January
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.0169 Thursday, 27 January 2005 From: Peter Bridgman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005 19:07:17 -0000 Subject: 16.0154 Did the Bard Have Syphilis? Comment: Re: SHK 16.0154 Did the Bard Have Syphilis? Thanks to John Ross for a fascinating piece on mercury poisoning. It would certainly explain why the 48 year old WS, having just completed the Tempest and still at the height of his powers, decided to stop writing for the stage. W.B Yeats hadn't even started his greatest work at that age. Peter Bridgman _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0168 Thursday, 27 January 2005 From: Stephen C. Rose <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005 07:42:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: 16.0150 Hamlet, Ofelia and Olav H. Hauge Comment: Re: SHK 16.0150 Hamlet, Ofelia and Olav H. Hauge If it makes the relationship more central to the play, I would be interested in a summation in English. Best, S _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0167 Thursday, 27 January 2005 [1] From: Fran Barasch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005 09:29:35 EST Subj: Re: SHK 16.0140 Who Got to a Nunnery? [2] From: Jim Lake <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005 10:01:24 -0600 Subj: RE: SHK 16.0155 Who Got to a Nunnery? [3] From: Peter Bridgman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:48:27 -0000 Subj: Re: SHK 16.0155 Who Got to a Nunnery? [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fran Barasch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005 09:29:35 EST Subject: 16.0140 Who Got to a Nunnery? Comment: Re: SHK 16.0140 Who Got to a Nunnery? "Shakespeare's generation would've therefore only met ex-nuns." (Peter Bridgman). A thought: If Shakespeare's generation read Continental books, traveled abroad, or read of foreign travels, they would have known that, in Catholic countries, young girls were educated in convents until marriages could be arranged or were signed up for life; or entered convents upon becoming widows. Cheers! [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Lake <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 26 Jan 2005 10:01:24 -0600 Subject: 16.0155 Who Got to a Nunnery? Comment: RE: SHK 16.0155 Who Got to a Nunnery? There are references to the subject of "female monasticism" in Margaret L. King's WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE (1991), though of course the emphasis is upon the earlier period; nevertheless, one learns that upon the closing of certain European convents, the sisters would sometimes remain together, unsupported by the Church. Best wishes, Jim Lake [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Bridgman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:48:27 -0000 Subject: 16.0155 Who Got to a Nunnery? Comment: Re: SHK 16.0155 Who Got to a Nunnery? D Bloom asks ... >Has anyone studied the mythology of compulsory enrollment, its >appearance in romantic literature, and its relationship to anti-Catholic >(in Protestant areas) and anti-clerical (in Catholic ones) attitudes? Compulsory enrolment might have existed in medieval times. The modern myth however probably owes its existence to 'The Awful Disclosure of Maria Monk', a ghost-written biography that first appeared in America in 1836. The book described how Maria ran away from her convent because the reverend mother forced her to "live in the practice of criminal intercourse with priests". Nuns who did not were murdered, while the children born from such couplings were baptised and strangled. Maria's story enjoyed a period of respectability when it first appeared, being taken up by a group of Protestant clergymen. The credibilty vanished when Maria's mother revealed she had never been in a convent and had in fact run away from a home for delinquent girls. This didn't however stop the myth and the book has remained in circulation ever since. It was made use of by southern Republicans during JFK's presidential campaign in 1960. And during Ian Paisley's early days as a preacher in Belfast, he used to produce "nuns" at his church meetings who had, according to Paisley, run away from convents rather than submit to unspeakable sexual acts. Peter Bridgman _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0166 Thursday, 27 January 2005 From: Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 02:50:44 -0500 Subject: Lark According to Richard A. Spears' dictionary of Slang and Euphemism, "to lark" is "to masturbate; to practise penilingus." But "larking" is defined as "irumation" which is "to suck" leading to a possible meaning of fellatio and/or cunnilingus. He defines "gate" as "the female genitals, specifically the vulva." "Heaven," however, isn't recorded as a reference to female genitalia until the 1800s. Frankie Rubinstein's A Dictionary of Shakespeare's Sexual Puns and Their Significance defines "lark," the noun, as "prostitute." Then she notes another instance of Shakespeare referring to "heaven's gate" in Cymbeline: Cym, II.iii.21 "Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,/ And Phoebus 'gins arise..." (Note the link to "arise," "arising" here as well as in Sonnet 29. Morning. A man. Whatever could be arising?) Rubinstein here says: "This lyric, however lovely, is sung by the despicable Cloten, and perh. we ought not to forget how he introduces it: he desires 'to give her[Imogen]music' because 'they say it will penetrate', and he tells the musicians,' if you can penetrate her with your fingering[intimate caresses], so; we'll try with tongue too." ...Rubinstein also writes that "heavenly" refers to homosexual love based on references in Plato who distinguished it from common or heterosexual love. So, since a young man was playing the part of Imogen, the line likely referred not only to Imogen's vulva but the boy's penis and anus. PS: Does anyone else think that Sonnet 30 looks like a bad first draft of Sonnet 29? _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0165 Thursday, 27 January 2005 From: Susanne Greenhalgh <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 27 Jan 2005 09:15:25 -0000 Subject: The Rotter's Club and Shakespeare I certainly have no intention of opening the debate which Hardy has diplomatically drawn to a close, but last night's opening episode of BBC2's dramatization of Jonathan Coe's novel The Rotter's Club (26/1/05) featured a class-room scene in which a pupil (previously seen doing a black-face impression of the accused in To Kill A Mocking Bird and using racist terms) introduced the question of Shakespeare's sexuality, with equivalent abusive language. The teacher punishes him by giving an essay topic to the effect that 'Great writing has no gender'. I haven't read the novel (a portrait of Britain in the 70s centred on Birmingham) but assume that this incident, or something like it, appears there. Susanne Greenhalgh _______________________________________________________________ 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.