March
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0294. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:52:44 -0500 (EST) Subj: Folio edition (2) From: Kurt Daw <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 08:30:24 EST Subj: Re: Folio editions (3) From: David M Richman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 13:49:51 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0286 Q: Abridged *MND*; Re: Three-Toad Crest (4) From: Tom Dale Keever <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 02:12:11 EST Subj: Re: Richard III and _The Daughter of Time_ (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:52:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: Folio edition Michael: Yes, you remember correctly. I tried to use the Hinman Folio (when it cost $12.50 a copy) as an undergraduate text. And you remember correctly that the students quickly returned to their modernized texts with footnotes. So much for my noble experiment. What I am proposing at present is a modernized student edition with footnotes and with the text based on the Folio (1623). You might wish to look at Margreta de Grazia's SHAKESPEARE VERBATIM: THE REPRODUCTION OF AUTHENTICITY AND THE 1790 APPARATUS. It seems to me that a good deal of contemporary scholarship leads with an insidious intent to a Folio based text with a companion text based on the Quartos. This project will give Shakespearean scholars a good deal of work to do As Bernice Kliman has recently pointed out, some (if not many) of our judgments about the plays are wrong because we are misled by our texts, texts that have been created by editors over the last three hundred years. Editorial decisions have become canonized (when they should be cannonized). I admit that I have been fooled when I have tried to make a subtle point WITHOUT consulting the Folio and/or the Quarto. But I gather from the relative silence that no such project is waiting in the wings and that no one (?) is very enthusiastic. Oh, well. Yours, Bill Godshalk (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kurt Daw <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 08:30:24 EST Subject: Re: Folio editions Re: Michael Young's question: "Could our undergraduates understand a nonedited text?" As a performance teacher I can only echo Bill G.'s appeal for a good folio-based edition. I have frequently taught from modern typeface editions of folio texts and find that acting students, at least, discover these texts to be at least as accessible as modern editions. The simplest explanation I can offer for this is that the considerably lighter puncuation of the folio is a far better guide as to how the texts are to be spoken aloud than modern editions offer. Speaking the texts aloud well usually leads to quicker and deeper insights on my student's parts than does extensive discussion. Perhaps my students are odd, but the elaborate footnoting of modern editions is often more confusing that enlightening to them. So much minutiae gets a note while big issues and questions go unexplored. The biggest problem with using folio-based materials as a teaching approach is that modern typeface folio texts are hard to come by. One source (with which I have no commercial connection) is a series called Shakespeare's Globe Acting Editions, M.H. Publications, 17 West Heath Drive, London, NW11 7QG, UK. At $66 per play these are fairly expnsive but they come with unlimited photocopy rights for teaching and production. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David M Richman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 13:49:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: 5.0286 Q: Abridged *MND*; Re: Three-Toad Crest Comment: Re: SHK 5.0286 Q: Abridged *MND*; Re: Three-Toad Crest I am directing a ninety-minute MND, which is touring to high schools and middle schools in New Hampshire. Eight performers, two vans. I made the abridgements with sadness--it is a desecration to cut so perfect a play. On the other hand, it is important to bring this play, live, to many who have never seen live theatre. I can send the script to the Shaksper fileserver, or directly to the interested parties. Is there sufficient interest to warrant a fileserver mounting? David Richman University of New Hampshire (4)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Dale Keever <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 94 02:12:11 EST Subject: Re: Richard III and _The Daughter of Time_ _Daughter of Time_ is an entertaining read, but unreliable history. Elizabeth MacKintosh, writing under the pen name "Josephine Tey," based her story on only one source, Sir Clements R. Markham, who laid out his combative revisionist theory in _The English Historical Review_ in 1891 and later expanded it for a book length 1906 bio, _Richard III: His Life and Character_. Markham was an energetic and opinionated crank with no qualifications or ability as an historian or as much else besides a clubby Victorian/Edwardian gentleman with independent means, society connections and a full complement of Colonel Blimpish bigotries. This lack did not prevent him from weighing in with strong opinions on numerous erudite topics from medieval history to polar exploration. As one of the chief fund-raisers on the committee sponsoring Scott's South Pole expedition, for instance, he threw his intimidating weight against the suggestion that the explorer consider using dog sleds and skis. ( No! by thunder! Let lesser races do what they will, ENGLISHMEN will conquer the pole with stout British ponies! ) Thanks to "Tey's" unearthing his justly neglected work almost a half century later his pernicious effect on the popular mythology surrounding Richard has been longer lived, though less tragic, than his impact on the hapless Scott. "Tey" may have read nothing more than Markham's opening salvo in The EHR - almost all the points she built her detective's "case" on are there. She certainly looked no further than his work for evidence. Had she done so she'd have learned that several contemporary experts, including the age's recognized authority on the period, James Gairdner, had blown large holes in Markham's theory, whose central point was that Henry VII, not Richard, had murdered the princes in the tower. She also ignored two discoveries in the 1930's that sank it once and for all. The first was the unearthing in Vatican archives of "The Mancini Manuscript," an Italian cleric's 1483 communique to the Pope reporting on events in London. Mancini shreds Markham's fanciful portrait of a London public confident that the young princes were safe in the care of their loving uncle. We now know that the boys disappeared from public view early in Richard's reign and that more than a few of his subjects suspected the worst. A biography by Philip Lindsay in 1933 revived Markham's indictment of Henry VII. In July of that year the bones that had been discovered in The Tower in 1674, long presumed to be those of Edward IV's young sons, were finally disinterred and examined. The results, published in the journal _Archaeologia_ the following year, concluded that the elder of the two boys was between twelve and thirteen when he died and the younger between nine and eleven. The boys were almost certainly killed before the end of 1483. Though this does not prove that Richard ordered them murdered ( personally, I suspect Buckingham ) it does exonerate Henry VII, who entered London two years later. I agree that Saccio is the beginning Shakespearean's best introduction to these complex matters and that Kendall is good reading, but the definitive modern works on Richard and his age are Charles Ross' biographies of Richard and of Edward IV, both published by U. of California Press. "Tey" fans, and I count myself one, should read Colin Dexter's recent homage, _The Wench is Dead_, in which a bed-ridden Inspector Morse unravels a nineteenth century murder mystery and exposes a long hidden injustice.
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0293. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1)From: John Rhoades <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 20:10:47 EST Subject: The Sonnets (2)From: Timothy Bowden <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 15:53:35 PST Subject: Young Friend Belott (3)From: John Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 15:01:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Authors and productions (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Rhoades <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 20:10:47 EST Subject: The Sonnets SHAKSPereans: It seems that most of the discussion over the past few months has discussed only the dramas, so under the category of something completely different, a question for all of you. In reading the sonnets, I was struck by how they seem to function as a transition point between the Elizabethan sonnetteers and seventeenth century poets such as Jonson and Herrick. More specifically, it seems that the absence (?) of a traditional sonnet woman and the absence of stock sonnet machinery (especially war metaphors) paves the way for Jonson and Herrick's poems portraying them as aging lovers. I realize this is but the sketchiest of arguments, but I would appreciate any feedback anyone could offer. Thanks in advance, John Rhoades Queen's UniversityThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Bowden <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 15:53:35 PST Subject: Young Friend Belott I believe, with the recent shifting in the dates of the sonnets to directly overlap at least a portion of the Poet's stay with the Mountjoys, and given especially the identical objectives expressed in both the early poems and the depositions in the Belott suit, we can say with some certainty the early sonnets grew out of an exercise Shakespeare devised to fulfill the mission urged on him by Mrs Mountjoy: pressing the young man to marry. There is at least as much authority for this finding as there is for any other identity of any of the principals sketched by the poet, indeed more than for most of the legend generally accepted in some quarters; the deer poaching, the holding of the horses, the Mermaid matches of wits with Jonson. There. A controversial claim raises the question where a meek inquiry passes unnoticed. Thanks to those who have responded, and shall. (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- For those who think that having Shakespeare present at a production of one of his plays, the following is instructive. It's a short article from *The Manchester Guardian Weekly* of March 27, 1994 (p. 11): Trustees of the estate of the playwright Samuel Beckett are so angered with the interpretation of one of his plays in a production running in London that they have declared its director will never stage his plays again. Deborah Warner's production of Beckett's 20-minute play, Footfalls, opened last week at the Garrick Theatre in the West End with Fiona Shaw in the leading role. Their crime in the eyes of the trustees was in failing to comply with the exacting instructions which the playwright insisted in his will should be followed to the letter in every production of his plays. "We have not done anything about the fact that she has not followed all the stage directions. Life is too short, but she will not be doing Beckett again," said Leah Schmidt, literary agent to the playwright's nephew and heir, Edward Beckett. Ms Warner greeted news of the ban with anger. "It is with deepest regret that I heard this news and urgently ask them to reconsider this position," she said. "Plays are fluid things not objects; they can exist only by being reinter-preted for each generation." The dispute has cost Ms Warner the option to take the production to Paris. Earlier, the trustees raised concerns that five lines of text had been transposed from one character to another. Ms Warner apologised and returned to the original. John Cox
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0291. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: Thomas Berger <TBER@SLUMUS> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 14:14:09 EST Subj: malone society (2) From: J. Scott Kemp <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, Mar 30 21:23:32 1994 Subj: Lit List Interview (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Berger <TBER@SLUMUS> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 94 14:14:09 EST Subject: malone society The Malone Society seeks new members. Founded in 1906, the Malone Society was named after Edmond Malone, editor of the first variorum edition of Shakespeare. The Society's first General Editor was W. W. Greg. Now under the general editorship of Dr. Roger Holdsworth, it continues to publish editions of Renaissance plays from manuscript, photographic facsimiles of printed plays of the period, and editions of original documents related to the drama. These volumes, all of which contain material not readily available elsewhere, maintain the high standard of a ccuracy for which the Society is renowned. They are indispensable to serious students of English drama. SPECIAL "SHAKSPER" OFFER As part of its ongoing membership drive, the Malone Society is offering new members two special packages: (1) 2-4-1 (two for one): Enroll as a member for 1994, and the membership will include the 1993 volume, COLLECTIONS XV ($27.00 U.S., $35.00 Canadian) (COLLECTIONS XV includes a reprint of one of Ralph Crane's transcripts of Middleton's A GAME AT CHESS; a reprint of the part of 'Poore' in an otherwise unknown Jacobean play acted at Christ Chruch, Oxford; a collection of records from the archives of the Middle Temple, relating to dramatic and musical entertainments, 1613-1643; and a letter from Sir Henry Killigrew to the Earl of Leicester enclosing proposals for a fireworks display for Queen Elizabeth.) (2) 3-4-1.5 (three for one and one half): Enroll as a member for 1994, and the membership will include the 1993 volume, COLLECTIONS XV and the 1992 volume, TOM A LINCOLN ($45.00 U.S., $52.00 Canadian). (TOM A LINCOLN, edited by Richard Proudfoot from BL Add MS 61745, dates from 1611-16 and is of historical interest not only for its echoes of Shakespeare but for its burlesque of the conventions of romantic narrative and romantic drama.) Members also receive positively silly discounts on back volumes, special treatment at the Malone Society Dance, and the (incalculable) good will of Tom Berger and Ted McGee. Please send inquiries to: Thomas L. Berger C. E. McGee Department of English Department of English St. Lawrence University Univ. of St. Jerome's College Canton, NY 13617 Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G3 U.S.A. CANADA Thanks, Tom Berger (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: J. Scott Kemp <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, Mar 30 21:23:32 1994 Subject: Lit List Interview Dear Colleagues, Last call for any who would be interested in answering a "short" questionnaire (6 questions) concerning the topic: "How Lit Lists are changing the way we Discuss/Learn English/Literature" Send request toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Attention: Last call! Thanks so much to those who participated in this study. Sincerely, John Scott Kemp Western Carolina UniversityThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0290. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: Robert S. COHEN <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 07:31:38 -0800 (PST) Subj: As You weather and music (2) From: Milla Riggio <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 17:12:10 -0500 (EST) Subj: Computerized Shakespeare and the MLA (3) From: Michael Caulfield <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 01:58:59 -0500 (EST)| Subj: Stylistics (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert S. COHEN <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 07:31:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: As You weather and music Anybody have any thoughts about the weather conditions in the forest scenes of AS YOU LIKE IT? How much of the "icy fang And churlish chiding of the winter's wind" does the exiled Duke and his pals actually face? I've seen Act II begin in the snow, and in the summer, and even (in Munich once) in a steam bath for the aged. Any thoughts? Also: anyone able to share with me some good contemporary scoring for the songs? Robert Cohen, UC Irvine Drama Department (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Milla Riggio <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 17:12:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Computerized Shakespeare and the MLA Dear Fellow Shakesperians: In the last stages of preparing a proposal - probably too long a proposal - for the MLA, I find myself still in need of one gallant volunteer: someone who would be able to and would like to write a fairly brief introduction to a section on computerizing the bard in the MLA volume on Teaching through Performance: this introduction would group the kinds of computer aids available for those teaching Shakespeare; it would be accompanied by an itemized check list of available computer materials (hypercard stacks and such - none of which I understand yet, but which I'm sure I soon will). The section itself will highlight the in-progress MIT program, burt I need a good introduction written by someone who knows what s/he is talking about to place that in context. Any takers? Best, Milla Riggio [email me atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. orThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ] (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael Caulfield <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 31 Mar 1994 01:58:59 -0500 (EST)| Subject: Stylistics During a recent discussion with a friend it was mentioned that "Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast" (from Henry IV, 2) had an undeniable Shakespearian sound. I thought that it might have to do with the modification: the way in which the connotations of "giddy" seem to jar slightly against those of "high". I would be interested to hear of any ideas on this, other examples in S., or works which might help with this question. Michael Caulfield Merrimack, NH
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0289. Thursday, 31 March 1994. (1) From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 11:00:53 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death (2) From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:22:22 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death (3) From: Jean Peterson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 14:17:50 -0500 Subj: ophelia's rue (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Timothy Dayne Pinnow <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 11:00:53 -0600 Subject: 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death Comment: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death To all who responded to my query: First off, many thanks for all the ideas concerning Macbeth's end. I agree with many of you, and if I were producing the whole play, I might not try the different endings that I am drawn to in doing just the final battle. But I am intrigued by the idea that Macbeth is NOT noble at the end of the play. In fact, I am fascinated by the idea that his ambition for "everything" has left him with "nothing" (as in signifying) not even his dignity. It is the price he pays for losing his soul to power. Timothy Dayne Pinnow St. Olaf CollegeThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH> Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 22:22:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death Comment: Re: SHK 5.0284 Re: Macduff; Macbeth's Death Macduff early on in the play indicates his mistrust of Macbeth, or so I read the choric scene 2.4.20-38 (Signet ed.). Macbeth has betrayed his king (Duncan) and his colleague (Banquo) before Macduff leaves for England. Why would Macduff believe that Macbeth will not hold his family hostage? Were I Macbeth, I would. Macbeth makes a mistake and kills Macduff's family. I think Lady Macduff's comment to Ross (4,2,6-14) is telling. Her question remains unanswered. Of course, Macduff is not a completely developed character, and he doesn't indulge in Iago-like soliloquies, but I'm afraid I can't subdue my suspicions. You say I'm cynical and quick to judge. You bet! And if Macduff is indeed "Bellona's bridegroom" (1.2.54) who is fighting in Fife (wouldn't you expect the Thane of Fife to lead the local fighting?), then he is opposed to Macbeth early in the play. I realize that I may not be walking on thin ice here; I may be walking directly on the water! I think Shakespeare likes to suggest, hint, that the primary action of his plays is not isolated. It goes on in a context, and that context is often shadowy, illusive. I think Shakespeare depends on the active (paranoid) auditor to fill it in. And don't we ever? Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jean Peterson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 30 Mar 1994 14:17:50 -0500 Subject: ophelia's rue In Zeffirelli's film *Hamlet*, Helena Bonham-Carter's Ophelia hands the rue to Claudius, delivering the line "You must wear YOUR rue with a difference" with supremely nasty emphasis on "your." Just another staging possibility... Jean Peterson Bucknell University