The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0410  Monday, 28 February 2000.

[1]     From:   W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 25 Feb 2000 11:48:53 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0403 Re: Twelfth Night

[2]     From:   David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 25 Feb 2000 13:29:18 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0403 Re: Twelfth Night


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 25 Feb 2000 11:48:53 -0500
Subject: 11.0403 Re: Twelfth Night
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0403 Re: Twelfth Night

John Briggs asserts:

>The act and
>scene divisions probably aren't authorial, but they were made by someone
>contemporary who knew about scene divisions, and editors have an uneasy
>suspicion that we perhaps don't know as much about what constitutes a
>scene division as we thought we did!

If the act/scene divisions are "probably" not Shakespeare's, how can we
be certain that the divisions were made by "someone contemporary who
knew about scene divisions"?  And even if the divider were an expert, he
or she could have made a mistake.  For example, I find making the
correct scene divisions in MND difficult. Or should I write
"challenging"?  And I find that other dividers are equally challenged by
that script.

Yours, Bill Godshalk

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 25 Feb 2000 13:29:18 -0500
Subject: 11.0403 Re: Twelfth Night
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0403 Re: Twelfth Night

If the text is to be trusted, the episode is in some street.  As
Nicholas Pullin stated in an earlier post, Toby tells Viola in 3.4.199
(Norton Shakespeare) that Aguecheek is waiting for her "at the orchard
end"-a private quarrel to be settled on private ground.  When Viola
holds back, Toby goes to fetch the noble night and returns with him to
the spot where the unwilling contestants pretend to fight and where
Antonio leaps in to defend the person he supposes to be Sebastian.  They
are further interrupted by the officers, who arrest Antonio and one of
whom reports in 5.1.58 that he as made the arrest "here in the
streets"-"private brabble" in a public place.  The distinction
presumably invokes various late Elizabethan attempts to reduce the
number of duels and fights by confining those that did occur to
relatively out of the way places and thus inhibiting the more
spontaneous ones-see also Benvolio's appeal to Mercutio and Tybalt to
quit "the public haunt of men" (*Rom* 3.1.45-6).

David Evett

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