The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0684  Thursday, 23 July 1998.

[1]     From:   Miles Edward Taylor <
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        Date:   Wednesday, 22 Jul 1998 08:34:18 -0700 (PDT)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0679  Re: Incest

[2]     From:   Nick Kind <
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        Date:   Thursday, 23 Jul 1998 08:49:22 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0678  Shakespeare Films and Videos


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Miles Edward Taylor <
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Date:           Wednesday, 22 Jul 1998 08:34:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 9.0679  Re: Incest
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0679  Re: Incest

Although I would be the last person to apply Freud to renaissance drama,
the father-daughter dyad in Shakespeare's later plays seems an almost
obsessive object of fascination.  Pericles has, by my recollection, at
least four such pairs, one of which is explicitly incestuous.  The
incest between Antiochus and his daughter begins the play and casts a
suspicious light on all the father-daughter pairs to come.  Talk about
your taboos: later, we hear that God has rained fire down from heaven to
incinerate the little family romance at Antioch.

I prefer to read these meditations on the family as more political than
psychological, family being the favorite metaphor of state for James I.
If in the familial state, the parliament is mother, what better critique
of absolutism than to portray a father, sans mother, in an
out-of-control abusive relationship with his child?  And even if
Shakespeare "bowdlerizes" his source for the Winter's Tale (Pandosto,
with it's explicit incestuous longing of father for daughter), isn't it
interesting that these two late romances both bring the mothers, long
thought dead,  back for their ultimate reunions?  (In Pandosto, by the
way, the mother stays dead.)

With politics on the brain,
Miles Taylor

[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Nick Kind <
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Date:           Thursday, 23 Jul 1998 08:49:22 +0100
Subject: 9.0678  Shakespeare Films and Videos
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0678  Shakespeare Films and Videos

Lex:

There is a pretty full listing of Shakespeare Festivals, including box
office telephone numbers and website addresses where available, on
ArdenNet at http://www.ardenshakespeare.com/ardennet.

     Best,
     Nick Kind
     Electronic Development Manager
     The Arden Shakespeare