF VENICE, (among other Shakespeare plays), in the Yiddish Theaters of New York in the earlier part of this century. Apparently, HAMLET and KING LEAR were repertory favorites. Could anyone advise me where I might find these Yiddish translations? Thanks, Mitchell Brown CHICAGO ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:22:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0792 [was 0SHK 5.792] Re: *TN* Production Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0792. Friday, 7 October 1994. (1) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 94 11:35:18 SAST-2 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0780 Re: *TN* (2) From: David M Richman Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 13:05:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 94 11:35:18 SAST-2 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0780 Re: *TN* Tony Haigh's account of the "Indian" TN reminds me of a similar production that I mounted some years ago under the constraints that all amateur directors having to cope with the available amateur talent resort to in some way or another. (Invariably the number of people who turn up for the audition amount to the planned cast-1!). Anyway, on my first appointment to the Rand Afrikanns University in Johannesburg I decided to do TN. The cast-1 turned up for the audition, but presented me with a problem I hadn't anticpated. Since it was an Afrikaans university, most of them couldn't speak English (not up to the required standard, at any rate), two were bilingual, and two or three couldn't speak Afrikaans! Now, there is a superb Afrikaans translation of TN by the Afrikaans poet, Uys Krige, but with the limited number of actors at my disposal I did not have enough Afrikaans-speakers to do the play in translation. The answer, after a moment's reflection, was obvious: do a bilingual production, in which Orsino's court spoke only English, Olivia's household only Afrikaans, and Feste and Viola were bilingual, switching languages on the appropriate occasions. In the final scene Orsino and Olivia switched to the other language simultaneously at the moment of "reconciliation", while Antonio, whose English was execrable, stammered out his speeches in the face of hostile foreigners and then lapsed into silence. The production was a surprising success. What was missing, of course, was a sense of historical class, but since antagonism between Afrikaans and English speakers is tinged with class bias in any case it was residually apparent. Furthermore, for the first time in my experience audiences responded with full-blooded mirth to the comic scenes because, thanks to Krige's skill, they understood the jokes for the first time! I was surprised to see, a few years ago, a very brief account of my production by Philip Brockbank in the _Shakespeare Survey_. However did he find out? He certainly wasn't in the audience. I have been contemplating "writing up" the production for publication somewhere for over ten years now, but finally abandoned the idea, feeling that it would not be of much interest to non-South Africans. Am I right? David Schalkwyk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 13:05:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0768 Q: *TN* Things to avoid in productions of Twelfth Night. 1. Don't overdo the tormenting of Malvolio in IV.ii. This seriously unbalances this most delicately balanced of plays. 2. Take Antonio's love for Sebastian with perfect seriousness. Antonio has some of the play's most majestic verse. Don't play this relation with a leer--and don't make Antonio come off as a besotted, deluded lover. 3. Don't make Sir Toby so sodden that he can't think clearly and act forcefully. His energy must drive important segments of the play. The best essay is still, I think, Joe Summers's "The Masks of *Twelfth Night*. It is widely anthologized. I have it in Leonard Dean's collection of Shakespeare essays. I I will also immodestly mention the bits on *Twelfth Night* in my *Laughter, Pain and Wonder* University of Delaware Press, 1990. Good luck with the production. David Richman University of new Hampshire ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:43:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0793 Re: Boy Actors and Women's Roles Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0793. Friday, 7 October 1994. (1) From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 19:20:38 -0400 Subj: Boys and AYLI (2) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 16:39:20 +0059 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0785 Qs: Schiller's *Robbers*; Women's Roles (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 94 18:27:23 CDT Subj: Boy Actors (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 19:20:38 -0400 Subject: Boys and AYLI As I understood Donnellan, he was implying that adult MEN, not children, played women's roles in the Renaissance theater, and I don't think there's as much scholarly resistance to the idea as he implies. I seem to recall having read a number of speculations that "older" women's parts were perhaps taken by adult males (some candidates: Hermione, Cleopatra, Lady M., and Mistress Quickly; outside Shakespeare, I know there have been claims that an adult played Moll Cutpurse). But his claim that such parts "could not be played by children with no sexual experience" struck me as utterly wrong-headed, based on two questionable assumptions... 1) the assumption that the style, method, and practice of acting in the era demanded a "natural"/naturalistic correspondence, an emotional and experiental sympathy between actor and role that is more suited to present styles and methods of acting that to the Renaissance theater (hate to keep re-opening this can of worms) 2) the assumption that "children"--adolescents, really--had no sexual experience, a perception of "childhood" asexuality and innocence that originates in the 19th century. There is plenty of evidence that the adolescent actors were especially targetted as objects of sexual attention, and some of the smuttiest plays of the period (Epicoene, The Dutch Courtesan) were written especially for the "Children's companies"--as if there were a special kick to be got out of bawdy from the mouths of babes. And on the more hetero-sexual side of things, betrothals and marriages between what we would now consider children (12, 13 year-olds) were not uncommon, nor was sex: the Shepherd laments in *The Winter's Tale* "I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting..." (3.3.59). Nonetheless, I am quite excited to see this AYLI! And RE: David Everett's comments on *Shrew*: Quite apart from its audience appeal, the approach has some thematic appropriateness to a play that from the beginning emphasizes the unreliability of language (and other conventional sign-systems, such as costume): the language of the body becomes the only unambiguous speech. And yet the play *from the start*--that is, from the Induction--emphasizes that the body is an UNRELIABLE sign, that costumes, periwigs, and an onion in a hanky can make a convincing "Madam Wife" out of Bartholemew the Page, an irony increased and emphasized if Kate herself is/was a boy in drag. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 1994 16:39:20 +0059 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0785 Qs: Schiller's *Robbers*; Women's Roles Re: Women's Roles There is no evidence that pre-adolescent boys played women; the evidence is that young boys played pages and old men. The so-called boys who played women might have been anywhere from 14 to 22 years old. A boy might be as old as 25, if he were still an apprentice. The pitch of his voice and the smoothness of his skin are more to the point than age itself. Certainly men played certain female parts, especially hag-roles or comic send-ups like Lady Wouldbe in VOLPONE, or the Nurse in R&J. Most of the evidence of shifting from Boys' Companies to adult acting companies suggests that the boys were 22 or more years old. In any case, evidence of any kind is pretty sparse. The cast lists that remain do not show assignment of roles; they merely name actors (not all of them) in the play. Helen Ostovich McMaster University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 5 Oct 94 18:27:23 CDT Subject: Boy Actors With regard to Michael Field's query about boy actors in Shakespeare's day: I wouldn't call the idea that boys played the women's roles on the Elizabethan stage a "theory", as Declan Donnellan so quaintly put it; I'd call it a very well-established historical fact. Specifically: 1) Mr. Donnellan, via Mr. Field, appears to be claiming that the women's roles in the original productions of Shakespeare's plays must have been played by women. However, there is absolutely no evidence that any women (as opposed to boys dressed as women) acted regularly on the professional stage in England before the Restoration, and certainly not with any of the major companies such as Shakespeare's. The few references we have to women doing any acting at all in Elizabethan England refer mostly to private and somewhat underground plays; see Chambers' *Elizabethan Stage*, v. 1, p.371. Women did act openly elsewhere in Europe, and English travelers, according to all the evidence, found this astonishing: Thomas Coryat, in a popular travel book of 1611, wrote that in Venice, "I saw women act, a thing that I never saw before, though I have heard that it hath sometimes been used in London." 2) There was a very long tradition of boy actors in England by Shakespeare's time, playing all kinds of roles; there were several very popular boys' companies where boys played *all* the roles, men's and women's, and in the adult companies boys were apprenticed to the men of the company and trained to play women until they reached puberty. (You can find several hundred pages of evidence for this in H. N. Hildebrand's *The Child Actors* and Chambers' *The Elizabethan Stage*.) There are many surviving testimonials to the skill of these boy actors, not only to their acting skill but to their skill as female impersonators (and yes, even their sex appeal), and there were also those who found this cross-dressing scandalous ("To see our youths attired in the habit of women, who knows not what their intents be?" in Heywood's *Apology for Actors*). A good summary of the whole issue can be found in Chapter 5 of G. E. Bentley's *The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time*, which I recommend to anyone who doubts that boys did a very good job in women's roles. If I may quote Bentley: "The convention of the Shakespearean theater most difficult for moderns to accept is that of the boy players...Since comparatively few moderns have ever seen professionally *trained* juvenile actors performing any roles except those corresponding to their own age and sex, many are baffled by the imaginative feat of an adolescent boy enthralling a sophisticated audience with his performance of Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Webster's Duchess, or Ford's Annabella. Yet those subjects of early Stuart kings who had opportunities to see both boys and women in female roles were not impressed by the superiority of the actresses..." [quotes Coryat 1611 as above, who goes on to say with some surprise that the actresses he saw were as good as a boy actor] To the extent that Elizabethan scholars question the use of boys for *all* women's roles, they argue that *men* occasionally played these roles; I don't know of any scholar who has seriously proposed that a woman played Lady Macbeth or Cleopatra in Shakespeare's day, because there is simply no evidence that this was done, and there is reams of evidence that boys played such roles and did an excellent job. To call the idea of boys playing women on the Elizabethan stage a "theory" for which there is "very little evidence" betrays a distressing lack of historical knowledge. Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:59:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0794 Re: Q. Glass; Recent *Rom*; Tender Macbeth; Outsiders Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0794. Friday, 7 October 1994. (1) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 21:07:29 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass (2) From: Kathleen Campbell Date: Wednesday, 05 Oct 94 11:14:40 EST Subj: Re: Recent Romeo and Juliet (3) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Wednesday, 05 Oct 1994 23:07:12 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0787 Re: Tender Macbeth (4) From: Thomas Hall Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 1994 16:04:12 -0500 (CDT) Subj: [Outsiders] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Tuesday, 4 Oct 1994 21:07:29 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0779 Q: Quizzing Glass I think a quizzing glass is something like a lorgnette, except with only one lens. Dangling at the end of a chain, it enables one to "quiz" (stare, glance, look at "quizzically") things and other persons who may or may not also be "quizzical" (and therefore what Jane Austen's slangy young ladies would call "quizzes.") I don't know why they're so necessary to Shakespeare, though. Congreve, maybe. Shakespeare, maybe not. Melissa Aaron (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Campbell Date: Wednesday, 05 Oct 94 11:14:40 EST Subject: Re: Recent Romeo and Juliet There was also a brief article in the June 20, 1994 Newsweek about the Israeli- Palestinian Romeo and Juliet. I am currently preparing a course on the play and would love a copy of the Washington Post article Michael Fields mentions and the transcript of the NPR broadcast. Is there any other information available on this production? Kathleen Campbell (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Wednesday, 05 Oct 1994 23:07:12 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0787 Re: Tender Macbeth Yes I made it up. ELE (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Hall Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 1994 16:04:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Outsiders] Melissa Aaron-- I am also engaged in the study of women and outsiders in Shakespeare. We are looking at the way that gender was used as a role as opposed to a physical reality. The women in several of his plays seem to cast off their gender in favor of the male to set things straight. ie Portia in -MV- ans Rosalind in -AYLI-. These women are able to put on mens clothes and act convincingly as men (at least to the other characters in the play) and use their "Womanly" wisdom to set things straight. What do you think of this idea? What does it say about men? For that matter what does it say about women? Thomas Hall Northeastern Illinois University uthall@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 12:06:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0795 Q: Index to Characters in Renaissance Literature Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0795. Friday, 7 October 1994. From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 1994 21:57 EDT Subject: [Q: Characters in Renaissance Literature] SHAKSPEReans: Richard Levin asks who the author is who wrote an index of all the characters in Renaissance literature. Since he does not have access to e-mail, I have agreed to take any answers for him. Write directly to me. Thanks, Bernice W. Kliman KLIMANB@SNYFARVA.BITNET ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Oct 1994 12:11:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0796 Announcement: *SQ*'s Upcoming Teaching Shakespeare Volume Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0796. Friday, 7 October 1994. From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Thursday, 06 Oct 1994 18:39:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: [*SQ*: Teaching Shakespeare Volume] New technology has made it possible for *Shakespeare Quarterly* to speed its publication procedures and to extend the deadline for submitting articles for the 1995 summer issue on "Teaching Shakespeare" to 1 December 1994. Papers should offer approaches, methods, and philosophies of teaching Shakespeare rather than simply providing readings of the plays and poems. Articles should be submitted to: Ralph Alan Cohen Department of English James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA 22807 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 12:35:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0801 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0801. Monday, 10 October 1994. From: John C. Greene Date: Saturday, 8 Oct 1994 12:05:35 -0500 Subject: [Authorship] Please forgive if this is a FAQ but several months ago I heard the tail-end of a report on NPR about a computer analysis which had been done of the stylistic qualities of the writing of the Earl of Oxford, F. Bacon, etc., the results of which were that neither of these men could have written "Shakespeare's plays." The study did not, of course, prove that the Bard in fact did. Can anyone provide more info. on the study? Has it been published? Many thanks. J. Greene ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 12:10:15 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0797 Qs: Gielgud *Lear*; 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0797. Monday, 10 October 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 20:12 EDT Subj: [Q: Gielgud *Lear*] (2) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 15:01:46 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0761 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 20:12 EDT Subject: [Q: Gielgud *Lear*] Recently I received a flyer advertising an audio performance of *Lear* with John Gielgud in the title role. I thought the US distributor was Random, but I am apparently mistaken. Does anyone know where these tapes can be purchased? Thanks, Bernice (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 15:01:46 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0761 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference >The topic of 1995 Conference is STAGES FOR SHAKESPEARE: From Court to Couch, >from Central Park to the Cottesloe, from Culture to the Classroom. > >Featured Speakers are Janet Adelman, Peter Donaldson, and Phyllis Rackin. > >The Conference will be held at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, on May 11-13, >1995. > >Papers or 750 word abstracts should be recived on or before January 15, 1994. > >Please send papers, abstracts, and/or inquiries to: > > Sam Crowl > Department of English > Ohio University > Athens OH 45701-2979 Could someone please post more specifics. What exactly are you looking for (or, more accurately, for what are you looking)? Norman Myers Theatre Department Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 nmyers@andy.bgsu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 12:13:20 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0798 [was 5.798] Q: Drama and Historicism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0798. Monday, 10 October 1994. From: Douglas M. Lanier Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 10:18:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Drama and Historicism Dear SHAKSPERians, Next semester I will be teaching a graduate course in non-Shakespearean English Renaissance drama, a follow-up for a course in Shakespeare in our graduate program. I've devised a special hook for this course: a continuing discussion of the problem of historical contextualization for literary works of the period. I've already rounded up the usual suspects--Marx, Taine, Burkhardt, Tillyard, Dollimore, Greenblatt, Montrose--as well as some major critiques of recent trends in historicist literary criticism. Even so, for the sake of completeness, I'd like to include a few extra articles or books on the bibliography that give unusual, evocative, or provocative perspectives on this question; I'd also like to include a few short theoretical discussions by historians (rather than literary specialists) on conceptions of historical context. (And no doubt there's a usual suspect or two I've neglected.) If you have any suggestions for such a bibliography, would you send them to me personally (rather than to the whole list)? I'll compile the suggestions and post the bibliography to the list in a couple of weeks. A couple of caveats: this bibliography will be addressed to graduate students who have little experience with Renaissance literature or culture. The point of the class is to give non-Renaissance specialists (the vast majority of our graduate student population) some questions to ponder as they approach their own specialities. So I'd prefer works pitched more generally to those with very specific foci. (Since the class will be asked to do historical criticism as part of our daily classwork, the challenges of historicism will be before them at all times; I want to encourage some reflection on those problems.) And, of course, we'll be discussing the very terms of the enterprise: the division between "historical" and "literary" (is there one? how should we understand this "division"?), the premises packed into notions like "background" or "context." In fact, works addressed to those kinds of questions are especially welcome. I want to be able to offer my students works a bit off my beaten track. And since these questions so often spark the conversations on SHAKSPER, I thought this is a good place to ask. Many thanks! Cheers, Douglas Lanier dml3@christa.unh.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 12:24:19 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0799 Re: Sh. in Yiddish; The Farm; Boy Actors; Character Index Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0799. Monday, 10 October 1994. (1) From: Daniel P. Tompkins Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 21:16:25 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0791 Q: Shakespeare in Yiddish (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 07 Oct 1994 21:05:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0790 Re: Buying the Farm (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 8 Oct 94 13:46:03 CDT Subj: Boy Actors (4) From: Jan C. Stirm Date: Sunday, 09 Oct 94 23:47 PDT Subj: Character Index (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel P. Tompkins Date: Friday, 7 Oct 1994 21:16:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0791 Q: Shakespeare in Yiddish A sidelight: one of Gertrude Himmelfarb's more enjoyable essays--that is, one of the few in which she doesn't flay everyone I like--is a piece in Partisan Review ca. 1992 that describes growing up in a household to which Yiddish Shakespeare was very important. It was moving and funny. Dan Tompkins (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Friday, 07 Oct 1994 21:05:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0790 Re: Buying the Farm Hey, guys, all I did was quote Walker Percy. I gather Percy was wrong when he called "buying the farm" a phrase from the Korean war. I was in grade school during WW II. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 8 Oct 94 13:46:03 CDT Subject: Boy Actors All right, maybe I was overreacting by assuming that Declan Donnellan was implying that women acted on the Shakespearean stage. I just found and read the relevant NYT article in the library, and in context it seems more likely that he was talking about adult men playing the women's roles; his comments quoted by Michael Field are immediately preceded by the sentence, "In Tokyo, we saw a lot of Kabuki actors, and we saw that people can accept men as women if their belief is there." Now, I'm perfectly willing to admit that men might have played some women's roles on the Elizabethan stage, and there is a little bit of contemporary evidence for this. However, there is very much more contemporary evidence for "boys" playing women's roles, where the boys in question were apprenticed to one of the sharers of the company and trained by him. The question then becomes, how old were the "boys" in question? Helen Ostovich's estimate of 14 to 22 is right about on the money; from the few instances where we can determine an apprentice's age (several are cited by Bentley in *The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time*), boys tended to be apprenticed to actors around age 14 or so, for a period of 7 to 10 years, though some are known to have been more like 8 or 10 when they were apprenticed. And I'll second Jean Petersen's observation that teenage boys were not necessarily sexually inexperienced, especially in the rough-and-tumble of Elizabethan London. So Donnellan is still wrong; the "boys" who played women's roles on Shakespeare's stage (except for possibly a few exceptions for older female characters) were teenagers or young men, and many were probably sexually experienced, if that would make a difference in their ability as female impersonators. Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jan C. Stirm Date: Sunday, 09 Oct 94 23:47 PDT Subject: Character Index Bernice Kliman asks about an index of characters--one really helpful one is by Thomas L. Berger and William C. Bradford, Jr. It's called *An Index of Characters in English Printed Drama* and was put out by Microcard Editions Books in 1975 (Englewood Colorado). It's a gem! Hope it fills your need! Best, Jan Stirm izzyyg4@mvs.oac.ucla.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Oct 1994 12:32:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0800 Re: South African *TN* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0800. Monday, 10 October 1994. (1) From: Elizabeth Nancy Olesh Date: Saturday, 8 Oct 1994 20:37:07 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0792 Re: *TN* Production (2) From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Saturday, 08 Oct 1994 20:40:41 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0792 Re: *TN* Production (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Nancy Olesh Date: Saturday, 8 Oct 1994 20:37:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0792 Re: *TN* Production David -- "not be of much interest"? Are you kidding? That you have been HIDING your account of this remarkable production for ten years is CORRUPT and REPREHENSIBLE!! The time is ripe, esepecially considering the recent bilingual Israeli/Palestinian production of *Romeo and Juliet*. I (and many others, I'm sure) am dying to hear more. Get thee to a word processor! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Saturday, 08 Oct 1994 20:40:41 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0792 Re: *TN* Production David Schalkwyk, after describing a fascinating and (apparently) exciting production of *TN*, writes: > I have been contemplating "writing up" the production for publication > somewhere for over ten years now, but finally abandoned the idea, > feeling that it would not be of much interest to non-South Africans. Am > I right? Do, David, you're wrong. Here's one non-South African, at least, who would love to read an article-length description of the production. Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 08:21:56 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0802 Q: Hamlet Information Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0802. Tuesday, 11 October 1994. From: Shirley Phillips Date: Friday, 7 Oct 94 12:58:28 PDT Subject: Hamlet Information We attempted to subscribe to your discussion group in order to seek an answer to the question, "Was Hamlet insane?" Our subscription was not acknowledged, therefore we are contacting you in an effort to have our question answered. Any information concerning our subscription and question would be appreciated. Shirley Phillips sphillip@access.k12.wv.us [Editor's Note: The above query arrived a few days ago. If you are inclined to help out these high school students, please contact them directly through Ms. Phillips at sphillip@access.k12.wv.us. --HMC] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 14:19:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0803 Re: Shakespeare in Yiddish Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0803. Wednesday, 12 October 1994. (1) From: Jan Kraft Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 11:48:02 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0791 Q: Shakespeare in Yiddish (2) From: John Lavagnino Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 18:18 EDT Subj: Shakespeare in Yiddish (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jan Kraft Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 11:48:02 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0791 Q: Shakespeare in Yiddish There is a Yiddish Rep company that frequently performs at the Jewish Community Center on Church Street in Skokie, Il. You might contact the JCC and see if they can put you in touch with a representative of that group. Another possible source would be Spertus College of Judiaca in downtown Chicago. Hope this helps. Jan Kraft (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Lavagnino Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 18:18 EDT Subject: Shakespeare in Yiddish If you want to hunt down Yiddish translations of Shakespeare, the place to start is the National Yiddish Book Center in western Massachusetts. Their catalogues include translations from many writers (for my part, I long to read Oscar Wilde in Yiddish), and in general they're about the best source of bibliographical information on Yiddish books and music. You can call them at 413-535-1303. I recall Pnin's thoughts about Shakespeare in Nabokov's novel: whenever you were reduced to look up something in the English version, you never found this or that beautiful, noble, sonorous line that you remembered all your life from Kroneberg's text in Vengerov's splendid edition. Sad! John Lavagnino Department of English and American Literature, Brandeis University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 14:54:07 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0805 Productions: 2 *AYL*s and Feinnes in *Ham.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0805. Wednesday, 12 October 1994. (1) From: Edna Boris Date: Monday, 10 Oct 94 20:46:44 EDT Subj: As You Like It (2) From: Tom Jensen Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 09:49:11 -0600 Subj: Ralph Feinnes in Hamlet at the Hackney Empire (3) From: Gayle Gaskill Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 17:16:15 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Review of As You Like It at Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edna Boris Date: Monday, 10 Oct 94 20:46:44 EDT Subject: As You Like It If anyone gets a chance to see the Cheek by Jowl Company production of As You Like It, which just completed a run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I recommend that you see it. Among other aspects of the production, the entirely male cast is fascinating to watch in the extremely appealing and convincing portraits of Rosalind, Celia, Phebe, and Audrey. Even while always knowing the actors are men and seeing the body language that they use when playing women, the audience finds the portrayals convincing (and these were adult men). But of even greater importance in this production and according to the Playbill notes, acting and the language of the text are central to this company. Every word was alive and meaningful, intelligently spoken with witty, appropriate stage business, and the barest of props and scenery. They did not lose my attention for one second. I'd be interested to hear other people's reactions. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Jensen Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 09:49:11 -0600 Subject: Ralph Feinnes in Hamlet at the Hackney Empire According to the box office of the Hackney Empire, Mr. Fiennes will be appearing in Hamlet there in January. Bookings will begin in December. Thomas Jensen (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gayle Gaskill Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 17:16:15 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Review of As You Like It at Guthrie Theatre, Minneapolis Garland Wright's post--modernist production of As You Like It at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis stresses the violence of a repressive society. Duke Senior's entourage sets up a makeshift camp in a wintry Forest of Arden wrapped in rags like the displaced persons they are or like the homeless people in Loring Park just beyond the theatre parking lot. Wright's melancholy Jacques philosophizes over the fallen deer on stage, first covering its bloody carcass with his cloak and later commanding its drunken hunters at gunpoint to bear the horns. When Orlando surprises Duke Senior's camp, the Duke's men aim rifles at him while he holds his knife to a hostage's throat. Duke Frederick uses torture to extract intelligence of the missing Celia. Politics are an elaborate dance. Wright introduces Rosalind and Celia as pupils in a stifling gavotte. In protest, Rosalind strips off her black stays and hoops and stands barefoot in her white shift, but Celia continues the mincing, formal steps. Before the finale's wedding hoe-down reveals Rosalind as a '60's flower child, Phebe--a Bo Peep in decolletage--struggles to learn the courtly dance from a book. Given power, Wright suggests, any regime will turn decadent. Orlando kisses Ganymede, then spits in horror at his own action, as the homophobia of a repressive environment clutters even intimate expression. The best hope is Le Beau, a subversive who exaggerates a fop's court dress into heroic drag. Expanding the role with speeches from Charles the wrestler (1.1) and the second son of Sir Rowland de Boys (5.4), Le Beau negotiates in farm, court, or forest with full wig, curtsy, and a stiff fan that makes fart noises. He is the ourageous messenger of warning and rescue. AYL runs through 19 Nov. in repertoire with The Broken Jug by Heinrich von Kleist, directed by Liviu Ciulei. Box office: (612) 377-2224. Gayle Gaskill, College of St. Catherine ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 15:03:21 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.*; Hotspur; *Rom*; Advanced Acting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0806. Wednesday, 12 October 1994. (1) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Monday, 10 Oct 94 15:32:24 EST Subj: Dry Humping (2) From: Mary Tyler Knowles Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 22:45:53 -0400 Subj: Why does Hotspur shift to rimed verse? (3) From: Marcia Hepps Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 10:20:45 EST Subj: Two Queries (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Monday, 10 Oct 94 15:32:24 EST Subject: Dry Humping Oedipal Closet A couple of related questions: All the video productions and live performances I've seen of Hamlet seem to base the scene in Gertrude's bedroom on Jones' oedipal analysis (usually not very subtly). Are there current or recent "non-oedipal" presentations of the scene? Is there, historically, a particular production which started this kind of presentation? Is there anything in the way of stage direction or interior textual evidence that makes it certain the scene takes place in Gertrude's bedroom? (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Tyler Knowles Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 22:45:53 -0400 Subject: Why does Hotspur shift to rimed verse? My students and I noticed an oddity--to us, at least--at the end of Act IV, scene 1 where Hotspur shifts into rimed verse for his final speechs in the scene, a scene in which he has been steadily reviving his courage to face unsurmountable odds. Is the effect of the rhyme a bolstering of his heroic stance or does it undercut him at that moment, make him sound childish? I looked for other instances in Henry IV, Part One of rimed verse and find it only in these heated moments of patriotic passion such as "Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,/Meet, and ne'er part til one drop down a course." or "My father and Glendower being both away,/The powers of us may serve so great a day./Come, let us take a muster speedily./Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily." Even Douglas falls under the sway of all this rime (one of my students postulated that his speech shows how much under Hotspur's influence he has become): "Talk not of dying, I am out of fear/Of death or death's hand for this one half year." (3) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marcia Hepps Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 10:20:45 EST Subject: Two Queries I will be directing Romeo and Juliet in the spring and due to time constraints must cut it unmercifully. Any books, articles, words of wisdom about cutting the Bard, R&J specifically. Also I will be teaching an advanced acting class around Shakespeare and would be glad to hear from anyone who has worked in this capacity or anyone who has suggestions for Texts etc. Many thanks in advance. ---Marcia Hepps "hepps@cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 14:35:57 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0804 Re: Drama and Historicism Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0804. Wednesday, 12 October 1994. (1) From: Victor Gallerano Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 09:06:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: SHK 5.798 Q: Drama and Historicism (fwd) (2) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 08:25:38 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.798 Q: Drama and Historicism (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Victor Gallerano Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 09:06:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: SHK 5.798 Q: Drama and Historicism (fwd) Daniel Lanier, Take a look at some of the work of Paul Cantor; in particular., an essay in "The National Interest" ('93 ?) titled, _Shakespeare--'For All Time?'__ He has also written an introduction to "Hamlet" (in CUP's Landmarks of world Lit. series) that is worth studying. Cantor's take on Shakespeare, and literature generally, says that historicism is the bane of nearly all modern thinking and that it has nested down in academe with a special vengeance. His critique of historicism comes ultimately from Leo Strauss. Strauss's work has to be taken up by anyone seriously asking about the roots and meaning of historicism and modern thought. CAVEAT EMPTOR: who goes after Strauss may need an "extra" lifetime. Victor Gallerano (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 08:25:38 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.798 Q: Drama and Historicism May I urge you to consider the THEATRICAL climate in which the plays were first produced. In that connection, may I recommend James Forse's ART IMITATES BUSINESS, published by Bowling Green State University Press. This is a fascinating series of essays linking the commercial aspects of Elizabethan theatre with the remarkable art that was produced within those confines. All this is assuming, of course, that you are studying REAL plays--i.e. the textual remains of works that were - as far as we know - actually staged. Norman Myers Theatre Department Bowling Green State University. I think this is Dr. Forse's e-mail: jforse@opie.bgsu.edu At any rate, he's in the History Department at BGSU ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 15:54:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0808 Qs: Staunton's Edition; Fogler Institute Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0808. Wednesday, 12 October 1994. (1) From: Charles Blair Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 10:43:29 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Howard Staunton's work (2) From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 12:23:06 -0500 (EST) Subj: Folger, etc. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Blair Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 10:43:29 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Howard Staunton's work Howard Staunton edited an edition of Shakespeare shortly before the publication of the Cambridge edition in the 1860's. I have seen a handful of citations of his work in footnotes, but I would be interested in an overall evaluation of his contribution to Shakespeare scholarship. Staunton is probably better known as a chess champion. At some point he partially retired from chess because of his literary work. I know much more about chess than Shakespeare, and am just trying to get a better impression of Staunton's overall career. Thanks in advance for any references. Charles Blair (ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Vail Smith Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 12:23:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Folger, etc. My fellow SHAKSPERians, I'm moving to Washington, D.C., this weekend. I was wondering if anyone out there is in someway connected to the Folger Insititute and could help me get aquainted with the stuff that goes on there. I don't want to take up too much space, so I will leave the details to personal replies. Thanks. Matthew Vail Smith Hobart College MASMITH@hws.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Oct 1994 15:45:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0807 Re: Ohio Conf.; Boys; Character; Bilingual Sh; *Acres* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0807. Wednesday, 12 October 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 22:22:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0797 Qs: 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference (2) From: J. Forse Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 16:10:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: 'Boy' Actors (3) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 94 14:03 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0770 Re: Character (4) From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 16:29 ET Subj: Bilingual Shakespeare (5) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Thursday, 06 Oct 94 10:42:18 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0772 Re: Contemporary Lear (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 22:22:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0797 Qs: 1995 Ohio Shakespeare Conference I suppose I should try to answer Norman Myers's question since I posted the announcement. Unfortunately, I am not on this year's planning committee, and I must rely on my memory of last year's Holding Committee meeting. I gather that Sam Crowl is looking for papers in a variety of different areas (psychological studies, historical perspectives, performance studies, teaching methods) with the idea that each of these areas has provided a real and/or metaphoric stage for Shakespeare's plays. Dave Evett, who's also on the Holding Committee, may have a better or clearerr recollection of Sam's proposal. In any case, hard copy should be in the mail soon -- or so Sam tells me. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. Forse Date: Monday, 10 Oct 1994 16:10:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: 'Boy' Actors I'm not sure why there is this passionate insistance that boys played the principal female roles in Elizabethan adult acting companies. In the first place, calling someone 17 to 22 years of age a *boy* seems to be begging the point. Neither Elizabethan society nor law considered them children. For the most part 17 seems to have been the typical age at which one was apprenticed--except for choirboys and school boys who do check in at the younger ages for obvious reasons. Most of the evidence about *boys* playing female roles from pre-Restoration sources discusses talented boys playing within the children's companies; that doesn't count; and the other sources like Wright's Historia admit they are talking about a time from which they have little direct knowledge when we use Restoration recollections to project backwards to the stage of Shakespeare et al. As for remarks in wills, etc. about actors having apprentices, we can't be sure what the apprentices were used for. Many of the actors, such as John Heminges, belonged to guilds like the grocers, and engaged in financial activities outside the theatre. Henslowe writes of lending his apprentice to the Admiral's Men, but does not specify for what purpose he was used. It is just as logical, I think, to view these young men apprenticed to prominent people in the theatrical world potentially as personal man-servants as novice actors. And frankly, cycling a young boy in and out of major roles every few years would be bad business sense; we can't forget the fact that the giants of the Elizabethan stage were careful and successful business men who made modest fortunes in the theatre business. J. Forse History: Bowling Green State University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Thursday, 6 Oct 94 14:03 BST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0770 Re: Character Is Epstein suggesting that the bored middle-class American is suffering from Agenbite of Inuit? T. Hawkes (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Tuesday, 11 Oct 1994 16:29 ET Subject: Bilingual Shakespeare A propos David Schalkwyk's English/Afrikaans TN (and I agree that DS ought to write it up, especially since I must confess that I never saw the two households as culturally distinct in anything like that degree): a year or two back word reached these parts from our great neighbor to the north of a bilingual production of , with English speaking actors doing one family and French the other--apt enough for a legally bilingual country in which there is still a great deal of cultural and emotional energy tied up in the language question. I am sure there are Canadian SHAKESPEReans who (and should) tell us more. Priez d'accepter mes sentiments the most distinguished. David Evett (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Thursday, 06 Oct 94 10:42:18 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0772 Re: Contemporary Lear To all who responded so promptly to my question about the modern Lear--thank you! Am I the only one on this list who hasn't read this already? It certainly seems so. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 09:35:44 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0809 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0809. Saturday, 15 October 1994. From: Donald Foster Date: Tuesdayy, 11 Oct 1994 16:48:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0801 Authorship The person you're looking for is Prof. Ward Elliott / Dept. of Government / 850 Columbia Ave. / Claremont McKenna College / Claremont, CA 91711-6420. Elliott is a political scientist, not a literary scholar, but his "Shakespeare Clinic" is not without value. With funding from the Sloan Foundation, Elliott for the past several years has been investigating whether it is not possible to identify who "really" wrote Shakespeare. (I believe that he started out in the Oxfordian bin.) Elliott and his student assistants designed a battery of statistical tests, a few of which are (in my opinion) worthless but which, when taken together, effectively prove (1) that the works generally ascribed to Shakespeare are substantively the work of a single individual, and (2) that none of the anti-Stratfordian candidates comes close to matching Shakespeare's stylistic and linguistic peculiarities. Results are summarized in Elliott's unpublished report, "Matching Shakespeare, 1994: Computer Testing of Elizabethan Texts for Common Authorship with Shakespeare." This report is unlikely to be published, but Elliott has been sending a copy to all interested parties. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 09:40:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0810 Re: Hamlet's Insanity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0810. Saturday, 15 October 1994. From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 12 Oct 1994 09:24:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Hamlet's Insanity Real or Feigned While there are many studies published since then, a good place to start might be the Appendix: "Is Hamlet's Insanity Real or Feigned?" in *A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: Hamlet* edited by H.H. Furness (1877; rpt. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1963), 2:195-235. The editor's survey is from MacKenzie (1780) to Dr. Onimus (1876). An explosion in psychoanalytic criticism, of course, occurred after Ernest Jones brought Freud to bear on the subject of Hamlet's mental state and motivations in *Hamlet and Oedipus* (1949). As early as Charlottle Lennox's *Shakespear Illustrated* (1753), which was the first assembly of "the Novels and Histories on which the plays of Shakespear are founded," comparisons are made between Shakespeare's play and the Amleth legend recorded in Saxo Grammaticus, and later in the adaptations by Belleforest and an anonymous English prose translation. Lennox, for one, found it an error in judgment that the playwright should preserve the madness ruse adopted by the Scandinavian hero, who knows as everyone else does that his uncle has murdered to become king and and to husband Amleth's mother. Lennox writes: The Madness of Hamlet seems to be less essential to the Play than the History....Shakespear has indeed followed the History in making Hamlet feign himself mad....'tis certainly a Fault" (2:272-3). She sees this feigned madness in Shakespeare's Hamlet to be of no consequence to the play's design and damaging to the hero's noble reputation. You be the judge whether this early historical surveying is too much for your high school students. I would like to think that they may find it fascinating, particularly if your own enthusiasm for its larger implications is evident to them. Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 10:25:12 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0811 Re: Non-Oedipal *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0811. Saturday, 15 October 1994. (1) From: Stephen C. Schultz Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 94 15:34:01 EDT Subj: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* (2) From: Michael Friedman Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 16:54:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.**93 (3) From: Greg Grainger Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 23:03:17 -0400 Subj: Re: Non-Oedipal Hamlet (4) From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 14 Oct 94 13:17:00 BST Subj: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* (5) From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 14:23:08 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* (6) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 23:05:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen C. Schultz Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 94 15:34:01 EDT Subject: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* I have heard that the first staged Oedipal *Hamlet* was John Barrymore's in ca 1921. One of his biographers says that in his later--and sodden--years Barrymore could not recite from the play any of the passages used to "prove" the Oedipal interpretation because his first sexual experience had been with his father's mistress. One learns the damnedest things doing theatre history! (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 16:54:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* For Ronald Dwelle, You might want to have a look at an article entitled "The Bed in HAMLET's Closet Scene: Rowe 1709 and 1714" by Bernice Kliman which appeared in the spring 1993 issue of *Shakespeare Newsletter*. Illustrations from various frontispieces support a very interesting argument. Michael Friedman FriedmanM1@jaguar.uofs.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Greg Grainger Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 23:03:17 -0400 Subject: Re: Non-Oedipal Hamlet There was a film produced in 1972 or thereabouts starring Nicol Williamson as Hamlet and directed by Tony Richardson. It was an excellent interpretation, IMHO, also remarkable for the casting of Marianne Faithful (yes, *that* Marianne Faithful) as Ophelia. To the best of my recollection (now many years old) the Oedipal aspect of Hamlet's relationship with Getrude is minimized, if not discounted completely. They are played as very close, Hamlet the devoted son, but not lovers. On the other hand, Gertrude's relationship with Claudius is played as one almost entirely of the flesh; a pair of aging hedonists. For those interested, this film is now available on video. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Drakakis Date: Friday, 14 Oct 94 13:17:00 BST Subject: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* For Ronald Dwelle, Irrespective of modern oedipal readings of the scene in question in HAMLET, in Q(1605) Polonius says to the King "My Lord, hee's going to his mothers closet," (sig.L1r). Then Polonius Leaves and Claudius attempts to pray. The location of this scene is, presumably in Claudius's "closet"- a private room set aside for prayer and meditation. This is not, I suggest Claudius's "bedroom", although Polonius leaves him with the words, "I'le call vpon you ere you goe to bed." When Hamlet, therefore, goes to his mother's "closet" he is going to a comparable room in Elsinore, and the dramatic effect is intensified by the CONTRAST between the two scenes: Claudius ends up divided between the desire to repent, and hanging on to the fruits of regicide and fratricide, while in Hamlet's case the attempt is being made to realign language and action. If we inflect the scene in this way, bearing in mind the historical distinction to be made between a bedroom and a "closet", then the oedipal reading proves wholly inadequate. Cheers, John Drakakis (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 14:23:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* Re the Oedipal Closet: Ronald Dwelle might look at Marvin Rosenberg's Masks of Hamlet and Bernice Kliman's Hamlet: Film, Television, and Audio Performance. As for the bedroom cliche and its textual/historical necessity, Michael Cameron Andrews, in a piece called "His Mother's Closet: A Note on Hamlet," MP (1982): 164-66, effectively demonstrates that a bedroom is anything but inevitable in the scene, a closet being very usually a place of private sanctuary, of meditative retirement, rather than of sleep (or other bedtime pursuits). Andrews' use of OED (radical thought!) is very instructive. Skip Shand (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 23:05:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Non-Oedipal *Ham.* Olivier's film of HAMLET seems to have begun the film tradition, and Ernest Jones popularized the notion that Hamlet suffers from an unresolved Oedipal conflict. Polonius tells the King, "My lord, he's going to his mother's closet" (3.3.27 [Bevington, ed.]). A "closet" according to the OED is a room for privacy or retirement as for devotion, study, or secluded speculation. The closet is not the bedroom. Olivier, of course, focused on the bed, because he wanted to emphasize Hamlet's psychological problems. It seems to me that he also suggests that Hamlet and Horatio have something going on the side. Pruriently yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 11:13:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0812 SHAKSPER's Future Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0812. Saturday, 15 October 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, October 15, 1994 Subject: SHAKSPER's Future Dear SHAKSPEReans, You have undoubtedly noted of late that SHAKSPER digests have not been arriving with the regularity to which you rightly have become accustomed. The problem is multifaceted but in large part results from the fact that the LISTSERV at the University of Toronto recently has been snowed under with traffic. SHAKSPER was born at the University of Toronto, founded by Ken Steele. The University of Toronto has been kind enough to let me to continue to run SHAKSPER from there since Ken gave SHAKSPER over to me. However, with the enormous increase of network traffic, the UofT's LISTSERV is simply shutting down from the load, and I am afraid that SHAKSPER is a major contributor to the problem. We now have close to 800 members, who are very talkative. However, that is not all; if say three nodes are down and two people have full disk quotas and another two have left school without unsubscribing from the list, the number of error messages generated in a single day easily can exceed a hundred. There are also the administrative commands I issue and the files and packages I send out to members. Since I have become SHAKSPER's editor/owner, I have spent a minimum of ten hours per week running the list. This work is the most gratifying task I do, and I very much want to continue with it. With this as prologue, I want to let you all know that I am exploring the possibility of moving SHAKSPER to my home institution -- Bowie State University, a member of the University of Maryland System. We currently are pricing LISTSERV software and studying our other hardware needs to make a proposal to our President. Moving SHAKSPER will be traumatic. We may lose members, and we clearly will lose our association with the University of Toronto, from which I now get something like ten requests a day for information about joining our conference. However, I cannot operate SHAKSPER as I want to with the present problems that the UofT's LISTSERV experiences, in part because of SHAKSPER. I want to get my backlog of messages for the conference cleared up, but I must submit my digests and requests at intervals so that I do not shut down LISTSERV as I did yesterday. I will surely keep everyone informed. In the meantime, please bear with me. The lag time between submissions and postings as well as the irregularity of receiving your digests will probably continue, but let us try to look to the future to a time when I can deliver to you the level of service that you have come to expect from SHAKSPER. Hardy M. Cook HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu Editor of SHAKSPER ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 14:03:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0813 Re: *TN*; Hotspur; Staunton; Character Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0813. Saturday, 15 October 1994. (1) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Wednesday, 12 Oct 94 10:51:28 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0800 Re: South African *TN* (2) From: Louis Scheeder Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 00:05:19 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Hotspur (3) From: Peter S. Donaldson Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 94 17:02:37 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0808 Qs: Staunton's Edition (4) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 17:48:01 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0807 Re: Character (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Wednesday, 12 Oct 94 10:51:28 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0800 Re: South African *TN* Here's one more vote for a write up of the Afrikans *TN* I, for one, would be fascinated to hear more. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louis Scheeder Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 00:05:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0806 Qs: Hotspur Re: Rhymed verse - We've found that there is often something quite joyous or, alternatively, something incantatory happening in the use of rhymed verse. Couplets seem, quite often, to indicate (yes, indicate) expressions of celebration of resolution. Just a few performative thoughts. Louis Scheeder The Classical Studio NYU Tisch School of the Arts (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter S. Donaldson Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 94 17:02:37 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0808 Qs: Staunton's Edition Howard Staunton produced the first photographic process facsimile of the First Folio, published in 1866. Two years earlier he published a photolithographed facsimile of the 1600 Quarto of Much Ado about Nothing. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 17:48:01 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0807 Re: Character I had in my mind a northern hunter yawning amidst the yawning waste. Or if you prefer, I had in mind the tongue twister used for speech practise *Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts." ELEpstein ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Oct 1994 14:25:01 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0814 Qs: Alabama Sh Fest; Goneril's Death; Trusting Sh; Miranda Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0814. Saturday, 15 October 1994. (1) From: Mary Leigh Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 13:31:32 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Reference Request: Alabama Shakespeare Festival (2) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 20:49:51 -0400 (EDT) Subj: How does Goneril die? (3) From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 15:10:51 GMT-6 Subj: Trusting Shakespeare (4) From: David Peck Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 11:28:52 +0059 (EDT) Subj: Miranda (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Leigh Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 13:31:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Reference Request: Alabama Shakespeare Festival [Editor's Note: I former member writes the following, inquiring about the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Please send any responses directly to her. --HMC] I used to belong to SHAKSPER but had trouble keeping up with the amount of messages I was receiving. I have a reference request which I would appreciate your forwarding to the list. Patron would like information about the Alabama Shakespeare Festival -- history, location, schedule, if possible. He is also interested in finding out if the play --The Goodbye People-- written by Herb Gardner has or will be performed at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Robin Leigh leigh@chuma.cas.usf.edfu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 20:49:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: How does Goneril die? I am teaching *Lear* this semester to a group of first year students who have posed me a question I cannot answer. It involves the death of Goneril, who we are told has been stabbed. The question is, how does the knife come to be in her? Edmund says that she "slew herself," but how can he know that? I can imagine that Goneril recognizes that the furious Albany will not let her have her Edmund, and I know that Albany himself says "she is desperate" and tells an Officer to follow and "govern her." Is this sufficient evidence to declare her death a suicide? The issue is complicated by the fact that the Folio has Goneril exit on the very strong "the laws are mine, not thine;/ Who can arraign me for't?" whereas the Quarto has her exit on the weak "Ask me not what I know"--a line that the Folio attributes to the Bastard. Muir's decision to follow the Quarto reading is explained by what I think is a pretty odd statement: "Goneril needs an hysterical, not a defiant, exit line." Maybe Edmund "needs" the idea of her committing suicide because of him, and maybe Albany (and Muir?) "needs" to think that Goneril has become hysterical, and that her wandering womb will be amenable to good masculine government; but I wonder in what sense *she* "needs" to be weak at this point. Maybe I just should "Reason not the need"? Hoping that this is not too insignificant a question, I remain Virtually yours, Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 15:10:51 GMT-6 Subject: Trusting Shakespeare "When in doubt, trust Shakespeare." This idea, if not these exact words, one hears from teachers and directors explaining business in particular scenes. Does this axiom derive from Harley Granville- Barker's _Prefaces to Shakespeare_, where he writes, "Gain Shakespeare's effects by Shakespeare's means when you can; for plainly, this will be the better way" (23)? Or did someone else write the phrase "trust Shakespeare"? After using the expression in class, I was asked by a student about the source and couldn't recall. Help, anyone? Trusting, Tom Hodges (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Peck Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 11:28:52 +0059 (EDT) Subject: Miranda I have assigned to a pair of young actors the wood-shifting scene from Tempest. My Miranda finds the scene boring and shallow, and the character simple and uninteresting. I am currently in the process of inciting both of them to a much closer look at the given circumstances of the moment and the motivations and constraints acting upon each of the characters (you need not bother to tell me that there _are_ no characters involved, I have followed that argument through all its permutations on this list already). I find ample grounds for interesting work on the scene, but I would love to hear a few "takes" from others on the list to spice the pot up a little. Anything anyone would like to share on this particular sequence? Thanks david peck ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 10:53:00 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0816 Re: Boys; Advanced Acting; Editing; *AYL* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0816. Monday, 17 October 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 23:15:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0807 Re: Boys or Female Impersonators? (2) From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 13:03:37 -0400 Subj: Advanced Acting (3) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 94 07:02:05 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0762 Re: Innogen (4) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 94 07:43:21 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0805 Productions: 2 *AYL*s and Feinnes in *Ham.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 13 Oct 1994 23:15:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0807 Re: Boys or Female Impersonators? I've read Jim Forse's comments on the boy and young men actors with interest, but I have a question. Is Jim suggesting that some or all of the actors in a company could and, indeed, did play female roles? Were female roles rarely or never played by boys in the adult companies? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman J. Myers Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 13:03:37 -0400 Subject: Advanced Acting >Also I will be teaching an advanced acting class around Shakespeare and would >be glad to hear from anyone who has worked in this capacity or anyone who has >suggestions for Texts etc. Many thanks in advance. Try: Robert Barton STYLE FOR ACTORS; Robert Cohen ACTING IN SHAKESPEARE; Cicely Barry THE ACTOR AND HIS TEXT. Kathleen Conlin of Ohio State has done a lot of work teaching younger actors Shakespeare. You may try contacting her. See also Robert Barton, "Strutting and Fretting: Shakespeare and the Novice Actor" THEATRE JOURNAL 33 (May 1981): 231-245. The John Barton series of tapes made with the Royal Shakespeare is good, but very expensive to rent. The book based on the tapes may be useful. Good Luck Norman Myers nmyers@andy.bgsu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 94 07:02:05 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0762 Re: Innogen A note passed from the kids at the back of the bus about T. Hawkes' warning about the dismal politics of textual editing. | Innogen and her many (much more interesting) textual playmates that romp around in the q's and f's of the Bard's plays sit there for the free discussion of all observers. They're all fair game. Today as in the past a lot of folk have turned very grumpy as they earned their spurs as textual critics or as editors. It's hard, grinding work, alas. And much of it gets done in intellectual trenches, ugly hand to hand combat where one must show that some dude who spent eleventy-six years editing R&J blundered over a comma in 2.6, even though the rest of the work went flyingly. But just because the trench warfare happened back then and continues noisily below, that doesn't prevent the rest of us from dancing on the parapets. I have to facedown editorial gradgrinds once in a while with Toby's "Dost thou think that because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Shhh. We've got them surrounded! They are not our masters; they're our servants. And when as servants they get out of line, they can be corrected gently or just told to go elsewhere. That's why we invented the xerox machine. Of course, don't expect a surly or ill-treated servant to publish your next essay in a journal that that hard-working drudge also happens to edit. Dancing on the parapet while the heavy infantry is still firing does have a certain risk. You pays y'er money and you takes y'er chance. As ever, Steve Urjauntywitz (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 94 07:43:21 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0805 Productions: 2 *AYL*s and Feinnes in *Ham.* The Cheek By Jowl AS YOU LIKE IT that played at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last week demonstrated, alas, how delicate effort in drama may collapse into high camp during a long run, even when done by a brilliant company. I was one of the happy few who saw it when it opened on its long tour, first at an International Theatre Festival at SUNY StonyBrook on Long Island three years ago. The tentative explorations of sexuality in the three years' run have turned into music hall/montypythonesque caricatures, with a few exceptions. Celia "back then " only slowly discovered her own jealous need for Rosalind, and even delicately allowed herself to feel the sexual attraction of that creature. When I saw the same performer last week do the job, Celia was a Margaret Thatcher clone, groping Rosalind's thighs from the first few lines of dialogue. Oops. Yes there was still great wonder in the show, but it was safe. The men/women were now in those categories of easy disdain. When I saw it first, we in the audience all were surprised and alarmed at how we were charmed and excited by the ambiguities of sexual attraction reaching out off that stage. This time there were only effects of laughter through alienation rather than self recognition. Given the wonderful artistic freedom that the director granted these actors, encouraging them to take immense artistic risks, I can see that they may have had no way to recover every night, night after night, out there in Tokyo or Australia or Brooklyn. Maybe for the next tour that this heartbreakingly talented production group tries, maybe they could mount a repertory so Celia could spend two nights being Edmund and the Bastard Faulkenbridge to return only on Tuesday and Saturday to the other intensities and delicacies of Celia as a lad/lady. As ever, Steve Urkowitz, SURCC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Oct 1994 12:09:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0817 Re: Hamlet's Insanity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0817. Monday, 17 October 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 1994 23:13:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0810 Re: Hamlet's Insanity (2) From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Oct 13 15:06:50 EDT 1994 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0802 Q: Hamlet Information (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 15 Oct 1994 23:13:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0810 Re: Hamlet's Insanity Both Randal Robinson (HAMLET IN THE 1950S) and Julia Dietrich (HAMLET IN THE 1960S) list material on this subject under the general heading "Hamlet." Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Oct 13 15:06:50 EDT 1994 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0802 Q: Hamlet Information Hi, Shirley. I recently asked on this list about a t.v. program called "The Trial of Hamlet" that attempted to answer that question using a trial format. The defense attorneys were using an insanity plea, and they had an expert witness testify to Hamlet's lack of sanity. The prosecution called its expert witness to argue that Hamlet _was_ sane. Thanks to Edward Gero (I hope I've remembered your name correctly), I tracked down how to order the video. I don't think I ever shared the information with the list, so I'll do that now. To order the video, send a school purchase order or a check to: Public Affairs Video Archive Purdue University 1000 Liberal Arts & Education Building West Lafayette, IN 47907-1000 You need to specify the tape ("The Trial of Hamlet") and the i.d. number (55363). I never *did* make it through that video, so I can't tell you what the jury decided. To be honest, I found the video at once fascinating and boring, but then again I'm not a lawyer and so don't enjoy long court trials. Despite the humor involved (expert witnesses fully aware of the irony of their testimony, in speaking seriously of a fictional character), I actually found watching the video painful. Not to dredge up the dreaded character thread, but I found it odd and disconcerting to talk about Hamlet as if he were a real person suffering from psychological disorders that we can describe using contemporary psychiatry. For me, it destroyed the magic of the play as a work of fiction. The witnesses knew the play extraordinarily well, though, and their analysis of the lines and events was excellent. I hope this helps. Leslie Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einsein.susqu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 10:57:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0818 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0818. Tuesday, 18 October 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 1994 11:28:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0809 Authorship (2) From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 09:46:21 GMTDT Subj: Foster's comments re. "Authorship" (3) From: William Boyle Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 12:38:03 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 1994 11:28:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0809 Authorship In his recent posting about Ward Elliott's work, Don Foster modestly refrains from mentioning his own computerized work on the Shakespearean text. I'd be grateful for an update, and I'm sure others would be too. If nothing else, Don, could you give us a bibliography of what you've published so far and a summary of what you've discovered? I hope I speak for others on the network. John Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Westcott Smith Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 09:46:21 GMTDT Subject: Foster's comments re. "Authorship" As a political scientist specializing in the Shakespeare's political thought, I was disturbed by the implications of D. Foster's comments on Ward Elliott's program at Claremont on 10/15: "Elliott is a political scientist not a literary scholar, but his "Shakespeare Clinic" is not without value. I am I to interpret this as meaning any non-literary inquiry in to the corpus (until given the imprimatur of the likes of Foster) *is* without value. The surface absurdity of such a statement leads me to hope otherwise. While Foster is writing in reference to the authorship question--which is not necessarily the province of the literati--his condescending demeanor strikes me as completely at odds with the golas of this list. WHy was I, a *political scientist* graced with admittance to this list? Only to learn the "straight path" to understandinh Shakespearean drama? I hope not. Given the tone and content of a great deal of the discussion on this list, I think that more not less--to use a popular term--*diversity* of approaches is required in Shakespearean studies. It is my sense that most others on the list share this sentiment. Matthew Westcott Smith, PhD Lecturer of Political Science The Civic Education Project Debrecen, Hungary (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Boyle Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 12:38:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Authorship In response to Donald Foster's posting about Ward Elliott's "Shakespeare Clinic" computer study, it is interesting to note that he can say that some of the statistical tests are "worthless", yet when "taken together" with others, effectively prove that none of the prospective anti-Stratfordian candidates comes close to matching Shakespeare's stylistic and linguistic peculiarities. Elliott's study is far from the last word on this subject. For any members of SHAKSPER interested in comparing for themselves the writing of a prospective anti-Stratfordian candidate (Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) with Shakespeare, check out William Plumer Fowler's *Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters*. In it he compares words and phrases found in 37 of Oxford's surviving letters with the works of Shakespeare. I understand that some individuals who have become Oxfordians in the last 10 years have been most swayed by the parallelisms in both thought and phraseology as documented in this book. Oxford's letters were not, as far as I know, part of Elliott's study If you can't find it through your library system, email me directly, and I'll send you further information on |acquiring a copy of this book. Mr. Fowler died about two years ago, but his estate has copies of this book. William Boyle 17 October 1994 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 12:46:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0819 Re: Couplets; Goneril; Gertrude; Miranda; Contemp. *Rom.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0819. Monday, 17 October 1994. (1) From: Ron Macdonald Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 1994 11:38:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Couplets (SHK 5.0813); Goneril's death (SHK 5.0814) (2) From: Michael Best Date: Monday, 17 Oct 94 17:07:49 PDT Subj: Gertrude's Closet (3) From: Louis Scheeder Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 1994 12:52:36 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0814 Miranda (4) From: Nina Rulon-Miller Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 05:55:19 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0814 Miranda (5) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 12:50:46 -0700 (PDT) Subj: [Contemporary *Rom.*] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Macdonald Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 1994 11:38:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Couplets (SHK 5.0813); Goneril's death (SHK 5.0814) Louis Scheeder raises an interesting point about couplets and the "celebration of resolution," but he also reminds us, implicitly, of how very sensitive contrasts such as prose/verse or blank verse/rhymed verse are to context. For me, anyway, couplets don't "indicate" (if that is the right word) resolution so much as the smug, or edgy, or genuinely anguished attempt to produce the effect of resolution, often in the teeth of a situation that is anything but resolved or even resolvable. I think, for instance of _Othello_ and the Duke's attempt in I.iii to console Brabantio for the loss of his daughter: "When remedies are past, the griefs are ended / By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended," etc.-- at considerable length. Brabantio, who surely realizes that his own interests are being huddled aside because of Othello's enormous importance to the state, replies with some (to my ear, anyway) ironic couplets of his own, e.g., "So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile, / We lose it not, so long as we can smile." Brabantio's conclusion might stand as reply to all sententious consolers, at least in the tragedies: "But words are words, I never yet did hear / That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear." Which leads me, perhaps by way of the couplet-prone Edgar in _King Lear_, a failed consoler if ever there was one, to the problem Al Cacicedo raises about Goneril's death. There may be a connection here with Malcolm's attempt in _Macbeth_ to retrospectively construct Lady Macbeth's death as a suicide and thus support the notion that "unnatural" evil feeds on and ultimately consumes itself. In either case, the interesting aspect for me is not how the deaths actually came about but the urgent need of survivors to represent them as having come about in a way that will produce the effect of satisfactory resolution. As the corpses of Goneril and Regan are produced, one can imagine Albany preparing to speak an improving homily over them, secure, at least, in the knowledge that Lear's daughters are well past contradicting him. He is, of course, forestalled by the appearance of another corpse in the arms of the man who will shortly be yet another. This final pair resists homilies. "All friends," says the well-meaning but sententious Albany, "shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deservings." The corpses of Goneril and Regan might serve this line of moralizing nicely, but then Albany's gaze is attracted to the other pair of bodies on stage: "O, see, see!" Not much opportunity for the moralizer here. No wonder Dr. Johnson couldn't bear it. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Monday, 17 Oct 94 17:07:49 PDT Subject: Gertrude's Closet Recent comments on Gertrude's un-bedroom have been salutary, but what exactly a closet was is a bit less clear. Not just a place for privacy, devotion etc. if we look at the 1608 *A Closet for Ladies and Gentlemen*, and the later *The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, Opened* (1669). Both books (and others like them) offer various kinds of recipes (for cookery, perfumes, medicine, even what were probably seen to be aphrodisiacs), using techniques of infusion and distillation. There are contemporary engravings of women in what might be their closets, engaged in various activities of this kind. I don't recall any lines that suggest that Gertrude spent time sharpening Claudius' appetite, but Helena, Lady Macbeth and the Queen in Cymbeline are familiar with the arts of medicine, white or black. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louis Scheeder Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 1994 12:52:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0814 Miranda Re: the Miranda-Ferdinand scene. If the students pay close attention to the prop specified in the text - i.e. the pile of logs that Ferdinand should be carrying - they might find a pretty good comic obstacle and be able to avoid a treacly reading of the scene. Louis Scheeder The Classical Studio Tisch School of the Arts/NYU (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nina Rulon-Miller Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 05:55:19 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0814 Miranda In reply to David Peck's question on Miranda and the log scene: An interesting approach is to look at Prospero as schoolmaster, teacher of Miranda, Caliban, and,once he comes on the scene, Ferdinand. Although he has taught her many things, including how to play chess, to disparage women, and to abhor "Other- ness," he has not taught her how to act like a lady. No well brought up lady would dream of carrying logs, clearly man's work. Actually, slaves' work, of course - Ferdinand shouldn't be carrying logs around either, but he has no choice at the moment. These ideas are not entirely my own - did a long study of _Tempest_ several years ago. If you're interested I could send sources another time. cheers - Nina Rulon-Miller (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Sun, 16 Oct 1994 12:50:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Contemporary *Rom.*] Regarding the transcription of the NPR article on the Israeli/Palestinian ROMEO AND JULIET, it should be sent this week. Regards, Bradley S. Berens ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 13:20:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0820 Re: Hamlet & Wilde; Insanity; *AYL*; *NY Times* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0820. Tuesday, 18 October 1994. (1) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 94 14:18:25 EDT Subj: Wilde and Hamlet (2) From: Cary Mazer Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 20:03:46 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0817 Re: Hamlet's Insanity (3) From: Daniel Mufson Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 18:42:11 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: *AYL* (4) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 09:56:03 -0500 Subj: *Hamlet* and *MV* make the *Times* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Sunday, 16 Oct 94 14:18:25 EDT Subject: Wilde and Hamlet The recent questions about Hamlet's psyche brought a question to my mind. Was it in a published piece or in quoted conversation that Oscar Wilde asked "Are the commentators on Hamlet really insane, or are they only pretending?" It's one of my favorite Wildeisms, but I don't know the source and I'm not even certain I have the words right. Any help? It came up now and then during our run of HAMLET at Cocteau Repertory here in New York. We had it in the rep for two and a half seasons, often performing matinees for school groups. I played Claudius and would often entertain our non- bookish, but immensely talented, Hamlet, Craig Smith, with some of the things the academic critics had said over the years about his character. He was particularly amused by the common view that Hamlet was paralyzed and incapable of action. "But I'm exhausted when this show is over," he would protest. "I'm doing something all the time!" (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Mazer Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 20:03:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0817 Re: Hamlet's Insanity With regard to Hamlet's insanity (and perhaps the whole "character" issue), I offer for your amusement the following exchange from _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_, a rather forgetable 1891 comedy by W. S. Gilbert. R and G, newly arrived in Elsinore, are questioning Ophelia about their old friend Hamlet: Guild. And what's he like? Oph. Alike for no two seasons at a time. Sometimes he's tall--sometimes he's very short-- Now with black hair--now with a flaxen wig-- Sometimes an English accent--then a French-- Then English with a strong provincial "burr." Once an American, and once a Jew-- But Danish never, take him how you will! And strange to say, whate'er his tongue may be, Whether he's dark or flaxen--English--French-- Though we're in Denmark, A.D., ten--six--two-- He always dresses as King James the First! Guild. Oh, he is surely mad! Oph. Well, there again Opinion is divided. Some men hold That he's the sanest, far, of all sane men-- Some that's he's really sane, but shamming mad-- Some that he's really mad, but shamming sane-- Some that he will be mad, some that he *was*-- Some that he couldn't be. But on the whole (As far as I can make out what they mean) The favourite theory's somewhat like this: Hamlet is idiotically sane With lucid intervals of lunacy. Cary M. Mazer University of Pennsylvania (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Mufson Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 18:42:11 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: *AYL* I have to disagree with Steve Urkowitz's remarks about *AYLI*. It may have grown less subtle than it was three years ago, but calling it high camp is a bit absurd. True, I was not able to see it earlier in its run, but what struck me about the performance I saw a couple of weeks ago was the degree to which the cast did *not* go for laughs all the time. Almost every scene explored its own dark undertones. Even Touchstone's bullying Willem off the stage became a (momentarily) sad incident--we were made to feel bad for this character for whom audiences have usually held no compassion. This willingness to explore what is *not* funny in scene after scene was anything but "safe"--indeed, it didn't always work, and the Willem scene is an example of when I thought they overdid it. But I respected and admired the choice even there because it was risky and creative. I had heard that the ambiguities of sexual attraction "reached out off the stage," and it's true that I did not notice that to be the case at BAM. But there is still a great deal to admire in the acting: that the interpretations of a great many of the lines and characters felt fresh; and that, at least relative to so much American Shakespeare, the actors had a restrained intensity that was fascinating to watch. I don't doubt that the performances have degenerated somewhat over the course of such a long tour, but I think it would be a shame if anyone decided to pass up the opportunity to see Cheek By Jowl when they return to BAM in December. There is much to learn from their work. -Dan Mufson (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 09:56:03 -0500 Subject: *Hamlet* and *MV* make the *Times* This morning's (10/18/94) *New York Times* Arts section has a review of Peter Sellars's production of *MV,* which has received some attention from members of this list. David Richards is the reviewer. There is also an article by Jan Hoffman about the continuing trials (and appeals) of *Hamlet,* this time before the City Bar Association in Manhattan. Both pieces are well worth reading. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Oct 1994 18:28:24 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0815 CLA Dean Search Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0815. Monday, 17 October 1994. From: Piers Lewis Date: Friday, 14 Oct 1994 11:29:17 -0600 Subject: CLA Dean search May I ask the membership of this list to pass the following information along? The College of Liberal Arts at Metropolitan State University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, is looking for a Dean. This could be one of best administrative jobs going just now in post-secondary education. MSU is a young and growing institution. It began, in 1971, as an upper-division college for working adults who were either returning to college or transferring from one of the local community colleges. It now has 9000 students and is in the process of becoming a four-year, comprehensive, urban university. We just admitted our first freshman class. The College of Liberal Arts is also being transformed, with immense possibilities for future growth. If you are interested or know anyone else who might be, please write to me directly at my internet address: lewis@msus1.msus.edu Or, call me at 612-772-7764. Piers Lewis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 10:18:27 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0821 CFP: North Atlantic Conference on British Studies Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0821. Wednesday, 19 October 1994. From: Patricia E. Gallagher Date: Monday, 17 Oct 1994 11:29:13 -0500 (CDT) Subject: CFP : North Atlantic Conference on British Studies This conference may be of interest to the membership. NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE OF BRITISH STUDIES 1995 MEETING, Washington, D.C. CALL FOR PAPERS The North American Conference on British Studies will hold its annual meeting in conjunction with the Mid-Atlantic Conference on British Studies at the ANA Hotel, Washington, D.C. on October 5-8, 1995. The NACBS and MACBS seek participation by scholars in all areas of British history and culture, including graduate students and scholars from abroad. Panelists are encouraged to become members of the NACBS. Proposals may consist of individual papers or entire sessions on a common theme. In view of the anticipated number of submissions, the larger number of session will include three papers (each lasting 20 minutes), a chair and a commentator. Proposals for roundtable discussions are welcome. A proposal should include a 200-word abstract for each paper and a one-page curriculum vitae for each participant, including chairs and commentators. The Program Committee will undertake to find suitable chairs and commentators for sessions proposed without them. As a rule, panelists will not be permitted to take part in more than one session, but participation at the Vancouver meeting does not preclude submission of proposals for 1995. All proposals for papers and sessions should be submitted by March 15, 1995 to: Professor Dorothy O. Helly Program Chair, MACBS Department of History Hunter College CUNY 695 Park Avenue New York, New York 10021 Phone: 212-772-5546 Fax: 212-772-5545 E-Mail: DOHHC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU PLEASE RESPOND TO PROFESSOR HELLY, AND NOT TO THE LIST ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 12:21:22 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0822 Re: Hamlet Trial; Trusting Sh; Closets; *AYL* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0822. Wednesday, 19 October 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 12:46:31 -0600 Subj: Two for one (2) From: Lee A. Jacobus Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 16:41:59 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0817 Re: Hamlet's Insanity (3) From: Stephen C. Schultz Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 14:04:25 EDT Subj: SHK 5.0814 Trusting Sh. (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 22:40:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0819 Closets (5) From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 17:02:38 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0819 Re: Gertrude's Closet: (6) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 94 06:49:20 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0820 Re: *AYL* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 12:46:31 -0600 Subject: Two for one In the Tuesday, October 18 Living Arts section of the NY Times there are two articles of interest: People v. Hamlet at the City Bar Association in Manhattan and a review of Peter Sellars' MERCHANT. If he hadn't alreay left Chicago, I am sure a number of Goodman Theatre patrons would like to see Mr. Sellars stand trial for the assassination of Shakespeare. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lee A. Jacobus Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 16:41:59 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0817 Re: Hamlet's Insanity Just a note on the trial of Hamlet. The New York Times has a story on Daniel J. Kornstein of the City Bar Association in NYC defending Hamlet. See The Tuesday October 18, 1994, issue, pp. B-1; B-2. It's a curiosity. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen C. Schultz Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 14:04:25 EDT Subject: SHK 5.0814 Trusting Sh. I don't know about the WORDS "Trust Shakespeare." The idea derives from William Poel, as clearly as it derives from anyone. Beginning in 1881 with a production of Q1 "Hamlet" on a [supposedly] Elizabethan stage, he directed until the mid-thirties a series of productions of which the first principle was to do the scripts uncut insofar as possible (because he trusted Shakespeare's dramaturgy) and to scrape the barnacles of "traditional" interpretations and business from the scripts. (That's TWO first principles, a bargain at any price.) Barker performed for Poel, beginning with a "Richard II" sometime before the turn of the century. I've tried to demonstrate that Barker derived most of the central notions animating the criticism in his "Prefaces" from Poel. In any case, Barker's productions used more of the original text than had been common in commercial theatre and he achieved the rapidity and clarity of performance that Poel desired, though his productions had more visual appeal than Poel's rather dowdy-appearing (at least in surviving b&w photos) attempts. If Poel didn't say, Trust Shakespeare" first, he should have. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 22:40:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0819 Closets Michael Best asks about closets. The OED informs us that cabinets and cupboards are also called closets. So a medical cabinet might be called a closet. Probably Gertrude is in her withdrawing room. Yours, Bill Godshalk (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 17:02:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0819 Re: Gertrude's Closet: Michael Best is quite right, of course. I'm reminded of the use of 'closet' in *The Changeling*, where Alsemero's closet, in which he has arranged all the books and vials for pregnancy tests and the like, is often glossed as a 'cabinet' in 4.1, but has become a space large enough to lock up Beatrice and De Flores by 5.3. ("But then, what's a 'cabinet'?" he mused, unwittingly throwing open the SHAKSPER floodgates.) Skip Shand (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 94 06:49:20 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0820 Re: *AYL* Dan Mufson is right about what he saw at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. By all means, if you can, go see it for the intelligence, the originality of its conception, the swift economy of stage movement that leaps magically into lush visual sensuality and laughter for the eye and the belly. My students were delighted. I was asking for several impossibilities -- an experience of its very concept unrepeatable (is it Kierkegaard who has a small book called REPETITION, about how dramatic and religious events must be experienced _ab origine_?). I saw it first in a rustic campus setting during a warm easy summer vacation. Saw it again in the post-modern crumple of the Majestic Theatre after weeks of non-stop climbing the chairmanship learning curve. Not the same river, not the same dude stepping into it. Oops. Dan Mufson's testimonial rings truer. (Reading over my other comments about editors sent out that same session makes me see the layers of irritation in my texts. Hmmm. A lesson for chairs? For this chair. Thanks for the correction.) As ever? As now, Steve Urchairkowitz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 16:18:52 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0824 Re: Hotspur Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0824. Wednesday, 19 October 1994. From: Edward Gero Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 10:43:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0813; Hotspur I have the pleasure of playing Hotspur nightly here in Washington in Michael Kahn's conflation of the two parts of Henry IV (alternately known by the cast as Henry IV Ever, Henry IV Hours and Henry IV Shortened) until November 6. It has been very well received by the critics and audiences alike, despite the four hour running time. I invite you to take advantage of seeing this production if you are in the DC area. (Hardy Cook has already done so!). In reference to the question about the rhyming couplets at the end of the rebels scene in 1HIV, IV.1 ll 121-122; 131-36, may I offer a few comments. The use of rhyming couplets in an otherwise blank verse scene indicates some shift in emotional tenour: an 'upping of the stakes' as it were. In the first speech, Vernon has just related the *vision* of Hal in full battle regalia "gallantly arm'd,/ Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,/ And vaulted with such ease into his seat/ As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds/ To turn an wind a fiery Pegasus". This apotheosis of Hal told to an incredulous Hotspur, makes him sick (Worse than the sun in March/ This praise doth nourish agues". Hotspur chides Vernon and expresses his exhilaration at the approach of his victim and in an expression of utmost eagerness and bloodlust bursts into the proclamation and vow: "Harry to Harry (in opposition to Vernon's 'Prince of Wales') shall, hot horse to horse,/ Meet and ne'er part till one drop down a corse." Blank verse simply won't suffice to express the emotional charge of the moment. Similarly, the heroics of the final lines come when the "worst tidings" of Glendower's failure to come prompts the bravado of Hotspur's glossing of the King's strength in arms and proclaiming their (the rebels) current strength to be sufficient for the day. To me, this use of rhyme provides a sharp contrast to the previous speech. Here, in my view, Hotspur forces himself to rise to the occasion, goes into rhyme and makes that ironic and less satisfying couplet "muster speedily/ die merrily." Again, the use of rhyme indicates a significant shift in emotional quality, albeit more forced in this case. I have an observation to add: I heard something curious one evening as I lie "dead" after the Shrewsbury battle. Falstaff's counterfeit speech struck me in a peculiar way. His reasoning of "to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed", sounded all too familiar being in the same process of counterfeiting dying at the precise moment. Further, his lines "I am afraid if this gunpowder Percy though he be dead; (he isn't) how if he counterfeit too and rise? (he does and will) By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit...Why may not he rise as well as I?" all get laughs. Here is another example of Shakespeare using the theatrical reality and metaphor of an actor playing dead to illustrate the duplicitous nature of Falstaff and a whole host of others in the story. After all, doesn't Hal counterfeit? Henry? I wonder if Burbage (or however it was that played Falstaff) got a big laugh when he said to Hal, "I was out of breath and so was he", in full view of an exhausted Hotspur gasping for air. Had this actor not been doing the same some 400 years later, it would never had occurred to me. It's amazing what a performance perspective can yield! Any thoughts? With apologies for the length of my widow's mite, I remain, Edward Gero Shakespeare Theatre Washington, DC egero@mason1.gmu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 16:40:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0825 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0825. Wednesday, 19 October 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 94 18:01:42 CDT Subject: authorship Just a few quick comments on the recent "Authorship" postings: I agree that Ward Elliot's computer study is not the last word on the subject; I think few if any people, least of all Elliot, would say that it is. But it is some pretty significant evidence which can't be lightly brushed aside. I think it's significant that Elliot started out as a borderline Oxfordian, but changed his mind when he saw how little Oxford's style resembles Shakespeare's. I also think it's significant that while it was going on, Elliot's study was subjected to intense scrutiny by Oxfordians, among others, and in some cases he changed or abandoned parts of it in response to their criticisms. This was all documented in a series of articles in the *Shakespeare Newsletter* a few years ago (c. 1991); in one of the final articles, Elliot defends his study point by point against the Oxfordian criticisms which had been made of it, and does a pretty good job (IMHO) of defending his methodology and showing that most of the criticisms were based on misunderstandings or incomplete information. On the other hand, I don't think you can seriously compare Elliot's study to Fowler's *Shakespeare Revealed in Oxford's Letters*, as William Boyle does. Elliot systematically compared the entire corpora of several authors, including several controls (such as Fulke Greville) who have not been claimed as the author, to the Shakespeare corpus. For Fowler's book to be remotely comparable to Elliot's study, he would have to at least have to use some controls, either taking some other playwright and showing that Oxford's letters are not reflected in that author's work, or taking some other nobleman's letters and showing that they are not reflected in Shakespeare's plays. But as far as I can tell (sorry, I haven't read the book, only reviews of it), Fowler doesn't make such control comparisons, for the simple reason that if he did, his entire thesis would be undercut. If I had the time (which I don't, right now), I'll bet you a large sum of money that I could sit down with copies of Oxford's letters on the one hand, and the plays of, say, Christopher Marlowe on the other, and come up with a startling collection of parallels. I also bet you I could take a comparable corpus of letters from another Elizabethan nobleman, say the Earl of Essex, and come up with a similarly impressive list of parallels. This is all reminiscent of the attempts by Baconians 100 years ago to find parallels between Bacon's work and Shakespeare's. Many of these attempts centered around Bacon's *Promus*, an unpublished manuscript of his, discovered in the 19th century and claimed by Baconians to contain a multitude of parallels with Shakespeare's plays and poems. Someone (I forget who) wrote a book similar to Fowler's, triumphantly showing the parallels between Bacon's *Promus* and the Shakespeare canon and offering these as "conclusive proof" that the same person wrote both. However, Stratfordian scholars (such as J. M. Robertson) showed that one could find parallels between Bacon's *Promus* and almost any Elizabethan work. The logical conclusion is that either Bacon wrote all of Elizabethan literature, or the supposed parallels are simply reflections of the literary conventions and knowledge shared by all educated Elizabethans and mean diddly squat as evidence. A few Baconians embraced the first conclusion (and some still do today; check out the latest issue of *Baconiana*, amazingly still kicking after a century), but most quietly acknowledged the second. Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 16:52:16 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0826 Qs: *Tmp.*; Sh in Prison; Videos Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0826. Wednesday, 19 October 1994. (1) From: Sallie Cooper Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 16:25:44 -0600 (MDT) Subj: The Tempest and Prospero (2) From: Patrick W. Venneri Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 04:50:38 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Shakespeare in prison. (3) From: Jean Klene Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 09:02:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Request regarding productions (4) From: Louise Spain Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 94 10:53:18 EDT Subj: video (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sallie Cooper Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 16:25:44 -0600 (MDT) Subject: The Tempest and Prospero Greetings! I am currently researching The Tempest for a project I am doing as a graduate student at Utah State University. Specifically, I am interested in talking about Prospero's age. Traditionally the character is played with a long white beard indicating old age. I am interested in any productions which have played this character in a younger vein. I am thinking around 45 years of age. Many scholars believe Shakespeare set Prospero's age as the same as his at the time he wrote the play. Anyone with any comments and information about this idea please write to Sallie at: SLNG2@cc.usu.edu Much appreciation, Sallie Cooper P.S.:Has anyone seen any of SHakespeare's plays produced with mixed media? i.e. specifically, video format of past scenes etc. How effective did these presentations seem to be? Thanks, Sallie (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patrick W. Venneri Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 04:50:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Shakespeare in prison. I hope I am sending this querry to the right place. I feel as tentative as I did in the back seat of my fathers '49 Plymouth. I am an aged scholar writing his dissertation on The Teaching of Shakespeare in Prison: or 'Lear he kicked Cordelia to the curb; he buy his clothes at K-Mart." I need to hear from people on the list if they know of any others teaching Billy the Shake in an incarcerated setting. Am trying to show how Billy's work is a tremendous way for the student-prisoner to remap their moral imperatives. Have taught in 13 Mass correctional facilities (nice word eh wot?) including the infamous Walpole. Need to establish dialog with others who have attempted either the teaching or staging of Shakespeare in prison. Thanking you in advance, please respond directly to Patrick W. Venneri English Dept American University in Cairo 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini PO Box 2511 Cairo, Egypt Patrickv@auc-acs.eun.eg. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Klene Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 09:02:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Request regarding productions Does anyone know anything about the 1983 productions of "King Lear" (Image) and the 1983 "Tempest"? Both are included in a catalogue listing plays available on laser disc, but no information about either is included. Jean Klene telephone: (219) 284-4482 or 5607 Saint Mary's College Notre Dame, IN 46556 (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Louise Spain Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 94 10:53:18 EDT Subject: video One of our faculty received the information you posted about "The Trial of Hamlet," which she would like us to buy. Do you have the price of that title? Or perhaps a phone number at Purdue so we can check it out. I'd appreciate any further information. Thanks. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Please contact Louise Spain directly ast SPLLG@CUNYVM.EDU.] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 16:16:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0823 FYI: Lear, the Musical Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0823. Wednesday, 19 October 1994. From: Andrew Norris Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 1994 16:05:15 -0400 Subject: Lear, The Musical I am sending this message to you to see if the SHAKSPER news.list would have any interest in the subject of a musical adaptation of King Lear. This is being produced in Dover, NH by the Garrison Players, and will open November 11th, 1994. I have included a press release below which gives some more details. World Premiere of LEAR, The Musical to be staged in Dover, NH. --------------------------------------------------------------- On November 11, 1994, William Shakespeare's King Lear will come to life in Dover, NH. This fall, almost 400 years after the 1606 premiere of the play, Dover will play host to an all-musical adaption of this text. Lear, The Musical is a Rock Opera composed in 1993 by Dover Native, Catherine York-Norris. It is about Lear, King of Britain, who wishes to unburden himself in his old age by distributing his land and wealth amongst his three daughters. This timeless tale deals with many complex issues involved in the relationship between parent and child, that are as much a part of our lives today as the were to Elizabethans in 1606. The composer, Catherine York-Norris is excited to be bringing her work home. Now a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, Catherine received her musical training at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. After graduating she worked as Composer for Cornell University's Center for the Theatre Arts where she developed the love for Shakespeare and the Theatre that inspired her to write Lear, The Musical. "I was looking for a style that would clarify Shakespeare's verse through music, so that this beautiful material could be shared and enjoyed by everyone. I found this style in the music of our time. My Lear, is in essence the wonderful brilliance of Shakespeare's poetry given new life by a comprehensible, accessible and expressive style of music. David Feldshuh, Artistic Director for the Cornell Center for Theatre Arts describes York-Norris as "a very exciting and daring composer who is willing to take on enormous challenges because of her own exceptional training and musical ability both as a composer and a performer. Catherine has a unique ability to synthesize diverse sources with her own musical temperament. I've found in working with her that she can not only capture the emotion of the moment with her musical insights, but also create a completely new resonance for that moment through her musical creations. She shows promise to be an important creator in American Musical Theatre. Lear, The Musical will be at the Frederick C. Walker Auditorium in Dover, NH from November 11-27. For ticket reservations and information, call the Garrison Players at (603) 742-7191. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 08:02:43 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0827 Announcing: TDR Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0827. Friday, 21 October 1994. From: Richard Schechner Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 11:47:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Announcing: TDR (T143) ...You probably heard of us but when is the last time you read... ______________________________________________________________________ ______ ______ ______ ######| ######\ ######\ ##| ##| ##\ ##|__##| ##| ##| ##| ######/ ##| ##|__##/ ##| ##\ ___________________ ##| ######/ ##| ##\_______________________ -- The Journal of Performance Studies - T143 (Fall 1994) -- TDR is the only journal that explores the diverse world of performance with an emphasis on the intercultural, interdisciplinary and experimental. It covers theatre, music, dance, entertainment, media, sports, politics, aesthetics of everyday life, games, plays and ritual. The journal is edited by Richard Schechner of the Department of Performance Studies, New York University, and is published quarterly by The MIT Press. Although TDR is not yet an electronic journal, you can browse through sample articles available on-line through the Electronic Newsstand and order via e-mail from The MIT Press (see directions below). Check out our table of contents! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- // In this issue (T143 Fall 1994) \\ -------------------------------------- /TDR Comment ----------- The Dilemma of Multiculturalism in the Theatre -- by Ethel Pitts Walker /In Memory ---------- Ron Vawter by -- Richard Schechner /Letters, Etc. -------------- Healing and Japanese Theatre -- a letter from Adam Lebowitz -- Deborah S. Klens responds /Updates -------- Big Girls Do Cry: Femininity and Toughness in the Kerrigan-Harding Affair -- by Abigail M. Feder Retrial for Sharjah Blasphemers -- by Richard Schechner /Announcements -------------- The Courage to Be Happy: Augusto Boal, Legislative Theatre, and the 7th International Festival of the Theatre of the Oppressed -- by Paul Heritage Vindicated: A Letter from Augusto Boal -- by Augusto Boal A Role to Play for the Theatre of the Oppressed -- by Douglas L. Paterson To Be or To Have -- by Zbigniew Cynkutis translated and edited by William H. Shepard Mask Face and Machine Face -- by Mikhail Yampolsky translated by Larry Joseph Playing Against the Text: Les Atrides and the History of Reading Aeschylus -- by Sallie Goetsch Who Speaks and Who Is Spoken For?: Playwright, Director, and Producer Joan Lipkin -- an interview by Iris Smith Re/membering Home and Heritage: The New World Performance Laboratory -- by Lisa Wolford "I Want the Microphone": Mass Mediation and Agency in Asian-American Popular Music -- by Deborah Wong "it was like a play in a play in a play!": Tales from South Asia in an Intercultural Production -- by Sharon A. Grady and Phillip B. Zarrilli /Books ------ Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (by Peggy Phelan) -- reviewed by Philip Auslander Ecstacy and the Demon: Feminism and Nationalism in the Dances of Mary Wigman (by Susan Manning) -- reviewed by Karl Toepfer The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660-1700 (by Elizabeth Howe) -- reviewed by Tracy C. Davis Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama (by John M. Clum); and, Communists, Cowboys, and Queers: The Politics of Masculinity in the Work of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams (by David Savran) -- reviewed by Bradley Boney Interculturalism and Performance: Writings from PAJ (edited by Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta); and, The Dramatic Touch of Difference: Theatre, Own, and Foreign (edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte) -- reviewed by Phillip B. Zarrilli Each TDR issue is filled with photographs, artwork, and scripts that illustrate every article. The journal, founded in 1955, is 7 x 10 and a 184 pages per issue. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- // To browse and subscribe \\ ----------------------------- 1. For subscription prices and ordering information, contact the publisher: MIT Press Journals 55 Hayward Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel: 617-253-2889 Fax: 617-258-6779 Email: journals-orders@mit.edu Or, access the MIT Press Online Catalog: telnet techinfo.mit.edu, under Around MIT/MIT Press/Journals/Arts/ or via gopher by typing "gopher gopher.mit.edu". 2. To browse through an article from our current issue, logon to the The Electronic Newsstand: via telnet: gopher.internet.com (login name: enews). via gopher: gopher.internet.com (port 2100). Via the gopher menu, go to: North America/USA/general/ The Electronic Newsstand/all titles/TDR:The Drama Review ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 08:06:01 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0828 Graduate Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0828. Friday, 21 October 1994. From: William Proctor Williams Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 94 12:09 CDT Subject: Graduate Conference CALL FOR ABSTRACTS I would like to call your attention to the 1995 Northern Illinois University Graduate Conference on Language and Literature scheduled for Saturday, March 25 and Sunday, March 26, 1995. Organized by graduate students at Northern Illinois University, the objective of this conference is to promote graduate student participation in the academic profession. Susan Gubar, the keynote speaker, will be speaking on the following topics: "Feminist Criticism Revisited: Where Are We Going, Where Have We Been?" (Saturday) and "White Skin, Black Face: Representation of Racechange in Twentieth-Century Culture" (Sunday). There will also be a special session on Film and Literature. THE CALL FOR ABSTRACTS ENDS ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 1995. Topics include all periods of American and British literature, creative writing (submit entire work), critical theory, film, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, ethnic studies, gay and lesbian literature, and textual criticism and bibliography. Send abstracts to: Conference Director, Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115. Fax: (815)753-0606 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 08:22:40 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0829 Re: Boy Actors in Women's Roles Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0829. Friday, 21 October 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 94 18:16:20 CDT Subject: Boy Oh Boy I'm sure James Forse will be responding to Bill Godshalk's request for clarification of his comments on boy actors, but since he has also expressed his views on the subject in print, I hope he won't mind if I jump the gun and respond both to what he's said on this list and what I think he'll say in the future. I just reread the relevant chapter of Mr. Forse's book *Art Imitates Business*, entitled "Why Boys for (Wo)men's Roles?", in which he argues that it was not boy actors but adult male sharers in the company who played the primary women's roles in Elizabethan theater. (He goes on to suggest that Shakespeare himself was the primary player of women's roles in his own troupe, a suggestion that runs into loads of problems, but I won't get into that here.) I have to say, with all due respect, that I'm not impressed with his arguements. A few points: 1) First of all, Forse spends much of his energy attacking the same straw man Declan Donnellan attacked in the NYT, namely the idea that *preadolescent* boys played all the women's roles on the Elizabethan stage. Well, nobody's saying that. The "boys" in question ranged in age from preteens to their early twenties, based on what evidence we have. The word "boy" (or alternately "lad" or "youth"), in the context of Elizabethan theatre, simply means "apprentice"; the fact that some of the "boys" thus referred to are older than the prototypical "boy" envisioned by some 20th century critic is neither here nor there. Surely we can all think of circumstances where someone in his late teens or early 20s could be referred to as a "boy" by someone significantly older. 2) Contrary to Forse's assertion, there is *plenty* of evidence that the "boys" apprenticed to actors were trained as *actors*, not simply as manservants. I refer interested parties once again to Chapter 5, "Apprentices", in G. E. Bentley's *The Profession of Player in Shakespeare's Time*; this chapter deals exclusively with boy actors in the adult companies as opposed to the children's companies. Just a couple of examples: William Trigg, aged 19 or 20, states in a petition to the Mayor's Court from 1631 that on 20 December 1626, he apprenticed himself to John Heminges (of Shakespeare's company) to learn "la 'arte d'une Stageplayer". (Trigg would have been 14 or 15 at the time.) Seventeen year old Edward Damport stated on 2 May 1633 that he "has gone with this company up and down the country playing stage plays these two years last past. His father promised his master, Edward Whiting, that he should serve him seven years." There are other instances where boy actors in the adult companies were explicitly called "apprentices". 3) There is also plenty of evidence that the "boys" or "apprentices" in question played women's roles; what little evidence there is for non- apprentices playing women's roles in the adult companies is very sketchy. James Wright's *Historia Histrionica* has a good deal of detailed information about pre-Resoration actors, including apprentices and the specific female roles they played. Forse disparages this work because it was written after the Restoration; I'm perfectly willing to concede that not every single fact in Wright's book is accurate, but to completely throw it out as evidence on that basis is not good scholarship. Wright is very explicit and detailed about apprentice boys playing women's roles, and he does not, as far as I know, talk about adult sharers playing these roles. Setting aside Wright, pre-Restoration sources are legion: Thomas Heywood in *Apology for Actors* (1608) responds to those who criticize "youths" who take the stage dressed as women; Ben Jonson's *The Devil Is an Ass* contains a scene in which two characters talk about "witty boy(s)" and "lads" being trained to act women's parts, and they go on to praise "Dick Robinson", a real boy actor in the King's Men, for going to a dinner party dressed as a lawyer's wife and causing an uproar with his bawdy talk. (They go on to say that Robinson "dresses himself the best! Beyond / Forty o' your very Ladies!"). Stage directions in surviving "Plots" of Elizabethan plays often refer to "boys", either by their own name or the name of their master (e.g. "E. Dutton his boye"). I've written more than I planned, but I just wanted to present an opposing view. Forse's book is an interesting read with a lot of iconoclastic ideas in it, and I'm all for iconoclastic ideas in principle, but if you're going to propose an idea so at odds with the mass of scholarship, you need a lot more evidence than he presents to convince me. Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 08:24:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0830 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0830. Friday, 21 October 1994. From: Marty Hyatt Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 12:45:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0825 Authorship David Kathman calls Ward Elliot's computer study "pretty significant evidence which can't be lightly brushed aside." I haven't seen Elliott's work yet. I'd like to. It sounds interesting. But it cannot serve as evidence that William Shakspere of Stratford wrote the works. There are no writings of the Stratford man to test against the works (unless one wants to use the will?). The same problem applies to Oxford. There are some poems and letters that survived under Oxford's name (unlike Shakspere), but it is not a good sample for comparison. If Oxford was "Shakespeare", then what we have under his own name is not typical of his mature work. We knew this. This is not significant evidence against his authorship. And while it is true that studying the variability of "Shakespeare" (as was done apparently) helps in this regard, it cannot cope completely with what history has given us. This is no criticism of Elliot's work, which as I've already mentioned, I haven't read. It may tell us some interesting things about Shakespeare/Oxford. But it doesn't tell us anything about Shakspere of Stratford. Martin B. Hyatt (Marty) hyatt@duq3.cc.duq.edu Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 12:46:55 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0832 Re: Hotspur Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0832. Friday, 21 October 1994. (1) From: James Schaeffer Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 12:49:44 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0824 Re: Hotspur (2) From: Milla Riggio Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 16:18:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0824 Re: Hotspur (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaeffer Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 12:49:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0824 Re: Hotspur To Edward Gero: No apologies needed! Nice insights! Jim Schaefer schaefej@guvax.georgetown.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 16:18:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0824 Re: Hotspur To all regarding Edward Gero's letter: I too saw the Henry IV. It's a glorious production! I recommend it, and I'm delighted to have been able to see parts of H IV, Part II for the first time in my life. I must say that two intelligent young folk who accompanied me to the play said they would not have gone to see Part II without Part I, so despite my own love of this play, there may be a good reason it's never acted alone. Gero is particularly good, by the way, along with his aggressive, sexually inclined wife. On a minor note, I'm supposing Burbage would NOT have played Falstaff. Is this right? Best, Milla Riggio ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 12:37:39 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0831 SAA Seminars; Filmed *Tmp.*; Prospero; *TN*; *AYL* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0831. Friday, 21 October 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 15:20:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: SAA SEMINARS? (2) From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Oct 13 14:17:17 EDT 1994 Subj: Film Version of Tempest (3) From: Thomas Hall Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 22:56:25 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Tempest and Prospero (4) From: Daniel Mufson Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 20:00:00 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: *TN* Production (5) From: Milla Riggio Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 16:12:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0822 *AYL* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 15:20:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: SAA SEMINARS? I have heard nothing about the seminar to which I will be assigned. Is everyone else in the same boat, or have I (so to speak) dropped through the cracks? Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Oct 13 14:17:17 EDT 1994 Subject: Film Version of Tempest Hi, Folks. A friend of mine is teaching _The Tempest_ in a class next semester, and she wanted to find out about film versions of the play. Does anyone know of a good film version of _The Tempest_ (and *not* _Prospero's Books_)? I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks! Leslie Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einstein.susqu.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Hall Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 22:56:25 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Tempest and Prospero In response to your question: I have not seen other production involving multi media. However I did sit through a modern "Artists" rendering of the Tempest called "Prospero's Books." This involved some sensious and lush imagery. There was more gratuitous nudity than in any movie I have ever seen! It does not involve anything even remotely Shaksperian,but it might be an place for you to start. At the very least, it's pretty to look at. Thomas Hall Northeastern Illinois University (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Mufson Date: Wednesday, 19 Oct 1994 20:00:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: *TN* Production First, I want to thank everyone for the responses I received about what people would and would not want to see in a TN production, about what TN essays they would recommend, and about worthwhile productions to look into. Second comes the embarassing part. On October 5, I attempted to download (or whatever verb one does) in order to print out the responses I received. I had never tried to do this before, and, evidently, the person I recruited to advise me was no authority, either. In short, my entire saved mail file was obliterated. I have been living in denial of this fact for two weeks, but it is time to face up to the fact that I will never recover those files. If you by any chance saved the mail you sent me, could you please send it again to mufson@minerva.cis.yale.edu? Sorry, sorry, sorry for the inconvenience. If you sent your response after October 5, I still have it. By the way, I have since figured out how to transfer documents from the network to a disk, so I won't have any problems this time around. With deep gratitude and much embarassment, -Dan Mufson Yale School of Drama [EDITOR'S NOTE: Dan, there are three things that YOU can do. First, you can order the appropriate weekly logs. For example, to order the log for the fifth week of SHAKSPER discussions in September, send "GET SHAKSPER LOG9409d SHAKSPER" to LISTSERV@UTRONTO.BITNET. More than one such request can go in an individual e-mail message. Second, you can TELNET to the gopher server at the University of Toronto (VM) and read and download the weekly logs. Third, you can use the DATABASE function to identify and order the appropriate daily digests. --HMC] (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Thursday, 20 Oct 1994 16:12:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0822 *AYL* Dear Shakesperians: I know that the Cheek by Jowl will be returning to BAM in December. Does anyone know exactly when, and even mroe when tickets will go on sale? Thanks, Milla Riggio ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:33:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0833 Goodman *MV* and *MV* Question Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0833. Saturday, 22 October 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 10:44:50 -0600 Subj: Goodman Merchant (2) From: Nathan Davis Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 09:27:00 ADT Subj: Merchant of Venice... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 10:44:50 -0600 Subject: Goodman Merchant To Sallie Cooper >PS:Has anyone seen any of Shakespeare's plays produced with mixed media? i.e. >specifically, video format of past scenes etc. How effective did these >presentations seem to be? Thanks, Sallie The current Merchant of Venice at the Goodman Theatre makes much use of TV monitors both on stage and in the audience. (See NY Times Review Oct 18). For instance Shylock does his "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech entirely upstage, a video camera the only direct witness to his performance. The rest of the audience must content itself with the image of Shylock via monitors. A statement about our society, perhaps, but altogether theatrically and dramatically unsastisfying. Concept not realization. Intellectual, not visceral. Arthur Pearson Great Lakes Protection Fund apearson@great-lakes.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nathan Davis Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 09:27:00 ADT Subject: Merchant of Venice... Good morrow to you all! I have but one simple question, but I feel it should be asked (it was brought up in a 3rd yr Shakespeare class). What is Bassanio's potential as a tragic hero? That's All From The Home Front From The Studious Student ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:43:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0834 Shakespeare's Boys; *Tmp.* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0834. Saturday, 22 October 1994. (1) From: Roger D. Gross Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 15:59:06 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Shakespeare's boys (2) From: Don Weingust Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 22:01:52 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0826 Qs: *Tmp.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roger D. Gross Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 15:59:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Shakespeare's boys I feel comfortable with "boy actors" though I don't passionately insist as James Forse suggests. The term was good enough for Willie. Remember Cleopatra's horror at the thought of surrender? She wouldn't go to Rome to see "Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness / I'th' posture of a whore". "Squeaking" doesn't sound much like a grown man. In Richard II, he speaks of underaged boys who long to go to war..."boy, with women's voices, / Strive to speak big and clap their female joints / In stiff unweildy arms..." So boys have women's voices and female joints. They must not be much past youth. In the induction to Shrew, the poor Bartholmew, the page, is dragged into the con because the Lord believes "...the boy will well usurp the grace, / Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman...". None of these seem to refer to apprentice men. William seems to have found the idea of a young male with feminine voice and movement to assume the role of a great lady. When Cleo imagines herself being boyed squeakingly, surely is thinking of the boy playing the major role in the show. I think I'll go on calling them "boy actors." Roger Gross Dept. of Drama Univ. of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR 72701 rdgross@comp.uark.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Weingust Date: Friday, 21 Oct 1994 22:01:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0826 Qs: *Tmp.* Sallie, You might look at a 1989 Roundabout Theatre Company production, starring Frank Langella as a not-so-old enchanter (pretty much his own age, as I recall). The production also featured B.D. Wong as Ariel. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:48:10 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0835 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0835. Saturday, 22 October 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Friday, 21 Oct 94 18:11:15 CDT Subject: Authorship Martin B. Hyatt correctly points out that Ward Elliot's computer study does not "prove" that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays published under his name. This is true but irrelevant, as Elliot's study was never intended to prove any such thing. The point of the study was to take the Shakespeare corpus, compare it one by one to other bodies of work attributed to a single author, and determine in each case how likely it is that a single author wrote both bodies of work. None of the other authors Elliot tested came close to Shakespeare, but Shakespeare was internally consistent across the canon (except for some tests, such as feminine endings, which changed over time as Shakespeare's style matured). The conclusion was that a single author wrote the works of Shakespeare, and that this author is not any of the others tested. The study does not in itself say who did write the works of Shakespeare, though by greatly weakening the cases for most of the rival candidates, it correspondingly strengthens the case for William Shakespeare of Stratford. By the way, Hyatt is correct in pointing out that we have no unpublished works (e.g. letters) written by William Shakespeare with which to compare his published works, but this is hardly unusual for the time. Exactly the same is true of both Christopher Marlowe and John Webster, probably the two contemporaries of Shakespeare whose works are today most popular after the Bard's. In fact, the only scrap of writing we have in the hand of these two great playwrights, *combined*, is a single signature of Marlowe's, written when he was 19 years old and only discovered about 20 years ago. Compare this with the six, possibly seven, signatures of Shakespeare. But I digress. Hyatt raises the objection, which has been raised by Oxfordians before, that the attributed works of Oxford were written in the 1570s, and that his style could have changed by the time he (supposedly) wrote the plays. This is potentially a relevant point in theory, but a pretty weak one in practice. Oxford's style is radically unlike Shakespeare's by Elliot's tests (I believe the phrase Elliot used somewhere is "out in left field"), but Shakespeare's style remains remarkably consistent over 36(+) plays. We are asked to believe that Oxford's style changed radically between the 1570's and the time he began writing plays, but then stayed consistent for a couple of decades. I find that implausible, but I suppose someone could believe it if they really wanted to, and pending further studies of how much authors' styles change over time. But a more significant problem is the Oxfordians' own dating of the plays. Since Oxford died in 1604, before about a third of the canon was written according to standard chronology, Oxfordians claim that Oxford actually wrote the plays years earlier than the standard dates, beginning in the 1570s or early 1580s. But that's when Oxford was writing the poems which appeared under his name, and which are so unlike Shakespeare's style. You can't have it both ways --- either you move the dating of the plays back a decade or so, in which case it's much, much harder to claim that Oxford's published poems are merely juvenalia not indicative of his mature style, or you leave the dating where it is, in which case Oxford died too soon to have written The Tempest, etc. I know this isn't strictly an either/or question, and that Oxfordians can always come up with some new rationalizations, but I stick by my statement that Elliot's study is significant evidence (specifically, evidence that Oxford was not the author of the Shakespeare canon) which can't be lightly brushed aside. By the way, I see that Mr. Hyatt has tipped himself off as an Oxfordian by using the spelling "Shakspere" for the Stratford man, as opposed to the author "Shakespeare". I know I'm beating my head against a brick wall here, but I'll say again what I've said before. If you go through the contemporary records which refer to the Stratford man, you'll find that by far the most common spelling of the name is "Shakespeare", and that forms without the first "e" (e.g. "Shakspere" and variants) occur about 25-30 percent of the time. If you go through the comtemporary records which refer to the playwright/poet, you'll find that by far the most common spelling of the name is "Shakespeare", and that forms without the first "e" (e.g. "Shakspere" and variants) occur about 25-30 percent of the time. In other words, given the variability in Elizabethan spelling, IT WAS THE SAME NAME, and anyone who tries to show otherwise is playing fast and loose with the facts. Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:57:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0836 [was 0SHK 5.836] Re: SAA Seminars Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0836. Saturday, 22 October 1994. (1) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 02:31:52 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0831 SAA Seminars (2) From: Milla Riggio Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 09:35:54 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0831 SAA Seminars (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 02:31:52 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0831 SAA Seminars I too am on tenterhooks regarding the seminar to which I have been assigned. I don't even want to speculate what's going on, but maybe there are many more participants this year. Anyhow, I don't know of anyone who has recieved notification yet. Patiently yours, Melissa Aaron University of Wisconsin-Madison "Schollers are men of peace, they bear no armes, but their tongues are sharper than Actius his razor, their pens carry farther, and give a lowder report than thunder; I had rather stand in the shock of a Basilisco than in the fury of a merciless Pen."--Sir Thomas Browne, *Religio Medici* (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 09:35:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0831 SAA Seminars Dear Bill Godshalk and any others who wonder: As a seminar organizer, I've been told that my list of participants will shortly be in the mail to me. So I'm supposing no participants have yet been informed for upcoming SAA seminars. Best, Milla Riggio ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 08:47:46 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0837 Re: SAA Seminars; Cheek by Jowell Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0837. Monday, 24 October 1994. (1) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 94 13:26:00 EST Subj: RE: 0SHK 5.836 Re: SAA Seminars (2) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Sunday, 23 Oct 94 10:54:21 EDT Subj: [Cheek by Jowell] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 94 13:26:00 EST Subject: RE: 0SHK 5.836 Re: SAA Seminars People who are wondering about assignments to SAA seminars should be aware that it is really very early days. I've been attending SAA seminars since 1976, and I don't recall EVER getting my assignment this early in the fall. What's all the anxiety about? Have some patience. You might also want to be aware that at the same time that she is negotiating all the stuff that needs to be negotiated for the 1995 SAA, Nancy Hodge is simultaneously having to negotiate the far more complicated arrangements for the 96 ISA meeting in Los Angeles which will coincide with the 96 SAA meeting. This is an immensely complicated task, as I'm sure you can imagine, and although she has a brilliant and enviably cooperative and skilled (but small) staff of assistants, the extraordinary work of these cotemporaneous tasks just MIGHT result in a slight delay in paperwork. I don't know that such a delay is actually happening. It seems to me, as I said, that we would not under any circumstances be getting our assignments this early. So chill out, guys. Cheers. Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Sunday, 23 Oct 94 10:54:21 EDT Subject: [Cheek by Jowell] I missed Cheek by Jowell's AS YOU LIKE IT at BAM, but the comments from Steve Urkowitz and others make me wish I had made the effort. I saw Declan Donnellan's MEASURE FOR MEASURE when I was in London this past summer and posted this note among the thumbnail reviews I put on rec.arts.theatre.plays when I returned: "MEASURE FOR MEASURE, by William Shakespeare. Cheek by Jowell at the Lyric Theater, Hammersmith . Cheek by Jowl has built quite a reputation for making Shakespearean texts accessible in well-paced and very physical touring productions, but this is the first time I caught up with them. Efforts to popularize a difficult text like this "Problem Play" should be encouraged, but it all got much too acrobatically broad for my taste. Especially inappropriate was the transformation of Angelo's verbal assault on Isabella's honor into a brutally physical near-rape. Nobody has a subtle moment or anything but a running entrance or exit in Cheek by Jowl's Shakespeare. That may be the way to sell the plays to young or non-English- speaking audiences (C. by J.'s touring itinerary reads like Phineas Fogg's), but more sophisticated audiences should look elsewhere." The production has not improved in my memory over time. I don't normally have a problem with "energetic" and fast paced classics, but this was all too far over the top. Isabella, for instance, seemed incapable of getting through a scene without bursting into uncontrolled weeping hysterics. I ran into veteran character actor, and erstwhile colleague, Clement Fowler at The National while I was there and his critique of the show was far harsher than mine. He'd been in a ringside seat where he could see better than I had from the balcony, and he said that Isabella's first scene with the disguised Duke was especially harrowing. "You should have seen it!" he said, "She got snot all over his sleeve!" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 09:02:02 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0839 Q: *Hamlet* 1.3 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0839. Monday, 24 October 1994. From: Nick Haworth Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 23:53:10 +0100 Subject: Hamlet I am currently undertaking a study involving Act 1 Scene 3 of Hamlet. I am interested in the apparent and underlying relationships between Polinus and Ophelia, Hamlet and Ophelia, Laertes and Ophelia, and Laertes and Polonius! Does anybody have, or know of any information regarding these relationships or the scene. Thanks Nick (nickh@cam.dungeon.com) (English Literature Student at Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge, England) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 08:59:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0838 Re: *Tmp.*; Prospero; *Prospero's Books* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0838. Monday, 24 October 1994. (1) From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 20:37:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0834 *Tmp.* Productions (2) From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 20:41:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0831 Prospero (3) From: Robert Lloyd Neblett Date: Sunday, 23 Oct 1994 00:36:07 -0500 (CDT) Subj: PROSPERO'S BOOKS (4) From: Michael Skovmand Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 11:58:04 MET Subj: Re: Tempest and Greenaway (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 20:37:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0834 *Tmp.* Productions I can't recall the name of the actor, but in 1989 Baltimore's Center Stage acted the "tempest" with a a Prospero who was 40ish. He was quite good as I recall though the production itself was forgettable. Pipa Pearthree was an energentic Ariel, but the the rest of the production escapes me except the use of the trap doors through out the theatre which made for some magical entrances. Perhaps someone with a clearer memory of this production can fill in the blanks. Nonetheless, the younger Prospero did shift the focus some what. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 20:41:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0831 Prospero While a great version of *The Tempest* has not yet been filmed, an MLA publication "Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare's *The Tempest* and Other Late Romances" [edited by Maurice Hunt] should be of some help in identifying current filmed versions. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Lloyd Neblett Date: Sunday, 23 Oct 1994 00:36:07 -0500 (CDT) Subject: PROSPERO'S BOOKS Will someone please explain to me the animosity I have inferred regarding Peter Greenaway's film PROSPERO'S BOOKS? It seems as though some SHAKSPERians do not wish to regard it as a valid interpretation of THE TEMPEST. I highly disagree. You could hardly ask for a better Prospero than Gielgud. Though it is highly edited, the text is still present. In fact, the text's creation is the motivation behind the film's concept. And the Masque scene is done in the most effective fashion that I have ever seen. The film made me reevaluate my jaded attitudes to the play and revitalized my interest in alternative modes of Shakespearean performance. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Skovmand Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 11:58:04 MET Subject: Re: Tempest and Greenaway Allow me to take issue with the easy dismissal by Thomas Hall and others of Greenaway's *Prospero's Books* -his idiosyncratic rendition of The Tempest from 1991. While the film is obviously unsuited as a beginners' introduction to The Tempest, it is brilliantly appropriate, at university level, as a provocative critical statement about the central concerns of the play. It is not true to say that there is nothing Shakespearean about it. Practically all the text of the play is retained. Greenaway , however, uses two very unusual structuring ideas, which the student/critic needs to unpack in order make sense of the film. Both ideas are directly related to central themes of the play: one structuring idea is to have Gielgud/Prospero/Shakespeare speak all the parts, as far as the final reconciliation scene. The other -related- idea, is to literalize the passage: *...Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnished me/From mine own library with volumes that/I prize above my dukedom (I.ii.166-68) Greenaway's is a 'strong misreading' which visualizes the well- established idea of The Tempest as Shakespeare's artistic Autobiography and Last Will, a dramatization of *Prospero's auto- critique of the autonomous imagination* - to quote Claus Schatz- Jacobsen's article 'Knowing I Lov'd My Books: Shakespeare, Greenaway and the Prosperous Dialectics of Word and Image' (SCREEN SHAKESPEARE, Aarhus University Press 1994, DK-8000 Aarhus C (Edited - alas - by myself). Greenaway's Prospero's Books, IMHO, is too cerebral (for all its nudity) to be a great Tempest. But it is a beautiful and challenging film - AND eminently teachable, in that it forces the student/critic into a stimulating process of unpacking and unravelling which has all sorts of secondary rewards - discussions of *faithfulness* to the text, of generic differences between playtext/theatrical performance/ film, etc. Michael Skovmand Dep't of English U. of Aarhus Denmark ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 10:02:37 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0841 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0841. Monday, 24 October 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 23:31:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0835 Authorship No one has yet (I believe) mentioned Tom Pendleton's review of Irvin Matus's SHAKESPEARE, IN FACT in the latest number of SHAKESPEARE NEWSLETTER. It's a must. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 10:00:23 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0840 Re: Shakespeare's Boys Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0840. Monday, 24 October 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 23:22:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0834 Shakespeare's Boys (2) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Sunday, 23 Oct 1994 16:36:02 +1000 (EST) Subj: Re: Shakespeare's Boys (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Saturday, 22 Oct 1994 23:22:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0834 Shakespeare's Boys I have an anecdote. Back in the early 60s, before I had read EPICOENE, I saw a production of the play at Tufts. It was very well done (as I recall), and I recall vividly the moment when the wig came off. I and most of the ignorant in the audience made strange sounds when we realized that this very pretty young woman was a young man of, say, twenty years. Randle Holme, ACADEMY OF ARMORY, Book II, chapter XVII (3e2r), claims that a babe becomes a Boy or Lad at seven, a Stripling or young Boy from seven to fourteen, a Youth (or Adolescens or Juvenal) from fourteen to twenty-one. One is a young man until 30. Thereafter it's all down hill. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Sunday, 23 Oct 1994 16:36:02 +1000 (EST) Subject: Re: Shakespeare's Boys Further to what Roger Gross has said, there seems to be plenty of evidence from the plays that the actors were young males with unbroken voices. Portia talks about her impersonation of a young lawyer, saying that she will "speak between the change of man and boy/ With a reed voice". Hamlet exclaims that the actor who is to play the Player Queen has grown --"nearer heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine"-- and prays that his "voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring". Viola presents herself as a eunuch, appropriately named Cesario, when she is in disguise. Julia in Two Gents wants to disguise herself as "some well-reputed page" and Rosalind, while hoping for a manly aspect in her disguise, nevertheless chooses the name Ganymede, "Jove's own page". These roles seem more fitted to what we now think of as boys than to adult males, though the Cheek By Jowl AYLI which I saw several years ago convinced me that the other is possible. Adrian Kiernander University of New England akiernan@metz.une.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 10:56:04 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0842 Q: Shakespeare Conferences in France or England Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0842. Monday, 24 October 1994. From: Jon Emil Claessen Gudbrandsson Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 14:44:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Conferences Can anyone provide me with information regarding conferences on Shakespeare and related matters held in either France or England during the next month? Thank you very much. Jon Emil Cl. Gudbrandsson jongu@rhi.hi.is ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:08:17 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0843 Re: *Prospero's Books* and Filmed *Tmp.*s Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0843. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 10:54:03 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0838 Re: *Tmp.*; Prospero; *Prospero's Books* (2) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 16:39:22 -0600 Subj: Tempest (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 10:54:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0838 Re: *Tmp.*; Prospero; *Prospero's Books* Another comment about Greenaway's Prospero's Books: Peter Greenaway isn't in the business of making his films easy for anybody. Compared to The Draftsman's Contract, though, Prospero's Books is relatively linear and continuous. Greenaway loves images as much as Joyce loved words. In a way some of our dropout students who avidly watch MTV may be better prepared to cope with his post-modernist, Godard-ish, ways than their teachers. For some reason, Tempest has attracted daring, avant-garde filmmakers. See, for example, Derek Jarman's punk 1980 Tempest, or Paul Mazursky's 1982 recontextualization, The Tempest. Could it be because Tempest exposes the tension between power and knowledge that haunts the contemporary liberal agenda? Anyway Greenaway's movie may not seem on the surface to represent Tempest literally but it tears the text apart to reconstitute it for modern readings. Don't condemn it out of hand but wait six beats, at least. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 16:39:22 -0600 Subject: Tempest In response to Leslie Harris, A modern, more adaptation than version, of The Tempest is an interesting one with Raul Julia, Susan Sarandon, John Cassavetes and his wife. Available on video, circa mid 70's? Arthur Pearson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:14:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0844 Re: Boy Actors Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0844. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. (1) From: Mitchell J. Brown Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 10:34:00 CDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0840 Re: Shakespeare's Boys (2) From: Christopher Fassler Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 18:30:41 -0400 Subj: "Boys" as actors (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mitchell J. Brown Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 10:34:00 CDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0840 Re: Shakespeare's Boys I would like to recommend Robertson Davies' book SHAKESPEARE'S BOY ACTORS as part of this discussion. I believe it was originally written as Davies' Master or Doctoral thesis. In the book, he analyzes all the female roles in each play and judges the feasibility of the role being played by a 'boy'. His view of whether or not the role can successfully be played by a boy seems to be based on the emotional complexity of the role. A one-note character is easily playable by a boy, where the more complex women, like Cleopatra or Portia, might be played by young men. I may be wrong on this assessment, but I do recommend the book, and ANYTHING by Davies. Mitchell Brown Chicago (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christopher Fassler Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 18:30:41 -0400 Subject: "Boys" as actors > I feel comfortable with "boy actors" though I don't passionately > insist as James Forse suggests. The term was good enough for > Willie. Remember Cleopatra's horror at the thought of > surrender? She wouldn't go to Rome to see "Some squeaking > Cleopatra boy my greatness / I'th' posture of a whore". > "Squeaking" doesn't sound much like a grown man. Finally, someone (Roger Gross) has quoted my favorite line on the boy actors issue. And yet... On the authority, admittedly, of no more than what I have picked up along the way (usually when reading articles and news stories about the Cairo conference on population), I would like to suggest that 14-21-year-olds in early modern England, especially apprentices, were unlikely to have been as physically mature as males of the same age are in developed countries. My understanding is that the (comparatively) nutricious diet enjoyed by most people today greatly shortens the amount of time it takes us to mature, physically anyway. In short, such characteristics as squeaky voices and adolescent physiques were probably much more common among the teenage population of Shakespeare's time than they are today, and, thus, "boy" actors were more likely to have been just that even while their minds and habits were maturing/degenerating into those of confident and accomplished actors. "I go alone,/ Like to a lonely dragon," back to my lair. Yours, --Christopher Fassler ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:25:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0845 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0845. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. (1) From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 16:48:19 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0818 Authorship (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 08:31:16 +1000 (EST) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 16:48:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0818 Authorship Taking your queries one at a time, beginning with John Cox: 1) SHAXICON is coming along nicely while ruining my life with the mountain of correspondence that it has generated. Most of these queries ask for help from SHAXICON with particular textual problems--answering just one letter is therefore, typically, a two- or three-hour labor, sometimes longer. My stack of unanswered letters is so deep that it won't stay vertical without help from a plastic grocery-store bag. (My apologies to those of you to whom I still owe letters. Bear with me. I'm pedaling as fast as I can.) In desperation, I have tried giving away SHAXICON free to everyone who asked for it--but since I haven't yet written a detailed user's manual, this only produced more queries. I'm now shooting for 1996 publication of the database and manual. I'm also working on a companion volume, tentatively called the "SHAXICON Notebook," that attempts to correlate what we know of stage history and textual transmission with what SHAXICON seems to imply. I'm also trying to round up additional help from statisticians. Over thanksgiving break or thereabouts I hope to write an essay that will bring everyone up to date. 2) Next, in response to Matthew Westcott Smith, who writes: "As a political scientist specializing in the Shakespeare's political thought, I was disturbed by the implications of D. Foster's comments on Ward Elliott's program at Claremont on 10/15: "Elliott is a political scientist not a literary scholar, but his 'Shakespeare Clinic' is not without value. I am I [sic] to interpret this as meaning any non-literary inquiry in to the corpus (until given the imprimatur of the likes of Foster) *is* without value...." &c. yikes! My apologies to Political Scientists, one and all. As it happens, Ward Elliott is a fine, capable scholar, a wonderfully jovial human being, and a friend with whom I have had a long and fruitful exchange. We have had our disagreements, Ward and I, but we have demonstrated that it is quite easy for literary scholars and interested political scientists to communicate, profitably and without hysteria. I trust that the rest of my 10/15 note, which Mr. Smith doesn't quote, conveys my admiration for Ward Elliott's significant accomplishments. So onward, Mr. Smith! In to the corpus! And be sure to avoid the likes of Foster. Please. 3) To William Boyle. Some of Ward Elliott's dead ends have included, for example, an effort to distinguish authors by the number of exclamation points, which as it happens is entirely dependent upon editorial practice. To make matters more complicated, ! and ? are used more or less interchangably in Renaissance printed texts. But don't get your hopes up. Elliott's study offers no glimmer of hope, even in its weakest surviving test like the enclitic/ proclitic business, of rescuing Oxfordian theories. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 08:31:16 +1000 (EST) Subject: Authorship I wonder if Dave Kathman really imagines that Oxfordians think that Edward De Vere wrote all or most of the plays in the 1570s and early 1580s, then left them locked up in a bureau for fifteen years or so until he felt like publishing a few of them in quarto. No Dave, we don't think that. That would be foolish. What we think is that De Vere wrote them, saw most of them performed at Court and in the playhouses during those early decades, and revised them thoroughly for publication during the 1590s and early 1600s. There is no question of 'having it both ways'. It's perfectly obvious that none of Shakespeare's plays are written in the style or, more to the point, the verse forms, of the 1570s and early '80s. Did you think we mightn't have noticed that little detail? I emphasise the matter of verse forms because although, like Marty Hyatt, I'm labouring under the disadvantage of not having read Ward Elliot's unpublished study, I gather that prosodic features (feminine endings? tag lines?) are among those that were tested. If so, it is, as Marty says, hardly surprising if De Vere's early effusions didn't test out as 'Shakespearean'. The difference between juvenilia and mature work is usually fairly marked in any period. How much more so when the difference is overdetermined by the rapid shifts in English prosody and vocabulary that were occurring in these years. All things considered, I find it remarkable that there are, in fact, such *pronounced* similarities of theme and language between the young De Vere and the mature 'Shakespeare'. Dave Kathman and Ward Elliot seem to share not only an interest in the authorship question, but also a sort of stylistic essentialism which allows them to suppose that an author can be stylistically 'fingerprinted'. Welcome back, Frederick Fleay! I don't believe such signatures exist, nestling in the text untouched by differences of genre and verse form, and by the passage of the years. But even if I'm wrong the disproportion in the size of the sample as between Shakespeare (37 plays, 154 sonnets, etc. etc.) and the acknowledged De Vere (two dozen brief lyrics) makes the comparison meaningless. And finally, the name. Clearly Shakspere and Shakespeare *are* the same name etymologically. So (perhaps) were Durbeyfield and D'Urberville, but the social difference between them was rather important in Hardy's novel. I'm sure Dave Kathman sees the 'Shakspere' as a badge of Oxfordianism, and maybe it is, but it's not so much a brick wall you're beating your head against, Dave, as a feather doona: it's more a matter of convenience than an argument or an article of faith. By the way, E. K. Chambers, whom Dave likes to quote from time to time, always spelled the Stratford man's name 'Shakspere'. Pat Buckridge. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:34:03 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0846 Conferences: Shakespeare in France and Performance Studies Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0846. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. (1) From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 20:11:53 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0842 Q: Shakespeare Conferences in France or England (2) From: Amanda Barrett Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 22:45:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: First Annual Performance Studies Conference (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 20:11:53 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0842 Q: Shakespeare Conferences in France or England Jon Emil Cl. Gudbrandsson asks: 'Can anyone provide me with information regarding conferences on Shakespeare and related matters held in either France or England during the next month?' Next month, in Tours, Universite Francois Rabelais, a conference on Julius Caesar, 24-26 November. The play happens to be on the syllabus for the competitive exams (4th or 5th year students) for future secondary school teachers of English. Most papers will certainly be in French, I'm afraid, though the students will be expected to compose in English. This kind of conference gathers most French Shakespearian scholars, at least those who teach the play in their departments. It is not attended by the students but by those who prepare them to their exams. Contact: Michel Bitot, 4, allee des Cedres La Marbelliere 37300 JOUE LES TOURS (France) This is his personal address: I don't have the department's address at home. Don't hesitate to write to him. The first day of the conference must be a Thursday, which means that the papers will begin in the afternoon. It may take place at the Centre d'Etudes Superieures de la Renaissance in the old town. It is a very pretty old town, and I recommend the visit to anyone travelling in the Loire area. One more word (a personal obsession as some may know): very nice wines... On related matters, though slightly later, the society for Anglo-american 17th-18th century studies holds its congress in Paris, Universite Sorbonne Nouvelle, Institut du monde anglophone, rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, 75006 Paris. The theme is: 'Literature and the Sister Arts'. It is on the same week end as the JC conference, 25-26 November. The papers will mostly deal with 18th century artists, which is a totally different field if you are a Shakespeare addict or Elizabethan scholar. Luc (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Amanda Barrett Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 22:45:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: First Annual Performance Studies Conference The Performance Studies Departments of New York University and Northwestern University are pleased to announce the -------------------------------------------- FIRST ANNUAL PERFORMANCE STUDIES CONFERENCE T H E F U T U R E O F T H E F I E L D -------------------------------------------- 24-26 March 1995 New York University Submissions must be postmarked: 1 November 1994 We invite participants to question Performance Studies as an interdisciplinary and intercultural project, to expand or complicate existing critical paradigms, and to target areas for future work. We welcome contributions which address a wide range of issues, methodologies, and approaches in relation to culture and performance. The committee will review abstracts or, preferably, full papers (c. 10 pages, 20 minutes); proposals for panels, seminars, workshops, and "breakout" sessions; and performances. Presentations which engage or critique the performance conventions of the scholarly conference are encouraged. NYU journals TDR and Women & Performance will also consider papers for publication. Registration and housing information will be mailed in January, 1995. Send proposals and inquiries to: Amanda Barrett and Jill Lane, Directors Performance Studies Conference Department of Performance Studies Tisch School of the Arts, NYU 721 Broadway, New York, NY 10003. phone: (212) 998-1624 e-mail: ps-conf@acfcluster.nyu.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:37:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0847 Q: Shakespeare in Eastern Europe Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0847. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. From: Michael Field Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 18:11:12 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Russia I will be traveling to Russia, the Ukraine and Czechoslovakia in December and am interested in any Shakespearian productions and/or companies performing in those countries, particularly in smaller, avant-garde groups that might be brought to the U.S for performance. Does anyone have any contacts or suggestions? I'm intending to visit Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and Prauge, but I'm flexible. If you have travel tips I'd appreciate them as well (I know, I know -- dress warmly). Please respond in person unless you have information that might be interesting to the list. Many thanks in advance. Mike Field Johns Hopkins University pmf@resource.ca.jhu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:42:38 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0848 [was 0SHK 5.848] Re: SAA Seminars Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0848. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 22:45:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0837 Re: SAA Seminars I want to apologize for asking about the SAA Seminars, and especially to Nancy Hodge. I'm sure that Nancy is very busy, and I am even surer that we SAA members could come up with a better way of assigning seminars with a longer lead time. However, I do believe that we usually get our assignments before the end of October. And for those of us who are nerds and like to prepare the essays that we submit to the seminars, and who are busy teaching, etc., every month counts. And I certainly want to apologize to Naomi Liebler who apparently feels the need to tell the "guys" (males only?) to chill. Yours, Cool Bill ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:45:51 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0849 Job Announcement Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0849. Tuesday, 25 October 1994. From: Arvid F. Sponberg Date: Monday, 24 Oct 1994 22:33:28 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Position Available Pending budget approval, a tenure-track assistant professorship starting Fall 1995. Ph.D. in hand. Broad teaching interests with scholarly concentration in 16th and 17th century British Literature is essential, as is commitment to working at a university engaged in issues of Christian higher education in the Lutheran tradition. Experience in composition, supervising teacher education, or ESL is desirable. Interviews at the MLA convention in San Diego, CA Dec 27-30, 1994. Minorities please apply. Send a letter of application and CV to Arvid F. Sponberg, Chair, Department of English. Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383. We are an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:19:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0850 Re: Boys and Women's Roles Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0850. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. (1) From: James Forse Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 15:17:39 -0500 (EST) Subj: *boys* again (2) From: Steven Gagen Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 10:36:42 +1100 Subj: State of Nutrition of Boy Actors (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Forse Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 15:17:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: *boys* again Let's take a look at some other evidence: c.1600 the Reading town records note that a play was delayed because the Queen was shaving. Davenant's Royal patent, 1660 states: *That whereas the women's parts in plays have] hitherto been acted by MEN (emphasis mine) in the habits of women, of which some have taken offence, we permit and give leave for the time to come, that all women's parts be acted by women.* The poetic prologue to a 1660 performance of Othello states: *But to the point: In this reforming age/ We have intents to civilize the stage./Our women are defective, and so siz'd/You'd think they were some of the guard disguis'd:/ For, to speak truth, men act, that are between/Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;/With bone so large and nerve so incompliant,/When you call Desdemona enter Giant.* None of these suggest *boys* or even mature-retarded young men as the norm for portrayal of women. Shakespeare's Cleopatra complains *Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness...* Yet in context this may well be a slam at Samuel Daniel's *Tragedy of Cleopatra* played by the Queen's Revels Boys. The company was under some form of oversight by Daniel, and a revised version of his Cleopatra play was printed in 1607. I think the remark by Shakespeare's Cleopatra is meant for competitive contrast rather than a slam at the very actor portraying the role at the Globe. Coryat's comment on women on Venetian stages does not, as miscited, read boys, it reads: *as ever I saw any masculine Actor.* With the possible exception of Jonson's reference to Dick Robinson (and we can't pinpoint his age too well), most of the praise of boy actors portraying women is in the context of boys in the boys companies' productions. And those comments can just as well be interpreted as reflecting the *novelty* of the phenomenon rather than a passing comment on general practice in the adult companies. My disagreement with Bentley's et al. evidence is with its application. Evidence from plot books tends to place actors designated *boys* or apprentices in minor roles: devils, pygmies, female and male children, smallish female engenue roles. One certainly can project that evidence to suggest that Merry Wives' Anne Page, *Shrew's* page-boy as Lady, and roles of that ilk were taken by young trainees in the adult companies, but I see little evidence linking them to the major female roles, nor clear imperatives that because they did play these minor female roles that it necessarily follows that they also played the major ones. Bentley's evidence of young males being apprenticed as actors needs to be viewed in chronological framework. Those he cites from 1606 and 1609 as being apprenticed specifically as actor-trainees are attached to children's companies. Most of his evidence specifically linking apprenticeship to acting in reference to adult companies dates from the last years of the reign of James I and from the reign of Charles I. By that time we're into a 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation of professional theatre in London; the organization is becoming far more established: company managers, for instance, are being recognized as heads of theatrical troupes. Wright's *Historia* basically refers to the same era. I don't discount those accounts, but I question what I perceive as ascribing practice of a mature instution to its childhood. Further, by that era indoor theatre, which because of its intimacy would give the audience a closer look, had become the standard. On the stage of the amphitheatres (even though audiences were fairly close to the platform), the size of the actor would be about all that would stand out. As I've argued before, topped with a wig, face painted white, dressed in farthingales, who could notice whether the actor portraying a women was a bit long-in-the-tooth? And tenor voices of a softer lilt are not the exclusive province of adolescents. I'm sure none of the above will serve to answer all the objections reinterpreting accepted tradition brings forth. But let me suggest that it does matter when we call males aging most likely from 17 to 24 years of age, *boys.* The very fact that they are, to quote Professor Kathman, "older than the prototypical *boy* envisioned by some 20th century critic" creates a false image of what was happening on the stage because it perpetuates the image of *the prototypical boy* in the minds of most, and conjures up visions of Freddy Bartholomew or McCully Curkin playing Lady Macbeth. So if you are not willing to entertain the possibility that partners who specialized in female roles may have portrayed the major women's parts in Elizabethan drama, still, I would urge you to abandon the term *boys* in favor of a phrase closer to the actual situation--perhaps *young men* or *high-school/college age men* or something of that ilk. J. Forse: History: Bowling Green State University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steven Gagen Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 10:36:42 +1100 Subject: State of Nutrition of Boy Actors Christopher Fassler suggests that "14-21-year-olds in early modern England, especially apprentices, were unlikely to have been as physically mature as males of the same age are in developed countries." His "understanding" about "the comparatively nutritious diet enjoyed by most people today" is incorrect, and a common modern fallacy. While it is true that the diet of mid to late 19th century England *among the working classes* was undoubtedly inferior to that of today, the diet of the common people of England in Shakespeare's day was, in general, balanced and nutritious, even if it did not include many of the fruits and vegetables which were introduced later from the New World. Contemporary accounts by foreign travellers point to the comparatively high standard of living of the common people in England compared with the rest of Europe, and the quality of their food. It must be remembered that the England of that time was almost entirely agrarian, and the population was much lower than today. Even the poorest peasant would not have gone without adequate meat and drink, given the fact that he had ubundant means of growing his own food. Steve Gagen Department of Agriculture, East Melbourne, Victoria ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:28:58 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0851 Re: "Young" Prospero Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0851. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 10:15:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: SHK 5.0834 *Tmp.* Production [Re: Kimberly Nolan's mention of the Center Stage production of *Tmp.*] Prospero was played by Byron Jennings who earlier had been John Worthing in *The Importance of Being Earnest*; his Prospero was "youngish" but old enough to have a marriageable daughter. His "youth" gave vigor and danger to his anger. Still I remember him as a man--not as a young man: he was not an "old" man. Age of Prospero should not be a problem in a production of the play: the director has limited choices--e.g. "boy," "man," or "old man." Choice then directs tone/movement of the play: "man" seems to be the most reasonable choice [unless director wants to have Prospero read his books again! NOT!]. Shakespeare's Prospero does appear to take an early retirement: "...retire me to my Milan, where/ Every third thought shall be my grave." Regards. Jim Hill. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:31:31 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0852. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. From: Shawnee Ricker Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 12:56:14 -0300 (ADT) Subject: Teaching Hamlet with film I am an education student researching the implications of using film when teaching Hamlet to 16 year old students. I would appreciate any comments from teachers who are have experience with this. Please reply directly to me at i9k1@unb.ca Thanks. I will really appreciate your thoughts. Shawnee Ricker University of New Brunswick Canada ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:34:14 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0853 Death Raul Julia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0853. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. From: Penelope Klein Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 94 12:14:25 -0500 Subject: Re: The untimely death of Raul Julia I just wanted to offer condolences to the family of Raul Julia and to commiserate with all who enjoyed his various Shakespearean roles in recent times. He obviously loved Shakespeare, and brought to his roles a vigour and passion rarely seen. I felt deeply sad when I learnt of his death. Penelope Klein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:47:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0854 Gummed Velvet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0854. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. From: Julian Hirsh Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 18:38:32 GMT Subject: Gummed Velvet 1 Henry IV II.ii.1;- POINS: Come shelter, shelter! I have removed Falstaff's horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet. The commentaries on seem to assume that the phrase refers to velvet fabric stiffened with glue. This seems most unconvincing, and an alternative interpretation is suggested. Stags shed their horns each year, regrowing them in the spring with more tines, so that the age of the animal can be deduced from their conformation. They are covered with soft vascularised fur known as Velvet, which nourishes the horn. As the horns mature the blood supply to the velvet closes off and it dies. RICHARD PRIOR DEER WATCHING 1987 Swan Hill Press. This book describes how as the velvet dies it decays and attracts flies, which makes the stag shake his head to get rid of them. Later the velvet hangs down in strands, and he is said to be 'in tatters'. He frays them on any convenient tree or branch, and the book contains a table of the heights to which each species of deer will damage trees by fraying and by browsing. A NEW ENGLISH DICTIONARY ON HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES. Ed. Sir James Murray Oxford University Press 1928 1576 TURBERY Venerie 47. Then they discouered themselves, going unto the trees to fray their heads and rub of the velvet. 1884 JEFFRIES Red deer iv.72. While the the bark or skin remains on the horn the stag is said to be 'in velvet' and is not hunted. OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 1933, Clarendon Press VELVET The soft downy skin which covers a deer's horns while in the growing stage. 1892 PRICE Barren ground N Canada 43 A VELVET It was a full grown bull in prime condition, the velvet not yet shed, but the horns quite hard underneath. We don't know that Shakespeare was ever a haberdasher, but we do know he was born a countryman who lived near Charlecote Park with its herd of Red Deer, and there is always the apocryphal story about his incurring the enmity of the Lucy family by poaching their deer and having smartly to remove himself to London before the Law caught up with him! As a boy in the country he would certainly have known about stags and Velvet. Anyway the main point is surely that the image of Falstaff running up and down frantically trying to find his horse in the dark fits beautifully with that of a stag, frantic with the irritation of the velvet, running up and down to try to scrape it off. Conversly to my mind it doesn't fit with sticky velvet, which is more like the story of the feather soaked in treacle as a pacifier for babies! The association with the word does not appear in this context in the few sources I have consulted, and is the obvious weak point in this explanation. It does seem to be associated with the fabric, but Shakespeare of course was noted for the compression of his images. I would suggest that the primary image is that of the stag rather than that of the fabric. It would be most interesting to know if this explanation has been suggested previously; I have not seen it before but I am sure we will find out! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:55:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0855 Shakespeare in Eastern Europe and Africa Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0855. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. (1) From: P. Jerald Bangham Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 22:57:08 -0400 Subj: [Re: Shakespeare in Eastern Europe] (2) From: Mark Andre Singer Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 23:03:16 -0400 (EDT) Subj: The Bard in Africa Bibliography (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: P. Jerald Bangham Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 22:57:08 -0400 Subject: [Re: Shakespeare in Eastern Europe] >I will be traveling to Russia, the Ukraine and Czechoslovakia in December and >am interested in any Shakespearian productions. Does anyone have any contacts >or suggestions? The only Shakespeare I've seen in Russia was the Cheek by Jowel Measure for Measure which played at the Moscow Art Theatre last summer. Incidently, the performance that I saw did not strike me as being in any way excessive and I would highly recommend it. I've recently purchased Internet in a Box and have been exploring WWW. There is a St. Petersburg page that includes a current theatre listings that would certainly be worth checking out if you have access. The St. P. listing has other items that I would assume would be useful for a visitor. The address is http://www.spb.su/lifestyl/index html I just checked what is on now and was amazed to find Cheek by Jowel's As You Like It is on Thursday night. Also the ballet version of Romeo and Juliet. I enjoyed my rather brief visit to St. P. after the IFTR meeting last summer and hope to get back again soon for a more lesurely visit. Jerry Bangham jbangham@KUDZU.WIN.NET (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Andre Singer Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 1994 23:03:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: The Bard in Africa Bibliography I am writing a graduate seminar paper on Shakespeare in Africa. Teaching Shakespeare in West Africa taught me that issues of emergent nationalism, dynastic power struggles and forbidden love, are of keen interest to non-Western cultures. My students thought contemporary "standard" English was a difficult language so Elizabethan language phased them not. Ironically, it seemed to me that WS was more accesible to first generation nomads than the American students I had taught. Of special interest to my current research is generally how WS ciculates in African culture. The performative problematics cited not long ago about a multi-lingual TN in South Africa is the kind of information I covet. There's a fair amount of scholarly treatment of the Africa in Shakespeare (centered mostly around *The Tempest*). Now, I'd like to examine how the Bardic canon is received in Africa; how it's performed, circulated, digested, reflected, and absorbed. Any ideas, and/or bibliographic direction most welcome. Cheers, Mark Andre Singer Univ. at Buffalo V219JCLC@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:59:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0856 ACH/ALLC '95 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0856. Wednesday, 26 October 1994. From: Eric Dahlin Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 94 11:03:57 PDT Subject: ACH/ALLC '95 My apologies for any duplicate mailings. Eric Dahlin HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ====================================================================== ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES ASSOCIATION FOR LITERARY AND LINGUISTIC COMPUTING 1995 JOINT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ACH-ALLC 95 JULY 11-15, 1995 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA CALL FOR PAPERS This conference--the major forum for literary, linguistic and humanities computing--will highlight the development of new computing methodologies for research and teaching in the humanities, the development of significant new computer-based resources for humanities research, especially focusing on the issues and problems of networked access to materials, and the developing applications, evaluation, and use of traditional scientific and computing techniques in humanities disciplines. TOPICS: We welcome submissions on topics and applications focused on the humanities disciplines, defined as broadly as possible: languages and literature, history, philosophy, music, art, linguistics, anthropology and archaeology, creative writing, and cultural studies. We are interested in receiving technical proposals that focus on the cutting edge issues of the application of scientific tools and approaches to humanities disciplines; discipline-based proposals that focus on some of the more traditionally defined applications of computing in humanities disciplines, including text encoding, hypertext, text corpora, computational lexicography, statistical models, and syntactic, semantic, stylistic and other forms of text analysis; broad library and research-based proposals that focus on significant issues of text documentation and information retrieval; and tools-focused proposals that offer innovative and substantial applications and uses for humanities-based teaching and research, throughout the academic and research worlds. The deadline for submissions is 31 DECEMBER 1994. REQUIREMENTS: Proposals should describe substantial and original work. Those that concentrate on the development of new computing methodologies should make clear how the methodologies are applied to research and/or teaching in the humanities, and should include some critical assessment of the application of those methodologies in the humanities. Those that concentrate on a particular application in the humanities (e.g., a study of the style of an author) should cite traditional as well as computer-based approaches to the problem and should include some critical assessment of the computing methodologies used. All proposals should include conclusions and references to important sources. INDIVIDUAL PAPERS: Abstracts of 1500-2000 words should be submitted for presentations of thirty minutes including questions. SESSIONS: Proposals for sessions (90 minutes) are also invited. These should take the form of either: (a) Three papers. The session organizer should submit a 500-word statement describing the session topic, include abstracts of 1000-1500 words for each paper, and indicate that each author is willing to participate in the session; or (b) A panel of up to 6 speakers. The panel organizer should submit an abstract of 1500 words describing the panel topic, how it will be organized, the names of all the speakers, and an indication that each speaker is willing to participate in the session. POSTERS AND DEMONSTRATIONS ACH-ALLC '95 will include poster presentations and software and project demonstrations (either stand-alone or in conjunction with poster presentations) to give researchers an opportunity to present late-breaking results, significant work in progress, well-defined problems, or research that is best communicated in conversational mode. By definition, poster presentations are less formal and more interactive than a standard talk. Poster presenters will have the opportunity to exchange ideas one-on-one with attendees and to discuss their work in detail with those most deeply interested in the same topic. Posters are actually several large pieces of paper that present an overview of a topic or a problem. Poster presenters are given space to display two or three posters, and may provide handouts with examples or more detailed information. Poster presenters must be present at their posters at a specific time during the conference to describe their work and answer questions, but posters will remain up throughout the conference. Specific times will also be assigned for software or project demonstrations. Further information on poster presentations is available from the Program Committee chair. Posters proposals and software and project demonstrations will be accepted until February 15, 1995 to provide an opportunity for submitting very current work that need not be written up in a full paper. Poster or software/project demonstration proposals should contain a 300 to 500 word abstract in the same format described below for paper proposals. Proposals for software or project demonstrations should indic ate the type of hardware that would be required if the proposal is accepted. Doctoral students are encouraged to consider poster submission as a viable means for discussing ongoing dissertation research. FORMAT OF SUBMISSIONS Electronic submissions are strongly encouraged. Please pay particular attention to the format given below. Submissions which do not conform to this format will be returned to the authors for reformatting, or may not be considered if they arrive very close to the deadline. All submissions should begin with the following information: TITLE: title of paper AUTHOR(S): names of authors AFFILIATION: of author(s) CONTACT ADDRESS: full postal address E-MAIL: electronic mail address of main author (for contact), followed by other authors (if any) FAX NUMBER: of main author PHONE NUMBER: of main author (1) Electronic submissions These should be plain ASCII text files, not files formatted by a wordprocessor, and should not contain TAB characters or soft hyphens. Paragraphs should be separated by blank lines. Headings and subheadings should be on separate lines and be numbered. Notes, if needed at all, should take the form of endnotes rather than footnotes. References, up to six, should be given at the end. Choose a simple markup scheme for accents and other characters that cannot be transmitted by electronic mail, and include an explanation of the markup scheme after the title information and before the start of the text. Electronic submissions should be sent to Elaine Brennan with the subject line " Submission for ACH-ALLC95". (2) Paper submissions Submissions should be typed or printed on one side of the paper only, with ample margins. Six copies should be sent to ACH-ALLC95 (Paper submission) Elaine Brennan ATLIS Consulting Group 6011 Executive Boulevard Rockville, MD 20852 USA EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY Presenters will have available an overhead projector, a Kodak slide projector, a data projector which will display Macintosh, DOS/Windows, and video (but not simultaneously), a computer which will run Macintosh OS programs or DOS/Windows programs, and a VHS (NTSC) videocassette recorder. PAL format will be available; if you anticipate needing PAL, please note this information in your proposal. It will be possible to transfer programs and data from removable media (floppy disks, SyQuest 44MB cartridges, and Bernoulli cartridges) to the presentation computers. Requests for other presentation equipment will be considered by the local organizer; requests for special equipment should be directed to the local organizer no later than December 31, 1994. DEADLINES Proposals for papers and sessions December 31, 1994 Proposals for poster presentations February 15, 1995 Notification of acceptance March 15, 1995 PUBLICATION A selection of papers presented at the conference will be published in the series Research in Humanities Computing edited by Susan Hockey and Nancy Ide and published by Oxford University Press. INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE Proposals will be evaluated by a panel of reviewers who will make recommendations to the Program Committee comprised of: Chair: Elaine Brennan, ATLIS Consulting Group (ACH) Marilyn Deegan, Oxford University (ALLC) Gordon Dixon, Manchester Metropolitan University (ALLC) Marianne Gaunt, Rutgers University (ACH) Susan Hockey, Rutgers and Princeton Universities (ALLC) Nancy Ide, Vassar College (ACH) Espen Ore, University of Bergen (ALLC) Willard McCarty, University of Toronto (ACH) Local Organizer: Eric Dahlin, University of California, Santa Barbara (ACH) LOCATION UC Santa Barbara, one of the nine campuses of the University of California, has an enrollment of some 18000 graduate and undergraduate students and is situated on a scenic 500 acre seashore campus 10 miles north of the city of Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara, a Southern California coastal community of 80,000 population, lies about 100 miles north of Los Angeles on Highway 101, the principal coast highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A popular tourist center, it offers the visitor a wide range of accommodations and a great variety of recreational and cultural attractions. It is readily accessible by road, and is served by the major airlines. Economically priced accommodation for those attending the conference will also be available on the campus itself. It is expected at this time that the fee for early registration for the conference will be in the $125 to $150 range, with an additional fee for late registration. Detailed information about the conference will be made available in January or February of 1995. For further information please communicate with: Eric Dahlin Local Organizer, ACH/ALLC '95 Office of the Provost College of Letters and Science University of California Santa Barbara, California 93106 USA Phone: 805/687-5003 E-mail: HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu Note: ===== Information about the conference will be circulated on the e-list: reach@ucsbvm.ucsb.edu To subscribe to the list, send an ordinary e-mail message containing the single line: subscribe reach "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, in place of "your name," without the quotation marks, to the address: listserv@ucsbvm.ucsb.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 09:49:34 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0857. Thursday, 27 October 1994. From: Mitchell J. Brown Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 07:57:00 CDT Subject: Sharp as a Pen A phrase that has always puzzled me, and that I have never seen glossed: In HENRY V, Quickly describes the death of Falstaff very movingly. At one point, she says that his nose had become as ' sharp as a pen '. What is the good woman trying to express with this? Mitchell Brown CHICAGO ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 10:02:13 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0858 Re: Gummed Velvet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0858. Thursday, 27 October 1994. From: Nick Clary Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 10:51:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Gummed Velvet If Julian is correct in his notes on the phrase "gummed velvet," then perhaps Shakespeare's decision to have Falstaff treated the way he is at the end of *Merry Wives* gains further irony in light of the tradition that Shakespeare wrote *Merry Wives* at royal command to see Falstaff in another play, this time in love: "Enter Falstaff [with a buck's head upon him]." (MMW.5.5). Nick Clary ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 10:06:30 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0859 Great Ones Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0859. Thursday, 27 October 1994. From: Fran Teague Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 94 10:22:57 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0850 Re: Boys and Women's Roles Re diet and size: At the UMd Attending to Women conference last spring, the issue came up memorably for me in a seminar. Discussing the relative size of royalty, one of the historians present pointed out that since aristocrats ate protein every day and had an even higher standard of living than non- aristocrats, they grew taller and larger. The example he mentioned is Henry VIII. What has made the point memorable for me was the realization that the phrase "great ones" was not metaphoric but literal: the well-to-do and powerful were larger than members of the working class. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 10:14:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0860 Re: Teaching *Ham.* with Film Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0860. Thursday, 27 October 1994. (1) From: Paul Clark Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 10:06:39 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film (2) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 14:00:27 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film (3) From: Marcia Hepps Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 19:18:41 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Clark Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 10:06:39 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film I am in the same situation and would appreciate responses being posted to the net rather than privately so they can be shared. Thank you. paulc@comp.uark.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 14:00:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film Dear Shawnee Ricker, You've asked a question to which there's no simple answer. I'd suggest, though, for starters you look at Bernice Kliman, HAMLET: FILM, TELEVISION, AND AUDIO PERFORMANCE (London and Toronto: Assoc UP, 1988.) Bernice's book will give you some idea of the options. Ken Rothwell (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marcia Hepps Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 19:18:41 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0852 Q: Teaching *Ham.* with Film I have taught Hamlet and used Derek Jacobi's (Clair Bloom as Gertrude and their favourite Capt. Pikaard of Star Trek alias Patrick Stewart as Claudio) I find it extremely helpful and Jacobi one of the most accessable and interesting Hamlets in recent memory. I do recommend seeeing it in half to one hour segments, however. Best of Luck. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 10:20:33 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0861 Raul Julia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0861. Thursday, 27 October 1994. (1) From: Tad Davis Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 16:53:27 -0400 (EDT) Subj: PBS 1974 Lear (2) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 18:13 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0843 Re: *Prospero's Books* and Filmed *Tmp.*s (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 16:53:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: PBS 1974 Lear The untimely death of Raul Julia reminded me (once again) of a production of "King Lear," taped from a live Shakespeare in the Park performance and broadcast on PBS in 1974. James Earl Jones played Lear, Raul Julia played Edmund, and (I was just reminded this afternoon) Rene Aberjonois played Edgar -- three stellar performances all. Does anyone know if this production is available on video? Tad Davis davist@umis.upenn.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 18:13 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0843 Re: *Prospero's Books* and Filmed *Tmp.*s What better way to recall the work in Shakespeare of Raul Julia, who died yesterday at age 54 of a stroke, than to take our Paul Mazursky's 1982 film? Julia played a sexy Caliban. I recall his wonderful Petruchio and his daring Macbeth on stage at the Public Theater. He will be missed. Bernice ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 10:24:45 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0862 *MM* and a Computer Question Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0862. Thursday, 27 October 1994. From: Zdravko Planinc Date: Wednesday, 26 Oct 1994 11:27:57 +0059 (EDT) Subject: [Cheek by Jowell and Computer Question] When I saw *Measure for Measure* at the Lyric, I had much the same reaction as Tom Keever and Clement Fowler. But one of my companions with friends in the company informed me that the actress playing Isabella had a very bad cold and was toughing it out that week. She also surprised me by saying that four of the last five productions of *Measure for Measure* she'd seen had played the Angelo-Isabella scene as attempted rape or assault: that part of the interpretation thus can't be derived from the company's "energetic" and "physical" style. From what, then? Perhaps nothing more than the modern lack of sensitivity to the play's subtleties and concerns. It's hard to imagine a production that could portray, say, the ambiguities of Angelo's proposal of marriage to a woman he supposes is a nun if the members of the audience were not already somewhat aware of such matters; and in the absense of such awareness, or imagination, we fill the void with what we do know. Re: Apple computers I know almost nothing about computers, but I have been blessed with a Macintosh LC575 and must make the most of it. After several attempts to breach the wall separating me from the second reality of computer literacy, I've fallen back to regroup. (I've learned that I should have an IBM instead, but I must make do.) What are the best CD-ROM Shakespeare editions and analytic software programs to use? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:31:59 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0866 Q: Shakespeare in Middle School Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0866. Friday, 28 October 1994. From: Robert Burke Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 16:40:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Shakespeare in Middle School A student in the Education Department just asked if anyone has any information about how Shakespeare is "used" ("presented"?) in the curriculum of either upper elementary or middle school classes. If anyone has any experience or recommendation, please respond directly to Burke@vax1.Rockhurst.edu Thanks for any information provided. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:11:53 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0864 Re: Diet and Size Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0864. Friday, 28 October 1994. (1) From: Michael Best Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 08:19:18 PDT Subj: Diet and Size (2) From: Piers Lewis Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 11:16:55 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0859 Great Ones (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 08:19:18 PDT Subject: Diet and Size On diet, upper and lower classes. I very much doubt that Elizabethans had "nourishing" diets for more than six months of the year at most. The northern climate, and the necessity of killing off a good portion of livestock in the fall to allow the rest to stay alive in the winter, must have meant that the winter months were on the whole very lean indeed. We tend to forget, with everything now available year round, how important dried and salted meats and butter were -- and they are of course far less loaded with vitamins. Foreign visitors to England commented on the quality of their roast meats, but also on the scarcity of vegetables in the diet of the well-off. Scurvy was rampant in the winter, and was probably more prevalent in the upper classes where they ate white bread and *cooked* "sallats," if vegetables were to be found. Medical treatises of the time have many recipes supposedly designed to help the bleeding gums and loose teeth that were the result of scurvy, and a lot of them actually advise against the use of fruits, since they loosen the bowels. The lower class diet of whole bread, pease, and ignorance of medical knowledge may actually have been more nourishing. Size? I don't know much about this one, but thought that some of the evidence came from upper-class things like armour and costumes that have survived. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Piers Lewis Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 11:16:55 -0600 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0859 Great Ones If the size of most late-medieval suits of armor is a reliable indicator, the average height of a well-nourished male noble in the 14th and 15th centuries was about 5'6"--or less. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:06:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0863 Re: Sharp as a Pen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0863. Friday, 28 October 1994. (1) From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 10:28:26 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (2) From: Judy Kennedy Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 15:55:58 AST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 10:34:29 -0500 Subj: Sharp as a pen (4) From: Cliff Ronan Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 17:47:47 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 10:28:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen > ' sharp as a pen '. Quill pens had to be kept sharp, I seem to remember hearing. Hence the origin of the "pen knife"...? Jeff Nyhoff (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judy Kennedy Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 15:55:58 AST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen Personal experience recently illuminated that phrase for me. Shakespeare is most accurately describing one of the physiological changes of the moment of death. Judy Kennedy St.Thomas University Fredericton, N.B., Canada Email JKENNEDY@StThomasU.ca (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 10:34:29 -0500 Subject: Sharp as a pen The Arden edition has a fairly extensive gloss on lines 14-17 of Henry V, 2.3: "Shakespeare's version of a portion of the famous Hippocratic 'facies' contained in the *Prognostics" where Hippocrates describes the signs of approaching death. Editions of the *Prognostics* were available in Greek, in Latin, French and possibly English translations accompanied by the commentaries of Galen and others. Christopher a Vega's Latin text (1552) has the following: 'De manuum vero latione haec nosse oportet quibuscunque in acutis febribus . . . ante faciem feruntur vel venantur frsutra, aut colligunt festucas, aut stamina de vestibus euellunt, vel stipules de pariete carpunt, omnes malas esse atque lethales' (*Liber Prognosticon,* p. 76) and earlier, 'Erit autem talis nasus gracilis in extremis' (p. 30). Peter Lowe's translation of the latter runs, 'hee shall esteeme it in perill and danger of death when the nose and the nostrils are extenuated and sharpened by the same Malady" (*The Presages of Diuine Hippocrates, 1611, Sig. A4v.) Dover Wilson cites Lupton, *Thousand Notable Things,* 1578, Bk. IX, '. . . and his nose waxe sharpe--if he pull strawes, or the cloathes of his bedde . . . '. One wonders whether Galen's comment that the nose becomes 'aquillinus' may have suggested a 'quill' and thus inspired the immortal 'sharp as a pen' as the Hostess' muddled version." (The editor of this edition is J. H. Walter) Hope this helps. --Chris Gordon (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cliff Ronan Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 17:47:47 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen Mitchell Brown wonders what is on Mistress Quickly's mind when she "very movingly" describes Falstaff's death and adds the detail that his nose was "sharp as a pen." Quill pens, of course, had to be continually sharpened. As for the similarity to a nose, perhaps she is comparing the hollow side of the cut quill to a flared nostril struggling for air, while the nose tip of the dying man looks thin, cartilaginous, and drained of blood. But beyond this, Shakespeare could be undercutting Quickly by a trick analogous to her witless allusion to "Arthur's bosom." This less-than-respectable and less- than-intelligent character seems now to have stumbled on another body part, the penis. Bawdy pin/pen quibbling is everywhere in the early comedies. Besides, in a moment she will tell of feeling her way up Falstaff's lower extremities. She will record that all is "cold as any stone." Don't all three `organic' details seem designed to preserve the old knight's reported death from too slow, melancholy, and sentimental a treatment? Equivocally yours, Cliff Ronan, Southwest Texas SU ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:29:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0865 Re: Teaching *Ham.*; *Prospero's Books*; Boys Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0865. Friday, 28 October 1994. (1) From: Peter Greenfield Date: Thursday, October 27, 1994 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0860 Re: Teaching *Ham.* with Film (2) From: David Wilson-Okamura Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 12:40:05 CDT Subj: Prospero's Books (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 18:14:09 CDT Subj: Boys (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Greenfield Date: Thursday, October 27, 1994 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0860 Re: Teaching *Ham.* with Film I have had good luck getting a class started on Hamlet by showing the first two scenes from the BBC version (Jacobi) and the Zeffirelli film (Mel Gibson). Though the students initially prefer the Zeffirelli because its cinematic conventions are more familiar than the "stagy" BBC, the comparison immediately starts a discussion about what Zeffirelli altered or left out, what his changes gain and what from the original is lost. (Students quickly grasp that Zeffirelli has simplified the opening of the play, but at the cost of much of its mystery, as well as of its larger scope, with Z. focusing in almost exclusively on the Hamlet-Gertrude-Claudius relationships.) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Wilson-Okamura Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 12:40:05 CDT Subject: Prospero's Books My wife, myself, and a few friends of ours rented _Prospero's Books_ about a month ago, and could not get make ourselves watch past the first twenty minutes. Gielgud is a fine actor, but the reverb on his voice was (to our taste) annoying in the extreme, especially as it goes on and one like that throughout the film. The next day I even went forward another hour to see if it might get any better: it did not. For my own part, I loved _The Cook et al._, so I don't think I can put my antipathy down to an anti-Greenaway bias. _Prospero's Books_ is simply self-indulgent and unwatchable (_viz._, if you show it in class, prepare for your students to snooze). Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 18:14:09 CDT Subject: Boys I don't have the time right now to sit down and write a full-blown response to James Forse's latest posting on boy actors, but I have a few comments which I hope I can keep brief. 1) As for "the Queen was shaving": teenagers have been known to shave. I, myself, distinctly remember shaving when I was a teenager. As for Davenant's 1660 royal patent, the word "men" here can, I think, be very plausibly interpreted as meaning "males" in this context, and does not necessarily imply "fully adult men". Males age 14-21 are in a gray area, such that they might be called either "men" or "boys" depending on context. And as for the 1660 *Othello* prologue, yes, that's probably the most explicit statement that men sometimes played women's roles (and I never denied that they did), but it is, after all, a post-Restoration source, and as Forse himself admits, many other post-Restoration sources explicitly talk about boys playing women's roles. I'm perfectly willing to admit that adult men sometimes played women's roles prior to the Restoration (maybe I should have made that clearer), but my point is that there's a lot more evidence for "boys" (i.e. apprentices) playing women's roles than there is for non-apprentice men playing them. 2) Maybe Cleopatra's "squeaking boy" line refers to Daniel's play; could be. But what about all the other internal evidence from other plays, such as that cited by Adrian Kiernander, much of it from plays written before the revival of the boy companies in 1600? 3) Forse points out that most of the most explicit evidence we have for teenage apprentices being trained as actors is from the reign of Charles. True. But it is also true that a greatly disproportionate amount of what we know about virtually every aspect of pre-Restoration theatre comes from the Caroline era; most of the few surviving playhouse manuscripts, for example, date from this era. We do the best we can, in many cases using explicit documents from the 1630s to extrapolate backwards to flesh out the relatively meager scraps we get from the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras proper. A large amount of what we know about the organization of Elizabethan acting companies, particularly Shakespeare's, comes from lawsuits filed decades later, and this information, added to the scraps we get from Elizabethan wills and chance references, gives us a pretty good idea what was going on. In the case at hand, the explicit testimony about apprentices from the 1630s complements such things as internal evidence from the plays and occasional contemporary remarks from Heywood and Jonson to make it reasonably clear what was going on. I certainly can't prove that non-apprentice men *didn't* play major female roles, and I'm willing to admit it as a possibility. But I think if sharers regularly played female roles, there would be some more evidence of it, to go along with all the evidence that apprentices played such roles. And by the way, I do agree that the term "boy actor" does give a misleading impression to the modern reader, and that some other term such as "teenage actor" or "apprentice" might be better when we're talking about the adult troupes. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 08:55:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0868 Re: Multimedia Sh; Jacobi Hamlet; Diet/Size; Middle School Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0868. Sunday, 30 October 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 15:56 ET Subj: Multimedia Shakespeare (2) From: Lonnie J. Durham Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 16:31:40 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Jacobi's Hamlet (3) From: John Cox Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 10:42:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0864 Re: Diet and Size (4) From: James Harner Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 14:13:06 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0866 Q: Shakespeare in Middle School (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 15:56 ET Subject: Multimedia Shakespeare I can't offer any significant instances of effective use of video in Shakespearean production, but that it could be so used I have not doubt, on the basis of the uneven but stimulating at the Shaw Festival in 1993. Here, Mary Haney as Joan sat through almost the entire trial scene with her back to the audience, facing her inquisitors (who thus became the audience's inquisitors as well). But a camera relayed a close-up image of her face to a set of large monitors at either side, registering every flicker of response. Tough task for an actor, to maintain total concentration under such pitiless scrutiny for so long. Rewarding, however, for an audience. Consider the possibilities for soliloquies, dream/vision sequences (Hamlet, Brutus, Richard III and Henry Tudor, Macbeth, Posthumus). Large-screen projections of 1.1 may be an expensive but in some ways easy out of that theatrically challenging scene. And so on. I seem to remember reading about holographic ghosts. Anybody else fill in? Electronically, Dave Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J. Durham Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 16:31:40 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Jacobi's Hamlet Just a moment of pleasurable recollection brought on by Marcia Hepps's mention of Derek Jacobi's performance in the BBC production of *Hamlet*: I had always heard in my head that line from the "no more marriages" speech as "IT hath MADE me MAD", but Jacobi (embracing Ophelia during the last part of his rant) looks up startled, as if in sudden realization, and over Ophelia's shoulder gasps "it HATH made me mad." Brilliant I thought at the time, but I haven't seen it since to confirm my first impression. Cheers, all. Lonnie Durham (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 10:42:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0864 Re: Diet and Size Another indicator of size is the replica of the "Mayflower," docked in Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts. I was touring the ship several years ago, being very careful, at 6' 3" to avoid hitting my head in the below deck area, where the ship has only six feet of head room. Then I noticed an explanatory note on one of the overhead beams. It explained that the replica was built with its 'tween deck area a full foot higher than the original, so as to allow for the increased size of sailors between the early seventeenth century and the mid twentieth. In other words, the original ship had only five feet of head room below decks. John Cox (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 14:13:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0866 Q: Shakespeare in Middle School Robert Burke's student might want to consult the General Shakespeareana/ General/Pedagogy section of the annual World Shakespeare Bibliography for discussions of how Shakespeare is used in elementary and middle school classes. Jim Harner ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 08:33:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0867 Re: Sharp as a Pen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0867. Sunday, 30 October 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 10:31:21 -0600 Subj: Sharp as a pen (2) From: Henry, Gregg Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 94 12:12:00 PDT Subj: re:SHK 5.0857 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 10:31:21 -0600 Subject: Sharp as a pen From first hand experience, that very phrase, "sharp as a pen", raced to my mind upon seeing an uncle of mine a few days before his death. As he lay in his bed, the fullness of his face had been usurped by little but seeming skin over bones, or in the case of the nose, cartilage. As if the life force, itself, had drained away this condition accentuated the peaks and valleys of his features, rendering his cheeks and eye sockets sunken, his nose, "as sharp as a pen." Most assuredly Falstaff's descent to the grave was, at least, accelerated by his grief (the King had killed his heart). Did Falstaff cease eating and drinking in his grief, thereby accentuating the leaning of his features? Given his trademark bulbous robustness, the contrast would have been not only marked but frightening as well. Arthur Pearson apearson@great-lakes.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Henry, Gregg Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 94 12:12:00 PDT Subject: re:SHK 5.0857 My father passed away recently. While visiting him in Hospice, the "sharp as any pen" line came to mind. He was possessed of a pug nose in healthier times- but near death, it was sharp and seemed to be only flesh and cartilage . These lines do come to mind at fascinating times. Gregg Henry ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 08:59:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0869 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0869. Sunday, 30 October 1994. From: David Evett Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 16:28 ET Subject: Authorship The proposal that downgrading the claims of people not named William Shakespeare (in some spelling or other) to authorship of the Shakespearean canon does not tell us anything about Shaksper of Stratford-upon-Avon is more than a little specious. Reasonable inference is the cornerstone of modern science--nobody has ever seen an electron, laid a radar gun on a receding astral body, gained immediate ocular proof that gene x actually occupies position n on the DNA strands inside human cells. The principle operates in textual studies, too. A good-sized body of positive evidence (title-pages, contemporary allusions) supports the reasonable inference that the author of these plays was named William Shakespeare. A somewhat smaller body of positive evidence supports the inference that a man of that name was a sharer in the Chamberlain's/King's Men. A still smaller body of evidence (including some from later in the 17th century) supports the inference that this player was the son of John Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. For three centuries, thousands upon thousands of scholars and readers have accepted the reasonable inference that John Shakespeare's son Will wrote those plays. Persons wishing to disable this inference must either supply conflicting positive evidence (there is none) or construct a more reasonable inference. If evidence from comparative stylistics contradicts such alternative inferences as that the plays were the work of Edward de Vere, the truth-claims of the prior inference are at least reasserted, perhaps even strengthened--in science, the more different tests a hypothesis survives the more substantial it is held to be. Q-more-or-less-E-D, Dave Evett p.s. By the way, unless we can ascertain that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote some material which we can nevertheless confidently a scribe to his hand, we can never prove by stylistic analysis that he did not write the plays because we can only compare their texts with themselves. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 09:03:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0870 Off the Beaten Path Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0870. Sunday, 30 October 1994. From: Robert George Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 15:56:15 EST Subject: Off the beaten path The recent conversations of Prospero, authorship, et al. have been both fascinating and informative. But as the moment (in the U.S., at any rate) is filled with ghouls and silliness of the Hallowe'en season (as well as this writer's date of birth--10/29), I choose to stray from the current path and share the following from the "Style Plus" page of the 10/28/94 Washington Post. The "Why Things Are" column runs every Friday. Mr. Joel Achenbach is the "answer man" to varied queries--some serious, some not so. The transcript follows: Apologies in advance for any possible typos. {Q: Why did Shakespeare write plays about Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI and Henry VIII but not Henry VII? A: Shakespeare didn't write about every English king--it only seems that way. The Why staff is constantly getting the events of Henry VI Part 3 mixed up with the events of Henry IV Part 2, and we're extremely annoyed Richard III isn't the sequel to Richard II. (Henry IV Part 1 is the sequel to Richard II -- which is why we personally call Henry IV Part 1 "Richard II 2," the literary experts be damned.) There is one way to understand Shakespeare's history plays in a single nugget of near-wisdom: Most of them were about the events leading up to and including the Wars of of the Roses, a civil war that lasted for decades in the 1400s. Shakespeare was writing at the end of the 1500s. From his standpoint the Wars of the Roses were roughly as far in the past as the American Civil War is to us today, and similarly crucial to English history. You might say Shakespeare was the Ken Burns of his time.} (...factual passage on the Henry plays hereby deleted. Achenbach continues...) { Henry VII didn't get a Shakespeare play because his reign was kind of boring. He ended the civil war. Henry VII was part of the House of Lancaster, which had been warring with the House of York for a century. He married Elizabeth of York. The Lancastrians and Yorks thus came together in wedded bliss. Good for England, bad for drama. Shakepeare was no dummy, he wasn't going to write a history play without lots of swordplay, evisceration and fiery speeches about letting slip the dogs of war. The Bard's writing (he also threw in the Henry VIII play near the end of his career) helped explain the basis of the Tudor family's claim to the crown. "It's almost a kind of propaganda for the ruling family," says Georgianna Ziegler, reference librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Phyllis Rackin, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in Shakespeare's histories, points out that Shakespeare may have had a simple motive for writing about those kings: They sold tickets. "He thought people would want to come to see them and he thought he could make money and make his reputation," Rackin says. Some people will write anything for a buck.} Accompanying Achenbach's column is a cartoon that carries the caption, "Big Soliloquy from "Henry VII" by that William Shakespeare." {King (to Attendant): "I decree an end to war & strife & melodrama! Let us instead have calm, probity, family values, quality time with the kids, bland cuisine, continuing adult education, cholesterol tests, Lotto & performances by Up With People!" Attendant: "Cool"} SHAKESPERians may critique the column with all the vigour they can muster and with all the seriousness it demands. ;-) Seasonal best wishes to all! Robert George ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 09:07:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0871 Israeli-Palestinian *Romeo and Juliet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0871. Sunday, 30 October 1994. From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 15:49:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Israeli/Palestinian R&J Greetings all! At long last, the epic tide of work ebbed just long enough for me to drag out the transcription machine and render the following. If anyone has further information on this production, I'm dying to know. Sincerely yours, Bradley S. Berens claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Transcript from NPR's "ALL THINGS CONSIDERED." Date: 7/24/94. ***Please do not hold the transcriber (me) responsible for the accuracy of proper nouns. If anyone knows the correct spelling for something, please email me: I'll edit, and send out an updated version.*** ***I render this transcription freely, asking only for an acknowledgment that you heard of it from me if anybody quotes it in print.*** ********************************** [Announcer's voice.] This week's summit between the leaders of Israel and Jordan has raised expectations that those two countries will now move closer, both politically and economically. Israel's peace agreement with the PLO has produced a somewhat different result. For many Israelis and Palestinians, peace has meant a welcome divorce, not a marriage. So far, there have been few examples of the two groups working together. One of the few is a joint production of a play by an Israeli theater and a Palestinian theater. The play chosen was Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, performed in both Arabic and Hebrew. One of the feuding families is played by Israelis, the other by Palestinians. The play just ended a successful run in Jerusalem, and after a tour of Europe this fall, it will be returning to Tel Aviv. As NPR's Paul Miller reports now, the reality of the Middle East adds extra drama to Shakespeare's story of violence, misunderstanding, and the tragic death of two young lovers. [Music and praying voices in background as introduction, then Paul Miller's voice.] In Jerusalem, a family grieves for another young man killed in violence between enemies from the same city. This time, it is only a play--Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET-- but the production is anything but a diversion from reality. The Capulets mourning the death of Tybalt at the hands of Romeo are Jews. Romeo, and the rest of the Montagues, are Arabs. When the families speak among themselves, they do so in their own language. They communicate with each other in Hebrew, the common language of the occupation. [Voices yelling in Hebrew.] When they fight, as when Romeo kills Tybalt, they use the weapons of the Intifada: stones and knives, instead of swords. Aran Baniel, the Israeli co-director, says a meeting of the two cultures--even on stage--had to acknowledge certain realities. [Baniel's voice.] There's violence. There's hatred. All our history comes onto the stage without one word away from Shakespeare. We don't need--we didn't need that. It comes through the energies, the undertones. [Miller's voice.] The joint production between the Israeli Kahn Theater and the Palestinian Al-Casaba Theater is the first equal partnership. In the past, Arabs have worked for, not with, Israeli theaters. Aran Baniel says this is a true co-operative effort, and not a gimmick. [Baniel's voice.] You can't brush us off as one of those, you know, nice things that are done in the name of peace. A Jewish kindergarten and a Palestinian kindergarten meet together and play dolls, you know? No! It isn't that. It is bloody serious stuff, this meeting of the two cultures. [Miller's voice.] For a long time, Palestinian theater companies were NOT interested in joint productions with Israelis, afraid that would be seen as acceptance of occupation. George Ebraheim, the artistic director of the Al-Casaba theater, says perspectives changed with the beginning of Palestinian self rule. [Ebraheim's voice.] As Palestinians, we feel that the--the times comes to start thinking of, uhhh, how we can live together--together, because now we are obliged to live together and our destiny says so. That's why it is very important for us to let the Israelis know us better, know our culture better, and, of course, we will know their culture and their problems better, uhhhh, through this production. [Voices singing in the background.] [Miller's voice.] Creating the joint production was more difficult than anticipated. Cultural differences--as well as artistic--required lengthy negotiations on almost every word and gesture. Initially, the actors were wary of each other. At first, the two sides rehearsed separately, with separate directors. Joint rehearsals had just started in February, when Baruk Goldstein, an Israeli settler, killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron. The massacre caused tremendous tension among cast members. Kalifa Natur, who plays Romeo, says he wanted to quit a production that, suddenly, seemed frivolous. [Natur's voice.] It was too difficult for me and for my--uhhh--friends to continue in this day, and two day, three days after that. That's normal: that's love and hate and crying and--ehhh--playing--ehhhh--and dancing. It's too difficult. [Miller's voice.] After long discussion, work resumed. There were more rough moments, after reprisal bombings by Palestinian extremists killed 13 Israelis. Orna Katz is the Israeli actress who plays Juliet. [Katz's voice.] The experience was very deep, and many things happened that made it very different, made it very very different. Made it--ummmm, uhhhh--very much connected with real life, much more than usually when working in theater. [Miller's voice.] There were logistical problems as well. Because Israel had closed the occupied territories after the reprisal bombings, some of the actors had to be smuggled into Jerusalem for rehearsals. [Hebrew voices, sounding like a translation of Juliet's argument with her father.] [Miller's voice.] And there were financial problems. ROMEO AND JULIET's Arab/Jewish romance, including the famous balcony scene, scared off some of the Kahn Theater's traditional backers. And there were threatening phone calls from Palestinians and Israelis who were not ready to embrace former enemies, or to see such embraces on stage. George Ebraheim, of the Palestinian Al-Casaba Theater: [Ebraheim's voice.] This play was made to have both--both nations, both audience, Arabs and Israelis together--to, to, to see the play together, and they, we don't like to--to perform for an Israeli audience, this is not our aim. [Miller's voice.] Nor was it the producer's aim to give the audience a comfortable ending to the play. In Shakespeare's version, the two families come together and vow to end their feud in honor of the dead lovers. But in this Israeli and Palestinian production, the family members gather and repeat part of the prologue, which, Aran Baniel says, speaks of senseless violence and the tragedy of the young victims: [Baniel's voice.] As if it was an endless prayer, to remember all the Romeos and Juliets we mustn't allow the audience to feel everything is now okay. It's not. [Miller's voice.] Baniel says there is a lot to be done for peace. Some critics suggest the production needs work as well. They dismiss the use of two languages as a gimmick, and say Romeo and Juliet's love affair lacks real passion. The critics ask if good intentions, and the balancing of two cultures, can produce good theater. The actors say this is not a production intended to transcend reality, but to bring it home. Orna Katz, who plays Juliet: [Katz's voice.] I hope it can move, personally, people that see it. I don't think it can really move politically anything higher than that. I hope it will do something personally to each--everybody that sees it. That will be, really, a real success. [Miller's voice.] The producer's consider the play success--whether or not it qualifies as classic Shakespeare--because it has allowed some Palestinians and Israelis to create something together, and made other Palestinians and Israelis think about breaking with the past. I'm Paul Miller in Jerusalem. ********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:06:32 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0863 Re: Sharp as a Pen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0863. Friday, 28 October 1994. (1) From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 10:28:26 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (2) From: Judy Kennedy Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 15:55:58 AST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 10:34:29 -0500 Subj: Sharp as a pen (4) From: Cliff Ronan Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 17:47:47 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 10:28:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen > ' sharp as a pen '. Quill pens had to be kept sharp, I seem to remember hearing. Hence the origin of the "pen knife"...? Jeff Nyhoff (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judy Kennedy Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 15:55:58 AST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen Personal experience recently illuminated that phrase for me. Shakespeare is most accurately describing one of the physiological changes of the moment of death. Judy Kennedy St.Thomas University Fredericton, N.B., Canada Email JKENNEDY@StThomasU.ca (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 10:34:29 -0500 Subject: Sharp as a pen The Arden edition has a fairly extensive gloss on lines 14-17 of Henry V, 2.3: "Shakespeare's version of a portion of the famous Hippocratic 'facies' contained in the *Prognostics" where Hippocrates describes the signs of approaching death. Editions of the *Prognostics* were available in Greek, in Latin, French and possibly English translations accompanied by the commentaries of Galen and others. Christopher a Vega's Latin text (1552) has the following: 'De manuum vero latione haec nosse oportet quibuscunque in acutis febribus . . . ante faciem feruntur vel venantur frsutra, aut colligunt festucas, aut stamina de vestibus euellunt, vel stipules de pariete carpunt, omnes malas esse atque lethales' (*Liber Prognosticon,* p. 76) and earlier, 'Erit autem talis nasus gracilis in extremis' (p. 30). Peter Lowe's translation of the latter runs, 'hee shall esteeme it in perill and danger of death when the nose and the nostrils are extenuated and sharpened by the same Malady" (*The Presages of Diuine Hippocrates, 1611, Sig. A4v.) Dover Wilson cites Lupton, *Thousand Notable Things,* 1578, Bk. IX, '. . . and his nose waxe sharpe--if he pull strawes, or the cloathes of his bedde . . . '. One wonders whether Galen's comment that the nose becomes 'aquillinus' may have suggested a 'quill' and thus inspired the immortal 'sharp as a pen' as the Hostess' muddled version." (The editor of this edition is J. H. Walter) Hope this helps. --Chris Gordon (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cliff Ronan Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 17:47:47 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen Mitchell Brown wonders what is on Mistress Quickly's mind when she "very movingly" describes Falstaff's death and adds the detail that his nose was "sharp as a pen." Quill pens, of course, had to be continually sharpened. As for the similarity to a nose, perhaps she is comparing the hollow side of the cut quill to a flared nostril struggling for air, while the nose tip of the dying man looks thin, cartilaginous, and drained of blood. But beyond this, Shakespeare could be undercutting Quickly by a trick analogous to her witless allusion to "Arthur's bosom." This less-than-respectable and less- than-intelligent character seems now to have stumbled on another body part, the penis. Bawdy pin/pen quibbling is everywhere in the early comedies. Besides, in a moment she will tell of feeling her way up Falstaff's lower extremities. She will record that all is "cold as any stone." Don't all three `organic' details seem designed to preserve the old knight's reported death from too slow, melancholy, and sentimental a treatment? Equivocally yours, Cliff Ronan, Southwest Texas SU ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:29:54 EDT Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0865 Re: Teaching *Ham.*; *Prospero's Books*; Boys Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0865. Friday, 28 October 1994. (1) From: Peter Greenfield Date: Thursday, October 27, 1994 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0860 Re: Teaching *Ham.* with Film (2) From: David Wilson-Okamura Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 12:40:05 CDT Subj: Prospero's Books (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 18:14:09 CDT Subj: Boys (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Greenfield Date: Thursday, October 27, 1994 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0860 Re: Teaching *Ham.* with Film I have had good luck getting a class started on Hamlet by showing the first two scenes from the BBC version (Jacobi) and the Zeffirelli film (Mel Gibson). Though the students initially prefer the Zeffirelli because its cinematic conventions are more familiar than the "stagy" BBC, the comparison immediately starts a discussion about what Zeffirelli altered or left out, what his changes gain and what from the original is lost. (Students quickly grasp that Zeffirelli has simplified the opening of the play, but at the cost of much of its mystery, as well as of its larger scope, with Z. focusing in almost exclusively on the Hamlet-Gertrude-Claudius relationships.) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Wilson-Okamura Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 12:40:05 CDT Subject: Prospero's Books My wife, myself, and a few friends of ours rented _Prospero's Books_ about a month ago, and could not get make ourselves watch past the first twenty minutes. Gielgud is a fine actor, but the reverb on his voice was (to our taste) annoying in the extreme, especially as it goes on and one like that throughout the film. The next day I even went forward another hour to see if it might get any better: it did not. For my own part, I loved _The Cook et al._, so I don't think I can put my antipathy down to an anti-Greenaway bias. _Prospero's Books_ is simply self-indulgent and unwatchable (_viz._, if you show it in class, prepare for your students to snooze). Yours faithfully, David Wilson-Okamura (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 94 18:14:09 CDT Subject: Boys I don't have the time right now to sit down and write a full-blown response to James Forse's latest posting on boy actors, but I have a few comments which I hope I can keep brief. 1) As for "the Queen was shaving": teenagers have been known to shave. I, myself, distinctly remember shaving when I was a teenager. As for Davenant's 1660 royal patent, the word "men" here can, I think, be very plausibly interpreted as meaning "males" in this context, and does not necessarily imply "fully adult men". Males age 14-21 are in a gray area, such that they might be called either "men" or "boys" depending on context. And as for the 1660 *Othello* prologue, yes, that's probably the most explicit statement that men sometimes played women's roles (and I never denied that they did), but it is, after all, a post-Restoration source, and as Forse himself admits, many other post-Restoration sources explicitly talk about boys playing women's roles. I'm perfectly willing to admit that adult men sometimes played women's roles prior to the Restoration (maybe I should have made that clearer), but my point is that there's a lot more evidence for "boys" (i.e. apprentices) playing women's roles than there is for non-apprentice men playing them. 2) Maybe Cleopatra's "squeaking boy" line refers to Daniel's play; could be. But what about all the other internal evidence from other plays, such as that cited by Adrian Kiernander, much of it from plays written before the revival of the boy companies in 1600? 3) Forse points out that most of the most explicit evidence we have for teenage apprentices being trained as actors is from the reign of Charles. True. But it is also true that a greatly disproportionate amount of what we know about virtually every aspect of pre-Restoration theatre comes from the Caroline era; most of the few surviving playhouse manuscripts, for example, date from this era. We do the best we can, in many cases using explicit documents from the 1630s to extrapolate backwards to flesh out the relatively meager scraps we get from the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras proper. A large amount of what we know about the organization of Elizabethan acting companies, particularly Shakespeare's, comes from lawsuits filed decades later, and this information, added to the scraps we get from Elizabethan wills and chance references, gives us a pretty good idea what was going on. In the case at hand, the explicit testimony about apprentices from the 1630s complements such things as internal evidence from the plays and occasional contemporary remarks from Heywood and Jonson to make it reasonably clear what was going on. I certainly can't prove that non-apprentice men *didn't* play major female roles, and I'm willing to admit it as a possibility. But I think if sharers regularly played female roles, there would be some more evidence of it, to go along with all the evidence that apprentices played such roles. And by the way, I do agree that the term "boy actor" does give a misleading impression to the modern reader, and that some other term such as "teenage actor" or "apprentice" might be better when we're talking about the adult troupes. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 08:55:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0868 Re: Multimedia Sh; Jacobi Hamlet; Diet/Size; Middle School Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0868. Sunday, 30 October 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 15:56 ET Subj: Multimedia Shakespeare (2) From: Lonnie J. Durham Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 16:31:40 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Jacobi's Hamlet (3) From: John Cox Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 10:42:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0864 Re: Diet and Size (4) From: James Harner Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 14:13:06 -0500 (CDT) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0866 Q: Shakespeare in Middle School (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 15:56 ET Subject: Multimedia Shakespeare I can't offer any significant instances of effective use of video in Shakespearean production, but that it could be so used I have not doubt, on the basis of the uneven but stimulating at the Shaw Festival in 1993. Here, Mary Haney as Joan sat through almost the entire trial scene with her back to the audience, facing her inquisitors (who thus became the audience's inquisitors as well). But a camera relayed a close-up image of her face to a set of large monitors at either side, registering every flicker of response. Tough task for an actor, to maintain total concentration under such pitiless scrutiny for so long. Rewarding, however, for an audience. Consider the possibilities for soliloquies, dream/vision sequences (Hamlet, Brutus, Richard III and Henry Tudor, Macbeth, Posthumus). Large-screen projections of 1.1 may be an expensive but in some ways easy out of that theatrically challenging scene. And so on. I seem to remember reading about holographic ghosts. Anybody else fill in? Electronically, Dave Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J. Durham Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 16:31:40 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Jacobi's Hamlet Just a moment of pleasurable recollection brought on by Marcia Hepps's mention of Derek Jacobi's performance in the BBC production of *Hamlet*: I had always heard in my head that line from the "no more marriages" speech as "IT hath MADE me MAD", but Jacobi (embracing Ophelia during the last part of his rant) looks up startled, as if in sudden realization, and over Ophelia's shoulder gasps "it HATH made me mad." Brilliant I thought at the time, but I haven't seen it since to confirm my first impression. Cheers, all. Lonnie Durham (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 10:42:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0864 Re: Diet and Size Another indicator of size is the replica of the "Mayflower," docked in Plymouth Harbor, Massachusetts. I was touring the ship several years ago, being very careful, at 6' 3" to avoid hitting my head in the below deck area, where the ship has only six feet of head room. Then I noticed an explanatory note on one of the overhead beams. It explained that the replica was built with its 'tween deck area a full foot higher than the original, so as to allow for the increased size of sailors between the early seventeenth century and the mid twentieth. In other words, the original ship had only five feet of head room below decks. John Cox (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Harner Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 14:13:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0866 Q: Shakespeare in Middle School Robert Burke's student might want to consult the General Shakespeareana/ General/Pedagogy section of the annual World Shakespeare Bibliography for discussions of how Shakespeare is used in elementary and middle school classes. Jim Harner ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 08:33:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0867 Re: Sharp as a Pen Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0867. Sunday, 30 October 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 10:31:21 -0600 Subj: Sharp as a pen (2) From: Henry, Gregg Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 94 12:12:00 PDT Subj: re:SHK 5.0857 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 10:31:21 -0600 Subject: Sharp as a pen From first hand experience, that very phrase, "sharp as a pen", raced to my mind upon seeing an uncle of mine a few days before his death. As he lay in his bed, the fullness of his face had been usurped by little but seeming skin over bones, or in the case of the nose, cartilage. As if the life force, itself, had drained away this condition accentuated the peaks and valleys of his features, rendering his cheeks and eye sockets sunken, his nose, "as sharp as a pen." Most assuredly Falstaff's descent to the grave was, at least, accelerated by his grief (the King had killed his heart). Did Falstaff cease eating and drinking in his grief, thereby accentuating the leaning of his features? Given his trademark bulbous robustness, the contrast would have been not only marked but frightening as well. Arthur Pearson apearson@great-lakes.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Henry, Gregg Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 94 12:12:00 PDT Subject: re:SHK 5.0857 My father passed away recently. While visiting him in Hospice, the "sharp as any pen" line came to mind. He was possessed of a pug nose in healthier times- but near death, it was sharp and seemed to be only flesh and cartilage . These lines do come to mind at fascinating times. Gregg Henry ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 08:59:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0869 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0869. Sunday, 30 October 1994. From: David Evett Date: Friday, 28 Oct 1994 16:28 ET Subject: Authorship The proposal that downgrading the claims of people not named William Shakespeare (in some spelling or other) to authorship of the Shakespearean canon does not tell us anything about Shaksper of Stratford-upon-Avon is more than a little specious. Reasonable inference is the cornerstone of modern science--nobody has ever seen an electron, laid a radar gun on a receding astral body, gained immediate ocular proof that gene x actually occupies position n on the DNA strands inside human cells. The principle operates in textual studies, too. A good-sized body of positive evidence (title-pages, contemporary allusions) supports the reasonable inference that the author of these plays was named William Shakespeare. A somewhat smaller body of positive evidence supports the inference that a man of that name was a sharer in the Chamberlain's/King's Men. A still smaller body of evidence (including some from later in the 17th century) supports the inference that this player was the son of John Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. For three centuries, thousands upon thousands of scholars and readers have accepted the reasonable inference that John Shakespeare's son Will wrote those plays. Persons wishing to disable this inference must either supply conflicting positive evidence (there is none) or construct a more reasonable inference. If evidence from comparative stylistics contradicts such alternative inferences as that the plays were the work of Edward de Vere, the truth-claims of the prior inference are at least reasserted, perhaps even strengthened--in science, the more different tests a hypothesis survives the more substantial it is held to be. Q-more-or-less-E-D, Dave Evett p.s. By the way, unless we can ascertain that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote some material which we can nevertheless confidently a scribe to his hand, we can never prove by stylistic analysis that he did not write the plays because we can only compare their texts with themselves. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 09:03:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0870 Off the Beaten Path Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0870. Sunday, 30 October 1994. From: Robert George Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 15:56:15 EST Subject: Off the beaten path The recent conversations of Prospero, authorship, et al. have been both fascinating and informative. But as the moment (in the U.S., at any rate) is filled with ghouls and silliness of the Hallowe'en season (as well as this writer's date of birth--10/29), I choose to stray from the current path and share the following from the "Style Plus" page of the 10/28/94 Washington Post. The "Why Things Are" column runs every Friday. Mr. Joel Achenbach is the "answer man" to varied queries--some serious, some not so. The transcript follows: Apologies in advance for any possible typos. {Q: Why did Shakespeare write plays about Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI and Henry VIII but not Henry VII? A: Shakespeare didn't write about every English king--it only seems that way. The Why staff is constantly getting the events of Henry VI Part 3 mixed up with the events of Henry IV Part 2, and we're extremely annoyed Richard III isn't the sequel to Richard II. (Henry IV Part 1 is the sequel to Richard II -- which is why we personally call Henry IV Part 1 "Richard II 2," the literary experts be damned.) There is one way to understand Shakespeare's history plays in a single nugget of near-wisdom: Most of them were about the events leading up to and including the Wars of of the Roses, a civil war that lasted for decades in the 1400s. Shakespeare was writing at the end of the 1500s. From his standpoint the Wars of the Roses were roughly as far in the past as the American Civil War is to us today, and similarly crucial to English history. You might say Shakespeare was the Ken Burns of his time.} (...factual passage on the Henry plays hereby deleted. Achenbach continues...) { Henry VII didn't get a Shakespeare play because his reign was kind of boring. He ended the civil war. Henry VII was part of the House of Lancaster, which had been warring with the House of York for a century. He married Elizabeth of York. The Lancastrians and Yorks thus came together in wedded bliss. Good for England, bad for drama. Shakepeare was no dummy, he wasn't going to write a history play without lots of swordplay, evisceration and fiery speeches about letting slip the dogs of war. The Bard's writing (he also threw in the Henry VIII play near the end of his career) helped explain the basis of the Tudor family's claim to the crown. "It's almost a kind of propaganda for the ruling family," says Georgianna Ziegler, reference librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Phyllis Rackin, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in Shakespeare's histories, points out that Shakespeare may have had a simple motive for writing about those kings: They sold tickets. "He thought people would want to come to see them and he thought he could make money and make his reputation," Rackin says. Some people will write anything for a buck.} Accompanying Achenbach's column is a cartoon that carries the caption, "Big Soliloquy from "Henry VII" by that William Shakespeare." {King (to Attendant): "I decree an end to war & strife & melodrama! Let us instead have calm, probity, family values, quality time with the kids, bland cuisine, continuing adult education, cholesterol tests, Lotto & performances by Up With People!" Attendant: "Cool"} SHAKESPERians may critique the column with all the vigour they can muster and with all the seriousness it demands. ;-) Seasonal best wishes to all! Robert George ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 09:07:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0871 Israeli-Palestinian *Romeo and Juliet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0871. Sunday, 30 October 1994. From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Saturday, 29 Oct 1994 15:49:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: The Israeli/Palestinian R&J Greetings all! At long last, the epic tide of work ebbed just long enough for me to drag out the transcription machine and render the following. If anyone has further information on this production, I'm dying to know. Sincerely yours, Bradley S. Berens claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Transcript from NPR's "ALL THINGS CONSIDERED." Date: 7/24/94. ***Please do not hold the transcriber (me) responsible for the accuracy of proper nouns. If anyone knows the correct spelling for something, please email me: I'll edit, and send out an updated version.*** ***I render this transcription freely, asking only for an acknowledgment that you heard of it from me if anybody quotes it in print.*** ********************************** [Announcer's voice.] This week's summit between the leaders of Israel and Jordan has raised expectations that those two countries will now move closer, both politically and economically. Israel's peace agreement with the PLO has produced a somewhat different result. For many Israelis and Palestinians, peace has meant a welcome divorce, not a marriage. So far, there have been few examples of the two groups working together. One of the few is a joint production of a play by an Israeli theater and a Palestinian theater. The play chosen was Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, performed in both Arabic and Hebrew. One of the feuding families is played by Israelis, the other by Palestinians. The play just ended a successful run in Jerusalem, and after a tour of Europe this fall, it will be returning to Tel Aviv. As NPR's Paul Miller reports now, the reality of the Middle East adds extra drama to Shakespeare's story of violence, misunderstanding, and the tragic death of two young lovers. [Music and praying voices in background as introduction, then Paul Miller's voice.] In Jerusalem, a family grieves for another young man killed in violence between enemies from the same city. This time, it is only a play--Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET-- but the production is anything but a diversion from reality. The Capulets mourning the death of Tybalt at the hands of Romeo are Jews. Romeo, and the rest of the Montagues, are Arabs. When the families speak among themselves, they do so in their own language. They communicate with each other in Hebrew, the common language of the occupation. [Voices yelling in Hebrew.] When they fight, as when Romeo kills Tybalt, they use the weapons of the Intifada: stones and knives, instead of swords. Aran Baniel, the Israeli co-director, says a meeting of the two cultures--even on stage--had to acknowledge certain realities. [Baniel's voice.] There's violence. There's hatred. All our history comes onto the stage without one word away from Shakespeare. We don't need--we didn't need that. It comes through the energies, the undertones. [Miller's voice.] The joint production between the Israeli Kahn Theater and the Palestinian Al-Casaba Theater is the first equal partnership. In the past, Arabs have worked for, not with, Israeli theaters. Aran Baniel says this is a true co-operative effort, and not a gimmick. [Baniel's voice.] You can't brush us off as one of those, you know, nice things that are done in the name of peace. A Jewish kindergarten and a Palestinian kindergarten meet together and play dolls, you know? No! It isn't that. It is bloody serious stuff, this meeting of the two cultures. [Miller's voice.] For a long time, Palestinian theater companies were NOT interested in joint productions with Israelis, afraid that would be seen as acceptance of occupation. George Ebraheim, the artistic director of the Al-Casaba theater, says perspectives changed with the beginning of Palestinian self rule. [Ebraheim's voice.] As Palestinians, we feel that the--the times comes to start thinking of, uhhh, how we can live together--together, because now we are obliged to live together and our destiny says so. That's why it is very important for us to let the Israelis know us better, know our culture better, and, of course, we will know their culture and their problems better, uhhhh, through this production. [Voices singing in the background.] [Miller's voice.] Creating the joint production was more difficult than anticipated. Cultural differences--as well as artistic--required lengthy negotiations on almost every word and gesture. Initially, the actors were wary of each other. At first, the two sides rehearsed separately, with separate directors. Joint rehearsals had just started in February, when Baruk Goldstein, an Israeli settler, killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron. The massacre caused tremendous tension among cast members. Kalifa Natur, who plays Romeo, says he wanted to quit a production that, suddenly, seemed frivolous. [Natur's voice.] It was too difficult for me and for my--uhhh--friends to continue in this day, and two day, three days after that. That's normal: that's love and hate and crying and--ehhh--playing--ehhhh--and dancing. It's too difficult. [Miller's voice.] After long discussion, work resumed. There were more rough moments, after reprisal bombings by Palestinian extremists killed 13 Israelis. Orna Katz is the Israeli actress who plays Juliet. [Katz's voice.] The experience was very deep, and many things happened that made it very different, made it very very different. Made it--ummmm, uhhhh--very much connected with real life, much more than usually when working in theater. [Miller's voice.] There were logistical problems as well. Because Israel had closed the occupied territories after the reprisal bombings, some of the actors had to be smuggled into Jerusalem for rehearsals. [Hebrew voices, sounding like a translation of Juliet's argument with her father.] [Miller's voice.] And there were financial problems. ROMEO AND JULIET's Arab/Jewish romance, including the famous balcony scene, scared off some of the Kahn Theater's traditional backers. And there were threatening phone calls from Palestinians and Israelis who were not ready to embrace former enemies, or to see such embraces on stage. George Ebraheim, of the Palestinian Al-Casaba Theater: [Ebraheim's voice.] This play was made to have both--both nations, both audience, Arabs and Israelis together--to, to, to see the play together, and they, we don't like to--to perform for an Israeli audience, this is not our aim. [Miller's voice.] Nor was it the producer's aim to give the audience a comfortable ending to the play. In Shakespeare's version, the two families come together and vow to end their feud in honor of the dead lovers. But in this Israeli and Palestinian production, the family members gather and repeat part of the prologue, which, Aran Baniel says, speaks of senseless violence and the tragedy of the young victims: [Baniel's voice.] As if it was an endless prayer, to remember all the Romeos and Juliets we mustn't allow the audience to feel everything is now okay. It's not. [Miller's voice.] Baniel says there is a lot to be done for peace. Some critics suggest the production needs work as well. They dismiss the use of two languages as a gimmick, and say Romeo and Juliet's love affair lacks real passion. The critics ask if good intentions, and the balancing of two cultures, can produce good theater. The actors say this is not a production intended to transcend reality, but to bring it home. Orna Katz, who plays Juliet: [Katz's voice.] I hope it can move, personally, people that see it. I don't think it can really move politically anything higher than that. I hope it will do something personally to each--everybody that sees it. That will be, really, a real success. [Miller's voice.] The producer's consider the play success--whether or not it qualifies as classic Shakespeare--because it has allowed some Palestinians and Israelis to create something together, and made other Palestinians and Israelis think about breaking with the past. I'm Paul Miller in Jerusalem. ********************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:09:33 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0872 Q: *Shrew* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0872. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. From: Gregg Henry Date: Sat, 29 Oct 94 12:27:00 PDT Subject: [*Shrew* Productions] I'm currently in the pre-production stage of a production of _The Taming of the Shrew_. I'm very interested in hearing from recent directors, dramaturgs, actors and designers of "Taming" about problems encountered, pitfalls and traps to avoid, and any advice or helpful thoughts. Many Thanks, Gregg Henry Iowa State University Theatre ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:11:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0873 Q: Anne Lock Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0873. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. From: J. C. Stirm Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 94 10:17 PST Subject: Anne Lock ? This question is a little off topic, but this crowd seems more likely than most to be able to answer: Does anyone know if there's a recent edition or transcription of Anne Lock's 1560 sonnet sequence "Meditation of a Penitent Sinner..."? Thanks! Jan Stirm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:16:34 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0874 Re: Diet and Size Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0874. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. (1) From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 1994 11:42:37 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0868 Re: Diet/Size (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 1994 23:56:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Size and Diet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Weingust Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 1994 11:42:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0868 Re: Diet/Size To John Cox, This is not to say our species has not grown closer to the clouds, but I wonder if we may take at face value the Mayflower replica's explanation for increasing scale. Perhaps there are students of marine architectural history that may further enlighten, but even in this century, economies of floating real-estate seem to argue for close quarters in all but the most luxurious vessels. At about avg. height, I've still felt extremely cramped in both private sailboat and WWII German U-Boat (as displayed in Chicago, reported to have been intentionally staffed w/ small-statured sailors). Don Weingust (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 1994 23:56:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Size and Diet Just as this thread began, I read in Peter Thomson's SHAKESPEARE PROFESSIONAL CAREER (1994) 3, "The poor, whose diet had steadily deteriorated through the sixteenth century, were starving in 1597." But the comment about "great ones" was not aimed at the poor, but at figures like Henry VIII who were indeed great in size. Wasn't Henry at least 6 foot tall, and at his greatest over 350 pounds? What we need is a list of aristocracy and royalty plus body size in order to judge this observation. How "great" were they? Yours for healthful eating, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:26:04 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0875 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0875. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 11:42:41 +1000 (EST) Subj: Shake-scene (2) From: Charles Boyle Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 10:06:47 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Authorship (3) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 09:42:00 +1000 (EST) Subj: Authorship (4) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 31 Oct 94 19:31:49 CST Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 11:42:41 +1000 (EST) Subject: Shake-scene SHAKSPERians will be familiar with the assumed attack on Shakespeare by Robert Greene in his 1592 pamphlet, 'Greene's Groatsworth of Wit' in which he calls him an 'upstart crow' who considers himself the 'only Shake-scene in a country'. The word 'Shake-scene' is said to be a 'punning' allusion to Shakespeare's name. My question is: what is the nature of the pun? Does the word exist outside this pamphlet, and if so what does it refer to? Was a 'shakescene' perhaps a backstage worker of some kind? Pat Buckridge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Boyle Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 10:06:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Authorship In response to David Evett posting on authorship: The "good-sized body" of evidence (Title-pages, etc.) only supports the reasonable inference that certain play were published under the name "William Shakespeare." Your "somewhat smaller body" of evidence only supports the inference that someone referred to by that name was a sharer in the Chamberlain's Men. By the time we reach a "still smaller body of evidence" concerning the relationship of the Stratford fellow to all this the inferences are pretty much whatever your ideology wants to make of them. That unfortunate collection of signatures, for instance, can be used to argue that the gentleman in question could write his own name. They can also be used to argue that he couldn't write his own name. We do know that no other documentary evidence exists that would suggest this man was actually literate. Infer from that what you will. When it comes to "conflicting positive evidence" there's plenty - particularly in the letters, poems and life of Edward De Vere. As for the hopeful reference to "comparative stylistics," is this another allusion to the Ward Elliott study? Here's the man himself on the value of his work (Shakespeare Newsletter, summer, '90): "A last word for your readers interested in Shakespeare authorship: don't stack arms on our account. Ours is not the last word on the subject, far less the only word." The fact is, calling his study "flawed" is giving him all the breaks. Charles Boyle (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 09:42:00 +1000 (EST) Subject: Authorship Since David Evett wants to introduce scientific analogies, let me propose what I think is a better one than his about the behavior of electrons and genes - as thus: believing that William Shakspere wrote the plays and poems in question is like believing in the existence of the gas phlogiston, itself a perfectly reasonable inference based on centuries of observation of the natural world. It just happened to be totally wrong. Evett notes: 'For three centuries, thousands upon thousands of scholars and readers have accepted [this] reasonable inference'. True enough. And for more than two centuries people have been rejecting it. Where does that get us? Nowhere much. It strikes me as a rather servile and obscurantist form of argument. Why not take the plunge and look at the evidence all by ourselves? Evett divides this evidence, quite helpfully, into three 'bodies'. The first supports the reasonable inference that the author of the plays was *named* William Shakespeare (my emphasis). Fair enough; so he was. But the interesting question is whether that was his real name or not. The title pages give no grounds for reasonably inferring it was (pseudonymity is hardly an 'unreasonable' hypothesis), and some grounds (hyphenation) for inferring it wasn't. And 'contemporary allusions' - of which there are remarkably few - are inconclusive, inasmuch as they may all have been made by persons either uninformed about, or complicit in, a misrepresentation of the real author's real name. The second body of evidence gives rise to the inference that 'a person named William Shakespeare was a sharer in the Chamberlain's/King's Men'. Agreed. But none of this evidence identifies this man as a playwright or poet, or even implies it. On this same evidence we could 'reasonably infer' that Richard Burbage and Will Kempe were playwrights. The third body of evidence, which goes to the inference that 'this player was the son of John Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon' is indeed, as Evett acknowledges, very small. In fact it consists of one item, Shakspere's will, with its mention of 'my fellows Heminges, Condell' etc. Without it there would be no reason to suppose that the Shakespeare who lived in New Place, Stratford was the same man as the Shakespeare who lived in various parts of London. We're instructed, finally, that 'persons wishing to disable this inference must . . . supply conflicting positive evidence'. Perhaps I don't understand what's meant by 'positive evidence'. I'd have thought it meant direct evidence that one or another person wrote these plays. Well, it's true there's no evidence of that kind for Edward de Vere (yet). But there's none for William Shakspere either, and people have been trying to find some for 300 years. Maybe the alternative inference should be given a run for its money. Pat Buckridge. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 31 Oct 94 19:31:49 CST Subject: Authorship Other things kept me from replying to Pat Buckridge's latest authorship posting right away, and now I see that Dave Evett has contributed some very reasonable words to the discussion. Let me, if I may, make a few comments. 1) No, Pat, I don't imagine that you think Oxford wrote the plays in the 1570s and 80s and then laid them in a desk drawer for 15 years; I'm perfectly well aware that you think he wrote them in the earlier time for performance at court and then revised them for publication in the 1590s. But this scenario has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese sandwich, and is no defense at all against stylometric studies like Elliot's. What, are you claiming that Oxford wrote, say, *The Merchant of Venice* in poulter measure in 1578 or whenever, then entirely rewrote it line for line in blank verse when he decided to release it to the public in the mid-1590s? Or maybe you think Oxford originally wrote the plays in the verse styles in which they came down to us, but he was just a couple decades ahead of his time in his poetic tecniques? If so, he must have kept his stylistic innovations secret from his buddies Philip Sidney and Fulke Greville, because their poetry from the same period fits in well with the standard story of how English poetic styles developed. (Sidney was, of course, quite an innovator in his own right, and his poetry influenced other courtiers but not the general public until it was published a few years after his death. See Stephen May's very thorough study, *The Elizabethan Courtier Poets*, which also has a section on Oxford and concludes that he was roughly as skilled a poet as Fulke Greville.) I'm not trying to set up straw men here, though I'm sure I could be accused of that; I'm just trying to understand what exactly is being claimed here, because I don't see how any of what Pat says is a defense against Elliot's stylometric evidence. 2) Pat also accuses me (and Elliot) of the sin of "stylistic essentialism", and of believing that authors can be stylistically fingerprinted. Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I do believe that stylometric studies, if properly done, can provide evidence for attribution question --- not necessarily conclusive evidence, but evidence which can be added to the pile of other evidence on a given question. Any given stylometric study should be taken with a grain of salt, but when a bunch of them point to the same conclusion, then I think one would be foolish to dismiss that evidence. As far as I can tell, Elliot's study is well done and complete, and provides some pretty good evidence that none of the rival candidates, including Oxford, wrote the plays of Shakespeare. Pat's invocation of Frederick Fleay is awfully misleading and more than a little ironic, because Fleay actually had much more in common with present-day Oxfordians than with Ward Elliot; like the Oxfordians, Fleay and other disintegrators relied for their attribution arguments on lists of alleged parallels between Shakespeare's plays and the works of other authors, the problem being that most of these parallels reflect either common sources and themes or outright plagiarism and are thus notoriously unreliable as evidence of authorship. Elliot's study and other similar ones deal systematically with the entire corpus rather than picking and choosing where to make comparisons, and the criteria used by Elliot are mostly things below an author's level of conscious control. 3) And that brings me to Don Foster's study, which hasn't been properly given its due in this thread. As Dave Evett points out, Elliot's study is negative evidence, i.e. evidence that none of these other people wrote Shakespeare's plays; in the absence of other writings by William Shakespeare of Stratford, stylometrics cannot provide positive evidence that he did write them. But Foster's study provides positive evidence of a different and ingenious kind: Foster shows convincingly that whoever wrote the plays also acted in them, and he is able to pinpoint the roles this person played, including Adam in *As You Like It*, the Ghost in *Hamlet*, Egeon in the *Comedy of Errors*, King Henry in the Henry IV plays, the Chorus in *Henry V*, and so on. What Foster did was look at the distribution of Shakespeare's rare words (i.e. those used 10 times or fewer in the corpus), broken down not only by play but by the character who speaks them. If you look at the rare words shared by two individual plays, in the later play these words are distributed proportionately among the characters; if a character speaks 5 percent of the words in the play, he speaks 5 percent of the rare words shared by the two plays. In the earlier play, the shared words are distributed proportionately among most of the characters, but one role always has two to six times the expected number of shared rare words. This is the role that Shakespeare himself played; when he memorized a role, the words spoken by that character were imprinted in his mind, and were thus more likely to be used when he later wrote another play. This works remarkably consistently; when you look at the rare words shared by *Hamlet* and any given play written after Hamlet, in every case the test picks out the Ghost as Shakespeare's role, and when you compare Hamlet to any earlier play, the shared rare words are randomly distributed. When the test picks out two roles as Shakespeare's (e.g Chorus and Mountjoy in *Henry V*, John of Gaunt and the Gardener in *Richard II*), the characters are never on stage together, providing for the doubling we know must have occurred. In virtually every instance, the character which Foster's tests identify as Shakespeare role is the first to come on stage and speak, and in most cases is an old and/or lame man. The test never assigns to Shakespeare a role we know was played by someone else, and it does assign to Shakespeare the two roles we have independent evidence (however shaky) he did play --- the Ghost in *Hamlet* and Adam in *As You Like It*. There's a lot more; Don Foster wrote a series of three articles in the Shakespeare Newsletter about this in 1991/92 which goes into some detail; I'd advise not writing him directly, since as he said in his last post he's been overwhelmed with correspondence. Now all of this is pretty convincing evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote these plays --- we have evidence that Shakespeare was an actor/sharer in the company which put them on (even Oxfordians generally acknowledge this evidence, though they try to disparage it), and there is no evidence that Oxford ever acted, especially on the public stage. (And no, being the patron of an acting company isn't the same as acting in it.) Knowing the Oxfordian mind, I'm sure they can rationalize this evidence away to their own satisfaction, but for the rest of us this is pretty strong evidence for Will the glover's son. I apologize for going on at such length; I'd better stop now before my fingers fall off. Dave Kathman University of Chicago djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:33:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0876 Re: Multimedia Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0876. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 1994 20:33 EDT Subj: Video on Stage (2) From: Christine Couche Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 10:35:21 +0800 (WST) Subj: re: Mixed Media Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Sunday, 30 Oct 1994 20:33 EDT Subject: Video on Stage Dave Evett and others interested in video on stage may be interested in "Video in Andrzej Wajda's Stage *Hamlet IV*" in the *Shakespeare on Film Newsletter,* vol. 14.2 (April 1990): 7-8. Cheers, Bernice W. Kliman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Couche Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 10:35:21 +0800 (WST) Subject: re: Mixed Media Shakespeare Dear Sallie Cooper, I saw a production of M for M with a very bare stage and three large video screens at the back of the stage, kind of wrapping around the action, on which they flashed past scnes of the action (pre-filmed of course) as well as lines of the play (one at a time) and symbols relating to the action (e.g. the executioner's axe, a burning heart). The overall impression was one of the actors dwindling away to nothing in front of the screens, and finding oneself frustrated by the double focus, especially if the images on the screen were moving, or if the images were different on each screen. In short, not terribly successful. Neither have I been terribly successful in remembering whose production it was, but I'm sure it played in Melbourne and Sydney as well as Perth (any eastern states Autralians on the list??). Hope this is at least of some interest Chris Couche University of Western Australia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:42:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0877 Re: Buying the Farm; Jacobi Hamlet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0877. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. (1) From: Christine Couche Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 10:09:19 +0800 (WST) Subj: Buying the Farm (2) From: Paul Hawkins Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 20:29:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Jacobi's Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Couche Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 10:09:19 +0800 (WST) Subject: Buying the Farm Although it may seem a little inappropriate for an Autralian to offer something to a debate about an American slang phrase, I recently heard an American use the phrase *buying the farm* in the context of someone dying prematurely and violently - i.e. he bought the farm. Are we getting any closer to finding out what this means? Signing off from the Southern Hemisphere, Chris Couche (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Hawkins Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 20:29:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Jacobi's Hamlet My main memory of Jacobi's Hamlet is his delivery of "the pangs of despised love" in the middle of the long list in that speech. He cocked his head to one side and looked off and said the line with a simple wistfulness. From start to finish his performance surprised where the play was most familiar. I'm sure Lonnie Durham would agree. Thanks to her and Marcia Hepp for reminding me of it. Paul ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:46:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0878 The British Library Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0878. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. From: William Proctor Williams Date: Monday, 31 Oct 94 18:37 CST Subject: British Library I am posting the following message from the British Library Regular Readers' Group (RRG) to several lists since the information it contains may be of general interest (apologies for the duplication in advance); mentions of the library's problems have been turning up in various academic/scholarly newsletters and journals such as the +East-Central Intelligencer+ and the newsletter of the Johnson Society of the Central Region. For those who have not been following the saga but are interested, this is a brief (and obviously over-simplified) outline: the grand original 1978 plan has been so cut that despite the unfortunate, disaster-prone new library's cost (450 million pounds so far), its storage will be full when it opens, whenever that may be, and there will be only 73 more seats for readers--a high price to pay for the loss of the Round Reading Room and the King's Library. What follows is a digest of the material contained in the October 1994 +Newsletter+ of the RRG. ---------------------------------------------------- The British Library's new St. Pancras building is perhaps even further from completion: various essential elements of the building are either defective, already out of date, or subject to disputes between the contractors and the Department of National Heritage. There remains NO PROJECTED OPENING DATE. The RRG has published a revised edition of its report: +The Great British Library Disaster+ (copies can be obtained either by sending 5.00 pounds to the RRG or by sending $5.00 to me for a photocopy of the report--addresses at the end of this posting). On 30 June the Commons Select Committee for National Heritage held a hearing and called witnesses (among these were the RRG, Brian Lang and Sir Anthony Kenny of the British Library, and Peter Brooke, then Secretary of State for National Heritage). In the end the Select Committee called for: the retention of the Round Reading Room as an integral part of the British Library "in perpetuity"; an inquiry, chaired by an Ombudsman, to investigate what has gone wrong at St. Pancras; the retention of the rest of the St. Pancras site for use by the British Library in the future. The RRG has been consulted by the National Audit Office about the framework for their own enquiries. The RRG has also attempted to meet with the new Secretary of State for National Heritage, Stephen Dorrell, but has been turned down. The RRG has had talks with Labour MP Mo Mowlam (Shadow spokesman on National Heritage) and Robert McClennan (President of the Liberal Democrats). The month of November will be crucial. Gerald Kaufman, MP (Chairman of the Select Committee) has made it clear he plans to pursue the matters; the government, through the Department of Heritage, must make a response to the Select Committee's recommendations by the end of the month. The RRG urges that you write to Stephen Dorrell as soon as possible, no matter where you live (The Rt. Hon. Stephen Dorrell, Secretary of State for National Heritage, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London SW1Y 5DH). If you live in the UK, the RRG urges you also to write to your MP. Finally, the RRG is very short of funds and all donations will be gratefully received. Cheques drawn on sterling accounts or other foreign accounts should be made payable to The Regular Readers' Group and sent to the London address. Checks drawn on US dollar accounts should be made payable to W. P. Williams, with the Memo line indicating RRG, and sent to the DeKalb, IL address. --------------------------------------------------- That is the end of the digest. If you have further questions or want further information, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail, snail mail, or telephone. In London RRG officers are: Etrenne Lymbery, Chairman, and Brian Lake, Secretary. 46 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3PA; Telephone 071 631 4220; Fax 071 436 6544. In North America: William Proctor Williams, President for North America. Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115; Telephone (815)753-6608; Fax (815)753-0606; e- mail TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET. Thanks for your patience with this long posting and WRITE STEPHEN DORRELL SOON! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:52:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0880 CFP: Computers and Texts #8 Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0880. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. From: Stuart Lee Date: Tuesday, 01 Nov 1994 11:14:54 +0000 Subject: CFP: Computers and Texts 8 ****************************************************************************** Please cross-post accordingly. Computers & Texts # 8 CALL FOR PAPERS Newsletter of the CTI Centre for Textual Studies Computers & Texts has now been running for three years and is the newsletter of the Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for Textual Studies, based at Oxford University Computing Services. The subjects covered by the Centre include literature, linguistics, classics, theology, philosophy (& logic), theatre arts, and media studies. The newsletter has a selection of short articles relating to computer-aided learning in textual studies, a section devoted to the Office for Humanities Communication, and has a mailing of over 2,000 world-wide. Articles relating to projects dealing with electronic text centres and editions are particularly welcome. Format: Submissions should be of approximately 1000-1500 words although this is open to discussion with the editors. Footnotes should be limited and placed at the end of the article. References to published works should be of the form (Smith, 1992) with full bibliographic details given at the end of the article. Screen dumps are accepted, preferably in TIFF or PICT format for the Macintosh. Deadline: 25 November, 1994 Send all details to: Lorna Hughes or Mike Popham Research Officers CTI Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Tel:0865-273221 Fax:0865-273221 E-mail: CTITEXT@vax.ox.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 08:49:53 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0879 McMaster Conference Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0879. Tuesday, 1 November 1994. From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 31 Oct 1994 14:52:45 +0001 (EST) Subject: McMaster Conference November 18, 1994 EXPANDING THE CANON: NEW DIMENSIONS IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE STUDIES 8:OO am REGISTRATION -- Gilmour Hall Council Chamber PLENARY SESSION 1 9:00-10:30 Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Expanding the Canon: Theory and Practice MODERATOR: Helen Ostovich (McMaster) KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Jean E Howard (Columbia): "Other Englands: The View from the Non- Shakespearean History Play" RESPONDENT: Paul Stevens (Queen's) COFFEE 10:30-11:00 PLENARY SESSION 2 11:00-12:30 Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Reading Dialogue and Performance MODERATOR: Graham Roebuck (McMaster) Judith Deitch (U of Toronto): ""`Dialogue- wise': Rediscovering English Dialogues 1560-1603" Leslie S. Katz (Amherst): "`Sweete Sir Timothie, kind sir Timothie, tough sir Timothie': Voicing Robert Armin's Quips upon Questions" Stephanie Wright: "A Text without a Space: Performing The Tragedy of Miriam" LUNCH 12:30-2:00 Commons Building, Small Dining Room CONCURRENT SESSIONS 3 AND 4 2:00-3:30 (3) Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Show and Tell: Spectacle as Meaning MODERATOR: Mary Silcox (McMaster) John Astington (U of Toronto): "The Ages of Man and the Lord Mayor's Show" Candy Loren (U of Toronto): "`To enter Gods house, as if it were a Play-house': The Jacobean `Man-Woman' Transgressively Reinscribed in the Role of Spectator" Philip Collington (U of Toronto): "Middleton, Whitney and Wither: Stagecraft `in the Light of the Emblem'" (4) University Hall 122 The Bible and Meditative Tradition MODERATOR: James Dale (McMaster) Noam Flinker (U of Haifa): "Biblical Poetry in the Context of Mid-Sixteenth-Century Political Tension: The Case of William Baldwin's The Canticles, or Balades of Salomon" Kel Morin (U of Ottawa): "`Thus crave I mercy': The Preface of Anne Locke" John Ottenhoff (Alma College, MI): "Meditating upon Anne Locke's Meditations" COFFEE 3:30-4:00 CONCURRENT SESSIONS 5 AND 6 4:00-5:30 (5) Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Women's Ordeals MODERATOR: Joan Coldwell (McMaster) Stanley D. McKenzie (Rochester Institute of Technology): "`I to my selfe am strange': The Competing Voices of Drayton's `Mistress Shore'" Karen Bamford (Mount Allison): "Sexual Violence in the Queen of Corinth" Anthony Martin (Waseda University, Tokyo): "The `Voice' of an African Woman: George Herbert's `Aethiopissa'" (6) University Hall 122 Reading and Writing Kings MODERATOR: Tom Cain (McMaster) Joan Parks (U of Wisconsin): "Elizabeth Cary's Domestic History" Louise Nichols (U du Quebec a Chicoutimi): "`My name was known before I came': The Heroic Identity of the Prince in The Famous Victories of Henry V" Sandra Bell (Queens): "The King Writing: King James VI and Lepanto" CASH BAR 5:30-7:00 Commons Building, Dining Room DINNER 7:00 REGISTRATION -- EXPANDING THE CANON A conference for the rediscovery and exploration of neglected areas of English writings, 1560-1625, such as non-Shakespearean drama, particularly lesser known works; poets other than Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Donne; letters and diaries; travel literature; popular culture; woemn's writings; emblem books; masques; prose fiction. Keynote Speaker: Jean Howard (Columbia University) "Other Englands: The View from the Non- Shakespearean History Play" Respondent: Paul Stevens (Queen's University) Sponsored by the McMaster University English Association THE CONFERENCE 8:00 am REGISTRATION The Council Chamber, Gilmour Hall Coffee & tea served 9:00 am KEYNOTE ADDRESS Response 10:30 am Coffee Break 11:00 am PANEL OF SPEAKERS 12:30 pm LUNCHEON (included in registration fee) 2:00 pm PANEL OF SPEAKERS 3:30 pm Coffee Break 4:00 pm PANEL OF SPEAKERS 5:30 pm Cash Bar 7:00 pm Dinner -- Buffet of 4 salads, 2 entrees (Chicken with wild mushrooms; Striploin of Beef au jus); potatoes and vegetables; choice of desserts; wine; tea & coffee. OPTIONAL: COST $28.00. PLEASE RESERVE WITH REGISTRATION FORM. CONFERENCE HOTEL: Visitors Inn, 649 Main St W, Hamilton ON L8S 1A2 -- (905)529-6979. Please contact hotel directly and request conference rate: $63 single; $68 double (+ tax). Early reservations advised. PARKING: Conference parking spaces available. Sterling St. entrance to campus. The full programme with names of all speakers and titles of papers will be available after Oct 15. More information from Mary Silcox (905) 525-9140 x27314 and Helen Ostovich x24496, or email ostovich@mcmaster.ca REGISTRATION FORM NAME:____________________________________________________________ ADDRESS:_________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ TELEPHONE: Business___________________ Home:_______________ Registration fee (Canadian funds): Regular = $20 student = $10 dinner = $28 ___________________ TOTAL Current exchange rate of US $ is approximately $1 US: $1.40 Cdn. Please return this form and cheque (made out to McMaster University in Canadian funds) to the address following by FRIDAY NOVEMBER 4: Mrs Clover Nixon Department of English McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario Canada L8S 4L9 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 06:19:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0881 Questions from High School Students Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0881. Thursday, 3 November 1994. From: Shirley Phillips Date: Monday, 31 Oct 94 11:23:42 PST Subject: Questions for SHAKSPER [Editor's Note: Shirley Phillips's high school students have been taking advantage to the resources of the Internet to work on their Shakespeare projects. I have agreed to post questions that some have with the understanding that answers should be sent directly to Shirley Phillips at sphillip@access.k12.wv.us. So if you would care to help out, here are the questions. --HMC] A high school student would like experts' thoughts on the question, "Was Shakespeare a genius or opportunist?" Could Shakespearan researchers and/or instructors give opinions? A student is researching the "authenticity of Shakespeare's authorship" with very few sources found. Could some experts give opinions on this topic. Thank you very much. Shirley Phillips E-mail: sphillip@access.k12.wv.us (Shirley Phillips) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 06:32:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0882 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0882. Thursday, 3 November 1994. (1) From: Todd M. Lidh Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 10:47:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0875 Authorship (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 94 22:37:46 CST Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Todd M. Lidh Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 10:47:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0875 Authorship I will willingly acknowledge my own sparse background in the field of authorship, but, as an up-and-coming (would-be) Shakesperian scholar, I feel I have to express my own feelings in this area. All of the evidence I have seen and heard which supports Oxford (or others) has been substantially insubstantial. No direct evidence exists which points to the Earl, nor will there be any. Conjectures based on supposition based on wishful thinking has led to a pretty argument but one which lacks any force of proof. Shakespearians, on the other hand, have direct evidence. Pat Buckridge acknowledges that their is a will of William Shakespeare of Stratford which links him with the William Shakespere of London. Hey, that sounds like evidence to me! Why do supporters of Oxford claim that Shakesperians must provide a wealth of direct evidence when they themselves can produce none at all? Also, one cannot dismiss title pages and such because they are (gasp!) direct evidence also -- tangible, extant evidence which states that William Shakespeare wrote these plays. Where is the evidence of an Elizabethan conspiracy? Where is the evidence of Oxford's sudden maturing as a writer? Where is the evidence? Plainly, there is none. And, until there is, I believe that any burden of proof (which must contain direct evidence) is on the shoulders of the Oxfordians. Personally, I study these plays without much thought as to who wrote them, but I also cannot dismiss the author from some of my assumptions. I have no room for Oxford in this analysis because I have no good, logical reason nor proof to accept (or even consider) him the author. Please, citing direct evidence, change my mind. Todd M. Lidh UNC-Chapel Hill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 94 22:37:46 CST Subject: Authorship Arrgh. I see that David Evett's posting, reasonable as it was, has unleashed the expected responses from Oxfordians. Let me first respond to Pat Buckridge, then to Charles Boyle. 1) Phlogiston, Pat? Come on. If you want to play that game, I could compare Oxfordians to other historical revisionist movements whose members have much more sinister motivations than you do. "But I won't, since that would be stupid and unfair to you. Let's just stick to the subject at hand." 2) As for more substantive claims: Pat implies that the occasional hyphenation of Shakespeare's name on the title pages of the quartos is grounds for believing that this was a pseudonym. This common Oxfordian belief (usually just asserted with no evidence whatsoever) bears no relation to reality, and Irvin Matus in *Shakespeare, In Fact* shows it to be the baseless distortion it is. There are plenty of other instances where non-pseudonymous proper names were hyphenated in Elizabethan times, and the pattern seems to be that if a name can be divided into two parts, one or both of which is an English word, the name was occasionally hyphenated in print --- e.g. Shake-speare, Old-castle, etc. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PSEUDONYMS, and anyone who says that hyphenation commonly indicated a pseudonym in Elizabethan times is simply making a false statement. 3) Pat claims that there are 'remarkably few' contemporary allusions to Shakespeare, when there are about as many as we should expect for a playwright of his stature. There are fewer contemporary allusions to Thomas Dekker and John Webster among others, and they wrote plays longer than Shakespeare did. He also claims that these allusions are inconclusive in that they do not specify "William Shakespeare the glover's son from Stratford-upon-Avon"; aside from the fact that some of these allusions imply that Shakespeare was an actor, this criterion would invalidate probably 99 percent of Elizabethan allusions. 4) The claim that the only evidence directly linking Shakespeare of Stratford with the actor/sharer of London is the bequest to Heminges, Condell, and Burbage in Shakespeare's will is not quite accurate --- there's also the document in the College of Heralds with a drawing of Shakespeare's coat of arms and the disparaging notation "Shakspere, the player". This is the same coat of arms which appears on Shakespeare's grave and monument in Stratford --- oh, I forgot, those were erected by the conspirators after Shakespeare's death to fool posterity. There are also, of course, numerous other documents (Augustine Phillips' will, the Royal patent for the King's Men, etc. etc.) indicating that a real person named William Shakespeare (virtually always with that spelling in the documents in question) was an actor and sharer in the Chamberlain's / King's Men. What, are you suggesting that this was a different man than the guy who left rings to Heminges and Condell in his will? If so, who was it? 5) Now on to Charles Boyle. Mr. Boyle uses Ward Elliot's refreshing modesty ("ours is not the last word on the subject, much less the only word") as an excuse to dismiss Elliot's entire study. What, because Ward Elliot refuses to proclaim his study the be-all and end-all of stylometric authorship studies, that means we can just toss it out without a second glance? Please. Why don't you try telling us specifically what's wrong with Elliot's study, rather than proclaiming it "flawed" and acting like that's the end of the discussion? 6) Boyle also, like Pat Buckridge, disparages the amount of evidence linking the Stratford man to the plays. I'll say it one more time: the parallel evidence for other Elizabethan playwrights is just as tenuous by 20th century standards, in most cases more tenuous. Take Christopher Marlowe. We know that there was a real person with this name, a shoemaker's son from Canterbury, but if you want to have some fun on a rainy Sunday afternoon, try proving that this person ever wrote a play in his life. You can't do it, using Oxfordian standards. Consider: we have no letters or other documents in his hand, just a single signature as a witness to a will in 1583, spelled "Christofer Marley" (we're pretty sure this is the right guy because his father was a witness to the same will). During his lifetime, the only play we now attribute to him which was published was *Tamburlaine Part 2*, published anonymously in 1590, and the grounds for attributing this play to Marlowe in any case are very meager, consisting mainly of a highly ambiguous reference by Robert Greene. Marlowe's name was *never* directly associated with any plays during his lifetime; this first happened in 1594, the year after his death, when the name "Christopher Marlowe" (a spelling almost never used while the shoemaker's son was alive) appeared on the title page of *Dido, Queen of Carthage*. During the rest of the decade some plays appeared with "Ch. Mar." or "C. Marl." or the like; it wasn't until well into the 17th century that the name "Christopher Marlowe" was regularly associated in print with plays. And in any case, references made after the man's death don't count, as the Oxfordians always tell us in the case of Shakespeare. The literary allusions to Marlowe are of the same type as the allusions to Shakespeare, and could easily be dismissed on the same grounds the Oxfordians use. Yet despite all this --- the fact that he spelled his name "Marley" while the quartos after his death say "Marlowe", the fact that nothing during his lifetime directly links him to any play, and the posthumous evidence is almost nonexistent until a decade or more after his death --- despite all this, people seem to have no trouble believing that Christopher Marlowe of Caterbury wrote *The Jew of Malta*, *Dr. Faustus*, *Tamburlaine*, and *Edward II*, and there are people who believe that he also wrote Shakespeare's plays as well. Anyone who accepts that Christopher Marlowe of Canterbury wrote plays but refuses to accept that William Shakespeare of Stratford did is applying a double standard of the most blatant and monumental order. Good night. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 08:26:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0883 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0883. Thursday, 3 November 1994. From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 01 Nov 1994 13:07:19 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0875 Authorship In re authorship: a funny question occurred to me, after reading the latest comments on authorship: is there any evidence that Oxford wrote the works of Kyd, or Marston? The dates are about right, and I would guess that the evidence linking Oxford to Kyd or Marston would be as *convincing* at the *evidence* linking Oxford to Shakespeare? Or are the Baconians-Oxfordians-Rutlanders-Uncle Tom Cobleighers simply trying to link Oxford to an ackowledged genius like Shakespeare out of unexaminable motives? E.L.Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 09:02:57 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0884 Re: Boys in Women's Roles (Plus Editor's Note) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0884. Thursday, 3 November 1994. From: Jean Peterson Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 11:50:38 -0500 Subject: Re: Boys and Women's Roles [SHAKSPEReans, Apparently, with the LISTSERV difficulties at the University of Toronto, some mail has been lost. The following posting from Jean Peterson was one of those. Apologies to Jean. If any of you suspect that a message you sent did not arrive, please resubmit. By the way, one way to reduce the traffic at UofT and to assure safe arrival is to sent your postings directly to me at HMCook@boe00.minc.umd.edu. --HMC PS: Re: SHAKSPER's future: I've made my proposal to my President and I'm awaiting his response.] Re: James Forse and boys: >Let's take a look at some other evidence: c.1600 the Reading town records note >that a play was delayed because the Queen was shaving. Davenant's Royal >patent, 1660 states: *That whereas the women's parts in plays have] hitherto >been acted by MEN (emphasis mine) in the habits of women, of which some have >taken offence, we permit and give leave for the time to come, that all women's >parts be acted by women.* The poetic prologue to a 1660 performance of Othello >states: *But to the point: In this reforming age/ We have intents to civilize >the stage./Our women are defective, and so siz'd/You'd think they were some of >the guard disguis'd:/ For, to speak truth, men act, that are between/Forty and >fifty, wenches of fifteen;/With bone so large and nerve so incompliant,/When >you call Desdemona enter Giant.* OK, but Reading is the "provinces", not London--it's certainly possible that the selection of trained actors was smaller and a burly adult took on a role that in the wider talent pool of the metropolis would have been played by a younger apprentice... As for the Restoration references, I would be very careful about taking them as undiluted "truth." There's 18 years, a civil war, and a generation of continental influence (which taught the the exiles to accept women actresses as the sophisticated norm) to influence ideas of taste and appropriateness. Even in the passage cited, the "new" english stage is being touted as "civilizing", set in opposition to the presumedly barbarian, unsophisticated past. The rhetorical strategy is to present actresses as "natural" and men-in-women's roles as unthinkably gawky and in-credible, a grotesquely incongruous holdover from the crude old days of outdoor theaters, no scenery, and other excrescences. And if my memory of the passage is correct, isn't there an implication--probably more humorous than factual--that the "gawky giants" of 45 are the young men of the Renaissance stage all grown up? But pretty-boy Edward Kynaston took on women's roles in the 1660's; no gawky giant he, for Pepys thought him, in a dress, the loveliest lady in the house (words to that effect). The best thing ever written on Cleopatra's "boy-my-greatness" line, IMHO, is Phyllis Rackin's "Shakespeare's Boy Cleopatra, the Decorum of Nature, and the Golden World of Poetry," (PMLA 87 1972) in which she posits that Cleo's reference to the boy who plays her, far from being a gratutitous "slam," is the structuring aesthetic strategy of the play. "Well, boy my greatness!" Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 13:35:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0885 Re: Velvet; Diet; Sharp as; Multimedia Prod; Buying the Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0885. Thursday, 3 November 1994. (1) From: Victor Gallerano Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 11:49:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0854 Gummed Velvet (2) From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 20:07:43 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0874 Re: Diet and Size (3) From: Lee Jacobus Date: Wednesday, 02 Nov 94 15:34:04 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen (4) From: Mathew J. Schwartz Date: Wednesday, 2 Nov 1994 18:12:37 -0500 Subj: Re: Multimedia Shakespeare (5) From: Joyce Crim Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 22:43:14 -0600 Subj: Buying the Farm (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Victor Gallerano Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 11:49:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0854 Gummed Velvet Julian Hirsh, This comment from Andrew Lytle (_The Hero With The Private Parts_ 1966 LSU Press) may fill-out the gloss of : "At a certain moment the buck, out of the mystery of instinct, rubs the velvet off against the tree, and then he is ready for the rutting season. The velvet grows about the feminine end of the horn, and it bleeds as it is rubbed away." (186) It is the raw-rubbed and bloody flesh at the root of the horn that attracts flies. Moreover, the tatters don't hang from the tines, rather it is the blood from the open wound at the base of the horn that coagulates to "gum-up" the dead and otherwise loose "velvet" and make it hang in the buck's face and drive him to distraction. Lytle's note that this rubbing anticipates the rutting season adds to the frantic condition. (I pass over the possible reference to this state of things in the context: Ned Poins having just removed the Knight's "mount.") Lytle's essay is a comment on the writing of his novel, _The Velvet Horn_ which I recommend to any and all who have the inclination to invest themselves in the rich novels of the American South. I have no doubt that Lytle has seen a fair number of bucks in tatters, and probably had the fullest explication of that condition from his own (and our?) Uncle Jack Cropleigh, the central intelligence of his novel who is described thus: "...Jack, so full of flesh, almost gross. Going to bed drunk...made him seem so, for he was not gross. Just full of flesh." But Uncle Jack, as full of the flesh as Sir John, has more to say for himself, things that the old knight can't quite manage. As my son says, "Yo', man, check it out." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 20:07:43 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0874 Re: Diet and Size Diet certainly is a factor in determining the average size of a people. The case of the Japanese people is well known. As a former Judo fighter in the early 1980s (after injury I am only an enthusiastic spectator now), I had the priviledge of studying for a few weeks under Awazu Sensei (9th dan, red belt: one notch below 10th dan, the highest rank ever given since the death of the founding master, Kano Sensei, in 1960) then about 68, who was 5 ft tall (I'm 5 ft 5, if that means 1,63m); his assistants, both in their mid-twenties, were 6 ft tall, two weight categories apart (25 lbs or so), as one was very slim and the other bulky. The lighter one said he seldom had an opportunity to train with smaller people, whereas people 2 weight categories below him were just under one foot smaller... and bulky for their size, like Awazu Sensei. The diet of industrial Japan showed in those young athletes, as the small size of their master testified of the poor diet on which people were brought up in the 1920s. I am always surprised, when visiting a military museum (I'm thinking of the Paris Armies' museum at the Hotel des Invalides) displaying suits of armour from the 15th or 16th centuries: even those highly practiced and athletic horsemen were small, perhaps smaller than me. You find some large suits of armour, but the number of smaller suits in a collection is stunning. For that reason, I tend to suspect that Elizabethans were not only nutcracking during shows, but also small in average size because of their poor diet. They may have been taller than the Breton or Provencal on the Continent for genetic reasons, still valid today, but from generation to generation genetics is a tendency, but diet seems to have an importance, otherwise the Japanese would still be a small human group, which is no longer the case. Why are Americans becoming fat? is it a matter of genetic mutation? Don't give me that!!! Fat Japanese are fat for the same reason: lousy grub and too much TV, as my Grannie would say. (second degree, or one-and a-halfth, folks, please: no flames). A table maintenant, Luc (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lee Jacobus Date: Wednesday, 02 Nov 94 15:34:04 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0857 Q: Sharp as a Pen Sharp as a pen probably refers to his having reformed a bit and his nose returned to its original shape (imagine this for W. C. Fields, and you get the "point"). (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mathew J. Schwartz Date: Wednesday, 2 Nov 1994 18:12:37 -0500 Subject: Re: Multimedia Shakespeare Dear Sallie Cooper: This past summer I saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in a park in Goteborg, Sweden, which utilized a large white (video) projection screen. The screen was in place before the beginning of the show, lowered at the front of covered bleachers, creating a dark box around the audience. The play began with an image of Puck hanging by a noose from a tree, then the screen was lifted to the identical image in real life. Immediately afterwards, faeries ran out and lowered Puck and they all ran off together. Sorry if that is sketchy. The screen worked quite well in the end, though. After Theseus machine-guns the other mortals and Puck is once again hoisted onto the tree, the screen lowers to play the faeries' final words, followed by short clips of each cast member holding their name on a piece of paper up to camera. The screen didn't seem to have some great ideological significance. But it provided good closure and kept the production fresh. (At least for me, visually. I can't speak *any* Swedish.) Mathew Schwartz Cornell University mjs2@cornell.edu (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joyce Crim Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 22:43:14 -0600 Subject: Buying the Farm My friend Joan Hall, Associate Editor of the DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN REGIONAL ENGLISH, kindly gave some information on "buying the farm." Because of Chris Couche's recent question, I will post it: According to the newly published RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, by Jonathan Lighter, the earliest citation for this particular phrase is from the journal AMERICAN SPEECH, vol 30, p. 116, in 1955: "Buy the farm; Buy a plot, v. phr. Crash fatally. (Jet pilots say that when a jet crashes on a farm the farmer usually sues the government for damages done to his farm by the crash, and the amount demanded is always more than enough to pay off the mortgage and then buy the farm outright. Since this type of crash [i.e., in a jet fighter] is nearly always fatal to the pilot, the pilot pays for the farm with his life.)" However, the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY SUPPLEMENT shows that the basic phrase "buy it" goes back to 1825 in the sense `to suffer a serious reverse; to get into a finishing situation' (this definition is from the Random House dict, but the quotes are from the OEDS). And, in 1920, the phrase "buy it" meaning `to be killed' appeared in W. Noble's WITH BRISTOL FIGHTER SQUADRON: "The wings and fuselage, with fifty-three bullet holes, caused us to realize on our return how near we had been to `buying it.'" In 1954 the NEW YORK TIMES (Mar 7, p.20) listed, in a "Jet-flight glossary," the entry "Bought a plot: Had a fatal crash." Also in 1954, in P. Harvey's JET (p.117) there is this sentence: "Those jet jockeys just bought the shop, didn't they?" So while "buy the farm" is relatively recent and seems to be the phrase which has stuck, the phrase "buy it" goes back quite a bit further. _______________ Now, back to Shakespeare..... Joyce Crim ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 13:45:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0886 Qs: *R3*; Doubling in *Ham.*; Anthology Request Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0886. Thursday, 3 November 1994. (1) From: Selene A. Athas Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 5:57 pm EST (22:57:49 UT) Subj: Richard III (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 94 18:45:38 CST Subj: Doubling in *Hamlet* (3) From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Wednesday, 2 Nov 1994 17:03:49 -0500 Subj: Anthology Request (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Selene A. Athas Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 5:57 pm EST (22:57:49 UT) Subject: Richard III This question goes out to anyone willing or able to answer it: I am a senior in college working towards a BFA in Acting and currently taking an acting Shakespeare course. I am about to begin working on Scene ii of Act I of Richard III, Lady Anne and Richard. What is the significance of the use of iambic trimeter in a portion of the scene? Also, any other insight into the scene, characters, and play in general would be much appreciated. Thank you! Selene Athas (athas8482@fredonia.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 94 18:45:38 CST Subject: Doubling in *Hamlet* As I was writing the other day about Don Foster's computer study of the roles Shakespeare played as an actor (that message hasn't been posted yet as I write, but probably will be by the time this appears), I remembered that, according to Foster's tests, the two roles Shakespeare played in *Hamlet* were the Ghost and the Player King --- when you think about it, and inspired bit of doubling. The question occured to me --- is this ever done nowadays? Has anyone ever seen a production of Hamlet where the same actor played the Ghost and the Player King, and if so, what was the effect? There would seem to be some interesting possibilities there, but I've never seen a production of *Hamlet* with extensive doubling, so I don't know firsthand. Thanks, Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas G. Bishop Date: Wednesday, 2 Nov 1994 17:03:49 -0500 Subject: Anthology Request I am teaching a graduate course in English Renaissance Drama next semester and am looking to save my students some money by ordering an anthology of plays to work from. However, I have had no luck finding a decent one that's actually in print. Ayer Co had Schelling and Black's Typical Elizabethan Plays in reprint until recently, but have informed me that it's no longer available. Can anyone give me any suggestions of other anthologies I might use? If not, does someone want to approach a publishing company with me to develop a new one? Or is there no longer any demand for such things? Yours in bafflement, Tom Bishop Case Western Reserve University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Nov 1994 13:56:08 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0887 Re: Anne Lock Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0887. Thursday, 3 November 1994. (1) From: Frances Murphy Zauhar Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 20:24:17 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0873 Q: Anne Lock (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Tuesday, 12 Jan 1904 23:49:18 +1000 Subj: Anne Lock (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Frances Murphy Zauhar Date: Tuesday, 1 Nov 1994 20:24:17 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0873 Q: Anne Lock To find out about transcriptions of the work of Anne Lock, you might be interested in joining the listserv for the Brown University Women Writer's Project and posting your query there. To join the list, email to LISTSERV@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU the message to "SUBSCRIBE WWP-L your full name". The list isn't nearly as active as SHAKSPER, but there is a regular supply of interesting and helpful information about early women writers, as well as postings about relevant conferences, etc. Someone there will surely be able to give you some additional information. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Tuesday, 12 Jan 1904 23:49:18 +1000 Subject: Anne Lock In reply to Jan Stirm: I've never heard of Anne Lock, but I'd be most interested to hear a little more about her. It must surely be one of the only uses of the sonnet form for religious themes before Donne. I take it she wrote in English? Pat Buckridge Grififth ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 10:00:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video; Modernized Texts Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0892. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: Nina Walker Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 13:18:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Chimes at Midnight (2) From: Peter Novak Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 12:06:12 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Modernized Texts (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nina Walker Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 13:18:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Chimes at Midnight I'm actively and somewhat desperately seeking a video copy of Welles's *Chimes at Midnight*. I'm not having much success. It seems the distribution company is a mystery to most of the outlets I've contacted. If anyone can help, I'd be very grateful. Contact me at: Nwalker@lynx.northeastern.edu Thanks in advance. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Novak Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 12:06:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Modernized Texts This may seem problematic to some of you, but is anyone aware of any editions other than The Contemporary Shakespeare by A.L. Rowse which has language in contemporary English? I feel I need to explain my reasons for asking... We are in the process of interpreting the plays in our season for Deaf audiences, and we do Shakespeare every year. Because the interpreter's time is valuable (and expensive at $50.00 per hour), and because it would save us an enormous amount of time, we are looking for Shakespeare's plays in a more simplified and easy to understand manner. The interpreter's job is a complicated one. They need to listen and make split-second decisions regarding the delivery of a line. It makes it even more complicated to try to follow in the script and sign in a second language. It would make the interpreter's job much simpler if they did not have to decipher meaning from the actors and then translate. This brings up huge issues of meaning, performance, text, etc... but we don't have the time to deal with that now. Any suggestions? Peter Novak SCUACC.SCU.EDU Santa Clara University ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 17:21:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0893 [was SHk 5.0893] Announcements: SFPs; Change of Program Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0893. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: T. Scott Clapp Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 08:23:41 -0700 (MST) Subj: Call for Papers (2) From: Jon Connolly Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 09:31:45 -0800 (PST) Subj: Renaissance Studies Call for Papers (3) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 18:01:09 +0001 (EST) Subj: Change in program at McMaster (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: T. Scott Clapp Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 08:23:41 -0700 (MST) Subject: Call for Papers CALL FOR PAPERS Reinventing the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Constructions of the Medieval and Early Modern Periods February 16-18, 1995 The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University invites papers for an interdisciplinary conference on the general topic of how the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have been viewed through the centuries and how they defined themselves. (Norman Cantor's work on the concept of the Middle Ages in various historical periods may be used as a model.) Possible session topics include: periodization as it affects views of the past revivalisms Gothicism national differences twentieth-century views continuities/changes in attitudes to allegory Renaissance views of the Middle Ages medievalism/the Renaissance in the modern periods (Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, modern, post-modern, etc.) medieval views of the Middle Ages Renaissance views of the Renaissance continuities between the Middle Ages and Renaissance survival of antiquity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Professor Norman Cantor will present the conference's keynote address. The conference will be held at the Radisson Mission Palms Hotel, two blocks from the ASU campus in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. The high temperature in the "Valley of the Sun" during February averages 70 degrees. Proposals for sessions and detailed abstracts will be accepted beginning August 1, 1994. The final deadline will be December 1, 1994. Please send two copies of proposal for papers and sessions to the program committee chair: Robert E. Bjork, Director, ACMRS, Arizona State University, Box 872301, Tempe, AZ 85287-2301. Email: atreb@asuvm.inre.asu.edu. Phone: (602) 965-5900. Fax: (602) 965-2012. T. Scott Clapp, Program Coordinator Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Arizona State University Box 872301 Tempe, AZ 85287-2301 Phone: (602) 965-5900; FAX: (602) 965-2012 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jon Connolly Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 09:31:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Renaissance Studies Call for Papers This message is being cross-posted to other lists. Please ignore (and forgive) duplicate postings. Direct questions to Jon Connolly . Thank you. ****************************************************************************** CALL FOR PAPERS ****************************************************************************** The Margins of the Human the fifth annual interdisciplinary conference of the Rennaisance Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara 14-15 April 1995 Keynote Speaker: Claire Farago, Dept. of Fine Arts, University of Colorado, Boulder This conference is designed to bring together students and faculty from a variety of disciplines to consider how the category of the human was constructed and located in late medieval and early modern europe. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: racial and ethnic others, sexual practices, the "civilized" and the "barbarous," the "primitive" and the "decadent," the supraterrestrial (angels, demons, spirits), men, women, replicants (homunculi, automatons, imposters), children, animals (pets, predators, food), "bestiality," monsters, witches, fools, yokels, saints, villains/villeins, vagrants, rebellious bodies, linguistic and cultural regionalism, ignorance, fear and rationality, the unknown and the inconceivable, subjectivity, humanism, music, rhetoric, technology Interested scholars must submit abstracts by 15 January 1995. Please send them to: Robert Williams Dept. of the History of Art and Architecture University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 (805) 893-2417 FAX 805/893-7117 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 18:01:09 +0001 (EST) Subject: Change in program at McMaster EXPANDING THE CANON: NEW DIRECTIONS IN RENAISSANCE STUDIES November 18, 1994, at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Pre-registrations requested. Note change in programme below, for Session 2. 8:OO am REGISTRATION -- Gilmour Hall Council Chamber PLENARY SESSION 1 9:00-10:30 Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Non-canonical Materials: Theory and Practice MODERATOR: Helen Ostovich (McMaster) KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Jean E Howard (Columbia): "Other Englands: The View from the Non- Shakespearean History Play" RESPONDENT: Paul Stevens (Queens) COFFEE 10:30-11:00 PLENARY SESSION 2 11:00-12:30 Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Reading Dialogue and Performance MODERATOR: Graham Roebuck (McMaster) Judith Deitch (U of Toronto): ""`Dialogue- wise': Rediscovering English Dialogues 1560-1603" Leslie S. Katz (Amherst): "`Sweete Sir Timothie, kind sir Timothie, tough sir Timothie': Voicing Robert Armin's Quips upon Questions" CANCEL [Stephanie Wright: "A Text without a Space: Performing The Tragedy of Miriam"] ADD David Linton (Marymount Manhattan): "Reading the Regulations" LUNCH 12:30-2:00 Commons Building, Small Dining Room CONCURRENT SESSIONS 3 AND 4 2:00-3:30 (3) Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Show and Tell: Spectacle as Meaning MODERATOR: Mary Silcox (McMaster) John Astington (U of Toronto): "The Ages of Man and the Lord Mayor's Show" Candy Loren (U of Toronto): "`To enter Gods house, as if it were a Play-house': The Jacobean `Man-Woman' Transgressively Reinscribed in the Role of Spectator" Philip Collington (U of Toronto): "Middleton, Whitney and Wither: Stagecraft `in the Light of the Emblem'" (4) University Hall 122 The Bible and Meditative Tradition MODERATOR: James Dale (McMaster) Noam Flinker (U of Haifa): "Biblical Poetry in the Context of Mid-Sixteenth-Century Political Tension: The Case of William Baldwin's The Canticles, or Balades of Salomon" Kel Morin (U of Ottawa): "`Thus crave I mercy': The Preface of Anne Locke" John Ottenhoff (Alma College, MI): "Meditating upon Anne Locke's Meditations" COFFEE 3:30-4:00 CONCURRENT SESSIONS 5 AND 6 4:00-5:30 (5) Gilmour Hall Council Chamber Women's Ordeals MODERATOR: Joan Coldwell (McMaster) Stanley D. McKenzie (Rochester Institute of Technology): "`I to my selfe am strange': The Competing Voices of Drayton's `Mistress Shore'" Karen Bamford (Mount Allison): "Sexual Violence in the Queen of Corinth" Anthony Martin (Waseda University, Tokyo): "The `Voice' of an African Woman: George Herbert's `Aethiopissa'" (6) University Hall 122 Reading and Writing Kings MODERATOR: Tom Cain (McMaster) Joan Parks (U of Wisconsin): "Elizabeth Cary's Domestic History" Louise Nichols (U du Quebec a Chicoutimi): "`My name was known before I came': The Heroic Identity of the Prince in The Famous Victories of Henry V" Sandra Bell (Queens): "The King Writing: King James VI and Lepanto" CASH BAR 5:30-7:00 Commons Building, Dining Room DINNER 7:00 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 17:23:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0894 Re: *Shrew* Productions; Anne Lock Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0894. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: Jim Helsinger Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 10:32:57 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0872 Q: *Shrew* Productions (2) From: Mary Bess Whidden Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 21:10:35 -0700 (MST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0887 Re: Anne Lock (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Helsinger Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 10:32:57 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0872 Q: *Shrew* Productions I'm directing Shrew myself this spring in Florida and have acted in the play four other times. To me the most important thing is to never forget that it is a LOVE STORY! A love story about two people who are not complete within themselves and discover in the course of the play that the other one fulfills them. If Kate is a wonderful, liberated woman in the beginning, you have nowhere to go and the audience will gag on the last speech. It must be a speech of growth for her as a person, NOT submission. It takes alot of courage to give yourself to someone, male or female, and she does it, thereby winning Petruchio completely over to her. This is a personal thing but I also encourage you not to be afraid for Petruchio to be not entirely likable at first (he's in it for the money), this gives him somewhere to grow as well. If you do the induction, consider adding the middle and ending stuff from Taming of *A* Shrew. It helps give the Sly plot some closure. Good luck, Jim Helsinger (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Bess Whidden Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 21:10:35 -0700 (MST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0887 Re: Anne Lock Sorry to clog up space, but my attempted message to Pat Buckridge failed. Concerning the use of the sonnet form for holy matter, give old Barnabe Barnes--not *Parthenophil*--a chance. Good luck, Mary Bess Whidden ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 5 Nov 1994 17:20:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0891 Re: Renaissance Drama Anthologies Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0891. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 08:24:04 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0886 Anthology Request (2) From: Fran Teague Date: Friday, 04 Nov 94 09:34:05 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Anthology Request (3) From: Grant Moss Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 15:14:29 -0500 (EST) Subj: Renaissance Drama Anthologies (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 08:24:04 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0886 Anthology Request Tom Bishop asks for help with an anthology for an English Renaissance Drama course. Anthologies never seem to have exactly what is needed, but I have used (for theatre history courses) Gassner & Green's *Elizabethan Drama*, still in print (as far as I know) from Applause. Two plays by Marlowe, one each from Kyd, Greene, Jonson, Dekker, and Heywood, plus *Arden of Feversham*. A good, small, affordable, paperback. Supplement it a little and it would be a good place to start. What it *isn't* is a whole course-load of reading unto itself (as was the case for *Typical Elizabethan Plays*). Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Teague Date: Friday, 04 Nov 94 09:34:05 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Anthology Request Re: the anthology request from Thomas Bishop. Our bookstore tells me books are out of print when it ain't necessarily so, as Sportin' Life says in _Porgy and Bess_. Obviously if you're teaching students who intend to go on, you want them to invest in a very full anthology. In a class that's a mixture of graduate students from other departments, English students from various specialties, and Renaissance students, I've had good luck ordering a small anthology (like the M. L. Wine one) and supplementing with books on reserve, inexpensive paperbacks, and so forth. The Wine has nine plays and a masque in it, minimal apparatus, and a relatively low price. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Grant Moss Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 15:14:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Renaissance Drama Anthologies Re Thomas Bishop's inquiry regarding Renaissance Drama Anthologies, there is a two-volume set called "Drama of the English Renaissance," edited by Norman Rabkin and Russell Fraser that might be helpful. It's available in paperback (Vol. 1 is Elizabethan, Vol. is Jacobean), and has a fairly good selection of plays. There is also a smaller volume, also called "Drama of the English Renaissance," edited by M. L. Wine, but I think it might be more suited to undergraduate classes. Grant Moss University of North Carolina ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 08:10:14 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0888 Re: Cheek by; H7 Play; Jacobi Hamlet; Multimedia Prod. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0888. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: Scott Crozier Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 1994 18:45:26 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0837 Re: Cheek by Jowl (2) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 94 09:32:00 PST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0870 Off the Beaten Path (3) From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Nov 03 14:45:33 EST 1994 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0868 Re: Jacobi Hamlet (4) From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Friday, 4 Nov 94 11:57:35 EST Subj: Multimedia Shakespeare (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 1994 18:45:26 +1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0837 Re: Cheek by Jowl I too saw Cheek by Jowl's MM earlier this year, in Perth Australia and I must say, I found it a focused, thoughtful and honest production which dealt with the problems of Isabella's characterer and her relationships with Claudio, the Duke and Angelo with a freshness lost in many that I have seen. I have also seen Cheek by Jowl's AYLI, this time 3 years ago in Adelaide. I am sorry that it seems to have become a parody of what that production originally was. When I saw it, I began to understand the complexity of Jacques character and his relationship with Rosalind. This was subtley developed in this all male production. I have been fan of the company since I saw their MND and then TN in 1986. I had the priviledge to interview Delan Donnellan this year for work that I am doing for a thesis on MND and found him to be passionate, intelligent and very creative. I just hope not all SHAKSPEReans saw the recent American tour in such a dim light. Yours ever Scott Crozier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 94 09:32:00 PST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0870 Off the Beaten Path As I recall, somewhere in the Stradford Papers there was an essay titled "Why Shakespeare didn't write a Henry VII." I only glanced at it, so I'm foggy, but I thought the decision was attributed to the possibility of a Henry VII play upsetting the current ruling family rather that a simple lack of interesting material. jimmy jung jungj@jmbpo3.bah.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Thursday, Nov 03 14:45:33 EST 1994 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0868 Re: Jacobi Hamlet; > Just a moment of pleasurable recollection brought on by Marcia Hepps's > mention of Derek Jacobi's performance in the BBC production of *Hamlet*: I > had always heard in my head that line from the "no more marriages" speech as > "IT hath MADE me MAD", but Jacobi (embracing Ophelia during the last part of > his rant) looks up startled, as if in sudden realization, and over Ophelia's > shoulder gasps "it HATH made me mad." Brilliant I thought at the time, but > I haven't seen it since to confirm my first impression. I'm afraid I accidentally deleted the name of the Shaksperean who said this, but I wanted to say that I totally agree with you (although I remember Derek Jacobi's emphasis slightly differently--with an emphasis on "MAD" as well as the discovery part of "HATH")--but then again memory is notoriously fickle. I too noticed Derek Jacobi's reading of the line: a surprised acknowledgment on Hamlet's part that he is acting a little crazy, especially with Ophelia. It's a great middle ground to the question of Hamlet's insanity. Perhaps he is crafty mad with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Polonius, and Claudius, but with Ophelia he is pretty disturbed. Definitely a brilliant interpretation on Jacobi's part. Leslie Harris lharris@einstein.susqu.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mary Ellen Zurko Date: Friday, 4 Nov 94 11:57:35 EST Subject: Multimedia Shakespeare There was a production of Julius Caesar in Stratford, CT sometime in the mid-80's that used video to good effect during the speaches over the grave scene. The analogy of Brutus and Antony to modern politicians convincing the masses was more immediate because of the familiar (to people like me) vision of a politico on at TV screen. Mez (zurko@osf.org) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 08:08:10 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0890 Re: Doubling in *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0890. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: Cary Mazer Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 08:53:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0886 Doubling in *Ham* (2) From: Jim Helsinger Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 10:37:55 -0500 Subj: RE: Doubling in Hamlet (3) From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 11:39:08 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Doubling in *Ham.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Mazer Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 08:53:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0886 Doubling in *Ham* For David Kathman, The role of the Ghost and the Player King were doubled in Ingmar Bergman's production of *Hamlet*. Cary M. Mazer University of Pennsylvania (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Helsinger Date: Friday, 4 Nov 1994 10:37:55 -0500 Subject: RE: Doubling in Hamlet Yes, I did a production with the Alabama Shakes. Fest. where the Player king and Ghost were the same. Wonderful. You got two major father figures for hamlet being the same person. Worked great for hamlet and the audience. Just as interesting was Polonius as the First Gravedigger, so Hamlet is talking to the man he killed as the man is digging his own daughter's grave. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Friday, 04 Nov 1994 11:39:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Doubling in *Ham.* In a heavily doubled production at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille, the Ghost doubled into Player King, 1st (only!) Gravedigger, Pirate, and even (through some innovative sleight-of-hand involving Ghost's filmed image projected on fog in 1.1) into Barnardo. The impact of her lost husband's apparent return in the play-within would have been powerful for Gertrude in any event (not that it was read, or intended to read, that literally, but there was no avoiding a kind of remembered presence awakening memory and even conscience), but Passe Muraille pushed the moment much further, picking up on the idea of court members as occasional performers (as in masques), and having the Player King silently invite Gertrude to take the role of Player Queen--she was given a mask and a script, and so she herself uttered the protestations of eternal faithfulness before resuming her seat and observing, profoundly shaken, that the lady doth protest too much. Not a style for everyone's performance of *Hamlet*, certainly, but in the context of this particular production, and in this particular theatre (the birthplace of the collective movement in Canada), the moment was integrated and powerful, informed by improvisational techniques which were the hallmark of Passe Muraille. Just remembered: Ghost also returned as Fortinbras! This production ran at Passe Muraille from late 1983 into early '84. Skip Shand ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Nov 1994 08:08:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0899 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0889. Saturday, 5 November 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 1994 22:52:41 -0500 (EST) Subj: Faith, Skepticism, and Authorship (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 1994 23:04:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Meres, Shakespeare, and Oxford (3) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 21:51:00 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0882 Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 1994 22:52:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Faith, Skepticism, and Authorship David Evett's recent arrangement of facts got me thinking about faith and skepticism. Most Shakespeareans have faith that the facts David lists are all connected, and they are skeptical of the connections intuited by the Oxfordians. And the Oxfordians have faith that the facts they adduce are all connected and lead inevitability to the conclusion: the 17th Earl of Oxford wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. And they are super skeptical of the connections adduced by the Shakespeareans. Now what would happen if both sides in this argument gave up faith in favor of skepticism? Which side would have the most toys left after a really skeptical analysis of the verifiable facts? And, remember, the side with the most toys wins! Yours, skeptical Bill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 03 Nov 1994 23:04:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Meres, Shakespeare, and Oxford I ask this question without arising from the keyboard to check: didn't Meres refer to Oxford as a comic playwright? Didn't Meres also list Shakespeare's plays? If Meres could mention that Oxford was best for comedy, why was everyone else in the 16th century so hesitant to do so? And if Meres was in the know, why did he suggest that Oxford and Shakespeare were BOTH writing plays -- if only Oxford was doing the writing? I'm sure there's a skeptical answer to this series of questions. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Thursday, 3 Nov 1994 21:51:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0882 Authorship Greetings all! A thought struck me while reading this paragraph of Mr. Kathman's long and cogent addition to the recent and tedious authorship thread; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (David Joseph Kathman) As for more substantive claims: Pat implies that the occasional hyphenation of Shakespeare's name on the title pages of the quartos is grounds for believing that this was a pseudonym. This common Oxfordian belief (usually just asserted with no evidence whatsoever) bears no relation to reality, and Irvin Matus in *Shakespeare, In Fact* shows it to be the baseless distortion it is. There are plenty of other instances where non-pseudonymous proper names were hyphenated in Elizabethan times, and the pattern seems to be that if a name can be divided into two parts, one or both of which is an English word, the name was occasionally hyphenated in print --- e.g. Shake-speare, Old-castle, etc. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PSEUDONYMS, and anyone who says that hyphenation commonly indicated a pseudonym in Elizabethan times is simply making a false statement. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remember listening attentively to Peter Stallybrass at the 1991 MLA in S.F., as he argued that OUR spelling, SHAKESPEARE, only exists because the people throwing type invented it. They did so because the "K" and the "S" would break if put together without something in between, hence SHAKSPEARE became SHAKESPEARE. Might not the hyphen have served a similar purpose? The hypen does seem to be in the same general area. Yours Will-fully, Bradley S. Berens English Dept. UC Berkeley email: claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:10:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0895 Re: Doubling in *Ham*; Anne Lock; Jacobi Hamlet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0895. Monday, 7 November 1994. (1) From: Geoff Pywell Date: Saturday, 05 Nov 1994 10:09:04 -0500 Subj: Re: Hamlet and Doubling. (2) From: Anthony Martin Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 17:13:00 JST Subj: Anne Locke (3) From: David Levine Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 1994 22:59:00 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0888 Re: Cheek by; ... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geoff Pywell Date: Saturday, 05 Nov 1994 10:09:04 -0500 Subject: Re: Hamlet and Doubling. David Kathman's inquiry regarding interesting doubling of roles in Hamlet reminded me of the production at the Royal Court around 1980. Richard Eyre directed Jonathan Pryce in the title role. As I recollect the play opened with Claudius rather than the battlements and some judicious cutting (mangling?) of the text brought us strangely to the Ghost scene wonder-wounded. At the moment Hamlet says, 'Speak, I'll go no further.' having followed an imaginary presence, Pryce fell to his knees as if stricken, writhed and then spoke, 'Mark me' in a voice that appeared to emanate from his bowels. Thus the scene was played out with alternate possession by the 'Ghost' and release that allowed 'Hamlet' to re-emerge and react. From the distance of years I remember being very impressed by Pryce's performance; chilling, menacing somehow. As for the interpretation thus forced upon us...? Geoff Pywell, Franklin and Marshall College g_pywell@acad.fandm.edu (717) 291-4016 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Martin Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 17:13:00 JST Subject: Anne Locke There are a number of religious sonnets in English, prior to Donne. Sequences were written in the 1590s by Constable, Barnes, Alabaster and (at great length) by Anne Locke's son, Henry Lok. Is the attribution of the "Meditations" to Anne Locke, the A.L. who translated Calvin, certain? Anthony Martin Waseda University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 1994 22:59:00 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0888 Re: Cheek by; ... Re: memories of Jacobi's BBC Hamlet. I re-viewed the video recently, and was impressed with the extent to which the viewer was really undecided about his "madness," and the extent to which he seemed to be confused himself...of course, this has become the typical contemporary interpretation (Mark Rylance the best example, I suppose). But the implications of Jacobi's interpretation for the actual plot were unusual and interesting: his play doesn't really demonstrate Claudius's guilt because Hamlet loses his head before anything is deomnstrated, especially since Patrick Stewart's Claudius was the scariest, coolest one I remember. Other good things in the production were the sharply delineated Player King and (REALLY unusual) a real character (and a really nasty one) made of Rosenkrantz. Interestingly enough, Jacobi's overall way with the lines caught a lot of flack in the U.K., where some critics (Clive James, notably) felt he was underlining and interpreting too much. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:16:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0896 Re: Renaissance Drama Anthologies Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0896. Monday, 7 November 1994. (1) From: Michael Friedman Date: Saturday, 05 Nov 1994 16:20:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Anthology Request (2) From: Mike Young Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 10:25:42 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0891 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Saturday, 05 Nov 1994 16:20:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Anthology Request Tom Bishop, The anthology I use for my Renaissance Drama Course is Fraser and Rabkin's *Drama of the English Renaissance* from Macmillan, which is 2 volumes in paperback. It doesn't include any Shakespeare, but it has most of the other plays that you might want to have your students read. Michael Friedman University of Scranton (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Young Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 10:25:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0891 TO: Thomas Bishop I can second Grant Moss' note about using either or both volumes of "Drama of the English Renaissance" in undergraduate classes. They have provided the width and the depth I've needed in something like "17th Century British Literature" or a Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama seminar. Good luck. Michael Young Davis & Elkins College ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:24:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0897 Re: Chimes at Midnight Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0897. Monday, 7 November 1994. (1) From: Mitchell J. Brown Date: Saturday, 5 Nov 1994 15:30:00 CST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video (2) From: David Carnegie Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 1994 19:35:12 +1200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video (3) From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 1994 18:03:07 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mitchell J. Brown Date: Saturday, 5 Nov 1994 15:30:00 CST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video Chimes at Midnight - I suggest you contact FACETS MULTIMEDIA video in Chicago. If they can't help you, I doubt anyone can. Their number is 800 331 6197 Address : 1517 Fullerton Avenue Chicago, IL 60614 I see it listed in their current catalog as selling for 79.95 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Carnegie Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 1994 19:35:12 +1200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video Re: *Chimes at Midnight*: our university library has a video copy under its alternative title *Falstaff*. Like most Orson Welles productions, the sound quality is terrible. But in many other respects it is an excellent teaching tool. If you don't get any fuller replies, you could find out where they got it by emailing and mention my name. Good luck. David.Carnegie@vuw.ac.nz Department of Theatre & Film, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O.Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand. Phone + 64-4 471 5359 Fax + 64-4 495 5090 (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 1994 18:03:07 +0100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video Strangely enough, it is possible to get Welles's Chimes at Midnight in English with French subtitles from Rene Chateau Video company, in a series called 'Les films de ma vie'. How easy it is to get from the US I don't know. I presume it must be a hell of a job to find a export dealer and wait for the import. I can try and find an address if you're interested, so email me if interested. Luc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:40:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0898 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0898. Monday, 7 November 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 5 Nov 94 16:29:11 CST Subj: Authorship (2) From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 15:12:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0899 Authorship (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 94 15:07:14 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0899 Authorship (4) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Saturday, 5 Nov 94 16:29:11 CST Subject: Authorship Just a few more authorship comments. Those who are still reading by this point have my thanks for your patience. 1) Regarding E.L. Epstein's query: Yes, the Oxfordians have tried to appropriate Kyd's work for Oxford, though I don't know about Marston, since he was a bit later. I think Charlton Ogburn has tried to claim (without any substantive evidence that I'm aware of) that Oxford was the "lord" for whom Kyd and Marlowe were working when they were arrested in the weeks leading up to Marlowe's death. I don't know of any non- Oxfordian who thinks it likely that Oxford was the lord in question, but even if you do accept that, it has nothing to do with whether Oxford wrote the *Spanish Tragedy*. Ogburn got the idea from his parents, Dorothy and Charlton Sr., whose 1200-page *This Star of England* is, I believe, the longest Oxfordian tome ever written. (Interested parties may want to check out Giles Dawson's scathing 1953 review of this work in *Shakespeare Quarterly*.) The senior Ogburns are curtly dismissive of Kyd's qualifications, declaring that "it would have been a miracle if a scrivener's son could have gained the specialized knowledge of court life and Italian society required to write [the Spanish Tragedy]" (or words to that effect; I'm quoting from memory). The senior Ogburns wrote in an extremely condescending, virulently anti-populist style (they never tired of applying the adjectives "base" and "coarse" to Will "Shaksper" and Stratford, and they wrote of Oxford with almost religious veneration) which makes their writings rough sledding for me. Their son at least shows some wit once in a while. 2) In my reply to Pat Buckridge, I forgot to mention one other piece of evidence besides the will and the coat of arms which explicitly links William Shakespeare of Stratford with the London theater scene: the documents relating to his purchase of a Blackfriars gate-house in 1613. The deed explicitly identifies him as William Shakespeare of Stratford, and the house is mentioned in his will, so we know we're dealing with the right guy. One of the three trustees involved in the purchase (sort of like cosigners of a loan, as near as I can tell) was John Heminges, Shakespeare's fellow from the Chamberlain's/King's Men and co-editor of the First Folio. Another of the trustees was William Johnson, owner and host of the Mermaid Tavern, the famous hangout of Elizabethan literati. (Leslie Hotson proved that this is the right William Johnson by finding a receipt for a keg of wine for the Mermaid, with Johnson's signature being identical on both documents.) A more indirect piece of evidence is the fact that Shakespeare's youngest brother Edmund became an actor in London; it doesn't prove anything by itself, but it sure makes a lot more sense if Edmund's brother was prominent in London theater and could open doors for him. 3) On the question of hyphenation, I can't resist one more observation, due to Irvin Matus. Oxfordians make a big deal out of the fact that in around half of the Quarto title-pages, Shakespeare's name is hyphenated as Shake-speare. Now, I've already noted that this has nothing to do with pseudonyms, but merely reflects the fact that the name could be broken down into two English words, like Old-castle. Another factor is the idiosyncracies of individual printers, some of whom were fond of hyphens and some of whom rarely used them. Out of the fifteen quartos in which Shakespeare's name is hyphenated, thirteen of these were printed by Andrew Wise or by the man who took over the rights to Wise's books after his death, Matthew Law. When a printer printed a number of books or edition by the same author over a number of years, he often left title-page information intact with only minor changes, even after it had become obsolete. (Matus gives some examples of this in his book.) Most likely, the hyphenation in all these quartos merely reflects the fact that Wise happened to hyphenate Shake-speare the first time he put it on a title page (in Q2 *Richard II* or Q2 *Richard III*, both published in 1598) and then he (and later Law) just never bothered to change it for later quartos. The two non-Wise/Law quartos with the name hyphenated are Q1 *Hamlet* and Q1 *Lear*; the first of these is notoriously problematic in any number of ways and hardly seems the place for conspirators to put a clue even if hyphens *did* indicate pseudonyms, and the second of these has the name as "Shak-speare" (without the first e), a spelling which according to Oxfordian dogma should denote the man from Stratford rather than the noble author Oxford. So, in summary, the so-called "evidence" from hyphenation is quite simply utterly baseless, and I wish Oxfordians would stop trotting out this non-argument. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 15:12:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0899 Authorship Dear Bradley S. Berens: Right on re the space, letter, or hyphen between kerns. I certainly hope that Stallybrass, when you heard him in 1991, was mentioning Randall McLeod, who did brilliant work on the subject in a 1978 conference paper published as "Spellbound: Typography and the Concept of Old-Spelling Editions," *Renaissance and Reformation*, n.s.3 (1979), and reprinted in *Play-Texts in Old Spelling" (1984), the belated papers from the conference where the paper was first presented. Skip Shand (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 6 Nov 94 15:07:14 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0899 Authorship I'm really sorry, but I have a few comments on the latest authorship postings. Apologies for the tedium. 1) Bill Godshalk asks what would happen if both sides in this argument gave up faith in favor of skepticism. Well, obviously that's a loaded question, and I think you know what my answer would be. Rather than going on a tirade, I'll just say this: Stratfordians look upon their own ideas *much* more skeptically than Oxfordian do upon theirs. Any new idea in the historical/biographical area of Shakespeare scholarship is examined and cross-examined, possible objections are raised, and only if it passes long-established standards of historical evidence does it become generally accepted. Oxfordians, on the other hand, do not examine their own theories very critically at all, and accept new ideas based mainly on whether they advance the Oxfordian agenda, even when those ideas can be shown to be patently false. A couple of examples. Hand D in the manuscript of the play *Sir Thomas More* is now almost universally accepted by Shakespeare scholars as being in Shakespeare's hand. The idea that this was Shakespeare's writing was first proposed in the mid-1800s, and was met with a lot of skepticism. In the early 1900s people started seriously arguing that this was an example of Shakespeare's writing, based on a variety of evidence: the handwriting itself as compared to Shakespeare's known signatures (yes, the signatures are a very small sample, but they contain some very unusual features, such as a "spurred a", which also occur in the *More* addition), the idiosyncratic spelling of certain words in the *More* addition compared to the quartos which were set from the author's foul papers and thus preserve unusual spellings (the spelling "scilens" for "silence" occurs in the *More* addition and in Q *2 Henry IV*, and no other examples have been found in any Elizabethan manuscript), and the similarity of images and language between the *More* fragments and certain Shakespeare plays such as *2 Henry 6* (not by itself a very reliable test for authorship, but significant when combined with the other evidence above). There were still skeptics who rejected the identification, but their objections were met, and today there is almost universal agreement that this is Shakespeare's handwriting. The few skeptics who still exist today say that while the addition is consistent with Shakespeare and is almost certainly not the work of any playwright for whom we have sufficient evidence to judge, it's not impossible that there was some minor playwright who happened to have handwriting and spelling idiosyncrasies and imagery just like Shakespeare's. The idea that these three manuscript pages were written by Shakespeare has withstood intense scrutiny over more than a century and is now accepted as virtually a fact, with a very impressive array of evidenc to back it up. Now, not to beat a dead horse, but compare this with the Oxfordian idea that hyphenation indicated a pseudodym in Elizabethan times. This is almost always just asserted by Oxfordians as if it were an established fact; occasionally they bring up as evidence Martin Marprelate, a pseudonym which was usually *not* hyphenated, but occasionally was. If you take the time to systematically look *skeptically* at all the evidence, it quickly becomes apparent that hyphenation had nothing to do with pseudonyms, as I've noted; the reason "Mar-prelate" was occasionally hyphenated was because it could be divided into the words "mar" and "prelate" (and those two words were the obvious basis of the pseudonym). The hyphenation-pseudonym connection was not examined at all skeptically by Oxfordians, in stark contrast to the intense skeptical scrutiny the Shakespeare-*More* thesis received (and survived). 2) Regarding Bill's other question: yes Meres did list Oxford among the best for comedy along with Shakespeare. Oxfordians have a variety of explanations for this; pick your favorite. (1) Meres didn't know that Oxford was Shakespeare; (2) Meres was paid by the conspirators to publicize the Shakespeare pseudonym and was told to mention Oxford so as not to arouse suspicions; (3) Meres knew Shakespeare was a pseudonym but didn't know Oxford was behind it; and so on. 3) Regarding Bradley S. Berens' posting about spelling and hyphenation: I wouldn't say that the spelling "Shakespeare" was "invented" by typesetters, since it occurs all over the place in handwritten documents referring to Will and his relatives; it is in fact the most common spelling in documents explicitly referring to the Stratford man, almost all of which are handwritten. Maybe you could say that typesetters preferred it out of the various possible spellings, but there are plenty examples of typesetters spelling the name "Shakspere" or something similar. And in case anybody is tempted to point out that the man from Stratford spelled his own name "Shakspere" in his surviving signatures, let me point out in reply that the Earl of Oxford signed his name "Edward Oxenforde", though he was usually referred to in print as "Oxford". Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0899. Monday, 7 November 1994. From: Stuart Rice Date: Saturday, 05 Nov 1994 20:41:46 EST Subject: Interactive Hamlet Fellow SHAKSPERians, I am currently in the process of producing a Macintosh-based, multi-media student resource to Shakespeare's HAMLET. This program is meant for the high school level, and contains the following features as of now: 1)TEXTS: a) Modern Editor (based on Cambridge school) b) Quarto 1 & 2 c) Folio d) Translation into Modern English The program give the student the access to review both the re- typed versions of these texts, as well as scanned images of the entire quarto and folio versions, so that they can have a sense of what the original text looked like and their various differences. The translation was done by myself, and renders the text into modern English. 2)MEDIA a) Video access to Zefferili, Olivier, and a high school production done at Phillips Andover Acaemy b) Audio access to versions of Hamlet: the BBC tapes and actor readings of Q1,Q2, and Folio The program allows students to watch video clips of the scenes from the above mentioned versions. It also allows students to hear the plays, performed by actors, all versions. 3)BACKGROUND This sections is currently under development. It will contain information on Shakespeare's life, critical interpretations of Hamlet, information on the period, etc. The question I pose to my SHAKSPER peers is this: What do you think is valuable, and would anyone out there be willing to test this program. It is hoped that I can have this done by March 1995, so any comments at this point would be appreciated, as well as material for inclusion. Thank you, Stuart Rice RICESM@KENYON.EDU Kenyon College ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 08:52:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0900 Re: Modernized Texts Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0900. Monday, 7 November 1994. (1) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Saturday, 5 Nov 94 23:05:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Modernized Texts (2) From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 12:00:16 -0500 (EST) Subj: Modernized Texts (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Saturday, 5 Nov 94 23:05:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Modernized Texts Re: Peter Novak's inquiry about modern-language Shakespeare: I believe Maurice Charney "translated" the complete works about a decade ago. I can't recall who published the volume, and I don't know whether it is still in print. If it is, you might find it a reasonable alternative to the Rowse edition. Good luck with your laudable project. Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James J. Hill, Jr. Date: Sunday, 06 Nov 1994 12:00:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Modernized Texts Re: Peter Novak's request for information on modernized texts to assist the interpretation of plays for deaf audiences. There is a series called "Shakespeare Parallel Text Series" [which I have not seen] that may be helpful. As advertised, "A series presenting Shakespeare's plays in both the original text and in a line-by-line modern English paraphrase" on facing pages. In the series are *Ham.*, *JC*, *LR.*, *Mac.*, *MV*, *MND*, *Oth.*, *Rom.*, *Shr.* In *Shakespeare* catalog of The Writing Company [1-800-421-4245 or 1-310-839- 2436]. On p. 22 of 1994 catalog. J.J.Hill @TSU. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 08:17:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0901 Re: Doubling in *Ham*; Anthology; *Shrew*; *Chimes* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0901. Tuesday, 8 November 1994. (1) From: Nicholas Clary Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 08:37:27 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Doubling the Ghost in Hamlet (2) From: Marcia Hepps Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 14:49:44 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0896 Re: Renaissance Drama Anthologies (3) From: John E. Perry Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 12:15:16 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0894 Q: *Shrew* Productions (4) From: Charles Edelman Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 94 13:04:00 EST Subj: Chimes at Midnight (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nick Clary Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 08:37:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Doubling the Ghost in Hamlet Sir Peter Hall's 1965-66 RSC *Hamlet* doubled the Ghost and Claudius--at least after it moved from Stratford-upon-Avon to the Aldwych (Brewster Mason played both roles after Patrick Magee, who played the Ghost when the play opened in the summer of '65 at Stratford-upon-Avon, left the production). This doubling created a stir among those interested in the Oedipal interpretation. Hall's newest *Hamlet*, which is the dedication production for the re-christening of the Globe Theatre as the Gielgud Theatre, retains this doubling (at least it had by the time in opened for the preview in July at the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead). Michael Pennington (who had played Hamlet years ago for the RSC) plays both the Ghost and Claudius. By the way, for those who had asked about naked Shakespeare and particularly naked Hamlets, Stephen Dillane offers his up in a production that Hall muses on his the program notes: "One of the things that Hamlet is certainly about is finding one's sexuality." Nick Clary clary@smcvax.smcvt.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marcia Hepps Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 14:49:44 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0896 Re: Renaissance Drama Anthologies I have used 5 plays of the English Ren. edited by Bernard Beckerman. I am admitedly biased as I studied with him but I very much like the choice of plays and his scholarship. Happy trails. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John E. Perry Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 12:15:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0894 Q: *Shrew* Productions Thanks to Jim Helsinger for letting me know that I'm not alone on the list in thinking of *Shrew* as a love story. It surprised me to see no one at all among the scholars on this list making any attempt to take the play seriously during the recent discussions on the play. I had never read *Shrew* when I saw Zeffirelli's film in the late 60's (early 70's?). When I later read it for a Shakespeare class, I was disappointed in my recollection of Burton's portrayal of Petruchio as a dissipated buffoon. As another member of the list has pointed out, artists have the freedom to interpret the author any way they see fit, but if they do it unwisely, what do they do to the work? Playing Othello as anything but a loving, gentle husband ruined by too much faith in a malevolent associate, and too little in himself and his wife, turns a beautiful tragedy into a tiresome melodrama. In the same way, playing Kate as anything but a beautiful, twisted monster salvaged by a loving, but strong gentleman turns a beautiful love story into a stupid, tiresome farce. Really, now, has no one but me noticed that only three acts of unambiguous violence occur in the play -- and that all three are committed by Kate? Sticks and whips, indeed! john perry jperry@cebaf.gov (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Edelman Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 94 13:04:00 EST Subject: Chimes at Midnight Chimes at Midnight is available from Commedia dell'Arte, PO Box 2128, Manorhaven, NY, 11050, 800-892 0860. The sound quality is poor but can be improved by connecting the video player to a good sound system. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 08:25:28 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0903 Re: Interactive *Hamlet* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0903. Tuesday, 8 November 1994. (1) From: Larry Soller Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 07:27:00 -0700 (MST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* (2) From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Monday, 7 Nov 1994 09:53:45 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Soller Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 07:27:00 -0700 (MST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* As a faculty member teaching Hamlet at Phoenix College here in Arizona, I would be enthused about trying out your program and evaluating it - with student's help. It seems to me that anecdotal information would be most useful - avoiding laborious biography - boy actors and authorship, as evidenced in recent internet discussions, might be interesting. Best wishes. Dr. Larry Soller Phoenix College 1202 W. Thomas Rd. Phx. Az. 85012 soller@maricopa.pc.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Monday, 7 Nov 1994 09:53:45 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* Stuart: A translation into modern English seems to me to be the least valuable of the items in your proposed interactive *Hamlet* resource (since you asked); well written explanatory notes would be more practical and beneficial. I've seen a lot of "modern translations" of Shakespeare's work and haven't yet seen any that weren't in some way laughable. (A whole essay could be written here about the differences between translating a work from one language to another versus translating a work from one dialect of a language to another.) The big question: do you have rights to the Cambridge, the facsimiles of the Quartos and Folio, and the performance material you intend to use? Having spent several years doing a multimedia *Macbeth*, I can tell you that these are not questions to table until you are further along. Start now, or even yesterday. Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. lymond@netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 08:28:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0904 ACTER Moves to UNC Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0904. Tuesday, 8 November 1994. From: Cynthia Dessen Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 06:46:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: ACTER ACTER (A Center for Theatre, Education, and Research) has moved permanently from USC-Santa Barbara to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The new Director is Alan C. Dessen, the new General Manager Cynthia Dessen. ACTER sponsors 9 week tours of 5 British Shakespearean actors in teaching/performing residencies to campuses throughout the U.S. During the week they are on a campus, they teach up to 33 classes, give three performances of a full length Shakespearean play, and also offer two one-handers, one person shows on various themes. The current tour of Macbeth has been very successful; this week they will perform at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon; next week they will be at the University of Pennslvania, Annenberg Center in Philadelphia. There will not be a spring tour 1995 but we are looking at Romeo and Juliet or one of the comedies for Fall 1995 and Macbeth for Spring 1996. For more information, contact Cynthia Dessen (csdessen@email.unc.edu) off-list please. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 8 Nov 1994 08:20:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0902 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0902. Tuesday, 8 November 1994. (1) From: Victor Gallerano Date: Monday, 7 Nov 1994 09:07:54 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: authorship (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 09:12:12 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0898 Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Victor Gallerano Date: Monday, 7 Nov 1994 09:07:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: authorship On the issue of Stratford vs. Oxford I begrudge no one his or her hobby horse: de gustibus non disputandam est. But the recent exchange has put me in mind of a story told of Ezra Pound. At the age of 84 old Wuz wuz given an apparently breathless, grad-student version of Millman Parry's oral-formula explanation for Homer's epics. "Very interesting," sez old Wuz, "but it don't tell you why Homer is so much better than everybody else." Mutatis mutandis...well, you can figure it out. To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, "Historicism makes cowards of us all." (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Monday, 07 Nov 1994 09:12:12 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0898 Authorship Thank you David kathman for your courteous reply. And I though I was joking! Now I do not need to read the Ogburns, or anyone else for that matter. Thank you again! E.L.Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 09:01:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0905 Announcement: Fellowships at Newberry Library Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0905. Wednesday, 9 November 1994. From: Michael T. Calvert Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 94 09:05:43 CST Subject: Fellowship announcement for Newberry Library--Please post Please cross-post as appropriate. ***************************************************************** FELLOWSHIPS IN THE HUMANITIES AT THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY invites applications for long- and short- term residential fellowships in the humanities for 1995-6. THE Newberry is an independent research library, free and open to the public, located on the near north side of the city of Chicago. Founded in 1887, its holdings today number more than one and one-half million volumes and five million manuscripts in the humanities. The Newberry's collections concern the civilizations of western Europe and the Americas from the late middle ages to the early twentieth century. Bibliographic holdings are extensive, and certain collections are internationally noted. These contain material on the following subjects: American history and literature Discovery, exploration, and settlement of the New World The American West Local history, genealogy, censuses Family and social history Literature and history of the Midwest, especially the Chicago Renaissance Native American history and literature European history and literature The Renaissance The French Revolution Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian history History of cartography History and theory of music History of printing Early philology and linguistics Established post-doctoral scholars interested in long-term residency (six to eleven months) may apply for National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships in any field. The maximum stipend is $30,000. The Library also offers two or three Lloyd Lewis Fellowships in American History each year with stipends up to $40,000. The Monticello College Foundation Fellowship for Women provides a $12,500 stipend for a woman Ph.D in the early stages of her career. The application deadlines for all long-term fellowships is January 20, 1995. Scholars, including those at dissertation stage, who desire a shorter period of residency to use particular Newberry collections may apply for short-term resident fellowships for one to three months' individual research. Deadlines for most short- term awards are March 1 and October 15, 1995. The Newberry also provides fellowships through several of its research centers, notably the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, the Center for Renaissance Studies, and the D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian. For further information and application forms, contact the Awards Committee, Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago, IL 60610, or call (312) 943-9090, ext. 478, or e-mail your name, address, and the type of fellowship you are interested in to Michael T. Calvert at U30373@uicvm.uic.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 12:06:30 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0907 Re: *Chimes at Midnight* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0907. Wednesday, 9 November 1994. From: Nina Walker Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 11:48:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0897 Re: Chimes at Midnight Video To the many who answered my request about *Chimes at Midnight*: I think a public posting is in order since I discovered I'm not the only one searching and the info may be generally helpful to others. For those of you who suggested Facets--It appears they too are having trouble with distribution and are waiting for copies promised a month ago. This makes me think that David Small is right in his assessment--that currently *Chimes* is the subject of some legal dispute about distribution. I still have other places to check although my list gets smaller everyday. I will let those of you who are also looking know what happens. Thanks over and over for all the help. To Mark Singer: Your note came through a forward from SHAKSPER and I'm not sure it pertains to me but if so please contact me at nwalker@lynx.northeastern.edu or Nina Walker 26 Vernon Street Woburn, MA 01801 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 10:15:28 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0906 Re: *Hamlet*: Doubling and Jacobi Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0906. Wednesday, 9 November 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 09:39:36 -0600 Subj: Hamlet/Merchant (2) From: Don Foster Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 1994 08:57:37 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Doubling in *Ham.* (3) From: Edna Boris Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 94 17:07:02 EST Subj: Jacobi's Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 09:39:36 -0600 Subject: Hamlet/Merchant Dave Kathman, Bob Falls's HAMLET at Wisdom Bridge (Chicago) several years ago double cast Byrne Piven as the Ghost and Player King. It was a touching scene when Hamlet welcomed his old friend to Court. The relationship (to those who knew) effused an additional level in that Aidan Quinn, who played Hamlet, had been a long time student in Byrne Piven's young people's Theatre Workshop in Evanston, IL. Now that I am reminded of it, a recent query centered on the use of video monitors in a production. If memory serves, there were a few video monitors used in this Wisdom Bridge HAMLET. They were used sparingly (again if memory serves), only during the scene in which Claudius, in modern garb, his photogenic wife clinging to his side, delivers his opening speech as if to calm a nation lately rattled by national disaster (death of a king and threats from a foreign power). The Wisdom Bridge space is (now was) a small, maybe 200 seat black box, and the monitors were situated so that both live actors and their image could be taken in at once. The effect was quite stunning as the audience was privy both to the live, edgy nervousness of a usurping leader and the amazingly officious, reassurance emanating from the monitor that all would yet be well. On the subject of video monitors, to Richard Jones, I must somewhat sheepishly confess that as I am currently in a production of Odets' ROCKET TO THE MOON, I have not been able to see Sellars' THE MERCHANT OF VENICE myself. I called the Goodman Theatre this morning only to learn that MERCHANT closed this past Saturday. My recent comments regarding MERCHANT stem from second hand accounts: the extensive critical coverage and from fellow actors and directors who had seen the piece. Not always the most reliable sources (critics will be critics and actors/directors too often "could have done much better"). However, almost to a person, I was informed that the de-construction of and imposition upon the play, coupled with a laborious delivery of the text served not the play, the actors nor the audience. (To cite one press observation, seventy five percent of the audience left at intermission, the remaining twenty five percent, at the end, looked as if they had witnessed a train wreck.) In particular, regarding the use of video monitors, you mention perhaps that the theatrical potential was never realized in MERCHANT. I allow this as entirely possible. Whereas, I much enjoyed the use of the monitors in HAMLET, that space was small and watching a monitor was not unlike watching one in one's own home. In contrast, the Goodman house is relatively vast. I do not know what size the monitors were in MERCHANT, however, I am sure that same sense of intimacy (if one may be intimate with a tv screen) was not possible. Furthermore, there was no possiblity of watching both actor and monitor, neither was there the option to watch one or the other, as the actor turned and delivered entire speeches upstage. In a live theatrical venue, one was left with no choice but a transmitted image. To accentuate the perhaps limiting effectiveness of monitors in such a large venue, I remember the Goodman produced SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE (which I did see) and used a series of movable video monitors in the second act, the medium of George's technical, contemporary art. Compared to the use of lasers in the origial Broadway production of SUNDAY at The Winter Garden, which literally filled the entire theatre, the Goodman's video monitors were small and uninspiring. In the final analysis, in our hyper-media age in which theatre is a waning if not, arguably, a dying art form, great care and thought must be exercised when introducing such technical elements as tv monitors into a theatrical space. Does the presence of such enhance the content and/or form of theatre or, like ivy to a brick wall, does it temporarily dazzle while it insidiously extends its shoots between the bricks, ultimately undermining the host building itself? Arthur Pearson apearson@great-lakes.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 1994 08:57:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0886 Qs: Doubling in *Ham.* On doubling in _Hamlet_: Thanks to David Kathman for his kind remarks about SHAXICON. As it happens, however, a few of my projections as reported in the SN series are not fully borne out by the completed database. It is clear from the SHAXICON data that Shakespeare studied and remembered the Ghost role, but less clear that he studied and remembered the Player King. This is because the lexical pool for the Player King is too small to generate a pattern of lexical recall that is statistically significant. This is not to say that Sh. didn't play the Player King, only that the rare-word lexicon for this role is too small to supply convincing figures. When SHAXICON is published (I'm shooting for '96), the commentary will include a statistical summary that weights the relative confidence with which designated roles can be ascribed to Shakespeare. This is a laborious process, one involving hundreds of "Shakespeare" and "non-Shakespeare" roles. Yet, while some of the minor role cited in the SN series remain "iffy," the general pattern is clear: the person that the Oxford cult calls "the Stratfordian" studied and remembered particular roles in Shakespeare's plays, including plays written later than 1604. For example: after the initial production of LR in autumn 1605, the rare-word lexicon of Albany registers a 104.5% increase in its rate of lexical contacts with Shakespeare's subsequent dramatic works. The next highest increase is Goneril, at 9.8%, with whom most of Albany's on-stage exchanges are conducted. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edna Boris Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 94 17:07:02 EST Subject: Jacobi's Hamlet My recollection of seeing a videotape of Jacobi's Hamlet several years ago is that he is shown to be overhearing Polonius and Claudius's setting Ophelia up as a decoy so that the "To be or not to be" speech is then a calculated performance knowing that it's being overheard and not a soliloquy, an interpretation that I agree with. My students were enthralled with the performance until the scene in Gertrude's closet which made them laugh because they found Jacobi's treatment of his mother to be excessive. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 12:15:24 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0908 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0908. Wednesday, 9 November 1994. (1) From: David Bank Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 18:53:45 GMT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0883 Authorship (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 04:46:52 +1000 Subj: Authorship (3) From: Donald Foster Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 1994 09:37:53 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0898 Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Bank Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 18:53:45 GMT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0883 Authorship E.L. Epstein's question ("...is there any evidence that Oxford wrote the works of Kyd or Marston? The dates are about right...") is amusing. But when he asks "Are the Oxfordians...simply trying to link Oxford to an acknowledged genius like Shakespeare out of unexaminable motives?" he misses something quite obvious. The Oxfordians only settle on Shakespeare because, in their view, (a) the documentary evidence about Shakespeare of Stratford indicates that he was "low" in estate, and (b) the plays 'ascribed' to him are "high" art, "posh". It's inconceivable that (b) could issue from (a). The conclusion is unwarrantable. Neither (a) or (b) is correct. David Bank (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 04:46:52 +1000 Subject: Authorship A couple of seat-of-the-pants responses to Dave Kathman: 1. There's been some crossing of messages in mid-air lately, so I probably don't need to stress this after my last posting, but just in case I do: Dave, don't bother to keep hitting me with new bits of evidence purporting to connect the Stratford Shakspere with the London one. I accept their identity, and it doesn't injure the Oxfordian case in any way. On this one, peace, we agree. There are bigger fish to fry. 2. I said I would hang fire on the Great Hyphenation Debate until I'd been able to read Matus, but I can't resist the commonsense observation that hyphenation of the kind we're talking about here *does* have a tendency to connote attributed functions or qualities. Whether or not it does this in any given instance will be determined by a variety of contextual factors, including, perhaps, decisions of printers. Dave hasn't, by the way, shown that printing was the key factor in any particular case of hyphenation, let alone all of them, though his conjectures and speculations on the subject are so vehement ('utterly baseless', etc.) that the inattentive reader might be forgiven for thinking he had. 3. The alleged _Thomas More_ holograph. I don't see that this is worth spending a lot of time on. I don't care how skeptical and rigorous you're trying to be; if you've only got six (or more likely five-and-a-half) signatures to work with, you don't have much. But the main point is that, like the London/Stratford connection, this has no bearing on the question of authorship. The More MS is, as far as I'm aware. usually thought to be a *transcription* by several hands. If William Shakspere could, at some stage in his life, write legibly enough to be employed for a bit of transcribing work, what does that tell us about who wrote this or any other play? Precisely nothing. 4. Finally, the 'double mention' (Oxford and Shakespeare) by Francis Meres. Dave has set out the alternative explanations pretty fairly. I assume he thinks they're all self-evidently absurd. Well all I can say to that is that his threshold of self-evident absurdity is a bit higher than mine, and several metres higher than that of most Stratfordians, whose tolerance of far greater levels of implausibility on any number of issues continues to amaze me. Pat Buckridge Grififth (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donald Foster Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 1994 09:37:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0898 Authorship Pat Buckridge writes to Dave Kathman, "[T]here seem to be two assumptions built into Foster's analysis which as far as I can see completely destroy any claim it mught make to 'proving' the Stratford authorship. The first is that it assumes a known order of composition for the plays. *But we don't.* Therefore, Foster's comparisons between earlier and later plays in terms of a development from less uniform to more uniform distribution of rare words among characters could just as reasonably be read in the reverse order in any given instance. The pattern of distribution may not be meaningless, but the meaning Foster assigns to it is arbitrary. The other assumption of the study, of course, is that the author of the Shakespeare canon was indeed an actor and a playwright. Without that founding assumption the proposed mechanism by which these rare words get absorbed into the author's working vocabulary makes no sense. But hold on a minute! Isn't that assumption the very thing Foster's study was supposed to have *proved*. It's called 'begging the question', Dave. A textbook example if ever I saw one." Mr. Buckridge is mistaken on all counts. Lexical overlap between plays, and mnemonic recall of particular character-lexicons, are BOTH statistically determined by SHAXICON, and each is largely independent of the other. SHAXICON tracks general overlap between Shakespearean texts, and broadly confirms the order already established by textual scholars, with very few exceptions (e.g., SHAXICON tends to date JN and the Sonnets somewhat later, and Cymbeline somewhat earlier, than has been generally assumed, and in a few instances (e.g., LLL, MND, AWW, MM) it identifies chunks of text that appear to be later than the main text. This, too, has confirmed textual scholarship for these plays. Because SHAXICON offers no big surprises with respect to dating, he assumes that SHAXICON works from the order established by independent scholarship, but in fact SHAXICON's sequence is wholly determined by statistical data. This does not mean that SHAXICON's order is _right_ in every instance, especially when one gets to texts written within months of one another. SHAXICON perversely locates R2 just after, instead of just before, 1H4. This is inconvenient but hardly damaging. Given the billions of possible sequences that can be constructed for the poems, plays, and variants in the Shakespeare canon, SHAXICON's statistically generated confirmation of textual scholarship is quite remarkable. Mr. Buckridge is also mistaken in saying that SHAXICON presumes that the author of the Shakespeare canon was an actor. Wrong again. SHAXICON forcibly demonstrates that the canon is substantively by the same individual; that the plays and poems were written in a sequence very like that already determined by independent scholarship; and that the person who wrote them remembered--disproportionately--the rare-word lexicon of particular characters in each play, including Adam in _AYL_ and the Ghost in _Hamlet_. The Oxfordians now have at their disposal a fairly complete list of the roles that Lord Oxford memorized from Shakespeare's plays, including those roles that he memorized after he was dead. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 9 Nov 1994 10:23:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0906 Re: Interactive *Ha Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0906. Wednesday, 9 November 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 94 09:33:28 -0500 Subj: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* (2) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 09:54:21 -0600 Subj: 12 Steps to a Safe Hamlet (3) From: Maryellen Gruszka Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 10:42:35 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* (4) From: Stuart Rice Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 1994 13:39:13 EST Subj: Interactive *Hamlet* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 94 09:33:28 -0500 Subject: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* Hi Stuart, I have some access to your target audience, since my daughter is in high school and very active in their theater program (currently running lights on a production of *MND*). The school regularly offers a course on Shakespeare and I'm sure they'd be interested in trying out your program. I'd also be happy to share it with colleagues and students here at the University of Minnesota. It might be interesting to include SOME critical materials, both literary and theatrical to introduce students to the more elaborate framework that surrounds Will's work these days. (Speaking of which, I'm in the midst of a very interesting book, *A Buddhist's Shakespeare* by James Howe, published this year by Associated University Presses.) Such students might also enjoy some materials from the larger culture that reflect the ways in which the plays (*Hamlet* especially) have been "adapted"(*Star Trek 6* gets you "To be or not to be" in Klingon; Calvin and Hobbes did a parody of the speech, the Cookie Monster presented a Monsterpiece Theater version--with Mel Gibson--on Sesame Street, etc.). Have fun. Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 09:54:21 -0600 Subject: 12 Steps to a Safe Hamlet To Stuart Rice, In light of the engaging authorship thread, coupled with the current rage of policital/social/everything correctness, might I suggest providing equal disk space to the Earl Oxford? Or, better yet, deleting any and all references to the author's name? We must have the courage to hold the mirror up to our own natures and confess ourselves positive-proof-of-authorship-challenged. Ergo, lest we commit the unpardonable sin of enabling an entire generation of young minds to become addicted to the notion that they are co-dependent upon a myth, it falls upon us, the authorship dysfunctional, to stand behind the cowardice of our conscience and wipe the accumulated scholarship slate as clean as a sound sheep's heart (assuming such a metaphor is in no way disrepectful to our four legged, wooly fellow earth inhabitants). And if you don't like my ideas, well...that's...OK. Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and 'zwounds...people like me. Yours in recovery, Arthur Pear-son (or how can you prove I really am?) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Maryellen Gruszka Date: Tuesday, 8 Nov 1994 10:42:35 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *Hamlet* I am currently enrolled in the a graduate course at Brown University called "Hypertext and Literary Theory," for which two MAT students and I (also an MAT/English student) are preparing an interactive *Hamlet* on the Macintosh-based Storyspace system. We are very excited about the project that Stuart Rice described in his contribution on Saturday. I will teach *Hamlet* at Providence's Classical High School to two sections of Advanced Placement seniors in February or March and would love to test out the program (either Stuart's or ours) there. Like Mr. Rice, our group also stuggles with what information is essential to such an undertaking. Here's my advice....The beauty of a hypertext system is the essential disappearance of the "author." If you put a few historical and critical pieces into the program, you have done enough. Just choose the articles you find most interesting and then design the program so that students can add to your "web." This format markets the program to teachers in a much more desirable way. They have a built in lesson plan. The computer version can form the foundation for a research project in which students choose scenes, words, characters, etc with which to work and then do library research on their topic. They add their research to the system and perhaps write lexias in which they comment upon the research. These additions will remain in the program for next year's students to read. As the years go on, the program increases so that it becomes a whole school project involving current students and the work of past students in a unique intellectual conversation with each other. Seeing that more literature exists on *Hamlet* than on any other Shakespeare play, you would never finish the project if you decided to place all the relevant, valuable information into the program yourself. I think that students would find my model far more exciting as they would have a vested interest in creating it. My experience has been that students grow quite animated when asked to use computers as today's high schoolers were born and bred in the technological age. Maryellen Gruszka MAT/English candidate Brown University Maryellen_Gruszka@brown.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stuart Rice Date: Tuesday, 08 Nov 1994 13:39:13 EST Subject: Interactive *Hamlet* Dear Friends, Thank you for your various comments (private and journalized) -- they have all been extremely encouraging. Thank you also to those who have expressed interests in beta-testing -- when the time comes I will have much to thank you for. I would like to point out that the outcome of this project -- whenever that final outcome may be -- will be FREE. This is meant to be a helpful resource, and I think such things should be accessible to all. The original purpose of this project was to give Shakespeare to students in an electronic format -- to explore the possibility of supplanting the paperback Penguin, Signet, Dover Thrift Edition, etc. that many of us treasure with the ability to have the play appear on PowerBook screen in front of you. But more than that, the project would allow students to do many things with the text. How many times do students fumble to find a phrase in the play -- what act, what scene was that? Now, they can type in the phrase or a section of it and the program will find it for them. How many times does Hamlet say "Die" in the play? The program will count up the references and give it to you. What did the Globe theater space look like? Point and click -- a picture appears. Above all, the program is meant to be FUN. How many students are turned off by the dry pontificating of someone about how great Shakespeare was? They want PROOF, and they want to ENJOY it. I am in the midst of preparing a kind of sampler of the program, which would show people what can be done with multimedia and what will appear in the program. I am not sure when that will be done -- soon I hope. If people are interested in seeing that, I would be more than happy to send off a copy when it is done. Please feel free to reach me through private email or through the SHAKSPER journal. Yours, Stu Rice RICESM@KENYON.edu KENYON COLLEGE ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 08:08:43 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0909 Death of William E. Miller Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0909. Thursday, 10 November 1994. From: Daniel Traister Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 12:23:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Death of William E. Miller William E. Miller, former assistant curator of the Furness Memorial (Shakespeare) Library, Department of Special Collections, Van Pelt- Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania, died Tuesday afternoon, November 8, 1994, after a long illness. Students, faculty, and other readers and scholars who, occasionally or routinely, use Furness's resources for their work on Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and later theater history, all owe a great deal to Bill Miller's devotion in the care and building of this collection over many years. Many readers who experienced his helpfulness in person will have an especially clear sense of their debt to him. In days before a librarian was curator of the Furness Library, and when the collection was still presided over by faculty who also served as curators, he assisted curator-professors Matthew W. Black, Matthias A. Shaaber, and Roland Mushat Frye. He trained Professor Frye's successor as curator, Georgianna Ziegler (now head of reference at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington), who--during her years at Penn, where she earned her B.A., her M.A., and her Ph.D.--worked as his student assistant. Dr. Miller's own Ph.D. also came from Penn ('57). In addition, he earned an M.Ed. ('50) and an M.A. ('51; English) from Penn. He worked and pub- lished on Abraham Fleming, one of the Elizabethan editors of Holinshed's *Chronicles*, and his work with the Furness Library took advantage of this background of immersion in the period and in Shakespeare's sources. He had earlier studied classics as an undergraduate at Haverford College ('32) and as a graduate student at Princeton University, and language skills assisted his work (again under the direction of faculty curators) with Penn's Henry Charles Lea Library, a collection specializing in the history of the late middle ages and early modern period. He served for many years, as well, as editor of *The Library Chronicle* [of the University of Pennsylvania]. Readers will note the hiatus between his work as a classicist in the 1930s and as an English literature student in the 1950s. As was true for many people of his generation, Dr. Miller's graduate studies were interrupted by service in the United States Army during World War II, in which he was both an enlisted man and, later, an officer. After the War, his interests and the focus of his studies changed. Following his retirement from his curatorial position, Dr. Miller con- tinued to work for the Library. Until the week before his death he was still performing duties for the Acquisitions Department at Van Pelt Library. Friends will want to know that, despite his illness, he died peacefully and without struggle, and--as he had requested--without "heroic" efforts at intervention, at about 3:15 yesterday afternoon. He had, just days before his death, left his apartment for a care facility near the Library run by Philadelphia's Presbyterian Hospital; friends and medical staff were with him at that Hospital when he died. Dr. Miller had requested no burial and left his body "to science"; in accordance with his final wishes, his eyes (at least) have already gone to someone who needed them. He wanted, even in death, to be of help and use to others. William Miller leaves no immediate survivors. Plans for a memorial service are not yet settled. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 08:24:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0910 Qs: RSC 1990 *Lear*; *Othello* Prods.; Marlowe; E-Mail Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0910. Thursday, 10 November 1994. (1) From: Roberta Barker Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 1994 13:13:05 -0400 Subj: RSC King Lear, 1990 (2) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 11:21:30 +0200 Subj: Re: Othello productions (3) From: Allison S. Bartlett Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 94 13:52:17 PST Subj: Marlowe's Orientation (4) From: David M. Levine Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 21:31:18 -0500 Subj: E-Mail Address (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roberta Barker Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 1994 13:13:05 -0400 Subject: RSC King Lear, 1990 I'm looking for reviews of/commentary on the RSC's 1990 *King Lear* (that is, the one before last, I think...). Would there be any discussion of this production in the SHAKSPER index, or is it too early? I would be most grateful if anyone who saw this production could e-mail me (privately, if you prefer); I am particularly interested in the interpretations of Edmund and Edgar. Thanks very much. Yours, Roberta Barker, University of King's College, Halifax e-mail: egba0009@ac.dal.ca (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 11:21:30 +0200 Subject: Re: Othello productions I am currently working on 20th century productions of *Othello*, starting with Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theater. I'm especially interested in directorial choices, etc. While I'm working on the material from landmark productions, I'd be especially interested in hearing about recent (last ten years) productions of interest. Anybody who has suggestions can reply to me privately at mdaaron@students.wisc.edu. Thanks! Melissa Aaron University of Wisconsin-Madison (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Allison S. Bartlett Date: Wednesday, 09 Nov 94 13:52:17 PST Subject: Marlowe's Orientation Apologies to the list, but I've not been able to discover an answer. Prior to launching into a discussion of Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," one of my students announced to the class that another professor had pronounced Marlowe gay, and that his lover was Kyd. I know they were at one time roommates . . . is it common opinion that they were lovers? Thanks for your help. Please reply to me directly: Allison S. Bartlett p01250@psilink.com (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M. Levine Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 1994 21:31:18 -0500 Subject: E-Mail Address Just a question you might know the answer to: Do you know where I can find an e-mail address for Miriam Gilbert, who runs the summer institute at Stratford-on-Avon. She teaches at Iowa, and is an old friend from England we lost track of when our mutual friend died last year.... If you know it, please send it to me.... Thanks. David M. Levine ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 10 Nov 1994 08:34:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0911 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0911. Thursday, 10 November 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman" Date: Wednesday, 9 Nov 94 19:50:57 CST Subject: Authorship Sigh. I had hoped to take a break from all this, but Pat Buckridge's latest compels me to respond, mainly to correct his misconceptions about Don Foster's study, but also to express my incredulity at his comments on Christopher Marlowe. I will not attempt to rebut all the other stuff because I'm too tired and have no desire to get into an extended discussion of any of it right now. Glad to hear you're feeling chipper, Pat. Let's get down to brass tacks. 1) Pat alleges that Foster's study is worthless because it assumes a known order of writing for the plays. An understandable misconception, especially based on my abbreviated summary, but WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Foster's study does NOT depend on our knowing the order of the plays ahead of time; it *automatically* accounts for the relative order of the plays and would work just as well if we had no idea of their order (though it might take longer to interpret the results); in fact, it can be used as evidence in some cases for disputed orderings. Here, let me explain it a little more fully, abstracting away from complications and rough edges. You take a play, say *Hamlet*. One by one, you compare it to each of the other plays in the canon according to Foster's shared rare word tests. Roughly speaking, the other plays will divide into two groups. In the first group, the shared rare words will be divided proportionally among all the characters in Hamlet. Lo and behold, this group consists of the plays which, according to the traditional chronology, were written before *Hamlet*. Whaddaya know about that! In the second group, the shared rare words are disproportionately concentrated in the roles of the Ghost and the Player King. Lo and behold, these are the plays which according to the standard chronology were written *after* *Hamlet*. Hmmm. Now, take another play, say *1 Henry 4*. You also compare it one by one to each other play in the canon according to the rare word test. These, too, will divide into two groups. The first group will have the shared rare words distributed proportionally among the parts; this group will consist of a subset of the parallel group for *Hamlet*, and will include those plays which according to standard chronology were written before *1 Henry 4*. The second group will, in each case, have the shared rare words disproportionately concentrated in the role of King Henry. This group will consist of the analogous group for *Hamlet*, plus the plays which, according to the standard chronology, were written between *1 Henry 4* and *Hamlet* --- *2 Henry 4*, *Twelfth Night*, etc. It doesn't matter whether we know ahead of time whether *1 Henry 4* or *Hamlet* was written first --- the pattern of rare words tells us by itself. The above is oversimplified, of course, but I hope it makes it clear what the study really does, and that it does not rely on knowing the order of the plays ahead of time. 2) Next, Pat accuses me of "begging the question" (a textbook example, no less!), namely, assuming that the plays were written by an actor in order to prove that the plays were written by an actor. Sorry, no dice. It's only possible to beg the question if you're reasoning deductively, and I was not doing that; the patterns Foster found are powerful *circumstantial* evidence that whoever wrote the plays acted in them in certain roles, and if you want to discredit this conclusion you're going to have to come up with an alternative explanation for the data. Now, it's true that when he started his study, Foster assumed (very sensibly) that the person who wrote the plays, namely William Shakespeare, also acted in them. Had he not had this assumption in mind, he probably would have never thought of tagging the rare words according to role and comparing them the way he did. But the presence of the patterns he found does not depend on this assumption or any other; it's just there, to be interpreted as one sees fit. Now, Foster concluded, also very sensibly, that the patterns he found are consistent in every way (including some totally unexpected ways) with the thesis that the author of the plays acted in them; it's called circumstantial evidence, and in this case it's unusually strong and consistent. Consider: for each play, there is at least one role which shows a disproportionately high overlap of rare words with a subset of other plays in the canon (and this subset consists, in each case, of the plays which we believe to have been written later than the play in question). When there is only one such role, it is a relatively substantial supporting role, such as King Henry in *1 Henry 4*; when there are two or (in a few cases) three such roles, they are smaller supporting roles (e.g. Ghost and Player King in *Hamlet*), and the characters in question never appear on stage at the same time. In play after play, the first character to come on stage and speak is one singled out by this test (e.g. Egeon in *Errors*, King Ferdinand in *LLL*, Chorus in *Romeo and Julius*, Flavius in *Julius Caesar*, King Henry in *1 Henry 4*, Rumour in *2 Henry 4*, Chorus in *Henry V*, Theseus in *MND*, Duke Orsino in *Twelfth Night*, Gower in *Pericles*, etc. etc.), and in virtually every case this is either an old man or an allegorical chorus-like figure who presumably stood in one place, suggesting that these roles as a group would have been ideal for someone who had trouble getting around quickly. (We have no direct evidence that Shakespeare of Stratford had trouble walking, but twice in the Sonnets the poet mentions his lameness, and commentators have always argued over whether this is metaphorical or literal. And yes, I know that Oxford's leg was injured in a duel with Thomas Knyvet, but there is no evidence that he ever acted, let alone over a span of 20 years in public theaters.) The two roles which seventeenth-century theater gossip assigned to Shakespeare, namely the Ghost in *Hamlet* and Adam in *AYLI*, are among the roles singled out by the rare-word test. Now, all of this is circumstantial, but I'd say it's pretty darn powerful evidence that the author of the plays acted in them in these roles. Any alternate explanations for the patterns found by Foster would have to account for all the above facts, which seems to me to be a tall order. Good luck. 3) I see I've yammered on for a while, but I do have to address Pat's comments about Christopher Marlowe, which left me slack-jawed with amazement when I read them. He responds to the scarcity of evidence for Marlowe's authorship by saying that there is no particular reason not to accept Marlowe's authorship, and that there is an evident 'fit' between the man and his writings. My response to this is, "HUHHHH?" You're telling me that a hot-tempered shoemaker's son with no demonstrable connection to the theater, given to street brawling and hanging out with shady underworld characters, murdered under suspicious circumstances at the age of 29, is a more plausible playwright than a sweet-tempered glovemaker's son and country gentleman who spent 20 years connected with the leading acting troupe in England as an actor/sharer? What planet are you living on? Oxford was also hot-tempered and is alleged to have killed a man; is that your criterion? Are we to assume that Al Capone actually wrote the plays of Eugene O'Neill because he had the requisite short fuse? Seriously, what I take Pat to mean by this comment is that Marlowe attended a university and Shakespeare did not, and according to Oxfordians a university education was required for any writing more learned than a how-to pamphlet (I exaggerate, but not by much.) I'm sorry, but that's completely wrong again. Michael Drayton was born within a year or two of Shakespeare and in the same neck of the woods in Warwickshire; he never attended a university, but he became on of the most popular (and learned) poets in England; he even knew some Latin! Ben Jonson was raised in considerably *lower* economic circumstances than either Shakespeare or Marlowe (his preacher father died when he was an infant, and he and his mother lived in poverty until she married a bricklayer), and he too never went to a university, but he somehow managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps to become recognized as one of the most learned men in England. I could give more examples, but I won't. There were *ample* opportunities for self-education in Elizabethan England, and in any case Shakespeare got a very good head start from the Stratford grammar school (the evidence that it was an excellent one is extensive). As I said before, the evidence linking Marlowe to his plays is considerably less than the parallel evidence for Shakespeare, and nothing in Marlowe's "way of life" makes him a likely candidate for a playwright, unless you believe that fighting duels is a necessary part of the creative process. 4) Pat also says that there is no reason to doubt Marlowe's authorship because there is "no alternative candidate clamoring for attention." Oh, really? You obviously aren't familiar enough with your anti-Stratfordian brethren, lots of whom have suggested alternate candidates for Marlowe's plays. Many, many Baconians (including some of the most prominent, such as Ignatius Donnelly and Sir Edward Durning-Lawrence) believed that Bacon wrote Marlowe's plays as well as Shakespeare, and as far back as 1931, George Frisbee in *Edward de Vere, a Great Elizabethan*, found Oxford's cipher 'signature' in the quarto of *The Jew of Malta*. You've obviously forgotten that your hero, Charlton Ogburn, claimed in *The Mysterious William Shakespeare* that Oxford wrote *Edward II* --- after all, it's about kings, and we all know a commoner like Marlowe couldn't have known anything about royalty. As far as I know Ogburn lets Marlowe keep the rest of his plays (awfully nice of him, don't you think?), but there are certainly prominent Oxfordians today who believe that "Christopher Marlowe" in addition to "William Shakespeare" was a pseudonym for Oxford --- unless I'm mistaken, David Hanson of the De Vere Foundation is one. Are you saying that these people are wrong? On what grounds? They use the exact same methods as you use to argue that Oxford wrote Shakespeare, but at least they apply them consistently. I'll say once again that if you believe that Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays attributed to him but William Shakespeare did not, you're being wildly inconsistent and applying a double standard of breathtaking proportions. Dave Kathman, University of Chicago, djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 10:36:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0912 Re: *Chimes at Midnight* Video Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0912. Friday, 11 November 1994. From: David Middleton Date: WedNESDAY, 09 Nov 94 11:38:36 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0892 Qs: Chimes at Midnight Video In reply to Nina Walker's inquiry about -Chimes At Midnight-, I've seen it advertised through Commedia Dell'Arte, PO Box 2128, Manorhaven, NY, 11050. Phone orders at 800-892-0860 and free research regarding old plays, rare musicals or classic novels by calling Paul: 516-767-7576. -Chimes- was available for $88 in the last listing I received. Good luck. dm. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 10:40:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0914 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0914. Friday, 11 November 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Thursday, 10 Nov 94 11:30:52 CST Subject: Authorship Thanks to Don Foster for his postings on the current status of SHAXICON, which arrived after I posted my last Authorship message. I trust it should be clear that my summaries of Don's work are intended to make clear the basic results of the study for the uninitiated, and not to deal with all the interesting complications that arise. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 10:51:58 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0916 Re: Anne Locke Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0916. Friday, 11 November 1994. From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Friday, November 11, 1994 Subject: Anne Locke Request Kel Morin , a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Ottawa and a student of Tom Berger, recently wrote me to offer her e-mail address to anyone interested in Anne Locke. She is planning to focus on Locke in her thesis. Kel Morin ao871@FreeNet.Carleton.CA University of Ottawa ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 10:38:50 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0913 Q: *Hamlet*: Stage History Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0913. Friday, 11 November 1994. From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 10 Nov 1994 08:34:14 -0700 (MST) Subject: Hamlet: Stage History In my efforts to research the stage history of *Hamlet* I have had difficulty reconciling the claim on the title page of Q1 that "it was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servants." To my knowledge there is no documentation anywhere that would substantiate this. The claim on the title page of Q2 is equally frustrating in that there would appear to be evidence to the contrary that the play *Hamlet* hath been diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the Cittie of London; as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere." It is my understanding that in 1593 the Royal Privy Council passed an act which prohibited any kind of play to be "sett forthe either in the university or in any place within the compasse of five miles" thereof. This prohibition was not lifted till well after Shakespeare's death. I did find a reference in Henslowe that on June 11, 1594, *Hamlet* was performed at Newington Butts and that the box office receipts totalled but a few shillings. This does not sound like the kind of reception that a great tragedy by Shakespeare would receive. According to O.J. Cambell's *Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare* the "earliest recorded but improbable performance is that given on board the H.M.S. Dragon at Sierra Leone on September 5, 1606." I had always believed that the play would have been a popular one during the Elizabethan period. It appears that it was not. I am inclined to agree with Lillian Winstanley that the play contains too many topical allusions to events and details in James' life. If such is the case why was Shakespeare never taken to task for this as Jonson and the other prominent playwrights were for far more innocuous material in their plays? I would appreciate any elucidating input regarding the stage history of the play in the period before 1603. Dom Saliani Sir Winston Churchill High School Calgary, Alberta ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 11 Nov 1994 10:43:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0915 *Shakespeare World Bibliography* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0915. Friday, 11 November 1994. From: James Harner Date: Thursday, 10 Nov 1994 10:40:57 -0600 (CST) Subject: World Shakespeare Bibliography The 1993 World Shakespeare Bibliography has just gone to the printers. Barring a disruption in the proofing and printing schedules, this annual issue of +Shakespeare Quarterly+ should be in the mail by the end of February. Sending the electronic file to the printer always occasions my annual plea for SHAKSPEReans to send along offprints or notices of their current publications as well as copies of reviews and/or programs for local productions. Although the contributors to the Bibliography and the editorial staff regularly scan more than 1,500 journals and newspapers, we invariably (but inadvertently) overlook publications and productions. This year brings an additional plea: I'm asking all subscribers to SHAKSPER to send along, via snailmail, fax, or email, a list of all their Shakespeare-related publications, including reviews. (A copy of the list of publications from a curriculum vitae will serve nicely.) I'm requesting this list from all SHAKSPEReans so that I can check it against the files for +The World Shakespeare Bibliography on CD-ROM 1900-Present+. The first disk--covering 1990-93--will be released by Cambridge UP next autumn; each year thereafter, a new disk covering the next year and and the preceding 3-4 years will be released. +The World Shakespeare Bibliography on CD-ROM 1900-Present+ will use DynaText software to allow users to browse the database as if they were "reading" a printed version of the annual Bibliography, and to search the database by keyword, by field-specific attributes (e.g., all article published in French since 1990 using a psychoanalytic approach to +Hamlet+), and by a series of thesaurus descriptors. In addition, the database will have hypertext links that allow users to move among related items (e.g., the various responses and counter-responses generated by Richard Levin's "The Poetics and Politics of Bardicide"); users will be able to create their own hypertext links and to insert notes in the database. A prototype will be on display at the March Shakespeare Association of America meeting. Jim Harner Editor, World Shakespeare Bibliography Department of English Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4227 409-862-2292 (fax) JLH5651@venus.tamu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 12:23:42 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0919 Re: Jacobi's Hamlet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0919. Monday, 14 November 1994. From: Juliet A. Youngren Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 1994 15:51:10 -0600 (CST) Subject: Jacobi's Hamlet I have enjoyed reading people's reminiscences of Jacobi's Hamlet. It was the first version I ever saw--I couldn't have been more than about 12 when it was first shown on television here, but I sat through the whole thing with the collected works on my lap to check the hard parts. Recently I saw it again and was pleased at how well it held up. I'd say it's still my favorite version. I especially enjoyed how he did the "rogue and peasant slave" speech with a wooden sword the players had left behind and used it to great effect on the lines "Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, kindless, lecherous, treacherous villain! O, vengeance!": he raised the sword over his head as if attacking an imaginary Claudius and declaimed the lines as if they came from a slightly sensational play. By the way, he did not overhear the King and Polonius plotting to set Ophelia on him, and the "to be or not to be" speech was delivered directly to the audience (or camera). He suspected Ophelia was up to something when he saw she was holding her book upside down--a small liberty with the script, I suppose, but a neat way of communicating to the audience why he reacted to her as he did. J.A.Y. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 12:18:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Sh Grammar; Volscians; Hypermedia; Sh World Bib; Fads Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0917. Monday, 14 November 1994. (1) From: Marty Jukovsky Date: Friday, 11 Nov 94 14:50:05 Subj: Shakespearean Grammar Wanted (2) From: Blair Kelly III Date: Sunday, 13 Nov 1994 20:54:28 -0500 Subj: Who were the Volsces? (3) From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 1994 07:41:00 -0800 Subj: Shakespearean hypermedia (4) From: Jean R. Brink Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 1994 12:19:05 -0700 (MST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0915 *Shakespeare World Bibliography* (5) From: Gavin H Witt Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 94 16:39:20 CST Subj: Shakespearean fads (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marty Jukovsky Date: Friday, 11 Nov 94 14:50:05 Subject: Shakespearean Grammar Wanted I'm looking for a copy of _A Shakespearean Grammar_ by E. A. Abbott (who also wrote _Flatland_). The book was reprinted by Dover in 1966, but has gone out of print. Has it been reprinted? Does anyone have a second-hand copy to sell? Martin Jukovsky Editor the Yankee Group Boston, Mass. martyj@yankeegroup.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Blair Kelly III Date: Sunday, 13 Nov 1994 20:54:28 -0500 Subject: Who were the Volsces? The Washington Shakespeare Reading Group recently read Coriolanus. During the reading, one of our members asked: "Did the Volscians actually exist, and if so, who were they?" Looking at the notes in our editions of the play only informed us that the Volsces were members of a neighboring state of Rome. (We assume a neighboring city state.) If so, where was it located? What was the history of this "state"? Can anyone enlighten us? Blair Kelly III Secretary, Washington Shakespeare Reading Group (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Nyhoff Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 1994 07:41:00 -0800 Subject: Shakespearean hypermedia Stuart Rice's recent posts regarding his fascinating Hamlet project prods me to post again a message similar to one I've posted a time or two before on a couple of different lists (Many thanks to those of you who have been kind enough to respond, and my apologies to those who are getting sick of my plea...): My dissertation (UC Berkeley) is a comparative study of Shakespearean QUIT scholarship in hypermedia -- in particular, of that which includes video and audio performances. I'm trying to proceed inductively, examining the fascinating particular forays into electronic scholarship, searching for the quantitatively and/or qualitatively new pedagogical, critical, and philosophical aspects of scholarship in this new thinking/writing/reading space, and, hopefully, I'll be able to make some reasonably accurate extrapolations toward the future. However, the major task continues to be that of flushing out a substantial number of the many people who I know are out there, who are testing the potential of this new medium in regard to their work. Please come forward! Again, many thanks to those of you who have already responded, but I know there are many more who have taken (or are contemplating) even a smallstep into Shakespearean (or other performance-related) scholarship in hypermedia: I'm *keenly* interested in hearing from you! Furthermore, I'm also all ears to any musing (pro or con) on the subject, even if it's off-the-cuff, and even if y ou have no real intention of attempting scholarship of this sort in the near future . Even a short note would be much appreciated, and although I sense that the topic is of broad interest, I can keep any conversation as confidential as you need it to be. Thanks in advance, Jeff Nyhoff Calvin College (Computer Science) Hope College (Theatre) (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean R. Brink Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 1994 12:19:05 -0700 (MST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0915 *Shakespeare World Bibliography* For exactly what years are we to send bibliographical references to Professor Harner. Jean Brink Jean R. Brink (602) 965-7777 English Department Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-0302 (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gavin H Witt Date: Saturday, 12 Nov 94 16:39:20 CST Subject: Shakespearean fads List-folks: For an upcoming project, I'm interested in anyone's thoughts regarding the phenomenon of certain Shakespeare plays going through cycles of popularity. That is, does anybody have any strong ideas (not that I don't have some, but I'd like to get responses from the list) as to why some of the more obscure plays in particular suddenly get done all at once--six different theaters all doing _Winter's Tale_. Aside from obvious considerations of general cultural context (some appeal more at some times) or commercial reality (one regional theater has success with _Coriolanus_ so everybody decides to give it a try), I'd like your thoughts on what, if any, mass psychology might be operating on Artistic Directors and the like. Similarly, does anybody have any really good examples of this phenomenon, recently or historically? Or, perhaps, has anybody read recently any good descriptions of this, or accounts by directors or critics of it. Many thanks--and feel free to e-mail me directly or respond list-wide. I'd be thrilled to see any extended discussion of this in an open-ended framework. Gavin Witt ghwitt@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Nov 1994 12:21:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0918 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0918. Monday, 14 November 1994. From: Pat Buckridge Date: Sunday, 13 Nov 1994 22:31:39 +1000 Subject: Authorship Let me respond first to Dave Kathman's slack-jawed amazement at my remarks on Marlowe's authorship. As far as I can tell, Dave seems to have missed my point, which was *not* to assert the unquestioned status of Marlowe's authorship claims as against those of William Shakspere. Why would I want to do that? As it happens, I'm well aware that some traditional Marlowe attributions have in fact been challenged from time to time, by Oxfordians and others; but this is entirely beside the point. It was Dave, after all, who introduced Marlowe's authorship into this discussion in the first place, as a parallel case to Shakespeare's of attribution-by-inference. His implication, I took it, was that he considered both to be safe attributions, to which my response was that I am more than happy to entertain the hypothesis that both of them are unsafe and open to challenge. And the same goes for all the other playwrights of the period - the large majority - whose authorship also rests mainly on inference. The charge that I'm applying 'double standards' only holds up if it's assumed that I'm committed to accepting certain inferential attributions (e.g. Marlowe), and not others (e.g. Shakspere). But I'm not. As I said last week (with the unexpected and I'm sure unintended support of Bill Godshalk) I'd be more than happy to see a general amnesty on all such attributions. I'm also happy to dissociate myself from any arguments, Oxfordian or otherwise, that invoke the kind of contrast Dave objects to. That was my main point. A minor parenthesis, which Dave seems to have mistaken for the main point, was that *on the face of it* there seemed to be less reason to doubt Marlowe's authorship than Shakspere's if only because he, unlike Shakspere, had the higher education usually deemed requisite for writing highly educated dramas (autodidacts like Jonson always excepted). The SHAXICON study has now been somewhat more fully explained. Dave Kathman is right to suppose that his initial summary led me to infer, wrongly it appears, that an order of composition was an *explicit* assumption of the study. I continue to think it is probably an *implicit* assumption. He and Don Foster both make the surprising claim that a chronological sequence for the plays and poems is 'wholly determined by [the] statistical data'. Now, I can allow for a bit of rhetorical exaggeration, but this sort of statement verges on being seriously misleading to those of us who aren't all that statistically numerate, but want to know what's going on behind all the numbers - and, just conceivably, it may even be symptomatic of a methodological blind spot in the study. As far as I can see, the chronology is clearly neither 'determined' nor 'generated' by the data; it is *induced* from it by applying a quite particular interpretive assumption to what the statistical procedures do generate, namely a set of lexical distribution patterns for Shakespeare's plays, poems and characters. To translate these patterns into a chronological sequence of plays requires the assumption that the distribution-differentials for characters were caused by the author memorising the speeches of certain characters in order to perform them as an actor. Surely you can see that (a) this is not the only possible explanation for the existence of these distribution patterns, and (b) it *is* dependent on your assuming that the author was an actor. Indeed, Dave Kathman made this rather important concession in his most recent posting, when he wrote: 'Now, it's true that when he started his study Foster assumed . . .that the person who wrote the plays . . . also acted in them.' He then goes on to deny that the distribution patterns were generated by this assumption, which of course I never suggested they were. My point was, and it remains, that the *interpretation* of the patterns (in 'mnemonic' terms) is dependent on the 'actor' assumption. And it is. Don Foster seems, if anything, more reckless than Dave Kathman in his claims about what his study proves. I'd have expected him, like Ward Elliott, to try to reel in the excesses of his more enthusiastic advocates, but to the contrary: he seems to believe that he's 'demonstrated' the truth of at least two assumptions that hadn't even entered the discussion till now, viz. 'that the canon is substantively [sic] by the same individual' (an assumption with which I don't necessarily disagree, but an assumption nonetheless), and the dating of the canon (a quite different matter, obviously, from the order of composition) - that, at least, is how I interpret his comical thrust about Lord Oxford's posthumous roles. How on earth the study, as described, can possibly demonstrate either of those things is a complete mystery to me. Can I protest, finally, that I did not say I regarded the study as 'worthless'. The patterns it reveals may well be of great significance; I just don't believe we can say we *know* what their significance is. If we look at them with different assumptions, quite different explanations may suggest themselves. The fact that I don't have an alternative explanation ready to hand is hardly surprising, and doesn't vitiate my criticism in any way. Dave's impulse to get the whole thing sewn up and finalised, even if it involves riding roughshod over logical and methodological difficulties, strikes me as a touch precipitate. No offence intended, but that's the kind of thinking that sent witches to the stake. Just one final point, one that I put on hold several months ago and never got back to, and which has now clearly become relevant again. It's this. Why do people assume that Shakespeare must have been an actor in order to have been a great playwright? It seems an extraordinary assumption when you think about it, but it's one that's very commonly made, especially on this list. How many great playwrights can anyone think of who were also full-time professional actors? I can think of Moliere, period. (Acknowledgments to Charlton Ogburn who posed the same question years ago. As far as I know, nobody ever answered). My apologies for going on at such length. I don't demand to have the last word on the SHAXICON matter, and will happily shut up about it as of now whether or not any responses appear. Pat Buckridge, Griffith University. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:17:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0923 Q: Jaques and Jaques Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0923. Tuesday, 15 November 1994. From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 12:14:58 -0600 Subject: Jaques and Jaques I am soon to begin rehearsals for my fourth production of AS YOU LIKE IT (my second go around as Oliver) in a co-production by the Huntington Theatre in Boston and the Public in Pittsburgh. One small item which has always struck me as a curiosity: that Shakespeare would have given the same name to two different characters in the play: Jaques de Boys, the third son of Sir Roland de Boys (brother to Orlando and Oliver) and Jaques of *All the world's a stage* notoriety. Any thoughts? By the by, AYLI runs in Boston early January through mid February. The run in Pittsburgh extends from mid February through then end of March. If you are in either neighborhood, please come and be sure to stop backstage afterwards. Arthur Pearson apearson@great-lakes.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:09:26 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0920 Re: *Shrew8 Productions; Volsci Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0920. Tuesday, 15 November 1994. (1) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Monday, 14 Nov 1994 16:37:52 GMT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0894 Re: *Shrew* Productions (2) From: John Mucci Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 07:41:12 -0500 Subj: Coriolanus & the Volsci (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Monday, 14 Nov 1994 16:37:52 GMT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0894 Re: *Shrew* Productions There's obviously something wrong with my e-mail. It recorded Jim Helsinger as claiming that Kate's final words represent " a speech of growth for her as a person". Ho ho. Could somebody tell me what he actually wrote? T. Hawkes (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 07:41:12 -0500 Subject: Coriolanus & the Volsci The Volsci were a mountainous people, who by 493 BC were threatening to attack the Latini, and by 340-388, along with the AEqui and the Etruscans were at war against the Romans. The Latin League which had been formed to celebrate religious cults and provide defense was broken up by these wars, and was then re-organized. The Volsci people were found southeast of Rome, south of the Hernci and Marsi, and north of the Latini & the Aurunci. John Mucci GTE VisNet ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:14:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0922 Announcment: Textual Studies Job Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0922. Tuesday, 15 November 1994. From: Stuart Lee Date: Monday, 14 Nov 1994 17:28:05 +0000 Subject: CTI Textual Studies Job, Oxford University Please cross-post accordingly. JOB ADVERTISEMENT Research Officer CTI Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services The CTI Centre at Oxford University is seeking to appoint a Research Officer from 1 January 1995 or as soon as possible thereafter. The Centre's role is to promote, encourage and support the use of computers in the teaching of a range of text-based subjects in higher education throughout the UK. The Centre also has strong international links. The major responsibilities of this post will include editing our varied series of publications, both electronic and paper-based, evaluating software useful in the teaching of textual subjects in higher education institutions, giving presentations at workshops, conferences, and university departments. The person appointed should have a good degree in a Humanities subject, in particular: modern languages and literatures, classics, drama, philosophy, theology, or media studies. He or she should also be computer-literate. Experience in one or more of the following areas would also be useful: publishing (conventional and/or on-line), teaching (HE), internet resources, humanities computing applications. Good writing and presentation skills are essential. The appointment will be made in the lower end of the RS1A scale: #13,941-#15,566 per annum (pounds sterling) according to qualifications and experience. The CTI is funded until July 1999 subject to annual confirmation by the Higher Education Funding Councils. Further details are added below and an application form can be obtained from Sally Matthews, OUCS, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN (tel: 0865-273230; e-mail: sally.matthews@oucs.ox.ac.uk). The closing date for submission of application forms is 2nd December 1994. Interviews are scheduled for the week commencing 12th December 1994. ************************************************************************** The Computers in Teaching Initiative The Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) was established in 1984 and the first phase (1984-1988) funded 139 software development and dissemination projects. In phase two of the Initiative (1989 onwards) twenty subject-specific CTI Centres were established to promote, support, and encourage the use of computers in the teaching of all subjects taught at higher education level in the UK. The Initiative has just started a new period of funding which will last until the end of July 1999, and the new post is offered until that time, subject to funds being confirmed by the Higher Education Funding Councils. Four of the CTI Centres represent humanities subjects: the Centre for History with Archaeology and Art History, based at the University of Glasgow; the Centre for Modern Languages (with Classics), based at the University of Hull; the Centre for Music, based at the University of Lancaster; and the Centre for Textual Studies, based at the University of Oxford. The Centre for Textual Studies The Centre is part of the Centre for Humanities Computing at Oxford University which exists to support students and academics in the humanities at Oxford University in the use of computers in their academic research and teaching by introducing them to the latest techniques and methods in humanities computing; to establish the Centre for Humanities Computing as a Tcentre of excellenceU both within the UK higher education system and world-wide; to promote the uses of computing by the encouragement of leading edge research by members of the Centre for Humanities Computing; to operate a print and electronic publication programme to disseminate the work of the Centre. The CTI Centre deals with the use of computers in the teaching of literature in all languages, from all periods; philosophy and logic; linguistics; theology; drama and theatre studies; film and media studies. The Centre publishes a newsletter, Computers and Texts, a Resources Guide, and also regularly updates a humanities World Wide Web service. It also runs workshops, conferences, and seminars; evaluates software and hardware; runs a general advisory service; visits academic departments; and deals with large numbers of visitors. The Office for Humanities Communication (OHC) The CTI Centre works very closely with the British Library-funded OHC which is also part of the Centre for Humanities Computing in Oxford. The OHC carries out survey and research work on general topics relevant to the use of information technology in all areas of the humanities and together with the CTI Centre organizes the CATH (Computers and Teaching in the Humanities) series of conferences. Staff of the CTI Centre The Centre has a Director, Dr Marilyn Deegan; a Deputy Director, Dr Stuart Lee; a Centre Manager, Mr Michael Popham; an Administrative Secretary, Mrs Mari Gill. The new appointment will report directly to the Centre Manager. The New Appointment The main responsibilities of this post will be to run our ever-growing series of publications, liaising with contributors, editors, copy-editors, printers, designers, etc, and also to update regularly the various electronic publications which the Centre manages. He or she will also help at workshops, visit academic departments, attend conferences, and answer enquiries. A willingness to travel around the UK and occasionally overseas is essential. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Nov 1994 14:12:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0921 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0921. Tuesday, 15 November 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 14 Nov 94 20:01:00 CST Subject: Authorship The authorship traffic seems to have tapered off, but for the sake of completeness I thought I'd post my replies to some of Pat Buckridge's comments that crossed my last posting in cyberspace. 1) I was not, despite Pat's implication, saying that the Oxfordian explanations for Meres' listing of both Oxford and Shakespeare are "self-evidently absurd"; I was just tired and didn't feel like editorializing right then. I should say, though, that the "ignorance" scenario (Meres didn't know that "Oxford" and "Shakespeare" were the same) makes it harder to explain why Meres mentioned Shakespeare's "sugard sonnets among his privat friends", a phrase which certainly implies that Meres had some kind of knowledge of a real person named "Shakespeare" who had friends. This pretty much forces you into the "paid by conspirators" scenario (Meres knew the "truth" but was paid and/or coerced by the conspirators to insert both Oxford and Shakespeare into his list in order to avoid suspicion), which as far as I can see is the most common one accepted by prominent Oxfordians. Your tolerance for accepting this scenario depends on your tolerance for conspiracy theories, which in my case is not particularly high. 2) On the *Sir Thomas More* manuscript, I won't go into this at length, but will refer anyone who's interested to the excellent collection *Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More: Essays on the Play and its Shakespearian Interest*, edited by T. H. Howard Hill, and the relevant chapter in Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: Images and Records*, which gives a more concise summary of the reasons for attributing Hand D to Shakespeare. My main point on *More* was not directly its relevance to the authorship question, but rather the way orthodox Shakespeareans are much more critical of their own conclusions than Oxfordians are. Pat Buckridge asserts that the *More* manuscript is a transcription, which is not quite right; it contains the handwriting of either five or six people, one of which is a playhouse scribe whose handwriting is found, I believe, in another surviving playhouse manuscript. The others include Anthony Munday, Henry Chettle, Thomas Heywood (probably), and Hand D, the last almost certainly Shakespeare. Hand D is not that of a playhouse scribe, or if it is, it's like no other scribe we know of; the handwriting is kind of messy (scribes were always very neat) and flowing, and seems to have been written quickly, though despite this there are very few corrections ("his mind and hand went together"; "we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers"; hmmmm...). I won't try to go into all the evidence, but this handwriting does not match that of any other playwright for whom we have writing samples, and it is consistent in every way (including some unusual features such as a "spurred a") with the six signatures (and the words "by me") of William Shakespeare of Stratford. There are quite compelling reasons for believing that the person who wrote Hand D also wrote the Shakespeare quartos which were set from the author's foul papers, and the same reasons effectively rule out other potential candidates (such as John Webster) for whom we don't have writing samples. It's not conclusive, but in my view it's pretty significant evidence in favor of Shakespeare. (Oxford's handwriting, by the way, was nothing like Hand D.) 3) Finally, hyphenation. All right, Pat, "utterly baseless" may have been a bit harsh, and there may well be other factors involved in hyphenation that I haven't mentioned. But the evidence we have will simply not support a claim that hyphenation commonly indicated a pseudonym in Elizabethan times, and I'm unaware of any non-Oxfordian who claims that it did. Let's consider some facts. First of all, all the instances of hyphenated names I've encountered occur in printed sources, as opposed to handwritten ones. This includes the Stationer's Register entries for Shakespearean plays published with the name hyphenated on the title page; thus, the handwritten SR entry for Q1 *Lear* spells the name "William Shakespeare", while the printed title page spells it "Shak-speare" (without the first e but with a hyphen). This, to me, indicates that the printer had at least something to do with hypehnation, though I won't rule out other factors if someone comes up with some evidence. Now, almost all the records of William Shakespeare of Stratford (apart from the mentions of William Shakespeare as a playwright/poet, which is what's under dispute) are handwritten, consisting as they do of mostly legal documents (and one letter to Shakespeare, which abbreviates his name as "Sh" or "Shak"). As it happens, though, there are two unequivocal printed mentions of Shakespeare the actor (who even Pat admits is the same as the Stratford man); these are in the cast lists in the 1616 edition of Ben Jonson's *Works*. In the list for *Every Man In His Humour*, the name is given as "Will. Shakespeare"; in the list for *Sejanus*, it is given as "Will. Shake-Speare". What do you know about that! Those bungling conspirators used the hyphenated form to refer to the illiterate Stratford yokel instead of the noble genius Oxford! Or could it be that the name Shakespeare was just hyphenated sometimes because it could be divided into two words that formed a little phrase with heroic connotations, and was thought to derive from such a source? Let's ask William Camden, the famed antiquary. In his *Remaines* of 1605, he talks about the etymology of names and says that men took their names "from that which they commonly carried, as Palmer, that is, Pilgrim, for they that carried palm when they returned from Hierusalem; Long-sword, Broad-spere, Shake-speare, Shotbolt, Wagstaffe..." Sounds like he's talking about real people's names there, and note that he hyphenated "Shake-speare" in addition to a couple of others. If the conspirators were trying to use hyphens to indicate a pseudonym, they were sure erratic about it; in Leonard Digges' poem in the First Folio, the name is spelled "Shakespeare" in the title, but "Shake-speare" in the text of the poem. Wouldn't the title be a more prominent place to put an authorship "clue" --- I thought that's why the conspirators hyphenated the name on title pages? Oh, but I guess we can't question the ways of the conspirators --- after all, they did such a good job covering their tracks that nobody uncovered their secret until 1920, when J. Thomas Looney exposed the whole sordid affair. Sorry for the excessive sarcasm. I'm all tuckered out, and have to rest. If I can find the time sometime, I may whip up a posting about the overwhelming evidence that *The Tempest* was written no earlier than 1610, and that Shakespeare of Stratford had multiple and intimate ties with a couple of men who could have given him access to the unpublished letter which was the basis of much of the plot details and language of the play. Oxfordian writings on *The Tempest* are, I almost hate to say it, particularly bad, and have never addressed any of this evidence. Good night, Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 14:00:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0928 Re: Jaques and Jaques Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 928. Wednesday, 16 November 1994. From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 23:55:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0923 Q: Jaques and Jaques Greetings all! Regarding Arthur Pearson's question regarding, if you'll excuse, "the two Jakes:" In a production it is only as bothersome as you want it to be. The Jaques who is Orlando's brother can be pronounced the French way (we don't need two syllables for scanning, since the only reference to his first name is in Orlando's opening *prose* monologue; the Jaques who is Monsieur Melancholy can be pronounced "Jakes." Stephen Booth once threw a fit when I pronounced it "Jake-weez" as is common in the theater. He does that a lot. Regards, Bradley Berens UC Berkeley claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 11:03:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0924 Re: Volsci Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 924. Wednesday, 16 November 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 09:48:23 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Volscians (2) From: Julie Dubiner Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 00:08:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Volscians (3) From: Judy Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 11:20:03 AST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Volscians (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 09:48:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Volscians Dear Blair Kelly, In general, I've found Isaac Asimov's incredible GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE helpful in such background matters as the history of the Volscians in CORIOLANUS. Asimov covers this ground in Volume One, pg. 222, of his guide, though admittedly not in much depth. "The Volscians were the tribes occupying the southeastern half of Latium," etc. They "fought with the Romans throughout the fifth century B.C. and were in the end defeated." Asimov includes a map pinpointing Corioli as somewhat inland southwest of Rome, perhaps a distance of 100 miles (I 212). In a prior confession of my reliance on Asimov, I noted, though, that he never documents the sources for any of this information. Like Oliver Goldsmith's schoolmaster, Asimov makes us want to cry out, "And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew,/ That one small head could carry all he knew" Oh, yes, Azimov's GUIDE was published by New York: Doubleday, 1970. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Julie Dubiner Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 00:08:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Volscians The Volscians were, as you suspected, a neighboring city-state of Rome, located just south of the Tiber. Shakespeare's choice probably originated from their development of sophisticated war transport machinery. The Volscians were best known for their innovative six-wheeled cart: the Volscwagon Bug. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judy Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 11:20:03 AST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Volscians The question about the Volsci brought back happy memories of an April in Terracina more than twenty years ago. From our holiday apartment at the sea's edge outside town we could look up at the temple on the hill to the south, and think of Coriolanus. We had chosen the spot because we wanted to visit Rome, and our young children wanted to see a volcano (Terracina is on the east coast roughly equidistant between Rome and Naples). It was ideal for day trips to Rome, to Fossanova (where Thomas Aquinas died), to Cuma, Gaeta, San Felice Circeo (Circe's cave), etc. etc. On Sundays we could go to church at Fossanova, or to the ancient cathedral high in the centre of Terracina, where we parked on the marble of the Roman forum, and watched children playing soccer with broken Roman columns as goalposts. We fetched our drinking water from the fountain of Lucullus. If you want to get in touch with Coriolanus, with Circe, with prehistoric man, with Nero, with Vergil and the Sybil, then Terracina is an ideal base. I think it's still true if you go in April and May (preferably avoiding Easter) before most Italians start taking their summer holidays you should be able to find a reasonably cheap place to rent. Judy Kennedy St.Thomas University Fredericton, N.B., Canada Email JKENNEDY@StThomasU.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 13:49:13 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0927 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM; Quotation Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 927. Wednesday, 16 November 1994. (1) From: Todd M. Lidh Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 16:18:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shakespeare on CD-ROM (2) From: R.D.H.Wells Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 09:32:20 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Source of quotation (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Todd M. Lidh Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 16:18:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare on CD-ROM I'm writing an open appeal to all my fellow SHAKSPEReans regarding the availability of Shakespeare on CD-ROM. I have seen the complete works listed in CD-ROM catalogs, but I'm curious about whether or not there is/are more academic oriented or comprehensive editions available, specifically ones which might contain facsimile scans of the Folio and/or Quartos. Any help? Todd M. Lidh tmlidh@email.unc.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: R.D.H.Wells Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 09:32:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Source of quotation Dear SHAKESPEReans, Can anyone help me find the source of the following remark by W.B. Yeats (quoted by Brower as epigraph to Hero and Saint: Shakespeare and the Graeco-Roman Heroic Tradition): 'When the imaginary hero ... moves us most deeply it is the moment when he awakens within us for an instant our own heroism.' Many thanks, Robin Headlam Wells ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 12:28:24 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0925 Re: Fads; Multimedia; Doubling in *Ham.* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 925. Wednesday, 16 November 1994. (1) From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 09:47:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Fads (2) From: Leslie Harris Date: Tuesday, Nov 15 15:50:04 EST 1994 Subj: Shakespeare Multimedia Project (3) From: Kila D. Burton Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 12:50:20 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Doubling of Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 09:47:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Fads Gavin Witt's question about cycles of popularity for particular plays makes me think of R. A. Foakes's *Hamlet Versus Lear: Cultural Politics and Shakespeare's Art* (Cambridge UP, 1993). Foakes deals with just two plays, but he attempts to explain their relative popularity among critics and performers in terms of cultural changes in the West over the last thirty years. John Cox (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leslie Harris Date: Tuesday, Nov 15 15:50:04 EST 1994 Subject: Shakespeare Multimedia Project Hi, Folks. I sent a message to a hypertext list about a multimedia project I'm doing in my Shakespeare class, but a recent posting on this list made me realize that fellow Shaksper-eans would be interested in the project as well. The attached message explains the class assignment. I'm having the students use Multimedia Toolbook 3.0 to annotate a Shakespeare passage chosen from one of the plays we've read this semester. This is the first time with MMToolbook for all of us, so it's a bit of a risky project. If folks are interested, I can talk about how it went. Leslie Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einstein.susqu.edu SHAKESPEARE MULTIMEDIA PROJECT For the final two weeks of the class, you'll be working on a Shakespeare Multimedia Project. You will divide up into five groups, with each group choosing a short passage (about one computer screen in length) from one of the plays we've read this semester. Your task will be to annotate the passage, choosing significant words and ideas and linking them to explanatory text, graphics, and so on. During those two weeks, you'll have the entire class period to work on your project, but you'll also need to do some work outside the class time. The purpose of the Multimedia Project is to help you learn to read the text closely and to situate it within its various relevant contexts. Your group will have to choose a passage that lends itself to annotation, and you'll have to do research to determine what background materials you'll want to include in your final hypertext document. Please note that this is a group project intended to foster independent learning. You will be collectively responsible for the successful completion of your project. The amount of class time available for the project is limited, so you will be responsible as a group to divide the work evenly and to use the time available as productively as you can. My role will be to help you at the various stages of the process: teaching you the basic use of the multimedia software, answering whatever questions you might have, trouble- shooting your projects when necessary, and serving as a liaison with the Computer Center staff should you need additional computing resources. I hope that this project will become a process of discovery for all of us, as we learn together to incorporate new technology into the study of Shakespeare. I also hope that you will enjoy the process, as you express yourself creatively through this group endeavor. For next Monday, you'll need to have chosen what passage you intend to annotate (and you'll need to clear that choice with me). By the following Monday (when your Essay 2 is due as well), you'll need to hand in a bibliography of outside works that you will draw on in creating your hypertext document. When you return from the Thanksgiving Recess, I expect you to be ready to work on your projects immediately, so that you'll be able to take full advantage of your limited time. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kila D. Burton Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 12:50:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Doubling of Hamlet Univ. of Md College Park's "Hamlet" of two years ago double casted the ghost and the player king. For me it emphasized Claudius' nefarious deed. Interesting for the actors to play with the Player King's 'resemblance" to Hamlet's father. Kila Burton ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 13:40:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0926 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 926. Wednesday, 16 November 1994. (1) From: James Forse Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 12:21:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Actor/playwrights (2) From: Robert Teeter Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 20:07:49 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0918 Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Forse Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 12:21:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Actor/playwrights To Molier one can add Heywood, a contemporary of Shakespeare, Sam Shepherd from our own time, Davenent and Gerrick if one counts the very extensive rewrites each did. And there are references to plays by Burbage and Heminges, and survivals of plays by Armin. I would say being an actor neither qualifies nor disqualifies play writing. J.Forse:Hist.:BGSU (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Teeter Date: Tuesday, 15 Nov 1994 20:07:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0918 Authorship Pat Buckridge wrote: > The SHAXICON study has now been somewhat more fully explained. > Dave Kathman is right to suppose that his initial summary led me to infer, > wrongly it appears, that an order of composition was an *explicit* > assumption of the study. I continue to think it is probably an *implicit* > assumption. He and Don Foster both make the surprising claim that a > chronological sequence for the plays and poems is 'wholly determined by > [the] statistical data'. Now, I can allow for a bit of rhetorical > exaggeration, but this sort of statement verges on being seriously > misleading to those of us who aren't all that statistically numerate, but > want to know what's going on behind all the numbers - and, just > conceivably, it may even be symptomatic of a methodological blind spot in > the study. > > As far as I can see, the chronology is clearly neither 'determined' nor > 'generated' by the data; it is *induced* from it by applying a quite > particular interpretive assumption to what the statistical procedures do > generate, namely a set of lexical distribution patterns for Shakespeare's > plays, poems and characters. To translate these patterns into a > chronological sequence of plays requires the assumption that the > distribution-differentials for characters were caused by the author > memorising the speeches of certain characters in order to perform them as > an actor. Surely you can see that (a) this is not the only possible > explanation for the existence of these distribution patterns, and (b) it > *is* dependent on your assuming that the author was an actor. Indeed, Dave > Kathman made this rather important concession in his most recent posting, > when he wrote: 'Now, it's true that when he started his study Foster > assumed . . .that the person who wrote the plays . . . also acted in them.' > He then goes on to deny that the distribution patterns were generated by > this assumption, which of course I never suggested they were. My point > was, and it remains, that the *interpretation* of the patterns (in > 'mnemonic' terms) is dependent on the 'actor' assumption. And it is. It sounds to me more like the common scientific technique of the hypothesis. A scientist makes certain assumptions and then devises an experiment to see if the facts fit the theory. Don Foster, in his ingenious study, has managed to find evidence in Shakespeare's plays consistent with their author being an actor. As Dave Kathman says, the burden of proof is on the Oxfordians. Since there is no positive evidence linking their man with the plays, they must explain Don Foster's results. > Dave's impulse to get the whole thing sewn up and finalised, even if > it involves riding roughshod over logical and methodological difficulties, > strikes me as a touch precipitate. No offence intended, but that's the > kind of thinking that sent witches to the stake. First phlogiston and now witch burning? If Messrs. Foster and Kathman are begging the question, then Mr. Buckridge is setting up straw men. > Just one final point, one that I put on hold several months ago and never > got back to, and which has now clearly become relevant again. It's this. > Why do people assume that Shakespeare must have been an actor in order to > have been a great playwright? It seems an extraordinary assumption when > you think about it, but it's one that's very commonly made, especially on > this list. How many great playwrights can anyone think of who were also > full-time professional actors? I can think of Moliere, period. > (Acknowledgments to Charlton Ogburn who posed the same question years ago. > As far as I know, nobody ever answered). Does Sam Shepherd count? Why do anti-Stratfordians always assume the author of Shakespeare's plays had to be a nobleman (or royalty, for those who believe Queen Elizabeth wrote the plays)? It seems obvious that Shakespeare could pick up all he needed from reading standard histories, from performing at court, from mixing with people of varied classes, including Southampton and his circle. Many of Shakespeare's contemporaries managed to write about royalty without being noblemen. How many great playwrights can anyone think of who were noblemen? Robert Teeter San Jose, Calif. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:14:52 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0931 Performances of *Endymion* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0931. Friday, 18 November 1994. From: John Cox Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 10:27:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Performances of Lyly's *Endymion* On behalf of David Bevington, who is not a SHAKSPER member, I would like to ask if anyone knows of productions of John Lyly's *Endymion* since its first production in 1588. Bevington is editing the play for Revels. Replies can be sent to the network (others might be interested to know as well) or addressed directly to Bevington at BEVI@MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Thanks, John Cox ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:19:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0932 Re: Two Jaques Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0932. Friday, 18 November 1994. (1) From: Thomas Hall Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 10:29:28 -0600 (CST) Subj: Two Jaques (2) From: Jerry Bangham Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 21:55:30 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0928 Re: Jaques and Jaques (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Hall Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 10:29:28 -0600 (CST) Subject: Two Jaques One of these Jaques is a pun on the Elizebethan word for outhouse. I think that pun is rightly Monsieur Melencholy, and not the Jaques of whom "report speeks goldenly of his profit." See Bradley Berens post for a guide to proper punny pronunciation. Thomas Hall Northeastern Illinois University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jerry Bangham Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 21:55:30 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0928 Re: Jaques and Jaques > the Jaques who is Monsieur Melancholy can > be pronounced "Jakes." Stephen Booth once threw a fit when I pronounced it >"Jake-weez" as is common in the theater. He does that a lot. Does anyone else on the list remember the International Shakespeare Conference in Vancouver a long time ago when some of the top world scholars just about came to blows debating "Jakes" vs "Jake-weez"? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 10:46:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0929 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0929. Friday, 18 November 1994. From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 94 18:00:35 CST Subject: Authorship We've obviously had some crossing of messages, and for some reason I seem to be getting my SHAKSPER messages much later than other people. (I know my last authorship post must have gone out, since I got a response to it this morning, but I haven't seen it yet.) I lack the time and energy right now for a full response to Pat Buckridge's latest, but I do have some things to say, which I hope I can manage to keep brief. Pat, I think sometimes you're reading too much into what I say. Did I ever say that Marlowe's authorship is "self-evident"? Did I ever say that I assume you accept Marlowe's authorship? If you can find where I said that, I'll give you a Snickers bar. What I did say is that *if* you accept Marlowe's authorship but not Shakespeare's, *then* you're being wildly inconsistent. I had no idea what you actually thought about Marlowe; I was really trying to get you to admit that there is nothing unusual about Shakespeare in this regard, and that your methodology forces you to question the authorship of Marlowe's plays as well as Shakespeare's. You have done that, so I'm satisfied. I assume that if we went through the same routine for Webster, Fletcher, Kyd, Dekker, Day, Tourneur, etc., we'd get the same result, because the evidence for their authorship is of a comparable nature. So where does that get us? Were the works of all these people written by various noblemen? They can't all have been written by Oxford, because a lot of them wrote long after his death. Or maybe he faked his death and continued to write --- some of the more outre Baconians believed (and apparently there are those who still believe) that Bacon faked his own death and continued to write most of the literature of the seventeenth century. There were Baconians who thought Bacon wrote *Robinson Crusoe*, and at least one Baconian in the early 20th century believed that Bacon was still alive somewhere in the English countryside. Is that the direction you're headed? Obviously that's an extreme example, but your foot is in the door. I'm not sure why you're so keen for a general amnesty on all authorship attributions, because it wouldn't help your case a bit. If we took all the pre-Restoration playwrights and put them on a scale according to the solidness of the evidence for their authorship of their works, Shakespeare would be toward the high end. There are a few for whom the evidence is better than for Shakespeare, such as Ben Jonson, but even Ben had plenty of characteristics that Oxfordians find incredible in Shakespeare (e.g. there's no record of his ever going to school, no manuscripts of his plays survive, and he killed at least two men in his lifetime, which I think is a little worse than hoarding some grain). All the people I mentioned above, plus Marlowe and many others, would be lower than Shakespeare on the scale, and I'm prepared to argue that for any one of them. I'm just sick of hearing Oxfordians talk about the "Shakespeare mystery", implying that there's something mysterious or unusual about chararcteristics that Shakespeare shared with most of his contemporaries. If you want to go and argue about the authorship of Marlowe's or Webster's plays, be my guest. Have a ball. I frankly have better things to do with my time. Before I go, a word on the Foster study: I assume I speak for Don Foster when I say that if Pat Buckridge or anybody else can come up with an alternate explanation for the rare-word patterns which can account for all the facts I noted a couple of postings ago, by all means, let's have it. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 10:56:39 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0930 Announcement: NEH Summer Institute at JMU Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0930. Friday, 18 November 1994. From: Ralph Alan Cohen Date: Wednesday, 16 Nov 1994 11:18:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: NEH Summer Institute Center for Renaissance and Shakespearean Staging A National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College and University Teachers, sponsored by James Madison University and The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. 3 July - 12 August, 1995 Harrisonburg, Virginia The Center for Renaissance and Shakespearean Staging will provide an institute for considering the performance conditions of the Renaissance stage and a proving ground for ideas about staging and learning that emerge from that consideration. Under the directorship of Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen, the Center's participants will use a twelve-actor ensemble -- the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express -- to explore three plays by Shakespeare: *Hamlet,* *Twelfth Night,* and *The Tempest.* The Center, with its resident Shakespeare company, will offer an unmatched learning and teaching resource: a laboratory where scholars can see their ideas about Shakespeare and Renaissance drama made flesh by a company of talented and flexible actors. This access to the tools of play production will help participants think differently about the plays and about the ways they present Shakespeare and Renaissance drama to their students. The Faculty: Project Director: Ralph Alan Cohen, Professor of English at James Madison University and Executive Director of the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. Alan Armstrong, Director of the Center for Shakespeare Studies at Southern Oregon State College. Thomas L. Berger, Piskor Professor of English at Saint Lawrence University. David Bevington, Phyllis Fay Horton Professor of English at the University of Chicago. Stephen Booth, Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Bernice Kliman, Professor of English at Nassau Community College. Barbara Mowat, Director of Academic Programs at the Folger Library. Murray Ross, Artistic Director of "Theatreworks" at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Patrick Spottiswoode, Director of Education for the International Shakespeare Globe Centre in London. The Setting: The Center for Renaissance and Shakespearean Staging is located on the campus of James Madison University in the middle of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. JMU is a university in Virginia's commonwealth system and enrolls 10,000 undergraduates and 1000 graduate students. The campus is two hours south of Washington, two hours northwest of Richmond, and one hour northwest of Charlottesville. Participants will stay in the brand-new, air conditioned Wampler Hall and have access to the Hall's computer lab, as well as complete faculty privileges at Carrier Library (including an extensive Shakespeare on video collection in the multi-media lab) and JMU's gymnasium. Evening and day-trip activities may include visits to the Lime Kiln Theatre Festival; Shenandoah Valley Music Festival at Orkney Springs; an architectural tour of Staunton, VA; Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park; and local caverns. The Stipend: In addition to housing, the twenty-four participants may eat as many as eighteen meals a week on campus and will receive a $1,500 stipend for the six-week institute. Participants may expect to have their round-trip transportation costs completely reimbursed. The Application: Participation is limited to full-time faculty teaching in colleges and universities in the United States; foreign citizens who have been teaching at a college or university in this country for at least three years are also eligible. A complete application consists of three copies of the following materials: 1. A curriculum vitae showing teaching experience and publications. 2. A letter from the applicant's dean expressing institutional support for having the applicant participate. 3. A list of the courses that the applicant currently teaches and of courses planned for the coming academic year that are related to the institute. 4. A statement about the significance of the institute for the applicant's teaching responsibilities and professional interests. 5. A description of the applicant's participation in other recent NEH-sponsored projects. Send application materials or queries to the Center for Renaissance and Shakespearean Staging (CRASS), PO Box 1485, Harrisonburg, VA, 22801. Or call Paul Menzer or Tenley Bank at 1-703-568-6641. The deadline for application is 14 February, 1995. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:31:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0933 Re: Sh on CD-ROM; *Shrew* Productions; Popularity Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0933. Friday, 18 November 1994. (1) From: Judie Porter Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 12:47:58 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.0927 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM (2) From: Jim Helsinger Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 13:41:18 -0500 Subj: RE: Taming of the Shrew (3) From: David Levine Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 22:33:08 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Sh Grammar... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Judie Porter Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 12:47:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.0927 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM To Todd Lidh I just read the Education Technology News of Nov. 8, 1994, and they mention a new product--Extensive Shakespeare Collection on CD-ROM, coming out next year. It is called Editions and Adaptions of Shakespeare, and is a full-text database of the major historical editions and theater adaptions of William Shakespeare. It's from Chadwyck-Healey. Says it will include complete text of 11 major editions from the First Folio to the Cambridge edition of 1863-66. 24 contemporary quarto and octavo editions, selected apocryphal plays and more than 100 adaptions. Sorry, I sound like a sales person, but I'm copying this off the announcement. Also includes a phone number 800 752-0515. Maybe this will help. Judie Porter, Media Specialist, Portsmouth Schools, R.I. Judiepr@dsl.rhilinet.gov (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Helsinger Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 13:41:18 -0500 Subject: RE: Taming of the Shrew >There's obviously something wrong with my e-mail. It recorded Jim Helsinger as >claiming that Kate's final words represent " a speech of growth for her as a >person". Ho ho. Could somebody tell me what he actually wrote I e-mailed a personal reply, which Terence Hawkes has asked me to share: >I did not say the *words* represent "a speech of growth"... >I said that is the way the speech needs to be played. Very different things. If, at the end of the play, that >speech sounds like Kate is less of a person or a worse-off person the audience hates the speech, hates Kate, >hates the play. That's my experience. >I didn't say the speech was stroll in the park and a moral for all time. Times have changed, thank god, since >1600, and the speech is hard to swallow, and full of lots of things that are hard to say or approve of. I >totally agree with that. And there is room for productions like the RSC, where Kate ends up a brain-washed >automaton. BUT the audience, I think, then hates the speech, hates Kate, hates the play. >I have much more to say on this speech as I just heard it about 50 times in auditions this week and have >done the playin four full productions. Write back with your opinion. At Terence Hawkes's request, I would like to open this topic of the play and the last speech to more discussion. it's a sticky wicket and I'm happy to hear more comments, questions, ways you have seen it done, or would like to, etc. Particularly how to deal with this play to todays modern audience. I am well aware that it was written for a different time period, but we still have to perform it today. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 22:33:08 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0917 Qs: Sh Grammar... This is of couse a complex phenomenon, and just about everyone feels free to expound upon it, since all you need to do so is a bright idea. I figure that there are certain commercial considerations. There is also the notion of a "fit" and even the fact that a certain company over time will establish a pattern of doing certain plays, so that each new director and actor will want a crack at it (think of the RSC and its periodic cycles of the wars of the roses plays done by Barton and Hall, Bogdanov, Hands, Noble, etc). Then there is the fact that plays may have to wait to find their audiences (I forget the gap between productions of Troilus and Cressida, but I remember it as being a couple of hundred years, and in the '60's it was all the rage (pace Vietnam), but has since become a tad less popular. Don't forget that for a hundred fifty years or so, they just didn't perform the real Lear. I'm not sure, but you might check Robert Weimann's work to see if he has anything to say about this..... ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 08:12:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0934 Re: Two Jaques Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0934. Sunday, 20 November 1994. (1) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 16:55:43 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0932 Re: Two Jaques (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 22:24:53 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0932 Re: Two Jaques (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 16:55:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0932 Re: Two Jaques Regarding Thomas Hall's post: ****************************************** One of these Jaques is a pun on the Elizabethan word for outhouse. I think that pun is rightly Monsieur Melancholy, and not the Jaques of whom "report speeks goldenly of his profit." ******************************************** "Jakes" STILL means "toilet" in certain Northern Irish dialects. Vocabulary Trivia: It isn't just for breakfast anymore. Cheerfully, Bradley Berens Dept. of English UC Berkeley claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 22:24:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0932 Re: Two Jaques Hello all. This is just a thought regarding the Jacques/Jacques debate. I read AYLI about a month ago, and was struck by the resemblance to Hamlet. I mean, Hamlet is saddled with about eighteen definitions of his masculinity and maturity (or the lack thereof)--soldier, scholar, courtier, glass of fashion, mold of form (not quite the same thing), son of Hamlet, Sr., usurped heir, statesman (according to Laertes, this is why he cannot carve for himself), playboy (according to Polonius). Anyway, AYLI strikes me as an anatomy of Hamlet's overdetermined subjectivity. Hamlet, I think, escapes eventually by choosing a fatalistic and existential (or is it Augustinian?) sense of self. In AYLI, each of the various characteristics has its day, bodied forth in single personifications--Orlando as athlete, then (superficial, one suspects) lover, Oliver as inheritor, Touchstone as lecher, and so forth. Jacques and Jacques represent two ideas very closely related: academia and melancholy. At this time of year, the connection is particularly intuitive. Ciao! Sean. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 08:18:12 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0935. Sunday, 20 November 1994. From: William Godshalk Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 22:21:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: The best studies of Renaissance drama? A few days ago a graduate student asked me: "what are the best books on Renaissance drama?" At first my mind experienced extreme overload, and then I began to talk about Chambers, and Greg, and Harbage, and Bentley, and Tucker Brooke. And I realized that the books I was recommending were written before the student was born, and, further, that I don't have the same sure feeling about books written more recently. And so I wonder if you would help me out by recommending the best studies of Renaissance/early modern drama written, say, in the last ten or twenty years? I have recently made a similar request on FICINO and have received some very interesting responses. Thanks. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 08:47:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0936. Sunday, 20 November 1994. (1) From: David R. Maier Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 19:15:26 -0800 Subj: Taming of the Shrew (2) From: Diana Henderson Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 1994 14:29 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0933 Re: *Shrew* Productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David R. Maier Date: Friday, 18 Nov 1994 19:15:26 -0800 Subject: Taming of the Shrew In response to Jim Helsinger's post, Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company, in Portland, Oregon, mounted an ingenious production of *Shrew* last spring which bypassed most of the problems in the play. Jan Powell, the Tygres Heart artistic director and director of the production, felt that none of the usual treatments of the play adequately resolve the nettlesome issue of Kate's closing speech. In addition, she found that the sex-role conflict underlying the play obscured some more interesting human elements woven into the story. Consequently, her goal was to present the play in a manner which viewed each character not as a man or a woman in relation to each other, but as people who each had unique situations and needs. Her desire was to explore how the characters in their unique situations each sought to get what they wanted given the hands they were each dealt. To accomplish this goal, she cast the show all with women, not as a feminist tract, as many nay-sayers predicted, but as a vehicle to remove the knee-jerk response that comes from a man or a woman voicing the more provocative lines in the text. She set the show at Smith College in 1944 as a student production of the time. This was seen as consistent with Shakespeare's use of an induction suggesting a setting of Shrew as a play within a play. The production worked very well. What was particularly startling to me was how Petruchio became a much more compassionate person in the hands of Michele Waldock, the actress cast in the role. It became not a play about the mastery and domination of a woman by a man, but rather a story of how a person of immense passion and vigor for life came to learn how to turn her rage and passion to the accomplishment of what she really wanted. She learned that she did not have to rebel against everything to get what she wanted. Petruchio taught her how to play the game. Together Kate and Petruchio had what all of other couples at the end of the play could only fantasize about: a truly passionate and loving relationship. Kate's speech at the end was addressed directly and exclusively to Petruchio. It was not played as a lecture to the masses. No one else needed to be in the room; in fact, Kate and Petruchio were oblivious to the others in the room. Instead of it being a speech of submission it became a HOT and spicy bit of foreplay. I'll stick my hand under your boot and anywhere else you want me to stick it. The production was very well received both for its innovative setting and for the new and refreshing view of Kate and Petruchio in a truly loving relationship without the baggage of sex roles. -- David Maier dmaier@ednet1.osl.or.gov (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 1994 14:29 EDT Subject: Re: SHK 5.0933 Re: *Shrew* Productions Jim Helsinger writes that if one does not play Kate's final speech as one "of growth" then the audience tends to "hate the speech, hate Kate, hate the play"--as if these claims were inextricably linked and/or equivalent. That is neither my experience, nor that of many who saw the Bogdanov production (a friend of mine recently said it was perhaps the most compelling, disturbing, and valuable night she ever spent in a theatre). Jim seems to presume a rather narrow audience out for a "feel-good" evening, as well as presuming we hate the character because "she" has buckled under to what are obviously larger forces than "she" can control [I'm trying to avoid getting sidetracked onto the status of characters, as well as remembering that at least on Shakespeare's stage "her" sex was very much part of the fiction]. I think the audience can handle some of the textual complexity, rather than needing to see yet one more "love story" (as if that erased the social system and the terms/costs of such "love"). If we can't play "Shrew" in more challenging ways successfully, I am left wondering about the final claim that "we still have to perform it today." Given how frequently "Shrew" is performed, the compulsion clearly goes beyond simply keeping the Shakespearean canon alive (it's not an infrequent offering such as "Timon" or even "Cymbeline"). Barbara Hodgdon, Tori Haring-Smith, Barbara Freedman, and Graham Holderness (for starters) have examined the complicated ideological work of "Shrew" on the modern stage; while I don't want to follow Shirley Garner in quietly putting "Shrew" back on the shelf untaught, when the only alternative posited is to make the audience happy about the story's conclusion, I find myself wondering whether she isn't right. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 20 Nov 1994 08:55:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0937 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0937. Sunday, 20 November 1994. (1) From: Anna Joell Goodman Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 21:06:03 -400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0926 Authorship (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 94 18:16:23 CST Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anna Joell Goodman Date: Thursday, 17 Nov 1994 21:06:03 -400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0926 Authorship In addition to Forse's list of actor/playwrights, we could add Kenneth Branagh, whose Public Enemy is currently enjoying a New York run Off-Broadway. What about Harvey Fierstein's work? And there are a variety of actors who write, co-write, or adapt their one-person shows (Stephen Berkoff and Lynn Redgrave come immediately to mind.) True? Yours, Anna Goodman goodmana@olin.centre.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Saturday, 19 Nov 94 18:16:23 CST Subject: Authorship I appreciate the support from James Forse and Robert Teeter. Thanks, guys. I might also add that Ben Jonson was also an actor early in his career. A couple of things on Pat Buckridge's last posting that I didn't get to in my last reply, but which I thought needed saying. Pat's reference to my "impulse to get the whole thing sewn up and finished, even if it involves riding roughshod over logical and methodological difficulties", bears little resemblance to what I have said on this list, and even less to what I actually think. If I have occasionally been subject to rhetorical flourishes in the course of this thread (and face it, Pat, you have too), I have always tried to be moderate in the conclusions I draw. I have consistently said things like, "X is not conclusive, but it's pretty good evidence that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays," or, "X is consistent in every way with Shakespeare being the author, but if you have an alternate explanation I'd be glad to see it." As for riding roughshod over difficulties, as I see it Oxfordians have been much more guilty of this than orthodox Stratfordians, with any difficulties for their theory being dismissed as a result of the Plot to discredit Oxford's name and hide his authorship of the plays. One example: many letters by Oxford survive from the years when the Shakespearean plays were being written and produced, but in these Oxford makes no reference to playwriting or theater or anything, and in fact makes himself sound like a whining fop, complaining about being out of the Queen's favor and obsessively trying, during most of the 1590s, to get himself put in charge of farming Her Majesty's tin. (The word "tin", as Irvin Matus points out, appears nowhere in the plays.) The reason for this, we are told, is that all the letters favorable to Oxford, or in which he mentioned his playwriting activities, were destroyed by Lord Burghley and his associates in "Operation Clean Sweep", and they allowed to survive only those letters which would make Oxford look bad to posterity. I will not pass judgement on this scenario, but will note that it, or something similar, is necessary for the Oxfordian theory. The other thing I wanted to respond to is Pat Buckridge's statement that Marlowe, "unlike Shakspere [sic], had the higher education usually deemed requisite for writing highly educated dramas (autodidacts like Jonson always excepted)." My reaction to this, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, was, "WHAT ABOUT AUTODIDACTS LIKE SHAKESPEARE???????????" I am honestly at a complete loss to see how Jonson is any different from Shakespeare in this regard. If Jonson could teach himself enough to be regarded as the best classical scholar in England while working as a bricklayer and a soldier in the Low Countries during the years he would have been in college, why couldn't Shakespeare teach himself enough to write his plays while working in the theater during those years? What on earth is the difference, unless you assume a priori that Shakespeare must have been an uneducated bumpkin who couldn't have written the plays? Where did he get the books, you ask? Well, he was certainly friends with Richard Field, the printer; Field was two and a half years older, their families were neighbors in Stratford, and Shakespeare's father was executor of Fields' father's will when the latter died in 1592, indicating that the two families were close. Field published *Venus and Adonis* and *The Rape of Lucrece*, generally seen as the only Shakespearean publications directly supervised by the author during printing, since they are so free of errors. He also published a bunch of books which are possible or probable sources for Shakespeare's plays, including Ovid's *Metamorphoses* and a series of pamphlets on the French court of Navarre which could have served as a source for *Loves Labours Lost*. Couldn't Shakespeare have borrowed these books from his Stratford friend Field? I'm not playing games here; I really don't understand what the difference is between Shakespeare and Jonson. This has turned out to be much longer than I expected, so I'd better sign off. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 12:46:50 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0941 Q: Columbia University Shakespeare Seminars Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0941. Monday, 21 November 1994. From: Edna Boris Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 94 20:16:18 EST Subject: Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar Can anyone tell me anything about the Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar? I see that the next meetings are scheduled for Dec. 9, Feb. 10, Mar. 10, Apr. 7, and May 12. How are they organized? How many people attend? Etc. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 12:51:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0942 Search Shakespeare on the WWW; ACTER's Last *Macbeth* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0942. Monday, 21 November 1994. (1) From: Peter Scott Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 05:40:48 -0600 (CST) Subj: Search The Collected Works of Shakespeare (2) From: Cynthia Dessen Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 09:07:50 -0500 (EST) Subj: Last US Performance of ACTER Macbeth (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Scott Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 05:40:48 -0600 (CST) Subject: Search The Collected Works of Shakespeare I'm posting this for information only. It works! You will need to enter three items. The first is the number of lines of context, the second is the search term, and the third is the target. Either of the last two may be Perl regular expressions. So to find the word `estimate' in the sonnets and print the sonnet, you would enter a query for 14 lines of context with the search term estimate on the target sonnets. Linkname: Search The Collected Works of Shakespeare Filename: http://www.gh.cs.su.oz.au/Virtual/fsearch (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cynthia Dessen Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 09:07:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Last US Performance of ACTER Macbeth If you live in the Raleigh-Durham NC area, you can catch a free performance of Macbeth by the 5 British Shakespearean actors on the ACTER Fall 1994 tour. It is at Durham Academy upper school Tues., Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m. This is the last performance on the tour. If you are interested in having ACTER do a teaching performance residency on your campus next Fall or Spring, please contact me at csdessen@email.unc.edu. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 12:29:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0938 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0938. Monday, 21 November 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 11:44:07 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? (2) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 94 15:05 CST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? (3) From: Michael Friedman Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 16:18:19 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? (4) From: David Levine Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 18:29:03 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of ... (5) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 19:33:34 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 11:44:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? Bill: My students (and I) find Kastan/Stallybrass, *Staging the Renaissance*, very useful, both in itself and as an introductory smorgasbord giving a taste of all manner of current works which may later be consumed in their entirety. We also like Dollimore's *Radical Tragedy*, and are much taken with Belsey's *Subject of Tragedy*. Cheers, Skip (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 94 15:05 CST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? Good point!. I also have that problem/feeling when talking to grad. students. However, what the old heads said does, I think, remain very true. I can, however, recommend Dennis Kay's biography of Shakespeare (recently published in paperback in the US), Peter Erickson's +Rewriting Shakespeare, Rewriting Ourselves+, and almost anything by Messrs. Hawkes, Dollimore, Sinfield, and Holderness. Just have your student do a search for these on the MLA Bib. on CD ROM. I do not agree with much of what they say, but they are very diverting. I found Hawkes's +That Shakespearian Rag+ and +Meaning by Shakespeare+, along with Brian Vickers's +Appropriating Shakespeare+ to be the most mirth-making set of books I have ever read. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University TB0WPW1@NIU.BITNET (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 16:18:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? In response to Bill Godshalk's request for valuable books on Renaissance Drama, I have found very helpful *The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama* edited by A.R. Braunmuller and Michael Hattaway (1990). It offers several overview essays that give a very good introduction to the plays of the period. Michael Friedman University of Scranton (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 18:29:03 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of ... Hard to say, and I've been out of the field for a long time, but I'd say that your sense that nothing as distinguished as the books you've mentioned has been published recently is pretty sound. I'd always recommend that students read Richard Levin's New Readings vs. Old Plays as a prophylactic (as it were) against falling into grotesque trendiness. Ditto Brian Vickers's recent and wonderfully angry Appropriating Shakespeare. It's a book that could save a lot of wasted time. Gurr's Playgoing in Shakespeare's London. Emrys Jones's two books (Scenic Form in Shakespeare and The Origins of Shakespeare--the latter more about the drama of the age) are incredibly distinguished. I haven't actually read through C.L. Barber's Creating Elizabethan Tragedy, but a friend of mine likes it very much. I personally love most of what Anne Barton writes, and there are some really fine essays in her new book, but it is, after all, a colection of essays; her books on Shakespeare and Jonson are superb. Arelatively obscure book, which I love is Albert Cook's Shakespearean Enactment, which is really a more general study of Renaissance theater. I've tried to stick with the stuff that's NOT particularly about Shakespeare. When you get into Shakespeare, it becomes more complicated. My own opinion is that it still doesn't get much better than Goddard and Granville-Barker et al. It will, as you said, be interesting to see what other people say. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 19:33:34 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0935 Q: Studies of Renaissance Drama? I wouldn't be without several books by Andrew Gurr and John Orrell. *The Shakespearean Stage* *Playgoing in Shakespeare's London* * The quest for the Globe*--ahh. How about some books by David Bevington--*Action is Eloquence* leaps to mind. All this depends, of course, on how serious the student is. Tell them to read Chamber, Bentley, et.al. as well--good for the soul. Shakespeare, of course, was also written before said student was born. M. Aaron (circa. 1964). Melissa Aaron University of Wisconsin-Madison ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 12:45:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0940 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0940. Monday, 21 November 1994. (1) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 19:12:55 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0937 Authorship (2) From: David Evett Date: Monday, 21 Nov 94 11:54:12 EST Subj: [Authorship] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 19:12:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0937 Authorship Greetings all, I would like to issue a mild complaint regarding the continual existence of the thread on authorship-- mild because I have taken to surfing past these postings and this requires no especial effort on my part, but a complaint nonetheless because at the moment both sides seem locked in an endless standoff from which there is neither utility nor extrication. I thus have two questions, or sets of questions, that I posit in order to, perhaps, drag the discussion to a different level. Question #1. Have either Dave Kathman or Pat Buckridge read the first chapter of Leah S. Marcus's book PUZZLING SHAKESPEARE? If I have missed references to this book already posted, I apologize. However, in Chapter One, Marcus has some interesting things to say about a potential relationship between such things as the introductory apparati of the First Folio, New Historicism and the authorship controversy. I am curious about both Kathman's and Buckridge's respective responses to this chapter. The full citation is Marcus, Leah S. PUZZLING SHAKESPEARE. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988. Vol. 6 of the series THE NEW HISTORICISM: STUDIES IN CULTURAL POETICS. If neither of you has read the chapter, please do so and let us know. I realize that this may sound cavalier, and if it does I apologize. I merely think it is time to consider the controversy qua the controversy. Question #2. What is the utility of settling this question? If Pat Buckridge is correct, and that Oxford did write the plays, so what? How will this new fact be of any use to anyone interested in the plays? Will it make them better? Will it render them, somehow, magically, more determinate? Is that a good thing? Similarly, Dave, how will settling the authorship question advance the cause of mainstream Shakespearean scholarshiop? Or, since you are a Linguist, how will it advance the field of Linguistics? Are we all just spinning our wheels on this one, looking for something to write yet another article about in the quest for a job/funding/tenure/a better job/more funding? This debate has now been going on for so long that I have lost my grip on both the point of entry and the point in general. Sincerely yours, Bradley S. Berens Dept. of English UC Berkeley email: claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Monday, 21 Nov 94 11:54:12 EST Subject: [Authorship] Dear Pat Buckridge, et al., I am bemused by the fact that first the Baconian and later the Oxfordian movements have flourished so much more vigorously in officially egalitarian places like Australia and the U.S. than in the class-bound U.K.: how odd that descendents of criminals, remittance men, Irish or Polish peasants, who have themselves succeeded in becoming lawyers or professors of English, should be so ready to insist that aristocratic upbringing is a necessary preparation for authorship of the Shakespearean canon. Argument by analogy is always risky, to be sure, but I have long been struck by similarities in the biographies of William Shakespeare the theater man (of which more later) and John Keats. "No major poet [presumably including W.S., with or without hyphen] has had a less propitious origin," begins the headnote to Keats in the Norton anthology. His father, you will recall, was a mere stableman, who got to head the business when he married the boss's daughter; like Shakespeare, Keats was better connected on his mother's side. He went to a small private school, very like the Stratford grammar school in both the social backgrounds of its teachers and students and in its curriculum. On leaving school he very conspicuously did not go to Oxbridge, but stayed in London as an apprentice in an essentially mechanical craft, that of apothecary-surgeon, which required educational preparation and carried social status similar to those of actors. In London he began to associate with the popular rather than the elite group of London literati--Kyd and Dekker and Chettle, if you will, rather than Greville or DeVere; indeed the literary establishment initially rebuffed him, though there were signs of more appreciation toward the end. A passionate but unsystematic reader of the acknowledged classics of his culture (books mostly borrowed from friends), he demonstrated a remarkable ability to incorporate salient features of Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden (read Ovid, Plutarch, Chaucer, Montaigne) into his own writing without being overwhelmed by them, and to refresh and refresh again all the forms in which he worked, from the sonnet to the epic. Only if we consider what he had already accomplished when he died at 26 as his and and <2 Gents> can we appreciate what was presumably still in store. If Keats could do this in the 18teens, why not Shakespeare in the 1580s and 90s? By the way, Pat Buckridge, why can you concede that Ben Jonson was an auto-didact and not extend the same concession to his colleague, albeit with a different set of tastes and a markedly smaller need to blow his own horn? All education is finally self-education; people mostly manage to get as much of it as they insist on having, and most of us have known some remarkably well-informed and literate assembly-line workers, night watchmen, plumbers, even actors. With regard to the matter of theatrical training, the argument is not so much that working in the theater is any more necessary to success as a dramatic writer than university education, as that intensive exposure to theatrical experience in some form is: in general, in order to write for the commercial theater you must submit yourself to the commercial theater, as the unsuccessful efforts of those notable non-professional dramatic writers-- Greville, Daniel, Addison, Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson--suggest. Life as a man of the theater is a good way to account for mastery of the crafts aspects of the work, even though other explanations must be sought for mastery over language, psychology, and so on. Autodidactically, Dave Evett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 12:39:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0939 Re: Productions of *Shrew* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0939. Monday, 21 November 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 11:53:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions (2) From: Shirley Kagan Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 04:06:24 -1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions (3) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Monday, 21 Nov 94 08:31:03 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0933 Re: *Shrew* Productions (4) From: Juliet A. Youngren Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 09:13:31 -0600 (CST) Subj: Taming of the Shrew (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 11:53:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions This is an extreme instance of a performable feminist critique of *Shrew*, and of deeply resistant reading: "Yucel Erten, one of Turkey's most talented young directors, turned the play into a tragedy. . . . Kate arrives at that banquet with a huge shawl around her hands and arms. She speakes that final diatribe of submission, and puts her hands on the floor, and offers herself to her husband. But she has cut her veins, and dies." (Zeynep Oral, reported in John Elsom, *Is Shakespeare Still Our Contemporary*?--1989) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Shirley Kagan Date: Sunday, 20 Nov 1994 04:06:24 -1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions In response to David Maier's posting on all-female Tyger's Heart "Shrew": although it sounds like a wonderful production that handled the final speech in a creative way, I am left wondering why it is that we still NEED same-sex casting in order to turn Kate's submission into sexy foreplay. The obvious answer is that four hundred years after this play was written we still live in a society where women are far from being regarded as equal to men. The reason that Kate's final speech sticks like a bone in our collective throats is because the problem is still very much with us. We recognize it and it upsets us. Because of this, "Shrew" is still a highly relevant play. Why do we need a sugar coating or a happy, creative ending? Lets see a "Shrew" that upsettingly but realistically tells it like it still is for many women in the world. Shirley Kagan University of Hawaii (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Monday, 21 Nov 94 08:31:03 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0933 Re: *Shrew* Productions In reference to Jim's question about the last speech of *TS*, I wonder if anyone else has read the Charles Marowtiz version. I stumbled across it while doing a study of Shakespearean adaptations. Among other things, he cuts and rearranges the text so it is clear that Petruchio is deliberately trying to break Kate. Moreover, the rest of the men in the play are in on his plans. At one point, late in the play, Kate faints and when she wakes up, Marowitz gives the lines from the frame section to Petruchio and his helpers. This makes the brainwashing aspect horribly clear. The final speech is delivered as before a tribunal and Kate is obviously speaking by rote. In fact, she needs to be prompted several times before she can finish it. I have never seen this version played, and it reads as very heavy handed. Still, it was interesting to see someone admit that this is NOT a feminist play, rather than spend alot of time and energy playing against the text. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Juliet A. Youngren Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 09:13:31 -0600 (CST) Subject: Taming of the Shrew I've been lurking, but will venture out of my comfortable burrow to offer a timid opinion ... I personally find that if Kate is played as a horrible HUMAN BEING who badly needs a lesson, then I can root for Petruchio even though I'm a woman. It puts the argument into a HUMAN realm rather than a gender realm. If she is played as a spirited woman ahead of her time, then yes, I do "hate the speech, hate Kate, hate the play." J.A.Y. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:31:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0943 Qs: *Lear* -- Casting and Kent's Fate Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 943. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. (1) From: Marty Jukovsky Date: Monday, 21 Nov 94 20:08:26 Subj: Females as Males in King Lear (2) From: Joshua G. Fruhlinger Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 11:14:07 +0100 Subj: Kent's Fate (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marty Jukovsky Date: Monday, 21 Nov 94 20:08:26 Subject: Females as Males in King Lear I recently saw a performance by Emerson College of _King Lear_ at the Emerson Majestic Theater in Boston. It was generally a decent production, but was distinguished by females playing three roles--the Fool, Edmund, and Edgar. I can see the Fool, an androgynous, neuter sort of character being played by a woman; in fact, it came off very well, with one of the best performances of the evening. But it didn't work with the brothers. There was no attempt to masculinize them, other than pulling their hair back. I found it a constant distraction. Since no other gender-switching was done in the play, I can only assume that the director was trying to stress the mirroring of Lear/Daughters in Gloucester/Sons by making the sons the same sex as the daughters--as though the relationship of the plot to the subplot needed underlining. I though that aspect was misguided and marred the performance. Has this ever been attempted before? Martin Jukovsky Editor the Yankee Group Boston, Mass. martyj@yankeegroup.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joshua G. Fruhlinger Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 11:14:07 +0100 Subject: Kent's Fate Does anyone know if there has ever been any suggestion of Kent's suicide at the end of *Lear*? In the final scene, in which everyone else is dropping like flies and having their corpses dragged out onto stage, Kent's last line is something like (I'm in a public lab and don't have the text here) "My master has died and is calling me, and I must follow him." Am I correct in believing that most of the stage directions in modern editions are interpolated from the dialouge anyway? Just curious. Not that the end of the play isn't depressing enough anyway. -Josh Fruhlinger Cornell University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:37:48 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0944 Re: Columbia Shakespeare Seminar Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 944. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 23:07:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Columbia Shakespeare Seminar (2) From: Elizabeth Nancy Olesh Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 19:02:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0941 Q: Columbia University Shakespeare Seminars (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 23:07:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Columbia Shakespeare Seminar The CSS was organized around 1983 by Bernie Beckerman, Irene Dash and Si Isenberg. It's one of many seminars sponsored by Columbia University. I would be happy to talk to anyone about our activities: we meet once a month on the second Friday at Faculty House, 117 and Morningside Dr. Visitors are welcome. Please call me at 516-671-1301 for further information. If you get my answering machine, tell me when I can reach you. Hope to see you there. Bernice W. Kliman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Nancy Olesh Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 19:02:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0941 Q: Columbia University Shakespeare Seminars Gee, I don't know anything about the Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar and I ATTEND CU! (Then again, I'm still an undergrad, though a senior undergrad, and we are often kept in the dark concerning these events.) But life can be so disorganized here that I guess this is to be expected. If you really need to get in touch with the English Department about this, their general address is 602 Philosophy Hall, New York, NY 10027. I don't have the Department phone number with me right now, but the Columbia University information number is (212) 854-1754 -- I'm sure one of our friendly Columbia operators can point you in the right direction! Have fun at the conference, and post your reflections so even lowly undergrads can hear more about cutting-edge criticism! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:42:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0945 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 945. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. (1) From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 15:41:41 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0918 Authorship (2) From: Edward Gero Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 10:08:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: [Authorship] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 15:41:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0918 Authorship I don't want to argue with or confuse him with facts. This much, in reply to his queries: 1. "He [Kathman] and Don Foster both make the surprising claim that a chronological sequence for the plays and poems is 'wholly determined by [the] statistical data'. Now, I can allow for a bit of rhetorical exaggeration, but this sort of statement verges on being seriously misleading ..." REPLY: the sequence as determined by SHAXICONis indeed wholly determined by statistical distribution. That doesn't, of course, mean that SHAXICON's sequence is correct in every instance, and it certainly doesn't mean that the actual historical sequence was statistically determined. That the sequence indicated by lexical distribution closely matches the sequence constructed through traditional scholarship is a happy correspondence. 2. "To translate these patterns into a chronological sequence of plays requires the assumption that the distribution-differentials for characters were caused by the author memorising the speeches of certain characters in order to perform them as an actor. Surely you can see that (a) this is not the only possible explanation for the existence of these distribution patterns, and (b) it *is* dependent on your assuming that the author was an actor..." REPLY: "Shakespeare" (by whatever name you choose to call him) tends to remember and to re-use the rare-word vocabulary of one role in each play; this does not prove that he acted the role, only that he remembered it (e.g., King Henry in 1-2H4, Adam in AYL, the Ghost in HAM, Brabantio in OTH, Albany in LR). I'm happy to entertain alternative explanations for this phenomenon. 3. "The fact that I don't have an alternative explanation ready to hand is hardly surprising, and doesn't vitiate my criticism in any way." REPLY: Oh. 4. "Just one final point... It's this. Why do people assume that Shakespeare must have been an actor in order to have been a great playwright? It seems an extraordinary assumption..." REPLY: In the coming years, anyone with time to spare and loads of grant money can create a similar database for other acting playwrights such as Armin, Rowley, Barkstead, Field, and early Jonson. A similar pattern of lexical recall may become evident in the texts of these other writers. Or maybe not. In any case, it makes no difference to me whether these men, or Shakespeare for that matter, are said to be "great" writers and/or "great" actors. SHAXICON makes no assumptions about "greatness." If the data were to indicate that Shakespeare remembered the lead role in each of his plays, one might be tempted to conjecture that he was a talented actor, but the available evidence suggests that Shakespeare the actor was, at best, mediocre. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Gero Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 10:08:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Authorship] BRAVO BRAD: Right on the money! Not to mention the "oh no, being a theatre practitioner [ACTOR], can't possibly yield extraordinary insight into playwrighting" red herring. Come on. I tend to agree with the tenure/funding/newjob/publication argument whole heartedly. As an UNDERGRADUATE I spent an entire year studying the Marlovian case for authorship. It was a fascinating 19th sleuth adventure, but finally I rallied to this solution: Either the plays were written by Shakespeare, or another playwright using the name Shakespeare. What the hell IS the difference? The real point is that the plays ARE and ought to be DONE in the theatre. The relevant question seems to me is: what are our criteria for a WELL DONE production? It is precisely because Shakespeare was also an actor, that he could understand the process of creating the INNER EXPERIENCE necessary to rendering the text 'authentic' to a contemporaneous ear; the same problem that exists for us. The plays are plays designed to be performed. To argue against the importance of application of knowledge of the craft of acting is akin to suggesting that Mozart or Beethovan's ability as players could not or would not assist in the composing of a sonata or symphony. It is in the PERFORMANCE that these texts come to life no matter who wrote them. In the words of Prince Hal: I prithee speak, we will not trust our eyes Without our ears... Edward Gero ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:46:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 946. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. (1) From: Jan C. Stirm Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 94 10:25 PST Subj: Ren. Drama reading... (2) From: David Levine Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 18:36:03 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0938 Re: Studies of... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jan C. Stirm Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 94 10:25 PST Subject: Ren. Drama reading... Hi all, I've been finding the recent posts about readings for early modern drama really interesting, and perhaps a little surprising. Three relatively recent books I've enjoyed are Kail Kern Paster's *The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England* and Richard Halpern's *The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation*. (I'm cheating a bit on the latter: it'd interested in other than dramatic lit. also.) Also Ania Loomba's book on Race and Gender (the title escapes me for the moment, but a glance at Books in Print will be enough for anyone interested.) I was told (not so very long ago) to keep an eye on the SEL drama-crit review every year, and find that it gives me a basic idea of what's out there, and more specifically, what I might want to focus on. It would be fascinating to hear, as people submit their suggestions, what they find attractive about the books their suggesting--and I hope those who suggest more canonical criticism will also help out here. Peace, Jan Stirm (izzyyg4@mvs.oac.ucla.edu) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 18:36:03 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0938 Re: Studies of... I like this thread! How about Dessen's Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpreters? Wilbur Sanders's The Dramatist and the Received Idea (older, that one). Of course, the Bevington book is fine, but I thought we were leaving out the dedicated Shakespeare stuff. I like Peter Levi's Shakespeare bio, though it caught some flack when it came out, but I'm prejudiced because he's a friend. I still recommend it to friends teaching first Shakespeare courses because his critical perveptions are shrewd, and his style is delightfully idiosyncratis and he did his homeowrk even if he's not a professional renaissance scholar. I like Hawkes's earlier book, but not the more recent. I dislike that whole Dollimore, Evans, Holderness, Sinfield crew (though Sinfield's book on postwar English culture is a good book). I don't much see how you can like and take seriously the Vickers book (which is superb) and continue to take those clowns seriously. I am an abrasive fellow, but, as I said, I'm not a professional academic anymore and can say anything I like. The classics of course, remain classics. There is a reason they are classics. Even the most wrong-headed Wilson Knight essay might just be worth reading for the heuristically useful disagreement it engenders. And we can mock Bradley's approach all we like, but isn't the book still in print? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:51:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0947 Re: Jaques; *Endymion* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 947. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. (1) From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 15:56:47 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0928 Re: a Jaques and Ajax and a jakes (2) From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 20:40:43 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0931 Performances of *Endymion* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 15:56:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0928 Re: a Jaques and Ajax and a jakes Shakespeare and his contemporaries pun often on "a Jaques," "Ajax," and "a jakes" (outhouse), all three being pronounced with a short -a- as in modern "hat," and all three being spoken with a softer initial J than in modern English. Which is not to say that it still matters, since the pun is lost to a modern audience. Foster. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 20:40:43 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0931 Performances of *Endymion* Please count me among those interested in a performance history of *Endymion*... indeed of any boy-company plays. Seems like a project that someone ought to have done somewhere along the line, but I sure can't think of anything of the sort. Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 08:59:38 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0948 Qs: Reduced Shakespeare Company; Rose and Globe Excavations Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 948. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. (1) From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 94 15:42:47 EST Subj: RSC? (2) From: T. Fred Wharton Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 20:51:35 -0500 Subj: A Rose and Two Globes (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronald Dwelle Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 94 15:42:47 EST Subject: RSC? Can anyone provide me with a phone/fax/address for a group called something like "The Revised Shakespeare Company." They perform 30 plays in 30 minutes (or something along that line). Thanks. Private e-mail is fine Ron Dwelle (dweller@gvsu.edu) [Editor's Note: That's the Reduced Shakespeare Company, currently at the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre with their Abridged History of America. This comment is meant to facilitate discussion -- not cut it off. --HMC] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: T. Fred Wharton Date: Monday, 21 Nov 1994 20:51:35 -0500 Subject: A Rose and Two Globes On the plane back from Portland last weekend, I chanced to see, in someone else's copy of *The Oregonian,* a photograph of a half-completed *Globe* playhouse. When I borrowed the newspaper, I read a few lines of copy announcing that there will be a season of plays there in 1995 (though I didn't see the name of any company, or any season or dates). I'm assuming that this is the late Sam Wannamaker's Globe project. Reading my email when I returned, I saw the announcement of the attractive-sounding (but unhappily-acronymned) Center for Renaissance and Shakespeare Staging. Is anyone on the Center's faculty involved with staging-decisions at this new Globe? Does anyone have more information on the Wannamaker project? More broadly, can anyone pass on any current information on the Rose or Globe excavations? The last time I saw the Rose site, it wasn't even a hole in the ground any more, the holes having all been back-filled by Simon Blatherwick and his merry men; but there was talk of uncovering the excavations once again as a basement exhibit in the office building which was to be built over the site. Is that anywhere near happening yet? And is there any hope of getting rid of the listed Georgian building (dark Guy Fawkesian thoughts!) that sits on top of the original Globe? Apologies to subscribers of longer standing if this has all been discussed already. Fred Wharton Augusta College ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 09:02:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0949 Job Announcement Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 949. Wednesday, 23 November 1994. From: Michael Clark Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 1994 07:50:18 -0500 Subject: Job Announcement Please cross-post as appropriate. The following job has opened, as advertised in the *Chronicle of Higher Education*, the *MLA Job List*, and other places. English/Theater. Assistant Professor, tenure track, beginning September 1995. Duties: assume directorship of campus theater and associated activities, and teach courses in English, theater, or communications in support of both general education and the English major. Ph.D. with hands-on theater experience. Send letter of application, c.v., and three letters of recommendation to Dr. Kenneth Pobo, Chair, English, Widener University, One University Place, Chester, PA 19013 EOE Please note: the deadline for applications--originally December 8th-- has been extended to January 10th, 1995. Michael Clark Widener University ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 09:54:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0950 Productions: *Maid's Tragedy; *Twelfth Night* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0950. Friday, 25 November 1994. (1) From: Douglas Bruster Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 94 15:10:19 CST Subj: Maid's Tragedy (2) From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 24 Nov 1994 13:55:26 -0500 (EST) Subj: TWELFTH NIGHT by the Fahrenheit Theatre Company (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas Bruster Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 94 15:10:19 CST Subject: Maid's Tragedy Chicago-area members of the list may want to catch a surprisingly good production of _The Maid's Tragedy_ put on by the European Repertory Company at the Baird Hall Theatre, 615 West Wellington Ave. The theater itself is very simple, the costumes and props functional; the acting and the chance to see this seldom-produced drama recommend it. Doug Bruster (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk Date: Thursday, 24 Nov 1994 13:55:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: TWELFTH NIGHT by the Fahrenheit Theatre Company The Fahrenheit Theatre Company will be presenting TWELFTH NIGHT at Gabriel's Corner (the corner of Liberty and Sycamore Streets) in Cincinnati from November 25 and December 10, Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 PM, and Saturday matinees at 2:00. The number to call is (513) 559-0642. This group did an excellent TAMING OF THE SHREW earlier this year, and I'm looking forward to TWELFTH NIGHT tomorrow evening. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 10:03:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0951 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0951. Friday, 25 November 1994. (1) From: J. F. Knight Date: Thursday, 24 Nov 1994 09:59:58 +1100 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama (2) From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 18:08:03 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama (3) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 21:15:54 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. F. Knight Date: Thursday, 24 Nov 1994 09:59:58 +1100 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama Add Annabel Patterson's Shakespeare and the Popular Voice (together with most of her other stuff) to the list of must-have-it contemporary Shakespeare criticism. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberly Nolan Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 18:08:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama If this is a repeat--please forgive. I like *Rewriting the Renaissance* Ferguson, Vickers and Quilligan, and I echo the vote for Gail Paster Kern's *Body Embarrassed*. Did anyone mention *Alternative Shakespeares*, Drakakis? I think Prof. Godshalk was feeling uncertian about what to recommend to grad students--well, I was a grad student, and I think it is important to read the current criticism. At least let the students know what's out there--you don't have to personally endorse each collection. Keep the suggestions coming. I'm gathering readings for a busy colleague who's teaching Shakespeare for the first time in several years. This is really helpful. Kimberly Nolan (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 21:15:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0946 Re: Studies of Renaissance Drama I want to thank everyone who has and who will contribute to this thread in answer to my question. Your spirited responses have been very helpful, Thanks. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 10:44:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0952 Casting *Lear*; Jacobi Hamlet; *Shrew* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0952. Friday, 25 November 1994. (1) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 18:58:19 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0943 Qs: *Lear* -- Casting (2) From: Scott Shepherd Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 22:38:09 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0919 Re: Jacobi's Hamlet (3) From: David R. Maier Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 15:08:03 -0800 Subj: RE: *Shrew Productions* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 18:58:19 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0943 Qs: *Lear* -- Casting I understand that the Mabou Mines Theater company did a *Lear* with the entire play cross-casted--Lear and Gloucester as older women, the three daughters as sons and the Fool as a transvestite. The play was set in Georgia. Mama Lear's family was white, Gloucester and Edgar were black (I think Edmund was white? --or "mixed"?) When "Edna" went mad, she became Mad Marie Laveau. And so on. Melissa Aaron University of Wisconsin-Madison (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Shepherd Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 22:38:09 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0919 Re: Jacobi's Hamlet About Jacobi's Hamlet: >By the way, he did not overhear the King and Polonius plotting to set Ophelia >on him, and the "to be or not to be" speech was delivered directly to the >audience (or camera). He suspected Ophelia was up to something when he saw >she was holding her book upside down--a small liberty with the script, I >suppose but a neat way of communicating to the audience why he reacted to her >as he did. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Whether the old upsidedown book gag has worn itself out or not is a matter of taste I guess, but certainly using it here does more damage to Ophelia's intelligence than can be justified in the name of helping the audience along. Does Hamlet's behavior need this extra explication here? People like to think he knows he's being watched, an idea which Harold Jenkins (in the Arden edition) blames on the sudden and suspiciously apt question 'Where's your father?' But in the fishmonger scene with Polonius he bursts out in midsentence with 'Have you a daughter?', even though Ophelia isn't lurking. In all Shakespearean eavesdroppings the spied-on unwittingly say things perfect for ironical overhearing by the hiders. This scene, a man confronting his jilter, the returned love-gifts in his hand, the girl's previous encouragements having suddenly gone cold at the behest (this we can be pretty sure Hamlet knows) of her father, a man furthermore in the throes of an only partly feigned antic disposition, whom we have already seen in other encounters (with Polonius, Ros & Guil) behave with wild and whirling contempt, this scene will play. Further motivation for the man's outburst is not required. The Hamlet who detects his secret listeners (without mentioning it in soliloquy!) is not part of Shakespeare's formula. It is an interpolation, one which was already reductive when it first appeared and now after so much usage is as stale and unenlightening as that dumb Oedipal take on Gertrude. And this upsidedown book is a feeble variation, in detail only, on the old misperception. As for 'a small liberty with the script', the fault is not in the 'liberty' but in the 'small'. The choice is too pedagogical, it solves a nonproblem, substitutes logic for character. Why not create new dramatic complexities instead of destroying the interesting ones already present? Let Ophelia listen in on the fishmonger conversation or something, anything, but let it be a surprise! exciting not expository, yes! a surprise, please! anything but mom and Hamlet kissing on the bed again... (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David R. Maier Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 15:08:03 -0800 Subject: RE: *Shrew Productions* Shirley Kagan appears to chide the Tygres Heart production of *Shrew*: "Why do we need a sugar coating or a happy, creative ending? Lets see a 'Shrew' that upsettingly but realistically tells it like it still is for many women in the world." My response is that hers is exactly the response that was intended from the prodution. Isn't it upsetting that the only way to play the text truly and have a happy ending is to cast it with an all-female cast? This production simply would not have worked with the roles played with men and women. This is because of what we as people, not just men, but both men and women, do when they see the roles and hear the text performed with men. The issue is the knee-jerk attitudes all people have about men and women when they see them in particular relationships to each other. By removing the sex-role attitudes, and playing the characters with women, both the men and the women in the audience were suddenly freed of these attitudes and could see Petruchio as a compasionate human being, and could see Kate as a loving, passionate, but somewhat undisciplined human being. Isn't it "upsetting" and "realistic" that this could not have been accomplished with men and women actors? Isnt' it good that the audience was allowed to reach this conclusion for themselves rather than to have it beaten into them with a 2 x 4? This way, they got the happy, creative ending and a big dose of reality. Sounds like getting to have cake and eat it, which makes for wonderful theatre. -- David Maier dmaier@ednet1.osl.or.gov ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 10:47:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0953 Re: Columbia Shakespeare Seminars Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0953. Friday, 25 November 1994. From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 1994 20:48:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0944 Re: Columbia Shakespeare Seminar Many of us out here in the hinterlands, at the margins, will not be able to attend the Columbia Seminars. Apparently some of the under classes at the center are also not able to attend these seminars. Could we learn more about them? Perhaps, if these seminars sound interesting, we could create look-alikes. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 10:52:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0954 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0954. Friday, 25 November 1994. (1) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 05:02:25 +1000 Subj: SHK 5.0945 Authorship (2) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 22:08:16 +1000 Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 05:02:25 +1000 Subject: SHK 5.0945 Authorship Don Foster writes: >I don't want to argue with or confuse him with facts...The sequence as >determined by SHAXICONis indeed wholly determined by >statistical distribution. That doesn't, of course, mean that SHAXICON's >sequence is correct in every instance, and it certainly doesn't mean that the >actual historical sequence was statistically determined. That the sequence >indicated by lexical distribution closely matches the sequence constructed >through traditional scholarship is a happy correspondence. Facts don't confuse me. What confuses me is Don Foster's refusal to acknowledge that a *mathematical* sequence only becomes a *chronological* sequence when you superimpose a chronology onto it. >"Shakespeare" (by whatever name you choose to call him) tends to >remember and to re-use the rare-word vocabulary of one role in each play; this >does not prove that he acted the role, only that he remembered it (e.g., King >Henry in 1-2H4, Adam in AYL, the Ghost in HAM, Brabantio in OTH, Albany in LR). >I'm happy to entertain alternative explanations for this phenomenon. No, I don't imagine there are any other explanations for memorising a role. It's the 'remembering' hypothesis itself I was questioning, dependent as it is on your prior assumption that mathematical sequence equals chronological sequence (see above). >3. "The fact that I don't have an alternative explanation ready to hand is >hardly surprising, and doesn't vitiate my criticism in any way." > >REPLY: Oh. If I think of one you'll be the first to know. >It makes no difference to me whether these men, or Shakespeare for that >matter, are said to be "great" writers and/or "great" actors. SHAXICON makes no >assumptions about "greatness." Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest it did. That point was directed more broadly. >If the data were to indicate that Shakespeare >remembered the lead role in each of his plays, one might be tempted to >conjecture that he was a talented actor, but the available evidence suggests >that Shakespeare the actor was, at best, mediocre. The available evidence suggests *nothing at all* about Shakespeare's talents as an actor. Why this abhorrence of vacuums? Pat Buckridge. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 22:08:16 +1000 Subject: Authorship Thanks to Bradley Berens for his recommendation of Leah Marcus's book. I haven't read it, but look forward to doing so in the next week, as I liked her earlier work very much. I agree that the authorship discussion had become a little unproductive in the last week or so as participants dropped off. That's bound to happen from time to time, and hardly a reason, I'd have thought, for complaining about the existence of the thread. Exercising an influence on the direction of the discussion seems to me a much more useful and tolerant option. Nothing 'cavalier' about it at all as far as I'm concerned. The question he raises about the utility of settling the authorship one way or another is a large one, and I might want to come back to it after reading Marcus, but for the moment I'll limit myself to this: if it were generally accepted that Oxford wrote the plays I doubt if that would, or should, have much effect on how the plays were performed now. The Oxford theory certainly brings a whole host of historical and personal allusions to light, but it's hard to imagine many of these being of much interest to modern audiences (or for that matter to audiences in the 1640s). But I can imagine, with some pleasure, an enterprising Oxfordian director deciding to make a point of foregrounding at least some of the original allusions in theatrical production. In my mind's eye I see a dignified portrait of Burghley appearing briefly on the backdrop as Polonius dodders off the stage. But I take it Berens is not, like Edward Gero, claiming that the contemporary theatre has a monopoly on Shakespeare. I like a good Shakespeare production as much as the next person, but I also like reading the plays; it provides certain pleasures and insights that a performance doesn't (and vice versa, of course). Why should that experience be denigrated as somehow inauthentic? To do so diminishes Shakespeare (the work, not the man), and depreciates the main means by which, undoubtedly, the large majority of people have gained access to Shakespeare over the last three hundred and seventy years. Why do you think people bought the First Folio/ As a thea tre program? If the Oxford authorship had the effect of enhancing the value and interest of Shakespeare's work as *literature*, I don't think that would necessarily be a bad thing. If it did have this effect, by the way, it would not be because Oxford was not 'a man of the theatre', as is so often claimed (dubiously - but that's a separate argument). It would be because the Oxford authorship makes the plays so pregnant with historical meaning that their interest as historical artefacts might, at least for a while, rival their interest as playscripts for contemporary actors and directors to exercise their interpretive talents. Ultimately, though, I must say I find it hard to take seriously this question 'Why do we need to know'? The writing of Shakespeare's plays was, by any measure, one of the most important events in the history of western civilisation, and Berens is suggesting, if I understand him correctly, that we may as well just not pursue the matter of who actually created these masterpieces of world literature because the knowledge may not 'be of any use to anyone interested in the plays', or because it may not 'make them better'. Have I got that right? Fortunately for all of us, historical curiosity has not generally felt itself to be bounded by such considerations. And finally, what's all this about better jobs, tenure and so forth, with which Edward Gero so vigorously agrees? If either of you are so out of touch with the Shakespearean academy as to imagine that dabbling in the authorship question improves anyone's prospects in that area, then I'd say you need career counselling. I look forward to taking up some of Dave Evett's points in a later posting. Pat Buckridge. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 10:59:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0955 Last Call: CTI Post, Oxford Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0955. Friday, 25 November 1994. From: Stuart Lee Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 12:31:29 +0000 Subject: CTI Post, Oxford: Last call The deadline for this is now nearly upon us. This is a last call for applications, Stuart Lee *************** PLEASE CROSS-POST ACCORDINGLY *************** JOB ADVERTISEMENT Research Officer CTI Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services The CTI Centre at Oxford University is seeking to appoint a Research Officer from 1 January 1995 or as soon as possible thereafter. The Centre's role is to promote, encourage and support the use of computers in the teaching of a range of text-based subjects in higher education throughout the UK. The Centre also has strong international links. The major responsibilities of this post will include editing our varied series of publications, both electronic and paper-based, evaluating software useful in the teaching of textual subjects in higher education institutions, giving presentations at workshops, conferences, and university departments. The person appointed should have a good degree in a Humanities subject, in particular: modern languages and literatures, classics, drama, philosophy, theology, or media studies. He or she should also be computer-literate. Experience in one or more of the following areas would also be useful: publishing (conventional and/or on-line), teaching (HE), internet resources, humanities computing applications. Good writing and presentation skills are essential. The appointment will be made in the lower end of the RS1A scale: #13,941-#15,566 per annum (pounds sterling) according to qualifications and experience. The CTI is funded until July 1999 subject to annual confirmation by the Higher Education Funding Councils. Further details are added below and an application form can be obtained from Sally Matthews, OUCS, 13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN (tel: 0865-273230; e-mail: sally.matthews@oucs.ox.ac.uk). The closing date for submission of application forms is 2nd December 1994. Interviews are scheduled for the week commencing 12th December 1994. ************************************************************************** The Computers in Teaching Initiative The Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) was established in 1984 and the first phase (1984-1988) funded 139 software development and dissemination projects. In phase two of the Initiative (1989 onwards) twenty subject-specific CTI Centres were established to promote, support, and encourage the use of computers in the teaching of all subjects taught at higher education level in the UK. The Initiative has just started a new period of funding which will last until the end of July 1999, and the new post is offered until that time, subject to funds being confirmed by the Higher Education Funding Councils. Four of the CTI Centres represent humanities subjects: the Centre for History with Archaeology and Art History, based at the University of Glasgow; the Centre for Modern Languages (with Classics), based at the University of Hull; the Centre for Music, based at the University of Lancaster; and the Centre for Textual Studies, based at the University of Oxford. The Centre for Textual Studies The Centre is part of the Centre for Humanities Computing at Oxford University which exists to support students and academics in the humanities at Oxford University in the use of computers in their academic research and teaching by introducing them to the latest techniques and methods in humanities computing; to establish the Centre for Humanities Computing as a Tcentre of excellenceU both within the UK higher education system and world-wide; to promote the uses of computing by the encouragement of leading edge research by members of the Centre for Humanities Computing; to operate a print and electronic publication programme to disseminate the work of the Centre. The CTI Centre deals with the use of computers in the teaching of literature in all languages, from all periods; philosophy and logic; linguistics; theology; drama and theatre studies; film and media studies. The Centre publishes a newsletter, Computers and Texts and a regularly updated Resources Guide, and also regularly updates a humanities World Wide Web service. It also runs workshops, conferences, and seminars; evaluates software and hardware; runs a general advisory service; visits academic departments; and deals with large numbers of visitors. The Office for Humanities Communication (OHC) The CTI Centre works very closely with the British Library-funded OHC which is also part of the Centre for Humanities Computing in Oxford. The OHC carries out survey and research work on general topics relevant to the use of information technology in all areas of the humanities and together with the CTI Centre organizes the CATH (Computers and Teaching in the Humanities) series of conferences. Staff of the CTI Centre The Centre has a Director, Dr Marilyn Deegan; a Deputy Director, Dr Stuart Lee; a Centre Manager, Mr Michael Popham; an Administrative Secretary, Mrs Mari Gill. The new appointment will report directly to the Centre Manager. The New Appointment The main responsibilities of this post will be to run our ever-growing series of publications, liaising with contributors, editors, copy-editors, printers, designers, etc, and also to update regularly the various electronic publications which the Centre manages. He or she will also help at workshops, visit academic departments, attend conferences, and answer enquiries. A willingness to travel around the UK and occasionally overseas is essential. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 14:42:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0956 Re: *Shrew* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0956. Sunday, 27 November 1994. (1) From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 12:02:30 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0952 *Shrew* Productions (2) From: John E. Perry Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 02:48:25 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0952 *Shrew* Productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 12:02:30 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0952 *Shrew* Productions The discussion of *Shrew* productions is interesting at least in part for what it reveals about us, as well as what it may reveal about the play. Assertions that "the only way" it can be played appropriately today is by employing a particular production strategy reveal either a profound lack of imagination or an insistence that a production not only not offend widely held socio-political beliefs, but indeed that it must actively present an agenda of its own. There are those, of course, who argue that not to be political is to be political, etc., etc. They have a right to their belief, which has, IMHO, some merit -- but I beg to demur on this particular issue. I have seen four *Shrews* that I remember, perhaps suppressing the memory of a couple others. Two worked, one was OK, one failed. All things considered, that's not bad. (I wish I could say the same for Chekhov or Brecht!). What worked was a decision to allow the play to be a comedy, with a few acknowledgments of late 20th-century sensibilities. The most recent, and probably best, production I've seen was at UMKC a few weeks ago. The treatment was very physical, drawing in large part on the commedia tradition. The starvation scene was played for laughs, complete with big takes from Kate as she almost but not quite gets a nibble. Had the play up to this point been presented as naturalism, the scene wouldn't have come close to working. But as it was, it fit right in. We can laugh at the situation because it is so clearly exaggerated that we can retain our distance. Our collective response is not, then, that P is abusing K, any more than we feel Lucy is abusing Charlie Brown when she yanks that football away at the last moment, sending him crashing onto his back yet again. These are actors playing roles, folks (and this production plays up the Sly scenes, underlining the fictive element of the saga of Kate and Petruchio) -- it ain't real! Subsequently, in the Vincentio scene, Kate treats Petruchio as if he were a small child: she is not at all cowed by his bullying -- rather, she clearly knows that the sun is the sun, Vincentio is an old man, etc. She's just willing to say otherwise so she can continue her journey. But she does so out of exasperation, not trepidation, and Petruchio is clearly satisfied with the words, caring little that they bear little relationship to the delivery. Finally, of course, comes the ultimate minefield: the last scene. Kate's long speech sounds a little rehearsed, almost as if it were pre-arranged. It does not ring completely false, but there is enough of an undercurrent of sarcasm in Kate's voice that we smile with her as she dupes her listeners... all but Petruchio, who joins us in smiling with her, not at her. When she hops into his arms to be carried off to bed, it is a moment of real sexual electricity, not the junior-high cooing of Bianca and company. Finally, after the exit and the tag lines, Petruchio comes running back on stage, scoops up the hat Kate had discarded at his insistence, plays a knowing, "call me henpecked if you like but this is going to be worth it" take to the audience, and scurries off with his peace offering. Is there a message here? Maybe. But if there is, it's more off a recognition that animated, lusty men *and* women make better lovers and spouses than milquetoasts like Bianca and Lucentio. K and P are clearly the most bold, intelligent, sexy people in the production. It is simply "right" that they be together. With a stretch, we could perhaps argue that K (and perhaps P) recognize the need to operate within society while still maintaining a strong grip on individual prerogatives. But probably not... A playscript illuminated in production... Acting style affecting audience response... Playing a comedy as a comedy instead of a socio-political disquisition.... Imagine! Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John E. Perry Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 02:48:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0952 *Shrew* Productions >From: David R. Maier >Shirley Kagan appears to chide the Tygres Heart production of *Shrew*: >"Why do we need a sugar coating or a happy, creative ending? Lets see a >'Shrew' that upsettingly but realistically tells it like it still is for many >women in the world." >My response is that hers is exactly the response that was intended from the >prodution. Isn't it upsetting that the only way to play the text truly and >have a happy ending is to cast it with an all-female cast? This production >simply would not have worked with the roles played with men and women. This is >because of what we as people, not just men, but both men and women, do when >they see the roles and hear the text performed with men. I don't believe this at all. I realize many people cannot view anything uncolored by their own attitudes, but many of us can, to some extent. Indeed, I distinctly recall one of the teachers in this forum commenting with disbelief that most of her students defended Petruchio's actions after they read the play. Most of us, I think, are able to view *Shrew* in its own context, and recognize that Kate starts out as a severely disturbed young woman in serious need of help, which she gets from Petruchio. We all recoil with horror at the world they lived in, but when we _read_ the play, most of us see the love developing between Kate and Petruchio. Unfortunately, the people tasked with presenting the play don't feel able to trust us iggoramusses out here to understand what's going on without the sort of ugly distortion Drs. Maier and Kagan are discussing. john perry ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 14:51:40 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0957 Re: Rose and Globe; Reduced Shakespeare Co.; Casting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0957. Sunday, 27 November 1994. (1) From: Michael Friedman Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 17:03:37 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0948 Rose and Globe Excavations (2) From: Thomas Ellis Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 11:39:20 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0948 Reduced Shakespeare Company (3) From: Thomas Hall Date: Sunday, 27 Nov 1994 01:19:55 -0600 (CST) Subj: Women as men. (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 17:03:37 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0948 Rose and Globe Excavations In response to Fred Wharton's call for information on the New Globe project, I'll call attention to Paul Nelsen's article "Transition and Revision at the Globe" in the Spring 1994 issue of *Shakespeare Bulletin*, which gives a very detailed account of the current state of affairs. Michael Friedman University of Scranton (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Ellis Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 11:39:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0948 Reduced Shakespeare Company I first saw the Reduced Shakespeare Company perform, well before they made it big, as one of a variety of mime shows, jugglers, and street performers who gravitate annually to the Oregon Country Faire (sic), an annual hippiefest held outside of Eugene, Oregon. At that time, they had only two parodies in their repertoire--Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet. Both were hilarious; I remember in particular when the guy who played "Juliet", during the balcony scene, ad libbed on Romeo's line "Call me but love..." by taking him literally...as both cast and audience burst into hysterics. Later I saw their show "The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)" and though it was mostly taken up with the Hamlet/R&J parodies (the rest of the plays were brief sketches or mere mention, such as a "Rap" Othello and a Julia Child routine for Titus), it was still quite entertaining. During their Hamlet routine, for example, they had various parts of the audience enact the conflicting voices in Ophelia's psyche during the "Nunnery" scene by chanting, first separately and then in unison, the following: (1) "Maybe, Maybe not!" (2) "Paint an Inch Thick" and (3) "Cut the crap, Hamlet; My biological clock is ticking and I want babies NOW!" I haven't seen their "History of America" but they do put on an entertaining show. But unfortunately, I have no way of contacting them. Check with the Folger. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Hall Date: Sunday, 27 Nov 1994 01:19:55 -0600 (CST) Subject: Women as men. Marty Jukovsky, I have never seen _Lear_ done like that, but I have seen _Twelfth Night_ done with women playing male roles. Both brother and sister were played by women, and they actually looked related. (I had trouble telling them apart) Sir Toby was also played by a woman and with great success. The actress who played Sir Toby has played other male roles at Northeastern before. I think she has a flair for it. I'm afraid there wasn't any sort of philosophy given for the gender swap. I think it came down to a paucity of talented male actors. In any case it didn't detract from the performance. I thought of it a turnabout, and as such, fair play. Thomas Hall ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 27 Nov 1994 15:02:53 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0958 Qs: *Ham*: Stage History/Dumb Show; Icarus Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0958. Sunday, 27 November 1994. (1) From: Dom Saliani Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 12:44:54 -0700 (MST) Subj: [*Hamlet* Stage History] (2) From: Michael Harrawood Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 13:05:33 -0800 (PST) Subj: Icarus (3) From: Wes Folkerth Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 94 23:53:28 EST Subj: Dumb Show in Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 12:44:54 -0700 (MST) Subject: [*Hamlet* Stage History] In my efforts to research the stage history of *Hamlet* I have had difficulty reconciling the claim on the title page of Q1 that "it was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servants." To my knowledge there is no documentation anywhere that would substantiate this. The claim on the title page of Q2 is equally frustrating in that there would appear to be evidence to the contrary that the play *Hamlet* hath been diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the Cittie of London; as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere." It is my understanding that in 1593 the Royal Privy Council passed an act which prohibited any kind of play to be "sett forthe either in the university or in any place within the compasse of five miles" thereof. This prohibition was not lifted till well after Shakespeare's death. I did find a reference in Henslowe that on June 11, 1594, *Hamlet* was performed at Newington Butts and that the box office receipts totalled but a few shillings. This does not sound like the kind of reception that a great tragedy by Shakespeare would receive. According to O.J. Cambell's *Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare* the "earliest recorded but improbable performance is that given on board the H.M.S. Dragon at Sierra Leone on September 5, 1606." I had always believed that the play would have been a popular one during the Elizabethan period. It appears that it was not. I am inclined to agree with Lillian Winstanley that the play contains too many topical allusions to events and details in James' life. If such is the case why was Shakespeare never taken to task for this as Jonson and the other prominent playwrights were for far more innocuous material in their plays? I would appreciate any elucidating input regarding the stage history of the play in the period before 1603. Dom Saliani (DSALIANI@cbe.ca.ab) Sir Winston Churchill High School Calgary, Alberta (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Harrawood Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 1994 13:05:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Icarus Does anyone know of any work on the Icarus-Dedalus allusions in 1 and 3 Henry VI? These come in the death scene of the Talbots, father and son, and in the scene where Richard kills Henry. I'd like to get an idea of Icarus's currency in Elizabethan poetry and drama in order get an idea of the moral spin Shakespeare would have understood the allusion to carry. Thanks in advance. Michael Harrawood (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Wes Folkerth Date: Saturday, 26 Nov 94 23:53:28 EST Subject: Dumb Show in Hamlet Season's greetings to everyone. I would like to know what list members make of the dumb show in *Hamlet*. My main query is, why does it take Claudius so long to react? Wouldn't he recognize the accusation as it appears in the dumb show? I realize this is a fairly old question, but I'd like to hear what list members have to say on the subject. If anyone can suggest any published material on this subject, I would be interested in hearing about that as well. I'm presently working on aurality in Shakespeare. Thank you for your time. Wes Folkerth McGill University bnzl@musicb.mcgill.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 09:05:36 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0960 Qs: *Pericles*; Falstaff's Age Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0960. Tuesday, 29 November 1994. (1) From: Robert F. O'Connor Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 09:15:44 +0700 Subj: Pericles (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 08:50:05 EDT Subj: [Falstaff's Age] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert F. O'Connor Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 09:15:44 +0700 Subject: Pericles Dear everyone, With all of the word circulating about various productions, I thought I'd pass on some info and use the opportunity to make an inquiry. The Bell Shakespeare Company, Australia's only touring Elizabethan drama troupe, have announced their schedule for next year; they are going to be touring with productions of 'Twelfth Night' and 'Pericles'. Now, it's been a while since I saw a performance of TN, but I have never seen 'Pericles', and I believe that it is one of those plays that has never much been in fashion, and I'm curious to know about any recent or notable productions. If anyone is interested, I will post more information about the production as it becomes available. Ta Robert F. O'Connor ocoreng@durras.anu.edu.au English Department Australian National University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 08:50:05 EDT Subject: [Falstaff's Age] Is there any evidence for the age of Falstaff? I seem to recall that he was once page to the Duke of Norfolk. Or am I wrong? I ask this because I just now realized that both Don Quixote and Goethe's Faust were respecively pushing fifty and somewhere in the mid fifties. And both of them are presented as if they were tottering oldsters. ELEpstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 09:42:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0963 Re: *shrew* Productions: *Twelfth Night* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0963. Tuesday, 29 November 1994. (1) From: Shirley Kagan Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 09:42:45 -1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0956 Re: *Shrew* Productions (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 21:12:49 -0500 (EST) Subj: Fahrenheit's TWELFTH NIGHT (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Shirley Kagan Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 09:42:45 -1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0956 Re: *Shrew* Productions In his posting, John Perry responded in the following manner to my suggestion that Kate's submission speech at the end of the play should remain un-candy coated because it continues to be socially recognizable and relevant to many people today. He writes: "Most of us, I think, are able to view *Shrew* in its own context, and recognize that Kate starts out as a severely disturbed young woman in serious need of help, which she gets from Petruchio." 1) Who is "us"? Which of us are not colored by our beliefs and conditioning to the extent that we can objectively watch (or read) and judge Kate's situation without our own baggage, to say nothing of the baggage of our society? 2) What, if anything, is gained by viewing *Shrew* in its own context? It may be interestring to watch as a museum piece portraying the mores of its time and place, but in producing it today, aren't we, perhaps, looking for other qualities? 3) How do you figure Kate to be a severely disturbed young woman in serious need of help? What actions does she take that categorize her so strongly for you? 4) In what way has Petruchio helped Kate, and can we really call his actions helpful? Denying a person nourishment? Browbeating a person into brainwashed submission? Some would argue that this constitutes torture, but then again, many of the world's greatest villains have claimed to do what they've done "in a good cause". To what extent do you allow the ends (which in this case are, at best, dubious) to justify the means? Shirley Kagan. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 21:12:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: Fahrenheit's TWELFTH NIGHT I was impressed by Nicholas Rose's production of TWELFTH NIGHT which I saw on Friday, 25 November. With the exception of Richard Arthur who plays Sir Toby, the cast is young, and the young actors give this production a great deal of vitality. Jasson Minakadis plays Orsino as the Godfather in a double-breasted suit, with no sign of foppishness. This Orsino is definitely NOT "in love with love." Marni Penning's Viola is sprightly and well-done, and her "courtship" of Olivia has an interesting sexual ambivalence. Olivia, played by Sharon Polcyn, shows no sign of passivity. She is dominant and dominating. Since Olivia is much taller than Viola, the contrast in height tends to emphasize Olivia's power. Fabian disappears from this production, possibly because it is done with only eleven actors -- and a good deal of obvious doubling. Stephen Skiles plays Feste as an ironic, guitar strumming man for all seasons. With a few cuts, he subsumes Fabian's words and actions. Dick Arthur's Sir Toby and Glenn Becker's Sir Andrew are suitably rowdy and drunken, and Jason McCune's Malvolio reminded me of Phil Hartman playing a middle manager. Miriam Brown as Maria (and Priest!) is excellent, truly first-rate. If you live close enough to Cincinnati, I encourage you to see this production. It's youthful; it's rollicking; it's fun. I laughed. And Ralph Cohen is obviously lurking somewhere behind the production since he has provided program notes. Fahrenheit is Cincinnati's Shenandoah Express!? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 08:41:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0964 Re: *Shrew* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0964. Friday, 2 December 1994. (1) From: Thomas F. Soare Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 17:22:43 CST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 07:49:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0963 Re: *Shrew* Productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas F. Soare Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 17:22:43 CST Subject: RE: SHK 5.0936 Re: *Shrew* Productions I've directed "Shrew" twice, and played Petruchio once. I think the key to making that last scene work for a modern audience is definitely to treat it as passionate and delicious foreplay, as was previously suggested, but more than that as a meeting of minds between equals who have both seen thru the games they have been playing with each other. Her passionate vituperation and his roughshod perversity are both means of manipulation, and when they both understand that, they discover that they are madly in love. She is willing to play by his rules in public, but with humor, and perhaps a sly wink at him, because they both want to get rid of company and go to bed! It also helps if on "Come on and kiss me, Kate!" she takes a very aggressive role & practically floors him with the passion of her kiss! Thomas F. Soare Professor of Theatre Sam Houston State University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 07:49:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0963 Re: *Shrew* Productions THE TAMING OF THE SHREW When Bugs Bunny or Minnie Mouse are made to go without food for a while in a cartoon we don't fret that they are "denied nourishment", but tend to laugh instead because we are in a theatre. "The Taming of the Shrew", for all its references to reality, is a comedy, and surely it might be a little better for you if we took it a bit less seriously than recent postings have. The lack of irony in our approach to Shakespeare bespeaks an unwillngness to separate life from art, suffering from entertainment, don't you think? The *poise* of this comedy surely redeems some of what we redeems some of what we might find morally perilous. Harry Hill Montreal ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 08:50:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0965 Qs: *AYI*; Art Search; *H5* French; Salvini Recordings Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0965. Friday, 2 December 1994. (1) From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 10:07:22 -0600 Subj: AYLI (2) From: Marcia Hepps Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 14:49:41 EST Subj: Art search (3) From: David R. Maier Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 23:50:20 -0800 Subj: Translations of French in Henry V (4) From: Raffaele Galbiati Date: Friday, 02 Dec 1994 00:15:21 +0100 (CET) Subjec Salvini's Sound Recordings (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Pearson Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 10:07:22 -0600 Subject: AYLI Mindful of Scott Sheperd's recent insightful caution, "Why not create new dramatic complexities instead of destroying the interesting ones already present?" I am curious about the following in AYLI: Is Rosalind's ruse discovered before the final scene in which she reveals herself to the assembled wedding party? Specifically, when "Ganymede" faints having espied the bloody handkerchief, Aliena and Oliver rush to her assistance and, presumably phyiscally, help her to her feet. Whereupon, Oliver questions, "What, you a man? You lack a man's heart." In a scene soon after this, he departs from her with the farewell, "And you, fair sister." To which she does not reply. Finally, speaking with Orlando she asks him "Did your brother tell you how well I counterfeited? (fainting)" Orlando replies, "Yes, and greater wonders than that." Simply, there seem to be a number of textual clues which suggest that the brothers are on to Rosalind, yet are content to see how this will yet fadge in the end. Either this, or everyone remains duped to the end, the "suggestive" lines only for the audience's sake, their being in on the ruse with Rosalind. I am not suggesting there is any right or wrong, here, merely curious as to how to wrest the most from text for the audience. Any thoughts and/or experiences from productions you've seen? Arthur Pearson apearson@great-lakes.net (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marcia Hepps Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 14:49:41 EST Subject: Art search I am working in the Fort Wayne area and am trying to find a recent edition of Art Search ( library, university, anyone!) . Art Search itself says they have no back copies and they can only get me the next(DEC 15)edition. Many thanks to all and to all a good... (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David R. Maier Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 23:50:20 -0800 Subject: Translations of French in Henry V Does anyone have a reference which contains the verbatim and/or idiomatic translations of the french dialogue in Henry V? David Maier dmaier@ednet1.osl.or.gov (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Raffaele Galbiati Date: Friday, 02 Dec 1994 00:15:21 +0100 (CET) Subject: Salvini's Sound Recordings I am an Italian student at the State University of Milan and looking for any possible recordings of Tommaso Salvini's voice while acting in Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and King Lear during his tours of USA (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimora, Pittsburg, Washington, Boston,Providence, Hartford, New Haven, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, New Orleans etc.), UK, Latin America, France. I would be grateful for knowing the address of Sound Archives that could hold this kind of recordings for the purposes of my research. Thank you in advance for any assistance. Patrizia Ardemagni Email MC4875@MCLINK.IT Fax: +39-362-229691 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 08:58:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0966 Re: Falstaff's Age Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0966. Friday, 2 December 1994. (1) From: Edward Gero Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:44:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0960 Qs: Falstaff's Age (2) From: Edward M. Moore Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 08:51:35 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Falstaff's age (3) From: Michael Conner Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:02:54 -0800 (PST) Subj: Falstaff's Age (4) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 1 Dec 1994 00:49:37 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0960 Falstaff's Age (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward Gero Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:44:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0960 Qs: Falstaff's Age Here are the only textual references I know of concerning Mr. Epstein's query re Falstaff's age and job employment record. "A goodly portly man, i'faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble car- riage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by'r lady inclining to threescore; and as I remember me, his name is Falstaff." -Falstaff: 1HIV II.iv ll.416-420 "Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk." -Shallow: 2HIV III.ii ll. 24-25 E. Gero Washington, DC (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edward M. Moore Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 08:51:35 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Falstaff's age I think Falstaff's age is given during the play-within-the play (II.iv.418-19, Arden), when he says "his age some fifty, or by'r lady incling to threescore." I've seen it played so that the audience on stage laughs at "some fifty," so that Falstaff admits to the late 50's. Very effective touch. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Conner Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:02:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Falstaff's Age In Henry IV Part 1, Act 2, Scene 4, lines 437 ff., Falstaff, while pretending to be King Henry, describes himself as "his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore" In Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2, lines 25, Justice Shallow tells us that "Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk." (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Thursday, 1 Dec 1994 00:49:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0960 Falstaff's Age Re: Falstaff's age. He speaks of himself as "inclining to three score" while playing Henry IV to Hal's Hal in the tavern play of 1H4. This may not be consistent with his being a page to the Duke of Norfolk (2H4, I think) but Shakespeare doesn't always care about things like this. Cheers, Sean. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 12:43:05 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0959 Casting Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0959. Tuesday, 29 November 1994. (1) From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 27 Nov 1994 17:07:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0957 Re: Casting (2) From: David Evett Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 16:26 ET Subj: Cross-gendered casting (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Sunday, 27 Nov 1994 17:07:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0957 Re: Casting Re a Cross-cast Lear I worked as text coach and consultant on a completely cross-cast professional *Lear* in Toronto last winter. We experienced several kinds of playable learning, as we set off from our versions of David Hwang's observation that only a man knows how to play a woman. Richard Rose, who directed the production for Necessary Angel Theatre Company, used an essentialised take on the gendering of vulnerability as a starting place in his comments to the company: men, he suggested, are culturally conditioned to hide their vulnerability and, as they do so unconsciously, they are less likely to play that act in sharp focus than are women; women, on the other hand, are conditioned to use their vulnerability, and, once again . . . This note foregrounded gender as a cultural construction, with the effect that there was a stronger sense of men and women behaving with internal consistency, and in sharp contradistinction from one another, than is always the case in *Lear* productions. Lear's reactions were like Gloucester's were like Cornwall's were like etc. A quality emerging from the casting, one that rather took us by surprise, was an unusual presence of nurturing--it was strongly present, for example, in Lear's "Come let's away to prison" (5.2), which now played much more profoundly as Lear's reconciliatory gift to his daughter than I had ever heard it before (I think I had always been more interested in its 'evidence' for his mental backsliding); this was regularly the most deeply moving moment in the entire production. For many of the women actors, the other major event of the production was the opportunity to play open power and agency in a classical text. The fact that this was a fresh new experience for them seemed to give many of the play's power moments a raw enthusiasm beyond what is sometimes felt in more conventional productions. I felt, at times, that I might be seeing the best Edmund I will ever see! Richard Rose, who runs the Young Company at the Ontario Stratford Festival, is returning to this production this winter, again with Necessary Angel in Toronto. Interestingly, he feels he has pushed the cross-casting exercise as far as he needs to, and will cast this time simply actor-to-role, regardless of gender. Patricia Hamilton will return to play Lear, Maggie Huculak will again do Edmund, Diana Belshaw will play Kent again, but many of the other roles will be recast gender-blind. I will again do some of the text work, and will try, sometime in the next year, to write up the experience with particular attention to the placement/displacement of the gendered body as a tool of theatrical narrative. I'll let you know. Skip Shand (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 16:26 ET Subject: Cross-gendered casting The Mabou Mines was heavily cut and collaged for performance by no more than 5 or 6 actors in distinctly non-traditional spaces--I saw it in the Wexner Center art gallery in Columbus. It was striking, in its way--an attempt to dramatize a Rockwell Kent etching, with that kind of grim austerity. But thinned, too, as an etching after Tintoretto would be reduced in tonal complexity. We saw a woman as Edmund here this past summer; she did the kinds of things the women who play Viola and Rosalind and Portia usually do--took long strides, stood with her feet well apart and her hand on her hip--with similar results (a little thing would make me tell them how much she lacked of a man).I'd have been happier, I think, if they had bitten the bullet and played her forthrightly as Gloucester's bastard daughter. Though as always when you make theatrical choices you lose as you gain. My son Ben cast a woman as Hector in a Harvard Drama Club (small stage) ; I've only seen videotape but found it unsatisfactory if only because the macho thing in Hector is so powerful. I myself tried a female Thersites, which I thought went pretty well. I had the actor read the last stanza of Yeats' "Circus Animals' Desertion," and she found that a place to start; we built her a little observation tower on one side of the stage from which she could spy and curse. I considered an Aunt Pandarus, but decided it would be difficult to achieve the desired decadence--hard to keep her from becoming Aunty Mame. Androgynously, Dave Evett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 09:02:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0967 Announcement: A New Journal -- *EMLS* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0967. Friday, 2 December 1994. From: R. G. Siemens, Editor, EMLS Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 94 20:50:49 PST Subject: Announcing EMLS: A Journal [This message will be cross-posted; please excuse duplication] EARLY MODERN LITERARY STUDIES: A JOURNAL OF SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE Announcing Early Modern Literary Studies, a refereed journal in electronic form which intends to serve both as a formal arena for scholarly discussion and as an academic resource for researchers in the area. Articles in EMLS will examine English literature, literary culture, and language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from a variety of perspectives; well- considered responses to published papers will also be published as part of a Readers' Forum. Reviews in EMLS will evaluate recent work in the area as well as academic tools of interest to scholars in the field. Our Internet site will also gather and maintain links to useful on-line resources. EMLS (ISSN 1201-2459) will be published three times a year for the on-line academic community by the University of British Columbia's English Department, with the support of the University's Library and Arts Computing Centre. Our first issue will appear in Spring 1995. AVAILABILITY EMLS will be available free of charge in hypertextual format on the World Wide Web at http://unixg.ubc.ca:7001/0/e-sources/emls/emlshome.html It will also be available in ASCII format for retrieval using GOPHER at edziza.arts.ubc.ca /english/emls Our site on the World Wide Web will be active, though still under construction, as of December 1, 1994. EDITORIAL GROUP The EMLS Editorial Group is representative of the on-line academic community as a whole and includes scholars with wide- ranging interests and experience, from junior to well-established senior academics. Senior Editorial and Advisory Board: Gordon Campbell, University of Leicester Hardy M. Cook III, Bowie State University Roy Flannagan, Ohio University W. L. Godshalk, University of Cincinnati Ian Lancashire, New College, University of Toronto Graham Parry, University of York, England Paul G. Stanwood, University of British Columbia Advisory Editors: Richard W. Bailey, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Ronald Bond, University of Calgary Luc Borot, Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Elisabethaines, Universite Paul-Valery, Montpellier, France Douglas Bruster, University of Chicago Thomas Corns, University of Wales, Bangor Peter Donaldson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology A. S. G. Edwards, University of Victoria Jane Finnan, University of Toronto Antonia Forster, University of Akron John K. Hale, University of Otago, New Zealand Robert S. Knapp, Reed College F. J. Levy, University of Washington Lawrence Manley, Yale University John Manning, Queen's University of Belfast Stephen Naoyuki Matsuba, York University, Canada Mark Morton, University of Winnipeg Jim Nielson, University of British Columbia Stephen Orgel, Stanford University Milla Riggio, Trinity College, CT Alan Rudrum, Simon Fraser University Robert Wiznura, University of British Columbia Editor: Raymond G. Siemens, University of British Columbia Review Editor: Joanne Woolway, Oriel College, Oxford Editorial Assistant: Gretchen E. Minton, University of British Columbia Electronic Editors: Joseph Jones, University of British Columbia Jeff D. Miller, University of British Columbia David Thomson, University of British Columbia SUBMISSIONS EMLS invites contributions, primarily those of critical essays on literary topics and of interdisciplinary studies which centre on literature and literary culture in English during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Contributions, including critical essays and studies, bibliographies, notices, letters to the Editor, and other materials, may be submitted to the Editor by electronic mail at EMLS@arts.ubc.ca or by regular mail at Early Modern Literary Studies, Department of English, University of British Columbia, #397 - 1873 East Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6T 1Z1; reviews and materials for review may be sent to the Review Editor at Review_Editor_EMLS@arts.ubc.ca or by regular mail at the same address, above. Brief hard-copy correspondence may be sent by fax to (604) 822-6906. Electronic mail submissions are accepted in ASCII format. Regular mail submissions of material on-disk are accepted in ASCII, Wordperfect, or Microsoft Word format; hard-copy submissions must be accompanied by electronic copies, either on- disk or via electronic mail, and will not be returned. All submissions must follow the current Modern Language Association Handbook, in addition to the following conventions used by EMLS for ASCII text: *bolded text* is denoted by asterisks, %italicized text% by percent signs, _underlined text_ with the underscore, ^superscript^ is denoted with the caret and is used for note numbers in the text, and notes themselves appear at the end of the document. A document outlining the representation of non-ASCII characters is available on demand. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION . . . For more information, or to join our mailing list, send a message to Ed_Asst_EMLS@arts.ubc.ca. Raymond G. Siemens Editor, Early Modern Literary Studies, Department of English, University of British Columbia. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 13:04:17 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0969 Re: Miller Memorial; Studies; Icarus; Hamlet History Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0969. Friday, 2 December 1994. (1) From: Daniel Traister Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 19:15:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: William E. Miller memorial (2) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 15:25:18 GMT Subj: Studies of Renaissance Drama (3) From: Don Foster Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 10:18:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0958 Icarus (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel Traister Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 19:15:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: William E. Miller memorial A celebration for our colleague and friend, William E. Miller, former assistant curator of the Horace Howard Furness Memorial (Shakespeare) Library, will be held on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library (in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Gallery), at 4:30 in the afternoon on Wed- nesday, December 7th. The Library is located at 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia; enter from Locust Walk. A few people will speak about him and there will be food and drink, as well--but most importantly this will be a chance for his friends and colleagues to remember Bill with pleasure and thanks. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 15:25:18 GMT Subject: Studies of Renaissance Drama Forget Bradley. Pages 11-18 of Marshall McLuhan's The Gutenberg Galaxy (London, 1962) surely offer one of the most electrifying insights into King Lear of our, or any other, century. Terence Hawkes (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 10:18:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0958 Icarus In response to the query by Michael Harrawood re: Icarus: References to Icarus that you may not already have on your list include Edward Dyer's "I would it were not as it is..."; Fulke Greville's "Aspiring thoughts...(from _Penelope's Web_); Marlowe's _Dido_; J.M., _Phillipes Venus_; John Ford's _Golden Mean_; and two anonymous plays, _The Troublesome Raigne of King John, pt. 1_ and _The Taming of A Shrew_. References to Icarus by women writers include Elizabeth I's translation of the 2d chorus from Seneca's _Hercules Oetaeus_; and Aemelia Lanyer's _Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum_ ("Preamble, line 275). Of these, Ford makes the most lengthy exegesis. An extract: "Such a man as is kept within the enforcement of restraint must imitate that Dedalus whom the ancient poets feign to have wings, with which he fled from that inaccessible castle where he was detained with his son Icarus a prisoner. The moral cannot but give matter of note and application: Icarus the son betokens or may betoken the incapacity of men's bodies, and Dedalus the quickness of mind, both which being (the one with the other) imprisoned, the one--which is the body, personated with Icarus--for want of moderation falls into the attempt of escape; the other--which is the mind, patterned in Dedalus--conquers adversity by flying from it in bearing it..." Elsewhere, Icarus typically signifies the futility of upward striving for rank, fame, or wealth. Don Foster In response to Dom Saliani's query about performances by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at Oxford and Cambridge: Shakespeare's company while d.b.a. the Lord Chamberlain's Men may have paid nearly annual visits to Oxford and/or Cambridge between 1594 (following the prohibition) and 1603 (when the company became the King's Men): we have documentation for vists to Oxford by licensed players in 1599/1600, 1600/1, 1603/4, 1605, 1606, 1607, 1609-10, 1612/13, and 1615/16, each time as guests of the city and corporation of Oxford.(See E.K. Chambers, _E.S._, II.320 following.) This does not, of course, guarantee that the Ham-Q1 and -Q2 stationer's blurbs are accurate in all particulars. But it seems clear from the Q2 title-page that the London audience would not have considered professional performaces at the universities to be an obvious impossibility; unfortunately, we lack the university account-books that might have recorded actual performances. One possibility (not widely accepted) is that a version of _Ham_ not unlike Q1 was performed at the universities (as per Hibbard's suggestion) prior to the composition of the Q2 script. Curiously, the "rare-word" lexicon of Ham-Q1, in its overlap with Shakespearean texts, looks surprisingly regular, with four clearly marked peaks in 1594, 1600, 1605, and 1610. I can't guess why this should be so. It seems unlikely to me that Shakespeare would have cause to read, much less to perform, Ham-Q1 after its initial publication. --Don Foster ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Dec 1994 14:36:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0961 Re: Hamlet's Popularity; Dumb Show Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0961. Tuesday, 29 November 1994. (1) From: John Mucci Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 12:38:45 -0500 Subj: Hamlet's popularity (2) From: David Evett Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 16:28 ET Subj: Dumb Show (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 12:38:45 -0500 Subject: Hamlet's popularity Although seven shillings is not a large sum to collect for a performance of *Hamlet* you must remember that Henslowe's scope of what was happening is very much restricted to his own experience, and that Newington Butts was not necessarily the residence of the most appreciative audience for it. Enthusiasm for *Hamlet* seems to have been great long before 1603. Of course there is the quote from Nash in 1589, "...if you entreat him faire in a frostie morning, he will afoord you whole *Hamlets,* I should say Handfulls of tragical speaches." And the quote from Lodge, from *Wit's Miserie* (1596): "One of the Deuills is ...a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the visard of the ghost which cried so miserally at the theator, like an oisterwife, *Hamlet reuenge." Gabriel Harvey says "The younger sort take much delight in Shakespeare's *Venus and Adonis*, but his *Lucrece* and his tragedy of *Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke,* have it in them to please the wiser sort (1598)." On July 26, 1602 James Robertes entered "HAMLETT Prince Denmarke as it was latelie Acted by the Lord Chamberleyne his servants." In the poem *Daiphantus, or the Passions of Love,* by Antony Scolocer, published in 1604, there are several references to the popularity of the play. In the introduction he says an Epistle ought to be, among many other things: "...like friendly *SHAKE-SPEARE'S* Tragedies, where the Comedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on tiptoe. Faith, it should please all, like Prince HAMLET!" [the capitalization and italicization are all from the original]. And in the body of the poem itself: `His breath, he thinks the smoke! his tongue a coal! Then runs for bottle-ale to quench his thirst; Runs to his ink-pot, drinks! then stops the hole! And thus grows madder than he was at first. TASSO he finds, by that at HAMLET thinks Terms him a madman, then of his inkhorn drinks! Calls players "fools! The Fool, he judgeth wiseth, Will learn them action out of Chaucer's *Pander,* Proves of their poets bawds, even in the highest, Then drinks a health! and swears it is no slander." Puts off his clothes! his shirt he only wears! Much like mad HAMLET, thus, as Passion tears!' With apologies for the exclamation points, it does show a marked enthusiasm for the play, with specifically Shake-speare's in mind. Directly addressing the question of the performances at the Universities, Clarendon states that "no evidence has yet to be discovered of the occasion on which the play was acted the the 2 universities; but if we might hazard a conjecture, it seems not improbable that it might have been at some entertainment in honor of the king's accession..." When the Hamlet Quarto of 1604 was published with the Plantagenets' coat-of-arms on the title page, it was a noteworthy event, as though the play had finally been presented in the condition in which its author meant it to be seen. Might we not infer that the play of Hamlet *was* given preferential treatment by the censors? J. Mucci GTE VisNet (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 16:28 ET Subject: Dumb Show As to Wes Folkerth's question about Claudius and the dumb show, J. Dover Wilson, in , proposed (common-sensibly enough) that C. is involved in conversation with somebody else and just doesn't notice. (I have seen, but forget where, the suggestion that he has enough nerve to sit through the renactment of his crime once, but breaks when it comes around, in more detail, the second time.) Wilson was also one of the first to propose that Hamlet has glimpsed C. and P. slipping behind the arras and hence, knowing that Ophelia is now a conspirator, treats her harshly. But I agree with Scott Shepherd that both Hamlet and Claudius become more interesting figures if we don't take them off the hook, as it were, by giving them easy-out motives and repeating well-worn theatrical devices. Draconically, Dave Evett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 09:18:24 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0962 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0962. Tuesday, 29 November 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 28 Nov 94 18:47:18 CST Subj: Authorship (2) From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 12:58:32 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Authorship: Happy Trails, Pat... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 28 Nov 94 18:47:18 CST Subject: Authorship I've been on an e-mail-inaccessible Thanksgiving holiday for most of the last week, so I haven't been able until now to respond to Bradley Berens' queries. First of all, I understand the weariness this latest authorship thread has engendered; I've been getting tired of it myself, and my tolerance for this sort of thing is, I think, much higher than most people's. Pat Buckridge and I had pretty much decided that it was time to take it to the sidelines and just e-mail each other directly, as we did when last spring's authorship thread petered out, but since other people have started contributing comments again, I guess we can keep this thing going for a while at least. Anyone is free to delete these messages. I do agree, though, that it would be a good idea to take it in some new directions. So, as for Bradley Berens' questions: 1) I had not read Leah Marcus' book, but last night I took a look at it, or at least at the first chapter. I agree that she has some interesting things to say; she's clearly not sympathetic to anti-Stratfordians (I think "corrosive" counts as criticism), but on the other hand I can see Pat Buckridge taking some of what she says and trying to turn it to his own advantage. I've tried to avoid getting into the sociology and psychology of anti-Stratfordianism in favor of sticking to the facts, but I do have some thoughts. I think Marcus is right that Oxfordians want to "save" Shakespeare by reassigning the works to someone with a more comforting pedigree and life story; her observation that anti-Stratfordian activity has increased when the British national identity has been threatened, as during and after the two World Wars, is interesting if maybe a little oversimplified. (Baconianism flourished most widely when the British Empire was at its peak, but I think there were other factors at work there.) I don't particularly feel like getting too deeply into this sociological/ psychological stuff at the moment, since it tends to make both sides hostile very quickly, but let me just say a few things. The Oxfordian theory is in fact a conspiracy theory, and the conspiracy required is fairly massive and widespread, despite what people like Charlton Ogburn would like you to think. Anyone is free to believe in this conspiracy if they want to, but your belief in that conspiracy must be a matter of faith, since the external evidence for it is exactly nil. Ultimately, the Oxfordian theory is unfalsifiable --- both the considerable evidence that the plays were written by William Shakespeare and the complete lack of evidence that they were written by Oxford, plus the unflattering personal picture of Oxford which the historical record has left us, are dismissed as the result of the conspiracy. Our reasons for believing that William Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems which were published under his name are the same as our reasons for believing pretty much any historical fact from 400 years ago. Similarly, our reasons for believing that the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford was a selfish, unpleasant man who dabbled in poetry when it was in vogue at court but then wasted away his considerable estate by the age of 40, spending the last 15 years of his life not doing much of anything except complaining, are of a similar nature. If anyone wants to believe otherwise, be my guest, but please don't tell me I'm turning a blind eye to the "truth", because I don't want to argue about religion. 2) As for the second question, namely "Who cares who wrote Shakespeare?", it's one that's been asked many, many times, and answered in many, many ways. Since I'm tired right now from my answer to (1) above, I won't try to go into any depth. My main purpose in these various authorship threads has been to keep the facts straight, because I think the discussion at least deserves that much. It would be theoretically possible to present the Oxfordian case without any factual distortions, but I don't know that I've ever seen it done. Another of my purposes, I think, has been to establish exactly what it is that the Oxfordian theory requires one to believe. The Oxfordian literature is filled with claims which make the theory more palatable to a newcomer (e.g. "The Oxford theory is not a conspiracy theory"; "There is a mysterious lack of information about William Shakespeare of Stratford") but which do not stand up to scrutiny. If, once we get all the facts straight and we establish just how extensive the conspiracy is required to be, people still want to believe this theory, fine. At that point, my work will be done, because as I said above I'm not interested in arguing about matters of faith. There's more I could say, but I've gone on long enough. I'm not sure how long I'll be interested in this, but if people have comments on the above I'd be glad to hear them. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 12:58:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Authorship: Happy Trails, Pat... Dear Pat, Thanks for your interest in SHAXICON. I'm sorry not to have been more clear. Thus, one last note--and this the last that you'll hear from me, since we both have more important work to do than to continue this unfruitful discussion: As I have already noted (and as you seem to understand) SHAXICON only supplies probable "sequence." By way of metaphor, let's say that there's a ten-car wreck on the freeway. All ten cars are towed to the same gas station, but in no particular order. A wrecked white Mustang is lacking its radiator ornament. White paint and a little chrome mustang are found on the crunched rear bumper of a green Cadillac. Green paint and GMC headlight-glass are found on the crunched rear bumper of a blue Dodge van. Our best bet, given the available evidence, is that the ten-car pileup included the sequence "white Mustang > green Cadillac > blue Dodge minivan (and so on for the remaining wrecks). We don't yet know anything particular about "chronology." We don't know at what minute each car was hit. Intervals between collisions may have varied. We cannot even be CERTAIN that the actual historical sequence is that which we have established by means of material evidence. But if our established sequence matches that of an eyewitness, then we're in reasonably good shape. Now let's suppose that someone comes along, noisily insisting that the wreck cannot have happened at all because he happens to know that half of the damaged cars, at the time of the pile-up, were safely parked in an Oxford garage...well, what can I say? One wishes to be diplomatic. One also wishes to inspect the poor fellow for head injuries, just in case he needs assistance. If the skull seems whole and sound, we shall do well to thank the man for his interest, and then to carry on with the business at hand. The so-called "Shakespeare establishment" has not wished to be rude to Dr. Looney or to his followers, but neither is there a conspiracy among us to silence the anti-Stratfordians as the anti-Stratfordians have sometimes wished to believe. I mean, hey, it's a free country... SHAXICON's sequence for Shakespearean texts is similarly derived fr. "material evidence"--from the lexical debris deposited by each Shakespearean text upon other Shakespearean texts. SHAXICON by itself cannot tell us whether the plays and poems were written from 1590-1613 or from 1950-1994. Chronology is made possible, in the case of Shakespeare, only by collating SHAXICON's record with external data, such as records of actual performance. As it happens, the periodic peaks of lexical influence for each play precisely match what we know from archival records concerning the performance of Shakespeare's plays. Unfortunately, we lack a complete record of early performance and revivals, but what we do know corresponds quite nicely with the evidence of SHAXICON. "But keep your way, i'God's name; I have done." Benedict-like, I shall end with a jade's trick, by simply disengaging myself from this unprofitable debate. Good bye. I wish you all the best in your research. If, someday, you are able to prove that "Shakespeare" was merely a conspiracy, I will be the first to applaud your achievement, since there shall then be no more call for idle chat about these matters. In the meantime, pardon me for not joining the fray. Best wishes, Don Foster ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 17:11:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0962 Authorship From: BOE::HMCOOK "Hardy M. Cook" 29-NOV-1994 09:18:25.57 To: MX%"SHAKSPER@UTORONTO.BITNET" CC: HMCOOK Subj: SHK 5.0962 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0962. Tuesday, 29 November 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 28 Nov 94 18:47:18 CST Subj: Authorship (2) From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 12:58:32 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Authorship: Happy Trails, Pat... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 28 Nov 94 18:47:18 CST Subject: Authorship I've been on an e-mail-inaccessible Thanksgiving holiday for most of the last week, so I haven't been able until now to respond to Bradley Berens' queries. First of all, I understand the weariness this latest authorship thread has engendered; I've been getting tired of it myself, and my tolerance for this sort of thing is, I think, much higher than most people's. Pat Buckridge and I had pretty much decided that it was time to take it to the sidelines and just e-mail each other directly, as we did when last spring's authorship thread petered out, but since other people have started contributing comments again, I guess we can keep this thing going for a while at least. Anyone is free to delete these messages. I do agree, though, that it would be a good idea to take it in some new directions. So, as for Bradley Berens' questions: 1) I had not read Leah Marcus' book, but last night I took a look at it, or at least at the first chapter. I agree that she has some interesting things to say; she's clearly not sympathetic to anti-Stratfordians (I think "corrosive" counts as criticism), but on the other hand I can see Pat Buckridge taking some of what she says and trying to turn it to his own advantage. I've tried to avoid getting into the sociology and psychology of anti-Stratfordianism in favor of sticking to the facts, but I do have some thoughts. I think Marcus is right that Oxfordians want to "save" Shakespeare by reassigning the works to someone with a more comforting pedigree and life story; her observation that anti-Stratfordian activity has increased when the British national identity has been threatened, as during and after the two World Wars, is interesting if maybe a little oversimplified. (Baconianism flourished most widely when the British Empire was at its peak, but I think there were other factors at work there.) I don't particularly feel like getting too deeply into this sociological/ psychological stuff at the moment, since it tends to make both sides hostile very quickly, but let me just say a few things. The Oxfordian theory is in fact a conspiracy theory, and the conspiracy required is fairly massive and widespread, despite what people like Charlton Ogburn would like you to think. Anyone is free to believe in this conspiracy if they want to, but your belief in that conspiracy must be a matter of faith, since the external evidence for it is exactly nil. Ultimately, the Oxfordian theory is unfalsifiable --- both the considerable evidence that the plays were written by William Shakespeare and the complete lack of evidence that they were written by Oxford, plus the unflattering personal picture of Oxford which the historical record has left us, are dismissed as the result of the conspiracy. Our reasons for believing that William Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems which were published under his name are the same as our reasons for believing pretty much any historical fact from 400 years ago. Similarly, our reasons for believing that the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford was a selfish, unpleasant man who dabbled in poetry when it was in vogue at court but then wasted away his considerable estate by the age of 40, spending the last 15 years of his life not doing much of anything except complaining, are of a similar nature. If anyone wants to believe otherwise, be my guest, but please don't tell me I'm turning a blind eye to the "truth", because I don't want to argue about religion. 2) As for the second question, namely "Who cares who wrote Shakespeare?", it's one that's been asked many, many times, and answered in many, many ways. Since I'm tired right now from my answer to (1) above, I won't try to go into any depth. My main purpose in these various authorship threads has been to keep the facts straight, because I think the discussion at least deserves that much. It would be theoretically possible to present the Oxfordian case without any factual distortions, but I don't know that I've ever seen it done. Another of my purposes, I think, has been to establish exactly what it is that the Oxfordian theory requires one to believe. The Oxfordian literature is filled with claims which make the theory more palatable to a newcomer (e.g. "The Oxford theory is not a conspiracy theory"; "There is a mysterious lack of information about William Shakespeare of Stratford") but which do not stand up to scrutiny. If, once we get all the facts straight and we establish just how extensive the conspiracy is required to be, people still want to believe this theory, fine. At that point, my work will be done, because as I said above I'm not interested in arguing about matters of faith. There's more I could say, but I've gone on long enough. I'm not sure how long I'll be interested in this, but if people have comments on the above I'd be glad to hear them. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Monday, 28 Nov 1994 12:58:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Authorship: Happy Trails, Pat... Dear Pat, Thanks for your interest in SHAXICON. I'm sorry not to have been more clear. Thus, one last note--and this the last that you'll hear from me, since we both have more important work to do than to continue this unfruitful discussion: As I have already noted (and as you seem to understand) SHAXICON only supplies probable "sequence." By way of metaphor, let's say that there's a ten-car wreck on the freeway. All ten cars are towed to the same gas station, but in no particular order. A wrecked white Mustang is lacking its radiator ornament. White paint and a little chrome mustang are found on the crunched rear bumper of a green Cadillac. Green paint and GMC headlight-glass are found on the crunched rear bumper of a blue Dodge van. Our best bet, given the available evidence, is that the ten-car pileup included the sequence "white Mustang > green Cadillac > blue Dodge minivan (and so on for the remaining wrecks). We don't yet know anything particular about "chronology." We don't know at what minute each car was hit. Intervals between collisions may have varied. We cannot even be CERTAIN that the actual historical sequence is that which we have established by means of material evidence. But if our established sequence matches that of an eyewitness, then we're in reasonably good shape. Now let's suppose that someone comes along, noisily insisting that the wreck cannot have happened at all because he happens to know that half of the damaged cars, at the time of the pile-up, were safely parked in an Oxford garage...well, what can I say? One wishes to be diplomatic. One also wishes to inspect the poor fellow for head injuries, just in case he needs assistance. If the skull seems whole and sound, we shall do well to thank the man for his interest, and then to carry on with the business at hand. The so-called "Shakespeare establishment" has not wished to be rude to Dr. Looney or to his followers, but neither is there a conspiracy among us to silence the anti-Stratfordians as the anti-Stratfordians have sometimes wished to believe. I mean, hey, it's a free country... SHAXICON's sequence for Shakespearean texts is similarly derived fr. "material evidence"--from the lexical debris deposited by each Shakespearean text upon other Shakespearean texts. SHAXICON by itself cannot tell us whether the plays and poems were written from 1590-1613 or from 1950-1994. Chronology is made possible, in the case of Shakespeare, only by collating SHAXICON's record with external data, such as records of actual performance. As it happens, the periodic peaks of lexical influence for each play precisely match what we know from archival records concerning the performance of Shakespeare's plays. Unfortunately, we lack a complete record of early performance and revivals, but what we do know corresponds quite nicely with the evidence of SHAXICON. "But keep your way, i'God's name; I have done." Benedict-like, I shall end with a jade's trick, by simply disengaging myself from this unprofitable debate. Good bye. I wish you all the best in your research. If, someday, you are able to prove that "Shakespeare" was merely a conspiracy, I will be the first to applaud your achievement, since there shall then be no more call for idle chat about these matters. In the meantime, pardon me for not joining the fray. Best wishes, Don Foster ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 19:59:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0970 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0970. Sunday, 4 December 1994. (1) From: Chris Fassler Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:53:14 -0500 Subj: Authorship and history (2) From: Richard J Kennedy | Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 16:27:48 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0962 Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chris Fassler Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:53:14 -0500 Subject: Authorship and history Colleagues, At the risk of further irritating those of us who are weary of the authorship thread and of placing a further burden on Pat Buckridge to carry the Oxfordian banner, I am compelled by a recent comment to ask for a clarification from Buckridge: > If the Oxford authorship had the effect of enhancing the value > and interest of Shakespeare's work as *literature*, I don't think > that would necessarily be a bad thing. > > If it did have this effect, by the way, it would not be because > Oxford was not 'a man of the theatre', as is so often claimed > (dubiously - but that's a separate argument). It would be > *because the Oxford authorship makes the plays so pregnant with > historical meaning* [emphasis added] that their interest as > historical artefacts might, at least for a while, rival their > interest as playscripts for contemporary actors and directors to > exercise their interpretive talents. In the heat of the moment, Buckridge seems to have implied that only those works of *literature* written by aristocrats can be "pregnant with historical meaning"--or at least pregnant enough to be worthy of our scholarly interest. Surely this is not what he means, and surely he can more satisfactorily *summarize* his view of historical meaning in light of the authorship question. Wouldn't the historical significance of Oxfordian authorship go beyond the revelation of snippy, petty, ad hominem allusions, such as the portrayal of Burghley as a vacuous old fart (Pollonius)? Happy to return to the shadows, --Chris Fassler Winthrop University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy | Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 16:27:48 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0962 Authorship Foster's study is flawed from the start because the assumption it is based on is wrong. He supposes that his results prove that the playwright, being an actor, imprinted on his brain ceretain "rare words" that he himself had to memorize and act out on the stage. These fresh new words, so the theory goes, just naturally found a way into the next play that he wrote. Now it's obvious that we don't know anything at all, nor have we any precedent to believe that this is how the creative process works. But that is a small jump. The big jump Foster makes is to assume that the actor from Stratford wrote the plays. Foster is merely inventing that. There is no proof that the man from Stratford wrote a single sentence in his whole life. When he was dead for seven years, he is first put up as the writer of the plays, and not a moment before. But yet Kathman says it is a good study, and can't imagine any other "assumption" that fits. Since we're taking a lot of liberty here, why not imagine this: The parts in which those *rare words* occur were the parts played by an actor who always wanted some fresh words to say, and the playwright obliged. I've had to invent this actor and imagine his temper, but it's more reasonable than inventing a story that the man from Stratford could write plays, or write anything more than his own name. There's no proof of that at all, and even the Stratfordians admit it. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 19:59:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0968 Shakespeare on WWW From: BOE::HMCOOK "Hardy M. Cook" 2-DEC-1994 11:01:23.42 To: MX%"SHAKSPER@UTORONTO.BITNET" CC: HMCOOK Subj: SHK 5.0968 Shakespeare on WWW Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0968. Friday, 2 December 1994. (1) From: Andreas Schlenger Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 16:47:14 +0200 (MESZ) Subj: Shakespeare on WWW (2) From: Peter Scott Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 06:06:09 -0600 (CST) Subj: WWW>Shakespeare Globe Centre (3) From: Terrance Kearns Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:58:59 CST6CDT Subj: New WWW Shakespeare site (4) From: Sarah Werner Date: Friday, 2 Dec 1994 08:09:59 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: new www-site (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andreas Schlenger Date: Friday, 25 Nov 1994 16:47:14 +0200 (MESZ) Subject: Shakespeare on WWW Since last week there is a new Shakespeare page available via WWW. It's called the "International Shakespeare Globe Centre Germany - Info-Board at the University of Cologne" (A long name, I know ;-)), the address is: http://www.rrz.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/SHAKESPEARE/index.html Its aim is to inform anyone who is interested, about activities concerning the rebuilding of the Globe Theatre in London. This service is still very much in the beginning, but it already offers a useful platform to Shakespeare-Sites on the Internet, as well as some pictures. Although the few pieces of written information are only available in German yet, an English version is planned and in progress. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Scott Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 06:06:09 -0600 (CST) Subject: WWW>Shakespeare Globe Centre [ Article crossposted from rec.arts.theatre.plays ] [ Author was Andreas Schlenger ] [ Posted on 28 Nov 1994 18:41:30 GMT ] INTERNATIONAL SHAKESPEARE GLOBE CENTRE GERMANY INFORMATION PAGES AT COLOGNE UNIVERSITY If you are interested in the progress of the Globe Theatre reconstruction in London or if you just like to know more about the idea behind the "International Shakespeare Globe Centre", have a look at: http://www.rrz.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/SHAKESPEARE/ Since this site is quite new, most of the information is still under construction. But you can already have a look at some links to Shakespeare-related sites on the Internet. Some photos and drawings with relation to the "new Globe" are available as well. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terrance Kearns Date: Wednesday, 30 Nov 1994 09:58:59 CST6CDT Subject: New WWW Shakespeare site SHAKSPEReans will be interested in the new Web site devoted to Shakespeare at Cologne University. The URL follows: http://www.rrz.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/SHAKESPEARE/ Regards, Terrance Kearns Dept. of English University of Central Arkansas (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sarah Werner Date: Friday, 2 Dec 1994 08:09:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: new www-site INTERNATIONAL SHAKESPEARE GLOBE CENTRE GERMANY INFORMATION PAGES AT COLOGNE UNIVERSITY If you are interested in the progress of the Globe Theatre reconstruction in London or if you just like to know more about the idea behind the "International Shakespeare Globe Centre", have a look at: http://www.rrz.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/SHAKESPEARE/ Since this site is quite new, most of the information is still under construction. But you can already have a look at some links to Shakespeare-related sites on the Internet. Some photos and drawings with relation to the "new Globe" are available as well. I haven't tried this myself, but for those of you interested in the Globe Centre it could be useful-- Sarah Werner University of Pennsylvania ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 20:13:03 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0971 Re: *Pericles* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0971. Sunday, 4 December 1994. (1) From: Kathleen Campbell Date: Friday, 02 Dec 94 11:34:13 EST Subj: Re: Pericles (2) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Friday, 2 Dec 1994 14:12:56 -0600 Subj: Pericles (3) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Thursday, 1 Dec 1994 12:01:51 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0960 *Pericles* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Campbell Date: Friday, 02 Dec 94 11:34:13 EST Subject: Re: Pericles Robert F. O'Conner asked about productions of *Pericles* I directed the show about five years ago at George Mason University. There were several productions at Shakespeare festivals about the same time and there have been a few other interesting productions. I know Stratford, Ont. has done several productions, and there have been several English ones as well. On the whole it is rarely done, partially, I'm sure becase of the problems with the script. But I like the play and enjoyed working on it. (I'm thinking of doing *Cymbeline* next.) We had a cast of 18 playing something close to a hundred roles (counting every appearance by an actor, speaking or not, as a different character), most of which are specified in the script. I'll try to find my file with more detail on other productions and give you some specific names and dates. Kathleen Campbell kcampbell@austinc.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow Date: Friday, 2 Dec 1994 14:12:56 -0600 Subject: Pericles In reply to Robert O'Connor's query about recent productions of *Pericles*, I just finished directing it a few weeks ago. I am including a draft of my director's notes from the program for any who are interested. I also have heard of an Acting Company production of the play which was quite wonderful. Seems to me the whole problem of the play is the creation of a concept that can keep the whole story (and it is mighty expansive) in the realm of one conceptual world. I hope this helps. Director's Notes Since the announcement of the our season last May, I have received two types of responses to my selection of Pericles for this season. First, and most numerous, is from the non-theatre community. It goes something likes this, "Shakespeare wrote it?!? I never heard of it." The second is from the theatre community and sounds something like, "Why would you choose that?!? It's awful." The answer to both questions lies in the questions themselves. But let me tell you more of the story. . . Last spring, after it was decided that I would direct Shakespeare this year, I set about once again leafing through the plays wondering, "which one?" I was thinking about finding one with more numerous female roles, so I turned immediately to the Romances. The four Romances, The Tempest, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale are perhaps, as a group, the most difficult to produce for a modern audience. I've always felt this somewhat strange considering they were some of his best ticket sellers during his lifetime. But they contain very fantastical events (reincarnations, being eaten by bears, statues coming alive, etc.) and cover long spans of time and place. Sort of an Elizabethan Odyssey. Mythic in its proportions. Difficult for a modern audience to accept--we like our stories neat, tidy, and believable. Still, I persisted. I played Prospero once, so Tempest was out. A Winter's Tale was recently produced at the Guthrie and I don't need that kind of competition. That left just two. As I read this play, I kept being drawn to three things. The first is the sort of mythic across-time-and-space kind of love story that exists between Thaisa and Pericles. Pericles is an "everyman" just trying to survive this thing called life. Thaisa is so devoted that she becomes a nun when she loses Pericles (actually, he loses her). Second, there is the reconciliation of Marina and Pericles. A reconciliation that takes place only because SHE is strong and alive enough for the both of them. In fact, this reconciliation is far more important structurally and thematically than is Pericles and Thaisa's. I find her one of the most intriguing characters Shakespeare ever drew--male or female. Last, there is the narrator, John Gower. Rather than just naming him "chorus" as is usual, Shakespeare has used a real medieval poet to "sing a song of old." So I had a play. But given the second question from above, the question is, "How do I make this thing work?" First, there is the epic, fantastical nature of the play. To my mind, it is much like the film "The Princess Bride" of recent memory. It was fantastical, but we all believed and enjoyed it. So I had one piece to the puzzle and then, as I looked again at Gower's opening, I saw a sign for Jesse James Days. There it was. The epic from "our" past. My students jokingly refer to it as ""The Princess Bride" meets "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Actually, maybe that's not too far off. This show reflects some of the romanticizing of our own past--the pioneer West. And so, we find ourselves back at the beginning--the answer: BECAUSE you haven't heard of it, and BECAUSE I want to try to make what most think is a bad play WORK. Enjoy, and cross your fingers--I'm out on a conceptual limb. Timothy Dayne Pinnow Dept. of Speech-Theater St. Olaf College (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Thursday, 1 Dec 1994 12:01:51 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0960 *Pericles* Dear everyone, and Robert O'Connor in particular, I've never heard of the Australian company you mentioned, but I would love to see them if I can get close enough. Do you know either their touring schedule or anybody who might know it? About producions of Pericles, I know of several, although I don't know much about how they were received. The earliest that comes to mind in this century is a 1948 production at the Straford Memorial Theater in 1948 with Paul Scofield in the title role. Scofield's performance has been preserved on Caedemon's recording of the play which was done in the mid-sixties, and which I've seen in several university libraries. I also own it myself, and I would be happy to tape it for you if you would like to hear it. The SMT did the play again in 1959. Tony Richardson (*Tom Jones*, *Look Back in Anger*, *Hamlet* with Nicol Williamson) directed, and Richard Johnson played Pericles. Richardson had wanted Paul Robeson, who was playing Othello at Stratford that same season, to play Gower as a Caribbean Sailor/Shantyman. Robeson couldn't do it (I don't know why), but another black actor/singer did. There was an RSC production in either the late 60's or early 70's starring Ian Richardson, and another a few years ago with Nigel Terry (King Arthur in *Excaliber*). I've seen production photos of both, but I don't know anything else about them. Tho Old Vic left the play out of Michael Benthal's five-year plan in the 50's because *Pericles* does not appear in the First Folio. (I think that was why.) And Peter Hall left it out of the sequence of the Romances which he did in 1988 as his final project as Artistic Director of the National Theater of GB. The National did it last year on the Olivier stage (I think), but I know nothing about the production. The Prospect Theater Company did the play in 1973 or 1974 with Derek Jacobi as Pericles and Harold Innocent (Burgundy in Brannagh's *Henry V*) in drag as the Bawd. I get the impression from a poster for that production that it was in modern dress. There is also the BBC television production with Mike Gwyllim (sp?) in the title role. The Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada did a production as part of a Romances sequence in 1988. (They left out *The Tempest*.) A Stratford regular, Nicholas Pennell (who payed Antiochus and Boult in '88), lists the title role as one of his many Festival credits so they must have done the play sometime in the 70's, but I don't know when. The Seattle Rep. did a production last year with a black actor, Isaiah Whitlock, as Pericles, and the Oregon Shakespeare festival at Ashland also used a black Pericles a few years ago. The only production of the play I have ever seen was at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in 1993. I was a member of that company, but did not perform in this production. The production was directed by Joel Fink, the Festival's casting director. The text was heavily cut, and it was beautifully designed along what I guess you would call traditional lines: Grecian rather than Jacobean. I don't know what to say of the production as a whole. The cast were my friends, and I thought they were wonderful. As I remember reviewers tended to applaud the production while not knowing quite what to make of the play. I'm sorry to include so much, and at the same time say so little of substance. But perhaps, if you're still curious, this will give you some idea as to where to look for more in depth information. Sincerely, Matt Henerson ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 20:43:58 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0972 Re: Falstaff's Age Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0972. Sunday, 4 December 1994. (1) From: David Evett Date: Friday, 2 Dec 94 13:19:31 EST Subj: [Falstaff's Age] (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 03 Dec 1994 11:05:15 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0966 Re: Falstaff's Age (3) From: Shirley Kagan Date: Saturday, 3 Dec 1994 12:53:26 -1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0966 Re: Falstaff's Age (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett Date: Friday, 2 Dec 94 13:19:31 EST Subject: [Falstaff's Age] I join what I suppose will be a small chorus of SHAKSPERians posting to remind E. L. Epstein that Falstaff himself admits to 50- plus: "his age some fifty, or, by 'r lady, inclining to threescore" (1H4 2.4.418-19); later in the same scene he concedes white hair as well. But no more than those other pilgrims passing through the sixth decade, Don Quixote and Goethe's Faust, does he seem a "tottering oldster" to a 58-year-old guy with gray hair; it's apparently his vast belly and lively instinct for self- preservation, not his stiffening joints, that disable him in the later stages of the Gadshill exploit and the encounter with the Douglas; he's fit enough to lead his ragamuffins "where they are peppered," to lug Hotspur's guts off the stage, and, in Part 2, to dismay Sir John Coleville into surrendering. (Shades of Maurice Morgann!) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Saturday, 03 Dec 1994 11:05:15 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0966 Re: Falstaff's Age Thank you Mr. Gero, for the information on Falstaff's age. So Falstaff also, like Faust and Don Quixote, is in his late fifties or early sixties! S am I. I don't know whether this makes me feel better or worse.E L Epstein Thank you also Mr. Moore. I was wondering if the line would get a laugh. I think it probably would then, if not now. E L Epstein Thank you also, Messieurs Conner and Lawrence. I will check up on the possible time problems with Falstaff's service with the Duke of Norfolk. E L Epstein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Shirley Kagan Date: Saturday, 3 Dec 1994 12:53:26 -1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0966 Re: Falstaff's Age In *Merry Wives* Mistress Page speaks of Falstaff as "one that is well- nigh worn to pieces with age" (II;ii; 21). This is vague but helpful, especially coming from a woman who is old enough to have a girl of marriagable age. Shirley. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 20:58:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0973 Q: PD Images, Clips Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0973. Sunday, 4 December 1994. From: Michael Martin Date: Thursday, 01 Dec 1994 00:42:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Looking for PD Shakespeare images, clips, etc. Hi folks, I'm new to this conference, so please redirect me if I'm somehow misposting here. I'm looking for public domain clips from Shakespeare plays, productions in still, motion, or audio format. Diagrams of the Globe and Rose theatres or illustrations of costumes would be great too. All suggestions welcome. Thanks, Michael ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Dec 1994 21:39:19 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0974 Re: *Shrew*; *Rom.*; Boy Actors; Globe Project; Dating Ham. Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0974. Sunday, 4 December 1994. (1) From: Ann Chance Date: Thursday, 1 Dec 1994 14:31:12 +0800 (WST) Subj: The reproduction of the *Shrew* (2) From: Marcia Hepps Date: Friday, 02 Dec 1994 12:41:43 EST Subj: R & J (3) From: William Proctor Williams Date: Friday, 02 Dec 94 11:12 CST Subj: boy actors (4) From: Paul Nelsen Date: Friday, Dec. 2, 1994 09:53:05 1994 Subj: Status of Globe project (5) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 94 16:47:27 CST Subj: Dating Hamlet (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ann Chance Date: Thursday, 1 Dec 1994 14:31:12 +0800 (WST) Subject: The reproduction of the *Shrew* Unlike David Maier, I didn't have the opportunity to see the Tygre's Heart production. However, I must admit that I have some difficulty in understanding how all-female casting 'bypasses' the real moral problems that the play presents - or perhaps *should* present - for a modern audience, any more than an all-Jewish cast would solve the problem of anti-Semitic elements (another can of worms?) in the *Merchant*. Richard Jones remarks that this discussion is 'interesting at least in part for what it reveals about us, as well as what it may reveal about the play.' I agree: it does compel me to speculate as to the relative demographics of those who are somewhat disturbed by the play and its persistent popularity, compared with those who insist upon its production as a romantic comedy. Along with Diane Henderson and Shirley Kagan, I am curious (and concerned) as to why the 'game' is still being played, and why, on the other hand, 'ideologically correct' directors apply such extremes of energy and ingenuity in attempting to rehabilitate this play. (Perhaps an examination of the '*Shrew* phenomenon' could form a flip-side to Gavin Witt's study of Shakespearean fads?) Apart from Kate, her taming, and her final monologue, I see profound problems with regard to the other female characters, their relationships with one another, and what each of them represents. I have often wondered about the possible effect of playing Bianca and the Widow as feminist heroines, at least partially at the expense of Katherina. (Has anybody ever seen this done?) Perhaps some interesting ambivalences might be set up, in the recent fashion of making it a 'problem play'. One *Shrew* which I found interesting *and* entertaining was a 1985 production by Britain's Medieval Players. It cross-gender cast the female characters and their suitors: a six-foot-plus male Katherina playing opposite a diminutive female Petruchio. The characters were played according to their gender, without any intention of camp, and thanks to the extraordinary talent and sincerity of the actor playing Katherina, audience members were moved to tears at the spectacle of female frustration, anger, despair and helplessness at the height of her 'taming'. The production was still - on the whole - a comedy, though a rather dark one, and not romantic. Ann Chance University of Western Australia (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marcia Hepps Date: Friday, 02 Dec 1994 12:41:43 EST Subject: R & J First, unending thanks to all those out ther who offered so much help about cutting the piece. I have done the cutting and am heading into auditions and would very much like to correspond with any one out there who has directed the piece and has anecdotes, pitfalls to avoid, words of wisdom,unanswered questions etc. or from anyone who would like to talk about the piece. I am doing it period because my school hasn't staged shakespeare (or any real period plays) for many years but if I could do it modern dress with and unlimited budget... I think the Verona of the play is much like our society today. We've seen it all done it all had it all and this is very little that affects us short of good old fashioned blood and violence. In modern dress I would have film crews abounding and use the currently popular video moniters and after Romeo kills Tybalt I'd have him leave in a white Ford Bronco. What d'ya think? (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Proctor Williams Date: Friday, 02 Dec 94 11:12 CST Subject: boy actors There has been a good bit of tosh on this list about boy actors in the pre-1660 English theatre: The Characters of Women, on former Theatres were perform'd by Boys, or young Men of the most effeminate Aspect. Colley Cibber +An Apology. . . . .+ Much could be said for the resoring of the celibate stage. Harley Granville-Barker Have a look at Michael Jamieson's piece in +Papers Mainly Shakespearian+ ed. Duthie, Aberdeen, 1964. And let us hear no more on this subject. William Proctor Williams Northern Illinois University (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Nelsen Date: Friday, Dec. 2, 1994 09:53:05 1994 Subject: Status of Globe project Fred Wharton asked (about the current status of the International Shakespeare Globe Centre project and about the prospect of future archeology on the Rose and Globe sites. I will return to London in January to investigate the matters first hand ( I will write a report for the Winter 1995 issue of *Shakespeare Bulletin*) but here is a summary of the current situation. Following the sadness of Sam Wanamaker's passing last December, the sudden death of Globe architect Theo Crosby on 12 September jolted everyone concerned with the Globe project. Theo had suffered a coronary last February, received by-pass surgery, and seemed to all last summer to be advancing toward full recovery. His vision. immense knowledge, wry wit, and resilient patience are missed but substantial evidence of them are immortalized in features of the ISGC project. Theo's able associate Jon Greenfield now takes the lead in overseeing the completion of Theo's design and scheme for decoration. The construction process has taken far more time than previously predicted -- official opening is now slated for August 1995. Builder Peter McCurdy has fashioned each member of the massive and complex oak frame with the fastidious care of a cabinetmaker. The last two of the fifteen audience gallery bays have been appended to the thirteen standing last summer . The roof covering many of the bays is already covered with thatch and all fifteen will be completed by January. Exterior walls of thirteen bays have been painstakingly plastered employing authentic historical recipes and methods. A giant disused hangar at Greenham Common (where cruise missiles used to be kept just outside London) has been rented to provide workshop space for McCurdy and crew to craft, undeterred by vicissitudes of weather, snug joinery for the puzzle of framework that will comprise the five bays of the stage house. The stage and its canopy are expected to be at least roughed-in by next August when a brief *Prologue Season* will be mounted within the unfinished playhouse. Painting, ornamentation, and finish detailing will follow the *Prologue Season* next fall. Wanamaker had pressed to have the entire theatre ready and polished for opening by 23 April 1995. Delays have tarnished expectations of when it will finally be done but they have not diminished determination to see the structure accomplished with care for and pride in its details. An exhibition offering background on the effort to rebuild the first Globe as authentically as possible opened on the site last August and is attracting many visitors who pay to be escorted along a guided tour. Theatre consultant Michael Holder, who has been an advisor to the project since its inception in 1971, now serves as Chief Executive. Efforts continue also to raise funds to complete the complex of buildings and exhibit spaces that will accompany the timber frame playhouse. Readers who would like to receive a periodic newsletter from the ISGC may subscribe by joining The Friends of Shakespeare's Globe: the annual subscription is ten pounds and should be sent to PO Box No. 70, London SE1 9EN.Further archeology on the original Globe site is unlikely in the near future. Convoluted political and financial obstacles block renewed excavation. Museum of London head archeologist Harvey Sheldon was fired in 1990 following his outspoken advocacy of the historical and informational value of carefully managed digs on the sites. One prospect is that success of the ISGC Globe as a tourist attraction will encourage the presently reluctant powers to exhume and enshrine whatever remains can be found. As Sheldon has cautioned, however, prudent planning must also resolve questions of how any remains, once discovered, may be examined and preserved. What the remains may have to tell us -- even how they might refute choices incorporated in the reconstructed Globe -- must for now remain hidden but protected in the soggy clay beneath the concrete surface of the Thames's south bank.I have recently learned, however, that the near future may bring archeological developments on other fronts. The Rose Trust is actively collecting funds to complete archeological examination of the 1989 site now encased beneath a concrete membrane in the basement of the office tower built above it. Plans call for removal and preservation of the foundation materials, further stratagraghic studies of the site, restoration of the foundation stones to their original position, and subsequent creation of a public museum/shrine installed in the basement grotto of the Rose Court office block. Of potentially greater interest is news that Benbow House, a building resting on the ground where the Bear Garden and Hope Theatre once stood, may be razed for new development. If the developer adheres to common practice, archeologist will supervise and examine excavation of the site. Valuable new archeological evidence may be found. Furthermore, I hear that The Shakespeare in Shoreditch Society is trying to raise support for archeological excavation of the site of The Theatre . The repercussions of the remarkable finds of the 1989 digs may yet shake further ventures into action. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 94 16:47:27 CST Subject: Dating Hamlet John Mucci claims that *Hamlet* was popular "long before 1600", the implication being that Shakespeare scholars have blinded themselves to the evidence that the consensus date of 1600-1601 for *Hamlet* is much too late. I realize where he's going with this, and for the record I feel I should make the following points. 1) The references to *Hamlet* by Nashe in 1589 and Lodge in 1596, as well as the 1594 entry in Henslowe's diary, merely prove that there was *a* play (or possibly more than one play) called *Hamlet*, without any implication that this was the same as Shakespeare's *Hamlet*; in fact, there are very good reasons for believing that this was not the same play as Shakespeare's. Nashe's 1589 reference, when looked at in context, is part of a veiled attack on a playwright/translator who can be identified with a high degree of confidence as Thomas Kyd; thus Kyd has usually been taken to be the author of the *Hamlet* Nashe alludes to. Lodge quotes the Ghost as saying "Hamlet, revenge", a line which is not in Shakespeare's play, and he, like Nashe, seems to be ridiculing the play (he says the Ghost cries "like an oysterwife"); the post-1600 reaction to Shakespeare's *Hamlet* did not include ridicule. There are, of course, many other instances of multiple plays on the same subject and with the same title, since Elizabethans, including Shakespeare, were constantly recycling old ideas and plot devices. There were at least a couple of other plays on Richard II, one preceding and one following Shakespeare's; there was at least one other play, possibly two plays, called *King Leare* or *Leir* which are demonstrably distinct from Shakespeare's; there was *The Famous Victories of Henry V*, which Shakespeare used in *Henry IV* and *Henry V*; and so on. There is no reason to believe that the Nashe-Lodge-Henslowe references are to a play by Shakespeare, and good reasons for believing that they refer to a now-lost play from the 1580s, probably by Kyd. 2) Gabriel Harvey's note does specifically refer to Shakespeare's *Hamlet*, but Mr. Mucci's dating of it as 1598 is rather misleading. Harvey wrote notes to himself all over the margins and blank pages of books he owned, and the note where he mentions *Hamlet* and *Venus and Adonis* is in a copy of Speght's Chaucer which was published in 1598, so the note cannot have been written before then. However, there is good reason to believe that the note was written later than 1598: the leaf preceding the *Hamlet* note contains a note which alludes to the banning of Harvey's books (probably as a result of his public feud with Thomas Nashe), an event which did not happen until mid-1599. Elsewhere in the note Harvey refers to the Earl of Essex in the present tense; this would seem to indicate that it was written before Essex's execution in February 1601, though some people have disputed this. So the note was probably written sometime between mid-1599 and early 1601, in the middle of which falls the consensus 1600 date of Hamlet. There are other complications that I'm not dealing with here, but these are concisely summarized in the introduction of Harold Jenkins' Arden edition of *Hamlet*. 3) Finally, Mr. Mucci says that the Tudor arms appear at the beginning of Q2 *Hamlet*, and asserts that this indicates that the play was finally appearing in the form in which the author intended it, and also that the play received special allowances from the censor. Neither of these claims has, to my knowledge, been advanced by any (non-Oxfordian) Shakespeare scholar, for the simple reason that there is no evidence to back them up. The Tudor arms, it is true, appear buried in the middle of the ornamental headpiece which stretches across the top of the first page of the 1604/5 Quarto of *Hamlet*. These had ceased to be the royal arms upon the death of Elizabeth nearly two years before, and so there is no reason to believe that this headpiece constituted any kind of a "royal seal of appoval"; the same headpiece appeared in many other books printed by James Roberts and his successor William Jaggard, including several of the surreptitious misdated Shakespeare quartos of 1619, which surely did not have any official sanction. That's enough for now. I'm not trying to close the discussion; I just thought the above needed to be said. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 08:52:55 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0977 Re; *Hamlet*: Dumb Show and Stage History Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0977. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 1994 22:49:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Hamlet's Dumb Show (2) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 16:42:25 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0961 Re: Dumb Show (3) From: Dom Saliani Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 1994 22:07:06 -0700 (MST) Subj: Hamlet: stage history (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 1994 22:49:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hamlet's Dumb Show I haven't been following this thread very closely, so I apologize if this point has been made. Stanley Cavell's essay "Hamlet's Burden of Proof" in DISOWNING KNOWLEDGE claims that the answer is obvious. Claudius doesn't react because that's not the way Hamlet died! Cavell goes on to suggest that old Hamlet dies, not because Claudius poured something into him, but because Hamlet poured something into Gertrude. I'm not sure how generally accepted Cavell's answer is, but his initial suggestion -- that old Hamlet wasn't poisoned in the ear -- I find tempting. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 16:42:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0961 Re: Dumb Show Regarding the dumb show and Claudio's rather understated response to it: Perhaps Claudio is only frightened by the play itself, since the murderer in the play itself is identified as "nephew to the king". In other words, the play and not the dumb-show offers more than a mirror, it offers a threat. Claudio is able to deal with his crime better than with its punishment, as his attempt at prayer shows. Cheerio, Sean. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 1994 22:07:06 -0700 (MST) Subject: Hamlet: stage history Thanks to John Mucci, Don Foster and David Kathman for responding to my query. I must say, however, that I am more confused than ever. Mucci mentions Nashe who in 1589 appears to allude to *Hamlet*. I checked for the complete reference and found that it included more than quoted by John. It reads: ... yet Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences as *blood is a beggar* and so forth; and if you entreate him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speeches ... What strikes me about this particular reference is that it would appear that in 1589, Nashe is referring to a printed version of *Hamlet* or am I being semantically challenged in my reading? The Gabriel Harvey quote is also very interesting. I accept Harold Jenkins attribution of this quote to the year 1598 for the reasons he outlines in the Arden edition of the play. But once again, I am struck by the curious suggestion that Harvey is also referring to a printed version of *Hamlet*. He mentions *Hamlet in the context of two obviously printed works *Venus* and *Lucrece* : ... The younger sort take much delight in Shakespeare's *Venus and Adonis*, but his *Lucrece*, AND his tragedy of *Hamlet* have it in THEM to please the wiser sort... *emphasis mine* I don't think that Harvey would be referring to Q1 here and it is quite obvious, with all due respect to David Kathman, that Harvey is not speaking about a stage production but rather a written text. Could it be that a manuscript version of the play was circulating among Shakespeare's private friends? I am grateful to John Mucci for his tip about Scolocer's *Daiphantus*. I was not aware of this reference to Hamlet and it is interesting to say the least. I am going to make it a priority to read the entire text of the poem. Where I do question John is in his concluding remarks in which he quotes Clarendon hazarding a conjecture that *it seems not improbable that it might have been at some entertainment in honor of the king's accession* that the play was performed. After reading Lilian Winstanly, I can't see how the play *Hamlet* could have ever been presented to James. There are just too many parallels between the life and character of James and Hamlet for such a performance to be tolerated. Dare I bring up the bitter attack on Burleigh through the character of Polonius as another reason for keeping a lid on the play? To repeat my question, why is it that the play *Hamlet* despite the numerous references to it before 1598 and its printing history in 1603-5 does not appear to have been performed in England till about 1619-20? Was the performance of the play prohibited. The play should have been a box-office smash and contemporary allusions to it should be a matter of public record if indeed it was performed during this period of time. Help! I am confused. Dom Saliani ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 11:30:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0979 Re: *AYL*: What Oliver Knows and When He Knows It Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0979. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: Charles Boyle Date: Monday, 05 Dec 1994 13:47:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: As You Like It (2) From: Robert Cohen Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 08:50:58 -0800 Subj: AYLI (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Boyle Date: Monday, 05 Dec 1994 13:47:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: As You Like It Arthur Pearson, I think you are absolutely right about Oliver knowing that Ganymede is Rosalind in the "bloody napkin" scene in *As You Like It*. He comes in knowing and with the intention of making her faint. It's the old trickster tricked gag Shakespeare loves so well. The bloody napkin, of course, is a menstruation joke. "Excuse me, my boy," Oliver is saying, "Is this yours?" It's really very funny if the actors play it right. His long tale is another shaggy dog story. His conversion is true enough - he is a spoiled brat who finally grows up, rather like Lear that way - but the green snakes and sucked lions are "dark and scary" night stuff, put in to unnerve Rosalind. After all, this material is either high comedy or bad melodrama. This guy doesn't write bad melodrama. In fact, much of Oliver's speech sounds like a parody of Philip Sidney at his worst. The whole play contains numerous echos of Sidney's only play, a masque called *The Lady of May*, which was also concerned with shepherds and foresters and a sly contrasting of Court and country life, that favored the latter. And Phebe's famous quoting of the dead Shepherd, "Who ever loved that loved not a first sight?" may be Shakespeare taking from Marlowe (it may be the reverse) but it certainly echoes the opening to Sidney's Sonnet 2, "Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot/Love gave the wound..." Indeed the whole Silvius\Phebe subplot reads like a satire of Sidney's famous - and some would say insincere - sonnet sequence written to Penelope Rich, elder sister to the Earl of Essex. The guise of shepherd and shepherdess was one often assumed by Sidney, Spenser and their literary friends for their amusement. For the modern actor this understanding allows for a vastly more sophisticated interpretation of these characters then is normally seen. By the way, has anyone out there seen any good writing on *As You Like It* as a comic meditation on the life of writers in exile? I've looked but so far I haven't found a thing. Charles Boyle (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Cohen Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 08:50:58 -0800 Subject: AYLI Whether Oliver sees through Rosalind/Ganymede's disguise has been worked over by directors and critics for several generations, largely based on the lines Arthur Peason quotes, plus Oliver's instruction to R/G to "counterfeit to be a man;" R/G's response, "So I do;" and Oliver's subsequent calling R/G "Rosalind" long before the jig is putatively up. If these lines are not absolutely clinching for the case that Oliver does catch on (and of course they can be argued around), such a reading can lead towards some wonderfully theatrical (if dangerous) moments. In my just-completed production, when Celia asks Oliver to help raise the fallen R/G ("I pray you, will you take him by the arm?), Oliver, pulling a bit too enthusiastically, ends up with R/G arms thrown about his neck, with the two of them landing in a full-on, breast-to-breast, standing embrace. It's at this point Oliver cries, "You, a man?" --to audience howls. Of course, this risks killing the play's climax, particularly if it can be thought that Oliver then tells Orlando of R/G's secret. I avoided that (I think) by repunctuating the last line of 4.3, so that instead of R/G's saying "I pray you commend my counterfeiting to him: will you go?" she/he instead says "I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him, will you?" Oliver nods 'yes,' and then R/G finishes the line with "Go." and they exit. i.e. Oliver will keep the secret. And when Oliver greets R/G as "fair sister" (in front of Orlando) in scene 5.2, he does so covertly and with a wink - which R/G reciprocates by squeezing his hand hard, and eliciting an "OK - I won't do it again" gesture. Thus Orlando's "greater wonders" can play, as R/G hopes, as the "pair of stairs to marriage" between Celia and Oliver. This reading lets you have your cake (the "body language" discovery of Rosalind's true gender by Oliver) and still feast on the surprises of the final scene. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 12:08:41 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0980 Qs: World View; Cardenio; Stratford; Female Frienships Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0980. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: Paul Silverman Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 18:00:48 -0800 Subj: Elizabethan Point of View (2) From: Timothy Reed Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 12:16:02 -0700 Subj: Cardenio reprise (3) From: Eric Grischkat Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 11:36:58 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: Stratford Festival auditions (4) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 12:22:29 +0001 (EST) Subj: [Female Friendships] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Silverman Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 18:00:48 -0800 Subject: Elizabethan Point of View Can somebody point me to some resources on the Elizabethan world view as applied to Shakespeare's plays, i.e. how a period Elizabethan would have seen, interpreted and reacted to the plays based on the beliefs, values and assumptions of the times? I'm not looking for overviews of Elizabethan beliefs, but more specific play-by-play discussions. Any recommendations? Paul Silverman wayback@netcom.com (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Reed Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 12:16:02 -0700 Subject: Cardenio reprise Searching through the archives of last year, I came across the brief discussion of Charles Hamilton's book claiming that "The Second Maiden's Tragedy" was, in fact, Shakespeare and Fletcher's "Cardenio." I was intrigued by some of Mr. Hamilton's arguments based on the handwriting of the SMT manuscript versus that of Shakespeare's will. Some of them seemed weak arguments, but I have no basis to disagree with his ability as a handwriting expert. I found his arguments on style to be sparce and vague, and his arguments about source material to be somewhat contrived. As a new subscriber to this list I may be dredging up tired material on the subject, but I didn't find any material in the archives later than July of last year, and I would like to know 1) Are any papers or publications available that detail similarities and differences between "The Second Maiden's Tragedy" and Shakespeare's later works based on textual style? 2) I'd like to hear personal opinions from anyone who has read "The Second Maiden's Tragedy." A friend whose knowledge of Shakespeare is considerable swears that Act I must be Shakespeare; while my wife, a playwright, is positive that Shakespeare had nothing to do with it. While the authorship argument might seem useless and pedantic to some, it does serve an actual function in this case. "The Second Maiden's Tragedy" is a likely candidate for our theatre company's 1995-96 season. The problem is not one of whether we would choose to include the play based on authorship (personally I think it is a splendid play that deserves more recognition), but how to advertise the play, should we choose to include it. Our audiences have come to trust the fidelity of our scholarship regarding textual accuracy, and we would feel uncomfortable advertising it as a Shakespearean play if there was reasonable evidence that Hamilton was another in the continuing stream of self-deluded Shakespearean "scholars" who twist any available scrap of evidence to fit their pet theory. Timothy Reed (treed@ball.com) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Grischkat Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 11:36:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Stratford Festival auditions Does anyone on the list have information regarding the Stratford Ontario auditions? egg Eric George Grischkat (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 12:22:29 +0001 (EST) Subject: [Female Friendships] I am working on plays of the early Caroline period that deal with female friendships, particularly friendship between a lady and her maid or secretary. Does anyone know of any books or articles that touch on the subject of female friendship in the late Renaissance? References to plays dealing with cross-class friendships would also be appreciated. Helen Ostovich McMaster University ostovich@mcmaster.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 08:44:37 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0976 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0976. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 17:33:49 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0962 Authorship (2) From: Charles Boyle Date: Monday, 05 Dec 1994 13:39:59 -0500 (EST) Subj: Authorship (3) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 5 Dec 94 18:44:26 CST Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 17:33:49 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0962 Authorship Kathman says in his latest post that the Oxfordians depend their claim on a conspiracy. Isn't that okay? Aren't conspiracies possible? Let's look at the Stratfordian conspiracy. This man from Stratford lived in London and wrote two long and popular poems, plus a double handful of plays which were much admired and attended, and acted parts in them as well. He was a man of the theater, hung out with the other actors, poets, and play- wrights, I suppose. He was also an intimate of the court and had a great lord as a patron. I suppose he knew hundreds of people, and was doing theater business a good part of his lifetime and was very successful at it. That's the Stratfordian story. Now the Stratfordian conspiracy. No one ever mentions that this man from Stratford is a writer. They *all* keep mum about it, total silence is the game, and hundreds of people involved in this absolute shut down of any information that would connect the man from Stratford with the writing of the poems and plays. It's true. Not a word leaks out. Even when he dies the secret is kept. Nobody says "boo" when he's alive, and no one says "boo-hoo" when he dies. A great hush lies over the man's life if you would seek to find him out as a playwright. So the Oxfordians have their conspiracy theory, and the Stratfordians have theirs. Kathman likes the Stratfordian conspiracy best, and that's fair enough. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Boyle Date: Monday, 05 Dec 1994 13:39:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Authorship I have been following the authorship thread for a number of months now with some interest. I was recently struck by Bradley S. Berens comment to the effect of "What's the point?" It reminded me of someone earlier who found the whole discussion "tedious." And I thought how true. How tedious it all must seem if you see no point. Hyphens? Who cares? So I am very sympathetic with those feelings. And generations of thinking people have been happy enough with Shakespeare as he has commonly been understood. A great writer of themes but sort of a mystery on a personal level, you know, "semi- mythical" T.S. Eliot called him. Kind of a god or at the very least an icon. So even when I acted in his plays I didn't think much about Shakespeare. Leave that to the experts. Then about fifteen years ago I read a book that claimed Edward De Vere was the actual author of the work. I will make this part of the story very brief. I was convinced by the common sense of the evidence and the argument. In all the years since in my ongoing absorption in the world of Shakespeare I have never met a document I didn't like. The Oxford story makes sense of everything that was mysterious before. Does it include an understandable conspiracy of silence, suppression, disinformation by the British Government? Yes, it does. But why should that surprise anyone who takes the author of Hamlet, Macbeth and Richard the Third seriously? And that question is at the very heart of this controversy. Either Shakespeare is for real or he isn't. People have told me Shakespeare wrote this stuff for money, for entertainment. That he had no politics, even that "he had no balls." That's how far out of touch people can get with Shakespeare. It's a shame. He really is the funniest, bravest, most heart- breaking writer that ever lived. But I don't know if I'd feel that way if I didn't know who he was. In my experience it has changed not only my view of Shakespeare, but my understanding of myself and the challenge of Western Civilization. That's how good he is at getting you to think. And besides, I keep getting more and more of his jokes, which has a big effect on the tone and atmosphere of the productions I direct. I think all we Oxfordians want is for the question to be legitimized in the schools and universities. I have met tenured professors of English who confess privately they are agnostic on the subject but teach Stratford in the classroom and throw cold water on their students natural interest in the identity and personal feelings of the author. They fear that to do otherwise might hurt their careers. That is a very sad situation. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Monday, 5 Dec 94 18:44:26 CST Subject: authorship A tip for Richard J. Kennedy: you can attract more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. Normally, I wouldn't bother responding to Mr. Kennedy's snit, since he obviously hasn't been reading this thread (at least that's the most charitable interpretation I can put on his comments), but since I'm in the mood I'll respond briefly to his assertion that "when he [the Stratford man] was dead for seven years he is first put up as the writer of the plays, and not a moment before." Now, to me, when a man's name appears repeatedly on the title pages of various works, he is being claimed as the author of those works. The name "William Shakespeare" appeared in print under the dedications to *Venus and Adonis* and *The Rape of Lucrece*, and on the title pages of various works, plus "Shakespeare" (and sometimes "Shakspeare") was cited in print by Meres and others as the author of various works. There was a man named William Shakespeare, from Stratford, who was an actor in the company which put on these plays. (And please don't try to tell me that this man's name was "Shaksper" or some such thing; the most common spelling of his name by far was "Shakespeare", and in London records this spelling was used 85 percent of the time --- 45 times out of 53 by my count.) To me, this is prima facie evidence that this man was the author of these plays, or at the very least that everybody thought he was. If you want something more definite, look at the play *The Return from Parnassus*, written in 1601-2 and published in 1606. There are two characters named Kempe and Burbage, who are obviously intended to be William Kempe and Richard Burbage from the King's Men; at one point Kempe says, "Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Properpina and Jupiter. Why heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down, aye and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving the Poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him beray his credit." A little later Burbage has another character audition for the part of Richard III by reciting a couple of lines from the play. This to me looks like clear evidence that the author Shakespeare: (1) was a fellow of Kempe and Burbage in the King's Men, (2) did not have a University education, and (3) was a rival of Ben Jonson. Or, *at the very least*, this is clear evidence that a lot of people thought that these things were true in 1601-2. There are numerous other instances where the author Shakespeare is spoken of as an actor, as uneducated, and as a real person, both during the Stratford man's lifetime and afterword. I didn't intend to go on this long, but I just wanted to address the silly Oxfordian claim that until 1623 nobody associated the actor William Shakespeare from Stratford with the plays and poems, since it's one of the more egregiously ridiculous and most easily falsifiable bits of Oxfordian dogma, and I don't think I've dealt with it before. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 11:24:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0978 Re: *H5* French Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0978. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 16:44:43 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0965 *H5* French (2) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 12:04:50 +0001 (EST) Subj: re: Translations of the French in HENRY V (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 16:44:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0965 *H5* French The other text I've seen that gives reasonably good translations of the French in *Henry V*, including the obscenities, is the *New Cambridge* edited by Andrew Gurr. It's probably the best edition currently on the market. I believe it was printed in 1990 or 1992, and its bibliography, introduction and performance history are all right up to date. Cheerio, Sean. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 12:04:50 +0001 (EST) Subject: re: Translations of the French in HENRY V I don't know of a word-for-word translation of all the French -- have you checked all available editions? But I have an article, "`Teach you our princess English?': Equivocal Translation of the French in HENRY V", in **Gender Rhetorics** ed. Richard Trexler, MRTS Binghamton, 1994, that covers most of the cross-language implications. Helen Ostovich McMaster University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 12:19:15 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0981 Re: Icarus; Kent; Images and Clips; BBC *Lear* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0981. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 1994 23:35:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Icarus (2) From: David Small Date: Monday, 5 Dec 94 14:41 EST Subj: SHK 5.0943 Kent's Fate -Reply (3) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 16:29:51 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0973 Q: PD Images, Clips (4) From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 09:39:19 -0500 (CDT) Subj: BBC King Lear (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 1994 23:35:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Icarus In scanning Don Foster's list of Icarus allusions, I didn't see DOCTOR FAUSTUS which contains one in the first Chorus (20-22): "Till swoln with cunning, of a self-conceit,/His waxen wings did mount above his reach,/And melting, heavens conspired his overthrow." Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Small Date: Monday, 5 Dec 94 14:41 EST Subject: SHK 5.0943 Kent's Fate -Reply As to Kent's fate, I've always assumed that his last lines merely address his awareness of his age and mortality. "After what I've just been through. . ." I remember another line in the last scene when someone enjoins Lear to look up. There are many interpretations of this, such as "look up from Cordelia's body." or "For the gods' sake -- don't die!" One production I saw had the entire company (alive at that point) look up at the sky as the lights went down to black, the implication being that this was one of the solar eclipses alluded to in the opening scene. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 16:29:51 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0973 Q: PD Images, Clips In re: Michael Martin's inquiries about stills and A/V material on the plays and productions. There's a wealth of material available in books, on video tape, and increasingly on CD Rom. Check out A.R. Braunmuller's (sp?) recent *Macbeth* which includes the Trevor Nunn's roundhouse production of the play in its entirety (Ian McKellen and Judi Dench as the Macbeths) as well as clips from the Polanski film and Kurosawa's *Throne of Blood*. Since I'm sure Mr. Martin will receive all kinds of information on all sorts of formats, I will confine myself to talking about audio recordings of the plays. If you're going to explore audio Shakespeare, it helps to have a record player that will accomodate LP's, and if you have one that plays the old 78's so much the better. Going chronologically therefore: there are several records and one CD that I know of which feature a collection of recordings from the turn of the century through the 1930's. Real old wax cylinder (I have no notion of how to spell that word) stuff. Performers on these discs include Edwin Booth, Ellen Terry, Lewis Waller, Frank Benson, and John Gielgud in several recordings from the late thirties. The CD is callen *Great Shakespearians*. Tower Records has carried it, so if its available, somebody at one of the larger stores should know how to order it. These recordings most often involve actors reading lines from roles they have played on stage, and all are monologues. I know of no recordings earlier than 1940 which involve more than on speaker at a time. In the forties, Maurice Evans, and Laurence Olivier released 78 discs on which they read excerpts from plays in which they had recently performed. Olivier produced a "soundtrack" of his *Henry V* which included several Henry speeches lifed directly from the film as well as some Chorus material which Olivier himself read for the recording. He released a similar 78 set for *Hamlet*, and the two recordings became the two sides of an LP released in the mid-fifties. Maurice Evan's recordings include excerpts from *Hamlet*, *Macbeth* with Judith Andersons, and *Richard II*. Everything on these 78's eventually found its way onto LP's. Also, I know of at least two recordings of full productions done on 78's. The first of these, Paul Robeson, Jose Ferrer, and Uta Hagen in *Othello* is easy to find. I have only seen one copy of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater production of *Twelfth Night*. I have never heard it, and it has never, to my knowledge, become available in any other format. Between the late fifties and the early seventies, one label, Argo, released the entire cannon on LP, and two others, Caedemon and Living Shakespeare, released close to twenty plays each. These three labels used exclusively English actors. A fourth, Spoken Word Recordings (or something close to that), used some recordings by Christopher Casson's company and some Irish recordings from the Gate with Hilton Edwards, Michael MacLiammoir, and occassionally Milo O'Shea. Argo, Caedemon and some of the Irish recordings are complete while the living Shakespeare series is condensed into one hour-long disc per play. To my knowledge, none of these recordings represent actual staged productions although leading actors frequently record their more successful roles. The Argo *Much Ado* features John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, and the cast of Caedemon's *1 Henry IV* includes Anthony Quayle as Falstaff, Michael Redgrave as Hotspur and Harry Andrews as Henry IV. Only Richard Burton's Hal is missing to complete the core cast of the 1951 Stratford histories cycle. Burton, turns up as splendid Coriolanus for Caedemon, by the way, and Gielgud's Angelo and Leontes are also part of the series. Other actors record roles they never played. Caedemon's Romeo is Albert Finney, and Ralph Richardson plays the Duke in *Measure for Measure*. The Living Shakespeare series preserves pieces of Donald Wolfit's Lear, Vivien Leigh's Cleopatra, Sean Connery's Hotspur, Sybill Thorndyke's Volumnia, and Peter O'Toole's Petruchio. The Argo recordings used stars for the principal roles, but drew their supporting casts from the Marlowe Dramatic Society at Cambridge. Look at the cast list (or listen for the voices), and you'll find Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen, and even John Barton and Peter Hall is smaller roles. Finally there are recordings of actual productions and radio recordings. The Old Vic's *Romeo and Juliet* with Claire Bloom and Alan Badel, the National Theater's *Othello* with Olivier, and Gielgud's New York *Hamlet* with Burton in the title role are all available on LP. Radio recordings include three from Brannagh's Renaissance Theater Company: *Hamlet*, *Romeo and Juliet*, and most recently *King Lear*, as well as some curios from the fifties in which Hollywood stars recorded one hour condensations of the plays. A small, recently-released box of tapes from this series includes Humphrey Bogart's Hotspur, Tallulah Bankhead's Viola, and Edward G. Robinson's Petruchio. There are also several BBC recordings released through the Mind's Eye catalogue. Highlights from this series include Alec Guinness as Lear and Paul Scofield and Nicol Williamson as Othello and Iago. Many public libraries have incomplete sets of Caedemon and Argo recordings while University collections have more, and frequently provide the equipment necessary to listen in case your stereo system no longer includes a turntable. Used record and book stores will also occasionally see some of the out of print material while Barnes and Noble, Borders, and other large chains carry many of the Caedemon recordings (rereleased on cassette) and all three of the Renaissance Theater titles on cassette and CD. Most of the Argo titles are still available on cassette in England. The RSC Bookstore is your best bet here, although some of the original Argos have been re-recorded with newer and tonier casts. (Ian Holm is Iago; Janet Suzman is Rosalind etc.) Sorry to have gone on at such length, Matt (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elizabeth Schmitt Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 09:39:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: BBC King Lear Several months ago I asked if anyone knew how to obtain a copy of the BBC radio recording of KING LEAR featuring John Gielgud in the title role. I am pleased to announce that it is now available as part od the Renaissance Theatre Company series. The boxed cassette set retails for $25 and is being sold at Brentano's and Waldenbooks. I'm sure the other chains will catch on. Thought it might be something peolple might add to their holiday shopping lists. Elizabeth Schmitt University of North Texas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 12:23:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0982. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: Daniel L. Colvin Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 16:19:30 -0600 (CST) Subj: Producing Macbeth (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 05 Dec 1994 23:22:21 -0500 (EST) Subj: MACBETH and witches, sex, politics, and psychoanalysis (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel L. Colvin Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 16:19:30 -0600 (CST) Subject: Producing Macbeth I have been asked to be a "textual consultant" for a production of _Macbeth_ our theatre department is putting on next semester. Right now the director and I are going through the play line by line, allowing him to ask me any questions regarding the play (he has done no real "scholarship" up to this point). The director has floated several ideas by me; I have given my response (which tends to be quite conservative). I would appreciate responses and advice from the list members on any or all of the following (and I suspect more questions may follow): 1. The director would like to cross-gender cast many of the roles (except for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth). Certainly many of the minor roles would be cast that way. He is proposing that one or two of the major characters would be cross-gender cast (he is suggesting Duncan, Malcolm, and Banquo). My response was that I saw the play as being quite gender-dependent. What do you list members think about the idea? If you see it as possible/positive, what problems (other than textual editing) do you foresee? 2. The director wanted to know whether it would work to have Macbeth beheaded on stage at the end. I still don't know what I think -- that is, what would be lost or gained. Any opinions? Thanks for your advice. Any other ideas to plug into the early stages of this production would also be most welcome. Dan Colvin Department of English Western Illinois University mfdlc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 05 Dec 1994 23:22:21 -0500 (EST) Subject: MACBETH and witches, sex, politics, and psychoanalysis My colleague Beth Ash is looking for material on MACBETH and witches, sex, politics, and psychoanalysis. Apparently she is looking for books and articles that deal with more than one or two of these topics. She knows about Gary Wills new book and about articles by Stallybras and Greenblatt. Does anyone have other suggestions? Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 08:29:46 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0975 Re: *Pericles*; Falstaff's Age Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0975. Tuesday, 6 December 1994. (1) From: Cary Mazer Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 20:23:57 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0971 Re: *Pericles* (2) From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 15:09:03 +1100 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0971 Re: Bell Shakespeare Co/*Pericles* (3) From: Michael Best Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 94 20:24:39 PST Subj: Falstaff and *Pericles* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Mazer Date: Sunday, 4 Dec 1994 20:23:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0971 Re: *Pericles* For Matt Henerson, The reason the SMT could not get Paul Robeson for the role of Gower in 1958 was because the United States State Department, in their wisdom, had taken away his visa. Unable to travel to Canada, he once gave a concert at the US/Canada border, so that his Canadian admirers could still hear him sing in person. But even a voice as large and as magnificent as his could not carry across the Atlantic. Cary M. Mazer Univesity of Pennyslvania (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander Date: Monday, 5 Dec 1994 15:09:03 +1100 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0971 Re: Bell Shakespeare Co/*Pericles* In answer to Matthew Henerson's query, the Bell Shakespeare Company will be performing in Sydney from 27 February to 13 April at the Footbridge Theatre. The company was founded four years ago and is based around John Bell, one of Australia's most distinguished (though far from pompously so) actors and directors. He was one of the founders of the Nimrod Theatre which had an enormous effect on Australian theatre, especially during the 1970s. John's own work as an actor has been linked with Australian rereadings of classic texts, especially but not exclusively Shakespeare. One of his great achievements as an actor was a performance as Cyrano in 1980 which is still talked about, but in terms of Shakespeare productions his greatest moment was probably a production (which he directed but did not act in) of _Much Ado_ in 1975 which had nothing to do with Branagh-like prettiness, but instead was performed at high energy and loud volume entirely in cod Italian accents of the kind that had relatively recently become culturally prominent in Australia as a result of massive immigration from southern Europe. The accents were originally intended only as a rehearsal technique designed to break the actors' habit of using the English voice-beautiful and an over-reverential attitude towards "The Bard", but when, at a late stage in rehearsals, John suggested dropping the accents and keeping the energy, the actors said that the accents had become part of their performances. John agreed, and the production, with its highly-charged irreverence, went on to become a smash hit and a legendary moment in the history of Shakespeare performance in Australia. Matt Henerson also mentions the Prospect Theatre Company production of Pericles. I saw that in 1973, and remember an exciting, modern-dress production which was entirely set in the brothel, with most of the play done as flashbacks if I remember right. Few specific details have remained in my memory (I was relatively young at the time), but I recall a kind of mean MC figure played by a woman wearing what seemed at the time like a daring maroon trouser suit with a matching Spanish-style hat (the ones that look rather like boaters in form--I don't know the name of them) and a BIG whip. Adrian Kiernander Adrian Kiernander Department of Theatre Studies University of New England (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Sunday, 04 Dec 94 20:24:39 PST Subject: Falstaff and *Pericles* I have always assumed, since Falstaff is such an accustomed purveor of the big lie, that even when he claims he is inclining to three score he is understating the case -- which would put him well into his sixties. Not impossible since Lear was still able to curse a bellyful at eighty. Performances of *Pericles*. There was a wonderful production at Ashland a couple of years ago, directed by Gerry Turner, in the indoor theatre. The set was a flexible, stylized ship, Gower engagingly garrulous, and the whole play deeply moving, especially the scene of the reunion of Pericles and Miranda. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:37:13 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0985 Re: *AYL* and *Macbeth* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0985. Wednesday, 7 December 1994. (1) From: Ron Moyer Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 16:36:29 -0600 (CST) Subj: RE: AYL and Macbeth production (2) From: Melissa Aaron <> Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 17:09:04 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 Producing Macbeth* (3) From: Craig Bryant Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 00:27:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (4) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 10:53:19 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Moyer Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 16:36:29 -0600 (CST) Subject: RE: AYL and Macbeth production Re: Charles Boyle's comment that, in AYL, Oliver's "long tale is another shaggy dog story . . . put in to unnerve Rosalind. After all, this material is either high comedy or bad melodrama [and Shakespeare] doesn't write bad melodrama." Garland Wright's recent Guthrie production provided a context that allowed the "shaggy dog story" to play naively and gracefully. The production appeared as if Wright approached the play as a sort of proto-romance: a darkly harsh, violent court and wintery, melancholic Arden for the first half (interval after 2.7, plus 3.1), followed by a warm, sunny pastoral comedy in the second half. In Wright's treatment, emphasizing a Winter's Tale-like structure, the "magical" transformations of the end seemed innocently possible. On the whole, the production melded a bit of high concept, variously sleek/rustic designs, and some pomo irony, with sound text work and vital humanity into a splendidly stimulating work. While not shedding new light on Oliver's possible awareness of Rosalind/ Ganymede's gender, the production proved (to me, at least) that Oliver's "shaggy dog story" can be movingly believable when played with conviction within an appropriate context; indeed, it can be seen as an integral component of the pattern of recognitions, reconciliations, and healing that conclude the play (certainly no more fantastic than Frederick's conversion). Oliver's "discovery" of Rosalind can add good fun and more point to gender confusions in the play--and it can co-exist with Oliver relating a sincere story; if Oliver's story is not sincere, however, I believe some modern cynicism is eroding the focused and hopeful structure of the end of the play. Re: Daniel L. Colvin's questions regarding Macbeth. 1. Cross-gender casting: I believe cross-gender casting depends a lot upon the world conceived for the production. Set in the late 20th century--a grudging maybe. In a futureworld ("Macbeth Beyond Thunderdome") or in a fantastical, sword-and-sorcerer past it might work. If the world-of-the-play approximates what we know of Western, Christian-era history, it would be difficult to reconcile cross-gender casting with general conceptions of that history. Macbeth's concern with heirs (his lack, making war on children, etc.) places great emphasis on who holds power and who can plausibly (to the audience) be accepted (by the characters) in power-roles. Would have lots of interesting times balancing apparent assumptions of domestic roles (the Ladies Macd and Macb) with warrior roles (Banquo, Malcolm). Many text challenges would occur: use "King" generically? (Lady) Malcolm says, "your wives, your daughters,/Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up/The cistern of my lust" (Arden, 4.3.61- 63)? Macduff to (Lady) Malcolm, "I could play the woman with mine eyes" (4.3.230) would sound especially insulting spoken to a woman about to lead an invasion force; etcetera. 2. Regarding Macbeth's beheading onstage: No problem with beheading him onstage, but do we see the results? It was good enough for the Jacobeans. . . . But, they didn't have cinema, MTV, etc., FX. If you have great! model-builders and FX people so as to astonish the audience--ok. But, IMO, if the effect is *really* good, the audience will be caught up in that and commenting on how, like, cool the head is or how gross the blood and guck is; if it is not really good, the audience will note that the head really doesn't look like the actor--in either case, they will step back from the dramatic action. If you don't mind (and allow time for) audience response to the effect-as-an-effect (v-effekt, emblem)(with probable titters), it could work for you. $.02 --Ron Moyer, Theatre, Univ. of South Dakota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron <> Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 17:09:04 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 Producing Macbeth My gut sense is that the play *is* very gender-dependent. The witches, of course, could probably be either gender (Macbeth isn't really sure which). Duncan, Banquo and Malcolm as women present the problem that they're all hard-wired into the discourse of kingship. Banquo especially is the progenitor of the line of royal kings (cf the Polanski movie where they all look exactly like Banquo). The problem isn't the cross-gender casting--it's the implications. What does the director hope to achieve? What kind of questions does he/she want the audience to ask? Actually, cross-gender casting Macbeth and Lady Macbeth might really work and be quite interesting, since she's the one who plays with becoming "masculine." Good luck. Melissa Aaron University of Wisconsin-Madison (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Craig Bryant Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 00:27:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs Regarding cross-casting in Macbeth: My campus dramatic outfit is also gearing up for a production of _Macbeth_ in February, and I have been lending my armchair scholarship to anyone that will be kind enough to pretend to listen. Oddly enough, I have always seen _Macbeth_ as being particularly suited to cross-casting, with only the Macbeths and Macduffs being gender-cruical roles...although this may just be an extension of my belief that, in general, the majority of roles in the canon are not of necessity gender-specific. Audiences, of course, are used to allowing a lot of leeway in terms of setting and casting in Shakespeare. This is a powerful tool for the director--sometimes, perhaps, _too_ powerful. If the director becomes more occupied with the "cute trick" of a Vietnam _Troilus and Cressida_ or a female Petruchio than with the central goal of realizing a play of Shakespeare's on the stage, then the production will suffer. If, however, the director keeps the play itself as the foremost issue, then almost any spice or garnish is permissible. An example: I was recently involved in a college _Hamlet_ in which the Big H himself was black, and a number of roles, including Horatio, were played by females. This may sound like a recipe for disaster--the director is going to inflict upon his audience a "modern, socially relevant" _Hamlet_, indulging in questions of race relations, gender stereotyping and other revisionist blather--an _Invisible Man_ in doublet and hose. I would buy a ticket just for the pleasure of hating it. But this is not what happened. Showing remarkable restraint for this century, we all just tried to play the truth of the play. Some of us were surprised when we received praise for the clever handling of a black Hamlet, and had to take a moment to recall that the actor was, indeed, black after all. Any "relevant meaning" of the casting choice came out to the audience quite subtly; they did not need us to hold them down and batter them with it. So, if presented with a list of "roles for possible cross-casting," in _Macbeth_ or any other play, my recation is to examine the motive. If Duncan is to be a woman, he/she will either play the scene "as a man," and the audience will most likely indulge without comment; play the scene "as a woman," but still attempt to live within the context of the play, and the audience will probably be intrigued and entertained by the opportunity to examine the play from a slightly altered and fresh perspective; or play some wonderful "relevant meaning" unexpressed in the play that tries to "Gimmick around" Shakespeare and ends up undercutting the production. Only then, if the audience is composed of people like me, will your actors have the possibility of skipping the second act and going home early. Having said this, we have been fairly conservative in terms of gender for our _Macbeth_: we have not designated any male roles for women going into the auditions, but only compiled a list of roles that could go either way, including Ross and the minor Scottish lords, The Porter and Sergeant, Banquo, and the Princes. I have no notion of how many of these may eventually be occupied by women, but we have made the choice to keep the setting of the play as "timeless" as practical, and do not intend to make a "statement" with any roles that may be cross-cast. As I have said, I believe that at worst, the audience will not care, and, at best, the odd member may even pick out something from the production that had been previously unseen. I can not say if my notions will be of any help to you, incoherent as I often am in a text discussion, but best of luck in your production, and I hope we shall hear more of it. Craig Bryant DramaTech Theatre, Georgia Tech (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 10:53:19 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs I'm not going to weigh in on the subject of beheading Macbeth on stage; I don't know what I think of that question either. But an interesting point came up when I showed *Men of Respect* to a group of friends for a paper I'm writing on Shakespearean adaptations. MOR is a mafia version of Macbeth, and all my friends felt that to have gangsters running around talking about being "a man of woman born" was utterly silly. Several people suggested that it should have been a woman, rather than a ceserian section man, who killed the Macbeth character. I don't know what purpose your director sees in cross casting, but the possibilities for reworking that scene with a woman could be interesting. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:41:49 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0986 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0986. Wednesday, 7 December 1994. (1) From: Richard Kennedy Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 19:27:06 -0800 Subj: Authorship (2) From: Dom Saliani Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 21:16:38 -0700 (MST) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Kennedy Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 19:27:06 -0800 Subject: Authorship David Kathman quotes a passage from The Return From Parnassus, a frolic that was written by some St. John's College, Cambridge students for the fun of the 1601 Christmas season. It was a sort of Hasty Pudding show, an irreverent antic, or an "ironical review", as Sidney Lee has it. Kathman wants us to believe that this clabbered-up amusement supports his view that the man from Stratford was a playwright. Sidney Lee is not so humorless. He says that this "perplexing passage...may well be incapable of a literal interpretation." But I thought that my question to Kathman was as clear as water. Here it is again: Why is it that the man from Stratford cannot be found out to be the writer of the poems and plays of "Shakespeare"? It seems it would be an easy thing to prove. Whoever wrote the poems and plays was for some 15 years a superstar, but the man from Stratford, an actor no less, never stands forth in the limelight. "Shakespeare" remains to be a name on paper only. There is no flesh and blood man behind the name. That's the whole problem; that's why there's an "authorship question. I believe that the question, insofar as it touches on the Stratfordian conspiracy, is quite intelligible. If my machine could do the job, I'd draw Kathman a picture. Kennedy ### (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 21:16:38 -0700 (MST) Subject: Authorship ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:15:46 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0983 Re: *Pericles* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0983. Wednesday, 7 December 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 94 08:59:54 -0500 Subj: Pericles (2) From: Dan Patterson Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 16:51:53 -0500 (EST) Subj: Pericles (3) From: Robert Teeter Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 08:25:30 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0975 Re: *Pericles* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 94 08:59:54 -0500 Subject: Pericles Several years ago, the Guthrie Lab (their experimental space) did a production of *Pericles,* that my family and I found quite wonderful. The Lab is a huge converted warehouse and they arranged the play so that it surrounded the audience, most of which sat on cushions on the floor (though a few chairs were available for those whose backs required them). Imagine a large rectangle with much of the action centered in the middle but with some scenes enacted along the perphery, surrounding the audience. We were very much taken into the story. The character of Pericles was double cast, with a younger actor in the early sections and an older one at the end. I found the production as a whole very moving, especially the discovery scene between Pericles and Marina. My experience over the years has been that the productions at the Lab (usually directed by younger up-and-coming directors, but drawing on the regular Guthrie company) are more successful than those on the main stage, perhaps because the don't have to deal with the pressure to please as much. They also did terrific productions of *Troilus and Cressida* and *The Merchant of Venice* (although this one was a bit more "controversial") in recent years. They passed on Shakespeare this year to do Brecht's *Mother Courage,* which I was not able to see. --Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Patterson Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 16:51:53 -0500 (EST) Subject: Pericles I was involved in a production several years ago in which I played Cleon, the Pander, and the Sea Captain (yes, it was one of those productions). It was a rather high-concept production, though no-one could ever quite figure out exactly what the concept was. My Pander wore a "gangster-style" suit complete with gun in shoulder holster, and the Bawd wore stockings, short-shorts, etc., and carried a rather large dildo around the stage. The scene where all of the suitors come to vie for Marina's hand was a mixture of characters from a cowboy to a Scottish warrior. It was all very strange and confusing. Oh yes, Gower was brought onstage in a coffin (though no one could ever figure out exactly why). Needless to say I don't work with this company anymore. One thing occurred to us, sitting around one night looking at the set which resembled at once the deck of a sailing ship and the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. I was wearing a costume which included a large, bulbous crown (Cleon) that resembled something out of a 50's horror movie. Several of the professional cast began to get the idea that the whole play might work out very well as an episode of Dr. Who, or at least something like a Star Trek episode. By the way, the feel of the lines in the play really seemed to point up the segments that weren't written by Shakepeare. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Teeter Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 08:25:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0975 Re: *Pericles* Michael Best writes: > Performances of *Pericles*. There was a wonderful production at Ashland a > couple of years ago, directed by Gerry Turner, in the indoor theatre. The set > was a flexible, stylized ship, Gower engagingly garrulous, and the whole play > deeply moving, especially the scene of the reunion of Pericles and Miranda. Matthew Henerson mentions that a black actor played Pericles in this Oregon Shakespeare Festival production. Actually, Derrick Lee Weeden played Pericles in the first part of the play (acts 1-3, I think) and Paul Vincent O'Connor, a white actor, played Pericles in the second part. I'm not sure why, exactly. Ashland is a repertory company, but I doubt if actors rush off to another theatre in the *middle* of a play. Possibly some kind of symbolism is involved. Like the RSC (?) production mentioned, Ashland also used a male actor in drag as the bawd. I, too, enjoyed the set. Jerry Turner is still there as artistic director emeritus if the original poster has more questions about this production. Robert Teeter San Jose, Calif. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:53:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0988 Re: Shakespeare's Voices; The Second Maiden's Tragedy Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0988. Wednesday, 7 December 1994. (1) From: Harry Hill Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 16:07:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0981 Re: Images and Clips (2) From: John Lavagnino Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 23:31 EDT Subj: Re: The Second Maiden's Tragedy (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 16:07:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0981 Re: Images and Clips Shakespeare's Voices on CD For listeners with an auditory imagination and the time to linger in front of their loudspeakers, the CD *Great Shakespeareans", produced by Pearl in the UK, is a particular pleasure. It shows the range in acting styles from Edwin Booth and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree through Arthur Bourchier, Lewis Waller, Ben Greet and Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson to Sir John Gieldgud, Henry Ainley and Maurice Evans. Arthur Bourchier's `Dagger' speech is a revelation, an object lesson to any actor in its vocally physical response to the words within the lines. In his "Come, let me clutch thee", there is a visible, tantalizngly intangible dagger in the air, and Macbeth's desperate ambition indicated by the rich explosion of the "tch" of "clutch" is made corporeally possible but spiritually precarious by the softening "thee". I had never heard of his performance until I bought this compact disc and I am tempted to transcribe his reading in the same sort of way that Joshua Steele recorded Garrick's Hamlet, but leave it to the readers of SHAKSPER to give the disc as a revelatory Christmas present to friends who share delight in the phonic representation of emotional realities. Harry Hill Concordia University Montreal (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Lavagnino Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 23:31 EDT Subject: Re: The Second Maiden's Tragedy The Second Maiden's Tragedy is presented as the work of Middleton alone in the edition of Middleton's works that sixty-three other scholars and I are currently finishing up for publication by Oxford University Press. That view has also been the general consensus for the last fifty years; we haven't found anything in Hamilton's work to make us change our mind. You can find a good discussion of the attribution question in Anne Lancashire's excellent edition of the play in the Revels series (1978). The books by David J. Lake and MacD. P. Jackson on Middleton attribution appeared after she finished her edition, but they don't substantially change the picture that she describes, except to add further evidence for the attribution to Middleton. And whoever wrote it, it certainly is a wonderful play. John Lavagnino, Brandeis University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:24:59 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0984 Qs: Pronounciation; Plays on CD; Renaissance Culture Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0984. Wednesday, 7 December 1994. (1) From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 11:10:34 GMT-6 Subj: Elizabethan Pronunciation (2) From: Carey Cummings Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 19:30:33 -0500 (EST) Subj: CDs of Plays (3) From: John Ottenhoff Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 11:22:55 -0500 (EST) Subj: Hamlet and Renaissance Culture (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom E. Hodges Date: Tuesday, 6 Dec 1994 11:10:34 GMT-6 Subject: Elizabethan Pronunciation Could someone please recommend an audio cassette or videotape that demonstrates varieties of Elizabethan pronunciation, preferably with lines from Shakespeare's plays? I have looked in Kokeritz and Dobson but don't trust my tongue to render the sounds aright. I apologize if this rehashes previous discussions. Thanks, Tom Hodges (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carey Cummings Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 19:30:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: CDs of Plays Does anyone out there know of any recording company that has done the plays on CD. I have a few tapes of various plays but I now have a CD player and would like to free up some space (I think CD versions would save quite a bit of room since it is probable that an entire play would fit on a single CD.) Any information would be appreciated. Carey Cummings shakespr@aol.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Ottenhoff Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 11:22:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: Hamlet and Renaissance Culture I'm going to teach an interdisciplinary course called "*Hamlet* and Renaissance Culture" during our Spring Term (it's a 4-week term during which students take just 1 class). We'll read *Hamlet* and some contemporary English and continental drama, and various colleagues from art, music, philosophy, and theatre will come into the class to talk about *Hamlet* and their own perspectives on early modern culture. But I'm also looking for a book that will help students think about the various threads of Renaissance culture, something that will illuminate and raise questions without reducing the discussion to Western Civ. cliches. Any ideas? Roland Mushat Frye's *The Renaissance HAMLET* (Princeton, 1984) may be such a book, but I'm not sure. Any ideas? Any experiences with similar interdisciplinary courses? Thanks. John Ottenhoff ottenhoff@alma.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:47:51 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0987 Re: *Hamlet*: Dumb Show and Stage History Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0987. Wednesday, 7 December 1994. (1) From: Thomas Berger Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 08:35:22 EST Subj: Re: *Hamlet*: Dumb Show (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 22:34:56 -0500 (EST) Subj: HAMLET on stage (3) From: Don Foster Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 09:22:24 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0977 Re; *Hamlet*: Stage History (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Berger Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 08:35:22 EST Subject: Re: *Hamlet*: Dumb Show Regarding Claudius' inability to "see"/understand the dumb show: Perhaps Hamlet's advice to the players is relevant here. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. Actions without words may have no meaning, just as words without actions. Claudius catches on later in his prayer scene, when he realizes that words without thoughts, while perfectly acceptable for earthly E-Mail (QED), are not likely to get on the celestial network. Tom Berger (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Tuesday, 06 Dec 1994 22:34:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: HAMLET on stage As Gary Tayler has remarked, we can't rely on 16th and 17th century references in judging the popularity of a play. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA is a good (if unusual) example. In one state of the first quarto, it is claimed that the play was acted by the King's servants at the Globe; in another state, it is calimed that the play was "neuer stal'd with the Stage." Which of these claims do you prefer? Tayler rather likes the first, and other scholars the second. And so the first performance of HAMLET may have passed without any extant contemporary comment. However, the 1603 quarto claims that it was acted "diuerse times" in London and at the Universities. Although the players may have been officially prohibited from acting at the Universities, that doesn't mean that they didn't sneak in a performance or two -- as they did at other times when they were officially prohibited from acting! Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 09:22:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0977 Re; *Hamlet*: Stage History To Dom Saliani: I'd say that we're ALL perplexed by the textual problems posed by Q1 _Hamlet_. And yes, it is certainly possible that a quarto was printed that we no longer have (e.g., the lost Q0 of _Love's Labor's Lost_ and the lost quarto of _Love's Labor's Won_). But I think you are mistaken is asserting that _Hamlet_ "does not appear to have been performed in England till about 1619-20." We have few eye-witness accounts or recorded performances for Elizabethan plays generally--but we have ample evidence of _Hamlet_'s success on stage. Indeed, in the years 1600-1618 there are probably more allusions to _Hamlet_ than to any other Shakespeare play. Examples include Dekker's _Satiro-Mastix_ (1602), Jonson, Chapman, and Marston's _Eastward Hoe_ (1605), Dekker's _Westward Hoe_ (1607), Armin's _Nest of Ninnies_ (1608), and various others (See the _Shakespeare Allusion Book_). Several of these early allusions refer to _Hamlet_ as performed, as in Dekker's _Bel-man's Night-walkes_ (1612): "But if any mad Hamlet, hearing this, smell villainie, and rush in by violence..." Both Q2 and F1 _Hamlet_ preserve evidence of ms. markings by a playhouse bookkeeper, and the F1 additions concerning the war of the theaters was clearly interpolated as a matter of topical interest to theatrical audiences ca. 1601. The multiple reprints of the play likewise point to its popularity on stage. Given the demonstrable resonance of "Hamlet, revenge!" (supposed by most editors to derive from the ur-_Hamlet_), it seems more likely that multiple versions of the play were staged after 1600 rather than none at all. We have also the testimony of stationer's blurbs advertising (rightly or wrongly) the correspondence of the printed scripts with the play as popularly acted. What more could we ask for by way of evidence that _Hamlet_ was acted before 1619? Don Foster ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 12:52:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0989 Re: Shakespeare's Voices Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0989. Thursday, 8 December 1994. (1) From: Stephen Schultz Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 13:33:00 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0988 Re: Shakespeare's Voices (2) From: Cary Mazer Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 16:46:29 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0988 Re: Shakespeare's Voices (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephen Schultz Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 13:33:00 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0988 Re: Shakespeare's Voices A couple of additions to Matthew Henerson's informative listing of Shakespearean sound recordings: 1) He mentions knowing of no recordings by more than one performer before 1940. E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe recorded the Balcony Scene (and, I think, some other "duets"), and Sothern died in 1933. 2) To the plays he mentions which were recorded full-length on 78s, add *Julius Caesar* by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre. Or at least give credit for a nod in the "full-length" direction; the whole story gets more or less told, but the cuts are considerable, especially after the funeral. And while we're on the subject of sound recordings, does anyone know of a recording by Sir Henry Irving? I have seen passing and vague mention of one, but none of the standard sources on Irving suggest that he ever recorded. I'd like to know whether the notorious eccentricities were really so odd as GBS and William Archer (and half of London) thought. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Mazer Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 16:46:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0988 Re: Shakespeare's Voices I, too, invite SHAKSPER subscribers to listen to Arthur Bourchier's dagger speech on the Pearl CD, Great Shakespeareans, and you will see why Harry Hill and I don't always agree about acting. (And I speak as one who actually LIKES Edwardian acting). Cary M. Mazer University of Pennsylvania ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 13:28:56 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0990 Re: Pronounciation; Plays on CD; Multimedia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0990. Thursday, 8 December 1994. (1) From: Michael Best Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 11:32:35 PST Subj: Elizabethan Pronunciation (2) From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 17:17:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0984 Qs: Pronounciation (3) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 12:52:49 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0984 Qs: Pronounciation (4) From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 16:27:57 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0984 Plays on CD (5) From: David Levine Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 22:32:08 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0984 (6) From: David Levine Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 19:28:35 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *H... (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 94 11:32:35 PST Subject: Elizabethan Pronunciation Perhaps not wholly what Tom Hodges wants -- but there are some passages from Shakespeare read in what we believe is a reconstruction of Shakespeare's dialect in the latest (CD ROM) version of my program *Shakespeare's Life and Times*, due out at the end of this month. My colleague Antony Jenkins (Medievalist and actor) worked from Kokeritz and others to arrive at the final sounds, then added fine performances to them. You can call Intellimation, who publishes the CD, at 1-800-3-INTELL. I shall make a fuller announcement (commercial?) when it is released. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Hill Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 17:17:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0984 Qs: Pronounciation Helge Lokeritz's Danish accent gets in the way; I thought for years after first hearing his useful record that the Lizzies spoke like the Swedish Chef. Harry Hill (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 12:52:49 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0984 Qs: Pronounciation To Tom E. Hodges: I don't know of any audio tapes which replicate Renaissance pronunciation, but if you can put your hands on John Barton's *Playing Shakespeare* video tapes, Barton himself reads a passage from *Julius Caesar* (I think) which provides both a feel for how the language might have sounded and enough text from which to develop a dialect sheet (hard R's, vowel and diphthong shifts etc.) Sincerely, Matt. To Carrey Cummings: In addition to Brannagh's Renaissance Theater recordings (*Hamlet*, *Romeo and Juliet*, and *King Lear*) which you should be able to find on CD at Borders or Barnes and Noble or, I think sombody wrote and mentioned Waldens, there are at least two discs of excerpts. The first is called *Great Shakespearians* and contains recordings from early part of the century (Frank Benson, Lewis Waller, and a lot of Gielgud). The second is a collection of readings by Irene Worth, but I don't know its title. Also, you should check stores which specialize in classical music. I know of at least two recordings of Mendlesohn's (sp?) *Midsummer Night's Dream* which include readings of the play. The newer one features Peter Hall's company. Good luck, Matt. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 16:27:57 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0984 Plays on CD Regarding Carey Cummings comment that "I think CD versions would save quite a bit of room since it is probable that an entire play would fit on a single CD": the CD-audio standard limits the amount of audio on a single CD to about 78 minutes. I don't think that many of Shakespeare's plays would come in at under 2 hours, so we we're talking about a two-CD set per play. On the other hand, CD-ROM can reduce the frequency range, sampling depth, and so on to provide pretty good quality for spoken word and still store about 8 hours of sound per disk. But then you would need a computer to play it, and not an audio CD player... That said, there are good reasons to put the plays on audio CD, regardless of space: the ability to go very quickly to almost any point in the play (the same advantage holds true for CD-ROM and laser disc). Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. lymond@netcom.com (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 22:32:08 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0984 I was told last year that Caedmon was re-mastering and releasing its Shakespeare plays on CD, but it hasn't happened yet, due to low demand, I guess. Caedmon is now distributed by HarperCollins. I may have seen one or two...but they can't come close to squeezing a play (two to three hours) onto a single CD. I don't know about Argo, but I know that both series are available essentially complete in the UK...Blackwell's or (my favorite) James Thin in Edinburgh. The prices are pretty good. And cassettes don't take up that much room... I've always found it great fun to have two, three or even more versions of certain plays (not unlike favorite operas...). Unfortunately, you can't play the videotapes sold in the UK (at excellent prices) on our equipment. (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 19:28:35 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0899 Interactive *H... I remember a program I read about a few years back that enables students to experiment with different blockings of scenes. It seems to me that this sort of program, included as part of ANY multimedia version of a Shakespeare play, could be invaluable. Also, why not use the Tony Richardson version with Nicol Williamson, which is arguably a lot more interesting than the Zeffirelli... There was also a MAGNIFICENT television production done in the '60's, filmed at Elsinore, with Christopher Plummer. If anyone can find a copy of this, it would be well worth preserving..... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 13:38:16 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0991 Re: *Macbeth* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0991. Thursday, 8 December 1994. (1) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 12:09:40 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 94 14:23:07 -0500 Subj: Macbeth CD-ROM (3) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 17:27:38 +0001 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (4) From: Kimberley K. Lynn Bridgman Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 14:54:37 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (5) From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 18:22:01 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0985 Cross-gender casting (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 12:09:40 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs Dear Daniel J. Colvin: Is your director considering cross-gender casting because he needs parts for women in a male-heavy play, or does he feel that *Macbeth* has something to say about gender roles which cross-gender casting might help emphasize? If he to needs to use more women (why choose *Macbeth*?), the simple answer is to let women play the characters as men. His character actresses will thank him heartily for it. Its hard enough for women to find work in classical rep. Its particularly hard for women who conform less than perfectly to some unimaginative casting dirctor's notion of what constitutes a marketable Juliet. If, on the other hand, he feels that cross gender-casting advances his view of the play, it sounds like he needs to be clearer with you as to what that view is. I agree with you that the play as written is gender-dependent, but gender-bending could tweak it in all kinds of interesting ways. If Duncan is a woman, is she--like Elizabeth--the child of a sonless father negotiating an essentially patriarchal power structure by manipulating popular perceptions of feminity, or is Scotland actually a matriarchy, and is Macbeth's userpation a sexual as well as a political coup? If Banquo is a woman, does her status as somehow less glorious than Macbeth ("Noble Banquo who has no less deserved, and must be known no less to have done so." or something like that) make her jealous of her partner's success and quicker to suspect his treason? Does Lady M regard Banquo as a sexual rival (I've seen it implied with a male Banquo), and how does that affect her reaction to her exclusion from Macbeth's plan to murder Banquo? How does a sexual tension figure in Macbeth's need to get rid of his fighting partner. Perhaps Banquo is the better warrior, and Macbeth gets all the credit because he is male. There are all sorts of possibilities, and schools are wonderful places to play with them. Just as long as the director understands the implications of his casting decisions. Please do write, by the way, and tell us/me what you decide to do. Sincerely, Matt (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 94 14:23:07 -0500 Subject: Macbeth CD-ROM The lastest issue of *American Theater* magazine has a "holiday sampler" in which they mention a *Macbeth* CD-ROM that is a "personal library on the play," which includes the entire text, analysis, reference tools, a full audio performance by the RSC with clips from other performances, and a karaoke that allows a reader to perform scenes from the play with professional actors. This must be the A.C. Braunmuller CD-ROM that Matthew Henerson mentioned in his post Monday, but does anyone know how to order it? Thanks for your help. Chris Gordon (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 17:27:38 +0001 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs Robert LePage directed a MACBETH at the University of Toronto a couple of years ago, using cross-gendered casting, including Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The production was not particularly successful for many reasons, but the cross-gendered casting was not one of them. The aggressive female Macbeth and Macduff etc created a weird world of magic gone awry, and the male Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff emphasized almost involuntarily the subservience and helplessness of the gender they represented. In other words, the cross-gender casting made it quite clear that Macbeth was responsible for his choices, and that his wife may have enticed him, but only in the way he was already going. Lady Macbeth's subsequent madness seemed to be a predictable result of her lack of control over her husband and herself, once the regicide had been committed. I found the cross-gender casting unnerving and consequently enlightening for this play in particular. Helen Ostovich McMaster University (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kimberley K. Lynn Bridgman Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 14:54:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs Dan--regarding your question about which characters to cast cross-gender in _Macbeth_--why not cross-gender all of the roles to see what happens? I think it would be fascinating to see and hear Lady Macbeth's "unsex me" speech from a man. The challenge of making that speech work, and other particularly gender-based ones, would literally re-create the play for both the actors and your modern audience.... Anyway, it's something to think about, particularly since you are thinking along the lines of cross-gender casting anyway. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard C. Jones III Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 18:22:01 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0985 Cross-gender casting An easy rule about whether to gender-bend: If you have to ask, no. Rick Jones rjones@falcon.cc.ukans.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 14:10:19 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0992 Re: *Hamlet*: Stage History and Dumb Show Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0992. Thursday, 8 December 1994. (1) From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 18:10:18 +0001 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0987 Re: *Hamlet*: Dumb Show and Stage History (2) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 94 18:04:27 CST Subj: Hamlet stage history (3) From: David Levine Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 22:03:03 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0977 Re; *Hamlet*: ... (4) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 21:56:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: dumb show (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Ostovich Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 18:10:18 +0001 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0987 Re: *Hamlet*: Dumb Show and Stage History Re Hamlet performances as commonly known by 1604: Yes, Don Foster is quite correct, and his list can be made longer. There is an extended parody of HAMLET in John Day's LAW TRICKS as well. Helen Ostovich McMaster University (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 94 18:04:27 CST Subject: Hamlet stage history Just a couple of brief notes on the *Hamlet* discussion: 1) I don't think Nashe in 1589 is necessarily referring to a printed version of *Hamlet* at all; in fact I think the reference to "tragical speeches" makes it more likely that he's talking about a performance of some sort. Nashe's meaning is usually rather slippery, but I do think the case for Kyd as the target of this whole passage is pretty strong as these things go. Nashe writes of "trivial translators" who make use of Seneca; Kyd's *Cornelia* was a translation from French of an imitation of Seneca by Garnier. Nashe writes of those who "leave the trade of Noverint [i.e. scrivener] whereto they were born" (Kyd's father was a scrivener) and likens his target to "the Kidde in Aesop", a likely pun on Kyd's name. If the whole passage is about Kyd, I think Nashe is probably implying that Kyd wrote the *Hamlet* in question. But I wouldn't bet my life on it. 2) I believe Harold Jenkins in the Arden *Hamlet* attributes the Harvey quote to sometime between 1598 (or more likely mid-1599) and early 1601, not simply to 1598 as both John Mucci and Dom Saliani have stated. And I don't think it's really "obvious" that Harvey is referring to a written text rather than a written performance, but that's a subjective matter. I won't try to argue about it. 3) Yes, there are parallels between King James and Hamlet; there are also quite a few, of at least as convincing a nature, between the Earl of Essex and Hamlet. And I don't want to get into the whole Polonius/Burleigh issue again. I just don't think we can take alleged parallels of this nature, 400 years later, and use them as "proof" that some play could not have been performed publicly, or before the king, or whatever. Don Foster has ably summarized the evidence that *Hamlet* was performed between 1600 and 1619; the lack of explicit records of actual performances doesn't mean much, since most such records have been lost (most of the King's Men's records perished in a fire around 1619 or so). Yes, there are plenty of problems surrounding *Hamlet*, just as there are similar problems surrounding many other Elizabethan plays, by Shakespeare and others. That's just the way it is, and we do the best we can with the evidence we have. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Levine Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 22:03:03 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0977 Re; *Hamlet*: ... I hate to sound like a broken record, but Brian Vickers, in Appropriating Shakespeare, does a wonderful number on Cavell's Shakespeare essays. After this, it's hard to take Cavell remotely seriously...... and he shouldn't be...... (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Wednesday, 07 Dec 1994 21:56:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: dumb show Many of us recall the dumb show of Richardson's *Hamlet* with Nicol Williamson: It was done in a kind of speedy Punch-and-Judy style that confused Claudius and certainly confused me until I had seen it many times at slow speed. The whole murder was acted out and the betrayal by Gertrude that Richardson chose but it was not easy to decipher. Many productions of course decide to use one or the other, and maybe that's what Shkespeare's compnay did also, depending on the audience. Just a guess. Bernice W. Kliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 14:33:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0994 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0994. Thursday, 8 December 1994. (1) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 94 19:31:29 CST Subj: Authorship (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wedneday, 07 Dec 1994 21:08:28 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0986 Authorship: Let's Have Some Legitimate Proof (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 94 19:31:29 CST Subject: Authorship Against my better judgement, I am actually going to respond to Richard J. Kennedy, albeit briefly. Mr. Kennedy asserts that a "Stratfordian conspiracy" is necessary to account for the lack of any contemporary document saying "William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote Hamlet", which is what I take it he demands as evidence for Shakespeare's authorship. I'm going to beat my head one more time against this particular brick wall: the amount and type of evidence linking William Shakespeare of Stratford with the plays which bear his name is entirely typical for the time, and is considerably better than the comparable evidence for most of Shakespeare's contemporaries. Apparently Mr. Kennedy was snoozing several weeks ago when I went through the tenousness of the evidence linking Christopher Marlowe to the plays attributed to him (or to any writing at all, for that matter). Mr. Kennedy also says that "even when he dies the secret is kept," and "no one says 'boo-hoo' when he dies, a reference to the Oxfordian dogma that Shakespeare's death went unnoticed. What the hell do you call the Stratford monument? I know, I know, part of the conspiracy. And what about William Basse's memorial poem to Shakespeare, which explicitly says that "he dyed in April 1616"? It circulated widely in manuscript, as evidenced by the fact that about 10 seventeenth century copies survive, and though it didn't reach print until 1640, it was clearly around before 1623, since Ben Jonson responds to it in his poem in the First Folio. Oh yeah, I forgot that Ben's poem is part of the conspiracy too, and I suppose Basse's poem must be as well. The fact is, Shakespeare's death was better memorialized than those of just about any of his contemporary playwrights. What do you want, his obituary? Sorry to burst your bubble, but there were no newspapers then. I could go through a long list of Elizabethan dramatists and poets whose deaths passed with much less of a reaction than Shakespeare's caused. We don't even know what *decade* John Webster died in, for God's sake; he could have died any time between 1625 and 1634. I don't want to get into a long discussion of *The Return from Parnassus*. Dom Saliani says that the passage I quoted doesn't connect the plays with Stratford; well, no, but it does connect the actor Shakespeare with the plays, and I thought we had established that the actor was the Stratford man. Mr. Saliani also says that the Cambridge students who wrote the plays were making fun of the players; I can see that, and it's certainly in keeping with the reputation of actors at the time. My point on this passage is that it's clearly being *asserted* that the actor Shakespeare was a playwright, rival of Ben Jonson, etc., and that this assertion must have been widely believed, or else the passage would make no sense. Whether you think the assertion was true or not, it makes it impossible to claim, as Richard Kennedy did, that the Stratford man was never connected with the plays during his lifetime (and that's quite apart from his name appearing on all those title pages, plus other pre-1616 allusions to the author being an actor and unlearned). I'm not in the mood right now to argue over the meaning of this passage; maybe some other time. Charles Boyle's comments are reasonable, and not unlike those I've heard from other Oxfordians. Shakespeare's plays are so great that we naturally want to know more about the mind that produced them; what we know about William Shakespeare, while entirely typical in both quantity and quality for the playwrights of the time, leaves us thirsting for more. Nature abhors a vacuum, and believing in the Oxfordian theory allows some people to associate these great works with a person whose life story is more in keeping with their idea of who the playwright must have been. If this required a conspiracy of unprecedented vastness, never revealed by any of the hundreds or thousands who must have been privy to it, so be it. But you know what? I'm sure if the dramas of Marlowe and Webster were as widely read as Shakespeare's, people would start questioning their authorship too; what we know of them (at least in relation to the plays) is less than we know for Shakespeare, but their plays are as rich and powerful as just about any of Shakespeare's. Shakespeare is so familiar that people identify with him, I think, and feel a personal interest in authorship debates. The passions aroused in this thread and elsewhere is certainly real. As I've said before, I don't want to shout anybody down or suppress anybody's views; I just want to get the facts straight and in the proper context. Once this is done, I think the Oxfordian case is much less compelling to the layman than it is as usually presented, but if someone still wants to believe it, along with the attendant conspiracy, I won't stop you. I just don't see any reason either to doubt the attribution of these plays and poems to William Shakespeare, or to believe that Edward de Vere wrote them; all the external evidence we have says Shakespeare wrote them, and the alleged internal evidence for Oxford is extremely weak when you look at the whole picture. Plus, the evidence that some of the plays were written after Oxford's death is very strong. I see this message is longer than I expected. With regard to my last point, I've written up a piece which summarized the very considerable evidence that *The Tempest* was written no earlier than 1610. It's very long, at least twice as long as any of these Authorship postings, so I don't plan to post it; but if anybody would like a copy, drop me a line and I can forward you one. I think it's pretty convincing, but what do I know? Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wedneday, 07 Dec 1994 21:08:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0986 Authorship: Let's Have Some Legitimate Proof Early this year, I challenged the Oxfordians to offer one piece of legitimate proof that Oxford wrote the plays of Shakespeare. I want the Oxfordians to produce one manuscript document that clearly proves that Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays. I want them to produce one 16th century letter -- private letter -- that mentions Oxford as the writer of Shakespeare's plays. Ben Jonson very clearly thought that Shakespeare wrote his own plays. We Shakespeareans have more than enough evidence for our case. I do not subscribe to the conspiracy theory of history. I believe very firmly in the human stupidity theory. Yours, Bill Godshalk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 14:28:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0993 Re: *Per.*; *AYL*; *Cardenio*; Friendship; World View Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0993. Thursday, 8 December 1994. (1) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 12:38:52 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0975 Re: *Pericles* (2) From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 20:50:34 -0600 (CST) Subj: AYL and Macbeth (3) From: Don Foster Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 09:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0980 Cardenio (4) From: Don Foster Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 09:14:56 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0980 Female Frienships (5) From: Grant Moss Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 10:37:25 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0980 World View (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 12:38:52 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0975 Re: *Pericles* To Cary M. Mazer: Thank you for the information about Robeson. Now that you remind me, I recall that the *Pericles* was indeed '58, and the *Othello* was '59, by which time I guess that something had happened to allow him to go to England. I think I recall hearing that he was pretty sick by that time. I wonder if that had anything to do with the government giving him his passport back. None of the post-war administrations had been noted for clemency in their dealings with him. Sincerely, Matt. To Adrian Kiernander: Thank you for the information about Bell and the Bell Shakespeare Company. I wish I had seen that *Much Ado*. Do you know if they ever tour outside of Australia? By the way, have you heard of Zefferelli's *Much Ado* with the National Theater in '67 or '68? That cast (which included Albert Finney, Robert Stephens, Maggie Smith, Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Frank Finlay and Lynn Redgrave) also used broad Italian accents which excited much critical grumbling. I've heard a recording of it myself, and I go back and forth on the accents. For me, they work least well with Dogberry and Verges, mostly because I can't hear any kind of class distinction, and so I have trouble understanding why their mangling the English should be any funnier than, for example, Don Pedro's. Let me know what you think if you ever have the chance or inclination to listen to it. Sincerely, Matt. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lonnie J Durham Date: Wednesday, 7 Dec 1994 20:50:34 -0600 (CST) Subject: AYL and Macbeth My goodness! What a pleasure it is to run one's mind over such beautifully imagined productions as those offered by Ron Moyer in this last run of postings. I never much liked anything of Garland Wright's until I read Ron's take on the Guthrie's AYL. More! More! Gratefully Yours, Lonnie Durham (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 09:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0980 Cardenio To Timothy Reed about _Cardenio_ (hereafter "Card") and _The Second Maiden's Tragedy_ ("2MT"): Charles Hamilton is notorious for speaking with great enthusiasm and certainty even when he hasn't a clue what he's talking about. Every time Hamilton comes across a document in the Elizabethan "secretary hand," he announces it to be Shakespeare's. For example, he told the press that he knew "in five seconds" that the _Ironside_ MS was in Shakespeare's hand, but in fact the _Ironside_ ms. is in the same hand as that of a playhouse scribe who elsewhere signs himself "W.P." (as even Eric Sams has since been forced to acknowledge). Card. cannot be identified with 2MT. The Card. narrative was taken from Shelton's _Don Quixote_ pt. 3, chapters 9-13, and pt. 4, chaps. 1-5 and 9. 2MT is taken from pt. 4, chaps. 6-8. The two plays were probably introduced in the same season, coinciding with the publication of Shelton's translation. (The evidence of SHAXICON, together with documentary records concerning such plays as 1-2H4, 2-3H6, "As You Like It" and "What You Will," etc., suggest that it was fairly standard practice for plays to be paired in production.) In evaluating Hamilton's eccentric claims, you might begin with Harold Metz, _Sources of Four Plays Ascribed to Shakespeare_; Lewis Theobald's _Double Falsehood_; Shelton's _Don Quixote_; and Anne Lancashire's edition of 2MT. The original Card. was written by Shakespeare and Fletcher, 2MT by Middleton. That Shakespeare may have had a revising hand in 2MT is the thesis of Eric Rasmussen in SQ, in a recent essay that was effectively countered in the SQ Forum by MacD. Jackson. Shakespeare may have tinkered some with the MS of 2MT, but the play is otherwise entirely by Middleton. This is not to say that 2MT is notably "un-Shakespearean." Shakespeare in his last works is demonstrably influenced by Middleton's style, as well as by various incidentals favored by Middleton. The similarities between Middleton and late Shakespeare have complicated the problem of such texts as _Timon of Athens_ and the Hecate material in _Macbeth_. Foster. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Foster Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 09:14:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0980 Female Frienships To Helen Ostovich, RE: female friendship between a lady and her maid in the Carolinian period. One important instance is that of Elizabeth Tanfield Cary and her faithful servant, Bessie Poulter, as described by Cary's daughter in the "Life of Lady Falkand" (recently published with Cary's _Mariam_ in a scholarly edition by Barry Weller and Margie Ferguson). Don Foster (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Grant Moss Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 10:37:25 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0980 World View Re Paul Silverman's query about Elizabethan views and the theater, a good start would be Orgel's "The Illusion of Power," which provides a nice discussion of the Elizabethan and Jacobean court view of theater and masque. Grant Moss UNC-Chapel Hill ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 10:12:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0995 Re: *Macbeth* on CD-ROM Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0995. Friday, 9 December 1994. (1) From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 16:08:47 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0991 Re: *Macbeth* (2) From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 14:04:50 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0991 (*Macbeth* CD) (3) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 14:52:51 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0991 Re: *Macbeth* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kenneth S. Rothwell Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 16:08:47 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0991 Re: *Macbeth* Dear Christine, The CD-ROM of MACBETH that you're looking for is distributed, apparently, by VOYAGER. Their color blurb lists the telephone as 1-800-446-2001 / 1-914-591-5500; or e-mail >catalogs@Voyagerco.com<. I can't find a snail-mail address in the blurb. I've ordered this CD-ROM but haven't yet had time to watch it. Ken Rothwell (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 14:04:50 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0991 (*Macbeth* CD) Christine Mack Gordon asked about the "A. C. Braunmuller" CD-ROM of _Macbeth_ in SHK 5.0991. As the producer of the CD, I can provide some useful information; since I no longer work for the publisher and have no financial stake in the matter, I hope the members of this list will accept the following as simply informative and not as a commercial announcement. More info about it: The editor is A.R. Braunmuller (who based the CD text on his New Cambridge edition), with an introduction and commentaries by his UCLA colleague David S. Rodes. The audio performance is the Trevor Nunn RSC production of 1976, starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench; it is synchronized to the text so that clicking on any line will start the performance playing from that point. Originally, the CD was to include the video of this performance (my personal copy still has it) but a rights conflict between Voyager and the RSC lead to its replacement with the audio track (the packaging still has copy that refers to the video performance). The CD also contains about 30 minutes of video clips from Kurosawa's _Throne of Blood_, Polanski's _Macbeth_, and Orson Welles' _Macbeth_. The professional actors involved in the karaoke section are Lisa Harrow and Robert Thaler. It is a Macintosh-only CD and I have no information about whether Voyager intends a Windows version anytime soon (it would NOT be an easy thing to do). How to get it: The Macbeth CD is published by the Voyager Company (New York) and they have a toll-free order number (800 446-2001). It retails for under $50 (US). I have seen it for sale at the Borders bookstore in Westwood (Los Angeles), as well as the UCLA student bookstore. If you want to know any more about it, feel free to contact me directly. Michael E. Cohen a.k.a. lymond@netcom.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 14:52:51 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0991 Re: *Macbeth* For Christine Mack Gordon: The *Macbeth* CD-ROM is available in large bookstores. I've seen it in a Los Angeles Borders (The store in Westwood), and I believe Brad Berens mentioned seeing it at Cody's in Brekeley. (Brad, correct me if I'm wrong.) Both of these stores mail order, so it shouldn't be too hard to get your hands on a copy. Sincerely, Matt. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 10:21:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0996 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0996. Friday, 9 December 1994. (1) From: Alice Kroman Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 16:11:34 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0994 Authorship (2) From: James Schaefer Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 17:03:29 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0994 Authorship (3) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 17:40:15 -0800 Subj: authorship (4) From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 22:23:16 -0700 (MST) Subj: Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alice Kroman Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 16:11:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0994 Authorship In regards to the recent authorship debate that has been flooding my mailbox with messages I stopped reading long ago, I give you my simple little undergraduate student response to the debate: Who cares? We are a society that has been granted with the best writing in the English language and instead of treasuring it, enjoying it to it's fullest, allowing ourselves to be sucked into believeing that there are people in this world who have remarkable talent, we sit and bicker over who wrote it? Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? As a friend of mine once said "Don't talk about it, just do it." (I hope this friend will come forward on his own) Pardon my lack of degrees and such, but sometimes it takes such a fool as I to point out the obvious. If William Shakespeare didn't write all of these remarkable works would you stop reading them? Would you stop studying them? I should hope not. So, why argue about it at all? As my grandmother would say, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." or a gifted writer... Sincerely, Alice M. Kroman akroman@osf1.gmu.edu Senior undergraduate student in English Literature and Theatre George Mason Univeristy (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 17:03:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0994 Authorship Maybe it's just the perverse state of my mind, but I've begun to wonder at [be amazed at] the apparent correlation between the subject heading "Authorship" and the length of the text that follows: it is invariably quite long. Is it their own counter-authorship that these writers feel is at stake here? Grumble, grumble. [or, alternatively, Bah! Humbug!] Jim Schaefer (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Thursday, 8 Dec 1994 17:40:15 -0800 Subject: authorship It certainly *should* be "against the better judgment" of David Kathman to start an argument with Sidney Lee about the obscurity of that passage in *The Return from Parnassus". As to the death of the man from Stratford in 1616. It was some 7 years later that the monument was put up in Holy Trinity church. As to the William Basse poem, it first turns up in 1620, 4 years after the man from Stratford dies, and it is all alone. On the other hand, when Ben Jonson died in 1637, he was buried in Westminster, and within a year was published *Jonsonus Virbius*, a collection of some 40 poems of praise and sorrow, contributed by the most distinguished poets of the time. I believe such facts *are* of interest to the layman, although Kathman doesn't. Perhaps he truly doesn't understand the question. This all goes to the conspiracy of silence surrounding the Stratford man. Since I can't draw him a picture, let me try another way to coax Kathman to the understanding of a very simple thing. "Stratford man -- big fella poet -- he die. No other fella poet makem words, say goodbye, sorry Big Fella." Catch'em question, Kathman? Kennedy (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 22:23:16 -0700 (MST) Subject: Authorship I have been monitoring the Authorship discussion for several weeks now and have read a few of the past SHAKSPER logs available on the fileserver. I promised myself that I would not get involved. Such discussions are frustrating to say the least. I am not convinced that anyone with a firmly held opinion on such an issue would ever change his or her mind no matter what "evidence" is offered. I do not know who wrote the Shakespeare plays and quite frankly I have no patience with anyone who believes that the canon was created by one person alone. I am a sceptic by nature. (This probably comes as a reaction to my early upbringing in a Catholic school run by nuns who did everything they could to dissuade us from thinking on our own. We had to accept all things on faith or by authority. When I finally discovered I had a mind, I decided to exercise its faculties. I accept nothing on faith, I do not trust the truth of most traditions and I rebel against authority figures and their positions on many issues. I became a "Shakespeare nut" in 1971 and it did not take me long to find problems with the attribution of the plays to the man from Stratford. What really got me going on this was when I approached a highly regarded professor at the University of Toronto and asked him his opinion on the issue. This meek, soft-spoken intellectual turned instantly into a snarling Hyde-like creature. He called me foolish, naive and unlearned. He advised me to accept the wisdom and scholarship of my betters and to not question the four hundred year old traditions. He said the wrong thing! To repeat, I do not know who wrote the plays but I am quite certain that there is an authorship question. I would like to respond to a statement made by David Kathman recently that there is ample evidence that William Shakespeare wrote the plays. According to Kathman, this evidence is to be found on legal documents and title pages that bear Shakespeare's name. I would like to remind Prof. Kathman that between 1595 and 1611, fourteen works appeared that were falsely attributed to William Shakespeare. They were: Locrine 1595 The Passionate Pilgrim 1599 Sir John Oldcastle 1600 Thomas Lord Cromwell 1600 Edward III 1600 The Birth of Merlin 1600 Macedorus 1600 The Merry Devil of Edmonton 1600 The London Prodigal 1605 The Puritan Widow of Watling 1607 Arden of Feversham 1608 A Yorkshire Tragedy 1608 Arraignment of Paris 1608 The Troublesome Reign of King John 16|11 It does not end here. In 1660 Humphrey Mosely entered into the Stationers' Register, three plays as being written by William Shakespeare. They were *Duke Humphrey*, *Iphis and Iantha* and *King Stephen*. What this tells me is that there was something very attractive about the William Shakespeare name. Stratfordian E.A.J. Honigman says something very interesting in his *Shakespeare's Impact on His Contemporaries* : "It is evident that 'Shakespeare' was a favourite nom de plume with the dramatic wits of that age." ... "no other writer was honoured by surreptitious publications to anything like the same event." It does not take that much imagination (only a little courage) to take Honigman's statement a little further. It is also obvious that we cannot trust the information on title pages. As for the canonical plays, it is a matter of public record that only 18 of the 38 appeared in print during his lifetime (whoever he was) and that of the 18, ten first appeared anonymously. It was not till 1598 that a play (L.L.L.) appears with Shakespeare's name on it. I am reassured by many that this was not uncommon and I am willing to accept that. As for Kathman's claim that we have many references to Shakespeare to indicate that he was a real entity involved in the theatre, I would like to offer the conclusions of lawyer Richard Bentley who while serving as the Editor of the American Bar Association Journal in the '60s was involved in a trial hearing the case of William Shakespeare. Bentley outlines three main categories of references and allusions that need to be looked at: 1 the Stratford-upon-Avon documents which identify a William Shakspere (Shaksper, Shakspeare, Shakespere, Shaxpere, Shackspere, etc. but NEVER Shakespeare) as being from Stratford-upon-Avon. 2. Printed references to the name William Shakespeare, such as actors' lists, title pages, theatre shareholders and which are not linked to the Stratford man. 3. Allusions to the dramatist-poet and/or his works. These allusions do not identify the dramatist/poet as a person and certainly not a person from Stratford-upon-Avon. Bentley goes on to say that as a result of assuming "Shakspere" was "Shakespeare" scholars "have fallen into the easy error of construing any reference to Shakespeare or to the works as a reference to the Stratford man, or even as evidence he was the author. This is understandable and natural ... but it is nonetheless an error." I agree with Bentley that there is a real danger of assuming that any reference to Shakespeare is a reference to the Stratford man. It ain't that simple. Dom Saliani < Dsaliani@cbe.ca.ab > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 11:01:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0997 Re: *Hamlet*: Dumb Show and Stage History Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0997. Friday, 9 December 1994. (1) From: Steve Schultz Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 94 17:40:49 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0992 Re: *Hamlet*: Stage History and Dumb Show (2) From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 22:20:27 -0700 (MST) Subj: Hamlet: Stage History (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Schultz Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 94 17:40:49 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0992 Re: *Hamlet*: Stage History and Dumb Show RE: the Dumbshow in *Hamlet* I don't think anyone has yet mentioned Granville Barker's solution to this "problem." He suggests that Claudius immediately recognizes the accusation implied by the Dumbshow, that Hamlet recognizes his recognition, and that thereafter the scene is a test of whether the King has the strength of nerve to hide his guilt from the rest of the Court while the murder is acted again. I have always liked this solution because, theatrically, it makes the Dumbshow a functioning part of the plot rather than just something to be gotten through. So I tried to use it in a production I directed several years ago. In practice I thought it very difficult to get the audience to focus on the duel between Hamlet and Claudius while something so interesting as *The Mousetrap* was happening elsewhere onstage. Unfortunately I couldn't check audience response during a performance because I was playing one of the Players myself. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 22:20:27 -0700 (MST) Subject: Hamlet: Stage History < I believe Harold Jenkins in the Arden *Hamlet* attributes the Harvey quote < to sometime between 1598 (or more likely mid-1599) and early 1601, not < simply to 1598 as both John Mucci and Dom Saliani have stated. And I < don't think it's really "obvious" that Harvey is referring to a written text < rather than a written performance David Kathman has problems with the Harvey quote as being made in 1598 and I would assume that he would agree that it was made sometime between 1599 and 1601. The fact remains that it was most likely made before 1603 and the publication of QI. Jenkins, by the way, appears to be in agreement with me concerning the contention that Gabriel Harvey is referring to a printed work. He says on page 6 of his Arden Edition of *Hamlet* : A more serious objection, although the point is usually disregarded, is that nothing Harvey says suggests that he is concerned with *Hamlet* in performance. On the contrary he appears to refer to a work that could be read along with *Venus and Adonis* and *Lucrece*. I don't agree with many of Jenkins observations, but perhaps he has hit upon something here. The more I think about it (please recognize that I could not possibly review all the information that has led me to this conclusion in a SHAKSPER posting), the more I am inclined to believe that *Hamlet* by 1603 was a fairly old play. Perhaps the Ur-Hamlet is a phlogiston-like invention and the 1589 reference to *Hamlet* was in fact a reference to an early Shakespeare version of the play. In 1594, when the play was performed at Newington Butts and pulled in a meagre take, this could be taken as evidence that the play had passed its vogue in the city and the company was looking for new audiences. Granted, Q2 and F contain many topical allusions to a later time but these could have been added later as interpolations or even revisions. Yes there could even have been a manuscript version circulating or even a hitherto undiscovered pre-1603 quarto edition of the play. This would explain a lot. What really got me thinking about this issue was an article written by David Ward in the Fall 1992 issue of *Shakespeare Quarterly*. In this article Ward argues that the order of writing of the three versions of *Hamlet* is F first, then Q1 and then Q2. He bases his argument partly on the fact that Q2 would be the version least offensive to James. Ward quotes at length, writings of James that present views that are diametrically opposite to some of the ideas presented in the F version of the play. And yet there is substantial evidence that Q1, because it "preserves passages otherwise unique to F ... was compiled by memory from a staged version." This did not impress me as much as the references to the writings of James. On the basis of what I ahve read of James, I don't see any way that *Hamlet* could have been performed for James, firstly because of the parallels to James' life and his disposition and secondly because many of the views expressed in the play would certainly have found disfavor with James. Please (re)read Ward's article if you are interested in this issue. I would like to hear what people have to say about the order of the publications and the extent to which James would "frown" upon the views expressed in the play. Dom Saliani < Dsaliani@cbe.ca.ab > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 12:20:09 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0999 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0999. Sunday, 12 December 1994. (1) From: Craig Bryant Date: Friday, 9 Dec 1994 15:37:09 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0986 Authorship (2) From: Penelope Klein Date: Friday, 9 Dec 94 19:35:42 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship (3) From: David Jseph Kkathman Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 94 17:20:22 CST Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Craig Bryant Date: Friday, 9 Dec 1994 15:37:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0986 Authorship I am going to start by saying that I am a very simple man. I take my licks at as straightforward and unsubtle a place as Georgia Tech. So perhaps my amusemenmt at the nimble dances of logic surrounding the authorship question only indicate that I share a level of sophistication with those silly players the wits so liked to poke fun at. As a Ramblin Wreck from said Georgia Institute of Technology, I have a few very simple strategies for solving problems. From Physics 2121: I drop a pencil from my outstretched hand, having predicted it will fall to the ground. It does. If you do the same thing under fairly similar conditions, you will be soon bending over to recover your pencil. Now, why does this happen? Gravitational force acts upon it to minimize potential energy. But, a scientific radical mind may cry out, what is gravity? Can you show me gravity? Can you see it, store it, point to where it comes from? Gravity is the great bugaboo of physical science--all the great minds of the age can not crack it's secrets. If you can't show me more than a scant handfull of equations describing how gravity behaves and what it does, I don't see how we can really accept it as genuine. It is much more reasonable to say that thousands of tiny invisible faeries grab your pencil and carry it to the ground. Of course, I can't _prove_ that little pixies, which have been in the mind of humanity, after all, much longer that "Gravity," aren't doing the work we attribute to mass and potential. Nor can I "prove," really, that the current models of what makes gravity happen are dead on, either. Curiously, this does not imply that Titania and Oberon are vacationing on my writing desk. It takes no more esoteric knowledge than can be gleaned from the introductory remarks to a Signet or a Folger edition that we have every reason to believe the "Stratford Man" wrote the plays attributed to him. First, we know that the butcher's boy was a player in the King's Men. --From his will, if nothing else. --Even if he shared that curious twinge of ignorance with Christopher Marlowe that led them both to misspell their names. Second, we know that the King's Men were the performers of a whole slew of the plays attributed to Will Shakespeare. Or at least, any number of publishers thought to report it so. Most of us would stop there. Those of us with a little energy would note the Meres quote listing a number of plays, Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece as by our favorite Butcher's Boy. The _really_ inquisitive among us would note the other classic quote of Robert Grene, from 1592, which bears repeating: "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a players hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes-factotum is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." I am, as I have said, unschooled in the subtle points of literary forensics, so perhaps I am missing the critical understanding that explains how this passage says anything other than Shakespeare, author of Henry VI, is a player strutting around where he shouldn't be. So, if Stratford Man was a player, someone called Shakespeare wrote the plays that his company performed, and a rival denounced the upstart actor/author of Henry VI, where is the difficulty? Does this line take a little indirection in providing the "proof" of the Stratford connection? Yes. Sure. But not much. Certainly a great deal less than any, absolutely any, line of argument that gives the "Oxford Man" the credit. Are the above quotes and notions "proof" that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote his plays? Not if you demand the video footage from the spy cameras of Elizabeth's Secret Service of Stratford Man hard at work on Hamlet. But I find it hard to define any reasonable standard of "proof" that will allow us to get any work done in the world and still disbelieve Shakespeare. I offer a counter-challenge to Oxfordians: give us some of the "proof" you seem so fond of demanding for Shakespeare. Common sense and every available record suggests that Will Shakespeare of Stratford was in the King's men, and Will Shakespeare of the King's Men wrote the plays. The burden of proof is upon anyone who says otherwise, not on those who adhere to the documentary record. Occam's razor gives a close shave--just a word of advice to a theory that goes about in several days of stubble. I am sorry to be so long in this message, but the double standard of "proof" we have seen so much of late would try Patience itself, seated on its own monument. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Penelope Klein Date: Friday, 9 Dec 94 19:35:42 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship Congratulations to Alice Kroman who succinctly paraphrased my sentiments regarding the recent authorship debate, although I would replace her "who cares?" with "what is the point?" I do not mean to trivialize anyone's scholarship or passion regarding the authorship question, but hasn't the pedantry reached new extremes recently? Would the plays be any more or less meaningful if written by someone other than William Shakespeare and would they be interpreted differently? Is the authorship question *ever* likely to be resolved or are we destined to go around in circles for the rest of our electronic days? (I don't think I've got the stamina, to be honest!) Wouldn't the energy be better spent producing terrific, thought-provoking productions of the plays and encouraging audiences to enjoy them? On a different topic entirely: I agree with Christine Mack Gordon's assessment of *Pericles* produced at the Guthrie Lab two(?) years ago -- it was a masterful piece of theatre that vibrantly shimmered across the stage, spun its tale and kept the audience engrossed. Enchanting stuff. Cordially, --Penelope Klein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Jseph Kkathman Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 94 17:20:22 CST Subject: authorship I'm getting a little burned out on this authorship thread, but I feel compelled to respond to Dom Saliani's remarks, first to respond to an argument I haven't dealt with yet, and then to correct some misinformation based on Mr. Saliani's unfortunate quoting of Richard Bentley (about whom more later). 1) Yes, I'm very much aware of the Shakespeare Apocrypha; I thought of mentioning that when I made my title-page arguments, but if I parenthetically responded to every possible Oxfordian objection in the course of presenting my own arguments, I'd never get anywhere. I figured someone would bring it up, and so they have. First of all, several of the plays cited by Mr. Saliani (*Locrine*, *Thomas Lord Cromwell*, and *The Puritan*) were only attributed at the time to "W.S.", which may or may not have been meant to be Shakespeare; there was an Elizabethan playwright named Wentworth Smith, and possibly other W.S.s who wrote plays (the records are not very clear), and the fact that the editors of the Third Folio attributed these plays to Shakespeare only means that by 1664, William Shakespeare was more famous than Wentworth Smith. *Edward III* was printed anonymously in 1596 and 1599, but was not attributed to Shakespeare until 1656 (in a bookseller's playlist), and in any case a growing number of scholars now think part of this play may actually be by Shakespeare. *Sir John Oldcastle* was printed anonymously in 1600, and was reprinted by William Jaggard in 1619 with a false date of 1600 and the attribution to Shakespeare. *The Birth of Merlin* was not published in Quarto until 1662, though it was probably written around the early 1600s. *Mucedorus* went through many editions, all anonymous, and, like *Edward III*, was not attributed to Shakespeare until the 1656 bookseller's lists; the same goes for *The Merry Devil of Edmonton* and *The Arraignment of Paris* (now attributed to Peele), plus *Arden of Feversham* (which was probably written much earlier than 1608). *The Troublesome Reigne* was published in 1611 with an attribution to "W. Sh.", almost certainly meant to imply Shakespeare. All that aside (and there are many more plays which were ascribed to Shakespeare in 17th-century booklists and the like), the fact remains that *The London Prodigal* (1605) and *A Yorkshire Tragedy* (1608) were printed during Shakespeare's lifetime with his name attached, yet they are not thought to be by Shakespeare. Mr. Saliani says that "it is also obvious that we cannot trust the information on title-pages," and Oxfordians often cite the Apocrypha as an excuse to dismiss all title-page evidence. Well, that's a little simplistic. Title-pages are one type of evidence, and I never said they are definitive; they must be supplemented with other evidence, just as in any reconstruction of events from 400 years ago. In the case of the core Shakespeare canon, about half of which was published in Quarto form before 1623, inclusion in the First Folio is another piece of evidence for the attribution to Shakespeare; presumably the editors of the Folio knew what they were doing, and had their reasons for including these plays and not others which had been attributed to Shakespeare. For plays outside the Folio, stylistic comparison to the core canon is another type of evidence. *Pericles* was not in the Folio, but was attributed to him in the 1609 Quarto and is now generally accepted into the canon because its last three acts are in the quality and style of the core canon plays from around 1609; presumably it was not included in the Folio because its first two acts are in an inferior and different style, probably that of George Wilkins (or maybe not). *The London Prodigal* and *A Yorkshire Tragedy* are not generally accepted into the canon because they were not included in the First Folio and are not in the style of Shakespeare. And by the way, all the above still hold even for Oxfordians; if you think the First Folio was put together by a consortium of Lords rather than by Heminges and Condell, presumably they knew what they were doing too, and the style and quality of the plays in question is the same no matter who you think wrote them. The fact that some plays were falsely attributed to Shakespeare just means that he was popular, and that his name was a draw; that doesn't change if you think the name was a pseudonym for the Earl of Oxford. My main point on the title-page business was that the name "William Shakespeare" on a title page amounts to an assertion that William Shakespeare wrote the work in question, and the only person named William Shakespeare living in London between 1590 and 1610 was the Chamberlain's/King's Men actor/sharholder from Stratford. (There was at least one other William Shakespeare at the time living out in the boondocks). The fact that this assertion may have sometimes been false does not change the fact that people thought William Shakespeare was the author of plays and poems. 2) And that brings me to my second point, which will have to be brief since I've rattled on so long thus far. Dom Saliani's quotation of Richard Bentley, who was editor of the American Bar Association Journal in the 1950s, had me cradling my forehead in dismay. I'm sure Mr. Bentley was a fine lawyer and an excellent editor, but I'm afraid that when it came to Shakespeare he had no clue what he was talking about, and any "facts" he cites about Shakespeare should be taken with several gargantuan grains of salt. Mr. Bentley wrote an article in the February 1959 ABA Journal called "Elizabethan Whodunit: Who Was 'William Shake-speare'?"; he presented it as a legal summation of the evidence in favor of the authorship of William Shakespeare (who he insisted on calling "Shaksper"), Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, and Christopher Marlowe, but in fact it's a wildly biased and inaccurate attack, in which his contempt for William Shakespeare is palpable. This resulted in a flurry of articles on the subject by both Stratfordians and anti-Stratfordians; some of the Stratfordian articles pointed out some of Bentley's more egregious factual distortions, which he responded to in a further article. The whole series of articles was collected in a book called "Shakespeare Cross-Examination", which I now have before me. To get back to the claims cited by Dom Saliani, most of which I've addressed before: (a) Bentley claimed that the Stratford documents NEVER spell the name "Shakespeare", which is simply a blatant falsehood. It is spelled that way (5 times) in the documents relating to the purchase of New Place, as well as in several other Stratford documents. It is true that in Stratford there were many variant spellings, entirely in keeping with the practice of the times, but the most common spelling of the man's name in Stratford was "Shakespere", with "Shakespeare" tied for second with "Shakspeare", "Shackespeare", and "Shackspeare". In the London records of the Stratford man, though, there is much more uniformity: "Shakespeare" occurs roughly 85 percent of the time, or slightly less if you want to perversely insist that the actor was not the Stratford man. Overall, "Shakespeare" is far and away the most common spelling of the Stratford man's name. (b) Bentley claimed that references to the actor are "not linked to the Stratford man". Well, we've been over that before, and I thought we had established that the actor was the Stratford man, based on the will, the coat of arms, and the Gatehouse mortgage. I don't want to argue the point again. (c) Bentley claims that allusions to the poet/dramatist and his works "do not identify the dramatist/poet as a person and certainly not a person from Stratford-upon-Avon". Well, I beg to differ; there are all kinds of references to Shakespeare the author as a person, at least as many as for other playwrights of the era. The fact that these are all dismissed by Oxfordians as the result of the conspiracy or as misinterpretations does not change their existence. If I wanted to play the Oxfordian game, I could easily explain away all references to Christopher Marlowe the author as a person, leaving a bunch of references to a belligerent man who just about everybody hated. The Oxfordian gamne seems to be to take all the references to Shakespeare as a person, explain them away as the result of the conspiracy, then triumphantly announce that there are no references to Shakespeare as a person. Sorry, but I don't consider that scholarship. I'm really sorry to have gone on so long, but as usual I got carried away. Apologies to all who find this tedious. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 12:35:10 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1001 Q: *As You Like It* Fusion Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1001. Sunday, 12 December 1994. From: Shirley Kagan Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 1994 17:26:06 -1000 Subject: As You Like It Fusion I may have an opportunity to direct a Western/Asian fusion *As You Like It* this summer. The production will be done as a summer training program for talented high schoolers in Hawaii. I am considering a fusion incorporating techniques of Beijing Opera. I thought this would work particularly well with the crossed gender issues. It would be really useful to me to receive the insights and ideas of members of this list. Ready and Waiting, Shirley Kagan University of Hawaii. You may contact me directly at dubroff@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 11:55:07 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.0998 Re: Shakespeare and Media Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0998. Sunday, 12 December 1994. (1) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 08 Dec 1994 22:36:57 -0400 (EDT) Subj: [Video] (2) From: Cary Mazer Date: Friday, 9 Dec 1994 08:47:35 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0989 Re: Shakespeare's Voices (3) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Friday, 09 Dec 94 19:48:00 PST Subj: Shakespeare as Multimedia (4) From: Holger Klein Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 11:45:40 +0100 Subj: [Shakespeare Yearbook] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Levine says, "Unfortunately, you can't play the videotapes sold in the UK (at excellent prices) on our equipment." There seems to be a new system available, marked U perhaps? I watched a friend's videotapes purchased in the UK and they played fine on my system. Does anyone know any more about such tapes? Bernice (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Mazer Date: Friday, 9 Dec 1994 08:47:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0989 Re: Shakespeare's Voices For Stephen Schultz, The Argo recording, "Great Actors of the Past," has both of Henry Irving's recordings. According to the liner notes, they were made on wax cylinders by H. M. Stanley (as in Stanley and Livingston), who had received a recording machine as a wedding present from Edison's London agent in 1890. Stanley's son gave the cylinders of recordings that Stanley had made of his many celebrity friends to the BBC in 1937. The sound quality of Wolsey's Farewell is quite decent, but the performance (to modern ears, at least) sounds like something out of the Goon Show. The opening soliloquy from Richard III is in much worse shape: the first thirteen lines are very scratchy, and the remaining ten lines on the short excerpt, rescued by 1970s technology, are almost completely indecypherable. But (is it only my imagination?) something quite extraordinary seems to be happening in the speech, justifying much of what was said about Irving's diabolical magnetism. Cary M. Mazer (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Friday, 09 Dec 94 19:48:00 PST Subject: Shakespeare as Multimedia As both an engineer and Shakespeare fan, I've been following the discussions about the availability of computerized Shakespeare resources with interest. However, on deeper reflection I am beginning to wonder what value the multimedia depiction of the plays provides. While computers and communications provide an obvious benefit by allowing for forums like this one. What in particular would a teacher, (or anyone I suppose) derive from some of the multimedia versions. I know I am phrasing this poorly, but it seems like multimedia versions only provide a "slicker" presentation of the material. What do multimedia, or what should multimedia presentations do that actually enhance the education process? I'm sorry, its late on Friday and I really ought to be anywhere else, but suddenly it seemed important. jimmy jung (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Holger Klein Date: Tuesday, 29 Nov 1994 11:45:40 +0100 Subject: [Shakespeare Yearbook] Beginning with Vol. 4 (1993), the Shakespeare Yearbook published by Edwin Mellen Press has been edited by Holger Klein (Salzburg), with Nicholas Radel (Furman) as Reviews Editor, and with different co-editors for individual volumes. Vol. 4 The Opera and Shakespeare has appeared, Vol. 5 Shakespeare and France is being sent to the publishers. Vol. 6 (1995) is devoted to "Shakespeare, the Tudor Myth, and Modern Historiography", co-edited by Rowland Wymer (Hull). Contributions of up to 25 pages including notes are being invited (deadline April/May 1995) on any aspect relating to the History Plays (mainly Shakespeare's, but not excluding those by others in his time), contemporary and/or modern historical works, etc. Please contact the General Editor, Professor H.M. Klein, Institut Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universit=E4t Salzburg, Akademiestr. 24, A-5020 Salzburg, Fax Nr. +43-662-8044-613, E-Mail: kleinhol@edvz.sbg.ac.at ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Dec 1994 12:31:50 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1000 Assorted *Macbeth* Items Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1000. Sunday, 12 December 1994. (1) From: Dan Vitkus Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 1994 10:27 +0200 Subj: RE: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (2) From: Shirley Kagan Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 02:08:26 -1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs (3) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 1994 20:27:48 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Macbeth in NYC (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Vitkus Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 1994 10:27 +0200 Subject: RE: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs Reply to Wm. Godshalk re: Beth Ash's request for good material on _Macbeth_ She should definitely consult Stuart Clark's article in _Past & Present_ 87, "Inversion, Misrule, and the Meaning of Witchcraft." That would be a good place to start--then check his footnotes for further citations. Clark only has it two-thirds right, though. He concentrates on subversion when the real issue is equivocation, amphibologia. Dan Vitkus dvitkus@auc-acs.eun.eg The American University in Cairo (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Shirley Kagan Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 02:08:26 -1000 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0982 *Macbeth* Qs In response to Daniel Colvin's querry re: cross-gender casting in *Macbeth* I have one major reservation. It seems that a great deal of Lady Macbeth's frustrations and actions result from the fact that as a female in this society she is not allowed to hold power. This is why she must gain whatever power she can through her husband. Perhaps this is even the reason she is obsessed by the idea of power as much as she is. However, if in this society a woman CAN reach postions of power (which is what you get if you cast a female Malcolm, Banquo, etc) then Lady Macbeth runs the risk of turning into a pretty evil person - i.e. - she could, like other women, get power directly if she chose to do so, but she is manipulative and screwed up and thus prefers to get her husband in trouble. It doesn't necessarily have to happen this way, but it is a potential problem worth considering. Shirley Kagan University of Hawaii. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Saturday, 10 Dec 1994 20:27:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Macbeth in NYC Dear Colleagues, A *Macbeth* worthy of attention is now playing at CSC (136 E. 13th Street in NYC, west of 3rd Avenue). Produced by the Falstaff Presents, Inc., it will play every day except Sundays until 12/23. If you are around, it is well worth the trip. The 13 actors do well by the play. My students loved it, and it's a good performance to take a class to see. Student rush tickets are only $10 the day of the show. For information, call CSC at 1-212-677-4210. The show is also listed among the off-off-B'way plays in the Sunday *NY TIMES.* Though it has six tv monitors in view, it is not a concept-driven play, perhaps because the actor playing Macbeth (Jack Stehlin) also directed. Yes, Macbeth is decapitated onstage. Best wishes, Bernice ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 14:22:24 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1003 Shakespeare as Multimedia Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1003. Monday, 12 December 1994. (1) From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 14:48:01 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shakespeare as multimedia (2) From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 12:47:02 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0998 Shakespeare as Multimedia [R] (3) From: Benjamin A Ostrowsky Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 16:43:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0998 Re: Shakespeare and Media (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Douglas M Lanier Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 14:48:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare as multimedia I've not had that much experience with Shakespeare as multimedia, but I do see various ways in which this new technology might be useful, especially to teachers. First is the issue of convenience: using videotapes in class can be a logistical nightmare, particularly if you are showing several different clips to classes for comparison; CD-ROM technology might easily collect several performances on a disk, and make showing such clips much simpler. The same is true of images and supplementary visual material many of us use in our classrooms--to have those images collected in one place and to be able easily to show them to students would be a godsend. Even audio passages collected in one place would be helpful. I can't tell you how many valuable minutes of class time I've lost (along with the attention of my students) as I've fumbled with tapes or struggled with the primitive search capacities of VCRs. (There's also an issue of the deterioration of video and audio tape, something CD-ROMs are not as susceptible to.) A second issue is flexibility. With videotape, you usually must plan ahead to show a passage or passages, and the class discussion must rather inflexibly focus on those passages because it's just too time-consuming to find a second passage you hadn't counted on coming up in conversation. The CD-ROM's search capabilities make finding such a passage much simpler and faster, and thus potentially allow for a more open-ended discussion of video in class. The same is all the more true for images. Now, I must bring into my class all the pictures I anticipate being relevant to the discussion, and I often find myself trying to describe one I've forgotten or couldn't have anticipated. With a CD-ROM, I would have a much larger (and richer) group of images to call upon during discussions, and the logistics of getting and storing them is vastly simplified. (The same is true of musical excerpts or audio performances.) The CD-ROM might allow me to become a more flexible teacher, allow me to conduct classes as open-ended discussions rather than lectures structured by the demands of the present technology. It means, potentially, that I can be more attentive to the non-textual aspects of Shakespearean drama. (And I'm not advocating here that we not spend much of our time on the text.) There's also a economic and political aspect here. At many smaller schools, video, audio, and image resources are severely limited. (I speak as one who has taught at such schools.) CD-ROM technology is relatively cheap: the CD-ROMs themselves are actually much cheaper to produce than videotapes (at least so I'm told by my colleagues working on these matters), and the machines to play them are dropping in price precipitously. Potentially this technology might help smaller libraries and programs offer access to materials usually restricted to larger universities. Sure, they aren't "primary" materials in the strictest sense, but they might become the most economic alternative for a smaller school. I use the word "potentially" throughout the above discussion for good reason. The promise of CD-ROM technology has not been borne out in most recent products, though a few CD-ROMs show some of the possibilities. And the price is still too high, the technology too new (how many of us were stuck with Sony-BETAs?), the range of products too paltry for most of us to use daily. (No small part of the problem is copyright, based largely still on the assumptions of print culture.) But the potential is there, particularly with the advent of write-able (is this a word?) CD-ROMs, which may make us all into potential multimedia authors. There's much hype about CD-ROM, and one is right in being skeptical, but it's not all hype. I should quickly add that I have no connection with any CD-ROM authoring enterprise; I've just been intrigued by the possibilities of what I've seen. One that points the way to a possible future is the CD-ROM *The Anglo-Saxons*, which might be useful for a variety of undergraduate courses in early Britlit. (I have no link to the publisher or authors of this work.) Sorry for the length. Cheers, Douglas Lanier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael E. Cohen Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 12:47:02 -0800 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0998 Shakespeare as Multimedia [R] In SHK 5.0998, Jung Jimmy asked >I am beginning to wonder what value the multimedia depiction of the plays >provides. What in particular would a teacher, (or anyone I suppose) derive >from some of the multimedia versions? [. . . I]t seems like multimedia >versions only provide a "slicker" presentation of the material. What do >multimedia, or what should multimedia presentations do that actually >enhance the education process? I am not being flip when I pose the following rhetorical question: What value do the print depictions of the plays provide? After all, the plays are plays; what value does printing the (putative) scripts of the plays on paper provide? In fact, I would suspect the value varies depending on a variety of factors: who is purchasing the book, who prepared the book, and what is IN the book are just a few of those factors. Some people are quite happy to have no Shakespeare volumes in their homes, some are happy with a $3.00 Globe reprint, some will see no value in anything less than a Riverside edition, or New Cambridge, or First Folio facsimile, or [fill in your favorite]. As for multimedia versions, it depends, just as with paper books, on the version and the purchaser. "Multimedia" itself is as vague a term as "book": the forms it can take, and the quality (itself a relative property) of such productions can vary widely. J. Jimmy, your question, therefore, cannot really be answered in its present form; it is a little too broad. I can tell you about the multimedia Shakespeare publication I produced (the Voyager Macbeth CD), and talk about some of its value as I perceive it. To begin, it includes the complete text and apparatus of a respected scholarly edition as its basis, so it has whatever value such material has in paper form. Because the text is stored in digital form, however, the multimedia edition can provide the extra value of allowing the reader to navigate much more quickly through the material, making such print conventions as "see below" and "cf. 5.2.17n" actual links (click and go there), rather than mere references. Is speed and ease of use value or "slickness"; when does a quantitative change become a qualitative one? You must decide that for yourself. The multimedia interface I helped design and program provides for a multi-layered presentation--on paper, notes that "translate" Jacobean language into modern English (useful to the first-time reader) must share page space with detailed discussions of staging, sources, analogues, etymology, and so on, making a paper edition that includes such material rather forbidding to the beginning student. The multimedia edition separates such notes out; scholars can choose to read with the full range of notes available, while first-timers can read the play with the more technical notes "filtered" out and still choose to go deeper any time they like. Is such a multi-layered presentation strategy valuable or mere "slickness"? I think it is valuable, but, again, it depends on the individual reader. Multimedia editions can include performances as well as texts. Readers of the CD I produced, for example, can compare how the RSC under Trevor Nunn performed Macbeth 5.1 with how Polanski filmed it. Is this valuable? I think so; others may disagree, or they may agree with the concept of performance illustrations but disagree with the performances Braunmuller, Rodes, and I chose to include. Multimedia editions can link performances to the text; there is a difference between watching a video with a book open in front of you and trying to keep the performance and your place in the text synchronized (especially with something like Welles' adaptation as the performance), and having the "pages" of a multimedia edition turn in time with the performance. There is also a difference between using the search buttons on a VCR or laserdisc player to get to a particular place in the performance and simply clicking on the line that you want to hear or see. Are these conveniences slickness or value?--I think they are both, but, again, your mileage may vary. Finally, I think in your question you are really asking several questions: (1) Is multimedia useful as a method of presenting Shakespeare's works? (2) Are current multimedia Shakespeare publications any good? (3) Are there guidelines for producing "valuable" multimedia Shakespeare editions? I can answer (1) with "yes"; (2) with "some are, some aren't"; and (3) with "yes--but the guidelines I follow may not be to your taste or address your needs." Sorry to natter on...I'm going back to lurk now. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Benjamin A Ostrowsky Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 16:43:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0998 Re: Shakespeare and Media Jimmy Jung asked: > What in particular would a teacher, (or anyone I suppose) derive from some > of the multimedia versions[?] I know I am phrasing this poorly, but it > seems like multimedia versions only provide a "slicker" presentation of the > material. What do multimedia, or what should multimedia presentations do > that actually enhance the education process? As an undergrad in an English Renaissance Drama course, I read a play per week. My greatest difficulty in becoming familiar with the work has been the multitude of characters and names -- so, for a final project, I have webbed up Jonson's _Epicoene_. It's hardly ready for use as a study tool, but you may see the usefulness of linking each character's name to his home page. Be gentle in your criticism, please. You may find the project at "http://www.ucet.ufl.edu/~bostrows/project.html". When I have spare time, I'll flesh it out -- for now, enjoy the skeleton. Ben ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 14:31:12 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1004 Howey's Macbeth; Video Standards; CTI 1995 Workshops Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1004. Monday, 12 December 1994. (1) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 14:49:31 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1000 Assorted *Macbeth* Items (2) From: John Mucci Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 07:34:28 -0500 Subj: Video standards (3) From: Stuart Lee Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 12:41:05 +0000 Subj: Humanities Computing Workshops: Oxford, 1995 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 14:49:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1000 Assorted *Macbeth* Items I found David Howey's performance of Macbeth in this year's ACTER production absolutely stunning. Unsentimental and unheroic, his reading of the part enabled me--for the first time--to understand and like the play. Instead of trying to suppress the ludicrous and banal (e.g. the wonderful anticlimax of "but now they rise again/ With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns/And push us from our stools"), he used it to offer a wonderfully unillusioned performance that I am convinced is much better justified by the script than the traditional heroic figure brought down by the evil machinations of wife and witches. Apropos of which, he also did a gorgeous job with the "Come seeling night" speech, which was delivered straight-on to the audience and in which his face and voice took on a witchlike intensity which showed that he had become one of them. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Mucci Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 07:34:28 -0500 Subject: Video standards For those of you interested in the question of which videotape plays where, a summary: There is a question of format, and a question of standard. Format can be VHS (by all means the most common) or Beta (almost defunct now as a home-system). These are both cassettes with half-inch tape. 8mm and "Hi-8" are in much smaller cassettes, and U-Matic, or 3/4" videotape is in a much larger one. Obviously each of these formats needs to be played on a different machine. The more insidious problem is with standards, an option which usually stems from the kind of electrical power a particular country has around the world. The US and most of North and South America are on "NTSC" --videotape bought here will play in Chile as well as Alaska. Japan is also on NTSC. Europe is divided between two other standards, PAL and SECAM, which "write" information on the tape in a different pattern, and cannot be played on NTSC equipment. However, in Europe, and to a certain extent in the US, multi-standard players are available which will play NTSC/PAL/SECAM on VHS format. It is possible to copy a tape from one standard to another, but it is not cheap. For those who are interested to know which country uses which standard, there are color- coded maps available from such tape-duplication houses such as National and Editel in NYC. If anyone needs information on video, you are welcome to write, call, or key. John Mucci GTE VisNet 01-203-965-3791/fax2463 john.c.mucci@gte.sprint.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stuart Lee Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 12:41:05 +0000 Subject: Humanities Computing Workshops: Oxford, 1995 Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services 1995 Workshops Throughout the early part of 1995, the Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for Textual Studies, based at Oxford University Computing Services, will be running a series of workshops aimed at introducing some of the latest developments in humanities computing. Details, dates, and the cost of each workshop are listed below. Please contact the CTI Centre for Textual Studies for more information, noting which workshop(s) you are interested in. **************************************************************************** Stuart Lee or Michael Popham CTI Centre for Textual Studies Oxford University Computing Services 13 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 6NN Tel:0865-273221 Fax:0865-273221 E-mail: CTITEXT@vax.ox.ac.uk Http://www.ox.ac.uk/depts/humanities/ **************************************************************************** UW=Unwaged or not in full-time employment; AR=Academic rate; CR=Commercial rate. All prices are in pounds sterling. Costs include registration, lunch, and coffee only. A list of accommodation will be made available by the CTI Centre but it is up to individuals to make their own arrangements. **************************************************************************** WORKSHOP 1: Introduction to the World-Wide-Web and HTML Date: 15th February 1995; Venue: Oxford University Computing Services; Cost: UW=25.00, AR=50.00, CR=100.00 This workshop will set out to introduce the basics of the World-Wide-Web and the markup language HTML. The morning session will include an introductory talk about the internet and the impact of WWW, hands-on browsing of internet resources, and a quick look at some basic HTML. The afternoon will be devoted to delegates marking up their own documents in HTML and looking at some of the implications of converting printed texts into WWW files. **************************************************************************** WORKSHOP 2: The Poetry Shell and the Creation of Hypermedia Editions for Teaching. Date: 17th March 1995; Venue: Oxford University Computing Services; Cost: UW=25.00, AR=50.00, CR=100.00 The Poetry Shell has been developed as part of the Oxford University Hypermedia in Literary and Linguistic Subjects Project which was funded under the ITTI. The Shell is written in Asymetrix ToolBook and allows academics to prepare teaching editions of poems, in particular those written in languages other than Modern English. It allows the incorporation of translations, critical essays, grammatical information, glossary, notes, and even images. The workshop will introduce participants to the principles of electronic teaching editions in the Shell by first of all giving access to a poem already prepared. They will then be taken step-by-step through the process of creating their own edition. A short poetic text and supporting materials will be provided. *************************************************************************** WORKSHOP 3: The Electronic Text (1) Date: 30th March 1995; Venue: Oxford University Computing Services; Cost: UW=25.00, AR=50.00, CR=100.00. This workshop will set out to introduce some of the basic issues of using electronic texts. Areas covered will include a discussion of the nature of the elctronic text and the advantages of its use in teaching and research. This will then be followed by a discussion of some of the sources of electronic texts (predominantly literary in nature) including commercial suppliers, electronic archives, and the stages of creating your own (e.g. scanning and mark-up). The day will end with some demonstrations of the various projects mentioned in the talks. Familiarity with the contents of this course is a pre-requisite for 'The Electronic Text (2)'. *************************************************************************** WORKSHOP 4: The Electronic Text (2) Date: 31st March 1995; Venue: Oxford University Computing Services; Cost: UW=25.00, AR=50.00, CR=100.00. This workshop will consist of two half-day sessions. The first will include an introduction to the principles of text analysis, an overview of some of the key tools, and an opportunity to gain some hands-on experience with the text analysis package TACT. The second session will focus on the use of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), provide delegates with the chance to try out some SGML-aware tools for creating and browsing texts, and look at the Guidelines produced by the Text Encoding Initiative. All delegates should either have attended the workshop "The Electronic Text (1)" or be familiar with its subject matter. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Dec 1994 14:11:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1002 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1002. Monday, 12 December 1994. (1) From: Tom Clayton Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 15:10:56 -0500 (CDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0999 Authorship (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 17:42:57 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.0999 Authorship (3) From: William Boyle Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 20:33:11 -0500 (EST) Subj: Announcement (4) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 23:10:30 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shakespeare Apocrypha (5) From: Dom Saliani Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 21:28:26 -0700 (MST) Subj: authorship (6) From: Tony A. Emond Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 01:35:05 -0500 Subj: Authorship and the philosophy behind the tragedies (7) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 10:44:49 -0800 Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Clayton Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 15:10:56 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0999 Authorship The implicit arguments for an alternative Electronic Shakespeare Conference (on Authorship) grow ever stronger than the arguments for an Author alternative to Shakespeare for his works. Happy holidays, Tom [Editor's Note: I agree with Tom and would share my considerable expertise with anyone who wishes to set up such a list. I was tired of this discussion the first time it was brought up. --Hardy M. Cook, Editor of SHAKeSPEaRe.] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 17:42:57 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.0999 Authorship The motive for Baconians, Oxfordians, Rutlandians, and the rest is quite obviously snobbery. No one has suggested that the plays of *Shakespeare* was written by someone of *lower* rank than the Stratform Man. I myself am sure that the plays were written by Captain John Smith of Jamestown. Who else would know enough about the inhabitants of the New World to have written *The Tempest*? Enough already. E L Epstein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Boyle Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 20:33:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: Announcement My friends in the De Vere Society asked me to post this announcement on SHAKSPER about an upcoming talk in London this January by Charles Vere: "Is Shakespeare Dead?" A talk by Charles Vere, Lord Burford 11 January 1995, 6:30 pm Traveller's Club Pall Mall, London, UK Tickets: 5 pounds (includes refreshments) For further information, contact: Christopher Dams De Vere Society 491-576-662 (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 23:10:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare Apocrypha It seems to have recently been assumed that all scholars agree that Shakespeare had no hand in the apocryphal plays, and this is not the case. At the Atlanta SAA meeting a few years ago, Barry Gaines organized a seminar in the Shakespeare apocrypha, and I was rather amazed at how many scholars argued for Shakespeare's hand in THE YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. MacDonald Jackson gave us many reasons to believe that Shakespeare wrote ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM, and so on. So Dom Saliani has to do some particular arguing against some first rate scholars before he can claim the apocrypha for his cause. Craig Bryant's clear and simple argrument is quite correct. Dave Kathman should not have to refute the non-evidence of the Oxfordians. If the Earl of Oxford wrote all those plays, where are his manuscripts? Where's the evidence? Yours, Bill (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Sunday, 11 Dec 1994 21:28:26 -0700 (MST) Subject: authorship I know how David Kathman feels when he says that he is burnt out with the authorship issue. I am reminded of T.S. Eliot's "streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent/To lead you to an overwhelming question ..." 1) The reason I listed all those plays attributed to Shakespeare was not to introduce a discussion on Shakespeare Apocrypha but rather to make the point that even Stratfordians acknowledge that Shakespeare was a preferred nom de plume during the Elizabethan era and afterwards. Here is the Honigman quote again. I think that it is significant and revealing: "It is evident that 'Shakespeare' was a favourite nom de plume with the dramatic wits of that age." ... "no other writer was honoured by surreptitious publications to anything like the same event." Furthermore, I would never suggest that we cannot *always* trust the information on title pages. I brought up the issue because more than once it was suggested that Shakespeare's name on the title pages serves as evidence that the man from Stratford was the author of the canon. One question I would like more people to pose for themselves is why no play appears before 1598 with Shakespeare's name on it. And of the 18 plays that appeared in print during his lifetime (whoever he was) ten first appeared anonymously. 2) As for Bentley, once again I think we can forego the discussion on the variant spellings of "Shakespeare." I must admit that I erred in quoting Bentley that the Stratford documents never spell the name "Shakespeare." David Kathman is quite right that the New Place purchase papers contain that spelling - but that is not the issue. The issue that Bentley makes CRYSTAL clear to me is that it is an error in logic to assume that any reference to Shakespeare is a reference to the Stratford man. That need not necessarily be the case. If it was the case, there wouldn't be an authorship issue. No one denies that the Stratford man was associated with the theatre. This would explain the "will, the coat of arms and the Gatehouse mortgage" but these documents do not serve as conclusive evidence that he was an author - just a good business man. 3. I take great exception to David Kathman's assertion that "the only person named William Shakespeare living in London between 1590 and 1610" was our man from Stratford. This is quite the statement. I have read in more than one place that Shakespeare was a very common name during this period of time. A recent article in *The Shakespeare Newsletter* which I do not have immediately in front of me also overs evidence in this regard. I will get my hands on the article tomorrow and provide you with a summary and the volume and issue number so that you can read it for yourself. (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tony A. Emond Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 01:35:05 -0500 Subject: Authorship and the philosophy behind the tragedies I have a bone to pick with Shakespeare. In what seems like every one of his better-known tragedies, the conflict only seems to get "resolved" (kinda) when the main character involved suddenly remembers -- and starts acting like -- _who he is_, which more often than not turns out to be that social unit which he was born to be. Hamlet, for instance, can only work his revenge after the graveyard scene, where he proudly announces himself as "Hamlet the Dane" which, of course, means that he is claiming the throne. Othello, on the other hand, goes from military hero to murderous villain -- and in the process sees himself in terms of imagery which gets darker and darker. MacBeth is a usurper, and so cannot live (or, apparently, reproduce); and the ultimate nihilist tragedy King Lear ends in utter destruction with the death of Lear himself. The only instance where this little bit of philosophy is disregarded is Richard II. The play being a "history," the author's implied philosophy was limited in what it meant in terms of text. I find the pattern somewhat odd, if one sees it in the context of the Stratford man writing the plays. Assuming that the philosophy of "you are what you are born to be" carried over into his private life, the Stratford man would have felt himself incapable of writing such great plays. Edward de Vere, OTOH, would have felt more at home. However, this DOES square in with William Shaxberd's return to Stratford. Just my $0.02, (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 10:44:49 -0800 Subject: authorship IS THERE AN UR-TEMPEST? William Strachey wrote up an account of a shipwreck that happened in the Bermudas in 1610, and it is suggested that *The Tempest* is based on this account. Therefore, Oxford, who died in 1604, could not have written the play. There is, however, the possibility that *The Tempest* was based on Jacob Ayren's *Comedia von der Schonen Sidea*, which was written in 1595. If true, then Oxford could have used that play for a source and still had plenty of time to get in under his dead line. E.K. Chambers admitted to the similiarity of the plots, and said that the "use of a common source is...the plausible explanation. But it has not been found." Sidney Lee also considered the question, and while recognizing also the like- ness of the plots, said, "...both German and English dramatist may have followed an identical piece of fiction which has not been quite precisely identified." And so it seems that both E.K. Chambers and Sidney Lee find it reasonable to think that *Schonen Sidea* and *The Tempest* are dependent on an *Ur-Tempest*, a work that is lost to us. So we need not wait for Strachey's shipwreck account in 1610 to date *The Tempest*. It could have been written at any time after 1595 or so. There are some who hold that Shakespeare, when writing *The Tempest*, lifted some language from Strachey's account of the shipwreck in 1610. It seems more likely that Strachey lifted some language from *The Tempest* when writing up his account. But both Strachey and Shakespeare, and Ayren as well, might all three of them have lifted some language and plot from an *Ur-Tempest* in penning their work, according to E.K. Chambers and Sidney Lee -- some common source prior to 1595, which has "not been quite precisely identified." Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 09:31:12 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1005 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.1005. Wednesday, 14 December 1994. (1) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 00:08:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.1002 Authorship (2) From: Dom Saliani Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 14:42:52 -0700 (MST) Subj: authorship (3) From: Constance Relihan Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 22:10:08 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship (4) From: Dom Saliani Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 22:26:54 -0700 (MST) Subj: authorship (5) From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 11:21:08 GMT Subj: No Holds Bard (6) From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 21:42:15 +0100 Subj: AUTHORSHIP: ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH!!!! (7) From: Melissa Aaron Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 15:07:14 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship (8) From: Robert Teeter Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 15:06:27 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship (9) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 18:23:23 CST Subj: authorship (10) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 20:27:48 EST Subj: Authorship, alas.... (11) From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 94 08:07:06 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 00:08:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.1002 Authorship Applause to Hardy's note appended to Tom Clayton's suggestion of an "alternative" Electronic Shakespeare Conference on the "authorship" issue, and further blessings on whoever it was the other day who noted that the length of these authorship postings bears some inverse relation to the strength of the arguments. Now, no one wants to cut off discussion among those truly interested in a topic. Therefore I would like to suggest a model currently used by another Electronic Conference to which I subscribe. Interscripta, as it is called, is an E. C. for medievalists and those non-specialists who are interested in various medieval topic. Here's how it works: someone proposes a topic for discussion in which s/he is passionately interested and to the scholarship of which s/he is committed. The topic is announced to subscribers at least a couple of weeks before the discussion actually begins, and is fully described (rather like a seminar proposal). Once the discussion is launched, it goes on freely for a set period of time, usually 4 to 6 weeks, after which the moderator (i.e., the proposer) gathers stuff together and transmits it to subscribers in the discussion. In some cases, summaries of discussion "to date" are compiled by the same moderator, just to keep people clear and focused on the discussion. The latest one then posted the full discussion and all its divagations on the hypertext World Wide Web/Lynx system. The beauty of all this is that only those interested in a particular topic need subscribe to it, whether they choose to be participants and contributors or lurkers. The moderator runs the discussion; the passionately interested participants and patient lurkers get to play to their respective hearts' contents with the specific topic, and nobody else gets bored to death by what is essentially a private discussion now, on SHAKSPER, transmitted to (what is the number, Hardy?) some 600 or so readers? [Actually the membership now numbers 850+. --HMC] In case someone has just returned from Mars and has missed the moderated discussion but would like to join in, the moderator could post an OCCASIONAL reminder to SHAKSPER about what is under discussion without "sharing" the whole 9 yards with everyone else, and can provide information on how interested parties might tune into the topic. The Latest Interscripta discussion (just concluded) was moderated by Jeffrey J. Cohen of Georgetown University. I daresay he might be willing to share information on how to launch such a discussion. Then again, he might not, but it seems to me worth an inquiry if any of the "Authorship" seminar members wants to pursue this. Alternatively, one might inquire of Deborah Everhart whose brainschild Interscripta was. I haven't the appropriate e-mail addresses in front of me, but if you wish, I will dig them up. For now, could we have just a little break from the authorship fanatics, please? If you can't manage that, then how about a little brevity? Peace on Internet, Naomi Liebler [I have every expectation of annoucing very soon SHAKSPER's move to Bowie State Univesity, a move which should take place sometime early next year. When the move occurs, I will investigate the possibility of establishing a WWW site as well as a gopher archive. Clearly, a WWW connection would enable other sorts of electronic engagement such as what Naomi Liebler suggests above. --HMC] (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 14:42:52 -0700 (MST) Subject: authorship < "the only person named William Shakespeare living in London between < 1590 and 1610" was our man from Stratford. I promised in my last posting that I would provide comment on the above statement made by David Kathman. In the Summer 1994 issue of *The Shakespeare Newsletter* Winnifred Frazer (University of Florida) addresses this issue directly in her article "'William Shakespeare' as a Common Name in Renaissance England" (pg. 33). With your indulgence, and I hope I am not breaking any copyright laws, I will reproduce several of the more pertinent paragraphs: "Distinguished biographer Sir Sidney Lee (A Life of William Shakespeare 1903) testifies to the large number of Shakespeare families on record: 'as many as thirty-four Warwickshire towns or villages were inhabited by Shakespeare families in the seventeenth century. Among them all William was a common Christian name ... no less that three Richard Shakespeares of Rowington [twelve miles from Stratford] whose extant wills were proved respectively in 1560, 1591, and 1614, were fathers of sons called William. At least one other William Shakespeare was during the period a resident of Rowington. As a consequence the poet has been more than once credited with achievements which rightly belong to one or other of his numerous contemporaries who were identically named' (2) In the face of four recorded "William Shakespeare," besides the poet (who married Anne Hathaway of Shottery), Lee speculates that the man who married Anne Whatley of Temple Grafton at about the same time 'was doubtless another of the numerous William Shakespeares who abounded in the diocese of Worchester.' (24) 'Schoenbaum notes the confusion caused by the fact that besides William's father, another contemporaneous John Shakespeare, who had three children, figures in the Stratford records. He adds: '... Shakespeares, their names spelt with exotic variety were thick on the ground in Warwickshire and the adjoining counties " (12 -13). In fact according to Schoenbaum, as far back as 1487 a Hugh Sawnders of Merton College, had his name changed "from Shakespeare because it was reputed as commonplace." ' (13) '... Indefatigable researcher Charlotte Stopes (Shakespeare's Family, 1901) trying to bring genealogical order to the numerous Shakespeare families of Warwicshire and London, contends that the William Shakespeare named in the tax records as of St. Helen's Parish, Bishopsgate, who "tried to avoid payment on some grounds," may not have been "our Shakespeare at all." She notes, "Several of the same name lived near Bishopsgate before and after his death." (143) I think that this is more than enough to put to rest the claim that there was only one William Shakespeare living in London during this period. I will end with Frazer's conclusion, one that I wholeheartedly agree with: "In view of the plethora of Shakespeares at the time, is it not expedient now to re-examine the primary sources of the biography of the poet of Stratford?" (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Constance Relihan Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 22:10:08 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship Not only has the authorship discussion become tedious (to many of us it always was), it has now become racist as well. --Constance Relihan On Fri, 9 Dec 1994, Richard J. Kennedy wrote: ...Since I can't draw him a picture, let me try another way to coax Kathman to the understanding of a very simple thing. > > "Stratford man -- big fella poet -- he die. No other > fella poet makem words, say goodbye, sorry Big Fella." > > Catch'em question, Kathman? > > Kennedy (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 22:26:54 -0700 (MST) Subject: authorship < It takes no more esoteric knowledge than can be gleaned from the < introductory remarks to a Signet or a Folger edition that we have every < reason to believe the "Stratford Man" wrote the plays attributed to him. I suggest that Craig Bryant take a good look at the introductory remarks in Folger editions of the plays. The introductory material intended to provide information on the author is seven and a half pages long. However, it is not till well into the third page that any details are given about the Stratford William. The first several pages are filled, to repeat myself, with bitter vitriol against Anti- Shakespeareans. Here is but a sampling of these comments: "To those acquainted with the history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, it is incredible that anyone should be so *naive or ignorant* as to doubt the reality of Shakespeare as the author of the plays that bear his name." Is this not the most blatant misuse of name calling you have ever read in a work that is purportedly aimed at students and the general reading public? We all know why people, engaged in an argument/discussion, resort to name calling. They do so when they want us to form a judgment or opinion without examining the evidence. Name calling is a rhetorical device designed to stop the thinking process. It gets us to react emotionally instead of logically by appealing to hatred and fear. Politicians do it all the time and it ain't pretty. It is especially unattractive when "scholars" engage in this practice. It should also be stated that debaters often resort to name calling when they have run out of ideas or support for their position. Can you imagine how much discussion would be shut down by a statement such as the one quoted above? What student or member of the general reading public would dare question the authorship and risk being lumped in with the "naive" and the "ignorant"? The name-calling continues: "Yet so much *nonsense* has been written about other "candidates" for the plays that it is well to remind readers that no credible evidence that would stand up in a court of law has ever been adduced to prove either that Shakespeare did not write his plays or that anyone else wrote them." To students, teachers and the general public, the Folger Library represents the most authoritative voice on matters dealing with Shakespeare. How much useful inquiry and dialogue has been shut down by the Folger's indictment of anything anti-Stratfordian as being "nonsense"? To continue: "All the theories offered for the authorship of Francis Bacon, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Oxford, the Earl of Hertford, Christopher Marlowe, and a score of other candidates are mere conjectures spun from the active imaginations of persons who confuse hypotheses and conjecture with evidence." "Naive", "ignorant", "writers of nonsense", and now, confused over- imaginative hypothesizers. Will this list ever end? There is more and unfortunately there is worse: "The obvious reputation of Shakespeare as early as 1598 makes the effort to prove him a myth one of the most absurd in the history of *human perversity*." How can one comment on such a statement? Is this not the ultimate in intellectual bankruptcy? To accuse the opposition in a debate of being absurd is one thing but perverse? Methinks the Folger doth protest too much. Yes there is more - much more: "The anti-Shakespeareans talk darkly about a plot of vested interests to maintain the authorship of Shakespeare. Nobody has any vested interest in Shakespeare, but every scholar is interested in the truth and in the quality of evidence advanced by special pleaders who set forth hypotheses in places of facts." Add paranoia and lobbyism to the list of offenses charged to the Anti- Stratfordians. Does this statement not also suggest that anti-Stratfordians are disinterested in truth? What does this make us? Is it not also notable that the opposition are referred to as being "anti- Shakespeareans"? Would this not be read as being against Shakespeare? That's almost as bad as being anti-apple pie and anti-mom! Let's continue with the diatribe: "The anti-Shakespeareans base their arguments upon a few simple premises, all of them false. These false premises are that Shakespeare was an unlettered yokel without any schooling, that nothing is known about Shakespeare and that only a noble lord or the equivalent in background could have written the plays. . . Most anti-Shakespeareans are naive and betray an obvious snobbery. The author of their favourite plays, they imply, must have had a college diploma framed and hung on his study wall, like the one in their dentist's office, and obviously so great a writer must have had a title or some equally significant evidence of exalted social background. They forget that genius has a way of cropping up in unexpected places and that none of the great creative writers of the world got his inspiration in a college or university course." I think that a great many authors would take great exception to the last statement. This last excerpt adds a few more names to the invective against anti-Stratfordians. We are poor logicians and snobbish; we also suffer from memory loss. What has been quoted above all occurs within the first three and a half pages. The remaining four pages need no comment. They contain the usual fare in presenting the Stratford William as the author of the Shakespeare plays. The good news is that the "New Folger Library Editions" have come out. All of the above material has been deleted and in its place is a more temperate statement in the concluding paragraph acknowledging that an authorship question exists: "Perhaps in response to the disreputable Shakespeare of legend - or perhaps in response to the fragmentary, and for some, all-too- ordinary Shakespeare documented by surviving records - some people since the mid nineteenth century have argued that William Shakespeare could not have written the plays that bear his name. These persons have put forward some dozen names as more likely authors, among them Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Bacon, Edward de Veer (earl of Oxford), and Christopher Marlowe. Such attempts to find what for these people is a more believable author of the plays, is a tribute to the regard in which the plays are held." I take this change as a hopeful sign of the times. Perhaps scholarship and tolerance is not dead. My advice to the simple and amused Craig Bryant is to ask himself why any scholarly institution would resort to such anti-intellectual tactics as outlined above. Perhaps there is more here than meets the eye. As for Craig's reference to Greene's *Groats-Worth of Wit" as evidence that a connection exists between the man from Stratford and the writing of plays, I will respond in another posting. This one is too long as it is. Dom Saliani < dsaliani@cbe.ab.ca > (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 11:21:08 GMT Subject: No Holds Bard Oh come on! The authorship debate is really rather restful. At least it's a change from the drivel which recurrent constitutional crises seem to be generating on British TV screens. As I write, a central project, awash with appalling bonhomie, is calling itself 'Bard on the Box'. Another jauntily searches for the "Bardbrain of Britain". I have nominated Brian Vickers. Terence Hawkes (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Luc Borot Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 21:42:15 +0100 Subject: AUTHORSHIP: ENOUGH IS TOO MUCH!!!! I second the suggestion, already seconded by Hardy, that those who wish to discuss the authorship question move to another list of their own. It is clogqing our mail again; luckily, Hardy resolved to group these posts under one digest, which allows some of us to directly delete or just browse every second appearance of that obsessive header (or every time...). I chose to browse, so I discovered that others had the same reaction as me. I browsed the rest and deleted. Now: is it not time we divorced? I am considering soon unsubscribing from this otherwise excellent list because it is manipulated by partisans of a marginal and ideologically and socially oriented cause. Elizabethan Lords were better artists than Elizabethan players and scribblers, the scholars of today know less than some certain lord of today. Why would it be John Smith and not Jean Dupont or Pierre Martin, or Jules Durand who wrote the Tempest AND the others? Pocahontas (did I get you right? is it HER John S?) may have had nothing to do with it, you know. Perhaps Prospero's island was the Ile de la Cit/e, and Caliban was the hunchback of Notre Dame, who knows?! Language is no real objection, if what matters is blue blood... From this democratic age, Luc PS: With a toungue, a cheek, a grain of salt, and the best Christmas greetings in advance... even to Lord de V. (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 15:07:14 +0200 Subject: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship There's been a lot of reference to "Stratford Man" and "Oxford Man" on this thread lately. I keep wondering--is this some kind of anthropological jargon? Are we hoping to dig up "Stratford Man?" If we can't, does this prove that "Stratford Man" is "Piltdown Man"? I mention this because-- 1) there's been in the past a big tendency for anti-Stratfordians to want to dig Shakespeare up 2) just as in anthropology, the amount of evidence we have for "Stratford Man" is consistent with what we'd expect to find, given the relative elapse of time in each case 3) Piltdown Man seems to have been perpetrated to prove a pet theory, by amateur scholars, who when the facts didn't fit, proceeded to make up some facts. Just a little cross-disciplinary interjection. (8)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Teeter Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 15:06:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship Tony A. Emond wrote regarding the tragedies: > I find the pattern somewhat odd, if one sees it in the context of the > Stratford man writing the plays. Assuming that the philosophy of "you > are what you are born to be" carried over into his private life, the > Stratford man would have felt himself incapable of writing such great > plays. Edward de Vere, OTOH, would have felt more at home. Why, then, did Marlowe, Jonson, and other playwrights of similar common birth have no such problems? They wrote about royalty and nobility. They inherited the same class outlook as Shakespeare. Or, did deVere write their plays as well? It seems to me that someone of common birth is *more* likely to have inflated ideas about nobility. They are more distant to the person of common birth, who sees them only in public, when they are on their best behavior. This phenomenon is manifest in the authorship debate itself, in which some people cannot believe great literature could come from a common man. The majority of anti-Stratfordians -- with the obvious exception of some de Vere descendants -- are themselves of common birth. If de Vere felt so at home writing plays, why did he feel compelled to use a pseudonym (the cardinal tenet of all anti-Stratfordian theories)? Robert Teeter San Jose, Calif. (9)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 18:23:23 CST Subject: authorship Dom Saliani takes great exception to my statement that there was only one William Shakespeare living in London between 1590 and 1610. For the record, I based this statement on Appendix E of E. K. Chambers' *William Shakespeare: A Study of the Facts and Problems*, which contains a fairly complete list of all the Shakespeares (under any spelling) known in England between the 13th and early 17th centuries, arranged by time period and location. For London after 1500, the closest we get is a "William Shakespert" who was buried in Westminster on 30 April 1539. There is a record of the burial of Jane Shakspear, daughter of William, in 1609, but this "William" is almost certainly an error for John Shakspear (of whom there is extensive record), a royal bitmaker who had a daughter Jane in 1608 of whom there is no more record after 1609. There was no shortage of John Shakespeares, and the surname was not uncommon in general, but I stand by my statement that there was only one William Shakespeare in London between 1590 and 1610. I don't specifically remember the article Mr. Saliani cites, but I'd be glad to read a summary of it. My sympathies are with those who are sick of this whole discussion. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (10)--------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 20:27:48 EST Subject: Authorship, alas.... Like others I paused before leaping into this thread. Much of it seems a waste of time and many think, with some justification, that the Looney-tics' claims for Oxford, advanced with such comically passionate intensity, are best ignored by those of us who still clinge to traditional standards of historical accuracy, and thus seem, because we must keep open minds, to lack all conviction. I sympathize and recommend you keep your left pinkie poised near your Q-key when you hit these posts. Most of all, I sympathize with Hardy, and urge all of us who dive into this thread to identify our posts clearly as "Authorship," so he doesn't have to read them all the way through. I refuse, however, to apologize for the length of this or any other message I post in this thread. Such apologies come, you will notice, exclusively from the Stratfordian camp. The Looney-tics have what Ralph Nader once described as "cast iron bladders." They will keep repeating their assertions, no matter how nonsensical, ad nauseum and at amazing length and can sit at their terminals longer than Strom Thurmond can filibuster. Those who have the patience to reply should never apologize if we must respond with lengthier answers than the flimsiness of our opponents' arguments deserve. Those of us who hesitate to oppose the forces of foolishness and respond to the Looney-tics should look at the ascendance of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk in the recent US elections. By flooding the market place of ideas with distortions, half truths and outright lies in greater volume than the better informed were willing or able to respond the reactionary right has succeeded in putting Next Gingrich and Jesse Helms in charge of an alarming share of my country's policies. Like Rush, the Looney-tics can use little nuggets of untruth like "there is no evidence linking the man from Straford to any play" with great effect because there are few with the will to refute them. I do not make that comparison lightly. I disagreee with those who feel we should not critique the obvious ideological motivations of the Looney-tics and may have more to say about that in a later posts. I wonder, for instance, at the silence of our esteemed colleague Terence Hawkes in this discussion. Wasn't Looney completing his "researches" at about the same time that John Dover Wilson was riding the train from Leeds to Sunderland and musing on the meaning of the "The Mousetrap?" Were not their subsequent efforts to put Shakespeare at the center of "English" culture parallel in their aims and, in large part, in their methods? ( If there is anyone on this list who has NOT read Hawkes' THAT SHAKESPEARIAN RAG, run, don't walk, to your library! ) For the information of anyone on this list who is surprised to learn from the Looney-tic fringe that there is no contemporary evidence linking William Shakespeare to the plays he is supposed to have written, I offer for clarification this list of title-page citations. My source is _Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto_, edited by Michael J. B. Allen and Kenneth Muir, (U. of California Press, Berkeley, 1981) Quartos with Shakespeare's name on the title page: (Title / date / text of attribution) Love's Labor's Lost, 1598, "By W. Shakespere" Henry IV, part 2, 1600, "Written by William Shakespeare." Midsummer Night's Dream, 1600, "Written by William Shakespeare." Merchant of Venice, 1600, "Written by William Shakespeare." Much Ado About Nothing, 1600, "Written by William Shakespeare." The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1602, "By William Shakespeare." Hamlet, 1603, "By William Shakespeare." King Lear, 1608, "M. William Shak-speare." (above the title) Troilus and Cressida, 1609, "Written by William Shakespeare." Pericles, 1609, "By William Shakespeare." After 1616: Othello, 1622, "Written by William Shakespeare." First Folio, 1623, "Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies." The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1634, "Written by the memorable Worthies of their time; Mr. John Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakespeare, Gent." (Would it be too much for us to suppose that whoever composed this title page meant that Mr. Shakespeare was a "memorable worthie of [his] time" not as an actor and real estate speculator, but as a playwright?) I respectfully request that one of this List's resident Looney-tics reply by citing for the enlightenment of the ill-informed all contemporary references to Oxford as the author of any of the above plays or of any other play traditionally attributed to the man from Stratford. Letters, diaries, even hear-say reported in accounts of conversation or rumors repeated by contemporary sources at second, third, or even fourth hand will be happily welcomed. I'm not picky, certainly not as picky as the typical Looney-tic is when judging the value of all the seventeenth century references to a certain Stratford native as a playwright of some reknown in his time. I prefer to avoid sources like ouija boards or deceased spirits speaking through psychic mediums, but I realize that the Percy Allen faction of the Looney-tic camp considers such a restriction grossly unfair, so I won't insist on it. ( See Allen's 1947 opus _Talks with Elizabethans Revealing the Mystery of "William Shakespeare"_ if you think I'm making this up! ) Unless something has come to light in the very recent past the non-ectoplasmic evidence for Oxford remains nil. It would be refreshing to see a Looney-tic acknowledge this fact, but I'm not holding my breath. The fact that plays before 1598 were not attributed to Shakespeare is entirely in keeping with the practice of the time. Few plays in the book stalls mentioned the author. That Shakespeare was cited AT ALL is strong evidence that, unlike most of his contemporaries, he gained some reknown among the afficionados who bought and read play scripts, as an author more than usually worth reading. That his name was put on plays most agree he didn't write only strengthens that argument - it certainly doesn't refute it. Of special note is the quarto of KING LEAR in which Shakespeare's name appears ABOVE THE TITLE and in bigger type at that. By that time he was clearly a "superstar" among his fellow playwrights. His name, clearly, would make people buy books at the stalls. Can Looney-tics cite a similar case among his contemporaries? As for the lack of recorded public literary grief on or immediately after April 23, 1616, the death of Cervantes earlier the same month was greeted with little more notice in Madrid. Scholars of Iberian literature, for some reason, are not beseiged by claims that DON QUIXOTE was actually written by Lope de Vega. That Jonson's death inspired a greater outpouring of published keening is neither surprising nor relevant. He was a literary lion in various highly regarded forms. Shakespeare, despite his early high brow efforts, was known only in the ephemeral, and widely despised, arena of the popular stage, and he had retired from that several years before he died. Jonson respected his talent, though not uncritically, and a few younger poets like Donne were clearly influenced by what they heard in the playhouses, but few of the literati were willing to welcome mere playwrights as their peers. The historical record shows that Shakespeare enjoyed all the respect that could be expected for someone in his trade, and more. Those who seek a way to make this point strongly with their students might try a tactic I have used when I taught at The National Shakespeare Conservatory and elsewhere. I cite my friend Carmen Fenestra, an erstwhile classical actor I knew from my years at Jean Cocteau Repertory, and ask the audience if they have ever heard of him. None ever have. I then ask how many watch, or watched, THE COSBY SHOW. Generally I am the only one in the room who has never watched an entire episode of the popular series and I then ask how none of them ever noticed that Carmen had a hand in every script that series ever aired. Unlike Shakespeare's contemporaries they could not avoid having the wordsmith's name flashed in their face when they had finished enjoying his work. Yet the name means nothing to them, though now they see it at the end of every episode of HOME IMPROVEMENT. Or ask if they can name one writer besides Bochko from HILL STREET BLUES. I don't expect the impact of this example to shake the faith of a hard core Looney-tic, but it may prevent some innocents from taking their argument seriously. Tom Dale Keever keever@phantom.com [Because SHAKSPER is an edited list and because I am concerned with keeping a consistent look and feel to the digests, I generally read everything that comes to the list as I edit and format the postings for distribution. This, of course, takes time, and I have spent more than an hour getting this particular digest together. I do this work because I am dedicated to maintaining rigor and scholarly acceptability for SHAKSPER. Clearly, I must take pause when a discussion such as this becomes so prominent. The "Authorship" heading, Tom, is provided so that others may delete freely; I, alas, must read all. --HMC] (11)--------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Annalisa Castaldo Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 94 08:07:06 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship I too have long ago stopped reading those mailings headed "Authorship" but I did catch Alice's comment and I can only add "Hear hear!" Alice, don't feel the need to apologize for a lack of degrees. As someone only working on her Ph.D., I think you are EXACTLY right. Annalisa Castaldo Temple University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 09:36:47 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1006 Qs: Role of Fate in *Rom.*; Early Modern Women Writers Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.1006. Wednesday, 14 December 1994. (1) From: Rose McManus Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 22:19:13 -0800 Subj: Romeo, Juliet, fate, and..... (2) From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 11:04:29 SAST-2 Subj: Women writers (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rose McManus Date: Monday, 12 Dec 1994 22:19:13 -0800 Subject: Romeo, Juliet, fate, and..... A hospice counselor by profession, a Shakespeare junkie for the life and passion of his words, I've silently monitored this list for 2 years. This first posting was prompted by a recent raging discussion in my small reading group. Usually, we read the plays aloud, make brilliant, illuminating observations, and retire, feeling well fed. Last week a lively, and occasionally heated exchange focused on the role of fate vs. cultural and historic contexts in producing the bittersweet outcome of Romeo & Juliet. The reading I've done over the years suggests that this may be a tired topic for scholars. Still, I'd love to receive thoughtful comments on the matter from any interested parties. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Schalkwyk Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 94 11:04:29 SAST-2 Subject: Women writers Our students have expressed an interest in courses on women writers in the early modern period and our library has very little material in this area. Could I ask members of the list to let me have some suggestions about a good basic collection and reading list? Thanks. David Schalkwyk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 08:40:25 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1007 Authorship Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1007. Thursday, 15 December 1994. (1) From: E. Pearlman Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 09:15:53 -0600 (MDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship (2) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 94 02:46:42 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship (3) From: John Owens Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 10:15:33 -0800 Subj: RE: SHK 5.1005 Authorship (4) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 11:59:49 -0800 Subj: authorship (5) From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 16:25:31 -0500 Subj: authorship list (6) From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 17:36:59 -0600 Subj: authorship (7) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 20:26:46 -0800 Subj: authorship (8) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 21:27:33 -0800 Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. Pearlman Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 09:15:53 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship If there were a conference on evolutionary biology, it would not be inhospitable or a denial of free speech to ask that creationists go elsewhere. A conference on geography is not obligated to welcome the flat earthers. Ichthyologists would hardly be expected to lay down the red carpet for those who wish to discuss the Loch Ness monster. It is a fact that there are individuals who hold eccentric ideas in defiance of generally accepted rules of logic and evidence. Can we ask that the self-styled anti-Stratfordians go elsewhere? E. Pearlman (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 94 02:46:42 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.1002 Authorship Topic: Authorship, a look back... Like other fervent arguments, this latest wave of Authorship posts will, I'm sure, subside. I think many of us would miss the comic relief if it were gone, so I hope Hardy will bear with it. The casual reader of this thread may be forgiven his impatience if he knows nothing of the background of the Oxfordian, or as I prefer to call it, the "Looney-tic," movement. As with cricket, which I made a long overdue attempt to unravel this summer with my first trip to Lord's, a little time spent learning the rules of this seemingly pointless and tedious game can make it almost entertaining. Though it hardly deserves its own C. L. R. James, this contest, properly understood and placed in its historical context, can shed valuable light on what Shakespeare means to this century, and might prompt discussion of issues that deserve a place on this LIST, issues both weightier and meatier than the silly quibbles about hyphens and obituaries that the Looney-tics toss in our eyes by the fistful to disguise their lack of relevant evidence. The progress of Bardolatry was well along before the first suggestion arose, in 1769, the same year as Garrick's Jubilee, that this newly minted literary deity sprang from an annoyingly common background. Observers since Euhemerus have noted the need of simple folk to promote their culture heroes to super-mortal, or at least more than common, status. As Shakespeare rose in the popular mind, with the energetic boosting of his chief acolyte Garrick, from talented craftsman to "Immortal Bard," the age-old process set in. Herbert Lawrence's first printed nomination of Francis Bacon was largely ignored until the mid-nineteenth century when it was picked up by Delia Bacon. The class-snobbery that normally seethes just beneath the surface of anti- Stratfordian diatribes was unabashed in Bacon's screeds. The "Stratford poacher" was a "vulgar illiterate man" who headed a "dirty, doggish group of players." In his place she suggested her namesake and a coterie of fellow wits from better families. The odd place of pseudo-British class snobbery in the colonial mind, springing from our traditional feelings of cultural insecurity, may explain why the anti-Stratford movement always found its most fervent followers across the water. (Note for instance the ".au" suffix of one of our own most energetic Looney-tics.) The next great step forward in their crusade was taken on this side of the Atlantic when first Mrs. C. F. Ashmead Windle, inspired by Delia, and then Ignatious Donnelly, following Windle's lead, started mining the letters in the plays for the "ciphers" that, properly unjumbled, would point the hard working initiate toward the GREAT TRUTH. It took a British squire, Sir Edwin Durning Lawrence, though, to take this method to its highest level, revealing that the word "Honorificabilitudinitatibus," ( Love's Labour's Lost, V, I ) could have no other meaning than "HI LUDI F. BACON NATI TUITI ORBI," thus proving that "these plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world." Though one might think that would have settled the matter there were some who remained unconvinced and the anti-Stratford confession was soon rent with schisms. The most energetic and determined sect was born of a source almost as humble as the Stratford man himself. An English school teacher named J. Thomas Looney had the inspiration to attack the problem of replacing Shakespeare on all those title pages from another direction. Taking it as an a priori given that the traditional candidate was too common for such an honor, he made a list of all the qualities he would want to find in a man ( I know of no anti-Stratfordian who has ever suggested a woman could have had a hand it any of this ) who could produce such immortal works. These pre-requisites included wide travel in Europe, acquaintance with various foreign tongues, the best education available at the time, and intimate familiarity with the Elizabethan court. Ignoring such obvious questions as why someone familiar with European geography would land Antigonus and Perdita on the sea coast of Bohemia, Looney scoured the biographical literature of Elizabethan England in search of someone who met his arbitrary requirements. He auditioned various courtiers of the time before lighting upon the dashing Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Though Oxford's bio makes the guy sound to me like a whining jerk, Looney was hopelessly smitten with this high-born adventurer who, like any self-respecting courtier of the time, had composed a bit of lame and amateurish verse and who, someone is reported to have said, had also written a couple dramatic entertainments, thought lost, for the court. Thus did de Vere become the leading anti-Stratfordian contender for the title of "Greatest Dramatist of All Time," not because a shred of evidence connected him with Shakespeare's or anyone else's plays, not because anyone had ever reported seeing him in or near a playhouse, not because any line of verse or prose of any literary value could be connected to him through any of the normal means of literary attribution, but because, to Looney's mind, he fit the part. In 1920 Looney was ready to announce his new discovery to the world and his _"Shakespeare" Identified in Edward de Vere the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford_ appeared. There were a few other problems with the new candidate, not least the well-documented fact that he had slipped this mortal coil in 1604 and any reasonable reading of the historic record led to the conclusion that new "Shakespeare" plays continued appearing for another decade or so after that. There was obviously much to do before the world would accept the new revelation, but there were, oddly enough, others eager to lend a hand. In a melange of assorted anti-Stratfordians who called themselves "The Shakespeare Fellowship" the new Looney-tic faction became the dominant flavor in the stew and seized the organizational means to spread their message. Bernard M. Ward's _The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604_, appeared in 1928 and became standard by default. Ward encouraged the theory if only by not denying it, thus boosting the Looney-tics cause and his own sales. Percy Allen took the lead as the Fellowship's most prolific and influential exponent, his ground-breaking 1947 _Talks with Elizabethans Revealing the Mystery of "William Shakespeare"_ taking the discussion to a new and, uh, shall we say, "higher" plane. To a stunned public he revealed, "Through the agency of a gifted medium, of wide experience and of unimpeachable integrity, I have, for many months past, been talking with the three above-named Elizabethans Oxford, Bacon and Shakespeare, from whom I have obtained ... a final solution of the Shakespeare mystery..." By these worthies he was vouchsafed the truth - Oxford had done most of the writing and the other two had merely touched it up here and there. Since Allen the major work elaborating the Looney-tic gospel has been carried out by the Ogburn clan, pere, mere, and fils. From Charlton and Dorothy's 1952 _This Star of England: "William Shakespeare" Man of the Renaissance_ we learn to our surprise that our hero fathered on The Virgin Queen herself Shakespeare's patron Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624), often mentioned as a candidate for the honor of addressee of The Sonnets. They uphold proudly the tradition of class condescension that has been a hallmark of the anti-Stratfordian cause since Delia Bacon and, like Dave Kathman, I find their snotty tone gets up my nose pretty quick. Its size testifies to Calimachus' ancient observation "Mega biblion, mega kakon." Their son's recently reissued restatement of the Looney-tic dogma is easier to take, and mercifully briefer. That brings us up to the present day and the slings and arrows of Looney-tic pseudo-history that we have all endured in recent weeks on this thread. I hope by putting them in the context of the tradition from which they spring some of you who have lost patience with those of us who persist in standing against them will understand what the true issue is. Ultimately I don't care strongly that someone from Stratford wrote the plays. I know next to nothing about him. He may for all I know have been a nasty exploitative oppressive bully who kept a stable of paid flunkies to write the plays that bear his name, though the simpler and more likely explanation that he was a hard-working auto-didact and entrepreneur is more appealing. What I do care about is that ignorance and intellectual dishonesty, fueled by anti-populist bile, not be allowed to masquerade as scholarship. I am sorry to hear that the Folger editors have become so tolerant. They had it right the first time. Tom Dale Keever keever@phantom.com (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Owens Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 10:15:33 -0800 Subject: RE: SHK 5.1005 Authorship A complaint regarding complaints - While I sympathize with those individuals who are dismayed at the large number of postings to a topic they find uncongenial, I don't agree that a segregation of authorship postings is any kind of useful answer. The authorship debate, like it or not, is part of Shakespearean scholarship. Unless you are prepared to eliminate all discussion of Shakespeare's life and times and how they apply to the study of his plays, this debate must continue to periodically resurface, like it or not. If you have an interest in additional topics, post your data and discuss. The proper answer is not to censor postings on threads you find irksome, but rather to introduce subjects you PREFER to discuss. This is more positive than the lurk and complain methodology I have witnessed up to this point. If all the letters of complaint were instead postings on Hamlet's madness or Iago's motives, we would have alternative reading material to satisfy our present needs for variety. My own opinion is that the authorship debate has been rather entertaining and instructive, at least as much so as any other topic on the listserv, if not more so. John Owen (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 11:59:49 -0800 Subject: authorship REGARDING THE ELIMINATION OF THE AUTHORSHIP POSTINGS Two-thirds of all the postings here are devoted to the direction and production of the plays. Why should discussion about the author of the plays not receive some due? Is one-third too much? Without the "authorship" postings, there would be *no* talk at all about the man who wrote the plays. It's not only the Oxfordians who post to this discussion, nor only anti-Stratfordians who are interested in the history and biography of the Elizabethan age. There are also unorthodoxfordians, free- floating skeptics, those of a naive but open interest, and those who are of an unguessed allegiance, or none at all, who merely wish to know more about the man who wrote the plays. There is a sort of "love of biography", I think. Some have it, some do not. The Stratfordians must defend their man, of course, if this sideposting continues. And they will find comrades at the battlements. And they will learn from the parley and struggle over the "question". There is little doubt that Stratfordians will be more and more asked to make the man from Stratford plausible as the writer of the poems and plays. If your answer is that Oxford was dead when a lot of the plays were written, or that Oxfordians are snobs, or that only idiots would ask the question, then the first response is of no use anymore, the middle response speaks for itself, and the last could get you punched in the nose. So it's good for Stratfordians to be aware of some of the important questions and answers. The most critical question is, of course -- "Why is it that beyond the "paper Shakespeare" there is no biographical man? The name "Shakespeare" is a facade. The man behind the name cannot be found...can he?" A Stratfordian should know the answer to that question, and this postbox is the place to learn that answer. It won't do anymore to say, "His name is on the plays, so forget it!" A Stratfordian who studies a bit has very many and better comments than that. You will hear those comments on this sidepost by and by, and you can repeat them, and sound as if you understand the question, instead of saying something dumb like the above. There are those who don't want any part of looking for the author, don't give a rap about his life, let him be the man from Stratford, Oxford, or whoever. "Who cares," they say, and "What difference does it make?" They do not have this "love of biography" I mentioned. But to satisfy them is easy. Obviously, this sideposting is like t.v. If you don't like it, change the channel. But I think we should not be turned off. It wouldn't look good. It would look like censorship, like the Stratfordians were sensitive on the subject, like they didn't have any good answers to the questions, and no champions ready to come forward. Hardy Cook, our editor, confesses that he was "tired of this discussion the first time it came up." We all get tired. Some of us have for years been inquiring into this, but it seems worth the time, and worth to all the small space we take on this line, and your ease is to pay us no attention at all. Kennedy (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 16:25:31 -0500 Subject: authorship list Just my $.02. I think it's excessive and absurd to ask the "authorship" debate to jump ship for its own list. It's not my favorite topic, but I do tune in from time to time; when I don't feel like reading about it, I delete the message, clearly delineated by the subject heading. What is wrong with the present system? I found it quite satisfactory when first implemented, and still think it works fine. I can't take the adjective "mail-clogging" seriously--the "effort" it takes to delete a message or two, even daily, before or after reading it, is hardly strenuous. Jean Peterson Bucknell University (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 17:36:59 -0600 Subject: authorship A brief reply to Dom Saliani: All right, maybe I should have clarified what I meant. I'm well aware that there were other William Shakespeares in England, and I said as much. One of them drowned in the Avon in 1579, but no matter; there were others. What I was trying to say is that none of these other William Shakespeares can be placed in London between 1590 and 1610. Now, it's certainly not impossible that one of these other Williams came to London for a while, and that it is he who is found in the St. Helens tax records, though the proximity of St. Helens to the theaters makes it at least very likely that this is the right Will. But other than that, pretty much all the London records of William Shakespeare either identify him as being from Stratford (and there was no other person of that name in Stratford) or are connected with the theater, and I take it we agree that at the very least the Stratford William was a man of the theater. Scholarly caution is certainly a good thing, but based on what I know, there's no particular reason to doubt that the records we have in London from 1590-1610 refer to the same man. I'm getting tired of this thread, and plan to take a breather until things get more civilized. I'm all for the suggestion to branch off the authorship debate into a separate but connected list, if the logistics can be worked out. Flagging all the authorship postings does let people delete them if they so desire, but Hardy does have to read everything that comes in, and he's made it clear from the start that he finds the whole thing tiresome. I know there are people out there who have been enjoying the discussion, because some of you have e-mailed me directly to tell me so, but the complaints have generally gone out to the whole list, giving a somewhat distorted picture. I hope we can work something out. Dave Kathman djk1@midway.uchicago.edu (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 20:26:46 -0800 Subject: authorship THE STILL-VEX'D BERMOOTHS George Lyman Kittredge, reflecting on the possibility that William Strachey's 1610 account of the shipwreck of the "Sea Adventure" in the Bermudas might have given design for the shipwreck in *The Tempest*, came to a conclusion which cannot float the current Stratfordian position. "Strachey's account of the wreck...is in striking contrast to what we find in *The Tempest*. The "Sea Adventure" has sprung a leak and is in imminent danger of foundering. Crew and passengers, exhausted by four days' desperate toil at the pumps, are in raptures when they sight Bermuda, which, by good fortune, is on their weather. They lay their course for the shore, run the ship aground, and make a safe landing -- a hundred and fifty of them -- in their boats. The situation in *The Tempest* is entirely different. There is, in fact, no wreck at all. The sailors make every effort to weather Prospero's island, which is on their lee, for they can defy the storm if they have "room enough." They do not succeed, but by the help of Ariel the ship is not dashed to pieces upon the rocks, but makes her way into a 'nook' or cove, where she rides in safety. Shakespeare's handling of the vessel shows an accurate knowledge of seamanship which he cannot have learned from the Bermuda narratives. A further note of a difference between the two adventures might be that nowhere by anyone else were the Bermudas called the "Bermooths," as were the islands in the play. That is the slight hold remaining to the Stratfordians that the Bermudas have any part of the *The Tempest* drama at all. But even if Bermooth can be contorted to mean Bermuda, George Lyman Kittredge, applying the geography given to us in *The Tempest*, was vexed that anyone could think to place the play anywhere except in the Mediterranean, and Northrup Frye (intro. in the Pelican Shakespeare, edited by Alfred Harbage), plots the island between Tunis and Naples. At last, agreeing with E.K. Chambers and Sidney Lee, Northrup Frye says that "no really convincing general source for the play hasyet yet been discovered." (I recently received by email an advertised essay that was offered to prove that *The Tempest* was written at some date after 1604, the year that Oxford died. The above is in response to that essay.) Kennedy (8)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 21:27:33 -0800 Subject: authorship CARDENIO Regarding Charles Hamilton's *Cardenio* book. He wishes to prove that the man from Stratford who signed the *Will* also handwrote the *Cardenio* manuscript. He has a method. Hamilton's body of paleographic evidence is the *Will*, the *Signatures* of the Stratford man, and the ms. of *Cardenio*. His method is to snip out letters from the *Will* and to suture them together to spell out "Shakspere" in a script that looks much like the *Signatures*. It's a kind of surgery, you understand. His next operation -- the method -- is to cut and paste between the *Will* text and the *Cardenio* ms., to prove that the hand that wrote the *Will* wrote the *Cardenio* manuscript. Hardly a scar shows. Therefore, whoever signed his *Signatures* to the *Will* -- wrote *Cardenio.* Q.E.D. But Hamilton did not invent the operation. The case for "Hand D" in the *Sir Thomas More* manuscript is decided by dissection in much the same way, and with less of a body to work on. Applying the same method, and with the use of a meat cleaver, a scapel, and a glue pot, I could made a dog out of a cat. Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 08:53:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1008 WWW Site; Fate in Rom; NYC Mac; Zeffereli Ado Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1008. Thursday, 15 December 1994. (1) From: Paul Lord Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 94 11:13:02 EST Subj: WWW site (2) From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 12:27:16 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1006 Role of Fate in *Rom.* (3) From: Patricia Palermo Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 12:31:43 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1000 Assorted *Macbeth* Items (4) From: Milla Riggio Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 02:17:24 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0993 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Lord Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 94 11:13:02 EST Subject: WWW site Hardy and SHAKSPER members, I am in the process of transferring and converting the SHAKSPER list archives to HTML, for inclusion on an "Elizabethan/Jacobean Drama page" which will run on sunsite.unc.edu. I'd call it the Shakespeare Page, but there are already several of those, and I see a need for a page to address other issues and authors of the period. I hope to have this done on or around Jan. 1, and to include the ability to perform a full text search on the archives. Currently, I'm working on the following: * The SHAKSPER mailing list archives. * Pointers to online texts and related Web pages. * A description of all related mailing lists, possibly with hotlinks which would mail off the appropriate "subscribe" message when selected. What else would be appropriate? An area for contributed papers? I welcome your suggestions. Regards, Paul (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 12:27:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1006 Role of Fate in *Rom.* > From: Rose McManus Last week a lively, and occasionally heated > exchange focused on the role of fate vs. cultural and historic contexts in > producing the bittersweet outcome of Romeo & Juliet. > > The reading I've done over the years suggests that this may be a tired topic > for scholars. Still, I'd love to receive thoughtful comments on the matter > from any interested parties. Have you seen Dympna Callaghan's chapter, "The Ideology of Romantic love: The Case of Romeo and Juliet," in *The Weyward sisters: Shakespeare and Feminist Politics* (Blackwell, 1994)? I think it's the best (most exciting, most convincing, most illuminating) analysis I've read in many years. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Patricia Palermo Date: Wednesday, 14 Dec 1994 12:31:43 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1000 Assorted *Macbeth* Items I was interested in Bernice Kliman's post regarding the NYC Macbeth because I will be going to see it this weekend, and before I go I have a question. A local paper says that there is much nudity in the production, and that it is a "most unusual take on an old play." Can Ms. Kliman, or other subscribers in the know, tell me more? Thanks, Patricia Palermo (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 02:17:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0993 Dear Matthew Hennerson: Indeed in what now seems to have been my infancy (but may have been an early dotage) I saw the Zefferelli MUCH ADO, I believe, in `65 (senility ?). From this far away vantage point, I remember Dogberry as very good, not because of voices and accents but because he was accompanied by a kind of Sicilian street band of musicians, who I thought were terrific. I also remember statues coming to life around the corners of fountains, and not much about acting at all. But I do remember thinking it was quite wonderful. Did I dream it all? Best, Milla Riggio ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 16:42:46 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1009 Authorship and Editor's Proposal Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1009. Saturday, 17 December 1994. (1) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 94 09:37:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.1007 Authorship (2) From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 10:22:48 -0700 (MST) Subj: Authorship List (3) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 11:26:20 -0800 Subj: authorship (4) From: Tony A. Emond Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 15:35:26 -0500 Subj: Authorship (still more) (5) From: John Lavagnino Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 17:08 EDT Subj: Good news on authorship (6) From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1994 12:56:27 +1000 Subj: Authorship (7) From: Dom Saliani Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1994 23:03:09 -0700 (MST) Subj: Hamlet - Stage History (8) From: Dom Saliani Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1994 23:14:56 -0700 (MST) Subj: authorship (9) From: Dom Saliani Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 1994 09:11:43 -0700 (MST) Subj: Authorship (10) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 94 02:54:41 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship (11) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 94 02:52:10 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship (12) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, December 17, 1994 Subj: Proposal (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 94 09:37:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.1007 Authorship Jean Peterson asks what's wrong with contining the "discussion" of the authorship question on the SHAKSPER list rather than asking those interested to continue the debate in a separate venue. Here's what's wrong with it: First of all, this debate/"discussion" is not a debate or a discussion. It's a shouting match, sometimes occupying 4 or 5 screens' worth, and the content of most of these postings is an interpersonal argument among 3 or 4 individuals trying very hard to persuade each other. The method of persuasion has devolved to sarcasm, diatribe, and attack. I know this passes for "scholarship" in some quarters, but I retain the idealistic hope that Shakespeareans could debate an issue more objectively. Silly me. One of the hallmarks of worthwhile argument, I hope, is recognizing at some point that one's opponent will not be persuaded, and the combatants agree to disagree. See Touchstone on "IF." Much virtue in that. Second of all, if this were a seminar, those of us who are bored or otherwise engaged could walk out. If this were the postal form of junk mail, a very quick glance would allow us to chuck it. But it has become an electronic form of junk mail, and the suggestion that we just "delete" instead of reading and grinding teeth doesn't work. Any electronic discussion that prompts great numbers of its subscribers to delete before reading has lost its usefulness as a discussion. Besides the analogies to junk-mail and boring seminars, the term "hi-jacking" comes to mind. Third, on the assumption that the participants are genuinely interested in the ISSUES of the debate, rather than in one-upping each other in front of a huge audience, they really SHOULD be willing to carry on the debate among themselves. With all due respect, I cannot shake the impression that this debate is a form of grandstanding. If I were engaged in a similar debate and cared a lot about the issues involved, I'd want to talk only with those who were similarly interested. I think that's called consideration for others. That's why I suggested a separate list. By the way, I tracked down the listserv owner of Interscripta, the discussion that offers a splendid model for such an enterprise. Send an e-mail to William Schipper: "schipper@morgan.ucs.mun.ca" and I'm sure he'll be willing to explain how to set up your own discussion line. And anyone who wants to "listen" rather than participate can do so just as you do now, with the satisfaction of knowing that all subscribers really ARE interested. Why shove this stuff down unwilling e-mail throats? Praying for peace in our lifetime.... Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 10:22:48 -0700 (MST) Subject: Authorship List I too am tired of what has been occurring on the authorship discussion. In this context "tired' is a euphemism for how I really feel. Shock and disappointment come closer to expressing my true feelings. I am shocked at the anti-intellectual nature and stance that is so prevalent in too many of the postings. I am shocked at the lack of respect and consideration and I am appalled at the suggestion that the discussion should be cut off or ghettoized. I joined SHAKSPER hoping to engage with others in a free and open discussion on the various aspects of Shakespearean studies. What I have found instead is a microcosm of society's larger ills. I am appalled at the amount of name-calling that occurs from both sides of the issue. It takes little intelligence or courage to hurl rude monikers and epithets through Cyberspace. I hope that my last posting (on the Folger introductory material) was read by SHAKSPER subscribers. The point of it was not to slam the Folger but to slam the tactics utilized in their front matter. There is no excuse for name-calling. In teaching my students, I emphasize that the effect of name-calling is to shut down the thinking process. Name-calling is an appeal to emotion. People with something to say, say it. People who have run out of things to say resort to dirty tactics such as name-calling and ad hominem arguments. These tactics have been utilized by both sides of the issue. Since joining SHAKSPER, I have been directly and indirectly called more names than I care to recount. There is no excuse for this. Why not call a truce? Why not stick to facts, issues, research, questions and problems relating to Shakespeare. Why does everything have to be reduced to the battle between Stratfordians and Looney-tics? Is it too much to ask for courtesy and sensitivity? I detect a lot of passion for Shakespeare from both sides of the issue. Cannot we harness this passion towards healthier dialogue? Who knows, we all might learn more about Shakespeare and his times in the process. I don't think that any of us are in the position of knowing all there is to know about the Elizabethan period. As for those who are tired of the authorship issue, what's the problem? The postings are cleared labelled. It takes fewer than five keystrokes to delete them if you are not interested. As for ghettoizing the discussion to a separate list, this idea has merit as long as there are some ground rules. A zero tolerance policy in regards to posturing, name-calling and ad hominems. Personally, I would see this as a loss to SHAKSPER. So many of the points raised in the authorship discussion are of interest to most Shakespeare enthusiasts. If only we could do something about the length of the postings and the tone, fewer people would have reason to be so unhappy with their inclusion on SHAKSPER. I will end this rather long and tiring posting with a final observation. I see the attempt of shutting down the discussion or ghettoizing it as sharing a number of similarities to activities such as book burning and censorship. We are all too well aware of what fuels such acts and I don't think the love of Shakespeare should be the impetus for such behaviour. Dom Saliani (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 11:26:20 -0800 Subject: authorship I'm sorry that some of you out there who love Shakespeare's poems and plays do not care to listen and hear about the history and biography of his lifetime. You should hear of bustling London town, of "Gloriana" the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, her lovers, her command executions, the initiation of a modern secret service. You could hear of the deadly intrigue of the court, imprisoned playwrights, open warfare by pamphlet and sword, assassinations in high places, and secrets worth your neck to look too closely at. And in amongst all this turmoil is Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, a scandalous, wayward aristocrat who hung out with theater folk, musicians, and playwrights. Those who post for a shutdown would deny that they're running scared. They're just tired of it all, have been always and will be always, from the very beginning. They're just extremely weary of it all, ennui to the max. Running bored, I guess. But it seems great fun to me. Where's another newsgroup going on with such a battle between the Sacred and the Profane? It's almost a moral duty to listen in and lurk about. That some might find the authorship question distressing can be understood. No doubt some even find it frightening. But when you're frightened you look under the bed, you don't throw the bed out the window. (And thanks to those who have expressed their patience, even their amusement, with this sideposting.) Kennedy (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tony A. Emond Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 15:35:26 -0500 Subject: Authorship (still more) Robert Teeter wrote: >Tony A. Emond wrote regarding the tragedies: >> I find the pattern somewhat odd, if one sees it in the context of the >> Stratford man writing the plays. Assuming that the philosophy of "you >> are what you are born to be" carried over into his private life, the >> Stratford man would have felt himself incapable of writing such great >> plays. Edward de Vere, OTOH, would have felt more at home. > >Why, then, did Marlowe, Jonson, and other playwrights of similar common birth >have no such problems? They wrote about royalty and nobility. They inherited >the same class outlook as Shakespeare. Or, did deVere write their plays as >well? > >It seems to me that someone of common birth is *more* likely to have inflated >ideas about nobility. They are more distant to the person of common birth, who >sees them only in public, when they are on their best behavior. > Well, innuendo and accusations of snobbery apparently being the best that Stratfordians can do, I can only enjoin you to re-read my post. My point was that the characters in Shakespeare's tragedies (the major characters, that is) are portrayed as incapable of escaping their born natures, though they might get away with a disguise for a while. He did write enthusiastically of the nobility, but only when that nobility was legitimate; compare Henry V to MacBeth, or Claudius for instance. Now I am saying that perhaps this points to considerations which would otherwise be ignored. Edward de Vere was himself a man who was very high on the echelons of society, and that's why his name came up. My point was that the Stratford man, if he was the self-made man which well nigh everyone believes he was, would be less likely to stomach that sort of paternalism. Much less write it. Now, let's review what I actually wrote, and put it in its proper context, to the benefit of all to whom this was unclear. Paragraph 1 is based on actual observation. Paragraphs 2 and 3 are purely conjectural, and belong to the realm of theory. (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Lavagnino Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 17:08 EDT Subject: Good news on authorship I've only just run across a mention of what is clearly the most compelling theory of Shakespeare authorship: the suggestion that the man from Stratford was also the man from Nazareth. Ronald Schuchard, in the volume of *Text* that has just come out (volume 6, page 302), speaks of an obscure journal on the topic that Yeats mentions in one of his letters: *The Shrine*, a short-lived quarterly, edited in Stratford-upon-Avon by the Irish-born R. H. Fitzpatrick, was dedicated to the belief that Shakespeare had been the Second Coming of Christ, but that the world was only now ready to receive this momentous news. On discovering himself to be Shakespeare's disciple, Fitzpatrick, a relative of the theosophist, D. N. Dunlop, had sold his Dublin business to devote himself to preaching the new gospel. This explains a lot of things that all other theories are hard-pressed to account for. Why are there so many Biblical allusions in the works, for example? Well, now it's clear... John Lavagnino, Brandeis University (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pat Buckridge Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1994 12:56:27 +1000 Subject: Authorship I'd like to respond, very belatedly I'm afraid, to Bradley Berens' invitation to comment on the first chapter of Leah S. Marcus's book _Puzzling Shakespeare_, which I finally got around to reading this morning. First of all, I'm grateful for the reference. I find her notion of 'localisation' very congenial: I agree completely that Shakespeare's works need to be resituated in the political and cultural contexts to which they referred and reacted. I agree further that the First Folio can quite usefully be seen as part of a broader campaign to secure a transcendent, universal function for the artist. Seeing the FF in that way doesn't conflict with seeing it also as an elaborately ambivalent 'coverup-cum-revelation' of the author's true identity. To the contrary, Marcus's subtle analysis of the contradictions and aporias in the textual preliminaries to the FF shows just how that case could be made, perhaps even more cogently than some Oxfordians already have. As far as her historical sociology of anti-Stratfordianism is concerned, I think it's clearly true that various historical factors (including world wars) determine what questions appear on the intellectual agenda at particular times. It's just as possible to do a historical sociology of Stratfordianism in the same terms, of course, and in neither case is the *truth* of the contention at issue. In other words, if Looney and Benezet did see the Oxford theory as a way of 'saving' Shakespeare, that's clearly not to say (a) that they didn't believe the theory to be true, or (b) that it isn't true. I happen to be more interested in the truth of the matter than I am in the history or sociology of interest in it, but each to his own. One final thing about Marcus. I was disappointed to find that like many other 'new historicists' her professed enthusiasm for the historically local and specific doesn't extend to topicality. The rationale for declaring topical allusions off limits is far from clear, especially since she herself demonstrates the Elizabethans' obsessive interest in them! Apparently the fact that this interest was one of 'the foibles of traditional [19th century] historicism' is sufficient to exclude it from the 'new historicist' agenda. The real difficulty, of course, is that the Oxfordians have always been able to find many more convincing topical allusions in Shakespeare's works than the Stratfordians. Marcus seems quite unable to resolve the contradictions in her own 'localisation' project because of her *a priori* rejection of Oxfordianism. On the one hand she's all for dismantling the Humanist monolith of Shakespeare-the-Bard. On the other hand, anti-Stratfordianism 'undermines the credibility of all critical work on Shakespeare by challenging the *idea* of Shakespeare'. New historicists, it seems, 'want to keep a thing we can call Shakespeare if only to magically guarantee the validity of our own revisionist enterprise' (35-6). Poor dears! Just a word, finally, about the current state of the authorship wrangle on the list. I think notice should be taken of the voices in recent days that have been saying - quite without any leaning, in most cases, to anti-Stratfordianism - that the discussion has been neither tedious nor irritating, but on the contrary, of considerable historical and biographical interest, especially to members whose interest in Shakespeare (legitimately enough) may not be primarily performance-related. Some of the attacks on the authorship thread sound as if they want to exclude not just anti-Stratfordians, but any historical discussion of Shakespeare at all! As for Tom Dale Keever's 'history' of the Authorship Debate down the centuries, I think Tom should be very careful. He makes it all sound pretty interesting. Before he knows it people will be reading the books he's mentioned, finding that there's rather more to them than he says, and becoming Oxfordians. Horrors! If all he and Bill Godshalk can find to say about these people is that they're snobs, and they have no direct evidence of Oxford's authorship, I don't think they need despair just yet. The 'snob' accusation really can't be dignified with a reply, and the argument on evidence is about as cogent as Samuel Johnson's 'refutation' of Bishop Berkeley. You can kick the rock all you like; it doesn't alter the fact that there's no *direct evidence* of the Stratford man's authorship either. Pat Buckridge. (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1994 23:03:09 -0700 (MST) Subject: Hamlet - Stage History < I believe Harold Jenkins in the Arden *Hamlet* attributes the Harvey < quote to sometime between 1598 (or more likely mid-1599) and early < 1601, not simply to 1598 as both John Mucci and Dom Saliani have < stated. And I don't think it's really "obvious" that Harvey is referring < to a written text rather than a written performance David Kathman has problems with the Harvey quote as being made in 1598 and I would assume that he would agree that it was made sometime between 1599 and 1601. The fact remains that it was most likely made before 1603 and the publication of Q1. Jenkins, by the way, appears to be in agreement with me concerning the contention that Gabriel Harvey is referring to a printed work. He says on page 6 of his Arden Edition of *Hamlet* : A more serious objection, although the point is usually disregarded, is that nothing Harvey says suggests that he is concerned with *Hamlet* in performance. On the contrary he appears to refer to a work that could be read along with *Venus and Adonis* and *Lucrece*. I don't agree with many of Jenkins observations, but perhaps he has hit upon something here. The more I think about it (please recognize that I could not possibly review all the information that has led me to this conclusion in a SHAKSPER posting), the more I am inclined to believe that *Hamlet* by 1603 was a fairly old play. Perhaps the Ur-Hamlet is a phlogiston-like invention and the 1589 reference to *Hamlet* was in fact a reference to an early Shakespeare version of the play. In 1594, when the play was performed at Newington Butts and pulled in a meagre take, this could be taken as evidence that the play had passed its vogue in the city and the company was looking for new audiences. Granted, Q2 and F contain many topical allusions to a later time but these could have been added later as interpolations or even revisions. Yes there could even have been a manuscript version circulating or even a hitherto undiscovered pre-1603 quarto edition of the play. This would explain a lot. What really got me thinking about this issue was an article written by David Ward in the Fall 1992 issue of *Shakespeare Quarterly*. In this article Ward argues that the order of writing of the three versions of *Hamlet* is F first, then Q1 and then Q2. He bases his argument partly on the fact that Q2 would be the version least offensive to James. Ward quotes at length, writings of James that present views that are diametrically opposite to some of the ideas presented in the F version of the play. And yet there is substantial evidence that Q1, because it "preserves passages otherwise unique to F ... was compiled by memory from a staged version." This did not impress me as much as the references to the writings of James. On the basis of what I have read of James, I don't see any way that *Hamlet* could have been performed for James, firstly because of the parallels to James' life and his disposition and secondly because many of the views expressed in the play would certainly have found disfavor with James. Please (re)read Ward's article if you are interested in this issue. I would like to hear what people have to say about the order of the publications and the extent to which James would "frown" upon the views expressed in the play. Dom Saliani < dsaliani@cbe.ab.ca > (8)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Friday, 16 Dec 1994 23:14:56 -0700 (MST) Subject: authorship re: Tom Dale Keever's "Authorship, a look back - SHK 5.1002 Tom Keever's trip down memory lane was an interesting and revealing one to say the least. I think what it reveals more than anything else is how distorted a picture one can create by focussing only on that which is laughable in the opponent's position and disregarding all that is laudable. Yes, there are nut cases in the anti-Stratfordian camp and I am sure that you will agree that the Stratfordian camp also has advocates who are also certifiable but we don't need to get into that, do we. Let me stress that it is illogical to argue that just because there are nut cases who support a particular view that the view itself is looney. (There are a lot of people in padded cells who believe that the world is round.) I think what I object to most in Tom's history lesson is the complete absence of reference to the many scholars, artists and literary giants who were (and are) anti-Stratfordians. I don't think that it is so easy to maintain as David Kathman does so frequently that "there is nothing mysterious about William Shakespeare when one looks at what Charles Dickens and Matthew Arnold had to say on the subject. Matthew Arnold in a December 1847 letter to A.H. Clough wrote: "I keep saying, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, you are as obscure as life is." Charles Dickens wrote that "The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest something should turn up." W.H. Auden, in *Forwards and Afterwards* expressed the view that "Shakespeare is in the singularly fortunate position of being, to all intents and purposes, anonymous." Novelist Henry James was a firm anti-Stratfordian. He even wrote a short story parodying the tours that are given through Shakspere supposed birthplace in Stratford. James is clear in his opinion about the Stratford man. He writes: "I am sort of haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest most successful fraud ever practised on a patient world." Should we pay attention to such literary giants. After all what do they know about Shakespeare? Perhaps we should take Tom Keever's approach and only pay attention to Looney-tics. They are easier to dismiss. We are all aware that Walt Whitman was a snob and so when he expresses the view that he too is an anti-Stratfordian, we can attribute this to his anti- Democratic predisposition. Yes I jest. Whitman actually had plenty to say about Shakespeare. "I am firm against Shaksper - I mean the Avon man, the actor." Whitman writes in *November Boughs*: "Conceiv'd out of the fullest heat and pulse of European feudalism - personifying in unparalled'd ways the medieval aristocracy, its towering spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste, with its own peculiar air and arrogance (no mere imitation) - only one of the 'wolfish earls' so plenteous in the plays themselves, or some born descendant and knower, might seem to be the true author of those amazing works - works in some respect greater than anything else in recorded history." Even Whitman's contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, had his doubts. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't reconcile the details in the biography of the Stratford man to the spirit and soul expressed in the works. Emerson states that "We cannot marry the man to his writings." But what does he know? A transcendentalist and poet! I could go on and perhaps I will in future postings. There are far too many of these literary giants and scholars who have seen problems and yes a mystery in the authorship issue. Here is a list of just a few. Harry M. Blackman - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Charles Champlin - Arts Editor of the Los Angeles Times Charlie Chaplin - Hollywood actor and producer Benjamin Disraeli - British diplomat an Prime Minister Clifton Fadiman - author and literary critic Sigmund Freud W.H. Furness - father of the Variorum Shakespeare editions Sir John Gielgud James Joyce Helen Keller Stephen Leacock - author Malcolm X Vladmir Nabokov Frederik Nietzsche - German philospoher Lewis F. Powell - U.S. Supreme Court Justice L. Enoch Powell - British politician Lincoln Schuster - editor of Simon and Schuster John Paul Stevens - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Mark Twain Orson Welles John Greenleaf Whittier There are many others but I have only included names that most people would recognize. Please notice the number of supreme court judges. Some of you may recall that in 1988, three supreme court justices judged a debate on the authorship issue and ruled in favor of the Stratford man. If the debate were held today, with the same judges, Oxford would win. Everyone interested in the authorship issue should read John Paul Stevens' 1991 address at Wilkes University (printed in the University of Pennsylvania) in which argues convincingly against the Stratford William as author. In a private posting to a Stratfordian, I offered to mail a copy of the judge's speech. The offer was declined. I would suspect that Stevens is a Looney-tic too and should not be heeded. Please also note the inclusion of Sir John Gielgud. Just recently, he came out of the closet and announced that he is an Oxfordian. He joins other thespian giants Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Leslie Howard, in disbelieving in the Stratford man - but what do they know. Let's ignore them too. To repeat, this is a short list of those who have doubted and rejected the Stratfordian attribution. Perhaps we could begin a listing on the SHAKSPER file server, similar to the SPINOFFS BIBLIO that would contain names and quotations of more anti-Stratfordians. This would address the perception that the anti-Stratfordian camp is inhabited only by Looney-tics. Dom Saliani < dsaliani.ab.ca > (9)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 1994 09:11:43 -0700 (MST) Subject: Authorship Tom Keever delights in emphasizing that the Stratford camp is full of Looney-tics. It is reassuring to me to know that the Stratford camp has its share also. What is even more gratifying, is the knowledge that the basis for many of the myths and legends surrounding the Stratford man is an individual whom all idolaters of the Stratford William should hold in high regard. John Aubrey (1626 - 1697) was Shakspere's first biographer. It is upon his entry regarding Shakspere that most subsequent biographies are based. What do we know of Aubrey? According to Oscar J. Campbell's *Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare*: "Aubrey lived a gay, irresponsible life, spending much of his time visiting friends in the country and pumping them for information about celebrities... "Aubrey's method of obtaining information was to visit one of his cronies at his country seat, there to spend an evening in gossip and conviviality. Early the next morning he would get up before his host had stirred and, his head not completely clear, would write down what he hazily remembered of the last night's talk. He made no attempt to produce a fair copy. He left blanks for dates and many other facts and inserted fresh material at random. Thus while Aubrey's biographical notes are always interesting and frequently hilarious, their authority is something less than unimpeachable." I have nothing personal against Aubrey - he was probably a very sociable person - but it appears that others did not hold him in such high esteem. Stratfordian researcher Halliwell-Phillipps refers to Aubrey as being one of those "foolish and detestable gossips who record everything they hear or misinterpret." Jonson's biographer, Anthony Wood who also just happened to be Aubrey's employer, had even fewer kind words to say about this primogenitor of the Stratfordian house of cards. He called Aubrey "a roving, magotty-pated man, [who] thought little, believed much and confused everything." Need more be said? I referred to the Stratfordian house of cards. When one takes away the one card against which all others lean, you know the result. Check for yourselves and you will find that Aubrey did write the first bio of the Stratford William and that Nicholas Rowe (1674 -1718) Shakspere's "first authoritative biographer" repeats much of what was reported by Aubrey - and the rest is history. And it is upon this that our traditions concerning the Bard are based. Excuse me if I don't come up with a "Looney-tic" type term to apply to followers of the primal author of the Stratford myth. I am not feeling very creative this morning. I will end with a question. Why is it that no one in the Stratford William's family ever made reference to or even mentioned that they were related to the greatest playwright of all time. I would think that by 1670, the year Shakespere's granddaughter Elizabeth died, someone in the family should have mentioned something. But maybe I am asking too much. We should stick to sources more reliable than family members. I think I will go back and read more Aubrey. I do so like reading fiction. Dom Saliani < DSALIANI@cbe.ab.ca > (10)--------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 94 02:54:41 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship Subject: Authorship, The Viennese Connection. None of our Oxfordians have mentioned it, but they had at least one first rate mind in their ranks earlier in the century. The pioneer British psyco-analyst Earnest Jones, who later made his own controversial contribution to Shakespeare studies in _Hamlet and Oedipus_, was understandably alarmed when he learned that the movement's leader, Sigmund Freud, was so fervently committed to the Oxfordian theory that he planned to publish a monograph on the subject. Battling as he was against the widely-held belief in England that Freud and his followers were a bunch of dangerous cranks, Jones feared what would happen if Freud's views on this subject became public. I have read that he convinced Freud to hold his tongue only by explaining the implications in English of the founding Oxfordian's name, "Looney." He feared that some unscrupulous critics might exploit its suggestiveness to ridicule Freud and other Oxfordians. (Imagine!) What could have converted Freud to the cause? Was the monograph ever written? Has anyone ever translated it? If it exists I have never seen it, but would love to. When I visited Freud's study in Hampstead, reconstructed after he fled Vienna and preserved since he died, I was struck by the bric-a-brac shelves stuffed with primitive little figurines, many of them sexually suggestive. What almost all of them had in common was that they had been dug up in archeological explorations. So much of Freud's pioneering thought was caught up in his fascination with the buried and hidden, the secrets we must laboriously excavate to reveal profound and sometimes shocking truths. Like Pasteur, who had an irresistable need to wash his hands even before he discovered practical reasons to do so, Freud achieved profound insights into his subject in large part because of his own neuroses. How exciting it is to imagine that we have discovered some dangerous secret that powerful forces, historical, political, subconscious (or parental) have tried to conceal! The energy that such a fascination, "scopofilia" is what psycho-analysts call it, draws on is rooted in the child's anxiety over what goes on in his parents' bedroom. Or so the Freudians tell us. Consider that the Oxfordian movement leads eventually to the Ogburns imagining, nay, insisting, that de Vere coupled with Elizabeth herself to produce Southampton, the Sonnet author's object of desire, and a Freudian interpretation of the mass delusion becomes very appealing indeed. (11)--------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 94 02:52:10 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship Subject: Authorship - why we gotta put up with it. I vote for inclusion. As one of those dues-paying ACLU types I react viscerally against anything that smells like censorship, but there are other reasons for allowing this debate to continue on the list. Like the hopeless quest for a navigable Northwest Passage, the search for an alternative author sometimes leads its dedicated devotees, and the rest of us, into exotic territoritory and turns up serendipitous finds. I don't know how much discussion we'd have of Shakespeare's life and times on the list if we weren't goaded by the Looney-tics. You can't match cranks for zeal, God bless 'em. We owe them all a debt, for instance, for sending Dave Kathman to his keyboard. I'm sure he has better things to do with his impressive erudition than parry the thrusts of the benighted crusaders for Oxford. I, for one, am pleased he's been goaded to share it with us even as I am awed by his patience. Facts about Shakespeare and the composition of the plays that would be merely interesting in a more sedate climate come to life when they become "evidence" in a lively debate on a question that appears unsettled. If Hardy decides he's had enough (and who could blame him?) I hope Dave will resolve to find some curious bit of Shakespeare lore and share it with us every month or two unprompted by Looney-tic posts. For my own part I plan to knock out a couple more musings on the topic now that I've put my show, LA BELLE ET LA BETE, away 'til spring. (Were we a hit? - check out TIME!) If we continue this thread I'd like to see a few others get involved and share their feelings about the issues the debate raises, many of which are more interesting than the Looney-tics' specious arguments. Why, for instance, does such an obvious canard continue to find adherents? I have suggested an answer in anti-populist bigotry, but there must be other forces at work. What does the debate say about our attitude toward Shakespeare? Why does he attract such impassioned argument? Let's hear from more lurkers. I also know what it feels like to hold "heretical" or "incorrect" views that others would rather not have to listen to and I wouldn't feel right stifling debate. In both my academic life of years ago and my current theater career I've known people who lived through the blacklist and I've heard about what it did to both worlds. The issue at hand may seem small by comparison, but let's do the right thing. (13)--------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 94 15:12:46 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.0996 Authorship Subject: Authorship - Why an Aristocrat? As I demonstrated in my precis of the anti-Stratfordian movement, the assumption that has grounded it from the first is that the son of John Shakespeare, Stratford glover, did not have the proper background to produce the plays subsequently placed at the center of English cultural achievement. For all their later distracting quibbles about dates and ciphers meant to flummox the unwary, this first assumption was the sole reason to question the ample evidence pointing to a hard working actor/manager and remains the core of anti-Stratford ideology. Let's pause in our efforts to brush aside the nettles of the Looney-tic weed and attack it at its root. One would think from the insistence of Delia Bacon and her intellectual progeny that the higher the artistic achievement the higher on the social scale we should look for its author. The least acquaintance with the record explodes that fallacy. Since its first emergence in England the mercantile/artisan class has provided almost all the nation's great writers. The court of Edward III was crammed with well-born idle aristocrats, but it was a harried civil servant, son of a London vintner, who found the time amidst his many duties to invent modern English literature. The towering literary lion of Shakepeare's time was the son of a brick-layer who had a seat at The Mermaid, not in the House of Lords. In every age the literary lights have been the sons and daughters of merchants, craftsmen, yoemen, laborers and the occaisonal vicar. At the top by comparison we find no British king since Alfred wrote anything worth preserving ("Greenfleeves?" Doubtful.) and titled talents are amazingly thin on the ground. The denizens of upper English society, long blessed with the overwhelming share of education and leisure to devote to the arts, have amazingly little to show for it. The only hereditary peer we find in every anthology is Byron and his title fell upon him almost by accident after an impoverished childhood. Not even Bulwer Lytton was to the manor born. Don't get me wrong - I am not suggesting that the British nobility is incapable of producing anything of social or cultural value. The achievement of Bertrand Russell is one of the marvels of our century and I yield to no one in my admiration for Tony Benn! One must marvel, though, at how exceptional an aristocratic genius has always been. The rule remains, in culture as in economics, "Labor Creates All Wealth." To develop a talent into a career of accomplishment requires habits of toil a privileged birth seldom demands or develops. We should not be surprised to find that the English cultural aristocracy of achievement has little relationship to its social aristocracy of birth. If I were to start, as Looney claimed to, with the assumption that I knew nothing of "Shakespeare" any list I drew up of the qualities I would expect in him would have near the top a middle class upbringing, just like the Stratford man's. That the Looney-tics insist on looking to the top of the social order shows how little they understand not only of the plays, but of our entire cultural heritage. Keeping The Red Flag flying, I remain, Tom Dale Keever keever@phantom.com (12)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Saturday, December 17, 1994 Subject: Proposal If you have read this far, you certainly are a hard-core fan of this non- discussion. I admit that I shall NEVER be convinced by any anti-Stratfordian argument -- I am too resonable a person to fall for another conspiracy theory. Similarly, I assume that the arguments of Dave Kathman and others will never convince an Oxfordain to become a Stratfordian. Thus, I see no point in continuing this discussion. To cut it off would not be censorship; it would instead be blow for reason and would return a semblance of respectability to this academic conference. However, I do not propose, at this point, to cut off discussion -- not yet. I have another idea. SHAKSPER (pronounced Shakespeare) comes to more than 850 members in 23 countries because of me. Because it is moderated (and I would have it no other way), someone (read ME) has to edit and format the digests. This work takes time -- lots of time. I simply do not see why I should be spending an extra hour a day granting an air of respectability to a position I feel is academically untenable. So my proposal. Why not have this discussion migrate to the Oxford list to give me a break? Anyone wishing to continue the discussion can do so there. Further, there would be added benefits of potential new members for the Oxford list Now, I know that everytime I step into a discussion I create a meta-discussion: Go, Hardy! Boo, Hardy!!! Remember the Maine. I do NOT want another such meta-discussion to occur. So if those few members involved in this topic agree to move it to the Oxford list, then I'll announce such a move and we can go about the business of this conference. Again, please restrain yourselves about the meta-comments. I have enough to do editing and formating a dozen authorship posting at a time. If you must comment on my proposal, please do it privately. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 17:02:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1010 Q: Electronic Texts on the Internet Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1010. Saturday, 17 December 1994. From: Michael Harrawood Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 08:55:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Free Basing I wonder whether anybody else in the group has been making use of the various etext sources around the net. For a while now, I've been running around to various gophers and ftp sites and acquiring texts for a home computer data base of the literature contemporary to Shakespeare's period. Right now I have on the hard drive of my home computer the Complete Works of Shakespeare, almost all of Milton, Marlowe, Jonson, Spenser, Sidney, the King James Bible, lots of assorted stuff from others like Green, Daniel, Erasmus, More, Hobbes, Donne. I've also acquired a lot of the ancient and philosophical texts important to the period: from Aristotle, Plutarch, etc. These I have set up in my word processor, Nota Bene, which is particularly useful in creating databases. It allows me to do word searches, text sorting -- and they've just sent me a new upgrade program that lets me build concordences. Is everybody else doing stuff like this too? I'm interested in discussing ideas about it. Probably, this list is not the place to do so, but I thought it might be a good place to start. Thanks Michael Harrawood ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 17:14:23 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1011 Re: Zeffereli Ado; Women Writers; Fate in Rom; NYC Mac Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1011. Saturday, 17 December 1994. (1) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 10:47:46 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.1008 Zeffereli Ado (2) From: Jenise Williamson Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 15:26:38 EST Subj: Early Modern Women Writers (3) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 94 21:00:16 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.1008 Fate in Rom (4) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 22:06:15 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Nudity in *Macbeth* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 10:47:46 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.1008 Zeffereli Ado Dear Milla Riggio, I have a shameful confession to make regarding the Zeffereli *Much Ado*, and I am only surprised that I didn't make it in the original posting. I have only heard an LP recording of the production. I understand that it was televised in England, but I have never seen a video tape, and I could not have seen the original. I am not at all surprised, however, to learn that Frank Finlay's Dogberry was better than I thought it sounded. He is a superb actor, and his Iago (which I have seen in its film incarnation) completely changed my perceptions about the role. As to the troupe of musicians, if you remember them, they were there. I have found very little written on this production, and the few stills that I have seen show Finlay surrounded by a pretty motley crew, but I always assumed they were just the watch. I feel like apologizing to Frank Finlay in absentia. I'd hate to have any of my performances evaluated on voice alone. Now I'm left wondering if its possible to get a hold of that video tape. Hmmmmm. I'm glad you have fond memories of the production, and thank you for telling me about the musicians. Sincerely, Matt Henerson. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jenise Williamson Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 15:26:38 EST Subject: Early Modern Women Writers In response to David's request and to anyone interested in early modern women writers, contact Brown University which has a network at the following address: WWP-L@brownuvm.brown.edu There are also anthologies available. I will check my own holdings and get back to you. C. Jenise Williamson Coordinator, Creative Writing Program Bowie State University (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 94 21:00:16 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.1008 Fate in Rom Subject: Romeo and Juliet, fate, etc. I hope that Rose McManus will tell us more about her reading group's conflicting sides. The question, if I understand it aright, is hardly tired in an age when we wonder so publicly how much our fates, and even our own actions, are ordained by forces beyond our control, from our own genes to our culture's racism. I can imagine the discussion becoming quite heated indeed. I toured as Capulet for nine months in a production directed by Mario Siletti, and, as I was also Stage Manager, I wondered in very practical ways about the springs that drove the action. The play's plot works so well, in large part, because the visible agency of "fate" has been cleverly minimized so that the final tragic result follows from a chain of actions freely chosen by the victims, their kin, and their friends. Aside, perhaps, from Cupid's dart itself, the only fatal "accident" that interupts that chain is the "infectious pestilence" that keeps Friar John from his errand of informing Romeo of Juliet's true condition. Each character makes clear free choices about what he is going to do, and only Romeo's choice at the apothecarie's is made without adequate knowledge of the situation. Even the "cultural and historic context" is not accidental. The warring families are not egged on by witches or pursued by demons - they do what they do out of human rage and intolerance. The play is a radically humanistic document that puts individual will and desire at the center of events not at the mercy of other divine forces or chance. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Thursday, 15 Dec 1994 22:06:15 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Nudity in *Macbeth* Yes, there is some nudity in the Falstaff Presents *Macbeth* currently playing at CSC in NYC. Like Francseca Annis in Polanski's version, this Lady walks nude in her sleep, but the set is so dimly lit and she begins her walk so far from the audience that it is not terribly schocking. I said to one of my former students who was with the group that I find that nudity wrenches me right out of the performance because I begin thinking of how the actor feels about it. My former student, however, is so used to nudity in films and on stage that it does not have that effect for her. Since it *does* wrench me out, I am convinced that is what the director *intended*.... This sleepwalking scene was greatly enhanced by a gender reversal, with the Scottish Doctor played by a woman--as a woman. I don't think I have ever been as moved by the Doctor. When Lady Macbeth says "take my hand..." the doctor takes her hand lovingly but Lady Macbeth pulls away and runs off. The evident pity of the doctor magnified the pity I felt for this wonderful Lady Macbeth. The nudity was more acceptable than Polanski's because both of the onstage observers were women who cared about her. Enjoy! Bernice ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1994 08:36:21 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1012 Re: *Pericles*; *Mac* on CD-ROM; Fate in *Rom* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1012. Monday, 19 December 1994. (1) From: Charles Adler Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 1994 19:40:12 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0960 *Pericles* (2) From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Sunday, 18 Dec 1994 16:26:37 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0995 Re: *Macbeth* on CD-ROM (3) From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 18 Dec 94 20:45:24 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.1006 Role of Fate in *Rom.* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Charles Adler Date: Saturday, 17 Dec 1994 19:40:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0960 *Pericles* Two or three years ago the Public Theater (then, under Joseph Papp) in New York did a very good presentation of Pericles as part of the Marathon which will *eventually* include all thirty-six. At the same time and in conjunction with the Public, the New School for Social Research, also in NYC, had a three session course on Pericles, the last consisting of a discusion with the show's dramaturg. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bradley S. Berens Date: Sunday, 18 Dec 1994 16:26:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.0995 Re: *Macbeth* on CD-ROM Greetings All! Regarding the MACBETH CD-ROM, Matt Henerson asked me to correct him if I had not, as he suggested, seen it at Cody's in Berkeley. I did not see it at Cody's but bought it directly from Voyager. This is the third of three Shakespeare CD-ROMS that I have had contact with. The first is a simple text of the plays from CMC Research. Moderately useful, but since there are no textual variations, the utility is severely limited. ROM #2 was THE SHAKESPEARE QUARTET, which was such a horrible piece of software that I sent it back. They promised video clips and there were none. The notes were only moderately useful, and terribly difficult to access. The software was difficult to use, and didn't do most of what it said it would do. THE VOYAGER MACBETH, however, is worth the time and money. I've been slowly compiling a list of MINOR bugs for Prof. Braunmuller, but none have been particularly bothersome or frustrating. The video clips are well chosen, the text is responsible, the notes and essays marvelous. This is a useful device for people teaching Macbeth, although I wonder if it might be somewhat distracting for a student's first encounter with the play. The best audience for the ROM is for non-professional Shakespeareans who are interested in researching the play. Any kind of student, high school, undergrad or grad, writing on the play would find it invaluable. If I think of more specifics, I'll write again. Best, Brad Berens Dept. English, UC Berkeley email: claudius@garnet.berkeley.edu (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Urkowitz Date: Sunday, 18 Dec 94 20:45:24 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.1006 Role of Fate in *Rom.* Fate and Rome and Juliet . . . That's a tough and sad issue to contemplate. I've been reading newspapers, perhaps too much, and seeing the fatal disasters of places where communities encourage or demand blood-sacrifices in codes of honor and revenge. Happens in schoolyards, in religious and ethnic violence, in the patterned humiliations of patriarchies and classrooms. If it were "fate" that decreed such pain, I'd likely open my veins and ease my way into silence. But instead I think it grows ominously out of the social/psychological torments inflicted on children and replicated autocratically day by day. Poppa Capulet tries to enforce peace on Tybalt, but his humiliation/brute force methods only put off Tybalt's explosions a while. Oedipus and his macho bravery was spring-loaded, wound up by the angers of Greek honor-codes. He was ready to chop SOMEONE, anyone, and that anyone would be "in-the-place-of" poppa. Tybalt too. If story-telling works at all, then it may work to warn some of us against spring-loading our own children with rage. Maybe that's also what winds up the rubberbands of the angry Oxfordians? Injustice in our contentious world prompts outrage. Some folks, happier we, consider instead the possibilities of instead DANCING. g'night gracie, Steve Urkowitz, surcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 08:30:45 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1013 Re: Fate in *Rom*; *Pericles* Productions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1013. Tuesday, 20 December 1994. (1) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Monday, 19 Dec 94 09:51:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.1012 Re: Fate in *Rom* (2) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 02:42:04 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.1012 Re: *Pericles* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Monday, 19 Dec 94 09:51:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.1012 Re: Fate in *Rom* On "Fate" in R&J: as Steve Urkowitz says, a serious and sad question. But not, I think, one that Shakespeare embraces in R&J or anywhere else. The Kid- Romeo (pre-marriage, indeed, pre-meeting Juliet) consigns his fate to "[Him] that hath the steerage of my course," but by the end of the play, Romeo-the-Married-Man "shake[s] the yoke of inauspicious stars" from his "world--wearied flesh." The sine-qua-non of tragedy, as Aristotle reminded everyone (and Shakespeare would have learned from Seneca if not indeed from Aristotle) is "hamartia,' missing the mark. It's an action, not a characteristic. And if R&J don't miss the mark, then they aren't the subjects of tragedy. Melodrama, maybe (See R. B. Heilman's oldie-but-still-goodie, *Tragedy and Melodrama.*), but not tragedy. Human action, social (or anti-social) behavior, communal and individual, is what brings about the fatal events of tragedy. Papa Capulet says that quite clearly at the end: the dead kids are "poor sacrifices of our enmity." That's OUR ENMITY, not fate, not God, not aything but the plaguey feud. "Star-crossed lovers" indeed--but star-crossed means unfortunate, not doomed, in Elizabethan cosmology. Tragic heroes, from Oedipus on, take responsibility for their actions. Yup, even Oedipus, and he WAS fated to do all those terrible things. But he never copped a plea, and neither do Shakespearean tragic protagonists. Yours in hamartia, Naomi Liebler (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 02:42:04 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.1012 Re: *Pericles* The most inventive PERICLES I recall was Toby Robertson's staging at Jean Cocteau Repertory. This was largely an adaptation of a production he had earlier done in London, but I don't know what company he worked with there. Casting one of his Cocteau players, David Fuller, in the title role, Toby then staged the play again for The Acting Company. This production, which I never saw, was mentioned in an earlier post. (There may be an archival video of that touring version. Inquire at the NY Public Library's Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts.) Toby's Cocteau staging was startling and fast moving and benefitted from the small cast's tightly knit ensemble work. It made me sorry I was no longer one of them - I had left the company the season before. The lengthy narratives were enlivened by Craig Smith's fascinating Gower, resembling Joel Gray's sinister MC in Cabaret, and the brothel was dominated by Fuller's outrageous, cross-dressed, black-nyloned Bawd. This was Robertson's first work in the US after years of experience in England, most notably with his university class mate Ian McKellan in their memorable EDWARD II, later filmed. As he took his unflagging inventiveness to other theaters he was dogged by critical comparisons to a then-emergent wunderkind he'd never heard of named Peter Sellers. As it happened the first Sellers work I saw was his controversial PERICLES at Boston Shakespeare Company. Though I've admired much of his work since, particularly his operas, at that point in his career Sellers still had much to learn. Where Robertson's outrageous rompings had seemed effortless fun, Sellers' show make me feel like he was dragging us from one over-cooked concept to another and demanding we be impressed. I admit it had its moments and I left thinking I'd seen the beginnings of a promising talent, but hoping it would hurry up and mature. ( When I talked with Robertson earlier this year he had just returned from staging LEAR in Israel. He had suggested THE REVENGERS TRAGEDY might be an appropriate choice there in the current climate, but was over-ruled by the producers. ) I saw the NY Shakespeare Festival's PERICLES and thought it was pretty dismal. What I heard both from published and first hand accounts of the National's recent production made me move it down so low on my list of shows to see there last summer that I didn't get to it. Did anyone else? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Dec 1994 08:54:00 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1014 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM; *Macbeth* Questions Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1014. Tuesday, 20 December 1994. (1) From: Michael Martin Date: Monday, 19 Dec 1994 11:46:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: Shakespeare on CDROM? (2) From: Dom Saliani Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 00:00:02 -0700 (MST) Subj: Macbeth - Questions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Martin Date: Monday, 19 Dec 1994 11:46:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Shakespeare on CDROM? Hi folks, I'm looking for Shakespeare plays or materials that are available on CDROM. So far I've heard of three of them: Voyager's Macbeth, CMC's textual CDROM, and something called Shakespeare Quartet. Anyone have suggestions for others. They don't have to be Shakespeare *only* but should be strong in the Shakespeare stuff that they have. Please feel free to reply via email, or to the list. Thanks, --Michael (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dom Saliani Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 00:00:02 -0700 (MST) Subject: Macbeth - Questions I have been a high school English teacher since 1971. During the last 23 years or so, I have delighted in teaching Shakespeare to my students and motivating them to get deeper into the texts. One of the most useful tools that I have developed in this regards is something I call "The ten most difficult questions to answer about the play ______________" (Fill in the blank with the title being studied.) I pose the questions and students are invited to choose one for focus and study. The end result is not only a research essay but also a position paper. They must take a stand in regards to the question. I find that this activity forces them to probe the text and consult secondary sources in their attempts to answer the question. I started out with about four different questions but over the years, my students have contributed to my original list with their own difficult questions that in some cases were better than mine. I am really interested in knowing how SHAKSPER members would respond to these questions. If you have any strong feelings in regards to any of these questions, please contact me privately or post your responses for all to share. Here are some of the more difficult questions to answer about the play *Macbeth*: 1. Who is Bellona's bridegroom? (I challenge students to build a case for Macduff.) 2. Why does Macbeth not know about the fate of Cawdor in I,3? (Sometimes students combine questions 1 and 2) 3. Are the witches really witches or are they merely instruments of fate - weyard sisters? 4. Why does Lady Macbeth never mention the witches? 5. Is there really a basis for the curse of the Scottish play? 6. A number of the scenes seem out of order. In particular, Act III, Scene 1 would make more sense if it followed Act IV, Scene 1. Are these scenes indeed out of order? I will stop here. I have others but this should suffice for now. Please respond if you like. I would also appreciate any other difficult questions that you can think of in regards to *Macbeth*. Dom Saliani Sir Winston Churchill High School Calgary, Alberta < dsaliani@cbe.ab.ca > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 10:39:11 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1015 Qs: Dreams; Cornmarket Press Reprints Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.1015. Wednesday, 21 December 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 10:40:32 EDT Subj: [Dreams?] (2) From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 11:01:51 EST Subj: [Cornmarket Press Reprints] (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 10:40:32 EDT Subject: [Dreams?] Is there any comment on the meaning of *We are such things as dreams are made on*? I have often heard it quoted as *dreams are made **of**, which does not mean the same thing. It is a wonderful conceit to think that we are made of such things, such flimsy things that dreams can be about us. E.L.Epstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 11:01:51 EST Subject: [Cornmarket Press Reprints] Is it still possible to find Cornmarket Press reprints anywhere but on reference library shelves and in second hand shops? In the sixties and seventies Cornmarket produced reproductions of Restoration Shakespeare adaptations and other early publications. Most of the Shakespeare adaptations are available in no other editions. I have tried to find them at their old London address, 42/43 Conduit Street, but without success. I suspect they are defunct, but does anyone know if the books are available from any dealer? Any information would be welcomed. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 11:01:54 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1016 Re: Reduced Sh; WWW Site; Sh on CD-ROM Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.1016. Wednesday, 21 December 1994. (1) From: Eric Grischkat Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 08:23:16 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: Reduced Shakespeare (2) From: Lee Jacobus Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 16:26:17 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.1008 WWW Site (3) From: Jung Jimmy Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 17:59:00 PST Subj: RE: SHK 5.1014 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM (4) From: Jie Gao Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 94 18:10:53 EST Subj: Re: SHK 5.1014 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Eric Grischkat Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 08:23:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Reduced Shakespeare Someone asked for info regarding the Reduced Shakespeare company Jane Martin - General Manager Reduced Shakespeare Company P.O. Box 1924 Sonoma, CA 95476 (707) 939-0670 Fax (707) 938-4799 e-mail: 75337.3563@compuserve.com Hope this helps (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lee Jacobus Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 16:26:17 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.1008 WWW Site What you propose sounds good. I think an area for contributed papers might be a good idea, although there ought to be some way to vette them before they go into an archive--if only to save downloaders some time in case they are not of good quality. Then, how about something for dissertations, such as a complete description and, when practical, the entire dissertation. If possible, there ought to be something for published articles, too. Many good possibilities. Good luck. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jung Jimmy Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 17:59:00 PST Subject: RE: SHK 5.1014 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM Somewhere I had heard of a CD-ROM version of a Midsummer Night's by Art of Memory. I've never seem it and was wondering if it was available or valuable? jimmy (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jie Gao Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 94 18:10:53 EST Subject: Re: SHK 5.1014 Qs: Shakespeare on CD-ROM Here's some info I got from a friend: Shakespeare (Don't know the exact title of the disk) By World Library, Inc. 12914 Haster Street Garden Grove, CA 92640 Tel: 800-443-0238; 714-748-7197 It is also available from CompuUSA, the largest chain store in California for computer related supplies. Gao Jie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 12:30:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1017 Re: The Season; Zefferilli *Ado*; Fate in *Rom* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No.1017. Wednesday, 21 December 1994. (1) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 14:13:54 -0500 Subj: Seasonal Greetings and Light Reading (2) From: Roger D. Gross Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 15:28:10 -0600 (CST) Subj: Zeffirelli's Much Ado (3) From: Daniel M Larner Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 15:21:34 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1013 Re: Fate in *Rom* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 14:13:54 -0500 Subject: Seasonal Greetings and Light Reading Happy winter/summer solstice to fellow SHAKSPEReans! I wanted to mention a historical mystery novel I'm in the midst of--*The Slicing Edge of Death: Who Killed Christopher Marlowe?* by Judith Cook (published in 1993, I believe). Cook is an investigative journalist and expert in Elizabethan theater according to the short biographical blurb on the book jacket. I'm finding the novel a lot of fun so far. Chris Gordon (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roger D. Gross Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 15:28:10 -0600 (CST) Subject: Zeffirelli's Much Ado I've let slip the name of the colleague who has been remembering Zefferilli's Much Ado for the National. Sorry. Anyway, I wonder if the 1965 production you're remembering with Frank Finlay as Dogberry isn't actually the l967 Zeffirelli version with Frank Wylie as Dogberry. I saw that glorious production in 1968 and, as with so many of Zeffirelli's productions, the raw energy and apparent spontaniety were what made it so attractive. Here are a few more facts to feed nostalgia. The cast list looks a bit like a list of superstars-to-be: Joan Plowright as Beatrice; the incomparable Robert Stephens as Benedick; Derek Jacobi as Don Pedro; Anthony Hopkins as Borachio (!). It was very Italian, in a very creative kind of near-modern dress with music by Nino Rota and a text adapted by Robert Graves. Zeffirelli, as usual, directed and designed scenery and this was a case in which he didn't overwhelm the show with monumentality. How are we to understand that the costumes were by Peter J. Hall? Can this be the same Peter Hall as the later director of the National Theatre? There was, indeed, a band (trumpet, trombone, clarinet, drum, guitar) and it was used with charming whimsicality. It was a knockout. One of Zefferilli's best. I just finished my own production of Much Ado and it was pure delight to work on. Sadly, the ability of the audience to recognize a malapropism continues to deteriorate. (They feel so insecure with verbal wit generally that they assume the malapropisms are their own ignorance rather than the characters'. Beatrice and Benedick remain in the top ten of "roles actors would kill for". Because I had done Romeo and Juliet for this audience last year, I didn't want to repeat the Renaissance Italian setting. Looking for a fresh locale that would solve the main theatrical problem of the show (making the Claudio/Don Pedro "over-reaction to Hero's apparent disloyalty credible) we chose Spanish California of ca. 1830. It worked wonderfully, illuminating every corner of the play and not distracting or adding unwanted meanings. The show was very happily received by the audience but we had one very disturbing experience: when we played for high school and junior high audiences, they cheered for Claudio's abuse of Hero in the wedding scene. I never saw a cast so ready to attack an audience. This fits with a disturbing pattern I seen developing: young people (mostly young men) love scenes of abuse more than anything in a show and this response is regardless of the "justice" of the abuse. Very troubling. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Daniel M Larner Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 1994 15:21:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1013 Re: Fate in *Rom* Naomi Liebler makes a strong point about Aristotle's views, and an important way of making a distinction between melodrama and tragedy. But it's by no means clear that she's got R&J right, as a social tragedy. Sure, those elements are present. But why stick the Friar in as narrator to remind us that the lovers are "star-crossed," (which *does* mean ill-fated, not just unfortunate [what do you think "unfortunate" means?], if not to prepare us for the usual pathetic turn of melodrama--namely that people who don't deserve it get smashed by something beyond their control. The Friar is delayed in delivering his message by forces which have nothing to do with *any* of the play's characters, including the feuding families. It's often been remarked that but for that (and, of course, the chorus), R&J is set up as comedy, which, due the errant message, comes out badly. It's important, it seems to me, that we understand this about R&J, because it enables us to luxuriate, the way only melodrama can, in the intensity of their love, and the pity of its loss. A recent pale imitation of the psychological effect of this kind of dramatic structure is Erich Siegel's _Love Story_, in which the heroine is struck down by Leukemia, which strikes her utterly without regard to reference to either her own or her husband's actions. It's just sad, and gives us the opportunity to luxuriate in the memory of their love. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 22:00:06 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1018 French Theatre List Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1018. Thursday, 22 December 1994. From: Andre G. Bourassa Date: Tuesday, 20 Dec 94 20:27:55 EST Subject: New French discussion list on theatre Queatre In view of forthcoming theatre events at Universite du Quebec a Montreal next Spring, like the ACTR, FIRT and SQET annual meetings, and the Festival de theatre des Ameriques, the university computer service has accepted to open an international French discussion list on theatre. It is free of charge and owned by an incoming research group named QUEATRE (Quebec Theatre). This list is open to all individuals who want to discuss in French any aspect of theatre, wether they are members of the societies named above or of others. We hope, of course, to have as many subscribers as possible from countries where French is first or second language. You may use "elm", "PINE" or other MIME compatible programs. The advantage of PINE is that you can use French specific characters if the sender and the receiver are using adequate communication programs. Please note that, as in most discussion lists, there are two main addresses associated with this list that are used for separate purposes. They are as follows: queatre@uqam.ca -----This is the distribution list address. Send all articles, comments, etc, here and they will be forwarded to all subscribers. listproc@uqam.ca -----This is the administrative address of the list. Send all requests for subscriptions, help files, etc to this address. To subscribe to this list, send a mail message to the administrative address (listproc@uqam.ca) with the following body: subscribe queatre Firstname Name If you require any assistance, or information about this list, other than that available through the help files, please contact the list owner at: bourassa.andre_g@uqam.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 22:12:28 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1018 Re: *Ado*s, including Zefferilli Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1019. Thursday, 22 December 1994. (1) From: Kathleen Campbell Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 94 15:35:24 EST Subj: Re: *Much Ado* production (2) From: Michael Friedman Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 16:05:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1017 Re: Zefferilli *Ado* (3) From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 13:13:04 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 5.1017 Re: Zefferilli *Ado* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kathleen Campbell Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 94 15:35:24 EST Subject: Re: *Much Ado* production Roger Gross's mention of his recent *Much Ado* reminded me of a production I designed many years ago for the Dallas Theater Center. The director, an Australian, wanted a setting which might have particular resonances for the Texas audience. We set the play in San Antonio in 1836, just following the Texas Revolution. The Spanish influence was a successful replacement for Shakespeare's Italy and provided wonderful local color. The story transferred easily to the new setting with no loss of charm or nuance. Kathleen Campbell kcampbell@austinc.edu (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Friedman Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 16:05:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1017 Re: Zefferilli *Ado* In reply to Roger D. Gross, All of the sources I have consulted about Zeffirelli's *Much Ado* list Maggie Smith as Beatrice, rather than Joan Plowright. Perhaps there was a change in casting later in the run, but if so, none of the reviews I have seen mention it. Michael Friedman University of Scranton (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Henerson Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 13:13:04 -0500 Subject: Re: SHK 5.1017 Re: Zefferilli *Ado* I think we are talking about different casts of the same production (Zeffereli's *Ado*), and I think the earlier cast pressed the Columbia LP. This cast had Stephens as Benedick, but Maggie Smith was the Beatrice. Jacobi was present but as Don John.. Don Pedro was Albert Finney. Ian McKellen was Claudio, Frank Finlay was Dogberry, and Lynn Redgrave was either Ursula or Margaret. Anthony Hopkins was not in evidence, but it doesn't surprise me to learn that he joined a later cast. Every now and then I run across production shots of him as Audrey (!!!) in Clifford Williams all-male *As You Like It* which ran at the National in '67 or '68. Anthony Hopkins in a house dress and Brunhilde wig--let that rattle around your dream center for a couple of days! I also have observed that audiences seem to be less inclined to laugh at Dogberry than--what?--than they used to be? I remember laughing like crazy at my two favorite Dogberrys (-berries?): David Ogden Stiers for the Old Globe in 1982 (?) and Christopher Benjamin in the production which the RSC toured to Los Angeles for the Olympics in 1984. But I've seen several productions since, and most of the laughs have been in response to shtick rather than to language. Now, I have no problem with shtick beyond my own tendency to overindulge (like with rich desserts), but I remember laughing at Dogberry's language. And I remember, particularly at the Globe, laughing with the audience. Stiers somehow managed to manipulate the audience like a good stand-up comic. Every line seemed to be the punch line of some wonderful joke which nobody could remember him setting up. My ribs ached at the end of the evening. I must say one thing in defense of more recent audiences, however. I was in a production of *The Rivals* about five years ago, and nobody had any problems laughing at Mrs. Malaprop. Matt. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 22:29:18 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1019 Re: Dreams Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1019. Thursday, 22 December 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 22:13:32 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1015 Dreams (2) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, December 22, 1994 Subj: Dreams (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 22:13:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1015 Dreams I hate to throw cold water on Epstein's comment on "dreams are made on," but most (if not all) editors gloss "on" as "of." See E. A. Abbott, A SHAKESPEARIAN GRAMMAR, paragraph 181, who quotes various examples, e.g., "Enamour'd on his follies," 1 Hen. IV (5.2.71). Yours, Bill W. L. Godshalk (William.Godshalk@uc.edu) Department of English University of Cincinnati 45221-0069 (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, December 22, 1994 Subject: Dreams Okay, I waited my obligatory day to comment on this. Notwithstanding Bill's comment above: Prospero says "dreams are made on," while Bogart as Sam Spade at the end of the *Maltese Falcon*, answering Ward Bond's question about the dingus, "What is it Sam?," replies, "It if the stuff that dreams are made of." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 22:48:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1020 Re: Shakespeare on CD; New WWW Site; Boys and Women's Roles Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1020. Thursday, 22 December 1994. (1) From: Frank Whigham Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 10:10:05 -0600 Subj: Shakespeare CDs (2) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, December 22, 1994 Subj: Shakespeare on CD-ROM (3) From: Andreas Schlenger Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 18:40:52 +0200 (MESZ) Subj: New WWW-Site (4) From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 11:44:14 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0850 Re: Boys and Women's Roles (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Frank Whigham Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 10:10:05 -0600 Subject: Shakespeare CDs I have the World Library Shakespeare CD. It's okay, though hardly a scholarly tool. It has all of the Monarch Notes, which makes it useful if you ever mess with chasing down plagiarism, I guess. The texts are useful for general searches, but not much more. (I copy them onto my hard disk and search them inside Microsoft Word, but there's a search engine on the CD.) Copying to the hard disk is easy, which is not always the case. However, a word of warning. Some World Library titles are defective. There's a "Great Poetry Classics" that I bought for the text of The Faerie Queene, but the text of that poem stops in mid-stanza at 2.4.33. It's a design flaw, they say, that will be corrected in the next pressing -- whenever that is. So far I haven't found any problems like that with the Shakespeare. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Thursday, December 22, 1994 Subject: Shakespeare on CD-ROM I recently received an announcement for the upcoming Chadwyck-Healey "A Full- Text Database of Major Historical and Theatre Adaptations On CD-ROM and Magnetic Tape: Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare" with 11 major editions from the First Folio to the Cambridge editions of 1863-66, 24 original printings of individual plays, selected apocryphal plays, and over 100 adaptations, sequels, and burlesques" -- the good news. The bad news -- the price is $4,000. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andreas Schlenger Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 18:40:52 +0200 (MESZ) Subject: New WWW-Site Dear members of SHAKSPER, While doing some netsurfing on the Web yesterday, I came across a URL dedicated to Shakespeare and apparently quite new. Like many young services, its content is still limited to two or three pages with some links, but the whole project seemed very ambitious. Try: http://sashimi.wwa.com:80/~culturew/Shakesweb/shakesweb.html A Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to everyone out there! Andreas. (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 1994 11:44:14 -0400 Subject: Re: SHK 5.0850 Re: Boys and Women's Roles Re: James Forse and boys: >Let's take a look at some other evidence: c.1600 the Reading town records note >that a play was delayed because the Queen was shaving. Davenant's Royal >patent, 1660 states: *That whereas the women's parts in plays have] hitherto >been acted by MEN (emphasis mine) in the habits of women, of which some have >taken offence, we permit and give leave for the time to come, that all women's >parts be acted by women.* The poetic prologue to a 1660 performance of Othello >states: *But to the point: In this reforming age/ We have intents to civilize >the stage./Our women are defective, and so siz'd/You'd think they were some of >the guard disguis'd:/ For, to speak truth, men act, that are between/Forty and >fifty, wenches of fifteen;/With bone so large and nerve so incompliant,/When >you call Desdemona enter Giant.* OK, but Reading is the "provinces", not London--it's certainly possible that the selection of trained actors was smaller and a burly adult took on a role that in the wider talent pool of the metropolis would have been played by a younger apprentice... As for the Restoration references, I would be very careful about taking them as undiluted "truth." There's 18 years, a civil war, and a generation of continental influence (which taught the the exiles to accept women actresses as the sophisticated norm) to influence ideas of taste and appropriateness. Even in the passage cited, the "new" english stage is being touted as "civilizing", set in opposition to the presumedly barbarian, unsophisticated past. The rhetorical strategy is to present actresses as "natural" and men-in-women's roles as unthinkably gawky and in-credible, a grotesquely incongruous holdover from the crude old days of outdoor theaters, no scenery, and other excrescences. And if my memory of the passage is correct, isn't there an implication--probably more humorous than factual--that the "gawky giants" of 45 are the young men of the Renaissance stage all grown up? But pretty-boy Edward Kynaston took on women's roles in the 1660's; no gawky giant he, for Pepys thought him, in a dress, the loveliest lady in the house (words to that effect). The best thing ever written on Cleopatra's "boy-my-greatness" line, IMHO, is Phyllis Rackin's "Shakespeare's Boy Cleopatra, the Decorum of Nature, and the Golden World of Poetry," (PMLA 87 1972) in which she posits that Cleo's reference to the boy who plays her, far from being a gratutitous "slam," is the structuring aesthetic strategy of the play. "Well, boy my greatness!" Jean Peterson Bucknell University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 22:57:08 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1021 Re: Fate in *Rom* Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1021. Thursday, 22 December 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 22:50:48 -0500 (EST) Subj: Fate versus Hamartia in ROM (2) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 94 00:13:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.1017 Re: Fate in *Rom* (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 22:50:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Fate versus Hamartia in ROM When Alfred Harbage talked about ROM in class, he'd say that we know what kind of tragedy this play is because Shakespeare tells us in the first Chorus; "star-cross'd," he said, means that this is a tragedy of fate. So far so good. But Naomi Liebler reminds us that OEDIPUS is also a tragedy of fate, and so fatal tragedies can also apparently have tragic protagonists who miss the mark. But in ROM it's not the protagonist that misses the mark first; it's Friar Laurence. After he marries the kids, he's supposed to tell the families so that the marriage can bring peace. Instead he keeps it to himself -- and another teen suicide is the result. Beyond that, there does seem to be a heavy pattern of coincidence, adverse coincidence, in the play. Friar John's inability to deliver the letter is perhaps the last straw. Yours, Bill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 94 00:13:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.1017 Re: Fate in *Rom* Daniel Larner asks "what do [I] think 'unfortunate' means," if not "ill-fated," in R&J. I think it means "unlucky," which is quite a different matter from "ill-fated" or "doomed." The stars that cross these young lovers were thought to govern fortune, not fate. I take my cue from Nashe's "Unfortunate Traveller," whose plucky and picaro- protagonist is beset with all manner of misfortune and through wit--i.e., through his very human, very clever maneuvering--lands on his feet at every one of the novella's multiple turns. Nashe's novella is, of course, comic; and Larner is quite right to see the comic POSSIBILITIES in *R&J," possibilities that are indeed realized in another version of the same story, *MND.* That's part of my point: as in the case of Nashe's protagonist, social life presents possibilities which the genres of tragedy and comedy represent quite differently. But in the post-Greco-Roman world of Christian London, fate as an unavoidable, divinely ordained doom that no amount of human intervention could influence just doesn't apply. Moreover, the notion of "doom," like an unalterable sentence (the contemporary usage of the term makes it again a humanly --or govermentally--controlled event), exonerates and exculpates both protagonists and their represented communities from any and all responsibility for what happens to them, and as I said in my first posting, even Oedipus, the most doomed of tragic protagonists, rejects that exculpation. As Brecht wrote in response to Shakespearean tragedy, "the sufferings of this man appal me, because they are unnecessary," and as Raymond Williams wrote about that sentence, "we have to see not only that suffering is avoidable, but that it is not avoided. And not only that suffering breaks us, but that it need not break us" (*Modern Tragedy,* Stanford UP, 1966). OK? Cheers, Naomi Liebler ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 23:01:19 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1022. Thursday, 22 December 1994. From: Michael Groves Date: Wednesday, 21 Dec 1994 10:47:04 -0800 Subject: Victorian critics and "tragic flaw" in Shakespeare My question concerns Victorian commentators and Shakespeare's tragedies and the notion of "tragic flaw." How has the Victorian idea of "tragic flaw" affected our understanding of Shakespeare's tragedies? Is "tragic flaw" a Victorian idea? I am looking for some directon for further research. While reading "Oedipus Rex: A Collection of Critical Essays" I found the following statement by E. R. Dodds: "From the thirteenth chapter of the 'Poetics' we learn that the best sort of tragic hero is a man highly esteemed and prosperous who falls into misfortune because of some serious (Greek word, phrase): examples, Oedipus and Thyestes. In Aristotle's view, then, Oedipus' misfortune was directly occasioned by some serious (Greek word, phrase); and since Aristotle was known to be infallible, Victorian critics proceeded at once to look for this (Greek word, phrase). And so, it appears, do the majority of present-day undergraduates" (18). In the same essay, but later, Dodds writes, "The theory that the tragic hero must have a grave moral flaw, and its mistaken ascription to Aristotle, has had a long and disasterous history. It was gratifying to Victorian critics, since it appeared to fit certain plays of Shakespeare" (20). Some of my collegues (high school level) who teach Shakespearean tragedies emphasize in their lessons the tragic flaw in an important character. For example, they say Hamlet's flaw was indecision. They say he should have killed Claudius sooner. I argue the tragedies are more biblical than Aristotlean, and they should read Erasmus and "The Handbook of the Militant Christian." So, what am I looking for? Who in the Victorian period developed the notion of a "tragic flaw"? What are some primary and secondary sources I might read? Or can you point me in some direction where I might dig up the information? Michael Groves mgroves@teleport.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 23:04:29 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1023 Job Announcement Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1023. Thursday, 22 December 1994. From: Michael Friedman Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 10:23:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Job Announcement Theatre: University of Scranton, Assistant Professor Acting/Directing. The Department of English at the University of Scranton is seeking to fill a tenure-track position in a growing theatre program beginning August, 1995. Responsibilities include teaching directing and all levels of acting, as well as directing part of mainstage season in a new theatre arts complex. Responsibilities may also include teaching introductory courses in theatre and drama. M.F.A. or doctorate required. Candidates should have teaching experience and some professional acting and/or directing experience. Application deadline is February 24, 1995. Interested candidates should submit a vita and dossier to: F.X. Jordan, Ph.D., Chair, Department of English, University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Preliminary interviews will be conducted by telephone. The University of Scranton is a selective Catholic and Jesuit institution and is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer/Educator. I made sure to get permission to post this announcement on SHAKSPER, not only because the U. of Scranton is a great place to work, but because we have a nearly brand new 350-seat Renaissance-style theater that would be perfect for anyone interested in directing and acting Shakespeare. Michael Friedman University of Scranton ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 26 Dec 1994 10:20:02 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1024 Re: Fate and Tragic Flaw Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1024. Monday, 26 December 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:17:13 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: Fate in ROM (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:33:45 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE Tragic Flaw (3) From: Alice Kroman Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:56:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw (4) From: Naomi Liebler Date: Friday, 23 Dec 94 10:57:00 EST Subj: RE: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw (5) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 23 Dec 1994 15:07:45 -0400 (EDT) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw (6) From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 23 Dec 1994 15:23:19 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw (7) From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 23 Dec 1994 21:29:08 -0400 (EDT) Subj: tragic flaw (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:17:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Fate in ROM Naomi Liebler's comment that divinely ordained fate does not apply to Christian London in the 1590s (and I DO NOT quote her precisely) seems to leave out the Calvinists. Isn't the whole idea of the elect and the preterite founded on the concept that we humans are fated by god to salvation or damnation NO MATTER WHAT WE DO! Salvation cannot be purchased. Mr. Hooker might object to this position (and did), but John Calvin's followers were undaunted and remain so still. I remember quite vividly Maurice Armstrong (historian and Calvinist minister) explaining the concept on a cold, gray winter day at Ursinus College in 1959. Armstrong was quite convincing. Yours, Bill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:33:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE Tragic Flaw In answer to Michael Groves' question, try the Leon Golden and O.B. Hardison edition of ARISTOTLE'S POETICS (Prentice-Hall, 1968) 183-184. Hardison points to A. C. Bradley's loose interpretation of hamartia. Hamartia seems to be a term from archery, and, as Naomi Liebler has already pointed out, means missing the mark. Yours, Bill (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alice Kroman Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:56:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw Dear Michael Groves: I am a student at George Mason Univeristy, studying (interestingly enough), English Literature and Theatre. It so happens that you have just stumbled upon my two favorite areas of study. Without digging too much through my books, I have tried to give you a little guidance in regards to your request: >My question concerns Victorian commentators and Shakespeare's tragedies and >the notion of "tragic flaw." How has the Victorian idea of "tragic flaw" >affected our understanding of Shakespeare's tragedies? Is "tragic flaw" a >Victorian idea? I am looking for some directon for further research. As you state a little later in your probe, the idea of harmartia or tragic flaw was developed by Aristotle, not the Victorians. However, Aristotle did have a big come back in the Victorian era. With the industrial revolution, the middle class grew and became educated. With an industrialized society, they had much more leisure time and turned to reading voluminous works such as Dickens and Thackeray. It is hard to say how the Victorian idea of tragic flaw has affected our understanding of Shakespeare's tragedies, because we all have already been biased by it. I study both Shakespeare and the Victorians extensively, and although Shakespeare shows up frequently in Thackeray and Hardy, I seldom think of "the dead white guys" (as we like to call them) when reading Shakespeare. The influence simply was not there when Shakespeare was writing. [Stuff deleted] >So, what am I looking for? Who in the Victorian period developed the notion of >a "tragic flaw"? What are some primary and secondary sources I might read? Or >can you point me in some direction where I might dig up the information? When looking for any theorists in the Victorian Era, one must always begin with Thomas Carlyle. And I warn you, his philosophy is extremely difficult to comprehend -- on any level. This idea of the relationship between The Victorians and Shakespeare seems to me, a fabulously interesting one. I wonder if anyone would be willing to develop this further. I have just recently completed a paper on the use of Shakespeare in William Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_. Any interest in further discussion on Thackeray or any other of the D.W.G.'s? Hope this is some help, Alice Marie Kroman akroman@osf1.gmu.edu (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Naomi Liebler Date: Friday, 23 Dec 94 10:57:00 EST Subject: RE: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw Michael Groves asks for critical commentary on the evolution of the notion of a "tragic flaw." The very best discussions I know of are these: Stephen Booth's *King Lear, Macbeth, Indefinition, and Tragedy,* New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983 (Booth is also the most readable of these); Gerald Else's monumental *Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument,* Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967; Bernard Weinberg, "From Aristotle to Pseudo-Aristotle," in Elder Olson, ed., *Aristotle's Poetics and English Literature,* Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1965, and a brief but solid discussion in Jonathan Dollimore's *Radical Tragedy,* Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984. Happy hunting. Naomi Liebler (5)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 23 Dec 1994 15:07:45 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw To Michael Groves: Peter Alexander in his book *Hamlet: Father and Son* has some interesting comments on hamartia, a word, he says, that is very-much over-emphasized; it appears only once in Aristotle and its exact meaning is rather unclear. I'll try a search of the OED to see when the phrase tragic flaw began to be used. Bernice W. Kliman (6)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer Date: Friday, 23 Dec 1994 15:23:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1022 Q: Tragic Flaw Michael Groves: For a completely different view of hamartia (the "tragic flaw"), take a look at Gerald Else's *Aristotle's _Poetics_: The Argument". His views are radical, the classicists tell me, but his is the only rendering of the Poetics that has ever made dramatic sense to me. In his view, if I recall it correctly, hamartia is an offense against a blood relative. He helps tease out how Aristotle used this idea in relation to Oedipus. Reading Else will also give you a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT idea of what is imitated in dramatic mimesis; he's become my bedrock theorist for all dramatic interpretation. Else also published a shorter version, but reading the full edition, 600-odd pages of close analysis, is worth the time and effort. Jim Schaefer (7)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bernice W. Kliman Date: Friday, 23 Dec 1994 21:29:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: tragic flaw The OED (supplement to 1st edition and, of course, 2nd edition) has as its 1st mention of tragic flaw 1913! Here is the entry: b. *tragic flaw = hamartia. 1913 L. COOPER* Aristotle on Art of Poetry ii. 40 For Mary, the tragicflaw of the hero, described as an `error of judgment', or a `shortcoming', needs immediate illustration. The single Greek word, hamartia, lays the emphasis upon the want of insight within the man, but is elastic enough to mean also the outward fault resulting from it. 1950 W. FARNHAM* Shakespeare's Tragic Frontier i. 4 In Brutus then, Shakespeare discovered the noble hero with a tragic flaw. By that discovery he made it possible for English tragedy to reach a greatness hitherto attained only by Greek tragedy. 1970 English Studies LI. 235 This flaw in the Hegge Pilate..approximates very closely what is generally meant in dramatic criticism as `tragic flaw', and the Hegge Pilate may be the first tragic hero in English drama. As for *Rom*, while many events and traits of character combine to effect the tragic conclusion, Romeo, by giving in the masculine value of revenge, certainly helped. If he had not killed Tybalt, there would have been no tragedy, in spite of the death of Mercutio. Similarly, if Juliet had been able to tell her father or mother that she was already married, there would have been no tragedy. Yes, either the Friar or the Nurse could also have prevented the tragedy, and the Friar especially is culpable (he should have sent Balthazar as he had said he would with the message to Romeo; he should not have left Juliet alone in the tomb; he should have posted a guard at her side as soon as he sent the message &c.). But the protagonists also play their role. Are their flaws tragic? I would say "No," because while their flaws contribute, the action their behavior generates could have been prevented. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Bernice ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 12:32:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1025 Authorship: The Move Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1025. Tuesday, 27 December 1994. (1) From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, December 27, 1994 Subj: Authorship: The Move (2) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 23:18:19 -0800 Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook Date: Tuesday, December 27, 1994 Subject: Authorship: The Move The mail I have received has overwhelmingly supported me in my desire to relocate the authorship discussion to another place. I suggested that it move to the Oxford list, but one of that list's editors, Marty Hyatt, informed me that he had no desire to host the authorship debate on the Oxford list. Marty Hyatt mentioned, however, that the discussion would be appropriate for the usenet newsgroup rec.arts.theatre.plays. This seems a reasonable suggestion to me, and I would encourage anyone interested in continuing the discussion to do so there. Below is a final posting on authorship submitted on December 17. Again, if anyone has further comments, please address them to me privately. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 23:18:19 -0800 Subject: authorship When the man from Stratford died in 1616, all the poets and playwrights of the day held a great silence over the passing, as has been noted. But his death did not go entirely unnoticed in Stratford. His son-in-law, John Hall, a well-known physician who lived down the street, kept a diary. He had a taste for poetry, and admired Drayton. But when the "soul of the age" passed away, he enters but one line in his diary to memoralize the day: "My father-in-law died on Thursday." Then oblivion falls on the man. Several years pass before anyone else notices that the man from Stratford has died. "My father-in-law died on Thursday." You might give a better report if your cat died, even if it couldn't write sonnets. Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 12:44:32 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1026 Qs: Greg's *Sh. First Folio*; Revenge Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1026. Tuesday, 27 December 1994. (1) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:00:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: W. W. Greg's SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO (2) From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 26 Dec 1994 17:07:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: The Masculine Value of Revenge? (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Thursday, 22 Dec 1994 23:00:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: W. W. Greg's SHAKESPEARE FIRST FOLIO Today, I decided to get my own copy of Greg's book on the Folio, and it seems that I've waited too, too long. It's out of print. Does anyone know of a second-hand copy for sale? I've been told that there is an online bulletin board for the second-hand book trade. Does anyone have the address? Thanks. Yours, Bill (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk Date: Monday, 26 Dec 1994 17:07:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: The Masculine Value of Revenge? Bernice Kliman recently used the phrase "the masculine value of revenge." And as I pondered the phrase, it became more and more problematic. Is there a "feminine value of revenge"? Or is all revenge gendered male? Isn't revenge a mammalian trait practiced by both male and female mammals? Perhaps reptiles, etc. also practice revenge. Is revenge simply retaliation? Paying back in kind? Or must revenge be tied to a concept or ideology? Is "peace" also a "masculine value"? Questioningly yours, Bill ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 12:52:28 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1027 Re: Tragic Flaw; Fun Reading Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1027. Tuesday, 27 December 1994. (1) From: Ken Sanderson Date: Monday, 26 Dec 94 11:06:40 MST Subj: Tragic flaw (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 94 08:59:43 -0500 Subj: More Reading for Fun and Profit & 1017 (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ken Sanderson Date: Monday, 26 Dec 94 11:06:40 MST Subject: Tragic flaw A good corrective to much chatter about Tragic Flaw is A.P. Rossiter's _Angel with Horns_ (1961). Citing Sidney's line about tragedy teaching "the uncertainety of this world," Rossiter writes: "This alarmingness of circumstance is evaded only by the theory of 'tragic flaw' or 'tragic weakness'. The theory (extracted from Aristotle) says that the hero's nature is 'flawed' and his fate follows from his excess or deficiency. Its effect is to shift all blame from the universe (or to give that consoling impression), and it is popular enough: both because of the ease with which 'tragic weakness' can be diagnosed (or devised)--when we know how the story ends; and, again, because it re-establishes the comforting belief that the universe is moral, and the fates of tragic heroes somehow just..." Seasons greetings to all... Ken Sanderson RENSANDE@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 94 08:59:43 -0500 Subject: More Reading for Fun and Profit & 1017 Hello again! Well, I finished Judith Cook's historical novel *The Slicing Edge of Death,* about the murder of Christopher Marlowe and found it very satisfying. I then slipped immediatedly into Lisa Goldstein's *Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon,* set in the same time period and including some of the same characters (Marlowe, Kyd, Greene), but this one is a historical fantasy (the queen of fairy comes to London in 1590-92 in search of her changeling son). Also wonderful. Thanks goodness for fiction writers, whose imaginations can carry us to some very interesting places. On a more scholarly note, I just finished Bruce Smith's *Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare's England* and found it interesting, informative, helpful; and I've just started (thanks, I think, to Bill Godshalk's recommendation a while back) David Bevington's *Action Is Eloquence.* On another note, I found Roger Gross's description of some young people's response to Claudio's abuse of Hero in *Much Ado* very disturbing. Yet this pattern of young men applauding violence (especially against women) is reported more and more often (I've heard about it in relation to films, especially). What can we as adults, educators, parents, friends of young people do about such responses? I certainly try with my own children and with the students with whom I interact to encourage what I consider basic human values. Where are we failing? I see much that is good in popular culture, but so much more that is ugly and frightening. Let us all do what we can to make the upcoming year a positive one in as many ways as we can. Best wishes to everyone! Chris Gordon, University of Minnesota ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 10:35:22 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1028 Re: Tragic Flaw I Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1028. Thursday, 29 December 1994. (1) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1994 13:37:02 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.1024 Re: Fate and Tragic Flaw (2) From: Nina Walker Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1994 14:47:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1027 Re: Tragic Flaw (3) From: Al Cacicedo Date: Wednesday, 28 Dec 1994 2:20:36 -0500 (EST) Subj: RE: SHK 5.1024 Re: Fate and Tragic Flaw (4) From: Skip Shand Date: Wednesday, 28 Dec 1994 10:29:05 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.1027 Re: Tragic Flaw (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1994 13:37:02 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.1024 Re: Fate and Tragic Flaw It has always seemed to me that hamartia, with its root definition deriving from archery, meant more like *pulling back to bow until you are ready to shoot, and then, at the critical point, letting it go.* In other words, the tragic hero goes on his way in a direction that is determined but that he does not see, until the critical moment, when his fate cries out, to quote S, and the event precipitates. It would resemble the Hindu notion of karma, more than anything westers, I think. Any ideas? E.L.Epstein (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nina Walker Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1994 14:47:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1027 Re: Tragic Flaw On tragic flaw and the Victorians in particular: I think it was Michael Groves who equated tragic flaw with "moral flaw" I don't think this is necessarily as Aristotle would have it. An inherited/internal character flaw (such as a bad temper) or even a physical flaw (a missing leg) both of which are determined by "nature" and unchangeable, enhanced by an external flaw acquired by bad habit, usually hubris, and changeable by the exercise of free will, in combination with an "error of judgement" which is generally tied into not following the rules that a particular society, Greek or English Renaissance or Victorian (or whenever/wherever) demands be followed--the factor of time and place--set the stage for tragedy. I'm not sure how "moral flaw" fits in this sequence, though it might be equated with the external flaw. Avoiding secondary sources, since many have been mentioned, I suggest a close reading of the "vicious mole of nature" speech in *Hamlet* in conjunction with 5.1.35-55 of *Coriolanus* in which Aufidius ponders the 'inevitable' fall of C. Was it his pride, defect of judgement, nature or the three in combination. I think Carlyle a great source of instruction but shorter and plainer is Geroge Eliot's *Notes on Tragedy* contained in Cross's biography of his wife, Vol.2. Eliot was a friend of Carlyle's, a scholar who studied Aristotle in Greek, and a renowned expert on Shakespeare. Though short, the entry is very telling and I believe she uses *Othello* as an example. (I apologize for not remembering the name of the contributor who wishes to have discussion about Victorian authors using Shakespeare, but I second the idea. I'd love to hear about the *Vanity Fair* connection. Eliot is endlessly influenced by Shakespeare and she admired Thackeray.) I also think it worth mentioning that a good reading of *Nichomachean Ethics* helps illuminate the Poetica. Is there also another feature to be reckoned with regarding Aristotlean constructs, fate, and/or accepting the consequences for one's actions regardless of the cause. What about tragic flaw as Nemesis? Any theories? I don't know how Aristotle or Shakespeare might view the combination, but Eliot *seems* to believe the two are closely entwined. Happy New Year Nina Walker (nwalker@lynx.dac.neu.edu) (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Al Cacicedo Date: Wednesday, 28 Dec 1994 2:20:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: SHK 5.1024 Re: Fate and Tragic Flaw It's easy to forget that Aristotle does not have a psychological approach to character. He says that a character is what a character does. In that light, I can't imagine that hamartia is a "flaw" *in* the character, but rather, as others have pointed out, a missing of the mark in the action undertaken b by the protagonist. On the other hand, the inevitability of the protagonist's doom seems to me to be very much a part of hamartia. Surely Oedipus, one of Aristotle's favorite examples as he appears in *Oedipus Rex*, is doomed whatever he might choose to do in the present of that play. If one puts the moment of choice back at the time when Oedipus kills his father--another one of those instances of indulging the male condition?--then the tragedy worked out in the play demonstrates that murder will out (an idea whose time seems to have passed, I think) because ultimately the gods are moral: any immoral act, then, misses the mark. It's that ethical point that Plato, in his more retentive moments, seems to miss entirely. Maybe he'd been watching TV instead of *Oedipus Rex*? Joyfully finished with my grading, Al Cacicedo (alc@joe.alb.edu) Albright College (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Skip Shand Date: Wednesday, 28 Dec 1994 10:29:05 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SHK 5.1027 Re: Tragic Flaw For an interesting, perhaps still controversial, political spin on 'tragic flaw,' see Augusto Boal's *Theatre of the Oppressed*, in the sections dealing with Aristotle's 'coercive' theory of tragedy. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 10:51:52 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1029 Re: Tragic Flaw II (Long) Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1029. Thursday, 29 December 1994. From: Thomas Clayton Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 94 21:10:29 CST Subject: "Tragic Flaw" Zap this if you are not interested in some detailed attention to the "tragic flaw" issue. I do not present myself as an author-ity on the subject, but it is an important and difficult one, and I make here some comments and suggestions that I hope some readers will find useful. Many, perhaps all, will find this turgidly written and deadly dull as well as egregiously incomplete, but the limitations of space, time, and authorship prevent its being otherwise. And I apologize for all the many kinds of limitation, including the crude expedients used for italics, boldface, and the like, and for normalizing, with caps, cross references within definitions (some books use caps, some *, etc.), and for any inconsistencies that may result in the use thereof (and I _usually_ observe differences between American and British practice, etc., ZZzzzz). There is a voluminous literature on the _hamartia_ of Aristotle's _Poetics_, of which "tragic flaw" is apparently a relatively recent rendering, as Bernice Kliman's quotation of _OED2_'s earliest citation (by Lane Cooper) suggests. In centering the ultimate cause of a tragic outcome on a defect of character, "tragic flaw" seems to me a slightly Byronic, post- Romantic rendering, which implies psychological determinism in one perspective and "fate" in another. It may incorporate a valuable insight and characteristic, but it is not more Aristotelian (or perhaps less) than the notorious Three Unities, of which only one is strictly Aristotelian, the unity of action. Looking up "tragic flaw" (by itself or s.v. "tragedy") in dictionaries of literary terms is enlightening on the progress of a term of doubtful if not dubious origin to a position of authority and, sometimes, considerable originality and imaginative elaboration. For example, (1) "*tragic flaw* (see HARMARTIC [sic]) the character defect (excessive jealousy, pride, etc.) or the strength which becomes a weakness that leads a once noble figure to destruction" (Jack Myers and Michael Simms, _The Longman Dictionary of Poetic Terms_, 1989). There is of course no entry for the splendid "Harmartic," but "Hamartia" is "(Greek for 'sin, fault') in Greek TRAGEDY, the character flaw, error of poor judgment, or human weakness that shows up in the action of a PROTAGONIST who is, therefore, doomed by fate. Ambition, impulsiveness, fecklessness, ignorance, jealousy, and greed are examples of such weakness." Another example (2): "Traditionally that defect in a tragic hero or heroine which leads to their downfall. To all intents and purposes a synonym for the Greek _hamartia_ (_q.v._)" (J. A. Cuddon, _A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory_, 3rd ed., 1991). The author throws in a stock misreading of _Hamlet_ for good measure: "The _locus classicus_ is _Hamlet_, I, iv, 23- 36 [In the Oxford _Hamlet_s, found among Additional Passages (collected) and Appendix A (individual)]. See also HUBRIS; TRAGEDY." A third example (3) from another Longman book (first published by Smurfit Books, Dublin), less tendentious and more ranging and informative, within an entry on "TRAGEDY": "The sequence of actions (they must be significant ones, of the kind men are constitutionally liable to perform, thus expressive of human nature) accompanying the passage of the hero from good to bad fortune is generally seen as the product of some initial and fundamental 'error' (flaw, false step, miscalculation, defect of character, misjudgment) on his part. The 'error' in question does not necessarily involve a _moral_ failing," etc. (Patrick Murray, _Literary Criticism: A Glossary of Major Terms_, 1978). A fourth (4): "the defect of character that brings about the protagonist's downfall in a TRAGEDY: Othello's jealousy is a famous example. The idea of the tragic flaw involves a narrowing and personalizing of the broader Greek concept of _HAMARTIA_ ('error' or 'failure'). _See also_ HUBRIS." Under "_hamartia_," the author gives "the Greek word for error or failure, used by Aristotle in the _Poetics_ (4th century BC) to designate the false step that leads the PROTAGONIST in a TRAGEDY to his or her downfall. The term has often been translated as 'tragic flaw', but this misleadingly confines the cause of the reversal of fortunes to some personal defect of character, whereas Aristotle's emphasis was rather upon the protagonist's _action_, which could be brought about by misjudgement, ignorance, or some other cause. _See also_ HUBRIS, PERIPETEIA)." Under "hubris" he adds a mis- leading synonym in "The protagonist's _transgression_ or HAMARTIA leads eventually to his or her downfall, which may be understood as divine retribution or NEMESIS" (my emphasis; Chris Baldick, _The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms_, 1990, for the most part one of the better of such dictionaries). Timothy J. Reiss's materialist-historicist discussion of "Tragedy" in the _New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics_ (1993: 1296-1302, "tragic flaw" 1299a) is worth consult- ing among other abbreviated treatments, as are a number of books cited and not cited in his bibliography, which is curiously selective and seriously incomplete even for its own scope. For example, no notice is taken of Richard Janko's important translation of _"Poetics I with the "Tractatus Coislinianus," a Hypothetical Reconstruction of "Poetics II [on Comedy], and the Fragments of the "On Poets"_ and extensive notes (1987: "_hamartema, hamartia_ error," 209); or of D. W. Lucas's standard edition of the Greek text of _Aristotle's "Poetics": Introduction, Commentary and Appendixes_ (Oxford, 1968; corr. rpt., 1978), in which Appendix IV (299-307) gives a valuable discussion of "_Hamartia_," "not frailty as opposed to badness, but error as opposed to evil intent" (302), etc. "Error _or_ frailty" (emphasis mine) is the double-barreled egalitarian phrase for _hamartia_ of S. H. Butcher's long and widely circulated translation, which is still in (inexpensive) print as a Hill and Wang Dramabook (or successor); the fuller version, with Greek text and translation on facing pages, is _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art with a Critical Text and Translation of "The Poetics"_, 4th ed. (1907), reprinted by Dover in 1951, and possibly still in print. The omissions in the _New Princeton Encyclopedia_ may not have been deliberate but they are congruent with the author's view that--because "part of the difficulty with all this has been subsequent critics' inability to agree on the meaning of even these fundamental terms" (e.g., _katharsis_. _mimesis_, _hamartia_)--"to understand tragedy, therefore, we might cease looking first at Aristotle's terms and begin instead with the historical contexts of the works in question" (1299a). Bill Godshalk has written recently here that _hamartia_, "as Naomi Liebler has already pointed out, means missing the mark"-- "esp. of spear thrown" as is added under _hamartanein_, the verb, in the standard _Greek-English Lexicon_ of Liddell and Scott along with much other valuable material on this and related words sharing the same root. For example, "_hamartema_ failure, fault, . . . midway between _adikema_ and _atuxema_" (Aristotle's _Nichomachean Ethics_ cited); "sinful action" (no citation for Aristotle); and "_hamartia_ a failure, fault, . . . error _of judgement_ [Thucydides], . . . guilt, sin" (with both Plato and Aristotle's _N. Ethics_ cited), through which kind of definition _hamartia_ presumably came to be linked with _hubris_ by some critics (into _hubris_ I am not going here!). In L&S, _adikema_ is "_intentional wrong_, opp[osed to] _hamartema_ and _atuxema_"]; and _atuxema_ is "_misfortune, miscarriage, . . . fault of ignorance, mistake_," the primary point being the con- trast between the mindful and deliberate, and the unaware and inadvertent (with obvious legal parallels). Impulsive acts with-- accordingly unforeseeable--convulsive consequences are common in tragedies, like Lear's banishing Cordelia and Kent, and dividing up the kingdom(s). In the (much criticized) _NSOED_ (1993), "tragic flaw = hamartia" (s.v. "tragic"). The entry for "hamartia" is "_n._ L18 [i.e., late eighteenth century]. The fault or error leading to the destruction of the tragic hero or heroine of a play, novel, etc.," not a bad consensus defini- tion in few words, which may paraphrase Butcher's translation, whose "frailty," however, is broader than "fault." "Tragedy" (not to mention "Comedy") is a problem that will neither go away nor be definitively "solved," probably, in part because of the root problems of designation/definition and comprehension/objects-included; that is, the shifting definitions of the term, the particular works classified as "tragedies," and of course the consequent shifting relations _between_ definitions and works. Most of the complications and ambiguities of individual terms are due to the root problems, and the whole issue is inescapably circular: we cannot recognize a tragedy without knowing what "(a) tragedy" is, and we cannot define "tragedy" without reference to tragedies. Which is where Aristotle came in, after the classification had already been accomplished by history, religion, politics, and conventional practice. The _Poetics_ is his attempt to give a philosophical and in effect also psychological explanation of the tragedies he knew in terms of the relation between their form and effects, a valiant and on the whole pretty modest attempt that does not purport to be definitive but is much richer and more suggestive than is allowed by the restrictive and in effect pejorative terms often used to categorize (or put in its place, as though in order to dismiss) the _Poetics_, notably "formalist" and "generic," both of which it is, inevitably, and more; and it sometimes seems more pertinent to Shakespeare's tragedies than to the surviving Greek tragedies, oddly enough. Still more dismissive is the partly ad- hominem claim for which there is said to be "evidence that" Aristotle "distorted his account of tragedy's history for political and ideological ends ([J. H. F.] Jones [1962])" (Reiss 1297a). Much of this philosophical apparatus is sheer if not mere encumbrance when dramatic and literary critics settle down to discuss particular plays and playwrights like Shakespeare, before which settling-down some may enquire whether there is such a thing as "Shakespearean tragedy" (but what is "tragedy," and who was Shakespeare?), a question that can hardly be answered without reference to the plays concerned. Bradley's _Shakespearean Tragedy_ generalizes about the Substance and Construction of Shakespearean tragedy but analyses individual tragedies; and in _Shakespeare's Tragedies_ Kenneth Muir asserts--as I recall-- _something_ like "there is no such thing as Shakespearean _tragedy_, there are only tragedies," with which I for one tend to agree. Given such (apparent) differences of perspective, there is good reason to see why Adrian Poole, in _Tragedy: Shakespeare and the Greek Example_ (1987), writes of his juxtaposition of partiular tragedies by Shakespeare with particular Greek tragedies that "these peremptory alliances are not intended to press home likenesses between Shakespeare and the Greeks; indeed the argument of this book is more jealous of preserving the differences between particular tragedies than it is zealous to wed them to an institution called Tragedy. . . . The aim is rather to rub up, as it were, some topics and issues that rightly recur in all general discussions of tragedy" ( vii). But those who do want to generalize about tragedy could do so with reference to the philosopher D. D. Raphael, who in my view is among persons who have written both thoughtfully and provoca- tively on tragedy, and also on Shakespeare's tragedies (_The Paradox of Tragedy_, 1960); and who asserts that Tragedy always presents a conflict . . . between inevitable power, what we may call necessity, and the reaction to necessity of self-conscious effort. Tragic conflict differs from the conflicts presented by other forms of drama in that the victory always goes to necessity. The hero is crushed. I have spoken of necessity, not fate [25]. . . . The tragic hero, even though he be a villain like Macbeth, attracts our admiration because of some _grandeur d'ame_ [greatness of spirit], a greatness in his effort to resist, and our pity for his defeat. Although he must be crushed in his conflict, since his adversary is necessity, yet he does not yield the victory on all counts: _Capta ferum victorem cepit_ [The conquered has conquered the savage victor. Horace _Epistles_ 2.1.156]. His _grandeur d'ame_ is sublime and wins our admiration. Herein lies the satisfaction, the elevation, produced by Tragedy. . . . (26) Sympathy with the tragic hero causes us to appreciate his sublimity more warmly than that of the power which con- fronts him. Our pleasure arises from the feeling that one like us reaches the greater height. (36) It is usually the case, anyhow, that much useful discussion of whether and how _King Lear (or _Romeo and Juliet_) is tragic will center more on the action and characters of the play, and on the apparently entailed effects, than on the nature of the tragic as such; that can hardly be ignored altogether, but it is redundant to canvass it in detail in connection with every discussion of every work. It is likewise unprofitable to canvass ideological issues in detail _as such_ in every case, unless they are the primary issue, in which case, obviously, they must and _will_ be primary; and where they are not, better not--depending upon one's ideological premises. In such connections, it is helpful to bear in mind something Graham Hough wrote in his chapter (23) on The Nature of Critical Argument in a still useful book unfortunately out of print, _An Essay on Criticism_ (1966): It should now be possible to say something about the nature of literary discussion. Obviously it is multi- farious. The discussion of literary questions employs arguments and evidence of many different kinds, and much of the confusion in criticism is caused by failure to recognize this. Too many critical arguments take a form in which A says a certain object is blue and B says no, it is not blue, it is anthropomorphic. Naturally no very profitable conclusion is reached. (163) It follows that, if some critics insist that nothing but the bluism of a work is worth discussing, critics otherwise persuaded will seek for greener pastures or, if there are none, abandon the field. Stranger things have happened. It continues to be the case in my experience that their social, ethnic, and vocational backgrounds don't count for much with students who become really engaged with Shakespeare; they tend to do so on the basis of his/his characters' expression, their actions, and how these actions "feel" and what they seem to mean, play by play, poem by poem, and cumulatively--and to some extent what they amount to all together in terms of their "relevance," their exterior reference and contemporary relations and origins, and their significance and testimony as a living "monument" by whomever constructed from whatever motives. Enthusiasts tend in this way toward the position of Harold Bloom on Shakespeare in _The Western Canon_ (1994), whether they know it (or care) or not. About proponents of positions hostile to Shakespeare and to other artists and their arts, I know what I read and hear, which is plenty, but I find it impossible to share the attitudes, though sometimes I think I understand the views and try to entertain them as best I can. For all that, I am more of an anthropomorphist than a bluist--or is it the other way round?--but incorrigibly one who remains fascinated, moved esthetically and otherwise, and continually (re)edified by Shakespeare's and others' works of literary and dramatic art, and who hopes that at worst they will be long neglected before they are burnt for heresy. Me, too. _Is_ it all true that Shakespeare "presents characters ranged against obstacles frequently not simply of their own choosing, but even of their own making: _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ introduce supernatural elements, to be sure, but these do not gravely effect [sic] the instance of choice"? (Reiss 1301). Where would the plays or protagonists be without these "elements"? To Hamlet "Denmark's a prison," but Rosencrantz says that "We think not so"; therefore "to you"--Rosencrantz, them--, says Hamlet, "'tis none; . . . for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To" him "it is a prison" (in Hinman's Folio TLN 1289-97; composite texts, e.g. Riverside, 2.2.243-51), as it usually is in production and in the reading. "We" can't always be certain what Rosencrantz (and gentle Guildenstern) _think(s)_, because of their character and actions in the play (aside from the fact that of course "they" don't "think," though Shakespeare makes them seem to), but Hamlet's is a mystery of a somewhat different kind. In her major recent study of Aristotle's _Poetics_ based on many years' study of Aristotle's works, Elizabeth S. Belfiore's _Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion_ (1992), the author thinks and says of the Greek term behind the "tragic flaw" that A _hamartia_, then, is an action due to ignorance of the actual result, and, in some cases, to ignorance of vari- ous other kinds as well. Ignorance of the actual result, as noted above, is also involved in _peripeteia_. _Peripeteia_, however, may be caused by someone else in the play, while a _hamartia_ is always an error of the person whose change from good to bad fortune is represented. A _hamartia_ is an action that is not vicious but that results in the agent's "missing the mark" (_hamartanein_), and so leads by necessity or probability to bad fortune. _Hamartia_ explains why bad fortune occurs. It allows us to see bad fortune as a necessary part of human nature, and not due to chance or to vice. It serves, therefore, as a link in the chain of a necessary or probable sequence of events, without interfering with the tragic responses of pity and fear. (170) The _hamartia_ as tragic error would ordinarily be an error characteristic of its agent('s peculiar human "frailties," e.g., an extreme degree of "ambition, the soldier's virtue") and "predictable" in retrospect as both probable and necessary, given the character and circumstances, supernatural agencies among them; but neither deliberately "vicious" nor predestined, divinely foreknown, or otherwise inevitable, however likely--though it could be any one or more of these and still be tragedy, for beter or for worse. Or maybe not. That is not a "law" but a speculation, based on some experience but speculation nevertheless. Happy New Year, and cheers, Tom Tom Clayton (612) 625-3371 (o), 644-8441 (h) FAX (612) 624-8228 E-Mail tsc@maroon.tc.umn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 11:51:01 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1032 Q: Elizabethan Education Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1032. Friday, 30 December 1994. From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Thursday, 29 Dec 1994 22:18:21 -0800 Subject: Elizabethan Education I'm doing a bit of research on Elizabethan education, particularly as regards the education of women, what schooling was available to them and so forth. Shakespeare was a gentlemen and a rich man, and yet he had two illiterate daughters. Would they not have been allowed at the Stratford school? Were girls prohibited? But even so, were tutors not available in a town that size. Or perhaps the cost was too much. Were other gentlemen's daughters taught to read and write, or was this exclusively for the boys? I'd appreciate any information on this, or books that I might be directed to. Kennedy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 11:48:35 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1031 Re: Books; Dreams; Shakespeare on CD-ROM Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1031. Friday, 30 December 1994. (1) From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1994 16:04:24 -0800 Subj: Books (2) From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 29 Dec 1994 12:24:15 EDT Subj: RE: SHK 5.1019 Re: Dreams (3) From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 30 Dec 94 09:16:47 -0500 Subj: Shakespeare on CD-ROM (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard J Kennedy Date: Tuesday, 27 Dec 1994 16:04:24 -0800 Subject: Books Bill Godshalk asked about a source for OP books, and if anyone knows a good place to go, I'm sure a lot of us would like to see the post. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: E. L. Epstein Date: Thursday, 29 Dec 1994 12:24:15 EDT Subject: RE: SHK 5.1019 Re: Dreams In regards to dreams: *of* and *on* are two different prepositions. Shakespeare used both in various places. He did have a problem with *of* in a prominent place. The line in *Tempest*, "Of his bones are coral(s) made," makes no semantic sense. It is a line featuring syntactic inversion, it would seem, but untangling the inversion produces a line that does not mean what I think all readers would agree is the sense. The uninverted line would read Coral(s) are made of his bones. The immediate meaning of this line would mean that all or some corals in the sea have been made of the bones of the drowned man. This is not so, however, as the next line makes clear. Those are pearls that were his eyes--his bones have been made into coral, perhaps while still in his body, since his eyes have been made into two pearls, not all or some of the pearls of the sea. The less puzzling version of the line should read His bones are corals made, in a parallel to the word was made flesh. In fact, the sentence from the Bible is semantically relevant to such a meaning as well as syntactically parallel. So what are we to make of *of* in of his bones are corals made? English has no provision for disappearing prepositions in such a structure. Robert Graves, in a place that I have forgotten, acknowledges the difficulty implicitly by quoting the line as *Oh, his bones are corals made!" (Does anyone know where the Graves alteration is printed?) As for the original discussion of *dreams are made on*, the preposition *of* derives from an older form of *off*. If someone can tell me how *off* and *on* can mean the same thing, I will give them a big red apple. I would also be grateful for discussion of the Tempest line. E.L.Epstein (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon Date: Friday, 30 Dec 94 09:16:47 -0500 Subject: Shakespeare on CD-ROM Hardy mentioned that he'd received the announcement of the full-text database of Shakespeare adaptations, but that it cost $4000. I saw the same announcement and sent it on to the University of Minnesota librarian who handles the humanities, but I am not hopeful. I don't suppose there's anyway the 500 of us could contribute $10 each and make it accessible on-line is there? This no doubt violates all sorts of copyright, but then my anarchist heart thrills to that possibility. Best wishes for 1995 to everyone! Chris Gordon ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 11:38:44 EST Reply-To: Shakespeare Electronic Conference Sender: Shakespeare Electronic Conference From: "Hardy M. Cook" Subject: SHK 5.1030 Questions from High School Students Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 1030. Friday, 30 December 1994. From: Stanley & Gordon Date: Tuesday, 13 Dec 1994 11:39:01 -0500 Subject: Globe Theater We are 10th graders at Peoples Academy, a high school in Morrisville, VT, USA. We are studying MacBeth. We are also building a model of the Globe Theater. We would like some information on those subjects. Do you have any suggestions for people we could communicate with (on-line)? Do you know of any Gopher databases that we might explore? Thank you very much, Stanley & Gordon [Editor's Note: Requests such as the one above come in occasionally. While I generally reject queries from undergraduates working on research papers, I find it more difficult to reject questions from high school students. If you plan to respond, PLEASE do so DIRECTLY to the students at VTMorris2@aol.com. --HMC]