June
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.1190 Friday, 13 June 2003 From: Nancy Charlton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 11:38:03 -0700 Subject: 14.1181 Robin MacNeil on June 18 Comment: Re: SHK 14.1181 Robin MacNeil on June 18 Thanks, John Andrews, for the article about Robin McNeill and his book signing. Would anyone know whether this talk will be broadcast on BookTV? This is part of C-Span, the most interesting part IMHO, and only on TV so far as I know on weekends. I recently learned that many of these broadcasts are also available as web casts. I would guess from the one-hour plus version of one aired last Sunday that the web-casts are uncut. This talk is by Adam Nicholson, author of _God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible_. While watching I felt that Mr. N. achieves something quite remarkable: he addresses a general audience on a special subject without patronizing the one or dumbing down the other. He emphasizes how the KJV has affected language, making many comparisons and contrasts with Shakespeare, Milton and other poets. One of the best yet on this substantial program. The URL: http://www.booktv.org/history/index.asp?schedid=196&segid=3591 Nancy Charlton _______________________________________________________________ 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 14.1189 Friday, 13 June 2003 [1] From: D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 11:24:43 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 14.1157 Re: Hamlet and Grebanier [2] From: Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 17:02:10 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 14.1172 Re: Hamlet and Grebanier [the Ghost] [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 11:24:43 -0500 Subject: 14.1157 Re: Hamlet and Grebanier Comment: Re: SHK 14.1157 Re: Hamlet and Grebanier Bill Arnold on that man of the tropics: >Henry Miller was >hardly "ineffectual" and some of his best works were not written when he >was "poverty-stricken" as he had been in his earlier days in his native >Brooklyn or as an ex-patriot in Paris. Ah, another one of those exceedingly apt typos. But then, in this post-OIF, WMD-less political climate, who isn't one? Cheers, don [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 17:02:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 14.1172 Re: Hamlet and Grebanier [the Ghost] Comment: Re: SHK 14.1172 Re: Hamlet and Grebanier [the Ghost] Claude Caspar quotes me, "...others saw the ghost, as did [Hamlet], so he had NO reason to doubt his SANITY." Then Claude Caspar writes, "Actually, Hamlet understood mass hysteria as well & was as dubious of joint illusion as singular, in other words he took both red & blue pills at once... Do you think he believed his rep? I.e., the "public" that mystically flows behind various players & ideas in the background, but must be reckoned with." So do I take it you are trying to be humorous, while Grebanier--and I in his stead--are trying to be scholarly? Hey, I enjoy a good joke, as do many on SHAKSPER, but let us get contextual and referential to serious works, and in a scholarly sense. Then Claude Caspar writes, "But, my position is that we can posit a ghost, but we don't yet have a ghost of an idea why Gertrude is oblivious. Is it just her nature of denial? She just doesn't get it. Though Dover Wilson, his theological assumptions aside, points out that Old Hamlet reacts when he realizes Gertrude is blind. Read the meager text, the ghosts reported retreat, and make of this trace what you can." If you know what you mean by the latter remarks about Dover Wilson, go ahead and explain them to me. You obviously have not read Grebanier. If you had, you would have noticed perhaps a hundred pages, at least, of reference to the "ghost" of Hamlet's father in his discussions. In particular, you should have noticed on page 153 that Grebanier writes, "Among these little treasures was the reprint of the Daemonologie written by King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) in 1587. This work of the bigot-king began to educate us in Elizabethan lore concerning ghosts. It is clear from the Daemonologie that a ghost may be none other than the Devil himself, masquerading for the occasion in the guise of a person familiar to the unfortunate mortal favored with the supernatural visit. James, who probably never once harbored an original idea in his cranium, was voicing accepted notions when he wrote the following passage...." Now, the point is, in my humble opinion, that the Elizabethans of the time of the staging of Hamlet, which was years later, were as a people already believers of ghosts and their own king had years before told them that ghosts were the Devil Incarnate. That is why, if you consult the SHAKSPER archives, my remarks on the speech Hamlet gave about the dichotomy of the good spirits vs. bad spirits is so important to a scholarly understanding of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Hamlet, you see, did "harbor an original idea in his cranium." Hamlet did not accept the ghost in the guise of his departed father to be evil. Would you have expected less of a dutiful prince, beholden to the memory of his recently dead father who he was still mourning? Would you expect him to conclude as the author of Daemonologie, anyway? Certainly not evil, unless you hold sway to the madness theory of Hamlet the character? Neither Grebanier nor I follow the latter insane view of Prince Hamlet. Read Grebanier. Bill Arnold http://www.cwru.edu/affil/edis/scholars/arnold.htm _______________________________________________________________ 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 14.1188 Friday, 13 June 2003 From: David Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 15:40:05 -0700 Subject: 14.1168 Re: Edmund Comment: Re: SHK 14.1168 Re: Edmund Ed Taft finds it implausible that we should believe France suddenly decided to go home because he thought of something imperfect in the state. I don't. I don't think we are led to think much about this aspect of the background. The question is raised, immediately given a satisfactory answer, and we get back to what we're really interested in. If Ed worries about what happened in France, I wonder what he makes of the gaps of logic pointed out by Bradley. Maybe we could say that a play has a letter and a spirit. In my opinion, Ed is following out certain letters to the nth degree and missing the spirit. Edgar, for example, is not the villain of the piece. Some problems just don't amount to a hill of beans. I imagine he might also feel that I am giving too much weight to some things, and not enough to others. How to find the right balance? It's a long story. 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 14.1187 Friday, 13 June 2003 [1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 16:50:37 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Challenge [2] From: Claude Caspar <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 17:46:14 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Challenge [3] From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 19:03:06 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Challenge [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 16:50:37 -0400 Subject: 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Comment: Re: SHK 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Challenge Claude Caspar wrote: >Poker, I play table-stakes & Texas Holdem, Bennett >notwithstanding, is still not beatable [consistently] by computer IF, >but ONLY if, the rules allow the irrational- one can bet anything at >anytime, something a computer doesn't compute. The computer can only >play the odds, like a beady-eyed actuary. Bluffing can't be programmed >spontaneously, only by premeditation. Are you saying that a computer can win at limit but not no limit games? I have never known a successful player to bluff irrationally (at least not very often). Bluffing, like nondeceptive play, follows certain patterns. Can you not program a computer, for example, to sometimes steal antes and blinds in late position? In stud, when the computer has a losing hand on the river but four to a flush or straight showing cannot it be programmed to bet and raise if the pot odds justify it? But what implications does any of this have for Shakespeare studies? [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Claude Caspar <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 17:46:14 -0400 Subject: 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Comment: Re: SHK 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Challenge >I have never known a successful player to bluff irrationally (at least not >very often). Bluffing, like nondeceptive play, follows certain patterns. On the one hand, mathematically, it is not easy to even program a routine to generate a random number- some claim it is impossible in the absolute sense. http://www.cut-the-knot.org/probability.shtml I used term bluff in the broadest sense, but even in the strictest sense you propose, I don't see how it can ever be rational as long as so much is unknown. The real advantage of professionals is their deep pockets & discipline- amateurs can't afford to loose. All you need to do to rattle a civilian is keep raising the stakes. The skill is in knowing yourself, placing the best bet & reading your table. Money management is more important than skill, even. I play with professional gamblers often & my experience is that the less they premeditate the better they play. Since we won't play I will tell you a secret, my secret. I tend to blot out the table, knowing that odds are not a factor. Yes, over the years, infinite years, reality will approximate the odds, but is never obligated to conform to theory. The real world has rough edges that skew theoretical assessments. There is no certainty, a discovery of modern physics. So, I play against myself! The advantage is knowing my odds, my nature- this immunizes me against all ploys. Now, I am not oblivious to my surroundings, but just as I play my ticks to the crowd, know I am being played, too. Shakespeare is a master of such play within a play, mirror upon mirror. It would be unfair to say that my retirement 25 years ago proves anything-it may be just luck. In fact, upon reconsidering, you are welcome in any game I am in... I know more about your preconceptions than you known mine! [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 19:03:06 -0300 Subject: 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Comment: Re: SHK 14.1177 Great Statistical vs Human Sonnet 146 Crux Challenge Claude Caspar claims that >Chess is dead, a victim of the cpu. The moment Shakespeare can be >understood by a computer he will no longer be important to us. I am a >life-long chess player, who can play in my head, sharked in college. >But, a $100 handheld can now defeat just about everyone but a hand few >in the world, consistently. I'm not sure that I understand this. Most human competitors in most sports can be defeated by a machine, and in many cases by an animal as well. No one can outrun a rocket any more than they can outrun a cheetah, but we still watch the olympic games. Cheers, Sean. _______________________________________________________________ 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 14.1186 Friday, 13 June 2003 [1] From: D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 11:32:49 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 14.1158 Re: A Lover's Complaint [2] From: Bill Lloyd <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 13:16:57 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 14.1173 Re: A Lover's Complaint [3] From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 19:41:16 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 14.1173 Re: A Lover's Complaint [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: D Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 11:32:49 -0500 Subject: 14.1158 Re: A Lover's Complaint Comment: Re: SHK 14.1158 Re: A Lover's Complaint Gabriel Egan >* I have on my computer every word that I've typed since 1990 and a >search for 'gazillion' shows that I've never written it before. Based on >my past behaviour one might confidently assert that I don't use it, yet >here I am imitating Elliott's use of it. Does that prove that you collaborated on that particular document? Is borrowing or quoting an example of collaboration? If you use a word to prove that you never use the word are you contradicting yourself? (A favorite children's story involved two boy who, for reasons that I can't remember, decide to make valentine for some group. One says they'll need a gazillion and the other responds (despondently), "A gazillion? Gee, that's a lot of valentines.") Cheers, don [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Lloyd <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 13:16:57 EDT Subject: 14.1173 Re: A Lover's Complaint Comment: Re: SHK 14.1173 Re: A Lover's Complaint I must admit the fine points of statistical testing are sometimes a little beyond me-- when one side makes an argument it seems reasonable to me and then when the other side makes a counter-argument, that also seems reasonable to me. I guess I need to read up. Both Jim Carroll and Ward Elliott seem to make sense-- I'm going to guess that the 'answer' is that ya need to do all the tests all the ways, and that though all tests give results, not all results are significant. [Not sure who I'm agreeing with here...] I agree that substylistic and metrical analysis can often identify an author whether he is writing a pastoral poem or a tragic drama, but I'm not so sure that someone making a conscious decision to =alter= his style or to emulate another writer's style would never be able to beat the house. If someone who normally wrote like T.S. Eliot decided to write verse in the style of A. E. Housman, would we be able to suss him out by his clinging syllables? Or if Truman Capote decided to write a parody in the style of Jack Kerouac ["That's not writing, that's typing."] would function word and relative position analysis reveal the true author? I suspect it might not... Speculative scenario time again. I didn't suggest, as Ward Elliott seems to think I did, that A Lover's Complaint was perhaps by Chapman, but rather that it may have been Shakespeare imitating Chapman which is not at all the same thing and would not necessarily test like either poet. Why would someone do that? We can only speculate, but we have at least one example of Shakespeare doing so-- the Pyrrhus-Priam-Hecuba speeches in Hamlet in which he emulates [school of] Marlowe. Who was the Rival Poet of the Sonnets? Might Shakespeare have wanted to show his skill in that poet's style? He might even have failed-- the sometimes archaic, sometimes clotted, sometimes clumsy, sometimes Shakespearean writing in LC smacks to me of a failed experiment. William Herbert and William Shakespeare. James Shirley's patron and friend William Cavendish Earl of Newcastle had aspirations to be a playwright, and in some of his early efforts was aided and corrected by Shirley so that there are several pays that it's hard to say whether they're by Shirley or Cavendish. If I recall, Oscar Wilde sometimes helped Bosie compose, and he certainly corrected his English translation of Salome. The Waste Land is, not surprisingly, more Poundian than Eliot's other works. If Shakespeare's patron [?] and friend [?] William Herbert was composing a Complaint, perhaps in response or in competition to poems [sonnets?] Shakespeare had sent him, and eventually WS sat down with WH and helped him and essentially co-wrote it, what would that look like? And how would it test? Very speculative scenario, I know, and I'm afraid of looking a bit like Auntie Stratt here, but I'm just offering it as a guess, and the parallels are real, and the circumstances are not discordant with WS's genuine biography. Not sure what can be done with such a speculation -- test Herbert's writings? -- but there it is. I too am guilty of SHOUTING in ALL CAPS for EMPHASIS, because I'm given to understand that italics and underlining don't translate well from one e-mail system to another, and I'm such a poor typist that I dislike using shift-position alternatives such as *asterisks* or _bottomlines_. I think I'll use =equals= to indicate italicization for emphasis and see how that works. Regards, Bill Lloyd [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Lawrence <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 12 Jun 2003 19:41:16 -0300 Subject: 14.1173 Re: A Lover's Complaint Comment: Re: SHK 14.1173 Re: A Lover's Complaint Bill Arnold writes, >Actually, I required all students to write in journals and write in >lower-case cursive so as to learn to write FASTER! I do write >occasionally in CAPS in REALLY tough-to-convey situations for EMPHASIS >and do not consider it to be shouting :) Of course I was and am >unconventional and do not like _emphasis_ for emphasis in email, but >then I guess I could opt for *emphasis* for emphasis, but then I would >be considered TOO conventional :) N'est-ce pas? Pas de tout. It doesn't matter whether you consider the use of caps to be shouting, since it remains an internet convention that it is. A deaf person can't hear himself shout, but he should be sensitive to his listener. Besides, as a teacher of composition surely you can find less vulgar means of drawing attention to individual words. "Italics," wrote the Fowler brothers, "are a confession of weakness". Cheers, Sean. _______________________________________________________________ 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.