The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1421  Thursday 12 August 1999.

[1]     From:   Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 12 Aug 1999 07:46:25 +1000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1416 Re: Hoghton Tower Controversy

[2]     From:   W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 11 Aug 1999 22:47:11 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1416 Re: Hoghton Tower Controversy


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 12 Aug 1999 07:46:25 +1000
Subject: 10.1416 Re: Hoghton Tower Controversy
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1416 Re: Hoghton Tower Controversy

Geralyn Horton writes:

>Now, WS might have taken on the church office because as an actor he
>loved hearing the sound of his own voice applied to poetry, and once
>retired he could only exercise it if he were a lay reader.  Or he might
>have signed up to annoy his wife, who may have plagued him with
>accusations that in spite of his ill-gotten wealth he was nothing but an
>ungodly adulterous flibertygibbet of a common player.  But that would
>make him quite a hypocrite. Isn't the simplest explanation- that WS
>found the established church spiritually satisfying-best?

Oh, I don't know...I really like the concept of Anne calling him an
ungodly adulterous flibbertygibbet of a common player!  Thank you for
the marvelous image!

Cheers,
Karen Peterson-Kranz
University of Guam

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 11 Aug 1999 22:47:11 -0400
Subject: 10.1416 Re: Hoghton Tower Controversy
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1416 Re: Hoghton Tower Controversy

Geralyn Horton wittily writes:

>Now, WS might have taken on the church office because as an actor he
>loved hearing the sound of his own voice applied to poetry, and once
>retired he could only exercise it if he were a lay reader.  Or he might
>have signed up to annoy his wife, who may have plagued him with
>accusations that in spite of his ill-gotten wealth he was nothing but an
>ungodly adulterous flibertygibbet of a common player. . . .
>Isn't the simplest explanation- that WS
>found the established church spiritually satisfying-best?

James Branch Cabell, the most skeptical of novelists, was also a
vestryman, and contended that, to live happily in this world, one must
honor the morality of one's neighbors, which Cabell may have done in
Richmond (there's a good deal of doubt), though not in his novels.

Some years ago, Alfred Hart illustrated that Shakespeare seems to have
memorized portions of the Homilies appointed to be read in churches,
which suggests that Shakespeare spent long hours listening to these
homilies being read over and over, year by year, in churches.  Either
that or he owed a printed copy and had it open as he wrote.

But Shakespeare's plays don't strike me as devout exercises, either
Anglican or Roman Catholic.  In fact, they strike me as pretty damned
skeptical and disillusioned.  Shakespeare's practical atheist Richard
III is a great deal more interesting than the saintly Christian Henry
VI-to me at any rate. But maybe that's why Socrates wanted to have poets
banned from his republic-vestryman one minute, devil's advocate the
next.

Yours, Bill Godshalk

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