Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 4, No. 266.  Tuesday, 27 April 1993.
 
(1)     From:   Paul Budra <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 26 Apr 93 15:04:56 PDT
        Subj:   historical knowledge in the plays
 
(2)     From:   Kay Stockholder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 26 Apr 93 17:34:32 PDT
        Subj:   SHK 4.0265  *Theater of Envy*; Stepmothers; *TNK*
 
 
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Paul Budra <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 26 Apr 93 15:04:56 PDT
Subject:        historical knowledge in the plays
 
I have a general question for Shakesperians.  I'm looking for moments
in Shakespeare in which one of two things happen.  Either the
characters display an ignorance of history (I'm primarilly interested
in English history, but also want to check classical, biblical, and
other histories), or Shakespeare seems to be going out of his way to
supply historical background information for his audience.  I.E. he
assumes the audience is ignorant of history.  Among the latter might
(I'm being tentative here) be included 1.2 of *R2*, in which the Duchess
of Gloucester more or less reminds Gaunt of his own family history.
 
An adjunct to this might be scenes in Shakespeare, and the surrounding
drama, in which a character seems to have gotten what history he has
from dramatic representation.  There's a great scene of this in Jonson's
*The Devil is an Ass*.
 
I'd appreciate any speculations or examples.  I've been looking at this
stuff for so long that I'm afraid that I'm missing the obvious.
 
        Many thanks.
        Paul Budra
        Simon Fraser University
        Vancouver Canada
 
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Kay Stockholder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 26 Apr 93 17:34:32 PDT
Subject: *Theater of Envy*; Stepmothers; *TNK*
Comment:        SHK 4.0265  *Theater of Envy*; Stepmothers; *TNK*
 
On stepmothers: One could say that Sycorax was Ariel's stepmother,
though he was "born" from her cloven pine after rather than before
the fact.

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