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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.0479  Wednesday, 17 March 1999.

[1]     From:   Jack Heller <jheller@campbellsvil.edu>
        Date:   Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 10:33:35 -0500 (EST)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0467 Eroticism on the Early Modern Stage

[2]     From:   Bruce Young <bwy@email.byu.edu>
        Date:   Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 14:07:10 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0456 Assorted Responses to Past Postings [Re: Marria

[3]     From:   Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>
        Date:   Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 18:00:46 -0800
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.0466 Re: Negatives; Names; Women, Iago, Harfluer

[4]     From:   Maijan H. Al-Ruwaili <ruwaili@ksu.edu.sa>
        Date:   Wed, 17 Mar 1999 15:57:05 +0300
        Subj:   SHK 10.0466 Re: Negatives; Names; Women, Iago, Harfluer


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Jack Heller <jheller@campbellsvil.edu>
Date:           Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 10:33:35 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 10.0467 Eroticism on the Early Modern Stage
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0467 Eroticism on the Early Modern Stage

Stevie Simkin writes:

>In the opening scene of Dido Queen of Carthage, written for the Children
>of the Chapel Royal, the stage direction reads: "There is discovered
>JUPITER dandling  GANYMEDE upon his knee, and MERCURY lying asleep."
>There follows an unambiguously homoerotic scene between Jupiter and
>Ganymede.
>
>Jackson I. Cope points out that the part of Jupiter may well have been
>played by the Master of the choir, with obvious implications for sexual
>abuse ('Marlowe's Dido and the Titillating Children' in English Literary
>Renaissance vol. 4, no.1, Winter 1974, p.319).
>
>Anyone got any thoughts on this?
>
>I would imagine that the Boys' companies would throw an interesting new
>light on these debates.

Were my dissertation/forthcoming book here with me, and were I not
leaving for Ohio in one hour, I could venture a longer reply. But I
would recommend your looking into Thomas Middleton's prose satire
"Father Hubbard's Tales," the first tale which tells of a prodigal who
plans to visit the Blackfriars Theater to see "a nest of boys able to
ravish a man." A marvelously ambiguous phrase. And, though I have my
disagreements with the argument, I also recommend for its information
Theodore Leinwand's article "Redeeming Beggary/Buggery in Thomas
Middleton's Michaelmas Term"; this appeared in ELH around 1995.

Hope this helps.
Jack Heller

P.S. Thanks to the many for useful replies on Ross and Macduff.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Bruce Young <bwy@email.byu.edu>
Date:           Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 14:07:10 +0000
Subject: 10.0456 Assorted Responses to Past Postings [Re:
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0456 Assorted Responses to Past Postings [Re:
Marria

I'm sorry not to have replied more quickly to the request for
documentation on age at marriage.   I would add the following to Frank
Whigham's list (he mentioned Ralph Houlbrooke, The English Family,
1450-1700: 63ff. &  Keith Wrightson, English Society, 1580-1680: 68ff.):

Several books by Peter Laslett: Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier
Generations; Household and Family in Past Time; The World We Have Lost;
Bastardy and Its Comparative History  (ed., with Karla Oosterveen and
Richard M. Smith).

Ann Jennalie Cook, "The Mode of Marriage in Shakespeare's England,"
Southern Humanities Review 11 (1977): 126-32

Bruce W. Young [that's me], "Haste, Consent, and Age at Marriage: Some
Implications of Social History for Romeo and Juliet," Iowa State Journal
of Research 62 (1987-1988): 459-74.

Michael Anderson, Approaches to the History of the Western Family,
1500-1914.

According to Michael Anderson (page 18), the average age at marriage for
women in Western Europe during (as well as long before and after)
Shakespeare's time was about 25 or 26; for men, 27 or 28.  For England
from 1550 to 1650, Peter Laslett has gathered data indicating almost
exactly the same ages: approximately 25 for women and 28 for men
(Bastardy 21).  See also Laslett, Family Life 29, 218; and Houlbrooke,
English Family 63.  (Houlbrooke gives 26 as the mean age of marriage for
women, 27 to 29 as the mean age for men, in Elizabethan and Stuart
England.)

The average age of marriage was somewhat lower for the aristocracy of
Renaissance England than for other classes (Laslett, World 86, 285;
Houlbrooke, English Family 65, 128).  But it was still in the twenties
(about 19 to 21 for women, 24 to 26 for men).

For information on Tuscany, see my article (listed above), which refers
to several authorities on the subject.  My article also discusses
attitudes toward early marriage-which did, of course, take place, even
if much less often than many have assumed.  The common view seems to
have been that early marriages were undesirable as well as rare, in part
because lack of physical maturity could endanger the life of a too-young
mother, also because the marriage of an immature bride and groom might
not be grounded in "real and solid love."

Bruce Young
Department of English
Brigham Young University

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>
Date:           Tuesday, 16 Mar 1999 18:00:46 -0800
Subject: 10.0466 Re: Negatives; Names; Women, Iago, Harfluer
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.0466 Re: Negatives; Names; Women, Iago, Harfluer

Mike Jensen writes:

>We came to different conclusions about the meaning off all this.  Mr.
>Haylett concluded that Gower is a spin doctor.  OK, I'd like to learn
>from that.  Please show me in the text, folio or quarto (I imagine you
>know they are quite different), that Gower is doing this.  Does he lie
>at other times?  How many other instances are there of him attempting to
>control perception?

I'm wondering, does anyone find naming Gower after a poet and
"authority", later chosen as the chorus for Pericles, a bit indicative
of reliability?

I don't really have a clear view on this.  There could be a Gower in the
source, for instance, but I'm interested if anyone else has a reading of
this.

Cheers,
Seán.

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Maijan H. Al-Ruwaili <ruwaili@ksu.edu.sa>
Date:           Wed, 17 Mar 1999 15:57:05 +0300
Subject: Re: Negatives; Names; Women, Iago, Harfluer
Comment:        SHK 10.0466 Re: Negatives; Names; Women, Iago, Harfluer

Sean (Re: SHK 10.0456 Assorted Responses to Past Postings) wrote:

Maijan writes:

>Only in terms of favoritism can Cassio be a logical choice.[...]

[There's no reason that Montano should happen to know this Florentine.
But being bookish might be quite enough reason for Cassio to be hired.
This is, after all, the period in which military engineering was coming
into its own. Fluellen is also bookish, but nobody particularly accuses
him of rampant incompetence.]

Does the play have any evidence to support "being bookish might be quite
enough reason for Cassio to hired"? I though I provided enough evidence
that Cassio was a bad choice a leader like Othello should not have
committed. Donato should have known Cassio had Cassio been a soldier fit
to stand by the side of Caesar. A soldier that meets the requirements of
Othello should likely be known to those who served with and are known by
Othello.

>The brawl scene not only...[undermines Cassio's soldiership].

[Yes, but the brawl scene occurs after Cassio has been chosen.  It only
makes him a bad choice retrospectively.  I'm inclined to think that he
was still the right choice at the time.  Othello has lots of experience,
so as a complement, he chooses a man with lots of book-learning.]

That is the point: to give credence to Iago's misgivings. That Cassio
had committed these stupidities shows only how bad Cassio was and how
stupid a choice Othello had made. That he should be the bait and main
motive for the tragedy he has to be more than mere bookish (I think,
though I cannot insist on this point).

>Othello tells us that
>Cassio has been the lovers' "postman," to use your term. In Renaissance
>terms, Cassio has fulfilled the function of the marriage mediator. All
>this dramatize Desdemona's attempts to influence Othello to reinstate
>him. Her statement in III,iv, 84-86 becomes poignant: "-A man that all
>his time/ Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,/ Shared dangers
>with you." Thus Cassio owes his soldiership-good fortunes-to Othello's
>love.

[True, though bear in mind that Desdemona is speaking here.  And she
wouldn't grasp the fact that Cassio, a professional like Othello, owes
his position to his skill.]

At least she knows more than we do. And what she knows is that Cassio
was their postman.

>...there's no particular reason to think that Gratiano is
> motivated by profit-seeking.  If profit-seeking motivates all the
> characters in this play, surely Lodovico would assign the fortunes of
> the Moor to himself.  Nobody seems to be trying to take control of them,
> but rather fob them off on others.

If one watches how much material gains are exchanged though out the
play, one cannot miss the importance of Gratiano's seizure of the
fortunes of the moor. Everyone seems to claim what one's own. In terms
of inheritance, the Moor's fortunes succeed onto Gratiano. No one else
can claim them (This is the restoration the play is calling for). Early
in the play, Brabantio did not even forget to promise to "deserve
[Roderigo's] pains" when he just told Brabantio the moor had stolen
property (Desdemona].

>Here's an idea: is the linguistic community of Venice, land of merchants
>and money-lenders, itself impregnated and corrupted with thoughts of
>material gain?  Since Othello presumably learnt Italian in Venice, his
>choice of metaphors (and perhaps Desdemona's) may be less a measure of
>their own materialism than that of their community, which provides the
>language which they both speak and which speaks them.  Othello's casting
>away a pearl worth more than all his tribe is the opposite of
>profit-seeking, is it not?

Not necessarily so. The irony still obtains. In terms of love, the very
image betrays the spiritual value he claims. It is a priceless love, and
it proves so. The statement would go your way had we not been
indoctrinated into the importance of wealth as early as the opening of
the play. It is true, however, that all characters other than Iago
invoke wealth to sacrifice for some other cause. But still the
importance of material gain is manifest in the play.

The linguistic Community of Venice is certainly an interesting point.
However, I do not believe Shakespeare has Venice as such in mind. Venice
had certainly its parallels though out Europe, and perhaps England in
particular at that time.

>How much are the characters victims, not only of Iago, but of their
>surroundings generally?

This is surely Shakespeare's point; the play is its own world according
to which characters are supposed to act. The initial question was
whether we sympathize with or scorn Othello. Many critics wish to blame
Iago for our scorn of Othello, when Iago is only the product of his own
environment. The curse of the service extends from the play to its
criticism. I am not saying is blameless; I am perhaps saying all other
characters are as blameful as Iago.

I do not see your position contradicting mine; I do subscribe to more
than 90% of what you have so far maintained. Yet I feel that your
justifications could be (mutatis mutandis) included in my argument.
Thank you for raising issuing of which I was not aware earlier.

Maijan

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