March
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.07392 Wednesday, 13 March 2002 [1] From: W.L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 16:22:33 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 13.07370 Re: The Laws of Theatre [2] From: Michael E. Cohen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 19:31:46 -0800 Subj: Re: SHK 13.07370 Re: The Laws of Theatre [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W.L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 16:22:33 -0500 Subject: 13.07370 Re: The Laws of Theatre Comment: Re: SHK 13.07370 Re: The Laws of Theatre R.A. Cantrell writes: >A member of the audience may have invested in the anticipation of a good >performance, but his or her judgement sits disinterested till after the >fact. Ah, if this were only true of the Supreme Court of the United States. I'm sure Stanley Fish would say nonsense and point out that I simply want the justices to have a different bias than they do. But perhaps our definitions of "disinterest" are different. I define "disinterest" as "free of all bias," which I take to be an impossible ideal for humans. To be free of bias is to lack a point of view. I assume that all spectators, each and every one of them, see the play from a slightly different place physically and mentally. I don't arrive at the theatre without my body or all that strange baggage in my brain that skews my judgment. Yours, Bill Godshalk [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Michael E. Cohen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 19:31:46 -0800 Subject: 13.07370 Re: The Laws of Theatre Comment: Re: SHK 13.07370 Re: The Laws of Theatre Sam Small wrote: > I know it's cinema but my favourite acting quote is from James Cagney. > "Learn your lines and say them like you mean it." I actually think that > is all you need to know about acting. Well, there is the small matter of what you do when you're on-stage and NOT speaking.... _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.07391 Wednesday, 13 March 2002 [1] From: W.L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 13:42:44 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 13.07380 Re: Almost Damn'd [2] From: David Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 16:02:45 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 13.07380 Re: Almost Damn'd [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W.L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 13:42:44 -0500 Subject: 13.07380 Re: Almost Damn'd Comment: Re: SHK 13.07380 Re: Almost Damn'd Steve Sohmer: "when Cassio says Iago is a Florentine we believe him (3.1.39)." Cassio says regarding Iago: "I never knew a Florentine more kind and honest." One of my students recently suggested that Cassio means, "I never knew one of my own city to be more kind and honest than Iago." In this reading, Cassio is the Florentine as per 1.1.20, and Iago is the outsider (could our James be Spanish?) who is just as kind and honest as any Florentine. This leaves us with that pesky phrase "A Verennessa, Michael Cassio" (Folio 2.1.26). Some suggest that Verennessa is a type of ship: "The ship is here put in, / A Veronesa" (Riverside). Some suggest that the ship Cassio is sailing has been borrowed from Verona. Or, of course, Cassio could be from Verona, or the Third Gentleman could be wrong in his identification of Cassio as Veronese -- another of the play's many misidentifications. Steve would have us question Iago's identification of Cassio as a Florentine, and, indeed, all Iago's unsupported assertions should be questioned. Yours, Bill Godshalk [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 16:02:45 -0500 Subject: 13.07380 Re: Almost Damn'd Comment: Re: SHK 13.07380 Re: Almost Damn'd I can't agree with Dana Shilling and Steve Sohmer, among others, about Cassio. For one thing, I think it's clear from the play that Cassio is a Florentine. When he says of Iago, "I never knew/A Florentine more kind and honest" he is not saying that Iago is a Florentine. He is saying that Iago is as good as the best of Cassio's own countrymen. Iago mentions that Cassio is a Florentine partly to contrast himself with those effeminate Florentines. Cassio is "almost damn'd in a fair wife" because his appearance, manners and character are, in Iago's view, so feminine as to be damned in a real man. In other words, Iago is saying, he's a damned fairy. He's so effeminate he'd be almost damned, in this sense, if he were an actual woman: a fair wife. Even a fair wife might be damned for being so effeminate. Of course we don't have to--and don't--take Iago's word for this. The fact that Cassio is a Florentine, on the other hand, is never contradicted. Florence has a reputation both for high civilization (one reason Othello appoints Cassio: he aspires to something higher) and for decadence. They go together. This is why Cassio has entrappable manners like kissing his fingers, and kissing women in genteel greeting. His "bookish theoric" makes him, to Iago, like a fair wife and also a spinster. In this play an ideal, or a stereotype, of simple "honest" manliness runs up against a counterimage of "supersubtle"--and feminized--urbanity. The "Veronessa" is a ship of that type--a specificity that lends weight to the report. I think that's the point of the word. It would not have a point if applied here to Cassio. That he's a Florentine does have a point--multiple points--in the play. Best wishes, David Bishop _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.07390 Wednesday, 13 March 2002 [1] From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 12:55:25 -0500 Subj: Shakespeare Journals [2] From: Robert C. Evans <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 13:58:39 EST Subj: Re: SHK 13.07367 Shakespeare Journals [3] From: John V Robinson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 17:18:54 EST Subj: Re: SHK 13.07367 Shakespeare Journals [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 12:55:25 -0500 Subject: Shakespeare Journals Thomas Larque states, "I am already a reviewer for the "Shakespeare Bulletin" and a contributor to "A Groat's Worth of Wit", but am hoping to find more outlets for my writing on Shakespeare." You might consider sending a review of a book or a production to _SRASP_: _Shakespeare and Renaissance Association of West Virginia: Selected Papers_, a juried, refereed annual that prints the best revised papers from the previous year's West Virginia Shakespeare Conference. The journal will, however, consider reviews from the outside. If you are interested, Tom, you can email the editor at <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >. --Ed Taft [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert C. Evans <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 13:58:39 EST Subject: 13.07367 Shakespeare Journals Comment: Re: SHK 13.07367 Shakespeare Journals >Does anybody know of any reasonably cheap print Journals dealing >principally with Shakespeare, Renaissance Drama or Renaissance >Literature other than "Shakespeare Bulletin", "Shakespeare Quarterly", >"Upstart Crow", "Shakespeare Newsletter", "A Groat's Worth of Wit" and >"Shakespeare Magazine"? By reasonably cheap I mean anything under about >40 pounds or 60 dollars a year. May I (ahem) put in a word for the _Ben Jonson Journal_, which publishes pieces not only on Ben but also on Shakespeare and on many other aspects of Renaissance culture? The price per volume ($25) is very reasonable, especially considering that recent volumes have been running close to, or sometimes well over, 400 pages. (Volume 7, which contains a special on Catholicism, runs to close to 700 pages). Volume 8 is now out, and volume 9 should be out by fall. More information is available at www.benjonsonjournal.com (please forgive the annoying pop-ups). With best wishes -- Bob Evans (and, I confess, one of the editors of BJJ) [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: John V Robinson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 17:18:54 EST Subject: 13.07367 Shakespeare Journals Comment: Re: SHK 13.07367 Shakespeare Journals >I am already a reviewer for the "Shakespeare Bulletin" and a contributor >to "A Groat's Worth of Wit", but am hoping to find more outlets for my >writing on Shakespeare. > > Thomas Larque. > "Shakespeare and His Critics" > http://shakespearean.org.uk Most journals will publish your stuff if it's good enough. Try Note and Queries, ANQ, Explicator, Hamlet Studies, or English Language Notes. I'm sure other members will have more suggestions. _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.07389 Wednesday, 13 March 2002 From: Martin Steward <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 17:37:51 -0000 Subject: Early-modern detective story? Mike Jensen asks, with reference to a recent strand about the origins of the detective story: "Do you really think a plot cannot have an aspect where a character wonders who committed a killing without putting the plot in the detective/mystery genre? Are writers so vulnerable to later interpretations that this claim is fair? Aside from that, what do these plays really have in common with Agatha Christie or Dashiell Hammett? I'll answer my own question: virtually nothing". Indeed. The detective story plot actually has nothing to do with death or murder as such, and more to do with mystery, and with privileged perspectives on the story being sealed off from the audience. So here's my candidate: Beaumont and Fletcher's "A king and No King" (1611). This play's dramaturgy seems to signal a notable departure from the usual conventions of plotting and dramatic irony, even as they had been expanded in Shakespeare's Romances. In A King and No King, characters engage in dialogue which is informed by the subtext of their "really-lived" histories, whose wider relevance is withheld from the audience until the catastrophe. This has nothing to do with dramatic irony as conventionally understood - it can only make sense to the audience after they have seen the last scenes of the play and are familiar with the really-lived histories of the characters. Whereas Cymbeline (e.g.) privileges its audience with an omniscient perspective from the start, A King and No King gives that privilege to a pair of characters within the play itself - Queen Arane and Gobrius. Remarkably, they are assumed to exist independently of the drama that gives them life, and the audience which eavesdrops on that life. So, when Arane is punished for her attempted assassination of King Arbaces, Gobrius mercilessly condemns her "that she should stretch her arm / Against her king", and "think the death / Of her own son"; one would expect Arane's reply, "Thou know'st the reason why, / Dissembling as thou art, and wilt not speak", to refer to some terrible secret shared by the audience. But their secret has never been revealed to the audience, and at this point the truth is not readily reconcilable with the characters' words or actions - it is effectively unimaginable. The couple's cryptic exchange later in the same scene, despite their being alone onstage, still only hints at this truth. "Nay, should I join with you" in killing Arbaces, Gobrius says, "Should we not both be torn? And yet both die / Uncredited?" It is unclear how the apparently loyal Gobrius can sympathize with this traitorous woman whom he has just attacked so bitterly. "I do but right in saving of the king / From all your plots", he insists, to which Arane responds, strangely, "The king?" Again, it is not clear why their should be any doubt concerning Arbaces right to be King, as nobody else in the play raises the issue. To add to the mystery, Gobrius then assures Arane, that "With patience... a time would come for me / To reconcile all to your own content", which seems to promise a removal of Arbaces from the throne; furthermore, Arane's rash actions are said to "take away my power", forcing Gobrius to "preserve mine own". Only the playgoer blessed with astonishing foresight (and perhaps only the twentieth-century mind conditioned by Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and the cinematic device of the "flashback") could deduce from this what is revealed in the last scene of the play - that Gobrius is the father of Arbaces, and Arbaces is King by deception (and therefore treason) with Arane. Even Arane's lament, "Accursed be this over-curious brain / That gave that plot a birth; accurst this womb / That after did conceive to my disgrace" - does little more than tease us with the possibility (II.i.8-14, 47-62). In the context of the early seventeenth-century stage, this is mind-bending stuff: a brilliant marketing ploy which must almost have forced the play's audience back to enjoy a second look at the action from an enlightened perspective, but which also attempted to justify the most radical questioning of the nature of Kingship by disguising those questions as harmless experimental dramaturgy. m _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.07388 Wednesday, 13 March 2002 [1] From: Don Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 11:00:20 -0600 Subj: Re: SHK 13.0733 Re: Machiavelli [2] From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 13:01:38 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 13.07373 Re: Fishy [3] From: Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 10:02:09 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 13.07382 Re: Machiavelli [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Don Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 11:00:20 -0600 Subject: 13.0733 Re: Machiavelli Comment: Re: SHK 13.0733 Re: Machiavelli I refuse to rise to the bait any longer. Now if Martin Steward had written, "Sounds Fishy to me," at the outset, I would have known exactly what he meant. Cheers, don [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Clifford Stetner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 13:01:38 -0500 Subject: 13.07373 Re: Fishy Comment: Re: SHK 13.07373 Re: Fishy > Now my experiment: I sat under a tree today. Describe the tree. > > Yours, Bill Godshalk Unfair, unfair! We all "sat" "under" a "tree" today, several in fact. There is the genealogical tree from which each of us derives. There is Ygdrassil the World Tree of which we similarly all are fruit. There is the protective shade of our national Constitutions grown from the roots of centuries of political struggle. There is the rood tree on which our saviour was ignominiously sacrificed. I have renditions of trees by both Monet and Van Gogh hanging above chairs in my living room. An accurate description of one of the trees under which I now sit is an inaccurate description of the others. Any answer to the question as you pose it must therefore be wrong. Clifford [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 12 Mar 2002 10:02:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: 13.07382 Re: Machiavelli Comment: Re: SHK 13.07382 Re: Machiavelli Clifford Stetner quotes me, then writes, "'I even suggested they might see Marlowe's ghost in the ghost of Hamlet's father, and thus have to digest mentally if the ghost which opened _Hamlet_ was a "Machiavellian" ghost? Maybe Hamlet's father's ghost was the ghost of the dead Marlowe in Shakespeare's mind...' Some time back I suggested to an unenthusiastic response that the name Horatio would evoke Kyd who had just died from illness sustained from the Tower rack and who is credited on thin evidence with the alleged 'Ur-Hamlet.'" Loving the English histrionics for melodrama, I want to play a member of the lower house and cry, "Hear, Hear!!" Let me just say, that the history of late Elizabethan London, with all the plots to overthrow the Queen, the Tower stories, the tortures, the live quarterings, the disembowelings, et al., must have made Shakespeare cringe to think he was so close to royalty and a maker of plays. So, I am even surprised that he was brave enough to do _Hamlet_ with a Danish setting in that horrific climate. I'm surprised he didn't place the setting in _China!_ I do _not_ think that Shakespearean scholars have given enough credit to Shakespeare the _man_ in all this. I am _not_ enough of a student of Shakespeare to really back up _your_ suggestion. But I do believe that if the history of London is looked upon as the metaphor for the background of _Hamlet_, perhaps you will be found to have stumbled upon more of the truth than supposed. Do _not_ forget that the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, was house imprisoned by the Queen over rumors by him and his cohorts, on numerous occasions, and according to Robert Lacey in _Robert, Earl of Essex_, in order to save his own skin this same favourite of the Queen had her finally convinced to disembowel her own personal physician on the rumor he'd tried to poison his own patient, HRH the Queen herself. Thus, all the _poison_ and _rumors_ in _Hamlet_ by the participants, including the ghost of Hamlet-s father, for me, recalls the horrific _real_ events leading up to the drafting of the script by Shakespeare which eventually became _Hamlet_ of 1600. In fact, the play should be subtitled, _Poisons and Rumors_. Bill Arnold _______________________________________________________________ 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 Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.