The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0774 Wednesday, 28 April 1999.
From: Allan Blackman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 28 Apr 1999 01:04:40 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Queries on Partridge
Partridge (*Shakespeare's Bawdy*, p. 25) writes:
"From the terms listed in the preceding paragraph, we-inevitably, I
think -- form the opinion that Shakespeare was an exceedingly
knowledgeable amorist, a veritable connoisseur, and a highly artistic,
an ingeniously skilful, practitioner of love-making, who could have
taught Ovid rather more than that facile doctrinaire could have taught
him; he evidently knew of, and probably he practised, an artifice
accessible to few-one that I cannot becomingly mention here, though I
felt it obligatory to touch on it, very briefly, in the Glossary."
Two questions:
1) Can someone satisfy my prurient interest by revealing the cited
"artifice"?
2) In general, is it accurate and/or reasonable to label Shakespeare "an
exceedingly knowledgeable amorist" and a "skilful practitioner of
love-making"?
Allan Blackman