July
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1243 Thursday, 8 July 1999. From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, July 08, 1999 Subject: SHAKSPER Interruption and Hiatus Dear SHAKSPEReans, As many of you know, there has been a rather intense heat wave on the east coast of the United States. As a consequence of this, my SUN workstation and fileserver crash Tuesday night. When I arrived on Wednesday morning, I discover that the power outage had first of all corrupted the operating system of the computer. After five or six hours, my Unix guru restored the system but I could not get listserv to start without a core dump. I consulted and consulted with the technical support people at L-Soft, the makers of the listserv software, and they could not help me. In desperation, I copied from a July 2, 1999, backup the home directory. As a result, I got listserv to work but I lost some files in the process. In particular the SHAKSPER LOG9907A currently only covers July 1, 1999. I think I can reconstruct it, but that bring up the next issue. I am leaving this afternoon for five days in Harrisonburg, Virginia, with the SSE and I do not think that I will have Internet access. So after I catch up with what I have salvaged for today, expect a hiatus until about July 12 or 13. Hardy
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1242 Tuesday, 6 July 1999. From: Yvonne Bruce <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 06 Jul 1999 08:59:24 -0400 Subject: SHK 10.1235 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA I don't know if this will persuade Mr. Heller that the scene from A&C in which the soldiers hear terrestrial music "works," but a lot of individual scenes and lines in Shakespeare remain resistant to "working" for me, too. However: I very much believe in Egypt as a comic locus contrasting with the seriousness of Rome (to paraphrase you), though I believe Egypt is more than that (and note that Plutarch says the Alexandrians were happy Antony acted his comic self in Egypt and kept his tragic parts for Rome-another paraphrase). Keeping this in mind, it's almost as if the soldiers in 4.3 (I'm using Bevington) are hearing Cleopatra's music from 2.2: "we'll to the river. There, / My music playing far off, I will betray / Tawny-finned fishes." Given Antony and Cleopatra's various elemental associations, it is also perhaps significant (or maybe just mischievous) that Shakespeare gives the soldiers some confusion over their music's origin ("i'th' air" or "Under the earth"). Also, the second soldier suggests the music signifies that the "god Hercules, whom Antony loved, / Now leaves him." I surely don't wish to overread at this point, but consider too that Antony's Herculean-Bacchic associations also link him to Cleopatra's associations with Isis (a link traced by Walter Coppedge, among others). You are absolutely right about Eros. In fact, it's fun and rewarding to imagine Antony talking to the god of love in the guise of a soldier, late in act 4. I also think your observation about the play's "presented deaths" is very astute and should be expanded to include Lepidus and Pompey. The old republican values of Rome certainly do not sustain them, either. The clash of old-new values in the play is a very interesting issue, especially since-re Roman values-Antony would appear to be just as "old school" as Pompey. But Antony seems to grow in interest as Lepidus and Pompey wane (they don't die so much as they just drop out), even though he can act as bloodlessly and expediently as Caesar. Yvonne Bruce
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1241 Tuesday, 6 July 1999. From: Marvin Rosenberg <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 5 Jul 1999 17:47:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 10.1234 Trip to London in August -- need your help Comment: Re: SHK 10.1234 Trip to London in August -- need your help Dear colleague: I too will be going to England in August--third week. If you get any Stratford references you cannot use, please remember me. Have a great trip! Marvin RosenbergThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ,edu
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1240 Tuesday, 6 July 1999. From: C. David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 5 Jul 1999 10:45:24 -0400 Subject: Time Query I'm familiar with some of the arguments regarding the time problems in several of Shakespeare's plays, but I was wondering if other playwrights of the period also had multiple time schemes in any plays-or is this a peculiarly Shakespearean dramaturgy? cdf
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1239 Tuesday, 6 July 1999. From: C. David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 5 Jul 1999 10:43:45 -0400 Subject: 10.1230 Assorted On-Going Threads Comment: RE: SHK 10.1230 Assorted On-Going Threads > [2]------------------------------------------------------------- > From: Andrew White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > > Date: Friday, 2 Jul 1999 22:32:29 -0400 > Subject: Horatio Theory > > RE: Horatio's assertion that he came to Elsinore to see Hamlet Sr.'s > funeral -- > > I have never believed that line. He is introduced in the first scene > has having been brought to the ramparts (if not to Elsinore) > specifically to interpret the meaning of the Ghost. "Thou > art a scholar > ..." His knowledge of theology and how to handle spirits were needed. If we treat the fictive world of Hamlet as a real place for a moment, then one possibility regarding Horatio is that he comes from the same (or similar class) as the guards-they know him from before he went of to College. At Wittenberg he, of course, knew Hamlet-and Hamlet kind of Knew that there was yet another homeboy at school, but he (Hamlet), being in a higher class than Horatio (both educationally and socioeconomically), didn't pay him (Horatio) much mind. Although speculative, there is some textual evidence to support such a "history," notably in Hamlet's greeting of Horatio (Horatio, or I forget myself) which could sound as if he's trying to recall the name of someone he knows from a distance. Equally, Horatio's comment about Old Hamlet (I saw him once) certainly suggests that Horatio didn't spend much time hanging around the court in his youth. Of course, Andrew White's point about Horatio being there to interpret and (my word) "certify" the ghost holds true, especially from a dramaturgical point. That is, Shakespeare appears to want to make sure that the audience believes in the ghost's existence as something perceivable by many-and not just a manifestation of Hamlet's mind. cdf C. David Frankel Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre/Academic Advisor University of South Florida Tampa, Fl. email:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. <mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > vmail: 813.974.1751