March
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 7, No. 0249. Sunday, 31 March 1996. (1) From: R. D. H. Wells <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 15:49:47 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Announcement: Renaissance Forum (2) From: Kay Pilzer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 30 Mar 1996 11:02:14 -0600 (CST) Subj: ISA/SAA Roommates (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: R. D. H. Wells <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 15:49:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Announcement: Renaissance Forum Renaissance Forum: Announcement We are pleased to announce the first issue of _Renaissance Forum_, a new electronic refereed journal specialising in early-modern English literary and historical scholarship and the critical methodologies of these fields. The journal is published biannually from the Departments of English and History at the University of Hull, UK. Its aim is to offer a platform for work of the highest scholarly standard in an electronic medium, and to provide a forum for scholarly and theoretical debate. The journal is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.hull.ac.uk/Hull/EL_Web/renforum/ If you would like to join our email information list, please send the message subscribe toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. *************************************** Volume 1, no. 1 (March 1996) - Contents Articles Editorial: Renaissance Texts and Renaissance Republicanism (Glenn Burgess) Transgressing Boundaries: Women's Writing in the Renaissance and Reformation (Janet Clare) Attacking the Cult-Historicists (Martin Coyle) Making all Religion Ridiculous: Of Culture high and Low - the Polemics of Toleration, 1667-1673 (Derek Hirst) Reviews Markku Peltonen, Civic Humanism and Republicanism in English Political Thought, 1570-1640 (by Glenn Burgess) Susan D. Amussen & Mark A. Kishlansky (eds), Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern Europe (by Mark Stoyle) Alvin Kernan, Shakespeare, The Kings Playwright: Theater in the Stuart Court, 1603-1613 (by Steve Longstaffe) Robert Shaughnessy, Representing Shakespeare: England, History and the RSC (by Michael Scott) Anthony Parr (ed.), Three Renaissance Travel Plays (by Emma Smith) Glenn Burgess Robin Headlam Wells (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kay Pilzer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 30 Mar 1996 11:02:14 -0600 (CST) Subject: ISA/SAA Roommates Hello-- There is still room to share my $60/night room at the Hyatt for one or two more impoverished women scholars. Please contact me directly: Kay Pilzer Vanderbilt University (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 7, No. 0248. Sunday, 31 March 1996. (1) From: Stephanie Hughes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 07:58:02 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 7.0245 Re: Physical Size of Elizabethans (2) From: Michael Sharpston <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 15:48:12 +0000 (GMT) Subj: RSC MND (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stephanie Hughes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 07:58:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: 7.0245 Re: Physical Size of Elizabethans Comment: Re: SHK 7.0245 Re: Physical Size of Elizabethans Jim Schaeffer; Although the evidence seems clear that people were smaller in bygone days (there are just too many small clothes for them all to have been left by people who couldn't wear them for that reason), there certainly were individuals we would consider tall today, such as Peter the Great (6' 5") and Abraham Lincoln (and others I can't recall), and their height, though commented upon by contemporaries, was obviously not regarded as such an enormity that we could construe them to be all that unusual. I think it is interesting also that within families who have emigrated to the U.S. from Europe, particularly southern Europe, the height seems to increase, sometimes to a surprising extent, within a generation or two (or three). Stephanie Hughes (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Sharpston <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 15:48:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: RSC MND Like Scott Crozier, I had my reservations about the RSC MND. The verse was beautifully enunciated, and the staging extremely competent -- but these one expects from the RSC. There was a bit of homoerotic business I could have done without, since it seemed out of place and perhaps mainly intended to shock the bourgeoisie. But overall, very professional. What the production did NOT do, except for one or two moments, was move my feelings or create emotional magic. Can RSC sometimes be too clever for their own good? I still think my compatriots at the RSC have a serious claim to be the "best repertory theatre in the world", however... A different play, but by contrast H5 here recently at the Shakespeare Theatre in DC was absolutely outstanding, with a Henry 5 I shall remember for a very long while. Michael SharpstonThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 7, No. 0247. Sunday, 31 March 1996. (1) From: Ted Nellen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 01:54:52 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 7.0244 Death of Sam Schoenbaum (2) From: Tad Davis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 14:23:46 -0500 (EST) Subj: Schoenbaum (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ted Nellen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 01:54:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: 7.0244 Death of Sam Schoenbaum Comment: Re: SHK 7.0244 Death of Sam Schoenbaum My condolences to the family and Shakespearean scholars around the world. I would like to say that Mr Schoenbaum has had a great influence upon me. I had the pleasure of hearing him and speaking to him one evening in NYC at the CUNY Graduate Center in the late 80's. He had inspired and ignited a fire in me in regards to the Lost years of Shakespeare. Those years fascinate me, and he had done some remarkable work on that subject. He shared and complimented me on my ideas and inspired me to further work. We also shared in the pleasure of having seen Patrick Stewart play Shylock and in considering it a brilliant performance. I just wished to share my brief time with this brilliant man with you. Thank you, Sam Schoenbaum. Give you good night. - O, farewell. Ted (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Davis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Subject: Schoenbaum Date: Friday, 29 Mar 1996 14:23:46 -0500 (EST) I was very saddened yesterday to hear that Samuel Schoenbaum had died. It's probably presumptuous of me to say anything about him in this forum; I'm not a professional Shakespearean; I only met him once, in person, for about 20 minutes, and exchanged letters with him three or four times. Yet I feel a terrible sense of loss. His passionate devotion to accuracy and detail -- never losing sight of the humanity of his subjects -- touched me deeply and had a profound influence on my intellectual development. I never took a class with him, and yet in some sense I feel that I was a student of his, or at least an auditor. He enriched my life, and it seems ungrateful not to say anything in return. I first heard of him the year after I graduated with a B.A. in English. I was working in a medical library in Richmond, Virginia when the "Documentary Life" was first announced. I was trying to write a play that involved Shakespeare, and I had taken up the hobby of reading about his life. I'd read Marchette Chute, Anthony Burgess, and A. L. Rowse. Now came someone promising to deliver the real goods. But I was put off by the price. In 1975, I think it was $50; on my income at the time, it might as well have been $500. I probed the libraries in town, hoping one of them would order it. When the public library finally got a copy, it was kept on reserve, not allowed to circulate; I spent a number of lunch hours that year leafing through the book. Meanwhile I found a copy of "Shakespeare's Lives" in the library and started reading that too. At first it didn't appeal to me. The first 50 pages or so, the summary of what's known, is a bit dry, like the documents themselves. But by the time I'd gotten through the first chapter of part II, I was hooked. The Schoenbaum in later chapters is quite different from the Schoenbaum of that opening section. He was witty, acerbic at times, devastating in his analysis, and yet always with a compassionate eye for detail. The people he wrote about sounded like real people -- some of them brilliant, some of them insane, some of them thieves and mutilators of texts, all of them fellow human beings. Over all the bustle watched that stern and dispassionate judge, the one who said: what matters is what your sources say -- not what you think they say. Open your eyes and see what's actually in front of you. What matters is the thing itself. During the middle of this reading experience, my wife and I took a long drive through North and South Carolina to visit her family in Georgia. Interminable hours on interstates, no tape player in the car, no radio stations we wanted to listen to.... so I took out my copy of "Shakespeare's Lives" and started reading it out loud. We took turns driving and reading Schoenbaum to each other. We've often agreed, over the course of the last 20 years, that it was one of the best trip entertainments we've ever selected. I wrote him a letter of appreciation. To my amazement, he answered it. He rarely heard from people outside the profession, he said, and it was a great pleasure to know that he had been able to "get through." I corresponded with him several more times -- once when the "Compact Documentary Life" came out, a couple of times with research questions, and again many years later when his Signet introductory volume came out. He always answered my letters generously, with gratitude for my appreciation and with a reference or two for me to follow up if I was interested. If I was ever in Washington, he said once, I should look him up at the Folger; he was usually there on such-and-such a day. I took him at his word, and sent him a letter saying I would be able to visit the Folger on that day in two weeks, and I would most certainly look him up. When the day arrived, I took the train to DC and headed for the Folger. I had never been there before, and the security was, to say the least, impressive. The guard at the front desk laughed when I told him I was there to see Prof. Schoenbaum. "Haven't seen him today," he said. He made it clear that even if I was a Ph.D. candidate with three letters of recommendation I would have a hard time getting past him. But if I wanted to look around the gallery for awhile, I could do that. I wandered around for over an hour. Every time I walked past the guard he gave me a pitying look, and I averted my eyes. Outside it began to snow. When I was about to give up, Prof. Schoenbaum scurried in, apologizing for the misunderstanding. He'd never gotten word that I was there. He brought me to a little sitting room in back, offered me coffee, told me how pleased he was to actually meet a "fan." Then he asked me a lot of questions about my own plays and writings. We talked about the (then) upcoming BBC Shakespeare on PBS ("some of them," he said cautiously, "are likely to be better than others"). He introduced me to one of his colleagues who wandered by. He said the next time my wife and I came to Washington, we should give him and his wife a call, maybe get together for a chat. The visit ended abruptly when someone came in to announce the Library was closing because of the snow. He walked me out, we shook hands, and I left. That was it. We corresponded a couple of times after that. Once, when I was trying to write an article, I needed an obscure book by Halliwell-Phillipps the Folger had (and apparently only one or two other places on the face of the earth). I wrote to him, and he offered to give me a reference to help me get access to the book, or at least a photocopy. "It would be good, though," he said, "if you spelled his name right when you ask." I had left the second "P" out of Phillipps. I was mortified for about five minutes; but the gentle tone of the correction sank home. It matters what your sources say -- not what you think they say. Open your eyes and see what's actually in front of you. What matters is the thing itself. In the years since then, I moved into a career in programming. Yet Prof. Schoenbaum's influence on me continues. Every time I have to investigate a problem or document a program, I think about him and his indefatigable quest for the accurate detail and the balanced analysis. (I still have the original poster, with the Droeshout engraving, announcing the publication of "Mr. William Shakespeares Documentary Life set forth by S. Schoenbaum and Printed according to the True Originall Copies." It's hanging next to my desk.) The body of work he created is an intimidating legacy. But it didn't get there overnight, I tell myself. He built it up piece by piece, picking up one document at a time, examining it, turning it over, transcribing it, checking the transcription, and moving on. He kept his focus on what was actually in front of him, not what he thought was in front of him, not what he wished was in front of him. And when he didn't know, he had the grace and courage to admit he didn't know. And when he made a mistake or discovered new information, he wasn't afraid to "stop the presses" to get it out, even if was only in a paragraph tucked away on the last page of the index. And braced with that reflection, I open up my listings and reports and go to work. Tad
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 7, No. 0246. Thursday, 28 March 1996. (1) From: Scott Crozier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 13:41:54 +1000 Subj: Re: Englishness (2) From: Michael Best <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 27 Mar 1996 21:40:42 -0800 Subj: Let there be light (3) From: The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 11:58:32 -0500 Subj: SSE in Vermont (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 13:41:54 +1000 Subject: Re: Englishness I presume that this topic may have already been discussed at some length at a time when I was not a member of this list, so I apologise if this is repetition but I was wondering what SHAKSPERians thought was the most English of Shakespeare's plays. Discounting the English Histories, which play(s) encapsulates what was "English" for Shakespeare? If there is such a beast, what elements of Englishness did he highlight? Regards, Scott Crozier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Best <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 27 Mar 1996 21:40:42 -0800 Subject: Let there be light Bruce Fenton comments on Shakespeare's variations on the word "light." My favourite is from _Love's Labours Lost_: . . . all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. (1.1.70-79) Enlightening indeed. Michael Best Department of English, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. V8W 3W1, Canada. email: <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > URL: <http://www.engl.uvic.ca/Faculty/MBHomePage/Index.html> Coordinating Editor, Internet Editions of Shakespeare URL: <http://castle.uvic.ca/shakespeare/> (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 11:58:32 -0500 Subject: SSE in Vermont The Shenandoah Shakespeare Express will be performing in the Burlington/ Colchester area during the second week of October. If anyone on this list would like to share the week with St. Michael's (who is already on board) please contact Margo McGirr atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . I am the new Booking Coordinator and I'll be representing the SSE at the ISA...for those of you who have seen the SSE in the past three years, I played Olivia, Kate, and Cleopatra. Please feel free to stop by my table in LA or e-mail me for further discussion.
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 7, No. 0245. Thursday, 28 March 1996. (1) From: Scott Crozier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 13:35:02 +1000 Subj: Re: RSC Dream (2) From: Laura Blanchard <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 08:40:48 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 7.0242 Qs: *R3* Film (3) From: James Schaefer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 12:32:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: Physical Size of Elizabethans (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Crozier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 13:35:02 +1000 Subject: Re: RSC Dream Rick Kincaid commented: "For those of you in the NYC area: If you have the chance to see the RSC's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Lunt Fontane please do so. The production was imaginative, sensual and humorous, the acting dead on. I thoroughly enjoyed it, which was more than I expected, having seen it and done too many times myself. And though it does capture the sensuality of the fairies and the lovers, it isn't so overt that you'll be answering uncomfortable questions from your children on the way home from the theater." I too have seen this production - four times and I would suggest that the last paragraph of the above comment suggests more about the inadequacies of the production than its supposed brilliance. It is colourful, it sounds beautiful; but it lacks integrity of character; it gets lost by doubling the fairies with the mechanicals when the central dream is not Bottom's; it is static and the lovers relive the buffoonery of Peter Hall's 1958 production. A production for kids maybe, but not for anyone out for theatre for the brain. Regards, Scott Crozier (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Laura Blanchard <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 08:40:48 -0500 Subject: 7.0242 Qs: *R3* Film Comment: Re: SHK 7.0242 Qs: *R3* Film I have one of the pre-release reviews from SHAKSPER posted on our McKellen film site, along with excerpts of reviews from the major NY papers and virtually everything from the international distribution company's press kit. There's a link right from the home page -- you can't miss it, since it's a thumbnail of McKellen in full 30s regalia. Regards, Laura Blanchard Richard III Society, American BranchThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. http://www.webcom.com/blanchrd/index.html (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James Schaefer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 28 Mar 1996 12:32:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Physical Size of Elizabethans Elizabeth Schmitt: I am inclined to agree with the short-bed, small-clothes, low-ceiling evidence, but, as others have pointed out, beware of the vagaries of time in what has survived as evidence, or of selection processes of which we may not be aware (*A Canticle for Leibowitz* was a nice fictional example of the latter some decades ago). Having bumped my head at Fallingwater, I might draw mistaken conclusions about the stature of Edgar Kaufmann's family, when in fact Frank Llyod Wright built everything to his own 5'7" scale. Jim Schaefer 6'1"