The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0288  Tuesday, 31 March 1998.

[1]     From:   Michael E. Cohen <
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        Date:   Monday, 30 Mar 1998 08:04:54 -0800
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description

[2]     From:   Laura Fargas <
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        Date:   Monday, 30 Mar 1998 16:11:12 -0500 (EST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description

[3]     From:   David C. Frankel <
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        Date:   Monday, 30 Mar 1998 20:12:50 -0500
        Subj:   RE: SHK 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Michael E. Cohen <
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Date:           Monday, 30 Mar 1998 08:04:54 -0800
Subject: 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description

Gabriel Egan writes in SHK 9.0282

>Hardy Cook's 1996 paper for the Shakespeare Association of America
>meeting recorded that several respondents to his questionnaire about
>SHAKSPER mentioned that their research was aided by their membership of
>the list.  I was one of those respondents, and since then I have once
>more found SHAKSPER to be of research value. But twice in five years is
>not a great hit ratio. In my ArdenNet piece I recorded my experience:
>anybody doing Shakespeare research is not cutting themselves off from an
>important resource if they forego SHAKSPER.

This may be true if one approaches the list as though it were a passive
library of information. As a network through which one can post
questions and as a forum in which to explore views that conflict with
one's own, the list is of great value. UCLA has a great library, for
example, but it is a lousy place to go have a good enlightening
discussion. Similarly, my car makes a lousy food processor (although one
could, with a lot of work, replace the fan with a shredding disk...),
but it really works rather well as a means of transportation.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Laura Fargas <
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Date:           Monday, 30 Mar 1998 16:11:12 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description

The "amateurs and students" sneer aimed at the participants of this list
strikes me as resembling the Oxfordian/Baconian/whoeverian insistence
that Shakespeare lacked the education to write his own plays.

Robert Greene, the university-educated playwright who leveled the
'upstart' sneer at Shakespeare himself, may have died in 1592, but his
spirit lives on.

Laura Fargas

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           David C. Frankel <
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Date:           Monday, 30 Mar 1998 20:12:50 -0500
Subject: 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description
Comment:        RE: SHK 9.0282  Re: SHAKSPER Description

> Gabriel Egan must speak for himself. But it's wholly unfair to use his
> views on SHAKSPER as a stick with which to beat postmodernism.
>
> T. Hawkes

Unfair, perhaps, but not a tactic unknown to all sorts of post-, pre-,
and just plain, mods.

cdf