April
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0264 Monday, 2 April 2007 [1] From: Martin Mueller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 11:33:40 -0500 Subj: Messenger Reports in Shakespeare [2] From: David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 12:43:11 -0400 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0257 Gertrude done her in? [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Martin Mueller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 11:33:40 -0500 Subject: Messenger Reports in Shakespeare I hope it is a legitimate posting to reflect a little on the question why Shakespeare would have chosen to put a report of Ophelia's death in Gertrude's mouth. Many years ago the German Anglist Wolfgang Clemen wrote a nice little book about _Wandlungen des Botenberichts bei Shakespeare_ or "The Evolution of the Messenger Report in Shakespeare." It is a dramatic convention, inherited from Greek tragedy, that some events are 'told' rather than 'shown'. It is a fairly strictly observed convention in Greek tragedy that the messenger's role is strictly limited to his reporting. He is not in any strong sense a character in the play. It is also a convention that the messenger is to be believed. There is no doubt to question his veracity. Shakespeare likes to play with this inherited topos, and his particular purposes are often clearly illustrated by asking the simple question how the report deviates from ancient conventions, which Shakespeare understood as well as Milton, who two generations later produced a perfectly rules-compliant report about the death of Samson. In _Julius Caesar_ he puts the account of the offer of a crown to Caesar in the mouth of Casca, and he goes out of his way to tell the audience that Casca is a biased narrator ("after his sour fashion"). In The Winter's Tale, an illiterate narrator (the clown) is given the very difficult task of reporting two concurrent catastrophes--the shipwreck and the eating of Antigonus by the bear. He fails miserably, but it is through this failure that Shakespeare gives a brilliant account of what happened. In Hamlet, there is first the question why the death of Ophelia is reported at all in such detail and second why Shakespeare chooses Gertrude as the messenger. As for the first question, it seems highly likely that the suspicious drowning of Katherine Hamlett in Stratford in late 1579 stands behind the story of Ophelia in many ways (see my notes on the word 'crowner' at http://panini.northwestern.edu/ mmueller/ShakeQuirks/index.html. As for the second, the simplest explanation is often the most appropriate. At Ophelia's funeral Gertrude says I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave. The bond of sympathy that ties Gertrude to Ophelia here resonates much more strongly in the context of Getrude's earlier report, which can and perhaps should be seen as an intensification of sympathetic identification that is not uncommon in the messenger reports of Greek tragedy. As a sixteenth century reader or writer you would not have needed a deep familiarity (first hand or second hand via Seneca) with the genre to be familiar with that aspect of it. Some years ago I saw All's Well at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, and I was very struck by the odd ways in which the triangle of Bertram, Helena, and the Countess of Rossillion repeats that of Hamlet, Ophelia, and Gertrude. A mother with an impossible son would like for him to marry a nice girl who is not of his class but of whom she is very fond. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 12:43:11 -0400 Subject: 18.0257 Gertrude done her in? Comment: RE: SHK 18.0257 Gertrude done her in? Perhaps this slight change of direction will be enough to move the conversation into more productive areas, but if not, that's fine. Jeffrey Jordan points out, agreeing with Hardy that >Gertrude is not even >a person. >Gertrude's is a facet of the Bard's imagination. However, he spends a great deal of his time discussing off-stage happenings as if they involved real people-and that, I think, is an important part of the issue. When Jordan says: >The reason why Gertrude's speech exists in the play is to >inform the audience of the fact of the Ophelia character's >death. That's necessary because the event occurs offstage. >The audience won't know about it >unless they're informed somehow, since it isn't shown. Shakespeare >used the Gertrude character to report the fact, and did it in >a highly poetic way because, well, the Bard was a great poet, >and that's how he did things. he points out that there's a dramaturgical reason for some sort of speech or scene-the audience needs information. He could press the point further, though, by asking why the playwright wants Gertrude to be the informer, and why he (Shakespeare) has her speak those particular words-all, perhaps, ultimately unknowable, but all aspects of the dramaturgy of the play. The audience, however, having learned that Ophelia has died offstage, is, mostly, immersed in the fictive world of the play-and they experience it (perhaps this is related to Owen Fernie's comments in the Presentism Roundtable regarding literature-as-its-experienced) AS IF the characters were real. Many readers and spectators will, despite the simultaneous knowledge that "the playwright dun her in", try to figure out what's going on in the world of Denmark as they experience it, either through the words on the page or the actions on the stage. It may be that "the Bard was a great poet, and that's how he did things" is the final answer that theorists, critics, scholars, readers, viewers, et. al., come to, but in the theatre an actor playing Gertrude is still on stage saying these words about a person who's no longer there (and, as a person, only existed virtually), and audience's will speculate about why. _______________________________________________________________ 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.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0263 Monday, 2 April 2007 [1] From: Cary Dean Barney <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 17:24:36 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment [2] From: David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 12:22:19 -0400 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment [3] From: Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 10:10:07 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment [4] From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 2 Apr 2007 11:25:51 +0100 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Cary Dean Barney <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 17:24:36 +0200 Subject: 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Comment: Re: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment Just to add, anyone who happens to be there Saturday should catch William Houston's riveting Coriolanus. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 12:22:19 -0400 Subject: 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Comment: RE: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment I was lucky enough to see the first performance in The Courtyard last summer as part of the Shakespeare: Text and Performance workshop. As I understand it, the Other Place has been architecturally incorporated into The Courtyard-it is, in essence, the lobby (foyer). I believe that when The Courtyard is taken down, The Other Place will be restored as, well, the RSC's other place. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Willis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Mar 2007 10:10:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Comment: Re: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment >"I am not sure I understand what is meant by >'The Other Place (TOP): will act as a foyer for the Courtyard Theatre >and reopen as a small studio when all works are complete,' and would >welcome clarification." The Other Place is actually now the foyer of the Courtyard - the room that was that theatrical space became the meeting space, bar, ticket office, stairwell and store of the new theatre. The Courtyard theatrical room is actually a new construct built adjacent to The Other Place on the parking lot that serviced it and RSC patrons. So, if the RSC follows their plans once renovations are complete on the RST, they will simply tear down the Courtyard, gut the "foyer", ie the walls that were once a wide open theatrical space, install the seats, floor and lighting and resume productions there. Fairly easily done actually. [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 2 Apr 2007 11:25:51 +0100 Subject: 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Comment: RE: SHK 18.0222 Royal Shakespeare Theatre Closing for Refurbishment I attended a performance of Coriolanus in the last week at the RST - and thus completed a loop back to the first season I went to that theatre, and saw Olivier's Coriolanus in 1959. While I am not sorry to see the space go, despite the many personal memories that attach to it , I am a little worried by the fact that what we seem to be promised is, in effect, a larger version of The Swan (relegating that space, presumably, to the status of a Cygnet). Having, like Hardy, been at the Courtyard, I am, unlike him, less than entirely bowled over by it. I sat for one production right round the side of the thrust stage, and, despite every effort in the blocking, found it a frustrating viewpoint from which to watch the Henry VI plays. In the smaller Swan this doesn't seem to matter so much, or is perhaps easier for the actors to mange, but in the larger space it does, in my view, lead to a distinctly inferior quality of experience. One may be very much closer to the action than in the remoter parts of the old RST's gallery, but closeness and involvement are not necessarily the same thing. I'm not a theatre historian, but I do wonder whether the De Witt drawing hasn't been responsible, in part, for creating a notion of the 'thrust' stage which is not necessarily the only one. The excavations of The Rose seem to suggest a stage which projects into the audience, but does not have anything like the depth of audience round the side. I do hope that the new stage will be genuinely flexible, so that it can be experimented with - otherwise I fear we may have as many rebuilds as the RST itself has endured in the last twenty or thirty years. David Lindley _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0261 Monday, 2 April 2007 From: Charles Weinstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 01 Apr 2007 14:35:16 -0400 Subject: Alms for Oblivion Returning to Stratford-upon-Avon for the first time in a decade, I caught Gregory Doran's Coriolanus and wondered why I had bothered. Dependably slick, the direction is remarkably free of ideas, save for an intermittent androphilia/gynophobia--Coriolanus touches his wife only once, on the hand, but allows Aufidius to kiss him lingeringly on the mouth. In the title role, the oafish William Houston lurches from an affected bass to an exaggerated falsetto to a sing-song rasp that verges on the inaudible. He is innocent of wit or eloquence, and he unforgivably changes his penultimate line to "...like an eagle in a dove's-cote, I/Fluttered all your Volscians in Corioles." Timothy West plays Menenius skillfully, but with a fatal lack of involvement that robs him of vividness and warmth. Janet Suzman would be a formidable Volumnia if age had not undermined her lungpower, and if she did not weaken her early scenes by inappropriately conveying doubt about the martial ethos. The rest of the cast is adequate. The production's bankruptcy is signaled by its resort to borrowing at crucial moments. It ends with Coriolanus deliberately impaling himself on Aufidius's sword (Elijah Moshinsky, 1984). The final tableau depicts Aufidius on the ground cradling the body of Coriolanus like a pieta while vainly crying "Assist!" to his absconding colleagues (David Thacker, 1994). --Charles Weinstein P.S.: I subsequently saw the Nunn/McKellen Lear, which was much better, and had the effect of partially redeeming the time. A detailed report will follow, when unredeemed time permits. _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0260 Monday, 2 April 2007 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, April 02, 2007 Subject: Manga Shakespeares SelfMadeHero, an independent UK publisher, has just launched Manga Shakespeare, a book series providing a unique combination of manga and classic dramatic texts. The first two titles - Romeo and Juliet, set in modern-day Tokyo, and Hamlet, in a cyberworld, - were released in March 2007. Forthcoming titles: Richard III published September 2007 The Tempest published September 2007 A Midsummer Night's Dream published February 2008 Julius Caesar published June 2008 Macbeth published June 2008 http://www.selfmadehero.com/manga_shakespeare/manga_shakespeare.html _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0259 Monday, 2 April 2007 From: Thomas Pendleton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 27 Mar 2007 19:50:25 -0400 Subject: Shakespeare Authorship Survey [Editor's Note: Tom Pendleton, co-editor of the Shakespeare Newsletter, was moved to respond to the request he received to complete the so-call authorship survey. Below is that response.] Dear Mr. Calame: I have recently been invited to participate in a survey by the New York Times Education Life to determine what college professors think of the Shakespeare Authorship question. I am sorry to see this silliness dragged our yet again since it has been demonstrated repeatedly that there is not the least scrap of evidence that anyone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare plays. The fact that the survey is being conducted under the supervision of William J. Niederkorn, who has for at least the last five years operated as the Times resident Oxfordian, is, I think, reason to suspect that the outcome of the survey will in some way end up supporting Mr. Niederkorn's own views in this matter. Indeed, on August 30, 2005, Mr. Niederkorn had suggested that "authorship studies" be made part of "the standard Shakespeare curriculum"-an idea that makes little sense unless one is already committed to the belief that the job of being Shakespeare is now open for applications. I am aware that Mr. Niederkorn has portrayed himself as neither an Oxfordian nor a Stratfordian, but as an impartial seeker after the truth. His supposed impartiality is, however, well demonstrated by his assertion that "On both sides of the authorship controversy, the arguments are conjectural" (Aug. 30, 05). What "conjecture" means in regard to the orthodox position is the assumption that the surviving contemporary testimony is likely to be reliable, especially when it co-relates with other surviving testimony. Thus, that the Shakespeare who in his will named Hemings and Condell as his fellows is the same Shakespeare whom Hemings and Condell seven years later identify as their "friend and fellow" who wrote the plays of the First Folio. On the other hand, "conjecture" for the Oxfordian means starting from the conviction that Shakespeare lacked the education, social status and life experience necessary to have written the plays, and then dismissing any evidence that contradicts this conviction as fraudulent or mistaken or meaning something other than it says. To present the all but universally accepted evidence of Shakespeare's authorship as merely an indifferent option to the Oxfordian position is to misrepresent grossly the historical and literary situation. And this is what Mr. Niederkorn's previous publications in the Times have done, and what-it is reasonable to expect-his reflections on his survey will continue to do. As I understand your function at the Times, it is to assure that your readership is presented with reliable and properly researched information and analysis. I do not suggest that Mr. Niederkorn's survey be scrapped-this would probably be inappropriate-but I do suggest that when the results of and reflections upon the survey are published, the Times-as it has not done in the past-also present in some detail the evidences on which the orthodox case it based; not just a two or three line disagreement from some orthodox spokesman that will be buried among Mr. Niederkorn's biographical fantasies. If the Times is serious about its reputation for accuracy and reliability, it really cannot allow Mr. Niederkorn to continue to speak for it on this matter. Please feel free to make what use of this e-mail seems best to you. Thank you for your attention. Thomas A. Pendleton, Ph.D. Professor of English, Iona College New Rochelle, N.Y. 10801 914-633-2156This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. _______________________________________________________________ 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.