The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0275 Tuesday, 4 April 2006
[1] From: Marcus Dahl <
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Date: Monday, 3 Apr 2006 09:16:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
[2] From: Peter Bridgman <
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Date: Monday, 3 Apr 2006 18:20:25 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
[3] From: Mario DiCesare <
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Date: Monday, 03 Apr 2006 15:57:57 -0400
Subj: Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
[4] From: Sam Small <
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Date: Tuesday, 4 Apr 2006 11:10:37 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marcus Dahl <
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Date: Monday, 3 Apr 2006 09:16:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Dear All,
Thanks to Jack Heller for at least playing the game (albeit with some
chronological sleights of hand)!
A good time line example is available here:
http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-biography-elizabethan-playwright-authors.htm
(not that I necessarily endorse the dates). It is interesting just to
compare how the plays stack up with each date.
Anyway I suppose I have lowered the tone enough!
avant ye!
Marcus
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peter Bridgman <
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Date: Monday, 3 Apr 2006 18:20:25 +0100
Subject: 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Sophie Masson writes ...
>What's interesting too, to me, is just how such an atmosphere is
>created--it's not anything officials do--it seems more like an
>alchemy of people all being in the same place at the same time.
I disagree that officials have no influence on creativity. In banning
church art and the mystery plays, the officials of Shakespeare's time
created an artistic vacuum that was too filled with words. There's
nothing like repression to kickstart creativity - witness Soviet cinema
before and after the velvet revolution. If any government wants to
produce another Shakespearean generation of writers, I suggest they
outlaw television.
Peter Bridgman
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mario DiCesare <
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Date: Monday, 03 Apr 2006 15:57:57 -0400
Subject: Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Dear Colleagues,
Jack Heller argues:
>Others have blamed the tendency to re-evaluative Shakespeare's
>career on postmodernism. I would remind them to review Samuel
>Johnson's complaints about how unbearable KING LEAR is.
............
>I don't think Shakespeare necessarily wins, play for play. I have no
>problem concluding that almost any contemporaneous Jonson play
>is better than Cymbeline. Let me shuffle and deal the cards:
>
>Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part 1; Comedy of Errors, All's Well that
>Ends Well, Timon of Athens, Cymbeline
>
>vs
>
>Others: Edward II; Volpone; The Duchess of Malfi; A Chaste Maid
>in Cheapside; The Changeling
The fact that King Lear is almost unbearable hardly detracts from its
character as one of the world's great dramas. Oedipus Rex is equally
unbearable, I think. And -- without looking up the context of Dr.
Johnson's comment -- I wonder if he meant it as a serious complaint?
As for shuffling the cards, well, what comes out hardly looks like a
desk shuffled fairly. Comparing some of the best non-Shakespearean plays
to those many of us never teach? Come on, now, let's have fair
comparisons. Nobody (I trust) is claiming that ANY and EVERY play by
Shakespeare is superior to every other contemporary play.
I recall hearing dimwitted papers twenty or so years ago assuring us
that Shakespeare's stock is down and Middleton's or Webster's or
Whoever's is up. I wouldn't buy a used car or a used stock from such people.
Mario
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sam Small <
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Date: Tuesday, 4 Apr 2006 11:10:37 +0100
Subject: 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Comment: Re: SHK 17.0269 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Full marks to Gary Taylor for rattling the cage into which Shakespeare
the icon has been captured for all the world to gape at. But as other
have intimated, the longevity of Shakespeare's popularity is as much
proof as anyone needs. True that popularity has had its troughs and
peaks but has remained a virtual constant for 400 years. An artistic,
democratic process has been going on continuously - in spite of academic
propaganda.
Where would the story of Jesus be without the pedants and blind
enthusiasm of people like Paul and others? There were certainly many
preachers yelling in the desert around the same time - John the Baptist
being the most well known - but only the Jesus story survives the rest.
Many would say for its genius and universality of meaning - but also
for its dedicated supporters.
So with Shakespeare, or Jimi Hendrix, or the Beatles, or Bach. Nobody
is stopping fans of Thomas Middleton etc. to stake their reputations on
creating a new "Middleton industry" - but I doubt they will. But time
will tell. As far as Shakespeare is concerned - time has told.
SAM SMALL
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