The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1639 Tuesday, 27 September 2005
[1] From: Thomas Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 26 Sep 2005 14:09:31 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1621 ducdame
[2] From: Markus Marti <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 2005 08:48:14 +0200
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1621 ducdame
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 26 Sep 2005 14:09:31 -0400
Subject: 16.1621 ducdame
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1621 ducdame
>Memory refreshed - the locale is Vienna, but many of
>the character's names more likely
>Italian(ish), e.g. "Vincentio." None German. Why?
Shakespeare doesn't always pay strict attention to matching locale and
name, especially in Germanic states, but not only there. Venice, for
instance, has a Jew called Shylock, an English name, and a native
solider called Iago, a Spanish name. Elsinore in Denmark has a king
called Claudius, a councillor called Polonius, both Latin, a sometime
visitor called Horatio, apparently Italian, and a young man called,
Greekly, Laertes (no doubt his father's classicizing fantasy), as well
as a more properly Gemanic Queen Gertrude and courtier Osric. Two guards
are called Marcellus and Barnardo, for heaven's sake! Hamlet's Vienna
also has Italian inhabitants in Gonzago and Baptista "extant and written
in very choice Italian", though why we're never told. People in Illyria
seem to be Italian rather than Croatian, though perhaps Shakespeare knew
nothing of the latter and merely liked the punning place-name. Both Gary
Taylor and Fritz Levy have argued, independently, that Measure for
Measure, on the strength of its odd namings, was originally meant to be
set in Italy (Levy argues for Venice), with only minor adjustments (such
as the early ref in 1.2 to the King of Hungary). If Shakespeare were
more consistent elsewhere, there might be more to be said about this,
but as he isn't, it's hard to make out a really strong case, as it seems
to me.
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Markus Marti <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Tuesday, 27 Sep 2005 08:48:14 +0200
Subject: 16.1621 ducdame
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1621 ducdame
>- the locale is Vienna, but many of the character's names
>more likely Italian(ish), e.g. "Vincentio." None German. Why?
If the English name for the city were Wheen, we might have got some
Hansels and Sepperls and Wolferls, Hayderls and Schickelgruberls; Thomas
and Peter could be German or English; but there is also a Vienne at the
Isere (Sj