August
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1370 Wednesday 4 August 1999. [1] From: Dana Shilling <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 09:48:21 -0400 Subj: Wills and Hells [2] From: William Sutton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 08:05:41 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 10.1362 Re: Sonnets [3] From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 14:28:59 +0000 Subj: Re: SHK 10.1362 Re: Sonnets [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dana Shilling <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 09:48:21 -0400 Subject: Wills and Hells You don't have to read a lot of Sonnets to find endless quibbles on "hell" (genitalia) and "Will" (lust/genitalia)--the exact equivalent would be a contemporary stand-up comic named Richard who never stops talking about "dick." MND II.1.150-164 OBERON: That very time I saw [...] Cupid, all ar'md. A certain aim he took At a fair Vestal, throned by the West, And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts. But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon, And the imperial vot'ress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. That is the kind of reference one made to Elizabeth, if one wanted to finish her reign with the same number of ears as one started with. Content: "Gloriana rules OK." "Yo, bitch, you bird-dogged my girlfriend" would not have been acceptable content. If the Sonnets are based on real events in Shakespeare's life, they describe a love triangle involving the (married) poet's not-conventionally-attractive and married mistress, and a young man to whom he was emotionally attached and with whom he either did or didn't have sex. (I don't believe that Othello's young affects were defunct either.) Not terribly creditable to any participant, and not the stuff of courtly flattery. Dana Shilling [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Sutton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 08:05:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 10.1362 Re: Sonnets Comment: Re: SHK 10.1362 Re: Sonnets Hello, is it not true that this is the first recorded use of 'prick' in a sexual sense? Wilfully yours, William S., [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 14:28:59 +0000 Subject: 10.1362 Re: Sonnets Comment: Re: SHK 10.1362 Re: Sonnets I'm not dismissing the possibility that the Sonnets may be addressed to or allude to a variety of persons (if indeed they are autobiographical at all), but I'm surprised no one has mentioned that Sonnet 20 is not the only one clearly referring to a male friend. Sonnet 3 is addressed to someone who, by not marrying, will "unbless some mother"-i.e., deprive some woman of the blessing of being a mother. So the sonnet's got to be addressed to a man, right? Note also the rhetorical question ("For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb / Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?") suggesting that no woman, no matter how beautiful, would refuse to have his child. Again, "husbandry" and the fact that the person addressed is imagined to be doing the "tilling" of a womb indicate a man. "He" and "his" in the next two lines confirm the assumption. Among the sonnets urging marriage (1-17), there are others clearly addressed to a man: Sonnet 7 says "unless thou get a son" ("get"="beget," which is what the father does); Sonnet 13, with the word "husbandry" and the closing line "You had a father, let your son say so" (so clearly a potential father is being addressed); and maybe Sonnet 9, where references to widows and husband suggest the person addressed is male. A quick look at the other sonnets on marriage doesn't reveal any others so obviously addressed to a man as these, but the fact that the first 17 sonnets pretty clearly form a series and that the themes and attitudes (and often phrasing) in 3, 7, 9, and 13 are echoed in many of the others suggests to me that they're all addressed to the same person. Bruce Young
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1369 Wednesday 4 August 1999. From: Ching-Hsi Perng <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 21:43:41 +0800 Subject: Antonio's Letter Can anyone tell me if Antonio's letter to Bassanio (_Merchant_, 3.2) is Shakespeare's invention or can it be found in his sources? Thanks in advance for any clue. Best, Ching-Hsi Perng
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1368 Wednesday 4 August 1999. [1] From: Brian Vickers <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 14:28:35 +0200 Subj: Re: SHK 10.1356 Re: "Perusine" [2] From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 12:44:16 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 10.1363 Re: "Perusine" [3] From: Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 12:20:30 -0700 Subj: Perusine [4] From: Allan Blackman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 23:51:01 -0400 (EDT) Subj: More on 'Perusine' [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Vickers <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 14:28:35 +0200 Subject: 10.1356 Re: "Perusine" Comment: Re: SHK 10.1356 Re: "Perusine" >Perusine refers to Perusia (the modern Perugia), the most common usage >being the Perusine War. See your Roman history for details. > >Allan Blackman However, in his Arte of English Poesie (1589) Puttenham writes that "the American, the Perusine & the very Canniball, do sing and also say, their highest and holiest matters in certaine riming versicles..." (I.v; ed. Willcock and Walker, p.10) - i.e., Peruvian. Yours sincerely, Brian Vickers. Centre for Renaissance Studies [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 03 Aug 1999 12:44:16 -0400 Subject: 10.1363 Re: "Perusine" Comment: Re: SHK 10.1363 Re: "Perusine" >May I ask a follow-up question of those who have cited the use of >"Perusine" as referring to Perugia (as distinguished from Peru)? The >Puttenham text specifically locates the term in series with "American >very Cannibal, do sing and also say, their highest and holiest matters in certain > rhyming versicles . . . . Frank Whigham's question must give pause to those who gloss Perusine as referring to Italians. Anybody know enough about the rules for forming -ine adjectives in Renaissance Latin, and about the C16 Latin form of Peru, to tell us whether Perusine could refer to that mountainous South American place? Or could be a typo for Peruvine? Dave Evett [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 12:20:30 -0700 Subject: Perusine There is a lovely medieval walled town in France, not far from Lyons, named (phonetically), Peruge[s?]/Pereuges; it was used for a send-up movie about the Three Musketeers and, more important, has a great restaurant where there is an old map on display, giving the former name as Perugia, the same as the Itallian town. So, even if "Perusine" refers to the Italian town and its war, there were once at least two Perugias and a possibly expanded geographical reference within which the "wild and savage" inhabitants may be associated. Happy hunting. Tony Burton [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Allan Blackman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 3 Aug 1999 23:51:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: More on 'Perusine' Perusine refers to ancient Perusia, not to the modern Perugia -- where the appropriate adjective would be 'Perugian'. I know virtually nothing about Puttenham, but I did look at his text at the University of Virginia Website. It appears that the reference is, in fact, to Perusia. The passage, which refers to Latin poesie four times, reads; And the Greeke and Latine Poesie was by verse numerous and metricall, running vpon pleasant feete, sometimes swift, sometime slow (their words very aptly seruing that purpose) but without any rime or tunable concord in th'end of their verses, as we and all other nations now vse. But the Hebrues & Chaldees who were more ancient then the Greekes, did not only vse a metricall Poesie, but also with the same a maner of rime, as hath bene of late obserued by learned men. Wherby it appeareth, that our vulgar running Poesie was common to all the nations of the world besides, whom the Latines and Greekes in speciall called barbarous. So as it was notwithstanding the first and most ancient Poesie, and the most vniuersall, which two points do otherwise giue to all humane inuentions and affaires no small credit. This is proued by certificate of marchants & trauellers, who by late nauigations haue surueyed the whole world, and discouered large countries and strange peoples wild and sauage, affirming that the American, the Perusine & the very Canniball, do sing and also say, their highest and holiest matters in certaine riming versicles and not in prose, which proues also that our maner of vulgar Poesie is more ancient then the artificiall of the Greeks and Latines, ours comming by instinct of nature, which was before Art or obseruation, and vsed with the sauage and vnciuill, who were before all science or ciuilitie, euen as the naked by prioritie of time is before the clothed, and the ignorant before the learned. The naturall Poesie therefore being aided and amended by Art, and not vtterly altered or obscured, but some signe left of it, (as the Greekes and Latines haue left none) is no lesse to be allowed and commended then theirs. Allan Blackman
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1367 Tuesday 3 August 1999. From: Martin Jukovsky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 2 Aug 1999 16:51:46 -0400 Subject: Fwd: Shakespeare on Old-Time Radio The following good information appeared in the Old Time Radio Forum mailing list. ( To subscribe to the OTR list, go to: http://www.airwaves.com/cgi-bin/otr.cgi?sub.) --Martin Jukovsky Cambridge, Mass.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. *************** >Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 00:21:55 PDT >From: "Michael Ogden" <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > >To:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >Subject: Re: OTR Shakespeare > >Bob Fells asked about the two series that comprised the "summer of >Shakespeare" in 1937. They were the COLUMBIA SHAKESPEARE CYCLE on CBS and >STEAMLINED SHAKESPEARE on NBC. > >There were eight broadcasts of the Columbia series, all of which are extant >and available: > >7/12/37: HAMLET, with Burgess Meredith, Grace George, and Montague Love > >7/19/37: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, with Leslie Howard and Rosalind Russell > >7/26/37: JULIUS CAESAR, with Reginald Denny, Claude Rains, Raymond Massey > >8/3/37: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, with Frieda Inescourt, Edward G. Robinson, >and Andy Devine > >8/10/37: KING LEAR, with Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Morris Ankrum > >8/17/37: AS YOU LIKE IT, with Frank Morgan, Gail Patrick, and Moroni Olsen > >8/24/37: KING HENRY IV, PARTS 1 AND 2, with Walter Huston, Walter Connolly, >and Humphrey Bogart > >8/31/37: TWELFTH NIGHT, with Tallulah Bankhead, Cedric Hardwicke, and Orson >Welles > >STREAMLINED SHAKESPEARE consisted of six broadcasts. None of the original >broadcasts are available to my knowledge, but all are preserved archivally >(at the Museum of Television and Radio, I believe). The four shows which Bob >has are from a 1950 rebroadcast series entitled JOHN BARRYMORE AND >SHAKESPEARE. They are not the complete STREAMLINED shows, having been cut >down from 45 minutes to 30. > >6/21/37: HAMLET, with John Barrymore, Mary Forbes, and Conrad Nagel > >6/28/37: RICHARD III, with JB, Elaine Barrie, and Pedro de Cordoba > >7/5/37: MACBETH, with JB, Elaine Barrie, and William S. Farnum > >7/12/37: THE TEMPEST, with JB, Elaine Barrie, and Walter Brennan > >7/19/37: TWELFTH NIGHT, with JB, Elaine Barrie, and Spring Byington > >7/26/37: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, with JB, Elaine Barrie, and Vinton >Hayworth > >Hope the above answers Bob's question. The whole delirious mess that was the >"summer of Shakespeare" seems like a Shakespearean chronicle in and of >itself: two rival houses (NBC and CBS), star-crossed and petulant lovers >(Barrymore and Barrie), etc. It's said that the two series (which ran >opposite each other on Monday nights) only ended up cancelling each other >out; the clear cut ratings winner in that time slot was Fibber McGee and >Molly, who got a big boost to their radio popularity from all the folks who >were tuning away from the Bard! > >Mike Ogden
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1366 Tuesday 3 August 1999. From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 2 Aug 1999 12:20:20 -0400 Subject: Shakespearean References Comment: SHK 10.1357 Shakespearean References Richard Burt writes, 'there's a pub called the Shakespeare Ale House in Terminal Three of Heathrow airport, and there's a Shakespeare's International Fish and Chips next to a pub called Othello's just outside of Victoria Station (in London)'. There's also a cigar called Hamlet, and there used to be a fondly-remembered establishment in Stratford called 'The Judith Shakespeare Tea Rooms'. Mind you, the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square boasts a 'Virginia Woolf Burger Bar' to this day. T. Hawkes