May
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0480. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. (1) From: David Evett <R0870%This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 11:22 ET Subj: Teaching A & C (2) From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:20:44 -0500 Subj: teaching A&C; Iachimo in a box (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett <R0870%This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 11:22 ET Subject: Teaching A & C Elise Earthman wonders about teaching <Antony and Cleopatra>. It's always a problem, certainly with conventional 20-year old undergraduates, and often, indeed, with returning students readier than Hamlet to believe in the possibility of middle-aged grand passions. Karen Walter's proposal to pair the play with <Romeo and Juliet>, asking what might become of people like them who survive into middle age works well if you use Susan Snyder's comic/tragic//evitable/inevitable//improvise it/play the script ideas to get at the nature of the conflicts, both internal and external. Here's a question (not that largely explored in the criticism): Why (really) does Cleopatra fly from the battle at Actium? And why (really) does Antony follow her? Thing to consider: What would it actually mean for them to win? That gets you into some other issues, like Antony's agreeing to marry Octavia and his botched suicide.On the production thing, there's a stimulating essay by Steven Booth, 8 or 10 years back?, arguing that no satisfactory production of the play is possible because no satisfactory performance of Antony is possible. I'm not sure I agree with him but it's the case that I've seen several Cleopatras I liked (most especially Goldie Semple at Stratford, Ont.) and not one Antony. David Evett (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Christine Mack Gordon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:20:44 -0500 Subject: teaching A&C; Iachimo in a box Thanks to Rick Jones for reminding us about the multiple ways and places that Shakespeare is taught. My own teaching of *A and C* has been similar to that of Karla Walters. But I also try to incorporate a theater-friendly perspective while teaching in a literature department, so I find it valuable to ask the students to attempt to visualize a production, and to suggest ways in which set, props, and costumes might cue the audience about the differences between the two worlds of the play (much like Rich does in his Intro to Theater course). Such a discussions often leads into a more careful discussion of the myriad riches of the play's other aspects. To Bill Godshalk: without looking back at the play, or even thinking about it too hard (it was a holiday weekend, after all), I love the idea of "Iachimo in a box" and its multiple possibilities. I can see some wonderful production opportunities here. Chris Gordon
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0479. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. (1) From: Robert O'Connor <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:12:12 +1000 Subj: Re: SHK 5.0472 Authorship (2) From: David Joseph Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 30 May 94 22:43:07 CDT Subj: authorship (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert O'Connor <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 1994 10:12:12 +1000 Subject: 5.0472 Authorship Comment: Re: SHK 5.0472 Authorship Dear SHAKSPEReans, I have to say that, up till now, I have had no opinion on authorship question at all - though I have enjoyed the (sometimes heated) debate. Now, though, I would like to contibute something. I saw a report in *New Scientist* a few months ago on a recent computer analysis os some Shakespearean and other Elizabethan texts which - according to the authors - announced the development of a method which produced results that agreed almost entirely with the conclusions of more traditional means of textual analysis. For myself, I found the article quite convincing. It was the stated intent of the researchers to apply the method they had developed to some unattributed or doubtful works, to see if anything surprising came to light. I read in the paper this morning that the same researchers will reveal in a forthcoming issue of *Literary and Linguistic Computing* that they are now prepared to attribute *The Contention* and *The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York* to Marlowe, to confirm the dependence of *2* and *3HenryVI* on these two plays, and to suggest, therefore, that Marlowe was _not_ killed in Deptford in 1593 (Sydney Morning Herald, May 31). The kind of analysis used by these researchers is controversial enough, but the results ... Well, I will wait and read the article. I also heard, over the weekend, that a recently-discovered copy of one of Donne's sermons has been confirmed to have annotations in Donne's hand which largely contradict the tone of the published version. It seems there is still a lot to be discovered . . . Robert O'Connor (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Joseph Kathman <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 30 May 94 22:43:07 CDT Subject: authorship Just a quick note: on rereading my last message on the net, I see that I may have given the mistaken impression that I'm trying to close off discussion of the authorship question, which is not the case. What I was trying to say was that I can see the point of those who have objected to the space this has taken up on SHAKSPER, and that some other forum might be more appropriate for this sort of thing. Where I said, "Don't clutter up the list with this stuff," I probably should have said, "*Let's not* clutter up the list with this stuff." One other thing: When I said the Oxfordians call the man from Stratford "Skakspere", I assume everyone realized that was a typo for "Shakspere". Dave KathmanThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0478. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. From: Elizabeth Schmitt <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 10:59:57 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Comedy A friend of mine recently asked if I could recommend a really good essay on Shakesperian Comedy. She will be using it in an undergraduate level course that will be discussing COMEDY OF ERRORS, TAMING OF THE SHREW (both on view at summer Shakespeare fests) and MUCH ADO (the film). Most of my work involves tragedy, so I thought I'd toss this out to the esteemed audience/participants of SHAKSPER. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance, Elizabeth SchmittThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0477. Tuesday, 31 May 1994. (1) From: Diana Henderson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 15:52 EDT Subj: Re: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box (2) From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH> Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 17:40:59 -0500 (EST) Subj: Re: SHK 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation (3) From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 94 12:56 BST Subj: RE: SHK 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia (1)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Diana Henderson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 15:52 EDT Subject: 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box Comment: Re: SHK 5.0476 Q: Iachimo in a Box John Pitcher's "Names in Cymbeline," in Essays in Criticism 43.1 (1993) concurs with Bill Godshalk to the extent that he believes the sound and meanings of "jack" resonate in the name of Iachimo/Giacomo/Jachimo (the last being his preference for modern spelling editions). I don't remember his talking about the jack-in-the-box specifically, but several other connotations with jack(s). (2)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: William Godshalk <GODSHAWL@UCBEH> Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 17:40:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation Comment: Re: SHK 5.0474 Q: Concordance Recommendation For Matthew Wescott Smith. Until you can get a copy of the Spevack concordance, you can use the on-line concordance at Penn. At the dollar sign prompt, type: gopher ccat.sas.upenn.edu When you get into Penn's computer, use your instinct! I can't remember exactly what the menu reads. Yours, Bill Godshalk (3)---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Terence Hawkes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 31 May 94 12:56 BST Subject: 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia Comment: RE: SHK 5.0471 Qs: Cordelia >>After reading KING LEAR and observing some in-class interpretaions, I have decided to focus my paper on Cordelia and the development of her character in the first scene. In class, we have discussed the range of emotions she might be experiencing: dismayed, hurt, frustrated, angry. Yet, conveying all of these at once has been difficult. How could it be done, while she still maintains her sincerety? << Dear Pamela Bunn, Cordelia is not a real, live flesh and blood human being. In consequence, she has no 'character', and it does not 'develop'. To suppose otherwise, as your teachers have apparently encouraged you to do, is to impose the modesof 19th and 20th century art on that of an earlier period which knew nothing of them. It is, in short, to turn an astonishing and disturbing piece of 17th century dramatic art, whose mode is emblematic, into a third rate Victorian novel, whose mode is realistic. Cordelia has no private motives, or emotions, other than those clearly prsented in the play as part of its thematic structure. The play uses her to raise matters of large public concern such as duty, deference, the nature of kingship, the right to speak, the function of silence, the roles avalable to women in a male-dominated world, and so on. These are not the newly- minted slogans of wild-eyed Cultural Materialist revolutionaries, but the fundamental principles on which informed and entirely respectable analysis of the plays has proceeded for fifty years and more. Read the fine and justly famous essay by L.C.Knights, "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?". It was first published in 1933. Why have your teachers made no mention of these important issues? Ask for your money back. Terence Hawkes
Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 5, No. 0476. Monday, 30 May 1994. From: William Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 30 May 1994 02:25:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Iachimo in a Box In CYMBELINE, Iachimo gains entrance to Imogen's room in a truck, and after she falls asleep Iachimo emerges from the trunk (Folio: Iachimo from the Trunke [TLN 917]). I would like to claim that this is a visual pun to Jack in a Box, a pun that's obscured by the Oxford Shakespeare's "Giacomo." The OED, s.v. Jack-in-the-box, Jack-in-a-box, gives the first definition as "A name for a sharper or cheat; spec. 'a thief who decived tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for others full of money' (Nares)." One of the examples is Dekker, CRYER OF LANTHORNE (1612), and the earliest is dated 1570. Of course, Iachimo is exactly this kind of sharper. He tells Imogen that the trunk is full of plate and jewels. And he substitutes himself for the valuables in order to get into her room. He substitutes one kind of jack for another. The OED's sixth definition is "a toy consisting of a box containing a figure with a spring, which leaps up when the lid is raise." The first example is dated 1702. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, SLANG AND ITS ANALOGUES, find references to the toy in 1570 and 1600. And so when Iachimo pops up from the trunk he approximates the action of the children's toy. Farmer and Henley, s.v. CREAM-STICK, also suggest that Jack-in-a-box is slang for penis. Given Iachimno's mission -- to seduce Imogen -- that pun may be available, too. Unfortunately, Farmer and Henley give no date for the "penis" reference. In a brief search that included Henry Jacobs's bibliography and the most recent editions that I could find, I have found no reference to these possible puns. A few months ago, I asked Linda Woodbridge what she thought of Iachimo-in-a-box. She look at me skeptically, and then said that she was skeptical. Nevertheless, what do you all think? Bill Godshalk