November
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1086 Wednesday, 4 November 1998. [1] From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 07:26:40 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 9.1081 Re: Gertrude [2] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 17:25:36 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 9.1079 Re: Isabella [3] From: Mason West <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 04 Nov 1998 00:33:23 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 9.1078 Re: Lion King 2 [4] From: Karen E Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 4 Nov 1998 11:05:39 +1000 (GMT+1000) Subj: Re: SHK 9.1043 Teaching the Sonnets [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 07:26:40 -0800 Subject: 9.1081 Re: Gertrude Comment: Re: SHK 9.1081 Re: Gertrude Terry writes: > understand Gertrude. Mind you, I once passed through Rickmansworth and > felt that I had got to the bottom of King Lear. It didn't last. Was that when you decided it was all about unemployment? Cheers, Sean. [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 17:25:36 -0500 Subject: 9.1079 Re: Isabella Comment: Re: SHK 9.1079 Re: Isabella Ed Taft writes: >Isn't the preferred state in this play married love, which >if faithful, is a kind of chastity? The reason has to do with Isabella, >I think. Her gifts are not well used in the cloister, but they will be >as helpmate to the Duke. I'm thinking in particular of her rhetorical >gifts, which, arguably, she possesses more of than any other character >in the play. Well, I think monogamous married love is chaste, if we define chastity as sexual exclusivity. Chastity is not virginity. True virginity is no sex at all. That seems to be what Isabella wants, none at all. If marriage is the preferred state in <italic>Measure for Measure</italic>, I'd still hate to be married to Angelo (were I Mariana, of course), because Angelo is too prenzy for my tastes. In contrast, Lucio isn't likely to be a very monogamous husband. Not much chance for love in one marriage, or for chastity in the other. And, of course, does Isabella take the Duke's offer? If she has a way with words, she certainly doesn't use any to accept Vincentio's offer. If she'd rather that her brother die than she have intercourse with a man, I doubt if she's going to jump into bed with the questionable duke of dark corners who has for fourteen years allowed his people too much scope (or so he tells Friar Thomas). After all, until the last scene of the play, she thinks he's a priest. Now he offers something further. As to Dave Evett's question about the bushes, I chastely decline to answer. Yours, Bill Godshalk [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mason West <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 04 Nov 1998 00:33:23 -0600 Subject: 9.1078 Re: Lion King 2 Comment: Re: SHK 9.1078 Re: Lion King 2 Jason Mical of Drury College wrote: "I mentioned the connection between the first Lion King and _Hamlet_ to a colleague and we both agreed that the story more closely resemblesb _Richard III_, told from Richmond's perspective (Richmond being Simba). _H_ is a possibility, but _R III_ is more likely. " I always suspected that the original _Lion King_ contains more than a touch of Henry IV-is it part 2 when Prince Hal is off cavorting in the public houses with his friends? The lion prince's dalliances seem to parallel Hal's. -- Mason West [4]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Karen E Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 4 Nov 1998 11:05:39 +1000 (GMT+1000) Subject: 9.1043 Teaching the Sonnets Comment: Re: SHK 9.1043 Teaching the Sonnets Dear Don-I have used Maya Angelou's *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings* as an entrance point. Angelou describes Shakespeare as her "first white love" because he wrote "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes..." I've asked students what a 10-year old black girl in 1930s Arkansas would get out of the sonnet? It seems to work, although I personally am uncomfortable with asserting "universal meaningfulness" for any literature. I've also had classes read the sonnets out loud to each other -- usually breaking up into groups or dyads works best for this, then having them report on how different people's readings communicated different effects. You can get some interesting conversations going on Sonnets 1-17 by asking them, "why is one man trying to persuade another man, in the apparent absence of any potential spousal unit, to reproduce? What's going on here?" This can lead to discussing historical context. Last but not least, just reading the sonnets out loud, myself, to the students has been almost a necessity, to show how the poems scan and how they might sound/mean. Good luck! -- Karen Peterson-Kranz
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1085 Wednesday, 4 November 1998. [1] From: Penelope Rixon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 14:23:35 -0000 Subj: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND [2] From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 07:25:18 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND [3] From: Timothy Peterson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 12:37:20 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND [4] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 17:32:53 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND [5] From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 20:00:20 EST Subj: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND [6] From: Richard Regan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 23:54:12 EST Subj: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Penelope Rixon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 14:23:35 -0000 Subject: 9.1082 MND Comment: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND I think that, in one sense, Puck is the actor who subverts the established authority of the Elizabethan state. Like Elizabethan actors he's nominally a servant of authority but with his own agenda, one which he furthers when he can. His function in the epilogue is not simply to beg for applause; instead, he's making clear the link between his fairy identity and his role in the 'real' world where he has played and will play other roles for the regular audience, roles which may cause people to understand the injustice of the social system they live in. He offers you the chance to agree that the play has been a worthless piece of escapism, but also to challenge that verdict. The Pyramus and Thisbe play has exposed for us the hypocrisy of the rulers and the way they exploit the ruled, among other things, and Puck offers the final comment this play makes on the nature of plays and playing Penny Rixon [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 07:25:18 -0800 Subject: 9.1082 MND Comment: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND > So, people, tell me about PUCK!! Who is he? The OED notes that "the pook" was used by (I think) the Wycliffite Bible to indicate the devil. The sources and analogues book, by someone named Sidgwick, I believe, includes a tale of Robin Goodfellow that casts him in a different light. Cheers, Sean. [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Peterson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 12:37:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: 9.1082 MND Comment: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND > 5. Why is Lysander the only one of the lovers targeted for the > lovejuice? I've always found the most fascinating aspect of MND to be its main theme: the blurry line between reality and fantasy. Are the lovers' troubles really resolved? At the end of the play, Lysander is in love, but only because he's still under the lovejuice's spell. He believes he's in love. Is that enough? Does it matter? What does MND say about the nature of love, or reality? [4]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Nov 1998 17:32:53 -0500 Subject: 9.1082 MND Comment: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND >5. Why is Lysander the only one of the lovers targeted for the >lovejuice? I can answer this one! He isn't. Demetrius gets juiced too, and he does not have the effects of the juice removed. Demetrius ends the play with drug-impaired vision. Hermia and Helena, on the other hand, do not have their vision altered. But Titania does. Yours, Bill Godshalk [5]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 20:00:20 EST Subject: 9.1082 MND Comment: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND In our production last fall, he was the source of the psychosexual energy running underneath the entire play. And at the end, when he released the audience from his spell, the entire set vanished, leaving only the bare theatre. Dale Lyles Newnan Community Theatre Company [6]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Regan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 23:54:12 EST Subject: 9.1082 MND Comment: Re: SHK 9.1082 MND I like the questions about MND posed by Stuart Manger, but would add: Who is/are the operant powers of MND and The Tempest? This would get us into the real identity of Puck, who together with Oberon is/are surrogates for Shakespeare the magic artist playing with the destinies of his characters in the green world. (They are matched in a pedestrian way by Philostrate and Theseus in Athens.) Puck and Oberon are the two sides of the comic artist. Oberon brings peace to the lovers, while Puck engenders laughable discord. Puck is the dangerous side of comedy: Groucho Marx observed that an old lady in a runaway wheelchair is funny only if you use a real old lady. Richard Regan Fairfield University
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1084 Wednesday, 4 November 1998. From: Martin Elsky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Nov 1998 08:43:20 -0500 Subject: CUNY Ren Studies Fall Colloquium on Religion [with apologies for cross-posting] Fall CUNY Renaissance Studies Colloquium Admission is free and open to the public Friday, Nov 13, 1998 4:00-6:00pm CUNY Graduate School 33 West 42 Street New York, NY 10036 Third=floor Studio First in a series: 'SCATTERED BODIES OF TRUTH': INTER-RELIGIOUS/SECTARIAN RELATIONS, 1450-1700 I. DOCTRINE AND TRANSFORMATIONS Regina Schwartz (Northwestern University), "Real Hunger: Milton and Reformation Poetics" Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, (New York University), "Reuchlin and Jewish Conversion" Respondent: Richard McCoy (CUNY Graduate School and Queens College) Reception ***************************************** Full program and abstracts available at * * http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/renai/ * * ***************************************** For further information, contact Martin Elsky, Coordinator, CUNY Renaissance Studies Certificate Program (212-642-2346; <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >)
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1083 Tuesday, 3 November 1998. From: Franklin J. Hildy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 02 Nov 1998 16:37:14 -0500 Subject: Ashland Documentary Last Friday WYCC 20 Chicago broadcast A college teaching program called Something Ventured which turned out to be a 1991 documentary the Ashland Shakespeare Festival. Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this? Thanks. Franklin J. Hildy
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.1082 Tuesday, 3 November 1998. From: Stuart Manger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 2 Nov 1998 19:06:45 +0000 Subject: MND In 'Dream' there are at least as interesting questions perhaps like: 1. Is Puck not more important than Theseus? 2. How much like Lear is Oberon at the start, how like Prospero at the end? 3. Is Puck a proto Ariel? 4. Is Egeus an early Lear? 5. Why is Lysander the only one of the lovers targeted for the lovejuice? 6. Think of the moment when the play balances literally on a knife edge when Demetrius draws on Lysander - think what MIGHT happen next? 7. If this play is a comedy, then what is your definition of comedy? 8. Why is Puck so dejected at the end? So defensive? So SCARED? Read the Epilogue; is he happy? or is he scared stiff? And why? Because when Oberon needed him to wage war on Titania, he was wanted warmed by power from the boss. Once the CEO makes it up with Titania, then Puck is redundant as an instrument of mischief and revenge - he ceases to ahve afunction, and is close to being cast into outer darkness, but in this play without the benediction of the Oberon / Prospero figure. Or are we going to hide behind the call-on tradition that all Puck is doing is begging the audience for their applause? 9. Is there a coincidence that at the end of the two plays in which Shakespeare treats of creatures with literally life-changing, universal weather-changing powers (Oberon / Prospero) there is a servant / advisor figure? In one, the advisor is desperately uncertain of his reception by the audience? In the other it is the Prospero / mage-becoming-mortal figure that is uneasy and begs for indulgence? And the advisor who is liberated to the elements to be free? What's happening there? I mean, stuff the 'triadic' significances, and tell me about the meat of this so-called superficial play. MND is dynamite, under the guise of fairydom and post Rackham whimsy and countless college plays with simpering girls in tutus. For the Elizabethans, fairies were Other World, dangerous, enigmatic, powerfully conscienceless, gleefully mischievous. Unlike Dr Faustus where magic is merest cabaret, the magic in this play is hugely disruptive, and transforming, life-changing and also healing. So, people, tell me about PUCK!! Who is he? Stuart Manger