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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.01258  Thursday, 20 January 2000.

[1]     From:   Paul Swanson <swanson@msdmv.k12.in.us>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Jan 2000 10:01:29 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0118 Re: King of Shadows

[2]     From:   Terence Hawkes <hawkest@compuserve.com>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Jan 2000 13:20:06 -0500
        Subj:   SHK 11.0118 Re: King of Shadows


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Paul Swanson <swanson@msdmv.k12.in.us>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Jan 2000 10:01:29 -0500
Subject: 11.0118 Re: King of Shadows
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0118 Re: King of Shadows

After hearing about Susan Cooper's "King of Shadows" through our
discussion, I sat down at the local Barnes and Noble with a café mocha
and a copy of the book last weekend. I, too, found Cooper's work to be a
moving piece, and Ellen Steiber's comments that she wept at the end of
the story brought to mind a connection to Caliban's Act III passage in
The Tempest:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

Of course, this notion of wishing to revisit a reality that once was, is
what "King of Shadows" seems to be about, but I also believe that at its
best, this is what theatre is: an engagement with something magically
human. I have seen many productions of Shakespeare (notably last year's
Tempest and Midsummer at Stratford, Ontario) where the sheer beauty of
what I had just witnessed made me genuinely sad to leave the theatre.

Gulliver's departure from the land of the Houyhnhnms yields many readers
a similar sense of poignant sorrow.

        I wonder if Shakespeare felt this the last time he left the
Globe.

Paul Swanson

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Terence Hawkes <hawkest@compuserve.com>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Jan 2000 13:20:06 -0500
Subject: Re: King of Shadows
Comment:        SHK 11.0118 Re: King of Shadows

Dear Ellen Steiber,

'And I am not the weepy sort.'  I wish I could say the same. Mind you,
the Golden Quill, they say, brings a tear to almost every eye.

T. Hawkes

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