Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 6, No. 0670. Friday, 3 November 1995.
(1) From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 01 Nov 1995 16:55:11 -0500 (EST)
Subj: Re: SHK 6.0862 Julius Caesar
(2) From: Edward Friedlander, M.D. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 2 Nov 1995 14:03:34 CST
Subj: Re: SHK 6.0862 Ham
(3) From: Martin Green <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 2 Nov 1995 19:01:25 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 6.0859 Re: Interpretation; Southampton
(4) From: Nick Ranson <R1NR@AKRONVM>
Date: Friday, 03 Nov 95 12:07:17 EST
Subj: Re: SHK 6.0857 Qs: 15-Min. Ham.;
(1)----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 01 Nov 1995 16:55:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 6.0862 Julius Caesar
Comment: Re: SHK 6.0862 Julius Caesar
Just a point regarding Steve Sohmer's suggestion that Shakespeare played Julius
Caesar, Don Foster says that Shakespeare's role or roles are "uncertain, due
to apparent revision and shortening." But Don says "Most probably, Decius;
and, somewhat less probably, Flavius." Steve's suggestion fits with the early
rumor that Shakespeare's specialty was "kings" (as Don suggests in *1H4*, *H5*,
*AWW,* etc.).
Yours, Bill Godshalk
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From: Edward Friedlander, M.D. <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 2 Nov 1995 14:03:34 CST
Subject: 6.0862 Ham
Comment: Re: SHK 6.0862 Ham
I'd always figured that Laertes died faster than Hamlet did because Hamlet
stabbed him hard and deep (Hamlet was angry) while Laertes just pricked Hamlet
(Laertes was hesitant, afraid, and ashamed of himself, knew he was fouling
Hamlet, and so forth.)
I guess this is like asking "How many children did Lady Macbeth have? ("I have
given suck, and....") Was she a wet-nurse, or children by a previous marriage,
or ..." Blame the pathologist in me for being curious about Hamlet's wound.
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From: Martin Green <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 2 Nov 1995 19:01:25 -0500
Subject: 6.0859 Re: Interpretation; Southampton
Comment: Re: SHK 6.0859 Re: Interpretation; Southampton
I must concede - - more in anger (at myself) than in sorrow (at being caught) -
- John Owen's observation that I may be as full of hot air, and as given to
flaming, as anybody else on this list. He has certainly pricked my balloon,
and I am completely deflated.
But having pleaded guilty, may I present (as we permit defendants to do in
courts-martial) a couple of items in extenuation and mitigation?
John Owen writes that my suggestion that through Southampton, Shakespeare had
access to the Essex House circle, is an "unprovable assertion." That it may be,
but all I claimed for it was that it was a reasonable surmise, based upon facts
certain. I did not present as a "fact" Shakespeare's possible close personal
relationship with Southampton, but I did say that that was a reasonable
inference from the warmth of Shakespeare's SECOND dedication of a work to
Southampton.
And second, the charge that there is a lot of hot air on this list is not
really a flame, because I don't believe that anyone will step forward and claim
that I was defaming him or her; when the preacher denounces greed, lust,
gluttony and hypocrisy, who in the congregation rises and says, "I resent this
attack on me"?
What I was "caught" at was claiming that Shakespeare's dedications to
Southampton by themselves warrant inferences which (reasonable though they may
be to me) many other reasonable persons find to be, in the absence of other
evidence, just too speculative. Bill Godshalk's query as to whether any hard
facts can be adduced that Shakespeare was indeed patronized by Southampton is
the exactly right question, and one to which I have devoted much research, as a
result of which I have assembled a "mountain of evidence" (of all types of
mountains, as we have found out, the one most likely to wash away), which I
think definitely demonstrates a close personal relationship between Shakespeare
and Southampton, and I have published my findings and conclusions on this
matter. I did not mention these other reasons (based primarily on puns and
allusions in Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, the Sonnets, and the early plays) for
positing a Shakespeare-Southampton relationship because I did not wish to
appear to be promoting my work, which in any event cannot be easily summarized,
but which does treat of Southampton's (positive) response to the dedications -
- and of which I will here write no more . . . except, perhaps, to argue,
preemptively, that I hope that one who has researched and written on a topic
will not be too harshly criticized for posting to this list on a matter
relating to that topic.
But the bottom line is - - John Owen is right. And - - reverting to another
matter - - perhaps one of the most valuable functions of this list is the
pricking of hot air balloons.
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From: Nick Ranson <R1NR@AKRONVM>
Date: Friday, 03 Nov 95 12:07:17 EST
Subject: 6.0857 Qs: 15-Min. Ham.;
Comment: Re: SHK 6.0857 Qs: 15-Min. Ham.;
Fifteen Minute Hamlet: I have an LP and a dubbed tape of three versions of S
toppar's Dogg's Troupe Hamlet I'd be glad to share: details privately on my ret
urn next Monday if interested: email me direct. Nick.