The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1468  Tuesday, 6 September 2005

[1] 	From: 	Charles Weinstein <
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	Date: 	Monday, 5 Sep 2005 14:32:59 -0400
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1458 Lear's little dogs

[2] 	From: 	David Levine <
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	Date: 	Monday, 5 Sep 2005 14:46:37 -0400
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1458 Lear's little dogs

[3] 	From: 	Ward Elliott <
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	Date: 	Monday, 05 Sep 2005 16:25:09 -0700
	Subj: 	RE: SHK 16.1458 Lear's little dogs


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Charles Weinstein <
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Date: 		Monday, 5 Sep 2005 14:32:59 -0400
Subject: 16.1458 Lear's little dogs
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1458 Lear's little dogs

 >In the New Penguin edition (1972, reissued 2005), G.K. Hunter glosses
 >Lear's outcry as "I am now so despicable that even the little lap-dogs
 >(perhaps bitches, by their names) know they can bark at me."  Jay
 >Halio's gloss in the New Cambridge edition (1992) is essentially the same.

One further thought.  Lear prefaces the names with "The little dogs and 
all..."  The words "and all" might encompass the larger hunting dogs. 
If so, then Trey, Blanch and Sweetheart need not be lap-dogs.  Rosenberg 
suggests as much when he refers to the dogs as "the palace hounds."

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		David Levine <
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Date: 		Monday, 5 Sep 2005 14:46:37 -0400
Subject: 16.1458 Lear's little dogs
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1458 Lear's little dogs

The name Trey, as far as I know, simply means "third born" (at least, 
it's a common nickname for a third child).  "Blanche," I always assumed, 
meant a white dog.  I guess there might be a bit of an allusion (or more 
of a parallel) to the three daughters, but I think you are getting 
pretty carried away with "Trey" becoming "betray" etc.

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Ward Elliott <
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Date: 		Monday, 05 Sep 2005 16:25:09 -0700
Subject: 16.1458 Lear's little dogs
Comment: 	RE: SHK 16.1458 Lear's little dogs

I've distributed the SHAKSPER dog list to my dog-lover friends.  Is 
there a cat list?  I can think of the witches' Graymalkin and Lady 
Macbeth's "cat i' th' adage" in Macbeth, referring to the cat who would 
eat fish but would not get her feet wet.  There must be others.

Ward Elliott

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