The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0728 Tuesday, 30 October 2007
[1] From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 10:06:45 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0719 Presentism
[2] From: John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 16:52:38 +0100
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0719 Presentism
[3] From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 10:41:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subj: Re: SHK 18.0719 Presentism
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dale Lyles <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 10:06:45 -0400
Subject: 18.0719 Presentism
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0719 Presentism
Presentism as truthiness? What?
Dale Lyles
Newnan, GA
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 16:52:38 +0100
Subject: 18.0719 Presentism
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0719 Presentism
Jan Hammerquist wrote:
>During my one visit to London a few Februaries ago I had the chance to
>stroll through St. James Park at night. At one place in the park there
>is a small cottage overlooking a duckpond, and that night, when it
>appeared to me in the foggy night it struck me as the very place the
>Bard could have grown up.
I think that this is the point at which some literal-minded pedant
(usually me) replies that the building in question is most likely Duck
Island Cottage - a romantic "cottage orne" of 1840-1 by the architect
J.B. Watson. Could I gently suggest that Jan Hammerquist's overheated
imagination is perhaps insufficiently historicist?
John Briggs
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 10:41:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 18.0719 Presentism
Comment: Re: SHK 18.0719 Presentism
Jan Hammerquist writes,
>"the quaint and mysterious [London] cottage in
>the night was just as viable an option for my imagination to place
>Shakespeare [being born] in as Stratford-upon-Avon.[...]
>
>"Rather, once we admit the impossibility of fully
>integrating the past, we are free to let it signify it whatever ways it
>may.[...]
>
>"Perhaps this is saying we are free do to with him as we please.[...]
>
>"what need do we have of the flesh-and-blood man if it his texts that
he is re->membered by, his true tissue?[...]
>
>"In conclusion, one wonders: isn't the past itself more real through a
>"present" iteration of it? Wouldn't it otherwise be truly nothing?"
Presentism is a knife aimed at the heart of scholarship as a cognitive
enterprise. QED.
Joe Egert
_______________________________________________________________
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.