February
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 15.0540 Thursday, 26 February 2004 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 07:53:17 -0500 Subject: King Lear Opening Night Tickets Comment: SHK 15.0537 King Lear Opening Night Tickets I pressed the wrong key on my mouse yesterday and did not notice I had not supplied the e0mail address for reaching Kullervo M
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 15.0539 Wednesday, 25 February 2004 [1] From: Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 16:50:23 -0000 Subj: Re: SHK 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire [2] From: Peter Bridgman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 18:44:46 -0000 Subj: Re: SHK 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire [3] From: Matthew Steggle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 10:35:00 -0000 Subj: Re: Brewer satire [4] From: Matthew Steggle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 11:26:47 -0000 Subj: RE: SHAKSPER Digest - 20 Feb 2004 to 24 Feb 2004 (#2004-38) [5] From: Sally Drumm <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 07:00:21 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 16:50:23 -0000 Subject: 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire Comment: Re: SHK 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire I'm no expert, but surely this refers to a brothel? "Stews" was a slang term for a brothel. "First come, first served" is both a dirty pun on "come" and "served" and presumably a description of the working methods of Elizabethan brothels (with customers forming an orderly queue to wait for one of the ladies to become available?). "Ride"-ing was a fairly standard euphemism for sex, and the "*one* on either side" comment sounds like another pun, something in the tradition of Shakespeare's "beast with two backs" in "Othello", with the alternative four-wheeled cart playing on some level with the possibility of group sex. The normal way for this "weight" / cargo? or "weight" / body? or "weight" / sexual press of bodies to run is with two parties not four (using the metaphor of a two-wheeled cart and four-wheeled wagon) - so the prostitutes are apparently normally engaged in standard sexual intercourse between two, but in this particular bawdy house, because they are engaged in hurrying their customers along (and have such large queues to deal with), it is implied, every available female orifice is being filled and three customers are being served by each prostitute at any one time. The poet thinks it is better (for morality or for the customer?) for the prostitutes (or for women in general) to engage in standard sexual intercourse between two parties. Of course somebody will probably now come up with a perfectly innocent reading of the poem which will suggest that I just have a very dirty mind, but I plead not-guilty (or at least launch a counter-suit against Thomas Brewer for Entrapment). Relevant Oxford English Dictionary entries include: WEIGHT - 11.a. A heavy mass; usually, something heavy that is lifted or carried; a burden, load. Also fig. WEIGHT - 3.c. Impetus (of a heavy falling body; also of a blow). [Perhaps with reference to sexual thrusting here]. RIDE - 3. To mount the female; to copulate. Now only in low and indecent language. RIDE - 4.a. To be conveyed, to travel or journey, in a wheeled or other vehicle. STEW - 4. A brothel. (Developed from sense 3, on account of the frequent use of the public hot-air bath-houses for immoral purposes. Cf. BAGNIO.) a. In plural (chiefly collect.; sometimes, a quarter occupied by houses of ill-fame). COME - 17. To experience sexual orgasm. SERVE - 52. Of a male animal: To cover (the female); esp. of stallions, bulls, etc. kept and hired out for the purpose. SERVE - 3. a. To be a servant to; to work for, be employed in the personal service of (a master or mistress). SERVE - 3. b. fig. To be the slave of (sin, one's lower nature, etc.). Obs. or arch. SERVE - 3. d. To work for (a body of persons, a company) as a paid servant. SERVE - 4. a. To attend upon (as a servant does); to wait upon, minister to the comfort of. SERVE - 10. b. To gratify, furnish means for satisfying (desire); to minister to, satisfy (one's need). SERVE - 10. c. To comply with the request of (a person); to fulfill the wishes of, give (one) his wish. SERVE - 19. b. To be used in common by (a number of persons). SERVE - 19. c. 19. c. Of a bodily faculty or organ: To render its normal service to (the owner). Also const. inf. SERVE - 31. b. Const. with, of: To supply (one) with food at a meal, to help (one) to food. SERVE - 35. a. To attend to the request of (a customer in a shop). Hence, to supply (a customer) with a commodity which he has come to purchase. SERVE - 38. (Said of persons and things.) To supply, provide, or furnish with something necessary or requisite. Also, to furnish (a person, town, etc.) with a regular or continuous supply. Thomas Larque. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Bridgman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 18:44:46 -0000 Subject: 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire Comment: Re: SHK 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire > *First come, first served.* > > ------------ ------------- ------------ Who can chuse >But laugh at this: Why here's a running Stewes >Hurries them on. This waight was wont to ride, >Not on *foure* wheeles, but *one* on either side, >And that me thinks shewd better. --------------- Why, here's a busy brothel that hurries the customers on. This wight (man) wanted to fuck - not on all fours, but sandwiched between two girls. Peter Bridgman [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Steggle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 10:35:00 -0000 Subject: Re: Brewer satire David Evett quotes some riddling lines - *First come, first served.* ------------ ------------- ------------ Who can chuse But laugh at this: Why here's a running Stewes Hurries them on. This waight was wont to ride, Not on *foure* wheeles, but *one* on either side, And that me thinks shewd better. --------------- Just a guess, but I reckon he is describing a woman riding past in a posh four-wheeled coach. He accuses her of sexual immorality, suggesting in particular that in the past she has ridden in a two-wheeled cart, i.e., has been "carted" as a whore. The punishment is discussed in, for instance, Gustav Ungerer, "Prostitution in Late Elizabethan London: The Case of Mary Newborough", MRDE 15 (2002): 138-223. All the best, Matt. [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Matthew Steggle <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 11:26:47 -0000 Subject: RE: SHAKSPER Digest - 20 Feb 2004 to 24 Feb 2004 (#2004-38) An addendum on those Thomas Brewer lines - You could usefully parallel Epigram 96 from Thomas Freeman's _A Rub and a Great Cast_ (1614): I prethee Fusca, wouldst thou haue a Coach To poast the streets, so like a paragon That all that to thy Concaue Carre approach, May cry Madona to a Curtezan, And simpringly salute a sluttish sweet, And as it were make curtsie to a crab: Thy hopes are high, and yet perhaps may hit, And destiny may dignifie a drab; Or Briddwels duty may (to thy desart) If not a Coach, yet helpe thee to a cart. So Brewer wouldn't be the only Renaissance satirist making misogynistic jokes about the similarity between coaches and carts. All the best, Matt. [5]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sally Drumm <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 07:00:21 -0500 Subject: 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire Comment: Re: SHK 15.0503 Query: Brewer Satire Probably, in fact most likely, this comment is way off mark, but still...I immediately thought of a tarot deck as I read your description of Brewer's characters. Of course, the numbers don't match--there are 22 major arcana cards and four suits of minor arcana. Still, there is the question of five different names (for those four suits) that float through history. At any rate, I checked my deck for your description. Card seven of the major arcana is the Chariot. The card prior is The Lovers. The piece sounds fascinating. Any chance it is posted somewhere online in its entirety? I would love to compare Brewer's characters to the rest of the tarot deck. Sincerely, Sally Drumm _______________________________________________________________ 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 15.0538 Wednesday, 25 February 2004 [1] From: Steve Sohmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 08:55:14 EST Subj: Re: SHK 15.0522 Ghost Appearance [2] From: Bruce W.Richman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 16:25:11 -0600 Subj: RE: SHK 15.0522 Ghost Appearance [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Sohmer <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 08:55:14 EST Subject: 15.0522 Ghost Appearance Comment: Re: SHK 15.0522 Ghost Appearance Dear Friends, Please excuse me if I repeat myself. There are two jokes in JC which seem to point to Shakespeare in the part of Julius -- although, Colin, I hasten to agree that we may never be sure of this. The first joke is when Antony says, "When Caesar says 'Do this', it is performed" 1.2.10 of Arden 3. The second is Cassius' "Ay and that tongue of his that bade the Romans Mark him, and write his speeches in their books' 1.2.125-6.These seem to me insiders' jokes on Shakespeare playing the part of Caesar. If I'm right about this (and contrary views are possible), then it would seem to me to entail that Shakespeare played Polonius and was, perhaps, accused of killing the calf when he died as Caesar. I think that if one looks at the references to graves opening and releasing their dead -- in JC, HAM, and, of course, at the Tempest where Shakespeare is thought to be writing his literary obit in the part of Prospero -- perhaps the conjunction becomes more persuasive. As to the famous armor ... the tactic which Shakespeare is employing seems to me this. The question we're wanted to ask is: how on earth does Horatio recognize Old Hamlet's armor as being "the very armor he had on When he th'ambitious Norway combated" 1.1.64-5 Arden 2? After all, Horatio is Hamlet's school chum -- likely, his contemporary, or perhaps younger (since Hamlet's 30). A lot of weak explanations have been offered for this: Horatio saw a portrait of Old Hamlet in the armor, the armor stood in the hall, etc. But Shakespeare's joke is that he's modeling Horatio on Philip Melanchthon, that most reasonable of Wittenberg men (who was, indeed, no truant in the sense that Luther had been). Melanchthon's father was a court armorer. The Melanchthon paradigm also underlies why Horatio can explain the "seal'd compact" of the combat in such legalistic terms (1.1.88-97) -- Melanchthon was a lawyer. And why he knows so much about Caesar's fall (he was a classical scholar, therefore the sentries address him as a "scholar" 1.1.40).Also why he's reluctant to swear Hamlet's oath (Luther deplored the swearing of oaths). And why Hamlet speaks of his "philosophy", etc. It also explains the wordplay on "truant," but I don't want to bore you. It seems to me that the Ghost has shrugged his armor and appears "in his habit as he lived" in Gertrude's closet, which signifies that his sins have been burned away and he's on his way to heaven. Hope this helps. Steve [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce W.Richman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 16:25:11 -0600 Subject: 15.0522 Ghost Appearance Comment: RE: SHK 15.0522 Ghost Appearance The first rule of doubled parts must be that the two characters can't appear together. It follows that the next rule is that the actor has to have sufficient time between the exit of one and the entrance of the other to make a costume change; if the costumes are elaborate, like a full suit of armor or a senior courtier's rich suit, one can reasonably assume that more changing time is required. The tiny "tiring room" off-stage didn't lend itself to the sort of split-second costume changes suggested by a doubling of the Ghost/Polonius roles. If the dead Polonius were in fact played by an actor other than the one who played the live one, it would require the first Polonius to slip away at II.iv.8 without much rustling of the arras and be replaced by the second wearing an identical (expensive) costume. The stage direction ("Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius") seems to invite the audience to have a good look rather than to hide a pseudo-Polonius. Polonius is behind the arras not, as suggested, to facilitate the ruse of a substituted actor playing the corpse, but because everything he and Claudius do is hugger-mugger, behind some sort of arras; the answer is characterological, not technical. The Ghost's homely attire in III.iv could indeed facilitate the quick costume change suggested, but what then of the change from full armor when the Ghost exits at I.i.144 and Polonius enters only 33 lines later? Or only 112 lines separating the armed Ghost's exit in I.v. and Polonius's entry at II.i, with the rapidly re-costuming Ghost/Polonius stopping three times in his fevered tiring room labors to somehow shout "Swear" from "beneath"?. And why exactly go to all this trouble to have one man play the two parts? Actors always recognize Shakespeare's professionalism in the many little ways he made things easy for them; the sort of frantic "Noises Off" activity suggested by a doubling of the Ghost and Polonius would make the actor's work markedly difficult. If any of the traditional information we have about the roles that Shakespeare took for himself is to be credited, the poet's parts were consistently minor, apparently requiring that he not spend not much time on stage or in rehearsal. Certainly that can't be true of Polonius's role, despite his relatively early exit. My authority for supposing that Shakespeare doubled the Ghost and the Player King is SHAXICON and Harold Bloom. Bruce Richman Department of Psychiatry University of Missouri School of Medicine _______________________________________________________________ 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 15.0537 Wednesday, 25 February 2004 From: Kullervo M
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 15.0536 Wednesday, 25 February 2004 From: Richard Burt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 19:52:11 -0500 Subject: New DVD's: His Kingdom for a . . . Well, You Know What New DVD's: His Kingdom for a . . . Well, You Know What February 24, 2004 By PETER M. NICHOLS In a move that would traumatize studio planners today, Laurence Olivier's "Richard III" was shown on television on the same day in 1956 that it opened in movie theaters. In an essay with the DVD released today by Criterion, Bruce Eder writes that about 62.5 million viewers watched the film on NBC, more than had previously seen this Shakespeare play since it was first performed in 1592. Not surprisingly, relatively few saw "Richard III" on the big screen, but the upside-down scheduling partly righted itself 10 years later when a rerelease did well at the box office. In subsequent years the film appeared drastically shortened. The Criterion version runs 158 minutes, which is within the 155 to 161 minutes variously listed for the original. Russell Lees, a playwright and stage director, and John Wilders, former governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, provide commentary. In his third Shakespeare screen adaptation (after "Henry V" in 1944 and "Hamlet" in 1948), Olivier added material from "Henry VI" to set historical context and, Mr. Lees says, gave the sets a surrealistic look to prepare audiences for the language. In the role of the royal usurper who offers his kingdom for a horse, Olivier accidentally took an arrow in the leg while filming the battle scene on Bosworth Field. Elizabethan audiences found Richard's brisk, witty villainy deliciously attractive up to a point, and Olivier's performance is filled with dash and energy. In the DVD commentary he is contrasted with Marlon Brando, also at his peak in the 50's. Mr. Brando formed characterizations within himself, but Olivier built them from bits and pieces of others he found outside. In an interview with the critic Kenneth Tynan on the second disc, he says: "I scavenge for that tiniest little bit of human circumstance. Observe it. Use it." 1955. $39.95. 'Hamlet' Olivier was one screen Hamlet, but here we have Mel Gibson emerging, Caryn James wrote in The New York Times, "strong, intelligent and safely beyond ridicule" in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 adaptation, released today by Warner. Mr. Gibson had done two of his four "Lethal Weapon" movies. In one of two good documentaries with the the DVD of the Zeffirelli film, Ian Holm, who plays Polonius, also admires Mr. Gibson's Hamlet, if with some dry amusement at the movie's emphasis on physicality over traditional attention to language. On DVD Mr. Gibson remains, as Ms. James wrote, "by far the best part of Mr. Zeffirelli's sometimes slick but always lucid and beautifully cinematic version of the play." In the second documentary, made behind the scenes during the shoot, Mr. Gibson says that with a Hamlet portrayal you "just have to wander in there and go crazy" and describes his character as "a guy who goes off his nut" but "not a guy who can just go and stab his uncle." He also introduces his mother and father, who were visiting the set. "Hamlet" is a good film for including your parents, he says. $19.97. 135 minutes. PG. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/movies/HomeVideo/24DVD.html?ex=1078667968&ei=1&en=cb987b2b49da371a _______________________________________________________________ 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.