The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0828  Thursday, 10 September 1998.

[1]     From:   Franklin J. Hildy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 09 Sep 1998 11:27:35 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

[2]     From:   Stephen Schultz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 09 Sep 98 14:17:08 EDT
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

[3]     From:   David J. Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 07:05:04 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

[4]     From:   Don Rowan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 08:15:33 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

[5]     From:   Don Rowan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 08:26:58 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

[6]     From:   Jim Shaw <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 10:11:57 GMT
        Subj:   De Witt


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Franklin J. Hildy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 09 Sep 1998 11:27:35 -0400
Subject: 9.0822  De Witt
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

It was discovered by Karal T. Gaederts  c. 1886-7 , I believe, and
published in 1888. It had a profound influence. check out my essay in
New Issues in the Reconstruction of Shakespeare's Theatre, 1990.

[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Stephen Schultz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 09 Sep 98 14:17:08 EDT
Subject: 9.0822  De Witt
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

The De Witt drawing was discovered in 1881, and the immediate effect
upon Shakespearean production was that everyone continued to do the sort
of pictorial Shakespeare they'd been doing and that Henry Irving
over-trumped everybody with Shakespeare of unparalleled visual
awesomeness.  BUT William Poel was moved to try a Q1 <Hamlet> in a quite
simple setting which did not duplicate De Witt's vision but took it as
inspiration.  Poel begat Barker and a lot of other people who eventually
destroyed the nineteenth century tradition of pictorial, archeological
realism.

[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           David J. Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 07:05:04 +0100
Subject: 9.0822  De Witt
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

Scott Crozier wrote:

>Does anybody know when the de Witt drawing of the Swan was discovered
>and what the initial effect of the discovery was on the staging of
>Elizabethan drama?

From Samuel Schoenbaum's *William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life*,
p.109, referring to the de Witt Swan drawing:

"The drawing was discovered by Karl Theodor Gaedertz of the Royal
Library, Berlin, and announced to the English-speaking world by the
Berlin correpsondent of *The Times* on 10 May 1888.  In the same year
Gaedertz published the drawing in Bremen as the frontispiece to his *Zur
Kenntnis der altenglischen Buehne nebst andern Beitraegen zur
Shakespeare-Litteratur*.  It has been often reproduced, usually in
line-block renderings.  For a detailed discussion of the Swan sketch,
see D. F. Rowan, 'The "Swan" Revisited', *Research Opportunities in
Renaissance Drama*, x (1967), 33-48."

I have not read Rowan's article, and so don't know whether it discusses
the effect of the drawing on staging.

Dave Kathman
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Don Rowan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 08:15:33 +0000
Subject: 9.0822  De Witt
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

Dear Scott: The drawing was discovered in the library at Utrecth (sp.)
by Theodore Gaederts (Sp.) and published in The Times of London in 1888.
Gaederts went on to develop or propose the Alternation  Theory of
Elizabethan Staging. Sorry I don't have time to check spelling. Don R.

[5]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Don Rowan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 08:26:58 +0000
Subject: 9.0822  De Witt
Comment:        Re: SHK 9.0822  De Witt

Dear Scott, I am afraid my wit is short, you may well understand. I
haven't got my notes and it may have been a man named Brodmeyer who
developed the Alternation Theory. In any case the drawing was reviewed
by William Archer, also in The Times, who didn't say a word about the
drawing's lack of an "inner stage." You will probably have many
responses, but if you are still interested, I will dig out my notes,
which date from a century later, 1988. I spent that year in London where
I met poor Arthur Brown, who went on to Monash. Would welcome a note as
to when he died. Once again, Don.

[6]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Jim Shaw <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 10 Sep 1998 10:11:57 GMT
Subject:        De Witt

The de Witt drawing was discovered by Dr. Gadertz, of the Royal Library,
Berlin, in 1888 and the find was reported in The Times on May 11 of that
year.  A paper on the discovery was read by Henry B. Wheatley at the
137th New Shakespeare Society meeting in November 1888 and published  in
New Shakespeare Society Publications, Ser. I, Pt. ii (1887-1892),
214-225.

Yours,
Jim Shaw
Shakespeare Institute

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