The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1835 Tuesday, 8 November 2005
[1] From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 04 Nov 2005 09:29:29 -0500
Subj: Shakespeare's Body
[2] From: Richard Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 4 Nov 2005 07:36:59 -0800
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1816 Shakespeare's Body
[3] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 04 Nov 2005 12:18:54 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 16.1824 Shakespeare's Body
[4] From: Sarah Cohen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 04 Nov 2005 12:11:18 -0800
Subj: RE: SHK 16.1824 Shakespeare's Body
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Edmund Taft <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 04 Nov 2005 09:29:29 -0500
Subject: Shakespeare's Body
Of the suggestion that Dr. John Hall murdered his father-in-law,
Shakespeare, Stanley Wells writes, ""John Hall was a very highly
respected physician. He was a churchgoing Protestant and pillar of the
Church. The idea he may have murdered anybody is slanderous to him."
A recent biographer of Shakespeare seems to think that John Hall and
Shakespeare were good friends, often seen together when they made trips
to London in Shakespeare's later years.
He also suggests that Shakespeare probably was quite proud to have such
a well-respected and diligent professional for a son-in-law.
What in heaven's name is the evidence that Hall bumped off his
father-in-law?
Ed Taft
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Richard Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 4 Nov 2005 07:36:59 -0800
Subject: 16.1816 Shakespeare's Body
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1816 Shakespeare's Body
Washington Irving visited Stratford, ca. 1820, and published in "The
Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent", this sojourn to Stratford-on-Avon.
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/I/IrvingWashington/prose/geoffreycrayon/index.html
In part, he had this to say of Shakespeare's grave and remains.
Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of Shakespeare,
put up shortly after his death and considered as a resemblance. The
aspect is pleasant and serene, with a finely-arched forehead; and I
thought I could read in it clear indications of that cheerful, social
disposition by which he was as much characterized among his
contemporaries as by the vastness of his genius. The inscription
mentions his age at the time of his decease, fifty-three years-an
untimely death for the world, for what fruit might not have been
expected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as it was from
the stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sunshine of
popular and royal favor?
The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its effect. It has
prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place
to Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated. A few years
since also, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault,
the earth caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch,
through which one might have reached into his grave. No one, however,
presumed to meddle with his remains so awfully guarded by a malediction;
and lest any of the idle or the curious or any collector of relics
should be tempted to commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over
the place for two days, until the vault was finished and the aperture
closed again. He told me that he had made bold to look in at the hole,
but could see neither coffin nor bones-nothing but dust. It was
something, I thought, to have seen the dust of Shakespeare.
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 04 Nov 2005 12:18:54 -0500
Subject: 16.1824 Shakespeare's Body
Comment: Re: SHK 16.1824 Shakespeare's Body
>The late Charles Hamilton, who is also responsible for the
>risible hypothesis (unfortunately spreading like wildfire among
>non-academics, and even casually accepted, I have learned, by
>academics who have seen it in headlines, and not looked into
>the matter) that "The Second Maiden's Tragedy" is "Cardenio".
Hamilton was way into his dotage when he came up with this one. His
book argues from paleographic evidence that SMT was written by the
author of Hand D in The Book of Sir Thomas More. However, at a
performance of the play in Manhattan, he said that he did not base his
thesis on handwriting similarities (which was his field of study), but,
rather, on perceived stylistic similarities between SMT and late
Shakespeare, he said SMT was a "romance." If The Second Maiden's
Tragedy is a romance, then Titus Andronicus is a pastoral.
[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sarah Cohen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Friday, 04 Nov 2005 12:11:18 -0800
Subject: 16.1824 Shakespeare's Body
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1824 Shakespeare's Body
"Perhaps American Scientists could check tidal currents and start
sifting all the beaches on the US eastern seaboard for nano-traces of
Bard instead?"
Or the American scientists could call the whole thing off and have a keg
party. Who knows - they might find Shakespeare's noble dust stopping a
bung-hole.
Sarah Cohen
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