October
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0662 Wednesday, 3 October 2007 [1] From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007 11:20:12 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention [2] From: Mark Alcamo <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007 11:12:47 -0700 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention [3] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 02 Oct 2007 18:36:46 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention [4] From: Alan Horn <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 Oct 2007 05:24:38 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007 11:20:12 -0500 Subject: 18.0657 Authorial Intention Comment: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention Anthony Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > >It seems to me the discussion of authorial intent is treating two very >separate issues.. Indeed. One issue is the attempt at substantive discussion of Shakespeare's intent; the other is an endless, pointless excursion into the discussion of "authorial intent," per se. Your Idea of a roundtable discussion of the topic is a fine one if it is divided into two discussions according to the above distinctions. The discussions should be moderated by someone able and willing to separate the threads so that those who wish to discuss Shakespeare will not be continually confounded by a series of attempts to steer the conversation into the idiots delight that is Skepticism. The topic, "authorial intent," is just a thinly disguised trot through the Skeptical Tropes. All the best, R.A. Cantrell [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mark Alcamo <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007 11:12:47 -0700 Subject: 18.0657 Authorial Intention Comment: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention I'm new to the Community and I can see this is a rich topic. My question: Is there an agreed upon definition of 'Authorial Intention' or ... ? Some kind of boundaries on the discussion? I study the plays and have had to migrate to the Applause First Folio because I was finding there were too many Editorial judgments being made which prejudiced my interpretation of 'Authorial Intent.' We'll never have video of the way the plays were staged and it's interesting to 'imagine' about such things, but I trust Shakespeare and Company were professionals and did their best to put on a good show while operating within the strictures of their Zeitgeist (bear-baiting and public executions being the extreme limits of low brow and high brow entertainments, respectively.) It's sad to think Shakespeare's Words have to be supported by the machinery of 1600 minds, 'cause he shows me more insights into Human Nature than anything I've else experienced in English (and my Latin is limited to the Old School Catholic Mass ...). Consider the possibility it wasn't a 'miracle' we got the First Folio - that the Author always had the intent his words would be passed on ... I don't mean to introduce the possibility that Heminges and Condell 'scarce received from him a blot in his papers' ... but I wasn't there to know otherwise. We have words, the First Folio and some Quartos ... and we all know from those words it's naive to get wrapped around the axle about a single interpretation based on some 'perfect' night at the Opera in Elizabethan Theatre, did you hear Burbage hit that High 'C'? ... Besides, my understanding is, performances vary from night (day) to night (day) ... and performances may very well have varied dependent on what Aristocrat or snitch was in the audience ... who knows? Heck, for half the plays we have no idea what (words or actions) were actually presented in the theatre since the First Folio is our earliest source ... In any event, if someone could point me to a succinct definition of 'Authorial Intention' ... maybe I could make some productive comments .... Thanks, Mark Alcamo Bremerton, WA. [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 02 Oct 2007 18:36:46 -0400 Subject: 18.0657 Authorial Intention Comment: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention Will Sharpe objects to my response to Alan Dessen's inquiry. I am a little surprised, as I thought that what I said was not controversial. Alan asked if contemporaneous theatrical conditions were pertinent in deriving a playwright's intentions. I replied by saying that to those who believe that it is "futile" to look for the author's intentions the conditions of the contemporary stage would be of no more help than other data they reject, but that to those who believe that attempting to infer what the author expected his audience to take away from a play an understanding of the theatrical conventions and conditions he operated under would be highly pertinent. Nothing in this says, or even suggests, that Knowing about the material conditions in which a text was produced (even a play text) is ... the same thing as knowing what it 'means' or what the author wanted us to 'understand' across the board. Sharpe raises an interesting question about the extent to which the inquiry is affected by whether or not we accept Lucas Erne's notion that Shakespeare wrote plays to be read as well as to be performed. I agree that this makes a difference. But I do not agree that theatrical conditions and conventions are irrelevant when we read a play. The reader of a play often directs it in his or her head; and even if it is not read that way the reader's understanding of performance conventions and limitations affects his or her understanding of the play. Tony Burton also raises an interesting point about the extent to which it is legitimate to consider an author's expectations when the play is a collaborative effort. Perhaps Tony was influenced in this by Justice Scalia's well-known position about the use of legislative history to derive "Congressional intent." Scalia believes that there is no such thing, as federal statutes are enacted by a Congress having 535 members, none of whom were involved in the initial drafting (bills are drafted by a professional staff) and many of whom never read the final version, and then they are signed by a President who might well have his own agenda in mind. But plays are different, even collaborative ones. In most cases, the collaboration is a division of responsibility with each collaborator writing discrete portions of the text, the play is not a committee markup. So we can legitimately ask how the author expected his audience to react to the part he wrote. I admit that this might be different where the play is revised as a result of rehearsal or performance experience, in which the director and actors have influence over the text. But in those cases, the revisions are usually to make the play work better in a way that enables us to express with reasonable confidence what the authors wanted to achieve. [4]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Horn <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 3 Oct 2007 05:24:38 -0400 Subject: 18.0657 Authorial Intention Comment: Re: SHK 18.0657 Authorial Intention Cary DiPietro and I agree that readers make inferences about an author's intentions. I say that such inferences are inferences about the intentions of the actual author; the inferred intentions need not be attributed, confusingly, to something called the "implied author." I don't see how this concept helps us either make such inferences or describe the process of making them. If Cary thinks the term is useful, let him give us an example of how it might be used in discussing a specific work. The inferences we make about an author's intentions may be right or wrong, confident or far-fetched-still no reason to talk of anyone other than the author as the one whose intentions we are, with various degrees of accuracy and certainty, inferring. Discussing an author's intentions in any particular case is a tricky thing to do. There are philosophical perplexities like those raised in this thread. There is also the hard scholarly work of gathering evidence and making arguments for one view or another, none of which may ever be definitive. But neither the theoretical nor the practical tasks are advanced, I think, by the terminological expedient of distinguishing between an unknowable real author and a known but indefinite implied author. Alan Horn _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0661 Wednesday, 3 October 2007 From: John W. Kennedy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 02 Oct 2007 13:45:09 -0400 Subject: 18.0656 Greenblatt on Cardenio Comment: Re: SHK 18.0656 Greenblatt on Cardenio My working opinion on the matter (mostly based on the judgments of others) is that Theobald received "Cardenio" as a lost Shakespeare play, and produced "Double Falshood" in the belief that the Tonson monopoly was an obstacle to publishing the original; thus the famous copyright page reproducing the entire text of the royal warrant. He acknowledges in the Preface of the First Edition (written after the Drury Lane production) that some had detected traces of Fletcher, and dismisses it thus: "Others again, to depreciate the Affair, as they thought, have been pleased to urge, that tho' the Play may have some Resemblances of /Shakespeare/, yet the /Colouring/, /Diction/,and /Characters/, come nearer to the Style and Manner of FLETCHER. This,I think, is far from deserving any Answer; I submit it to the Determination of better Judgments; tho' my Partiality for /Shakespeare/ makes me wish, that Every Thing which is good, or pleasing, in our Tongue, had been owing to his Pen." In the Second Edition, we have instead: "Others again, to depreciate the Affair, as they thought, have been pleased to urge, that tho' the Play may have some Resemblances of /Shakespeare/, yet the /Colouring/, /Diction/,and /Characters/, come nearer to the Style and Manner of FLETCHER. This, I think, is far from deserving any Answer; I submit it to the Determination of better Judgments; tho' my Partiality for /Shakespeare/ makes me wish, that Every Thing which is good, or pleasing, in that other great poet, had been owing to /his/ Pen. I had once design'd a /Dissertation/ to prove this Play to be of /Shakespeare/'s Writing, from some of its remarkable Peculiarities in the /Language/, and Nature of the /Thoughts/: but as I could not be sure that the Play might be attack'd, I found it adviseable, upon second Consideration, to reserve that part to my /Defence/. That Danger, I think, is now over; so I must look out for a better Occasion. I am honour'd with so many powerful Sollicitations, pressing Me to the Prosecution of an Attempt, which I have begun with some little Success, of /restoring/ SHAKESPEARE from the numerous Corruptions of his Text: that I can neither in Gratitude, nor good Manners, longer resist them. I therefore think it not amiss here to promise, that, tho' /private/ /Property/ should so far stand in my Way, as to prevent me from putting out an /Edition/ of /Shakespeare/, yet, some Way or other, if I live, the Publick shall receive from my Hand his /whole/ WORKS corrected, with my best Care and Ability. This may furnish an Occasion for speaking more at large concerning the present /Play/: For which Reason I shall now drop it for another Subject." Note the alteration of "in our Tongue" to "in that other great poet", at the cost of the sentence any longer making clear sense. I suspect that, as Fletcher's fingerprints became more and more evident to Theobald, he became disappointed with "Cardenio", not considering the possibility of collaboration. (I know that some have suggested that he had discovered the documentary evidence making it one, but I am not aware of any positive evidence for this, and the hypothesis that he had not done so makes for what seems to me to be a more psychologically probable scenario.) In any case Theobald did, of course, become the Tonson editor in 1733, and never mentioned in his edition "Cardenio" or "Double Falshood" (or, I gather, "The Two Noble Kinsmen", either). That edition, together with his earlier attack on Pope's edition, "Shakespeare Restor'd", which earned him the wrath of Pope and centuries of calumny, are now regarded as the fons et origo of scientific textual criticism in modern languages, which is none too bad a legacy. _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0660 Wednesday, 3 October 2007 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 Subject: Harman Center for the Arts Celebration Michael Kahn held a big party on Monday evening to launch the new stage for the Shakespeare Theatre Company and the new designation for the two-stage home of the Company, The Harman Center for the Arts. Below are two short accounts of that Gala. Shakespeare Theatre Company Gala Celebration (From BroadwayWorld.com) http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=21858 The Shakespeare Theatre Company's celebrated the opening of their new $89 million Harman Center for the Arts in downtown Washington, DC at a Gala Celebration on Monday, October 1. The evening, which raised $2.8 million for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, brought together on the new Harman stage stars from the theatre (Patti LuPone and Sam Waterston), ballet (Julio Bocca and Nina Ananiashvili), jazz (Wynton Marsalis) and classical music (violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter), before a star-studded audience including Chelsea Clinton, HRH The Duchess of Gloucester and The Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor. While it will be used by a variety of national and international performing arts company each year, the new 775-seat theatre will principally be the newest (and second) performance venue for the Shakespeare Theatre Company as it expands its season from 5 to 8 productions each season, aiming to become a national destination for classical theatre in the US (STC's existing 450-seat Lansburgh Theatre, also in downtown DC, has been drawing patrons to the classics for 20 years.) The Harman Center for the Arts is named after Sidney Harman, whose $20 million contribution kicked off the Shakespeare Theatre Company's fundraising efforts. For more information, visit www.ShakespeareTheatre.org Harman Center makes debut in D.C. -- Theater company gets a second home By Nick Madigan October 3, 2007 WASHINGTON From The Baltimore Sun Online: baltimoresun.comwww.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.harman03oct03,0,6928437.story http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.harman03oct03,0,2080104,full.story Under a halo of popping flashbulbs, the capital's high society turned out in droves this week for the gala opening of the Harman Center for the Arts, which includes a new $89 million, glass-fronted auditorium that will be a new home for the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Each of the guests - who included Chelsea Clinton, with Secret Service agents in tow, and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - paid $5,000 to attend events that included a cocktail party; performances from, among others, Broadway star Patti LuPone and jazz virtuoso Wynton Marsalis; a fireworks display outside on F Street; and a banquet in the National Building Museum a couple of blocks away. The master of ceremonies at Monday night's gala was actor Sam Waterston of the TV show Law & Order. He introduced not only LuPone and Marsalis, but also violinist Ann-Sophie Mutter, who played selections from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess; ballet dancers Julio Bocca and Nina Ananiashvili, who danced a pas de deux from Swan Lake; the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which played two Marsalis compositions and a crackling version of "Take the 'A' Train" by Billy Strayhorn; and the Washington Ballet, which danced to five Beatles songs. Michael Kahn, who has been the company's artistic director for 21 seasons, told the audience that the event had raised almost $3 million. Construction of the 755-seat Sidney Harman Hall, packed with state-of-the-art soundproofing and lighting technology, began in November 2004. The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Kahn said, will continue to use its longtime home, the 451- seat Lansburgh Theatre nearby, also part of the Harman Center. Having two theaters lets the company expand its coming season from five to eight plays, present two repertory series, introduce family and lunchtime programming, and increase its education and outreach efforts. The company's new season begins today with Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew at the Lansburgh Theatre and, on Nov. 7, Tamburlaine by Christopher Marlowe in the new auditorium. The center is named for Sidney Harman, who built a fortune by making high-end audio equipment and donated about $19 million for the new theater. "People make this kind of gift because they believe it sanctions their lives, but I don't need any of that," Harman, whose wife is Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat, said Sunday during a reception at the British Embassy in honor of the new theater. His gift, he said, was "an act of love." _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0659 Wednesday, 3 October 2007 From: Mark Alcamo <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007 10:28:54 -0700 Subject: 18.0655 Observation about ducdame Comment: Re: SHK 18.0655 Observation about ducdame If I may clarify some on my ducdame comment: - I was not at all suggesting an emendation, mine was an interpretation of WHY Jaques had used the word. I just noted as others have, that there is friction between Jaques and the others (Arden Forest isn't the stereotypic Paradise Pastoral after all. Remember all the newcomers are starving, etc. ...) Whether the word is Welsh and Jaques is 'sending up' the others are comments consistent with my observation. We 'know' Jaques is a chronic unhappy (melancholic), seeing him mock Duke Senior, in his mind, as Duke Dame, I think, reveals more character and heightens our 'appreciation' of Shakespeare's pathological penchant for wordplay. It has been commented Jaques had time to write this parody for the singers, most Editors show Jaques reading or singing the lines but we know it's ambiguous in the First Folio, OBVIOUSLY, we have no idea how they pronounce it (it's up to those Theatre Collaborators, right?) ... In a nutshell, I'm saying some future enlightened Editor of Shakespeare may want to put in the notes that 'ducdame' may be wordplay on 'Duke Dame.' I am still working my way through the play, but I am not unhappy to report I like the way it is playing out. The fact Jaques is actually happy the next time we see him may be a reflection of his thinking he's just put one over on the others. 'Yes,' I know he has also just met Jay Leno (Touchstone) and that put him in a good mood hearing how bored he is in his new environs. What a hoot ... Note how Touchstone has led Jaques to think about the passage of time, and now he is so pleased with himself he has to go on and on about the Stages of Man. And of course(r), there is still the readily observable undercurrent of tension (snipping) between Jaques and Duke Senior ... My thanks to Mr. Stone for bringing up topical issues the entitled and groundlings may have related to, but I honestly see it as a simple case of right and wrong, where two wrongs don't make a right. Duke Frederick 'coup d'etat's' what is 'rightfully' Duke Senior's. (Primogeniture was also a prominent issue of the day ...) Duke Senior rolls over (or turns the other cheek) and does not visit violence on the Dukedom. ... and accordingly the reluctant courtier Jaques has lowered his mask some with his Artistic self-disclosure: If it do come to pass That any man turn ass, Leaving his wealth and ease, A stubborn will to please, Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame: Here shall he see Gross fools as he, An if he will come to me. To me, it looks pretty clear: 'Duke Senior 'turned ass' because he left his 'wealth and ease.' His 'stubborn will' was nonviolence ... Duke Dame, duke dame, duke dame ... You're all a bunch of fools, boo-hoo.' (... Analogous to King Claudius killing King Hamlet the Ghost and Hamlet having moral reservations about tit for tat. (I haven't seen the Oedipus Hamlet because my mother was not that physically attractive, I had much 'hotter' aunts ...) ;-) For now, I am satisfied with my 'ducdame' interpretation and if I decide I'm wrong after working my way further through the play, I'll post my 'mea culpa' and beg alms for the poor or some other penance. My word. (I have no problem admitting my shortcomings, in fact, I had to double check on the definition of emendation and look up the word animadverted.) Thanks, Mark Alcamo _______________________________________________________________ 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 18.0658 Wednesday, 3 October 2007 From: Peter Holland <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 2 Oct 2007 10:34:50 -0400 Subject: 18.0653 Shakespeare's Sonnets Global Comment: Re: SHK 18.0653 Shakespeare's Sonnets Global Many will add other languages to the list but there are Maori translations of nine sonnets, the first pieces of Shakespeare translated into Maori, which I heard read by the translator at the ANZSA conference a few years ago. The volume is Nga waiata aroha a Hekepia (= Love Sonnets by Shakespeare), translated by Merimeri Penfold (Holloway Press, 2000). _______________________________________________________________ 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.