The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0783 Thursday, 29 April 1999.
[1] From: Michael McMahon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 28 Apr 1999 17:57:00 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
[2] From: Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 29 Apr 1999 07:50:44 +1000
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
[3] From: Peter Groves <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 29 Apr 1999 16:24:59 +1100
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael McMahon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 28 Apr 1999 17:57:00 +0100
Subject: 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
I suspect that the answer to Allan Blackman's first question will be
found in the last entry, if I may use the term, on page 105 of the 1968
paperback edition of 'Shakespeare's Bawdy', tho' I blush to quote it.
Having writ , I move on.....
Michael McMahon
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 29 Apr 1999 07:50:44 +1000
Subject: 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
>Two questions:
>
>1) Can someone satisfy my prurient interest by revealing the cited
>"artifice"?
>
>2) In general, is it accurate and/or reasonable to label Shakespeare "an
>exceedingly knowledgeable amorist" and a "skilful practitioner of
>love-making"?
On the first, I haven't a clue, but my prurient interest, too, is
aroused (so to speak) by the mysterious "artifice." I hope someone can
enlighten us all.
On the second, I'd call attention to Partridge's assertion that
"we-inevitably, I think-form the opinion that Shakespeare was..."
Forming an opinion may be inevitable; the content of that opinion is
not. Further, I'd feel it was accurate and/or reasonable to label
Shakespeare "exceedingly knowledgeable" about many things, including,
perhaps, the technicalities of lovemaking. From that, however, I don't
think we can logically deduce that Shakespeare was, personally,
necessarily, a "skilful practitioner" (e.g., one can certainly read the
Kama Sutra, become "exceedingly knowledgeable" about all the positions
described therein, yet not necessarily have actually performed all of
them).
Cheers,
Karen Peterson-Kranz
University of Guam
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peter Groves <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 29 Apr 1999 16:24:59 +1100
Subject: 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0774 Queries on Partridge
>Partridge (*Shakespeare's Bawdy*, p. 25) writes:
>
>"From the terms listed in the preceding paragraph, we-inevitably, I
>think -- form the opinion that Shakespeare was an exceedingly
>knowledgeable amorist, a veritable connoisseur, and a highly artistic,
>an ingeniously skilful, practitioner of love-making, who could have
>taught Ovid rather more than that facile doctrinaire could have taught
>him; he evidently knew of, and probably he practised, an artifice
>accessible to few-one that I cannot becomingly mention here, though I
>felt it obligatory to touch on it, very briefly, in the Glossary."
>
>Two questions:
>
>1) Can someone satisfy my prurient interest by revealing the cited
>"artifice"?
>
>2) In general, is it accurate and/or reasonable to label Shakespeare "an
>exceedingly knowledgeable amorist" and a "skilful practitioner of
>love-making"?
>
>Allan Blackman
I don't know what could count as evidence for or against (2), with the
doubtful and unsatisfactory exception of the anecdote in Aubrey about
William coming before Richard. As for (1), something "buzzeth in my
head" that it refers to linguo-perineal stimulation (the French have a
word for it), though where this idea comes from, apart from my diseased
imagination, or why Partirdge should ascribe this practice to
Shakespeare, I'm afraid I haven't a clue.
Peter Groves,
Department of English,
Monash University