July
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1767 Tuesday, 17 July 2001 [1] From: Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 18:54:29 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [2] From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 11:46:32 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [3] From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 12:50:21 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [4] From: Andrew W. White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 21:07:07 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [5] From: Susan St. John <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 18:53:13 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1742 Re: To be or not to be [6] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 22:45:08 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [7] From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 14 Jul 2001 00:53:17 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [8] From: Lucia A. Setari <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 14 Jul 2001 11:11:50 +0100 (BST) Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [9] From: John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 15 Jul 2001 01:54:46 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 18:54:29 +0100 Subject: 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be Comment: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be >John Ramsay. I don't believe Hamlet would have been carrying around a >long sword (or more likely rapier) when he happens upon Claudius at >prayer. When he thinks of killing him there, he is probably carrying >and thinking dagger. That doesn't sound logical to me. For one thing he actually *says* "sword". "Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent" (3.3.88) and there seems little reason to disbelieve him, since we know that it was a matter of routine in Shakespeare's day that a man carried a sword at all times. Viola, pretending to be very young, "between boy and man", still carries a sword and Toby tells her that if she will not fight then she will have to "forswear to wear iron about you" - obviously a very humiliating thing for a man to do. In Shakespeare's sources, furthermore, the mad Hamlet constantly carries a sword, which - because of his apparent madness - is nailed into its sheath so that he cannot hurt himself. This all seems good evidence that when Hamlet says "sword" he means "sword". On the other hand, it clearly *is* possible to kill somebody else with a bodkin or small knife, as the tragic murder of a young boy in Britain recently proved (he died from a single stab wound to the leg - his killers may only have intended to hurt him). Even using the more harmless sense of "bodkin" (as a hair ornament) a "Traditional Ballad" "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" which I have not been able to find a date for, but which seems to use an older form of English, describes a jealous bride stabbing her husband's former suitor with a bodkin from her hair. The bride she drew a long bodkin Frae out her gay head-gear, And strake Fair Annet unto the heart, That word spak nevir mair. http://www.bartleby.com/40/8.html Thomas Larque. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 11:46:32 -0700 Subject: 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be Comment: Re: SHK 12.1754 Re: To be or not to be Hi, all. I've been following this thread on and off, but it strikes me that no-one has pointed out that Hamlet's speech opens with ontological language: the question is one of being and nothingness, not just of immediate actions, political or even suicidal. In fact, as the end of the speech moving towards a discussion of "the undiscovered country" would, I think, indicate, the quietus made with a bare bodkin isn't nearly quiet enough. One might still be, even after death, experiencing whatever dreams may come. In other words, the speech seems to hinge on the difference between death and annihilation. Cheers, Se
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1766 Tuesday, 17 July 2001 From: Mary Jane Miller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 12:42:07 -0400 Subject: 12.1690 Re: Shakespeare.Papers.com Comment: Re: SHK 12.1690 Re: Shakespeare.Papers.com I have been away so this comment is late. I may have suggested this before on this list . If so, bear with me. In lieu of thumbscrews.... I expect students to hand in all rough notes whether covered with coffee and chicken scratches or not and two substantially revised drafts printed if the student is working on the computer. I don't mark any paper which does not have these materials attached. Students find that it is easier to write the paper then reconstruct the rough work for a paper they have bought. My other strategy is to give them staging topics - e.g detail with sketches and a written justification how you would stage this scene and explain your decisions in the light of an articulate interpretation of the play. That is easy to consult friends about but hard to buy. I am in a dept which combines theatre and dramatic literature studies (and a little radio and television drama as well). Mary Jane _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1765 Tuesday, 17 July 2001 [1] From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 12:38:13 -0400 Subj: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras [2] From: Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 17:44:29 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras [3] From: Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 14:25:50 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras [4] From: Stuart Manger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 14 Jul 2001 21:19:16 +0100 Subj: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 12:38:13 -0400 Subject: Re: Squeaking Cleopatras Comment: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras In so-called 'Pantomime' --still by far the most successful form of popular theatre in Britain-- the 'Dame' is traditionally played by a man, the 'Principal Boy' by a woman. T. Hawkes [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 17:44:29 +0100 Subject: 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras Comment: Re: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras > At the risk of stating 'the bleeding obvious' I ask if anyone has > considered workshopping scenes from A & C with variously aged >males > playing Cleopatra, and OBSERVING the results. Theatre is after all a > visual medium and actors male and female, are supposed to be >versatile. > Olivier played Kate in 'The Shrew' at the age of 9, in what was a highly > regarded performance This is a good point. In what I consider the strongest argument in her book, Joy Leslie Gibson concludes by mentioning Olivier's performance. "Ellen Terry ... commented that she had never seen Kate played better by a woman except Ada Rehan" and Dame Sybil Thorndike thought "he was really 'wonderful, the best Shrew I ever saw - a bad tempered bitch'". Olivier was, however, fourteen rather than nine when he performed the role, which brings him closer to the age at which we suspect that the boy players in Shakespeare's day were performing female roles. There is a beautiful photograph of Olivier in full finery which appears in Gibson's book and many biographies of Olivier. I would be very interested to see a performance by a professional adolescent actor (aged 14-17) in one of the major female Shakespearean parts, but I'm not sure whether the failure of such an experiment would necessarily prove anything. Shakespearean boy actors presumably spent more time rehearsing, performing and watching and learning from other actors than any modern child could possibly do, since the law now requires child workers (in richer countries, at least) to continue to have a full education in other subjects and limits their working hours. I would be very surprised, however, if such an experiment had never been carried out. Toby Cockerell seems to have made something of a success in the role of Princess Katherine in the then brand new Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London during their performance of "Henry V", convincing some in the audience that he was female, but he was twenty-two at the time, so not exactly the presumed age of the real boy actors. Pauline Kiernan in "Staging Shakespeare at the New Globe" points out that those casting at the Globe consciously rejected teenage actors for the part since "it was felt that the voices of the teenage actors who tested for the role did not carry in the new Globe space" (117). Is this evidence to support those who believe that teenage actors could not play these roles, or simply more evidence of the current Globe's rejection of authenticity when it gets in the way of modern assumptions about theatre (epitomised in their deliberate displacement of the stage pillars from the point at which architects and theatre historians believed they should be because the theatre directors wanted them elsewhere)? Thomas Larque. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 14:25:50 -0400 Subject: 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras Comment: Re: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras >From: Judi Crane <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > >At the risk of stating 'the bleeding obvious' I ask if anyone has >considered workshopping scenes from A & C with variously >aged males playing Cleopatra, and OBSERVING the results. This was supposed to be one of the functions of the New Globe. I didn't see Rylance play Cleo, alas, and if he didn't swap off the role with a talented teen it wasn't an ideal test. H5, however, was reasonably illuminating. A completely successful teen male Katherine, an excellent middle aged male Quickly, and an inept, camp mature male Queen of France. Which agrees with your anecdotal evidence. I just saw female Performance Institute students at Shakespeare & Company in "Errors". It is in the small Stables theatre, so breath control really didn't matter much. Some actresses were much more successful than others in playing male roles: but in a comedy this seems to matter only when the characters are in sex-charged scenes, and the director(s) cast competent male impersonators in the crucial roles. It's fun: one of the more successful "Errors" I've seen. In the Founders Theatre "Coriolanus" Lisa Wolpe, experienced in playing Shakespearean male roles, doubles the Tribune Sicinius Velutus, various Roman and Volscian soldiers, and Valeria. She has a magnificent vocal instrument with plenty of power in the tenor-baritone register, and, even without time for appearance-altering changes of make up or costume, is not only a credible male, but credibly 4 or 5 different males, and a thoroughly feminine Vergilia, too. My review of "Coriolanus" is currently at <www.AisleSay.com> Geralyn Horton, Newton, Mass. 02460 <http://www.stagepage.org> [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stuart Manger <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 14 Jul 2001 21:19:16 +0100 Subject: Re: Squeaking Cleopatras Comment: SHK 12.1760 Re: Squeaking Cleopatras I regularly produce boy actors from 14-18 in Shakespeare at an English Public (private) School. They are not pros at all, but they can be taught to breathe, to develop techniques to sustain vowels and point lines. Boys of 14 or even younger can be trained to breathe even Cleopatra lines, and Juliet is a breeze. I imagine that professionals in Shakespeare's day would have been far better. Many of the ex- or even practising choristers in his day as in ours would have been even more capable of sustaining lines. I'm sorry, I just do not see what all this academic brouhaha is about. As Ms Crane so wisely says, ask the actors themselves, listen to them, ask the teachers of today's kids. They'll tell you. Did Ms Gibson do that? Did she actually watch good boy actors today, NOT in rehearsal, but in an actual show? I think you'll get many other teachers of young male actors to tell you the same? Please forgive if this seems like stating the very obvious. One aspect that may be relevant is that if actors had to speak a great deal louder then than now - and there at least is a pretty good chance that that is the case - then hours of 'shouting' might offer a different challenge to boys' voices. But in my experience boys' voices can cut through a heck of a lot, and would of course be differentiated from the more weighty adult males on stage, such that many of the major speeches would possibly have made an impact. Stuart Manger _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1764 Tuesday, 17 July 2001 [1] From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 16:40:13 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches [2] From: Janie Cheaney <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 11:54:23 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches [3] From: Marcia Eppich <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 22:26:10 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches [4] From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 14 Jul 2001 00:52:32 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1734 Re: Macbett [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 16:40:13 +0100 Subject: 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches Comment: Re: SHK 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches >I am not >exactly sure of the precise biblical injunction concerning the >sinfulness of conjuring and asking my born-again sister is far too >tiresome at this time of the morning. Perhaps someone else knows. > >Jane Drake Brody I think it would be Saul visiting the Witch of Endor -- 1 Samuel 28, verses 7 ff. Robin Hamilton [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Janie Cheaney <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 11:54:23 -0500 Subject: 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches Comment: Re: SHK 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches > From: Jane Drake Brody >I am not >exactly sure of the precise biblical injunction concerning the >sinfulness of conjuring and asking my born-again sister is far too >tiresome at this time of the morning. Perhaps someone else knows. According to Deuteronomy 18:19-11, "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcer, or one who conjured spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who called up the dead." All forms of magic are an "abomination unto the Lord" because they try to influence fate in defiance of His sovereignty. Those who practiced magic in Israel were subject to execution, but the sentence wasn't always carried out. See the fascinating account of King Saul and the witch of Endor in I Sam.28 (by the way, to my mind Saul is a tragic hero of Shakespearean dimensions). >From: Takashi Kozuka >In (another) classic debate about whether or not the three witches lead >Macbeth to the evil actions, Marcia Eppich argues: > >>The very presence of witches is a matter of sensationalism. A thrill for >>the Elizabethan audience, if you will. > >I'm not sure exactly what Marcia means by these terms, but I believe >that the presence of witches on the Jacobean stage was more than >"sensationalism" and/or "thrill" to the audience. Amen to that. Shakespeare not averse to providing thrills, but the witches are a vital engine to the plot--they're the impetus to the evil that is already in Macbeth but needs a push to get going. After all, they are waiting "upon the heath/there to meet Macbeth." They don't suggest a course of action, but don't need to--Macbeth and his lady can act, once the "insane root" is planted. I see the play as a study of the dynamic between destiny and free will--one of the great themes of history, literature, theology and physics. But that's probably been discussed before. JBC [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Marcia Eppich <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 22:26:10 -0500 Subject: 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches Comment: Re: SHK 12.1750 Macbeth's Witches Ok, sometimes I forget who I'm talking to on this list. I am not arguing about what Takashi Kozuka wrote at all. I know that King James wrote Daemonlogy, and I know how the contemporary audience felt about witchcraft. However, I still believe that Macbeth's witches were, at least in part, "for show". That mysterious, evil quality of the witches is a thriller for audiences of any time period. I think the witches lend to the appeal of Macbeth for high school students and other people who feel like Shakespeare is too difficult to understand. But, yes, we in the 21st century have a different view of the witches and black magic. I think, though, that we often forget that Shakespeare was in business. All I'm saying is that the use of the witches would be a frighteningly appealing part of Macbeth. I don't think that the Jacobean audience would howl in fear and run away from the stage at the sight of witches. I think the audience would be mesmerized, and that kind of enchantment would probably sell tickets. Of course, I don't have a time machine, so I can't prove that Shakespeare's audience would be thrilled at a presentation of evil on stage. However, most scholars agree that some witch scenes were interpolated into Macbeth. Wonder why? To add to the allure of the witchcraft/witch scenes already in the play? To make it sell? Maybe I just have the (dis)advantage of 21st century money grubbing in my head and shouldn't think of the bard as someone who would be out to make money. Also, I do not contend that the ONLY use of the witches is for a thrill. Of course, they are a plot device and so on and so forth. But I also mentioned in my last posting that the witches' influence could be manipulated by staging. Again, we have to remember that Shakespeare wrote plays, not really intended for reading as great literature, so a director would be able to manipulate the witches' importance and influence as he/she sees fit. And if the only contact a person has with Shakespeare is in a classroom, then the teacher's interpretation takes the place of the director's interpretation. Therefore, it's all in how we read the plays, right? I hope I'm not coming off as terribly sarcastic. I don't intend to sound snide; I'm just stating what I think. Thanks for the discussion, Marcia. [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 14 Jul 2001 00:52:32 -0400 Subject: 12.1734 Re: Macbett Comment: Re: SHK 12.1734 Re: Macbett The witches are evil in that although they cannot or at least do not lie, they intentionally deceive Macbeth by couching their oracles in ambiguous language that they know he will misinterpret. My own dissertation chapter on Macbeth suggests (among other things) Lady Macbeth as a practitioner of goetic magic in the pursuit of political power. I suggest that the whereabouts of the missing child are suggested by the allusion to dashing out her own child's brains as an act of child sacrifice common in black magic. Such a practice implies a higher value placed on personal power than on progeny and dynasty, one of the political themes of the play. Thanks to Evelyn Gajowski and Ed Taft for the additional sources. Clifford _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1763 Tuesday, 17 July 2001 [1] From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 08:33:38 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" [2] From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 17:37:38 +0100 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" [3] From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 10:34:54 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" [4] From: Mari Bonomi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 17:19:55 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" [5] From: Karen Peterson-Kranz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Sunday, 15 Jul 2001 05:09:33 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 08:33:38 -0700 Subject: 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" Comment: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" Taylor writes: >Mike Jensen said, "Yes, the OED is flawed. There are also words where >earlier precedents have been found than the OED records. That does not >make it useless." > >Robin Hamilton responded, "I'd agree with Mike here, and it's never >going to be perfect, but it does get better." > >Remarks that are far less "singularly trite" and "unexceptional" than >this have been regularly so labelled (sic) and dismissed on this >thread. >What's gives here? Ah, so correcting Taylor with the facts is trite and unexceptional, huh? His insults are subtler this time, but they are still insults. Things have gotten to a point where the only proper response begins, Dear Moron. I will not subject the list to such comments, so I bow out. This does not indicate that Taylor has scored any points with Friday's comments. Mike Jensen [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robin Hamilton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 17:37:38 +0100 Subject: 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" Comment: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" > Mike Jensen said, "Yes, the OED is flawed. There are also words where > earlier precedents have been found than the OED records. That does not > make it useless." > > Robin Hamilton responded, "I'd agree with Mike here, and it's never > going to be perfect, but it does get better." > > Remarks that are far less "singularly trite" and "unexceptional" than > this have been regularly so labelled and dismissed on this thread. > What's gives here? What gives here is selective quotation. I'm perfectly willing to stand at the bar and face an accusation of triteness, but I'd prefer to be judged on what I said (SHK 12.1740 Thursday, 12 July 200) rather than on Mr. Taylor's tendentious snippet. > Someone (I apologise, I can't find the exact remark) previously referred > to 'the difference between wit and smut.' It seems to me that to expect > Shakespeare to point out his meanings is to expect smut rather than wit. I acknowledge these words mine, but again would draw attention to the elimination of context-in this case, one where the words were used specifically as a counter to the kind of position which Mr. Taylor takes up. Robin Hamilton [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 13 Jul 2001 10:34:54 -0700 Subject: 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" Comment: Re: SHK 12.1751 Re: "What's in a name?" Stuart Taylor argues that >The question was rather, given the imperfection of such texts in >capturing living language use, is it accurate to say that the >non-appearance of a word or phrase in such texts establishes or suggests >that the word/phrase in question was not in use during the period in >question? No, and no-one (that I recall) is suggesting that. The problem is that no other means of proving the use of a word or phrase is so incontrovertible. Playing on usages in other languages is (at best) to reason by analogy, while the context can be made to mean a lot of things. In principle, one can find whatever one seeks, and it seems considerably more advisable to stick to things that are not only possible but plausible and (better) provable. Cheers, Se