The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0177 Wednesday, 22 April 2009
[1] From: Alberto Cacicedo <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 13:48:08 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[2] From: Ron Severdia <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 11:20:58 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[3] From: Godshalk, William <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 14:25:25 -0400
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[4] From: Marilyn A. Bonomi <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 15:01:33 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[5] From: Frank Whigham <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 14:05:47 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[6] From: Duncan Salkeld <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 20:20:32 +0000 (GMT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[7] From: David Evett <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 16:45:50 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[8] From: Dudley Knight <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 17:11:26 -0400
Subj: RE: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[9] From: Joseph Egert <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 17:19:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
[10] From: Conrad Cook <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Wednesday, 22 Apr 2009 01:02:20 -0400
Subj: Much Ado "Picture"
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Alberto Cacicedo <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 13:48:08 -0400
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Miniatures are a possibility. Lots of examples of those in the period.
-- Al Cacicedo
>I'm looking for help with Benedick's last line in Act 2 of
>Much Ado. It's the end of the gulling scenes, he is convinced
>Beatrice is in love with him, and he leaves saying, "I will go
>get her picture." I can find the line glossed nowhere. Schmidt's
>glossary lists the use of "picture" in this line as literal, that
>Benedick is going to get an image or likeness of her. Now,
>of course, we can arm him with a mobile, and it all makes
>sense. But then?
>
>Thanks for any ideas you might have.
>
>Cheers,
>Skip Nicholson
>South Pasadena, California
>
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ron Severdia <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 11:20:58 -0700
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
There's a double meaning in that...
The idea is that he's going to get a picture of Beatrice to gaze upon it
as typical young lovers do -- so it's literal. However, the actor might
play the juxtaposition of building the speech up to that point, as if he
was going to profess his love for her, but chicken out and go for the
picture instead. Since he has railed against love so much, this is the
best first step in coming to terms with his new feelings -- and getting
up the gumption to face his friends.
Cheers,
Ron Severdia
PlayShakespeare.com
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Godshalk, William <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 14:25:25 -0400
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
I'd suggest a painted miniature of the loved one that could be worn
about the neck by a chain. See Hamlet (ed. Jenkins) 3.4.53 who discusses
"this picture." Jenkins cites A. C. Sprague's Shakespeare and the
Actors, pp. 166-168, where the case for miniatures is "well put."
W. L. Godshalk
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marilyn A. Bonomi <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 15:01:33 -0400
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
I've always viewed that line as meaning he is going to go sketch her.
[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Frank Whigham <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 14:05:47 -0500
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
What about having a miniature of her painted, as people frequently did
with the royals? There was a busy market for this kind of thing. See the
note in Zitner's Oxford edition.
~Frank Whigham
[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Duncan Salkeld <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 20:20:32 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
As the recent Cobbe portrait controversy would seem to bear out,
Shakespeare's awareness of a growing interest in portraiture is marked
by occasional allusion to, or use of, paintings as properties in his
plays (more commonly termed 'pictures'). In Two Gents, Proteus begs
Silvia for '[t]he picture that is hanging in your chamber', that he may
speak and sigh at least to her 'shadow' (4.2.114-5). Silvia later hands
it to the disguised Julia (4.4.111). The lord, in the induction to The
Taming of the Shrew, gives order for his walls to be hung round with
'all my wanton pictures' (Ind. 1.43), and Benedick, newly convinced of
Beatrice's adoration, determines that he will 'go get her picture'
(2.3.232). In Merchant, Portia is won by selection of her portrait,
hidden in one of three caskets: 'The one of them contains my picture,
Prince' (2.7.11). Hamlet compels Gertrude to 'look here upon this
picture', to see in it 'the front of Jove himself' (3.4.52, 55), and so
too her own guilt. Later in his career, Timon berates a painter and a
poet, impress are paraded in Pericles, and Emilia enters 'with two
pictures' (Two Noble Kinsmen, 4.2.0). There is quite a bit to be said
about Shakespeare's uses of visual images, some of it in an article of
mine forthcoming (I trust). It's worth remembering that Burbage was a
painter and that Shakespeare collaborated with him on a design for the
sixth Earl of Rutland in 1613: Item, 31 Martii to Mr Shakespeare in gold
about my Lorde's impreso, xliiijs; to Richard Burbage for paynting and
making yt, in gold xliiijs. -- iiijli. Viijs.
Duncan Salkeld
Department of English
The University of Chichester
[7]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 16:45:50 -0400
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
When Benedick announces his intention to "go get" Beatrice's picture,
the likeliest explanation is that he means to track down a portrait
miniature, of the kind familiar to us from reproductions of work by
Nicholas Hilliard and others. The proposal is perhaps more interesting
than it might seem, for where he might find such a thing is not obvious
on the face of it. In the course of an established relationship one
party might make a present of such a thing to the other; thus the
speaker of Sonnet 47 refers to a picture of the beloved in his
possession, and Hamlet has one of his father. In Ado, there has not yet
been time enough to have one made for the purpose, however, and in any
case Beatrice would have to be very cooperative, and while he now
believes that she loves him she has not yet confessed it to him. Hero
might have one, or perhaps Leontes, but to borrow from either would be
to expose his new or revitalized love publicly. It occurs to me that he
might possibly have acquired one during the earlier phase of their
relationship, a notion that would indicate that that earlier
relationship was as serious as Beatrice's comments on it seem to
suggest, while indicating Benedick's own continuing interest in her.
David Evett
[8]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dudley Knight <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 17:11:26 -0400
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: RE: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Well, the "naughty" interpretation is that there's a double entendre on
the meanings of "obtain" and "beget", both of which, according to the
OED, date at least from the early 14th century. And it's the
interpretation that I prefer, given that Benedick (I pass over his name
without comment) is -- at this moment in the play -- both overly
credulous about Beatrice's behavior and in some degree of denial about
his own desires, a state that a double entendre fits perfectly.
Dudley Knight
Professor Emeritus
Claire Trevor School of the Arts
University of California, Irvine
[9]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Tuesday, 21 Apr 2009 17:19:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0171 Much Ado "Picture"
Skip Nicholson asks:
>I'm looking for help with Benedick's last line in Act 2 of Much Ado.
>It's the end of the gulling scenes, he is convinced Beatrice is in
love with
>him, and he leaves saying, "I will go get her picture." I can find the
>line glossed nowhere. Schmidt's glossary lists the use of
>"picture" in this line as literal, that Benedick is going to get an
>image or likeness of her. Now, of course, we can arm him with a
mobile, and it
>all makes sense. But then?
>
>"Thanks for any ideas you might have."
Start out with:
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/muchado/section4.rhtml
Then go to:
http://books.google.com/books?id=f9hWTPV0BtEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:literature+intitle:workbook+inauthor:calvo&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES#PPA11,M1
Finally, for greater detail pick up Roy Strong's THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
MINIATURE (1983).
Hope the links work.
Joe Egert
[10]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Conrad Cook <
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
>
Date: Wednesday, 22 Apr 2009 01:02:20 -0400
Subject: Much Ado "Picture"
>I'm looking for help with Benedick's last line in Act 2 of Much Ado.
>It's the end of the gulling scenes, he is convinced Beatrice is in love
>with him, and he leaves saying, "I will go get her picture." I can find
>the line glossed nowhere. Schmidt's glossary lists the use of "picture"
>in this line as literal, that Benedick is going to get an image or
>likeness of her. Now, of course, we can arm him with a mobile, and it
>all makes sense. But then?
It reminds me of Hamlet, to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
H>It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of
H>Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while
H>my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a
H>hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.
The idea here seems to be that painters would create snapshot-sized
portraits folks could carry around with them. I infer that Benedick will
commission such a portrait. (Or possibly buy one ready-made, since she
is a lady of the court.)
In the case of Hamlet about court brown-nosers, it seems that carrying
around a picture of an important person implied a kind of allegiance.
Such an implication works in Much Ado, since after the repudiation at
the altar, Benedick stays with Beatrice rather than going out with his
friends. The actor might've had a prop that he'd use to better moon over
her.
That's all a guess.
Conrad.
PS: I like the idea of Benedick with a cell phone, though.
_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook,
This e-mail 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.
|
