The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 27.241 Friday, 22 July 2016
[1] From: Mari Bonomi <
Date: July 8, 2016 at 5:10:02 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: MV Appropriation; MV Dialog
[2] From: Jim Carroll <
Date: July 8, 2016 at 7:14:21 PM EDT
Subject: Re: MV Appropriation
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mari Bonomi <
Date: July 8, 2016 at 5:10:02 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: MV Appropriation; MV Dialog
I was quite willing to allow Bill Blanton's offer of one possible dimension of meaning in Merchant.
And then I got to this paragraph: “By late 1596, Elizabeth was 63 years old, and showing her age. To Shakespeare and the Earls of Essex and Southampton, Elizabeth was like the Sibyl: she just kept on living whereas they desperately needed a regime change.”
ExCUSE me? Where have we even a shred of evidence that Shakespeare “desperately needed a regime change”? Essex and Southampton we know, of course. But Shakespeare?
I am no scholar, but I am an avid reader and I have read a lot of Elizabethan history as well as material about Shakespeare. Nowhere have I ever seen such an assertion made.
Mari Bonomi
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Carroll <
Date: July 8, 2016 at 7:14:21 PM EDT
Subject: Re: MV Appropriation
After this interesting set of posts I think I can speak for everyone by saying how great it is to have Hardy back, and with the Shakespeare list!
[Editor’s Note: Sorry if my return was precipitous. –Hardy]
To Bill Blanton: I can believe Shakespeare might have colored his portrayal of Portia with touches of the queen’s habits or character. He might have wanted to equate Portia and her attractive qualities with the queen to flatter the queen, but that’s hardly provable. As an edition of Shakespeare that I have puts it “To no other writer of the period could we be indebted for the charming combination of womanly grace, and dignity, and playfulness, which is found in Portia.” So analogies could be found between one good woman and another without any intention by Shakespeare to connect Portia with the queen. The difficulty in making the association is that introducing Elizabeth explicitly into the play does exactly what for the drama or the story itself?
Jim Carroll