July
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0442 Friday, 25 July 2008 [1] From: David Crystal <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008 19:57:27 +0100 Subt: Re: SHK 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts [2] From: John Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008 19:22:10 -0400 Subt: Re: SHK 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts [3] From: Alan Horn <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Jul 2008 03:55:28 -0400 Subt: Re: SHK 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Crystal <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008 19:57:27 +0100 Subject: 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts Comment: Re: SHK 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts I don't know the book, but if you want an online version, go to the Special Features section of the Shakespeare's Words website (www.shakespeareswords.com), and you'll find some relevant tables there. Click on the menu heading The Book to find it. It's not exactly what you want, but it's a step in that direction, as tables give scene lengths and character totals. It would be easy for us to generate a character x scene table, if that were needed. David Crystal [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Cox <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008 19:22:10 -0400 Subject: 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts Comment: Re: SHK 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts I think Tom Salyers is describing T. J. King's book, *Casting Shakespeare's Plays* (Cambridge UP, 1992). Best, John Cox Hope College [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Horn <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 25 Jul 2008 03:55:28 -0400 Subject: 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts Comment: Re: SHK 19.0439 Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts There is a table in the general introduction to The Complete Pelican Shakespeare (ed. Alfred Harbage, Viking) that lists, along with other statistics, the longest roles per play. The line count for those roles over 500 lines is given parenthetically. Hope this is all you need. The table is called "Table II: Comparative Analysis" and it's on the second page of the article titled "Shakespeare's Technique," which is page 31 in my copy. 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 19.0441 Thursday, 24 July 2008 From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 22 Jul 2008 16:00:42 -0500 Subject: 19.0423 Scrapping Final Shakespeare Examination? Comment: RE: SHK 19.0423 Scrapping Final Shakespeare Examination? I remain baffled by John Zuill's vituperations. Speaking anthropologically, it is impossible to be a human being without being educated. You have to learn a language and the rules and customs of your family and nation. You can't learn them on your own. You are taught them. You also have to learn certain survival skills. In one society you may have to become an expert tracker and bowshot. In another, be able to create violent computer games. Even if you want to be a beggar or a goldbrick you have to learn the skills for those occupations. Or you starve. In the matter of enjoying, studying and offering opinions on Shakespeare, you must in addition learn to read. I don't believe you can figure that process out for yourself, either. Then, having learned (presumably) modern English, you have to attain some skill in Elizabethan English, or else be constantly misreading and making mistakes. The way most of us get these skills is by a combination of formal course work and reading the comments and glosses offered by experts. These areas commonly overlap. I remain uncertain how this information can be obtained in other ways. How are you going to have an opinion on the sullied / solid question without quite a lot of education? As I mentioned before, a particular system of education can certainly be criticized -- and should be. But education itself is a given. You cannot criticize the system unless you already have a good deal education. don _______________________________________________________________ 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 19.0440 Thursday, 24 July 2008 [1] From: Sylvia Morris <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008 09:48:45 +0100 Subt: RE: SHK 19.0428 Question: Appropriate Quotation [2] From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008 14:35:02 -0700 (PDT) Subt: Re: SHK 19.0419 Question: Appropriate Quotation [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sylvia Morris <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008 09:48:45 +0100 Subject: 19.0428 Question: Appropriate Quotation Comment: RE: SHK 19.0428 Question: Appropriate Quotation Take a look at all of Richard's speech in Henry VI Part 3, Act 3 Scene 2. It's a brilliant speech, over 70 lines long, but in particular "Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile, And cry "Content" to that which grieves my heart, And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions" Sylvia Morris Head of Shakespeare Collections Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008 14:35:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 19.0419 Question: Appropriate Quotation Comment: Re: SHK 19.0419 Question: Appropriate Quotation Phyllis Gorfain asks: >A colleague in politics sent me this inquiry. Can anyone help with an >appropriate quotation? > >"Is there a quote that captures the idea of speaking kind words while >thrusting in the knife -- that is, empty rhetoric combined with >aggression? Perhaps from one of the political plays?" How about these? --BRUTUS: Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius. ANTONY: In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words. Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart, Crying 'Long live! hail, Caesar! [JC, V:1] (JE: The priestly parricide or pre-Christian Son offers up the Father in sacrifice to save Roman-ity) --RICHARD: So smooth he daubed his vice with show of virtue That his apparent open guilt omitted--[R3, III:5] --RICHARD: But then I sigh and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil: And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol'n from holy writ, And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. [R3, I:3] --RICHARD: To say the truth, so Judas kissed his master, And cried, 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm. [1H6, V:7] (JE: As did the Sisters Weird on greeting Macbeth.) --PAROLES: He would lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool. [AW, IV:3] --CLAUDIO: O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! [ADO, IV:1] --ANTONIO: The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! [MofV, I:3] (JE: Who is the rotten apple with goodly outside in this play?) --BASSANIO: So may the outward shows be least themselves; The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? [MofV, III:2] (JE: Whose gracious voice obscures the show of evil in court?) --BASSANIO: ...In a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on/ To entrap the wisest. [MofV, III:2] --TROILUS: Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; Th'effect doth operate another way. [T&C, V:3] --ALBANY/EDGAR: Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. [LEAR, V:3] (JE: Is Shakespeare here contrasting Cordelia's opening response to Lear with that of her sisters?) --IAGO: Men should be what they seem, Or, those that be not, would they might seem none! [OTH, III:3] --BANQUO: But 'tis strange; And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence. [MAC, I:3] --MACBETH: I pull in resolution, and begin To doubt th'Equivocation of the fiend That lies like truth. [MAC, V:5] I've restricted my examples, for the most part, to insincere speech. There are many more that explore the gap between substance and show, which encompass but do not specify speech. The arch-dissimulator is, of course, Shakespeare himself, who paints his word pageants to keep in false gaze those whose "eye pries not to th'interior." It is his master metaphor. Regards, 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.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0439 Thursday, 24 July 2008 From: Tom Salyers <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008 09:55:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Character/Scene/Line Breakdown Charts I'm trying to find a book a classmate of mine used in a grad school exercise a while back*, but he can't remember the title or author. It consisted of a list of Shakespeare plays with each character's appearances listed by scene, along with a line count for each character in each scene and a total number of lines for the play. I *could* obviously compile the information myself, of course, but I'd much rather avoid duplicating effort if someone's already gone to the trouble. Does anyone have an idea of the book I'm talking about, or at least something along similar lines? Thanks in advance. (*We had to cast a Shakespeare play from the known members of the Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men at the time the play was written--or as near a guess at the time as possible, anyway. It was both fascinating and entertaining.) Tom Salyers _______________________________________________________________ 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 19.0438 Thursday, 24 July 2008 From: Judy Prince <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 24 Jul 2008 09:57:53 -0400 Subject: Stage "Business", Then and Now How important is stage "business" in the performance of Shakespeare's plays? Was it more important then than it is now? My curiosity was prompted by a recent performance of the National Theatre of Scotland's "Black Watch." Its high degree of stage "business", few and simple sets, limited props, fluid scene changes, and costume-emphasis struck me as similar to Elizabethan-era plays. For those interested in "Black Watch" and the NTS, scenes from the play along with Director John Tiffany's remarks are effectively You-Tubed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j_DqmTXHP8 and an inspired, informed recent preview by Jane Edwardes can be read here: http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/features/5033/html All the best, Judy Prince _______________________________________________________________ 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.