August
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2041 Thursday, 23 August 2001 From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Aug 2001 22:19:41 -0400 Subject: 12.1793 Re: Winter's Tale Comment: Re: SHK 12.1793 Re: Winter's Tale Frankly, I couldn't care less whether you dress up Hamlet! the Musical? in leather jockstraps, but on what basis do you gauge my ignorance of anything. Obviously not on reading my paper. Anyone so impervious to poetic double entendre ought not to be messing with productions of Shakespeare, musical or otherwise. As to fertility gods, the play is neither set in England nor the 16th century. There were no oracles either, yet there it is. Please do something constructive with your pins. Clifford > >Sorry to be a pest, but I'm about to be away from my email for a month > >and I wanted to mention that in one of my papers on The Winter's Tale I > >argue that Autolycus is identified in part as a fertility god because > >among his wares are "pins and poking sticks of steel, what maidens lack > >from head to heel..." > > Well, surrounded as I am by pins, and worried as I am about the > technology which failed to replace the poking sticks, I suppose I should > stop worrying about recreating 16th century costume for Hamlet! The > Musical!, and start worrying about the staggering degree of ignorance of > the construction of 16th century dress, and the staggering degree of > ignorance as to the non-existence of fertility deities in 16th century > England, simultaneously demonstrated in this post. I grimly endured the > nonsense about Lammas fairs, but this is too much... > > For anyone interested in the facts, rather than the fantasies, may I > commend to you: Janet Arnold's work, and, in particular _Queen > Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocked_ and _Lost from Her Majesties Back_, and > Ronald Hutton's work, and, in particular, _The Pagan Religions of the > British Isles_ , > _The Rise and Fall of Merry England_, and _The Stations of the Sun; A > History of the Ritual Year in Britain_. > > And now I must get back to the pins... > > Best wishes, > Stevie Gamble _______________________________________________________________ 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 12.2040 Thursday, 23 August 2001 From: Takashi Kozuka <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Aug 2001 21:34:19 Subject: Re: Shakeshafte By the way, another important contribution was Oliver Baker's *In Shakespeare's Warwickshire and the Unknown Years* (1937). As far as *I* know, he was the first to "link" the Shakeshafte in Houghton's will and Shakespeare. (If anyone has information otherwise, please let me know. Thanks in advance.) He was rather careful; he concluded that "one can say that Shakeshafte was a name of the Poet's grandfather, and also of at least one other ancestor" (p. 298). (Schoenbaum corrected the information in his *Shakespeare's Lives* (1970); "Shakeschafte" was not an actual variant of Shakespeare's grandfather's name as it had been thought to be.) Best wishes, Takashi Kozuka _______________________________________________________________ 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 12.2039 Thursday, 23 August 2001 From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Aug 2001 18:16:20 -0700 Subject: 12.2028 London Independent on Bardcore Porn Comment: Re: SHK 12.2028 London Independent on Bardcore Porn Richard: Didn't you post a link to exactly the same material, when the same article was printed by Lingua Franca nine days ago? I'm sure anyone interested would have had a chance to look it up by now... Cheers, Se
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2038 Thursday, 23 August 2001 From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Aug 2001 18:14:24 -0700 Subject: Re: Cambridge University American Stage Tour 2001- Romeo and Juliet This message made me wonder what makes up an "American Stage Tour", especially as the company could be re-named "Cambridge University New England and Midwest Stage Tour". Is there an accepted use of the term? I don't really know, which is, of course, why I'm asking. Cheers, Se
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2037 Thursday, 23 August 2001 From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 22 Aug 2001 19:50:47 -0400 Subject: Call for Witches Just back from Europe and making my way through 242 SHAKSPER posts. Nobody seems to have caught this one from Reuters (I'm afraid it will take more than witches to lift the curse from the production I saw at the Globe last week). Witch-Hunt Mounted To Tackle Macbeth Jinx EDINBURGH (Reuters) - A British medium launched an international hunt for witches in a bid to contact the ancient Scottish king Macbeth and lift the jinx which is said to overhang Shakespeare's gory tragedy. "I'm looking for two witches, but preferably not from Britain -- they've got to have an open mind," Kevin Carlyon, high priest of the 1,600 strong coven of British white witches, told Reuters. "We are going to try and get in touch with the spirit of the real Macbeth to find out whether he is anything to do with the weird things which tend to happen with this play," he said. Famous for his murderous scheming and paranoid dementia, the 11th century Highland monarch is believed by some scholars to have been no worse than any other medieval king, and his image suffered unfairly at the hands of the English playwright. Superstitious actors regularly refer to the bloody drama by its subtitle -- "The Scottish Play" -- for fear the curse of Macbeth will bring their production bad luck. Carlyon and his two assistants will head to Cawdor, Macbeth's windswept seat in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, and try to pacify the possibly disgruntled spirit around the time of the full moon in early September. They will then hitch up their witches' robes and speed southwards to the bard's birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon in England and repeat the process. "If we manage to contact Shakespeare, we'll also ask him where he got the idea for the three witches from in his play," Carlyon said Wednesday. "I'm very positive that we'll get some success, but I will need some help -- raising spirits from the dead is not my specialist field.'' _______________________________________________________________ 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.