July
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0328 Wednesday, 28 July 2010 [1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 1:23:01 PM EDT Subj: Re: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings [2] From: John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 1:45:33 PM EDT Subj: Re: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings [3] From: Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 8:51:36 PM EDT Subj: Re: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings [4] From: William Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 27, 2010 2:56:46 PM EDT Subj: RE: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 1:23:01 PM EDT Subject: 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Comment: Re: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings We aren't talking about today's Helsingborg, Helsingborg is a small Swedish town across the strait that separates Sweden from the Danish Helsingor. In any case, there are ample references to both the Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern families in Renaissance Denmark, as I believe a check of the SHAKSPER archives will confirm. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 1:45:33 PM EDT Subject: 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Comment: Re: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Syd Kasten wrote: >But a question more germane to the list is what was in the author's >mind when he planted these two north-European named characters >among the almost consistently south-European named characters of >the main plot? This is a question that has been answered many times -- and at least once by myself. The 1586 engraved portrait of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (intended to be the frontispiece for one of his books) has the shields of the 16 noble families from which he is descended, and these include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Brahe sent copies of the engraving as publicity to England, mentioning the English mathematician Sir Thomas Digges. Sir Thomas's son Leonard was a poet, and wrote one of the prefatory poems in the First Folio. Any guesses as to how Shakespeare came to hear the names? John Briggs [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 8:51:36 PM EDT Subject: 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Comment: Re: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Syd Kasten offers his impression that Hamlet's main plot is occupied primarily by people of south-European names: "we are talking about an Elsinore where everyone had names like Claudius, Marcellus, Bernardo, Laertes etc. To me R & G's Germanic names stand out starkly," which put me to scrounging through the play for evidence of North European names. More or less central to the main plot, as I conceive it, are Hamlet (father and son) and Gertrude, all irreproachably northern in name. The ambassador Voltemand is perhaps not central, but unless we're addled by stoups of liquor from Yaughan's tavern we all remember poor Yorick, whose memory was so green in Hamlet's thoughts. Hamlet's nationalistic quip about the French bet against the Danish bet might instead initiate an interesting discussion over whether or not Shakespeare meant to associate the old regime and the "true" Denmark with Germanic/Norse names and contrast them with the usurping Claudius and his crew with the more distinctly foreign southern/Latin ones. No, I have not forgotten the universal confidant Horatio, consideration of whom would make such discussion all the more interesting. Tony [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 27, 2010 2:56:46 PM EDT Subject: 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Comment: RE: SHK 21.0318 Hamlet's Feminine Endings Syd Kasten quotes: "That being of so young days brought up with him and sith so neighbour'd to his youth and haviour,..." and suggests that these words: "must refer to their being fellow students of Hamlet's at Wittenberg and, like Horatio, truants." If so, they don't seem to be on speaking terms. Kasten further writes: "I did check the Danish yellow pages and found that there indeed many Rosenkrantzes but not a single Guildenstern, Gildenstern, Guldenstern etc." Let me suggest that an internet search might be more successful. It was for me. Bill _______________________________________________________________ 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 21.0327 Wednesday, 28 July 2010 [1] From: John W Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 2:33:23 PM EDT Subj: Re: SHK 21.0315 SBReviews on the Internet [2] From: Paul Barry <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 10:57:56 PM EDT Subj: Re: SHK 21.0315 SBReviews on the Internet [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: John W Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 2:33:23 PM EDT Subject: 21.0315 SBReviews on the Internet Comment: Re: SHK 21.0315 SBReviews on the Internet Mari Bonomi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > >Paul Barry wrote: > >We don't need to search for ways of doing them differently. >We only need to try to do them in keeping with the >Playwright's intent. Ah but now you are opening an entirely different can of wriggly grey things! Your statement presumes that somewhere we have *the* Playwright's intent. But that we do not have. Actually, no, it presumes no such thing -- only that Shakespeare, being a sane adult, was capable of forming an intent, and that his intent is in some measure discoverable and approachable. God knows we can't always do more than approach. Textual problems and topical allusions that have passed over the historical horizon are obvious barriers. So, one can imagine, are conflicts within Shakespeare's own mind, or between Shakespeare and his society, such as issues touching the Reformation in "Hamlet", "King John", "Twelfth Night", and "Henry VIII". But that does not mean that other matters are not clear, at least to anyone reasonably familiar with English society ca. 1600. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Barry <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 10:57:56 PM EDT Subject: 21.0315 SBReviews on the Internet Comment: Re: SHK 21.0315 SBReviews on the Internet It's there if you're willing to take the time and make the effort to piece it out. PAUL BARRY _______________________________________________________________ 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 21.0326 Wednesday, 28 July 2010 From: Gabriel Egan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 1:25:48 PM EDT Subject: 21.0317 Pacino as Shylock in the Park Comment: Re: SHK 21.0317 Pacino as Shylock in the Park John Drakakis writes of the possibility that Shylock and Morocco were doubled: >We know that the Jew habitually wears a >'gaberdine' (a loose fitting robe that could >easily cover the change of costume that >would be required if the actor did double as >Morocco, but the one thing that he would have >difficulty in changing quickly was his >facial colour). This theatrical difficulty appears to have been actively addressed within a couple of decades of the play's first performance. The apothecary John Rumler is identified in Ben Jonson's epilogue to The Gypsies Metamorphosed (1621) as the supplier of a substance that enabled a quick-change ("fetched off with water and a ball") from blackface to whiteface. The matter is handled in detail in Andrea R. Stevens "'Assisted by a barber': The court apothecary, special effects, and The Gypsies Metamorphosed" Theatre Notebook 61 (2007): 2-11. Gabriel Egan _______________________________________________________________ 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 21.0325 Wednesday, 28 July 2010 From: Cornelius Novelli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 11:14:57 PM EDT Subject: Hermione? Like David Evett, I found the ending of the Stratford ONT production of "The Winter's Tale" in 1986 (?) with Goldie Semple and Colm Feore to be memorable and mesmerizing. And an earlier production in the late 1970s had a similar powerful impact at the ending with a similar sense of full reunion. Brian Bedford was quietly paranoid and later penitent as Leontes, and Margot Dionne a powerful Hermione. Martha Henry was Paulina in that production, but not I think in the later one. Neil Novelli _______________________________________________________________ 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 21.0324 Wednesday, 28 July 2010 From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: July 26, 2010 12:51:33 PM EDT Subject: 21.0314 Two Gents at Stratford Festival Comment: Re: SHK 21.0314 Two Gents at Stratford Festival Stage directions for Jonson's *Oberon* (1611) clearly envisage (two) real bears, white, probably the two polar bears acquired from the royal household in 1609 by Henslowe and Alleyn for their bear-baiting operation, and perhaps available for WT -- see Teresa Grant, "White Bears in Mucedorus, The Winter's Tale, and Oberon, the Faery Prince," Notes and Queries 48 (Sept. 2001), pp. 311-13. But a brown bear from the bear-baiting, or otherwise kept and trained for public show, would have served. Bearly, Dave Evett _______________________________________________________________ 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.