November
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1945 Thursday, 25 November 2005 [1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 12:18:08 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1939 Empty Stage [2] From: Erika T Lin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 13:13:14 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1939 Empty Stage [3] From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 12:14:17 -0700 Subj: RE: SHK 16.1923 Empty Stage [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 12:18:08 -0500 Subject: 16.1939 Empty Stage Comment: Re: SHK 16.1939 Empty Stage >"The Tempest" was written for the Blackfriars theatre. It is unsafe to make such clear-cut distinctions between plays written for indoor and outdoor performance. It is likely that Winters Tale was also composed for the Blackfriars, but Simon Foreman saw a performance at The Globe in May 1611. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Erika T Lin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 13:13:14 -0500 Subject: 16.1939 Empty Stage Comment: Re: SHK 16.1939 Empty Stage Re: actors exiting and immediately re-entering, see Stephen Booth, "Doubling in Shakespeare's Plays," _Shakespeare: The Theatrical Dimension_, ed. Philip C. McGuire and David A. Samuelson (New York: AMS, 1979), 103-31. Booth argues that "most of our thinking about Elizabethan casting is still based on the assumed universality of Ibsenian practices" (108) and that we should not dismiss certain options for doubling simply because they would require actors to exit one scene and then immediately re-enter as different characters. He notes that in Peter Brook's 1971 RSC production of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ "the entrance of Theseus and Hippolyta at IV.i.107, immediately after the same actors have exited as Oberon and Titania at IV.i.106--the entrance that caused Ringler to say that the kings and queens could not have been successfully doubled-particularly delighted the two audiences I observed as they watched the Brook production and also seemed to delight the two actors (who strode back through the doorway grinning in apparent triumph at the transparent theatricality of their physically minimal metamorphosis)" (107).Even though this isn't exactly what you're looking for, I thought it might be of interest. Best, Erika Lin [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bruce Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 12:14:17 -0700 Subject: 16.1923 Empty Stage Comment: RE: SHK 16.1923 Empty Stage Chris Baker asks, "How frequent are empty stages in the plays?" My answer would be "very frequent." The standard scene change in Shakespeare involves one group of characters exiting and another group entering. So presumably, unless the exits and entrances overlap, the stage would be momentarily empty between every scene and the next. (By contrast, the French neoclassical stage with its "liaison des scenes" has at least one character continue from one scene to the next so that the stage is empty only between acts.) Chris asks specifically about the transition between IV.i and V.i in The Tempest. This is an unusual case since Prospero is present at the end of IV.i and then enters again at the start of V.i. I assume there would not be a substantial pause at the end of act IV, but I'm not an expert on the existence or non-existence of intervals in early Shakespearean productions. At any rate, Prospero would need time to get his magic robes. It does seem an awkward transition. Perhaps he's "above" in one scene and "below" in the other. I would be curious to know how often the plays require this sort of empty stage (as opposed to the normal momentarily empty stage between scenes) and whether there is an explanation for the unusual case in The Tempest. Bruce Young _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.1944 Thursday, 25 November 2005 From: Richard Burt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 10:53:14 -0500 Subject: 16.1935 JC and Good Night, and Good Luck Comment: Re: SHK 16.1935 JC and Good Night, and Good Luck Wow. What bizarre responses to my post. For the record, I simply described the film. Unlike Quiz Show, where ethnicity is front and center (a Wasp competes with a Jew), Good Night, and Good Luck has an all white cast and is about a time--the 1950s--when television news, like television programming in general, was reported by all white newscasters. Duh. Why saying that "Shakespeare is the token of high-minded civic debate conducted by whites" should be considered racist or distasteful is beyond me. (By the way, there is one passing reference in the film to a character who is Jewish. The reference is not anti-Semitic.) Similarly, I did not misinterpret Cassius's line. I simply described the plot. Soon after Murrow uses the line to turn the tables on McCarthy, Murrow's show is cancelled. He thus turns out to be a loser, not to McCarthyism but to the corporate limiting of television to entertainment at the expense of civic debate and education. "Liberal-minded' is similarly descriptive. Clooney is openly liberal off-screen and has frequently been attacked by the McCarhyesque Faux News commentator Bill O'Reilly. Another similar kind of loser film related to Shakespeare is The Emperor's Club, though it is quite racially self-conscious. Here is my original post, in case any one wants to see what elicited such hysterical (is there a Shaksper equivalent of McCarthyesque?) attacks on me: In the liberal-minded Good Night, and Good Luck (dir. George Clooney, 2005), reporter Edward R. Murrow (Davd Strathairn) tells Fred Friendly (George Clooney) that Murrow's closing on his show attacking McCarthy "is Shakespeare." On the show Murrow cites McCarthy's own citation of Cassius's line from Julius Caesar, "Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, / That he is grown so great?" And then he recontextualizes the line, saying that McCarthy should have read a few lines back in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to Cassius's line, "The fault dear Brutus lies not in our stars, but in ourselves." Murrow repeats the line at the end of his broadcast. As in Quiz Show (dir. Robert Redford, 1994), Shakespeare is the token of high-minded civic debate conducted by whites and opposed to the degrading, merely entertaining and profitable television shows, also implicitly addressed to white viewers. And as in Quiz Show, the high-minded quoter of Shakespeare turns out to be a loser. After taking down McCarthy, Murrow is told his show will be cancelled. _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.1943 Thursday, 25 November 2005 [1] From: John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 12:17:29 -0000 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations [2] From: Tom Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 10:35:22 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations [3] From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 11:46:08 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations [4] From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, November 25, 2005 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations [5] From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, November 25, 2005 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 12:17:29 -0000 Subject: 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Comment: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Jack Lynch <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > >Richard Burt asks, about my request for bowdlerized texts of >Shakespeare: > > [How] far back do you want to go? > >"Going back" is comparatively easy-not only to _The Family Shakespeare_ >by the Bowdlers themselves, but to many of the stage versions of the >plays from the Restoration through the nineteenth century, where cutting >naughtiness was common. > >But more or less contemporary editions of the plays, things that might >still be read by students today, are harder to track down. That's what >I'm keen to find. Back to the 1960s or '70s, maybe? >Anything from the last ten years or so would be golden. In the early 60's Ontario still had bowdlerized Shakespeare in the schools but the 60's spirit of anti-censorship combined with the availability of cheaper albeit non-censored paperback editions made bowdlerized Shakespeare obsolete. I imagine it was the same in other educational jurisdictions. When the 60's faded into the 70's and the would-be censors of what students read once again appeared on stage the agenda had changed. Shakespeare's sexual references were comparatively mild compared to the modern books on the high school curriculum so the censors focused on getting books like 'Go Ask Alice' and 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' off the curriculum. This was only part of the censors overall agenda. They also had to get Darwin out of the science curriculum. Last I heard they're still working on that in an 'intelligently designed' way -:) John Ramsay P.S. I've still got a couple of bowdlerized editions of Shakespeare from my early teaching days. If Jack Lynch is interested I'd be happy to give him details via personal email. [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Bishop <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 10:35:22 -0500 Subject: 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Comment: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Some high school single and anthology texts of Romeo and Juliet, until fairly recently, if not still, omitted material deemed obscene. I was once warned, before teaching a high school class as a visitor, that there might be some blank looks if I discussed "certain parts" of the play. I had a graduate student writing a paper on this issue a couple of years ago who went into the history of school texts of the play fairly extensively and came up with some very interesting stuff. That's one useful place to look. Finding copies of old high school texts is a bit of a challenge though -- libraries don't usually keep them when they're replaced in the curriculum. Tom [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Dessen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 11:46:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Comment: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Jack Lynch should check A. L. Rowse's edition of Shakespeare's plays (late 1970s? 1980s?) in which (as I remember - it's been some time) he regularly changed words and phrases to make the text more accessible. To document changes in the acting scripts is much easier, though the target is usually not bawdry but items that are deemed politically incorrect. Usually the passage is cut - the Gordian knot approach. Prominent among the casualties are Portia's comment on the departed Morocco "Let all of his complexion choose me so" (The Merchant of Venice, 2.7.79) and the third witch's "Liver of blaspheming Jew" (Macbeth, 4.1.26). Harder to cut, because it is the climax to a comic sequence, is Benedick's 'if I do not love her, I am a Jew' (Much Ado About Nothing, 2.3.263), so that Gregory Doran (RSC 2002) changed Jew to jack (other alternatives have been knave, fool, and even jerk). To avoid any semblance of a racial slur, the director of a 1995 Macbeth (Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, D.C.) changed Macduff's 'Be not a niggard of your speech' (4.3.180) to miser; and the director of a 1989 A Midsummer Night's Dream (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival), which featured an Asian-American actor as Snout-Wall, changed references to the chink in the wall (e.g., 'Show me thy chink' - 5.1.177) to hole (my thanks to Mike Jensen for this item). In a virtually uncut Othello (Stratford Festival Canada 1979) Othello's famous speech building to his suicide was not interrupted by the brief lines from Lodovico and Gratiano, a standard adjustment. In this instance, however, the two interjections were not omitted to enhance the dramatic rhythm but because, in a production that was to end its run with a series of matinees for high school students, the director and her actors were fearful of losing this climactic moment when Lodovico, in front of 2,000 teenagers, exclaimed: "O bloody period!" (5.2.357). Alan Dessen [4]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ale Simari <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 21:42:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Comment: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations In the Signet Classic's Romeo and Juliet (USA, 1963) edited by J. A. Bryant, Jr there is a change in Juliet's famous speech (II, ii, 40-42). Rather than saying What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. Juliet's words are changed to: What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face. O, be some other name Belonging to a man. If the "other part" in the original text is considered to have bawdy connotations, then this change may be of help. Regards, Ale Simari [5]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, November 25, 2005 Subject: 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations Comment: Re: SHK 16.1938 Modern Bowdlerizations One of the first rules Ken Steele taught me when I began editing the SHAKSPER digests was NOT to give into the temptation to comment on a submission before it has been distributed to the list. But I cannot resist this one, I don't want to forget, and I have a little time today. So . . . Ale Simari cites the 1963 Signet edition of Romeo and Juliet's rendering of 2.2.40-42 as What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face. O, be some other name Belonging to a man. rather than What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. Simari suggests that the change is an example of bowdlerization. I don't think so. I don't have a copy of the Signet in my library, but I suspect the editor by J. A. Bryant, Jr., chose to follow the Q2-F1 reading of the lines rather than the practice of most other modern editors of rendering 2.2.40-44 as a mix-and-match from Q1, Q2, F1: (What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,) (Q1, Q2, F1: TLN 834) (Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part) (Q1) (Belonging to a man.) [O, be some other name!] (Q2, F1: TLN 836) [Q2, F1: TLN 835 2nd] (What's in a name? That which we call a rose) (Q1, Q2) (By any other word would smell as sweet.) (Q2, F1: TLN 838) For anyone interested, I reproduce Q1, Q2, F1 and several modern editions of these lines. Q1 Whats <I>Mountague?</I> It is nor hand nor foote, Nor arme, nor face, nor any other part. Whats in a name? That which we call a Rose, By any other name would smell as sweet: Q2 Whats <I>Mountague?</I> it is nor hand nor foote, Nor arme nor face, o be some other name Belonging to a man. Whats in a name that which we call a rose, By any other word would smell as sweete, F1 What's <I>Mountague</I>? it is nor hand nor foote, Nor arme, nor face, O be some other name Belonging to a man. What? in a names that which we call a Rose, By any other word would smell as sweete, Riverside What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, Nor arm nor face, [nor any other part] Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet; Oxford What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. New Pelican What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. _______________________________________________________________ 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 Webpage <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 16.1942 Thursday, 25 November 2005 From: Richard Burt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 13:20:24 -0500 Subject: BBC Shakespeare Quiz http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4462964.stm It's very easy. _______________________________________________________________ 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 16.1941 Wednesday, 23 November 2005 [Editor's Note: I believe the parameters of the issues raised in this thread have been clearly drawn. I will still welcome private correspondences, but the thread itself is over.] [1] From: Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 2005 20:31:10 -0800 (PST) Subj: Re: SHK 16.1930 Dead Horses and Closing Threads [2] From: Arnie Perlstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 05:51:26 -0500 Subj: Re Dead Horses and Closing Threads [3] From: Sally Drumm <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 09:16:41 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 16.1930 Dead Horses and Closing Threads [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Arnold <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 22 Nov 2005 20:31:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: 16.1930 Dead Horses and Closing Threads Comment: Re: SHK 16.1930 Dead Horses and Closing Threads Hardy wants to hear from us, so after some darn careful thinking and mulling it over, here goes. I have no problem with the way it is, as long as Hardy runs it. We have a sense of who Hardy is, and unless he caves into some bias of some select group among us who post and read, he is doing just fine. I would hate to see him cave in, and suspect he will not. What do I mean? Well, I am a scholar, a former college professor, and teacher from K through 12 starting back in 1964. What's that? Yep, four decades. And I am a member of the MLA, and for those not in the know, that is the Modern Language Association. They have conventions and create those scary arcane publications and meetings with erudite words and largely scholarly talk between scholars. So, who needs that here? This is not an MLA forum, and Hardy would be hatracking Shakespeare to turn it into that. Of course, that is my opinion. And yes, noses are like opinions, we all got 'em. Now, I went to grad school and spent my 60-grad hours in English courses. So, I have had the highly disciplined approach to Shakespeare, et al. And I have taught at all levels. But, folks, this is a worldwide internet forum with a worldwide internet membership, and we can all get along. I am bored to tears by people who write in once every other century to tell us he or she would have written more often if only we were not here and everything was his or her way, and because it ain't, well, they are going to not play ball with us: Shakespeareans. Bill Arnold [2]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arnie Perlstein <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 05:51:26 -0500 Subject: Re Dead Horses and Closing Threads >"Okay, I've kept out of this attempt to turn the list into a graduate school >bulletin board, but this from Stuart Manger simply horrified me, and I'm >trying ever so hard not to take it as a personal insult: > >"Like Holger Syme, one of my major aversions is for those who write as if >the characters in plays were real, with back stories or forward stories. >That seems to suggest so fundamental a misunderstanding of how drama / >theatre is made as to render most of what they then go on to say as >worthless, for they are reducing Shakespeare to an interactive soap opera. >That has to be seriously worrying in a forum which was intended to be an >exchange of scholarly or near scholarly opinion, hasn't it?" > >Clearly, poets and playwrights need not apply. > >Would Mr. Manger really teach a young writer that dramatic characters are >not meant to have any reality and therefore imagining backstory or future >life or current life for them is irrelevant? > >I apologize for having intruded my worthless opinions on a serious scholarly >exchange." All that can be said to that besides "Bravo!" is that there is a grey area in which one person's valid subtextual speculation is another's wild over reaching, and that while I am one who prefers to err on the side of going too far rather than playing too safe, I have the impression that Hardy prefers that we not roam too far too long. Because this is his show, I must temper my roaming. Arnie Perlstein [3]------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sally Drumm <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Nov 2005 09:16:41 -0500 Subject: 16.1930 Dead Horses and Closing Threads Comment: Re: SHK 16.1930 Dead Horses and Closing Threads I was allowed to join this list as an undergraduate participating in a Renaissance English course. I have been enjoying Shakespeare's work since I was a child. I spent twenty years in the military and attended college late in life. Following graduation, I attended graduate school to study writing (Yes, I am one of those MFAs). An essay of mine was named a notable essay in Best American Essays 2005 - so I must have learned something valuable during the past four years I was attending college. Now I am a writer and an adjunct professor (Yes, it's true; the pay is terrible). The writers of Shaksper continue to inspire me. I read the Shaksper posts every time I receive them, and always find a new way to look at something Shakespeare or to think of a symbol or to put words together. As an undergraduate, I found reading this listserv inspiring and informative. I wonder how many high school and undergraduate students who visit this site and find their first experience of academic discourse on Shaksper will be inspired to enter academia? Oh, perhaps zero; but maybe, even one is worth the effort. We are not all possessed of the genius of an Aristotle or a Shakespeare, but listservs like this one can certainly have a hand in creating a genius of that caliber if ever one is again produced by civilization. Like all relationships, this listserv has taken on a life of its own. Perhaps it can no longer be the beautiful small private thing it began as because of its very importance and its maturing, its natural process evolution, its rites of passage. And perhaps one reason it creates so much controversy is because it is so important to so many important people with important ideas. But perhaps if one thought back upon one's own beginnings, and recalled why a career in academia was chosen, one might understand at least one reason why Shaksper matters so much to such diverse people. Personally, not that it matters to anyone, I think Hardy should put together a book of all the important scholarly posts from Shaksper, publish it, and use the money earned to hire an assistant. Perhaps an encyclopedia of sorts is called for. Of course, authors of posts would be credited, but receive no pay except inclusion having gladly given such recompense to the betterment of Shaksper. Such a book would prove essential not just to scholars, but to writers, theater and film artists researching Shakespeare's works. I realize this is a controversial topic, but I cannot seem to stop myself from thinking in terms of books (it is true - I am obsessed with writing and all things writing, and particularly with the work of great writers of whom some might say Shakespeare was and still is the greatest). On closing my last post, I attached the letters "NSLP" to my name. I believe I will add a "W" to my credentials, so that I might now be known as: Sally Drumm Non-scholarly Layperson Writer...or NLW; or perhaps, LW would do (Perhaps this is silly , but sometimes it feels quite frightening to post on Shaksper and maybe the simple solution is for those of us who are not academic Shakespeare experts is to identify ourselves as who we are. And if you like, or if I am considered too ignorant to continue reading and occasionally responding to posts, I will understand why I must be exorcised from list membership though I will sorely miss the Shaksper discourse.). _______________________________________________________________ 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.