March
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0385. Wednesday, 26 March 1997. [1] From: Phyllis Rackin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 09:41:04 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women [2] From: Grant Moss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 10:24:27 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women [3] From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 16:52:54 GMT Subj: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women [4] From: Melissa Aaron <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 15:39:17 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women [5] From: AdrianKiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 6 Mar 1997 10:37:41 +1100 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Phyllis Rackin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 09:41:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Comment: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Two good places to start would be Stephen Orgel's book *Impersonations: the performance of gender in Shakespeare's England* (Cambridge UP, 1996) and James Stokes' article "Women and Mimesis in Medieval and Renaissance Somerset (and Beyond)," *Comparative Drama* 27:176-96. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Grant Moss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 10:24:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Comment: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Re Karen Coley's inquiry about the use of boys to play female roles, I would strongly recommend Lisa Jardine's _Still Harping on Daughters_, which deals with a number of the issues that Ms. Coley raised. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 16:52:54 GMT Subject: 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Comment: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women An obvious place to look is Stephen Orgel's recent book, Impersonations: The performance of gender in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge, 1996), where reference will be found to the substantial literature on the topic. David Lindley University of Leeds [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Melissa Aaron <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 25 Mar 1997 15:39:17 -0600 Subject: 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Comment: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women There is a record of a French company with actresses playing at the Blackfriars in the late 1620's or early 1630's. The actresses were very much disliked. Queen Henrietta Maria loved to act privately, and was very much criticized for it-one of her plays was *The Shepherd's Paradise," 1632. Earlier Queen Anne was told she ought not to appear in a masque every year-not even a play-because negative opinion was so strong. See William Prynne, Histriomastix-look in the index under "Women Actors, Notorious Whores." I can't see why economic imperative would have much to do with it. On the continent, acting was often as not a family business. And there's no law or document of control that I know of, except assuming that what applies to the church ("women shall not speak in church" ) applies to the theater. I'd say it was social custom. Melissa Aaron University of Wisconsin-Madison [5]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Adrian Kiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Mar 1997 10:37:41 +1100 (EST) Subject: 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women Comment: Re: SHK 8.0383 Q: Boys to Women To Karen Coley I think that Stephen Orgel's recently-published _Impersonations_ should answer, or at least address, most of your questions. "Why did the English stage take boys for women" is one of the key questions in this book. If I remember correctly (and I may be oversimplifying) he makes the point that England was the only country which made such a big thing of boy actors (though Spain experimented with it, only to come to the conclusion that boys were even less morally acceptable than women on stage), and that there was in fact no law on the subject-just theatrical practice. And of course women did occasionally appear on English stages-there were Italian actresses in touring companies, and women performed in amateur situations such as performances at court. As for the Italian castrati, this was a specific response (I believe) to conditions in the Vatican, where women were not permitted on stage so the operatic soprano and alto roles had to be sung by castrati. But of course their popularity took them much further than the stages of the Vatican. Adrian Kiernander
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0383. Tuesday, 25 March 1997. From: Karen Coley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 24 Mar 1997 12:33:53 -0600 (CST) Subject: Boys to Women This is my first posting on SHAKSPER, and in the last two and a half years that I have been monitoring off and on, I have never seen a discussion of why boys are used for women on the English Renaissance stage. People speculate that there was a moral, perhaps Puritan, objection to women actors. Yet in Jonson's satire of the Puritan preacher Busy in *Bartholomew Fair*, Busy criticizes the theater for its transvestite cross-dressing. I know from Walter Cohen's *Drama of a Nation* that the Council of Castile, the Spanish equivalent to Elizabeth's Privy Council, disputed the issue of actresses. I hear tell that the Renaissance Italian stage had actresses (they also had castrattos). But is there any source which can tell me if boys playing women on the English stage was codified law, dramatic custom, economic imperative, and/or social expectation. If this has already been exhaustively covered in the conference, can someone refer me to the record number where I can find the conversation? Karen Coley Loyola University of Chicago
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0384. Tuesday, 25 March 1997. From: Gabriel Wasserman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 24 Mar 1997 16:25:35 -0500 Subject: 8.0381 Shall I die? [No, thou shalt not!] Comment: Re: SHK 8.0381 Shall I die? [No, thou shalt not!] > >Could anyone send me a copy of the text of *Shall I Die?* I know it's in the Oxford Shakespeare, but I don't have a copy of that. I want to set it to music, which I am also doing to Jonson's *To the memory of my beloved, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us*, which I am doing a Romantic Period-type setting of.<< Sorry, I already found it. It's on the internet at http://www.op.net/docs/Literary/Shakespeare/ A song Shall I die? Shall I fly Lovers' baits and deceits, sorrow breeding? Shall I tend? Shall I send? Shall I sue, and not rue my proceeding? In all duty her beauty Binds me her servant for ever. If she scorn, I mourn, I retire to despair, joining never. {2} Yet I must vent my lust And explain inward pain by my love conceiving. If she smiles, she exiles All my moan; if she frown, all my hopes deceiving Suspicious doubt, O keep out, For thou art my tormentor. Fie away, pack away; I will love, for hope bids me venture. {3} 'Twere abuse to accuse My fair love, ere I prove her affection. Therefore try! Her reply Gives thee joy or annoy, or affliction. Yet howe'er, I will bear Her pleasure with patience, for beauty Sure will not seem to blot Her deserts, wronging him doth her duty. {4} In a dream it did seem But alas, dreams do pass as do shadows I did walk, I did talk With my love, with my dove, through fair meadows. Still we passed till at last We sat to repose us for pleasure. Being set, lips met, Arms twined, and did bind my heart's treasure. {5} Gentle wind sport did find Wantonly to make fly her gold tresses. As they shook I did look, But her fair did impair all my senses. As amazed, I gazed On more than a mortal complexion. You that love can prove Such force in beauty's inflection. {6} Next her hair, forehead fair, Smooth and high; neat doth lie, without wrinkle, Her fair brows; under those, Star-like eyes win love's prize when they twinkle. In her cheeks who seeks Shall find there displayed beauty's banner; O admiring desiring Breeds, as I look still upon her. {7} Thin lips red, fancy's fed With all sweets when he meets, and is granted There to trade, and is made Happy, sure, to endure still undaunted. Pretty chin doth win Of all their culled commendations; Fairest neck, no speck; All her parts merit high admirations. {8} Pretty bare, past compare, Parts those plots which besots still asunder. It is meet naught but sweet Should come near that so rare 'tis a wonder. No mis-shape, no scape Inferior to nature's perfection; No blot, no spot: She's beauty's queen in election. {9} Whilst I dreamt, I, exempt >From all care, seemed to share pleasure's plenty; But awake, care take For I find to my mind pleasures scanty. Therefore I will try To compass my heart's chief contenting. To delay, some say, In such a case causeth repenting. -William Shakespeare
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0382. Monday, 24 March 1997. [1] From: Steve Sohmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 23 Mar 1997 16:53:00 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0378 Re: St. Crispin's Day [2] From: Andrew Gurr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 24 Mar 1997 11:31:23 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Re: SHK 8.0378 Re: St. Crispin's Day [3] From: Sean K. Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 23 Mar 1997 10:52:59 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 8.0379 Re: Ideology [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Sohmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 23 Mar 1997 16:53:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: 8.0378 Re: St. Crispin's Day Comment: Re: SHK 8.0378 Re: St. Crispin's Day Dear Friends, In Naomi Lieber's otherwise astute assessment of the significance of St. Crispin's Day to H5, she writes: "the performance of _Julius Caesar_ coincided with St. Michael's day (Michaelmas), October 10." If I'm not mistaken, Thomas Platter's memoir cites a performance of JC on 21 September, the official date of an Autumnal Equinox which had actually occurred on 11 September due to the flaw in Caesar's Julian calendar (which England followed until 1751). Best, Steve [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andrew Gurr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 24 Mar 1997 11:31:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 8.0378 Re: St. Crispin's Day Comment: Re: SHK 8.0378 Re: St. Crispin's Day I'm puzzled by Naomi Liebler's ascription of the launch of Julius Caesar to Michaelmas 1599. Thomas Platter saw it on 21 September. As for Crispin's day, Shakespeare wrote Henry V in more of a hurry and with more distractions than usual-it has several oddities and discontinuities. The one thing we can be sure of is that he used Holinshed closely, and Holinshed does highlight the day of the battle as (quote) the five and twenieth of October in the yeare 1415, being then fridaie, and the feast of Crispine and Crispinian, a daie faire and fortunate to the English, but most sorrowfull and unluckie to the French (unquote). We should be grateful that he did not emphasise that it was a Friday. Andrew Gurr. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean K. Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 23 Mar 1997 10:52:59 -0800 Subject: 8.0379 Re: Ideology Comment: Re: SHK 8.0379 Re: Ideology >It would be difficult to discuss seriously the question of ideology if >you are content to remain at this purely empirical level. At the moment >we seem to be talking completely at cross purposes. And it would be impossible to discuss seriously the question of aesthetics, if you are content to remain at this purely political level. What do you mean by "empirical" anyway? If you mean "prompted by a certain Humean scepticism, untempered by Kantian idealism" then I suppose I'd be honoured to plead guilty. Cheers, Sean
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 8.0381. Sunday, 23 March 1997. From: Leonard Wasserman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 20 Mar 1997 16:23:14 -0500 Subject: Shall I die? [No, thou shalt not!] Could anyone send me a copy of the text of *Shall I Die?* I know it's in the Oxford Shakespeare, but I don't have a copy of that. I want to set it to music, which I am also doing to Jonson's *To the memory of my beloved, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us*, which I am doing a Romantic Period-type setting of.