Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0477. Tuesday, 31 May 1994.
(1) From: Diana Henderson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 15:52 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box
(2) From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH>
Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 17:40:59 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Re: SHK 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation
(3) From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 31 May 94 12:56 BST
Subj: RE: SHK 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Diana Henderson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 15:52 EDT
Subject: 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box
Comment: 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 <GODSHAWL@UCBEH>
Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 17:40:59 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation
Comment: 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 <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 31 May 94 12:56 BST
Subject: 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia
Comment: 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
