The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0437 Thursday, 24 July 2008
From: Sean B. Palmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008 10:41:49 +0100
Subject: 19.0426 Top 10 Books on Shakespeare From the 90s
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0426 Top 10 Books on Shakespeare From the 90s
Re: Jean E Howard's Top 10 Books on Shakespeare From the 90s
This seems to me to bear an uncanny resemblance to Thomas Nashe's favourite
books of those other '90s with which we're so well acquainted, the 1590s:
"Amongst our English harmonious calinos, one is up with the excellence of the
brown bill and the long-bow; another plays his prizes in print in driving it
home with all weapons in right of the noble science of defence; a third writes
passing enamorately of the nature of white meats, and justifies it under his
hand to be bought & sold everywhere that they exceed nectar & ambrosia; a fourth
comes forth with something in praise of nothing; a fifth, of an inflamed heel to
copper-smiths' hall, all-to-berimes it of the diversity of red-noses, and the
hierarchy of the nose magnificat. A sixth sweeps behind the door all earthly
felicities, and makes bakers' malkins of them if they stand in competency with a
strong dozen of points; marry, they must be points of the matter, you must
consider, whereof the foremost cod-piece point is the crane's proverb in painted
cloths, Fear God and obey the king, and the rest, some have tags, and some have
none. A seventh sets a tobacco-pipe instead of a trumpet to his mouth, and of
that divine drug proclaimeth miracles. An eighth capers it up to the spheres in
commendation of dancing. A ninth offers sacrifice to the goddess cloaca, and
disports himself very scholarly and wittily about the reformation of
close-stools and houses of office, and spicing and embalming their rank
entrails, that they stink not. A tenth sets forth remedies of toasted turfs
against famine."
I'm glad that going into the third millennium we have a similar literary
richness in which to conduct our affairs as was partaken of by our beloved
Eliza-Jacobean writers. It's 2008; shall we expect a round of sonnets next year?
-- Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/
_______________________________________________________________
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.
