Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 725. Saturday, 10 September 1994.
(1) From: Thomas L. Berger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 09 Sep 94 09:03:22 EDT
Subj: Re: Nude Hamlet and PC
(2) From: Bernice W. Kliman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 21:58 EDT
Subj: Shrew
(3) From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 09 Sep 1994 15:36:55 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Froggy goes acourting
(4) From: Ron Macdonald <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 12:09:01 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Natural deaths
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thomas L. Berger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 09 Sep 94 09:03:22 EDT
Subject: Re: Nude Hamlet and PC
Gosh, that's funny, Harry Hill; I'm a member of at least four majorities
(white, middle-aged, dreary, heterosexual), and I agree with you entirely. But
I'm not allowed to object to Barbara Correll's correct-think. Thank you very
much, Harry Hill, for so doing.
Tom Berger
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bernice W. Kliman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 8 Sep 1994 21:58 EDT
Subject: Shrew
Does Bianca HAVE to be played as a shrew? I think not. Is a woman who uses
tones of cool command a shrew? In 1590? Now?
Isn't it time to rethink Bianca?
Bernice W. Kliman
(3)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 09 Sep 1994 15:36:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Froggy goes acourting
Some while ago, when we were discussing the use of "frogs" as slang for French
people, I quoted Farmer and Henley's contention that "the shield" of Paris
"bore three toads." Luc Borot responded that this is not the case; there seems
to be no evidence for a Parisian armorial shield containing three toads or
frogs.
I may have found the source of Farmer and Henley's mistake. On the titlepage of
THE MISERABLE ESTATE OF THE CITIE OF PARIS AT THIS PRESENT (London, 1590), STC
19197, is what might pass for an armorial shield, and there are three toads. On
page 6 (A3v) is an explanation of the three toads: "At the comming of the
Prince of Parma into the French countries, it is reported there was visibly
seene in the Aire to all his army, three raine bowes, and betweene euery one of
them the forme of a toade . . . ."
Is it possible that Farmer or Henley or someone reporting to them saw this
titlepage and jumped to an incorrect conclusion?
Yours, Bill Godshalk
(4)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ron Macdonald <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Saturday, 10 Sep 1994 12:09:01 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Natural deaths
A brief footnote to a topic that seems to have lapsed. I too heard the talk by
Stephen Greenblatt at the 1991 SAA that Judiana Lawrence mentions. I believe
it was entitled "Eating the Soul" and argued that no death in Shakespeare is
quite "natural." I was reminded of Simone de Beauvoir's account of the death
of her mother, _A Very Easy Death_, and have only now gotten around to tracking
down a pertinent passage that I dimly recalled. It is Beauvoir's conclusion:
"You die not from being born, nor from having lived, nor from old age. You die
from _something_.... There is no such thing as a natural death: nothing that
happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into
question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and,
even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation" (tr.
Patrick O'Brian, New York: 1966, pp. 105-106).
--Ron Macdonald
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