The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.1627  Friday, 12 July 2002

[1]     From:   Elliott H. Stone <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Friday, 12 Jul 2002 00:41:03 EDT
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.1622 Re: The Return of Pregnant Gertrude

[2]     From:   Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 11 Jul 2002 16:58:48 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.1622 Re: The Return of Pregnant Gertrude


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Elliott H. Stone <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Friday, 12 Jul 2002 00:41:03 EDT
Subject: 13.1622 Re: The Return of Pregnant Gertrude
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.1622 Re: The Return of Pregnant Gertrude

I have the greatest respect for my classmate John Updike. I think his
intention was to write a Danish prequel to the Hamlet play, however, I
am certain that his book presupposes and understands that Shakespeare's
Hamlet is not about Denmark. Hamlet is about the Court of Queen
Elizabeth and is placed in Denmark only because certain things could not
be openly written about England. Nobakov speaks derisively in his
Cornell lectures about Gogol's Dead Souls, that those commentators who
think the book is about a social history of Russia, are the same critics
who believe Hamlet is about Denmark.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 11 Jul 2002 16:58:48 -0700
Subject: 13.1622 Re: The Return of Pregnant Gertrude
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.1622 Re: The Return of Pregnant Gertrude

H David Friedberg suggests that

>An eight month pregnant Queen, as Ivan Fuller plays it is a bit too
>obvious, the Court will leap to conclusions long before; the Ghost is
>then not needed to spill the beans about the secret murder

Not necessarily.  She might be eight-months pregnant, and everyone
assumes that it is her late husband's child.  Unless there's something
obvious--a difference of race, say--one would assume that three-quarter
brothers would look rather similar, so there wouldn't be any way to tell
before blood-tests.

Cheers,
Se     

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