The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0079  Saturday, 16 January 1999.

[1]     From:   Richard J Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 15 Jan 1999 09:34:37 -0800 (PST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0067 Re: Psalm 46

[2]     From:   Melissa D. Aaron <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 15 Jan 1999 13:12:07 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0072 Re: The Theatre; Sh. in Love

[3]     From:   Ronald Dwelle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 15 Jan 1999 20:32:46 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0073 Spin-off -R&J under the bridge


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Richard J Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 15 Jan 1999 09:34:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 10.0067 Re: Psalm 46
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0067 Re: Psalm 46

Those who don't like the idea that Shakespeare had a hand in the KJV
will be happy to know that there is no proof that he did.

On the other hand, there is no proof that those 50 odd men appointed to
the job did the work either.  You'll not find any correspondence or work
sheets, or reports of conferences, nor any trace of the great amount of
paper that must have been created in such an enormous effort.

There is one exception, a few pages by Bilson, I believe it was, some
linguistic quibble he was attentive to, but in no way was he building a
style or making poetry.

It was a job that lasted 6 years at least, and there is no paper trail.
After being appointed to the task, those 50 odd men are no longer heard
about, leaving not a paper clip behind to make us suppose they were busy
at the job.

Take Lancelot Andrewes, for example, more capable and longer remembered
by History than any of the others.  I believe he once mentioned in a
letter of his appointment, but he left us nothing to let us know of his
work.  And when the work was done, not a man of them all was commended
by the King, and thereafter, in epitaph, or coin, or with the smallest
note were they remembered for this magnificent effort.  Why not?

Of course it is only a question, this "why not?", and as to Shakespeare
being called to the job, again "why not?"  If the man >did< help with
the work, and if the best of the language came from his pen, he just
might have fooled about with sonnet 46 to code himself as a worker,
since it seems that somewhere along the line it was agreed that nobody
was going to get any credit for the job.  Why not?  The Elizabethans
were full of word play, ciphering, puns, acrostics, anagrams, and so
forth.

Shakespeare was fairly idle in Stratford during the years that the KJV
was being translated, but no matter if he wrote a play or two in those 6
years, for we know that he wrote at a prodigous rate, and might have
time enough to smooth out Tyndale and draw from the best of the Geneva
Bible, and let all the others be satisfied that they were honored with
the "appointment" of King James to do the work, and then take the rest
of the day off.

The 46th Psalm may be only a small breeze that whispers some rumor to
us, but even such a small wind is more than the breath left behind by
those other 50 "translators".

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Melissa D. Aaron <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 15 Jan 1999 13:12:07 -0500
Subject: 10.0072 Re: The Theatre; Sh. in Love
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0072 Re: The Theatre; Sh. in Love

>> * The apothecary's hat. Cast as the apothecary), in the
>> play-within-the-movie, producer Hugh Fennyman (Tom Wilkinson) fusses
>> anxiously over wearing just the right hat.
>
>I thought this might be a very, very in-joke about Mark Rylance, a sorta
>actor-manager with a fairly well known fancy for hats.

Actually, the echoes I caught were Nick Bottom ("What beard were I best
to play it in?")  and oddly, to Jane Austen.  You may perhaps remember
Mr.  Rushworth in Mansfield Park obsessing about his two-and-forty lines
as Count Cassell, not to mention his blue costume with the pink lining.

Melissa D. Aaron
University of Michigan

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Ronald Dwelle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 15 Jan 1999 20:32:46 -0500
Subject: 10.0073 Spin-off -R&J under the bridge
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0073 Spin-off -R&J under the bridge

Gawd, I'm SO moved....

"There's a happy ending as the lovers drop their weapons to make peace,
and set the example for the other gang members by starting out with a
kiss."

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