The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1864  Tuesday, 2 November 1999.

[1]     From:   Peter Hyland <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 1 Nov 1999 12:32:34 -0500 (EST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado

[2]     From:   Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 01 Nov 1999 10:12:11 -0800
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado

[3]     From:   Paul Swanson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 01 Nov 1999 12:56:05 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Peter Hyland <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 1 Nov 1999 12:32:34 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado

The claim by Pervez Rizvi that all Shakespeare's bastards apart from Don
John are introduced as such on their first appearance is not quite
true.  Thersites in TROILUS AND CRESSIDA announces his bastardy only in
his final speech (Norton 5.8) when he is quite insistent on it (he uses
the word eight times in a single brief speech, along with 'illegitimate'
and 'son of a whore'), thus forcing the reader/spectator to reconsider
precisely where on the social margins he is to be located.

Peter Hyland

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 01 Nov 1999 10:12:11 -0800
Subject: 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1849 Re: Productions of Much Ado

Robin Hamilton wrote:

>But Prince John betrays the leaders of the rebellion, and orders them
>executed:
>
>Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
>Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.
>         --  2HIV, Act 4, scene 1.
>
>If Don  Pedro had behaved similarly towards Don John in MUCH ADO, the
>latter character wouldn't have been around by the beginning of the play
>(which may have been, in order of composition, the play which
>immediately followed 2HIV).

This is quite true, but the betrayal isn't the parallel between the two
plays to which I'm pointing.  It's the assumption that, under normal
circumstances, a rebellion is designed not to get rid of a government or
a government system altogether, but to wring discrete, definable and
listed concessions from a government that remains in place.

If most rebellions ended in total victory and total defeat, Prince
John's action wouldn't be shocking.  The onstage reaction bespeaks
certain normative assumptions above rebellion.

Cheers,
Se     

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