Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 3, No. 373. Saturday, 12 December 1992.
(1) From: Ed Pechter <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 12 Dec 1992 09:00 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 3.0370 Shakespeare as Himself (Con't)
(2) From: Kay Stockholder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 12 Dec 92 08:55:20 PST
Subj: SHK 3.0367 More Rs: Shakespeare as Himself
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ed Pechter <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 12 Dec 1992 09:00 EDT
Subject: 3.0370 Shakespeare as Himself (Con't)
Comment: Re: SHK 3.0370 Shakespeare as Himself (Con't)
I agree with John Drakakis that finding the authentic Shakespeare
is impossible (or, rather, self-confirmingly inevitable) because
you already know what you're looking for. John Aney's
introduction of Donald Foster's work puts the whole question into
a different light. If you buy into Foster's argument, then
Shakespeare himself turns out in some measure to be the role
written by Shakespeare himself for himself to play in an earlier
play which is at least contributing to the play that Shakespeare
is writing now. Shakespeare writes the language that writes
Shakespeare. But what's the subject? Who is the Shakespeare
that writes the language that writes Shakespeare? Is he himself
written? By earlier versions of himself writing earlier plays?
What happens when you get to Shakespeare's first play? Do you
then have to go to Marlowe and Kyd? Maybe Marlowe wrote
Shakespeare after all--to hell with the Earl of Oxford. But
since theater is just one text among many, including money, love,
the glove-making business, sex, the court, etc, you not only
can't find the origin of the playwright series (who wrote
Marlowe?), you've got to put this series into play with a great
many others.
In theory there's no way to stop this process. In practice we
stop it all the time--just as I am now to go out and walk my dog
who will, otherwise, micturate on the carpet.
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kay Stockholder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 12 Dec 92 08:55:20 PST
Subject: More Rs: Shakespeare as Himself
Comment: SHK 3.0367 More Rs: Shakespeare as Himself
If Shakespeare does ever speak in his own voice, that voice would no more
represent the whole of the man than does any single utterance made by any
person express the whole of that person. For many years it was the common
opinion that Prospero's epilogue expressed his author's feelings, and it is
still not unreasonable to supppose that it does, for the images of the island
and the stage merge in so marked a way.
