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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.1580  Friday, 28 June 2002

[1]     From:   Jeremy Ehrlich <JEhrlich@FOLGER.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 10:16:30 -0400
        Subj:   Re: "A Funeral Elegy"

[2]     From:   Bruce Young <bwy@email.byu.edu>
        Date:   Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 11:26:38 -0600
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.1574 Re: Identity of W.S.


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Jeremy Ehrlich <JEhrlich@FOLGER.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 10:16:30 -0400
Subject:        Re: "A Funeral Elegy"

Janet Costa asks if the Folger will be redesigning its tote bag now that
all parties agree that "A Funeral Elegy" is not Shakespearean.  The tote
bag in question, on sale for two years beginning in 1997, was
discontinued for aesthetic and financial, not political (or scholarly)
reasons.  For what it's worth, the world of museum shop retailing is
almost entirely separate from the scholarly world that inhabits the same
building.

The Folger shop continues to sell many fine -- and verifiably
Shakespearean -- items.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Bruce Young <bwy@email.byu.edu>
Date:           Thursday, 27 Jun 2002 11:26:38 -0600
Subject: 13.1574 Re: Identity of W.S.
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.1574 Re: Identity of W.S.

Ed Taft refers to “the atheistic sentiments of lines 561-68” of “A
Funeral Elegy.”  I’ve read those lines over several times and still
can’t see how they are “atheistic” without quite a bit of straining.
They talk of a heart “in th’ exile / Of dim misfortune” that “has none
other prop / Whereon to lean and rest itself the while / But the weak
comfort of the hapless, Hope.”  Is the point that a good theist ought to
have a stronger and more confident experience of hope, or that God
should have been mentioned directly in these lines?  I’ve heard such
comments about “A Funeral Elegy” before, including a claim that it
denies the doctrine of the resurrection, but I don’t find evidence for
either this or the claim that any portion of the poem is “atheistic.”

In fact, such a claim seems absurd about a poem that refers
affirmatively to “Religion,” “Faith,” and “sacred schools,” to “a book
where every work is writ” (presumably the scriptural “Book of Life”), to
“the day of Judgment,” to “Christ” (as William Peter’s “Rock” and the
one “who to the universal lapse / Gave sweet redemption, off’ring up his
blood / To conquer death by death, and loose the traps / Of Hell”), to
“Those Saints before the everlasting throne, / Who sit with crowns of
glory on their heads” (who’s sitting on “the everlasting throne” if not
God?), and to William Peter’s survival not only in “name,” but “in his
proper self.”  Am I missing something here?

I admit that there's a grim, sometimes fatalistic tone in much of the
"Elegy."  But I don't see any strictly "atheistic sentiments."

Bruce Young

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