October
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2304 Monday, 8 October 2001 From: John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 06 Oct 2001 11:23:42 -0400 Subject: Seven Ages Update The Autumn 2001 edition of the University of Toronto Alumni magazine combines the 7 ages with a highly clinical update of what UT Med School and associated teaching hospitals are doing for them. Not nearly enough for those in 6th & 7th ages -:) 'Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.' Oops! I just quoted The Scottish Play. _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2303 Monday, 8 October 2001 [1] From: Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 12:14:25 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby [2] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 12:38:35 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby [3] From: Don Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 16:01:52 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2286 Re: Sir Toby [4] From: John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 06 Oct 2001 11:21:07 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 12:14:25 -0400 Subject: 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby Comment: Re: SHK 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby I've played Maria, so Sir Toby's "usage" was once for me a matter of intense personal interest. > On the question of the relationship between Maria and Sir Toby at the > beginning of the play > If they > were having an affair, Sir Toby, at least, would be likely to use the > more intimate 'thou', especially as he is of higher social status. A gentleman reveal that he has been intimate with a respectable woman who is neither his wife nor his betrothed? This would be very bad manners -- declaring Maria a strumpet openly, far beyond the hints and jests that fly over the head of dull clean minded Sir Andrew. > His > change of attitude to her after she sets up the plot against Malvolio is > signalled by an immediate change to 'thou':'Wilt thou set thy foot o' my > neck'etc. I take that as a declaration of his intent to make an honest woman of her. > Pronouns can tell you a lot! I agree. But what they tell is still an open question, I think. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 12:38:35 -0400 Subject: 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby Comment: Re: SHK 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby > The marriages of the four main pairs of romantic characters come about > in the end of LLL--but delayed for what seems to me the humor of forcing > the four men to wait in chaste austerity--the way, ironically, they more > or less started the play supposedly wanting to do. I rather think that these marriages take place at the end of the lost sequel -- Love's Labours Won > > By the way, did Don Armado marry beneath himself? > > Hard to tell, but I think so, and so did Touchstone. Don Armado, for all his having come upon hard times, was still a knight. Touchstone, for all his pretensions, was not a courtier but only a fool. It is hard to say that a fool marries beneath himself when he marries a rustic clown. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 16:01:52 -0500 Subject: 12.2286 Re: Sir Toby Comment: Re: SHK 12.2286 Re: Sir Toby Edmund Taft opines: >Well, yes, but the point is that Sir Toby will not marry her -- at least >not until she plays her trick on Malvolio. That his fall is the occasion >of her rise seems undisputed. Maria is concerned about Sir Toby, but >then again, Malvolio is just as concerned about Olivia. Or, if you want >to say that he only SEEMS concerned to cover his own self-interest, the >same can be said about Maria. The parallelism is clear, it seems to me. >Moreover, I've always wondered why people are so quick to condemn >Malvolio's wish to better himself, when others (Sebastian and Viola, for >example) are not so criticized. Sometimes I wonder if we're reading the same play. I just don't find most of this in the text. Where is there any indication that Sir Toby "will not marry her," as if she had been angling for him for some time? Where do we find his "fall"? Where is the parallel between what we see of Malvolio (that is, the matchless 2, 5) and what we see of Maria? As to the condemnation of Malvolio, I'm not sure which people condemn him for wishing to "better himself." There are two major areas that deserve and receive condemnation. He is a mean-spirited and vindictive kill-joy. And he is a self-admiring fool. If Olivia loved him (not to mention if he loved her, rather than her title, wealth, and body), and if he weren't such a delightful combination of rat, toady, and bozo, he could be quite sympathetic. As it is . . . Finally concerning Viola and Sebastian: both marry as a result of true love; both of are of high rank, wealth and good education though evidently not titled nobility. My impression is that this was (at least thought to be) perfectly acceptable in Italy. WS uses the parallel case of County Paris going out of his way to petition directly for Juliet. Nobody seems to think this is a misalliance, and Capulet does not grovel before Paris. On the contrary, he is confident enough to put off a decision -- at least until the death of Tybalt changes his mind. Don't wish to be mean-spirited and certainly not vindictive, but I just don't find either that Maria or that Malvolio in the text. Cheers, don b [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 06 Oct 2001 11:21:07 -0400 Subject: 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby Comment: Re: SHK 12.2295 Re: Sir Toby > LADY ASTOR (I think...) "I married beneath myself. All women do." > > Dana Shilling Fortunately she didn't marry Winston Churchill. Astor: If I were your wife I'd poison your coffee. Churchill: If I were your husband I'd drink it. _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2302 Monday, 8 October 2001 From: Graham Hall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 14:58:43 +0000 Subject: Print and be damned > Gabriel Egan writes: >The Globe Quartos series is a joint venture of Globe Education and Nick >Hern Books with an editorial board of David Scott Kastan, Tom Berger, >and Gordon McMullan. The series aims to make available modernized, >scholarly edited, texts of these plays.[...] A penny stinkard adds: In concert with others in the pit I'm learning to read. So these will go well with The Shakespeare Folios series from the same source. But are they being printed on the Globe's Lubbock reconstructed press? That wo(u)o(l)be something. I have a mild commercial interest in the Globe...... I pay to get in. Best Wishes, Graham Hall _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2301 Monday, 8 October 2001 [1] From: Mari Bonomi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 5 Oct 2001 10:51:55 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2296 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" [2] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 11:40:53 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2287 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" [3] From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 6 Oct 2001 11:58:31 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.2296 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" [4] From: Kezia Vanmeter Sproat <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 6 Oct 2001 22:04:47 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 12.2248 "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mari Bonomi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 5 Oct 2001 10:51:55 -0400 Subject: 12.2296 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Comment: Re: SHK 12.2296 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" From what I've learned as well, Skip, there were no "homosexuals" because the term did not even exist during Shakespeare's time. That's not to say the activities did not, of course. The attitudes simply were healthier. Given that I have written grad school papers on homoeroticism in literature (from Shakespeare to Conan Doyle), I may be biased, but I have no idea of what Graham Bradshaw means by longest and least profitable and for US consumption only except to come away from his remark with a feeling of being assaulted for having a scholarly (given my own heterosexual hardwiring) interest in the subtexts of homosocialism and homoeroticism in Shakespeare's plays. I'd be happy to make more specific arguments concerning Desdemona/Emilia and Two Noble Kinsmen (MoV having been done to death on this list several times) should anyone want them. I also can dig out a bibliography of sorts on homoeroticism in Shakespeare if I can access the hard drive of that computer. Mari Bonomi [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 11:40:53 -0400 Subject: 12.2287 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Comment: Re: SHK 12.2287 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Karen Peterson quotes Theodora A. Jankowski: >Jankowski writes, "We all know that there were no early modern >heterosexuals, homosexuals, lesbians, gays, or bisexuals. There were >also no early modern queers" (6). She goes on to outline her own use >of the term queer as a signifier for activities outside the early modern >heterosexual gender paradigm. If indeed there was no heterosexual paradigm for Shakespeare and his contemporaries, how can there be activities outside this non-existent gender paradigm? But we always interpret the past from the present, and perhaps when we queer the Renaissance, we are imposing our distinctions on our ancestors. Can it be otherwise? Yours, Bill Godshalk [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 6 Oct 2001 11:58:31 +0100 Subject: 12.2296 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Comment: Re: SHK 12.2296 Re: "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Skip Nicholson writes: > I may need to be disabused here. I was schooled in the belief > that in Elizabethan and Jacobean Britain (as in most places > through much of recorded history) while there were certainly > people carrying on same-sex intimate activities and affairs, > there were no homosexuals. By that I mean that the sexual > attraction or activity was not made part of people's identity. > Homosexuality involved what people did but not who or > what they were. That's Foucault and Bray's view. For a refutation see Joseph Cady "'Masculine love', Renaissance writing, and the 'new invention' of homosexuality" in Claude J Summers (ed) _Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightenment England: Literary representations in historical context_ (New York: Haworth Press, 1992) pp. 9-40. Gabriel Egan [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kezia Vanmeter Sproat <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 6 Oct 2001 22:04:47 EDT Subject: 12.2248 "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Comment: Re: SHK 12.2248 "Shakespeare's Hidden Lesbians" Looking at the same forest, we may see elms or oaks, spruces and hemlocks, or just green, or no color at all if we are very depressed, or the written language of our Creator if we are Wordsworth, or merely a hideout for "forbidden" behavior. One can describe or see every observable iota in the world, and every human activity, in terms of sex and as an allegory for intimate human sexual activity if one sets out to do so or if one is taught that's how to look, the best or the only way to look. Effective English classes introduce alternative ways to look, different from those we got at home or on the streets or the TV tube. We each have lenses for the world, and some people (probably most on this list) constantly search for new corrections of theirs. Those of us who teach English, insofar as we help students do critical analysis of human speech and writing, are more needed now than at any time in our history. If we have a habit of seeing lesbians under every bush, and in every sisterly relationship, it is very good to say that clearly so others may understand us. We can change our lenses, or enlarge our way of looking, by sharing, openly, what we experience. Sorry if that is pablum. Kezia Vanmeter Sproat _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2300 Monday, 8 October 2001 From: Graham Hall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 05 Oct 2001 14:44:14 +0000 Subject: Name dropping The variety of Zimmerman usages and origins of Dylan, Dillon and Dillion parallel the confusion presented by Will's surname. Both employed variations or had variations thrust upon 'em. In the former case, a close reading of Robert Shelton's "No Way Home"(Dylan biography) indicates that the association with Dylan Thomas may be more murky than suggested by a previous correspondent. Possibly Bob and Will are both the victims of compositor's attempts to extend the life of their type which, in the latter case, involved adding a letter rather than changing some. Best Wishes, Graham Hall _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.