The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0033  Sunday, 10 January 1999.

[1]     From:   Melissa Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 8 Jan 1999 07:37:00 -0800 (PST)
        Subj:   Shakespeare in Love

[2]     From:   Jeannette Webber <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 8 Jan 1999 12:21:16 EST
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0024  Re: Shakespeare in Love

[3]     From:   Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 08 Jan 1999 10:54:56 -0800
        Subj:   Shakespeare in Love

[4]     From:   Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Saturday, 9 Jan 1999 02:46:07 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0030 Re: Shakespeare in Love

[5]     From:   Kenneth Requa <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Sunday, 10 Jan 1999 09:37:48 EST
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0030 Re: Shakespeare in Love


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Melissa Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 8 Jan 1999 07:37:00 -0800 (PST)
Subject:        Shakespeare in Love

I have to agree with the others that loved the movie.  I'm no scholar
here, but I enjoyed the way the film played with knowledge of
Shakespeare.  It was so deliciously layered so that it could be enjoyed
by both Shakespeare lovers and those completely unfamiliar with his
work.  There were little hints and subtleties throughout the film.  For
instance, in the beginning, where a priest says, about the theatres,
"The plague's in both your houses" is a line Shakespeare will use later
for Mercutio.  I believe the casting of Everett was one of those small
little hints or inside jokes for people who are more knowledgeable on
the subject.  The movie wasn't shouting out "LOOK HERE MARLOWE'S GAY,"
but it did not play him straight.  If he didn't have some sort of
interest in the young Shakespeare, why would he help him with the ideas
for his play?  For the homosexuality with Shakespeare's character, again
the film neither confirmed or denied it; when Viola kissed him while she
was still in her masculine attire, he made no motion of disgust and very
little of surprise.  If this is just my imagination, there is another
thing to be kept in mind with popular film and that is that movies are a
business and in order to pull in any sort of profit they could not very
well have been completely factual or they would have had no plot.  I
found the film enjoyable both for entertainment value and recognizing
wonderful subtle jokes that were directed at those of us who know
Shakespeare.  As with Rosencrantz and Guldenstern are Dead, I am
thoroughly impressed with Stoppard's genus and think the film is one of
the few "must see's" of the year.

-Melissa Cook

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Jeannette Webber <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 8 Jan 1999 12:21:16 EST
Subject: 10.0024  Re: Shakespeare in Love
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0024  Re: Shakespeare in Love

Though a pun on 'Bill' is amusing, I assumed that was a reference to the
story that Marlowe was killed over a dispute over a tavern bill in
Deptford-the 'great reckoning in a little room.'  For a fascinating
study of the actual events and Marlowe's role in the Elizabethan 'secret
theatre', see Charles Nicholl's The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher
Marlowe, for which he won the Gold Dagger Award for a nonfiction
thriller.

Jeannette Webber

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 08 Jan 1999 10:54:56 -0800
Subject:        Shakespeare in Love

Aw, come on Richard Burt:

> In response to Mike Jensen's comment about the sonnets (if read
> autobiographically) being the only evidence of Shakespeare's
> homosexuality,

I did not write that.  I wrote that if they are not read
autobiographically, most of the evidence to suggest Shakespeare was gay
disappears.  Much different, and true.  I could make a case based on one
or two characters in the plays and the description of Adonis if I wanted
to.  I could also refute that case for many reasons.

I always kind of figured it was none of our business anyway.  So what AM
I doing living in the 20th century?

As to the rest of your points, I am happy to bow to your greater study
in this area.

All the best,
Mike Jensen

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Saturday, 9 Jan 1999 02:46:07 -0500
Subject: 10.0030 Re: Shakespeare in Love
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0030 Re: Shakespeare in Love

Why wait to note the parallels between the admired playwright and the
admired president?

1. Both are acknowledged as damn good at their jobs.

2. Both have demonstrated an understanding that a leader cannot shirk
his duties, no matter what. (King Lear, Romeo & Juliet, etc.)

3. Both have provided incomplete details about their personal sex lives
despite the rapacious curiousity of investigators.

4. Both are believed to have traveled far from their humbler beginnings
(undeservedly so in the opinion of Oxfordians and Sally Quinnites).

5. Both have acknowledged the power and appeal of women, whether young
and silly or middle-aged and smart or any combination thereof.

6. Both have displayed a generous grasp and forgiving appreciation of
the vast range of emotion within the human mind and heart.

7. Both are immensely popular to the stunned amazement of the Malvolios
and Iagos.

[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Kenneth Requa <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Sunday, 10 Jan 1999 09:37:48 EST
Subject: 10.0030 Re: Shakespeare in Love
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0030 Re: Shakespeare in Love

In respones to the posting:

>Please go see this film.  Let it make an obnoxious amount of money.  Let
>it win more Oscars than Titanic.  Send Hollywood the message that we
>like this type of romantic comedy (even if not historically pure and
>accurate) and that we could do with more of it and less of Adam Sandler,
>and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan not only re-making Jimmy Stewart films but
>re-making their own.  Forget for the films "two hours and more" traffic
>of the stage/screen everything you had to learn in defense of your
>dissertation and just enjoy it.  Please.

I thought I'd share a bit of encouraging news that here in Springfield,
IL the home of Lincoln, politics and basically nothing else, that the
film was full on Saturday of the opening weekend here.  Some friends
laughed when I suggested we get there early, but to their surprise the
film was nearly sold out.  I myself thoroughly enjoyed the film because
it was as Shakespeare would have written it.  Loosely based on fact but
written for the entertainment of the masses, with some concealed humor
for those who know the plays very well. Just a question for fun, if
Shakespeare had written to reflect his life, what was he doing during
any of the high tragedies???

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