April
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.0677 Monday, 11 April 2005 From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 08 Apr 2005 15:39:37 -0400 Subject: 16.0663 Dating Hamlet Comment: Re: SHK 16.0663 Dating Hamlet >Obviously after 1400, as cannons are blasting off right left and centre, >so that makes it (leave aside China) somewhere in Western Europe in the >15thC or later. Right. It occurred at about the same time as Julius Caesar, after clocks were invented. _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0676 Monday, 11 April 2005 From: John Velz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 23:18:06 -0500 Subject: Ukrainian and English in Latvia To those interested in the academic problem of performing in Latvian: In 1993 I gave a lecture in Riga (in English) on "Shakespeare and the Shapes of Medieval Religious Drama". I stayed several days, sharing a suite with a young English scientist there to consult with the Riga University Metallurgy Department. We got on well in our primitive surroundings. Water out of the tap was the same color (brown) as the river and hot water for shower was limited. This British colleague was invited to sit in on a doctoral oral in metallurgy. The candidate was an ethnic Ukranian, born and raised in Latvia, but speaking Russian or Ukranian at all times. The first question came in Latvian. The candidate said in Russian "I do not understand your language." The answer came back, "This is a failure!" The committee put their heads together for a few seconds and then one of them spoke: "We have a bylaw at the University saying that a foreigner can request to have the examination conducted in his own language. What is your nationality?" "Latvian, but I speak Ukranian and Russian." "If you are to be examined in Ukranian or Russian you must declare yourself a foreigner." A hesitation and then "I am a Ukranian." "Do you wish to have the questions asked in your national language?" "Yes". The next question came in Ukranian, and so did all the others. The candidate sailed through the exam. This was shortly before the first national elections were held in Latvia after the wall came down between Eastern and Western Europe. There was a lot of debate at the time in Latvia over who should get the franchise. Thousands of Russians and Ukranians born in Latvia lived in late-twentieth-century prefab. concrete housing without character put up for Russians and Ukranians from which others were excluded. Children born to parents in this environment never interacted with Latvian children in any way when growing up. The Russians and Ukranians were an enclave of civil servants who administered the country but were in it not of it-like the Raj in India. The motivation behind the humiliation of this Ukranian/Latvia man was strictly political. To get his degree he had to deny his country of birth (Latvia) and claim Ukranian nationality when perhaps he never had set foot in the Ukraine in his life. I marvel that he learned no Latvian during his post-graduate years, but apparently this was true. On the other hand I was warmly welcomed in Latvia. My Shakespeare lecture was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I can guess how many would attend the lecture if it were so scheduled in Austin, Texas. But the line of Latvian students trying to get into the classroom stretched all the way down the corridor. The room held perhaps 40 desks and I estimate that some 70 students crammed into the room, standing, sitting on radiators, kneeling on the floor, etc. The fire marshall at the University of Texas would never have permitted this crowding. No fire marshall in Riga. I was the first American to lecture in the English Department of the University of Riga since the wall came down-my host excepted. He was a Professor of Germanic Languages at the University of Wisconsin who at the age of 10 in 1940 escaped the Nazis with his family in a sailboat to Sweden. He had hurried back to Latvia like many of his exiled compatriots in the U.S. and Canada the moment the Russians pulled out of Latvia. His grown daughter was with him. She was equally fluent in English and Latvian, a valued escort when shopping or sightseeing. It was very hot in that classroom on the top floor of the building with a western exposure, so hot that I dripped perspiration from my face onto my lecture pages as I talked from them, but none of us minded. The American was welcome. It seemed obvious to me that Shakespeare and religion both were welcome as well. Yours for lecturing abroad on Shakespeare. John Velz _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0675 Monday, 11 April 2005 [1] From: M Yawney <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 10:02:58 -0700 (PDT) Subj: Re: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet [2] From: Thomas Pendleton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 14:43:42 -0400 Subj: RE: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet [3] From: Susan St. John <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 08 Apr 2005 23:56:27 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet [4] From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, April 11, 2005 Subj: Re: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: M Yawney <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 10:02:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet Comment: Re: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet Internet Movie Database lists 55 films entitled "Hamlet." I did not look at each entry, but the ones I did were all adaptations of Shakespeare's play. The link follows: http://www.imdb.com/find?q=hamlet;tt=on;nm=on;mx=20 [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Pendleton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 14:43:42 -0400 Subject: 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet Comment: RE: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet I suspect that whoever wrote the program note saying there were 53--not 52 nor neither 54--film/video Hamlets was pretending to know more than he does. The real answer ought to begin, "There's a lot of them, it depends on . . ." The Filmography and Title Index of Ken Rothwell's A History of Shakespeare on Screen, 2nd ed.(2004), lists 43 items, although this includes such things as Victor Mature reading "To be or not to be" in My Darling Clementine. Rothwell's earlier Shakespeare on Screen: An International Filmography and Videography (ed. with Annabelle Henkin Melzer and covering up to 1989) lists over 80 items, although, fairly obviously, its criteria for inclusion are broader. These two books provide the menu, but one still has to work his way through, continually deciding that this one counts but that one doesn't. I wouldn't bet on the final tally working out to 53. One could ask Rothwell. I imagine he would say "There's a lot of them, it depends on . . . ." Tom Pendleton [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Susan St. John <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 08 Apr 2005 23:56:27 -0700 Subject: 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet Comment: Re: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet Cheryl, Go to imdb.com and search "Hamlet" you will come up with more films than you could ever wish for Susan St. John [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, April 11, 2005 Subject: 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet Comment: Re: SHK 16.0662 Seeking Hamlet You might also want to consult The Poor Yorick Shakespeare Catalogue at www.bardcentral.com as a database for the availability of current audio and videos versions of the plays. _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0674 Monday, 11 April 2005 From: Tom Krause <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 9 Apr 2005 08:42:12 -0400 Subject: Prayers for the Dead Comment: SHK 16.0624 Prayers for the Dead Peter Bridgman compares a chopped-up version of the old antiphon "In paradisum deducant te angeli ... Chorus angelorum te suscipat ... aeternam habeas requiem" (which he translates as "may angels guide you to paradise ... choirs of angels sustain you ... and grant you eternal rest") with the Horatio's epitaph in 5.2 ("And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest") and asks "how is it that WS quotes from the old antiphon?" You've made the well-recognized resemblance between the lines greater by leaving out the parts about martyrs and Lazarus and by giving the angels a more active role by having them "grant" eternal rest (a better translation of the last part of the antiphon is, "May the chorus of angels receive you//and with Lazarus once poor//may you have eternal rest"). That's not to say we should buy Malone's contention that Horatio's line echoes Essex's last words ("And when my soul and body shall part, send thy blessed angels to be near unto me which may convey it to the joys of heaven"); I tend to agree with Jenkins, who notes the similarity to the antiphon, but cautions: "No specific source can be alleged or should be sought for so traditional a conception." Tom Krause _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.0673 Monday, 11 April 2005 [1] From: Thomas Pendleton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 14:17:00 -0400 Subj: RE: SHK 16.0666 Representations of the Living [2] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 08 Apr 2005 15:42:05 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 16.0666 Representations of the Living [3] From: Stanley Wells <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 9 Apr 2005 12:00:01 +0100 Subj: RE: SHK 16.0651 Representations of the Living [4] From: David Crosby <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 11 Apr 2005 12:25:25 -0500 Subj: RE: SHK 16.0651 Representations of the Living [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Thomas Pendleton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 8 Apr 2005 14:17:00 -0400 Subject: 16.0666 Representations of the Living Comment: RE: SHK 16.0666 Representations of the Living I would suggest that Robin Hamilton doesn't hate being picky sufficiently. I don't know how Queen Elizabeth 1/2 feels about the matter. Tom Pendleton [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 08 Apr 2005 15:42:05 -0400 Subject: 16.0666 Representations of the Living Comment: Re: SHK 16.0666 Representations of the Living >the current queen of the UK ought to be termed >"Elizabeth I and II", as she is the second English monarch christened >Elizabeth, but the first Elizabeth to reign as sovereign over Scotland >(and the United Kindom as a whole) She is, in effect. In Scotland the post boxes are monogrammed "E R" while they are "E II R" in England, Wales and Ulster. [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stanley Wells <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Saturday, 9 Apr 2005 12:00:01 +0100 Subject: 16.0651 Representations of the Living Comment: RE: SHK 16.0651 Representations of the Living A short addendum to Professor Pendleton's interesting message: The lost play Keep the Widow Waking, or The Late Murder in Whitechapel, by Dekker, Rowley, Ford, and Webster, dates from 1624, not 1594. The fascinating story of the events that lay behind it is told in C J Sisson's neglected book Lost Plays of Shakespeare's Age (Cambridge, CUP, 1936.) Stanley Wells [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Crosby <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 11 Apr 2005 12:25:25 -0500 Subject: 16.0651 Representations of the Living Comment: RE: SHK 16.0651 Representations of the Living Thanks to Tom Pendleton for supplying a category, cameo appearances by the royal family, for this thread. I think it also fits Thomas Nashe's show, "Summer's Last Will and Testament," apparently presented by child actors at the Archbishop of Canterbury's house in Croydon in October 1592 [see Fraser and Rabkin's introduction in _Drama of the English Renaissance_]. Although there is no speaking character identified as Elizabeth, the personified figure of Summer offers this in his final testament: "Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame, Whom none but saints and angels ought to name, All my fair days remaining I bequeath To wait upon her till she be returned. Autumn, I charge thee, when that I am dead, Be prest and serviceable at her beck, Present her with they goodliest ripened fruits, etc...... It is charming to assume that Elizabeth was present to receive this testament in person, and that Nashe wrote the lines expressly for that purpose. Fraser and Rabkin compare the show to a court masque because of its "peculiarly intimate relationship between actors and audience, fiction and the real lives of those watching. Elizabeth was accustomed to having to act her part in pageants that were presented to her on her progresses and re-entries into London, and I like to think she did the same for this performance of Nashe's show. David Crosby _______________________________________________________________ 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.