May
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0517 Tuesday, 30 May 2006 From: Sean King <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 15:57:25 -0400 Subject: 17.0501 Jenkins vs. Thompson Comment: Re: SHK 17.0501 Jenkins vs. Thompson Jeffrey Jordan wrote: >It's credible in those cases that the unsuspecting buyer is being >treated to what Shakespeare actually wrote, and that the familiar >quotes, taken from the Folio, are wrong. So let us not jump the gun, >against the Arden 3. In context, "boy" is reasonable [...] Well, personally, I *like* being made to wonder whether it's merely the weight of the editorial tradition (or as you put it, "Bartlett's") which makes a given reading "seem wrong", and to ponder as to whether an unfamiliar reading may in fact be correct... So, yes, "credible" it is! ;-) I did try to make clear, though, that I wanted to emphasise my questions about Arden policy with regard to this Hamlet, and not my own particular views about conflated editions, the superiority of Jenkins, or the merits of a given reading. To repeat, I think the F/Q1 volume should be available at the same price as the Q2: on general principles, and on what I take to be the principles the Arden people are working on -- as it stands, I feel we're being told with one hand that the new Arden Hamlet is a set of new editions of the three principal texts, and with the other, that the Q2 volume is "it".... As far as editing in general... ...I enjoy some venturesomeness and "non-traditionalism" in individual editions of plays -- either of the make-you-think variety ("Richard loves Richard, that is, I and I" in the Arden2 volume) or the hey-that's-brilliant-and-probably-right sort ("conjure up the blood" in the Arden2 Henry V) I think my uneasiness with such "non-Bartlett" readings (in *such* "Bartlettic" passages....) in (for the moment) "the" new Arden Hamlet has to do with more than the fact that I'm a bit doubtful about those readings-but perhaps I'm kidding myself about that; at any rate I won't insist on my notions about that end of things. In my earlier post, I brought this up primarily as a way of underscoring my problems regarding Arden policy: as I put it, I'd think it "less weird" if (as I believe should be the case on other grounds anyway) both volumes were available on the same terms. *Why* anyone might feel weird, and whether the feeling really stands up under inquiry, is a little beside the point I was trying to make. (I think mentioning readings at all may have been a mistake. I didn't want to come across as all This Is Not The Shakespeare I Grew Up With... ;-) >S may have intended a brief, >dramatic pause after "cowards," which the Folio editor(s) unwisely >filled in with an unnecessary phrase. Well, one would need to have a view as to how the phrase got into *Q1* as well, of course... (I'm not saying you don't have one!) >In attempting to bring Q2 to >greater public awareness, Arden 3 is doing the right thing. I could say that since _The MS of Shakespeare's Hamlet_ at least, and the Q2 based editions which followed, that Q2 has to a large extent already been brought to greater public awareness. I'll go further, and say that Thompson & Taylor's effort is of greater note in some ways, in that they've included readings at which others have balked. As for the "right thing", my issue is whether they've done the *whole* thing -- which on my view they won't have until both their volumes are on the shelves at the same price. *I* won't call *that* the "right thing" (in terms of editorial philosophy) *either* -- but that's just me... matter for another discussion. I'd be willing to call it a *good* thing, and a **very interesting** thing-but then I like to have as many editions of a play as possible... Just as a side note, you refer a couple of times to "what WS really wrote"-T&T profess agnosticism about underlying MSS, intentions and so forth... the attitude is, this is our copy text: let's edit it... As I understand them, even if (say) they both held the view that WS wrote "be" not "boy", their working principles would have inclined them to "boy"... I find this interesting in terms of my own views about what editors ought to be doing, but... (actually, I typed some of these views out, but gmail, or Windows, ate 'em up... that may not be a bad thing... ;-) >Who knows what may lie just beyond the next heave? I think we're still making discoveries. The H5 reading I mentioned above ("conjure" instead of "summon" for "commune") is a good example -- I'll just betcha it's right... and how long did it take us to come up with *that*? >Jenkins' edition is a masterwork, as acknowledged by all, > > >Perhaps not quite all of us hold it in quite that high regard. The >Arden 2 has some problems. But, skip that. It's a very good book in >many ways, no doubt. I guess "all" never means all (nor "everyone" everyone...) But folks who have big disagreements with HJ (as I have myself, for that matter) have nonetheless referred to his edition as "magisterial". This is primarily what I had in mind. (Actually I think I *would* argue that bloody-everyone should call such an achievement a masterwork.... But perhaps I ought to do that [if indeed I really had to] in a context where I haven't made it sound as though I were using Jenkins simply as a stick to beat up Thompson and Taylor! ;-) Best, Sean _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> 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 17.0516 Tuesday, 30 May 2006 [1] From: David Crystal <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 27 May 2006 12:06:00 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 17.0506 A Roof on the Globe? [2] From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 28 May 2006 12:22:59 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 17.0506 A Roof on the Globe? [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Crystal <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 27 May 2006 12:06:00 +0100 Subject: 17.0506 A Roof on the Globe? Comment: Re: SHK 17.0506 A Roof on the Globe? William Dudley, the designer of the Globe Titus, has sent me this comment which (with his permission) will be of interest to all SHAKSPERians. Kathy Dent writes, >logic that informs this design choice: it's okay to put a roof on >because that's what the Romans did at the Coliseum. My reasons for placing a Velarium over the Bankside Globe for the new production of Titus are not as banal and facile as you seem to suggest in your article. My interest in the Globe recreation and the discovery of the remains of the 1587 Rose Theatre in 1989 (from which many of the subsequent decisions on the Globe were made) is long term and passionate. I was co-opted onto the Globes's artistic committee by Sam Wanamaker in 1992 to advise and interpret the architect's drawings for the actors, writers and directors who Sam had assembled as a theatrical steering group to act as a balance to the massive academic pressures on the project. In brief, over the next 4 years I became a whistleblower over the vexed question of the on-stage pillars that support the roof. As proposed at that time, the Pillars were only 2'-6" from the front edge of the stage, based I believe, on a misinterpretation of the Rose Site. With strong support from Walter Hodges and Sir Peter Hall, the pillars were eventually moved to their current position some 7'-0" upstage. This is still not far enough though, as it does not agree with the equally famous Swan Theatre drawing which alas, was not trusted and thus ignored by the academic committee on the project. It was during this vigorous academic debate that I read the famous "Fortune Theatre Contract" which mentions that over the stage there shall be a "shadow"- i.e. not a roof! I reasoned that beyond the "majestical roof fretted with golden fire" mentioned by Shakespeare, was an adjustable shadow or cloth shade to screen some of the audience from sunlight and inclement weather, much as in Roman times and in modern Bullfights arenas. The existing "Pentice" Roof and large Stage House tower has forced the Pillars to be too massive and to be forever stuck too far downstage - to the misery of most actors who work there. They call the constricted space between the pillars: "Death Valley". The reason for including this in my response is to show that the origin of the Velarium idea comes from a genuine interest in just what stagings at the Globe and the Rose were like. Having staged the York mystery plays at the National Theatre just upstream from the Globe from 1977 to 2000, I am certain that the Original Globe and its stagings grew from that very English form of Street and Yard Theatre - vigorous, pragmatic and adaptive - and I take great heart from recent findings from the Rose Theatre (where I designed the onsite exhibition in 1999) passed on by the original 1989 archaeologists, that the first (1587) Rose did not have any stage at all, but had a plain yard which was freely adapted by any company or other entertainment that played in it. Finally, the Globe was and is the marriage of two great theatre traditions: the classical stage with its Frons Scenae, Stage and Orkestra and secondly, the English mediaeval street theatre of the Mystery Plays with the oak timbers and plasterwork evoking an English Inn yard. Our production of Titus seeks to explore this marriage by using the groundlings space (Orkestra) as both a processional English Street space and as a Roman Gladiatorial arena. The Velarium above produces magical filterings of the changeable daylight and diffuses the rain (it is fully porous) which makes it more bearable for the damp groundlings below. It also conjures up a funereal mood that fits with the sc 2 funeral ceremony of Titus' sons and the early death of Tamora's son Alarbus. I firmly believe such cloths have been regularly used throughout the history of the outdoor theatre. William Dudley [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 28 May 2006 12:22:59 +0100 Subject: 17.0506 A Roof on the Globe? Comment: Re: SHK 17.0506 A Roof on the Globe? Philip Eagle wrote that >many of the condemnations on this thread >have been well over the top and seemingly >based on misconceptions about the ethos >of the Globe and its past productions. "The ethos" of the project depends on who you ask. British American Tobacco (who paid for the main staircase in the foyer) wouldn't agree with prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud*, the largest individual contributor, about what they were paying for. That's the money angle; what about the intellectual? The project was begun by the American actor Sam Wanamaker who relocated to London in the 1950s because he was blacklisted for his socialism. The theatre historians that he got interested in his Globe project in the 1960s (Glynne Wickham, Richard Southern and C. Walter Hodges) couldn't agree with Wanamaker about what should be built. Should the building have a full roof to keep the rain off, should it be modular and reconfigurable to allow for active experimentation? Hodges in particular thought that the replica would have to be modelled on the second Globe (built 1613), of which there is reliable pictorial evidence in the Hollar sketches and engraving, while Wanamaker was adamant that the replica had to be the first Globe (built 1599) because that was Shakespeare's Globe. A second team of theatre historians, headed by Andrew Gurr, John Orrell, and Frank Hildy, were much closer to Wanamaker's position on the nature of authenticity: it should be a one-shot, best-guess and quite unalterable replica of Globe-1, and in the late 1980s work began. Wanamaker's first permanent hiring, however, Patrick Spottiswoode (head of education) was firmly opposed to 'Shakespeare-in-tights' and took years to become convinced of the value of original practices. In 1995, near to completion, the Artistic Directorate under Mark Rylance began its work and a third strand of opinion and practice entered "the ethos". Several practitioners consulted about the building wanted those parts that hadn't yet been built (the stage, tiring house, and stage cover) to remain modular, and there was a semi-public row about the sitting of the stage posts in relation to the cover. Rylance upheld the Wanamaker line about authenticity, and his long-time designer Jenny Tiramani autodidactically became a world expert on early-modern clothing, but a number of the directors Rylance brought in to work on productions were visibly terrified by the academic atmosphere of the place and rebelled against it. Tim Carroll, for example, insisted on punching 4 holes in the stage cover to run computer-controlled suspension cables down to a steel table 'floating' over the stage, for his risible production of Macbeth. For his penance, Carroll directed an original practices Richard 2 the following season, and so got over his terror of intellectualism. The Communications Department of the Globe puts out a line about its "ethos", but this singularity is a fiction. In reality the project is, like anything of this size including Higher Education, riven with tensions and contradictions and pulling in multiple directions at once. David Crystal, for example, has recently become closely involved in the project, and only with his arrival has there been any attempt at original pronunciation. To judge from his comments on this list, he seems, however, much less concerned than the likes of Andrew Gurr and Frank Hildy about departures from original staging. It's not "misconception" that drives the debates in this thread but genuine disagreement (amongst fairly well informed contributors, it seems to me) about what the Globe should be doing. Gabriel Egan * He is half-brother of the former ruler of Saudi Arabia, King Fahd, and his name at the head of the Globe donors board disappeared just after the wayward son of the Fahds' business partners and close friends, the bin ladens, disgraced himself and embarrassed his American business partners with the September 2001 attacks. The Globe's Development Department (that is, the ones who get money out of donors) assured me that the disappearance of this donors's name was accidental. _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> 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 17.0515 Tuesday, 30 May 2006 From: Ros King <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 22:48:25 +0100 Subject: 17.0505 What happens to the Fool in _Lear_? Comment: Re: SHK 17.0505 What happens to the Fool in _Lear_? What a dear load of romantics you are! Lear has reneged on his duty to provide a household for the Fool to be part of and a roof to shelter him. The Fool, on the contrary, has done his best to keep to his side of the employment bargain. What happens to him depends on whether you're following the F or the Q text. The Q hovel scene shows us a lot highly theatrical madness in which Lear, Edgar and the Fool indulge together, and has Gloucester ordering someone, presumably Kent and the Fool to 'Take up your master' i.e. carry him off. F differentiates the madness showing Lear gravitating towards Poor Tom and away from the Fool, and adds the Fool's telling little half line 'And I'll go to bed at noon.' It's a brilliant exit line (although no SD is marked) for someone fed up to the back teeth with his current employer. He's off to find a paid fooling job somewhere else. Anyone involved in the current pay dispute in Higher Education in the UK should understand how he feels. Yours in solidarity, Ros _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> 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 17.0514 Tuesday, 30 May 2006 [1] From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 15:21:27 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 17.0507 Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek" [2] From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 27 May 2006 15:57:10 -0400 Subj: Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek" [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 15:21:27 -0500 Subject: 17.0507 Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek" Comment: Re: SHK 17.0507 Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek" >What I'm wondering about is this: Were those who criticized >Shakespeare's supposed want of education motivated by some political >agenda? In my opinion, no. I think the case accords with Baldwin's account, and in the end arises from Jonson's pride and jealousy. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 27 May 2006 15:57:10 -0400 Subject: Shakespeare's "Small Latin and Less Greek" I opened this thread not to bring up the issue of Shakespeare's education - there's no doubt he learned a helluva lot of Latin and quite a bit of Greek - but to raise the more interesting question of whether or not Shakespeare would have written to his friends in Latin. Sure, as Baldwin demonstrates, one of the grammar school exercises was for a pupil to write a letter to his parents in Latin. But that's an exercise! What I'm wondering is: Would a grammar-school educated Elizabethan write in Latin to his neighbors, family, acquaintances, and friends? That's what I take Stanley Wells to be implying, and maybe it's true. Is it? Ed Taft _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> 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 17.0513 Tuesday, 30 May 2006 [1] From: L. Swilley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 14:35:14 -0500 Subj: A modest answer [2] From: Kent Cartwright <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 16:23:30 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 17.0509 The Big Question [3] From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 27 May 2006 19:34:06 +0000 Subj: RE: SHK 17.0509 The Big Question [4] From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 28 May 2006 18:42:00 -0500 Subj: RE: SHK 17.0509 The Big Question [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: L. Swilley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 14:35:14 -0500 Subject: A modest answer Every literary work (and every artwork whatever) creates its own world, its own philosophy, and its own moral philosophy - every work from the squibbles of Judith Krantz to the glories of Shakespeare. L. Swilley [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kent Cartwright <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 May 2006 16:23:30 -0400 Subject: 17.0509 The Big Question Comment: Re: SHK 17.0509 The Big Question Concerning the question of whether art should be analyzed in moral terms, my impression is that, among aesthetic philosophers, the relationship between aesthetics and morality is not at all a dead issue but rather one of great current interest. (Perhaps others might care to extend, or correct, that impression). The problem with arguing that art is divorced from morality is that can lead to a self- limiting formalism. The problem with arguing that art is fundamentally moralistic is that it can lead to censorship and rant. Perhaps one way out is to consider that art works can embody a number of values - political, moral (or immoral), cultural, aesthetic, to name some -; that art works often embody these values or interests to different degree; and that criticism, likewise, can investigate art according to a range of values and that some will produce more interesting or fruitful analysis for a given work than others. (Acknowledging these different matrices also has the advantage of underscoring one obvious reason why we sometimes talk beyond each in critical discourse.) Rejecting the possibility of a moral view of art seems to me, at any rate, a rather fraught approach. It might be more interesting to consider the relationship among different values, such as the moral and the aesthetic, that can pertain in a given work of art. Kent Cartwright University of Maryland [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 27 May 2006 19:34:06 +0000 Subject: 17.0509 The Big Question Comment: RE: SHK 17.0509 The Big Question John Kennedy condemns "The DaVinci Code" as a "deplorable piece of hack prose and junk scholarship..." Junk scholarship? The book, perhaps, but not so much the film. See the distinctly minority review of distinguished scholar James Tabor (THE JESUS DYNASTY) below. His imaginative reconstruction of the Jesus story and its deformations casts Gentilizer Paul as the villain-in-chief of Christian history: http://jesusdynasty.com/The-Jesus-Dynasty-Author-and-The-DaVinci-Code.html Enjoy, Joe Egert [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 28 May 2006 18:42:00 -0500 Subject: 17.0509 The Big Question Comment: RE: SHK 17.0509 The Big Question To combine two puzzlements in a single post: As it baffles me how we can distinguish autobiography from fiction, so it baffles me how an artist can avoid being a moralist. Unless they're dead artists have to be moralists, and the dead don't write much. Or are they moralists only if we dislike the moral content of what they write? Cheers, don _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> 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.