Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0208. Tuesday, 14 March 1995.
(1) From: Skip Shand <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 12 Mar 1995 20:30:14 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Re: SHK 6.0203 Qs: Freeman's *Scripts*
(2) From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 13 Mar 95 10:18:32 -0500
Subj: Star Trek: Generations
(3) From: Don Foster <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 13 Mar 1995 11:25:54 -0400 (EDT)
Subj: Re: early marriage
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Skip Shand <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 12 Mar 1995 20:30:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 6.0203 Qs: Freeman's *Scripts*
Comment: Re: SHK 6.0203 Qs: Freeman's *Scripts*
Freeman's Scripts:
They're available directly from Freeman, at the Department of Theatre,
University of British Columbia. (Actually, there's a better Vancouver address,
and if no one else has posted it by Tuesday, I'll do so then.) Don't recall
whether W'sT has been entered. Cost, last time I bought one, was $50 (Can.) for
the disk, which includes rights to perform.
These scripts, or something like them, are very useful, IF you know how to use
them. They preserve (in a readable form for actors, unlike photo facsimiles of
quartos and folio), Early Modern spelling, punctuation, medial capitalisation,
lineation, and so on. The puncuation, in particular, is of considerable use
because, of course, Early Modern punctuation is closely related to orality,
often especially to breath. One can become, following Freeman's discussions of
typographical and orthographical features, dangerously schematic about such
evidence, and some actors (coaches, too?) are tempted to attribute the actable
nature of such features to authorial intent, but if you use the material for
exploration (rather than for dictation), always stressing optionality, it can
be very productive indeed. I am currently working on professional productions
of Lear and Measure, both using Folio scripts (the Lear has actually been
prepared by the director), and I have coached actors in a production of
Freeman's Macbeth script as well.
A major advantage of such scripts is that they provide much less interpretive
closure than do modern editions, and thus may be very useful to processes which
are open and exploratory rather than prescriptive/predictive. (Caveat: Be sure
to sit down and collate any Freeman script closely against, for instance,
Hinman's Folio--Freeman does tend to create the very occasional typo. And be
sure, before setting out, that the Folio version of your play is the one you
want to produce--Freeman has not yet turned to publishing a set of Quarto
texts, and so his work is currently part of a strong tendency, in the theatre,
to canonise the Folio as a peculiarly privileged theatrical document.)
(2)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 13 Mar 95 10:18:32 -0500
Subject: Star Trek: Generations
I don't know if anyone has posted this tidbit, but as a Shakespearean trekker,
I found the final moments of *Star Trek: Generations,* which I finally saw at
my budget theater this weekend, very affecting. As rescue parties search the
wreckage of the Enterprise-D for survivors (including Data's cat Spot), Riker
and Picard search through the Captain's quarters for something: it turns out to
be (although this is never articulated on screen, but those of us who have
watched the show know), his one volume (Folio reprint?) of Shakespeare. A nice
touch.
Chris Gordon
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From: Don Foster <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 13 Mar 1995 11:25:54 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: early marriage
Re: early marriage
It hasn't yet been noted that the age at which one married, if at all, had much
to do with one's inheritance. By and large, older brothers married at a
younger age than younger brothers. Primogeniture made it difficult for younger
brothers to marry in their teens. When the principal heir married young, he
generally required a young bride. Arranged marriages between children of
aristocratic families were often negotiated (and sometimes formalized with a
ceremony) when the betrothed individuals were only 8-12 years old, with
consummation of the marriage deferred until after the bride's 14th birthday (or
thereabouts). A familiar instance: when Frances Howard, countess of Essex,
wished to annul her marriage in order to wed Robert Carr, her success depended
on whether she could persuade the church that her marriage had never been
consummated.
Sometimes political and financial factors both played a role in early marriage.
For example, Frances Howard's elder cousin--another Lady Frances Howard--was
secretly married at age 13 to Henry Prannell, a wealthy vintner. This Frances
Howard was an orphan and a cousin to the Queen, a girl whose marriage-prospects
threatened Elizabeth's control over her own succession. Had Frances's
relatives not arranged a match for her at age 13, Burghley at Elizabeth's
behest would have forced a match upon her soon after she turned 14.
This Frances Howard (later countess of Hertford by her marriage to Edward
Seymour) is sometimes confused with Seymour's second wife of the same name
(ob., 1598); Seymour married two Frances Howards in succession after his
disastrous elopement with Katherine Grey. For more info, see D. Foster,
"'Against the perjured falsehood of your tongues': Frances Howard on the Course
of Love," *ELR* 24.1 (Winter 1994): 72-103.
Don Foster