The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0912 Friday, 28 May 1999.
[1] From: Antony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 12:50:59 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0910 Child Roland
[2] From: Ward Elliott <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 14:26:49 -0700
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0909 Queries
[3] From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 15:24:07 EDT
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0896 Re: Chooseth and Antonios
[4] From: Brian Haylett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 13:27:22 +0100
Subj: Re: Fancy Bred
[5] From: Graham Bradshaw <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 May 1999 09:15:27 +0900
Subj: Re: SHK 10.0892 Merry Wives Question
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Antony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 12:50:59 -0700
Subject: 10.0910 Child Roland
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0910 Child Roland
Replying to the inquiry from Stanley Wells, it might be useful to
consider the "Tower of Glass" in "Erec." Years ago, James Bruce
identified it as a conflation of two notions of the Otherworld (of the
Dead), In his "Evolution of Arthurian Romance (2d ed. 1928, reprint
1958) Vol I, pp. 200 ff.). Not only does the notion of a land of the
dead lend itself to association with a dark world, but Bruce identifies
it with the Meleagant of "Lancelot", where it is called the country from
which no stranger returns (Don nus etranges ne retorne) and suggests,
through Hamlet, that Shakespeare was familiar with the story. The same
place is called Melwas in the Arthurian "Vita Gildae" and both names
loosely suggest the Greek "mela" = "black," closely enough for an aural
and associative mind like Shakespeare's. Finally, the Jack and the
Beanstalk fairy story with which the Roland reference is associated in
Lear is also a story of a mortal adventuring into an Otherworld
(although one of a different kind) and proving his worthiness by the way
he confronts dangers in it. Pushing the argument a little bit, a
reference to the Otherworld anticipates Edgar's ruse and language in the
scene at Dover.
Hope this helps.
Tony Burton
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ward Elliott <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 14:26:49 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
Subject: 10.0909 Queries
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0909 Queries
Both the passages quoted are from the anonymous play Sir Thomas More.
My electronic version is from Tom Merriam via Lou Ule and doesn't seem
to be divided into Acts and Scenes, but "Grant them removed is on p. 17
of 61, "lead the majesty of law in liom" on p. 18. "Liom" is "lyam" in
the Merriam text, is probably derived from the Latin ligamen, and means
"leash." I don't know where Merriam got his text, but Ule checked it
against the 1918 Tucker-Brook edition of the Shakespeare Apocrypha.
Yours, Ward Elliott
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 15:24:07 EDT
Subject: 10.0896 Re: Chooseth and Antonios
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0896 Re: Chooseth and Antonios
Re: a book on pages
And let this book on pages not forget to include the Lord's page from
Shrew, who, despite the fact that we never see a lady of the house in
evidence, has a dress in which to disguise himself for Sly. This page,
if we are to believe Sly's directions, spends three hours in bed with
this drunken tinker.
When our troupe of players arrived in Ind.1, even the actresses playing
Kate and Bianca were costumed as boys, of course (and our program listed
the names of the actors in the troupe, e.g., "William, playing Katherina
Minola"), and when they entered in II.1, the bondage scene, Sly
commented to his lady, "Those are really boys, you know."
Dale Lyles
Newnan Community Theatre Company
Newnan, GA
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brian Haylett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Thursday, 27 May 1999 13:27:22 +0100
Subject: Re: Fancy Bred
>A lot depends on what the reader thinks of Portia. My
>view, for what it's worth, is that she is willing and able to bend the
>rules to get what she wants, either in the casket scene or in the trial
>scene. After all, as Fitzgerald pointed out about Tom and Daisy, isn't
>that the way old money thinks?'
On the contrary, Portia gives Shylock every chance (three, actually) to
escape from his predicament. Similarly, it is of her nature to give the
suitors a helping hand. Shylock, Morocco and Arragon all condemn
themselves the more because they ignore her aid. This is why I always
return to the notion that Portia was conceived as something rather
spiritual ('He that hath ears to hear'), a 'genius' in the Elizabethan
sense, while fully admitting there are very different sides to her. To
make her into a racist seems to me more than a little crass, I regret to
say. OED finds 'complexion' to refer to the humours, disposition, and
physical constitution in its earliest references. Colour of skin had
just begun to appear - and does appear in Merchant, 'the shadowed livery
of the burnished sun'. It does not follow that every Shakespearean usage
ignores the earlier meanings (which were none of them extinct). Cf
Winter's Tale I.ii: 'Your changed complexions are to me a mirror Which
shows me mine changed.'
[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Graham Bradshaw <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 28 May 1999 09:15:27 +0900
Subject: 10.0892 Merry Wives Question
Comment: Re: SHK 10.0892 Merry Wives Question
A quick apology. I had meant to send my reply to Debbie Barrett-Graves'
question about MERRY WIVES to her directly, at her own email address. I
was horrified to see that I'd sent it to all SHAKSPER members by
mistake. Nobody would want SHAKSPER to become a forum for academic
grumbles about publishers. My own grumble was pretty silly and
intemperate anyway, since it all happened so long ago. I was very tired;
I don't think I've turned into a Grumpy Old Man.
Graham Bradshaw
