January
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0092 Friday, 30 January 1998. [1] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 21:01:20 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0088 Funeral Elegy [2] From: Ivan Fuller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 13:50:37 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: SHK 9.0088 Q: MACBETH, Hecate [3] From: Tanya Gough <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 15:09:06 -0500 Subj: New York Shakespeare Society [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 21:01:20 -0500 Subject: 9.0088 Funeral Elegy Comment: Re: SHK 9.0088 Funeral Elegy >I still haven't found any information, or commentary, on this elegy >even though I have searched the National Library. Do any of you know >about this? Hardy writes: "You can order a copy of "A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter" by sending the command - GET FUNERAL ELEGY - toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . You can use the SEARCH FUNCTION to locate the past discussions of FE stored on the Fileserver. . . . you can visit the Shakespeare Authorship Web Site http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~tross/ws/will.html - where those discussions have been placed together." There are also a series of essays in the latest <italic>Shakespeare Studies</italic> Volume XXV, and, of course, Donald Foster's book is where it all began. Brian Vickers claims that he has a book forthcoming on the subject, <italic>Counterfeiting Shakespeare: The Politics of Attribution</italic>; and there seems to be an ongoing debate in the letters section of [London] <italic>Times Literary Supplement</italic>. Enjoy! Yours, Bill Godshalk [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ivan Fuller <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 13:50:37 -0600 (CST) Subject: 9.0088 Q: MACBETH, Hecate Comment: Re: SHK 9.0088 Q: MACBETH, Hecate While my summer '97 production of MACBETH probably isn't what you'd call "major," I did include all of the Hecate material. We played up the drug-dependent world of the "wierd sisters" and Hecate seemed to be their major supplier. In the slightly wacked-out, post-apocalyptic world in which we placed the show, she fit in beautifully. If you want/need more details, let me know. Ivan Fuller, Chair Communication & Theatre Dept. Augustana College [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tanya Gough <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 15:09:06 -0500 Subject: New York Shakespeare Society I've finally received the mandate, membership info and preliminary event schedules. Feel free to contact me for more info, or call/fax founder Nancy Becker at their new offices: 45 East 78 Street, New York, New York, 10021 (212) 327-3399; Fax (212) 327-3377. Here are the statement of purpose and their current list of advisors. Contact me for the membership solicitation letter, membership benefits list, and info on the Shakespeare Society Fund. Contact Nancy for everything else. _________________________________________________ STATEMENT OF PURPOSE: The Shakespeare Society is a not-for-profit organization chartered in New York State. It is being formed for those who would enjoy exploring and discussing the works of a man who is generally considered the greatest of all writers in the English Language. The Shakespeare Society's programs will be inventive and wide ranging in seeking to explore the many facets of Shakespeare's influence on American culture. We will concentrate on current scholarship, performace practices in film and theater, and interviews with performers, directors, and scholars to enhance one's knowledge of the works of Shakespeare. If you love literature, drama and language, and want to hold Shakespeare's mirror up to life today, you will enjoy a membership in The Shakespeare Society. It is our mandate to keep alive the language, the poetry and the drama of Shakespeare and to view him as a contemporary writer whose work speaks clearly and strongly to our time. The Shakespeare Society offers its members the opportunity to play an active role in making things happen within our programs and to meet with diverse groups of fellow Shakespeareans. This will be done by quarterly meetings, an annual weekend symposium, a newsletter, and attendance at Shakespeare performances. These actives will be conducted by Shakespeare scholars, performers and directors. Because we realize the financial struggle for the proper training in the classical Shakespeare tradition, we hope to establish an Actors Fund within the Society's activities to help actors learn their art. Academic and Artistic Advisors: Prof. Harold Bloom, Yale, Honorary Chairman of Academic Advisors Prof. Peter Saccio, Dartmouth, Artistic Director Prof. Dacid Scott Kastan, Columbia Prof. Michael Goldman, Princeton Prof. Marjorie Garber, Harvard Prof. Ronald R. Macdonald, Smith Prof. Helen Vendler, Harvard Prof. Emeritus William A. Johnson, Brandeis Prof. Regina Barreca, Univer. of Connecticut Prof. Peter Farley, Adelphi Ruth Carpenter, Brearley Tony Randall Austin Pendleton Carrie Nye Jeffrey Horowitz, Theatre for New Audiences James Steffensen, Dartmouth Drama and Theatre Dept. Cheers, Tanya Gough
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0091 Friday, 30 January 1998. [1] From: Andrew Mathis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 23:33:25 -0800 Subj: Lear & Arthur [2] From: Albert Misseldine <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Date: Friday, 30 Jan 1998 10:40:35 -0500 Subj: Julius Caesar, general and specific [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andrew Mathis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 23:33:25 -0800 Subject: Lear & Arthur Hello group: I attended a lecture given by Prof. Harold Bloom a few years ago wherein he spoke about the use of tropes by Lear that can also be found in the Wisdom of Solomon, an intertestamental, Apocryphal book purportedly written by Solomon (and still in the Douay Catholic canon). Unfortunately, for the life of me, I can find neither my notes nor the tropes themselves. I do remember that the references to Wisdom are in Act IV somewhere. Anyone out there have a lead? Prof. Bloom's mailbox at Yale is full, and he's not here at NYU this semester. Thanks in advance. Andrew Mathis http://pages.nyu.edu/~aem0608 [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Albert Misseldine <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Date: Friday, 30 Jan 1998 10:40:35 -0500 Subject: Julius Caesar, general and specific Two questions, one general, one specific. General: we are putting on JC this spring at our college, the director wants to do it in modern (30's) dress, and we would welcome any hints, suggestions, pitfalls to avoid, etc. We have noticed that there seems to be no heroes here - and lots of BS. Even Antony's last speech, 'noblest Roman' is hard (isn't it?) to take seriously, after all the self-important and stupid things Brutus has done. Specific: Riverside ed. has an unusual gloss on a line of Brutus in the quarrel scene. I always thought "O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb" meant Brutus was likening himself to a lamb - slow to anger, etc. But Riverside says 'yoked with' means 'like' - so Brutus is comparing Cassius to a lamb, not himself. Any comments?
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0090 Friday, 30 January 1998. [1] From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 12:56:03 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0087 Re: Postmodernism [2] From: Stevie Simkin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Jan 1998 11:46:06 -0000 Subj: Re: SHK 9.0087 Re: Postmodernism, Anti-Semitism [3] From: Lee Gibson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Jan 1998 10:03:08 -0600 (CST) Subj: Re: Post-modernism [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: W. L. Godshalk <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Thursday, 29 Jan 1998 12:56:03 -0500 Subject: 9.0087 Re: Postmodernism Comment: Re: SHK 9.0087 Re: Postmodernism ". . . the metonymies WE AGREE TO USE for complex events CAN SUGGEST SOMETHING about our attitudes toward those events. A term with lots of more or less consistent connotations like Holocaust already begins to express feelings about the events to which it refers. . . ," writes Dave Evett. And I confess that, yes, I stand guilty of selective quotation. Mea culpa. Yours, Bill Godshalk [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stevie Simkin <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Jan 1998 11:46:06 -0000 Subject: 9.0087 Re: Postmodernism, Anti-Semitism Comment: Re: SHK 9.0087 Re: Postmodernism, Anti-Semitism On Terence Hawkes' "we mean by Shakespeare" concept, Tanya Gough wrote > But just because we are incapable of determining exact meaning, it > doesn't mean we should give up trying. The process of analysis is > infinitely fascinating (or, I assume it is for most of us, or we > wouldn't do what we do for a living), and ultimately leads us to > understand *ourselves* better. My understanding of what Terry meant was that Shakespeare is a powerful signifier in contemporary culture, and Shakespeare has been used, is used, and will no doubt be used in the future to signify a whole range of things: one familiar example: the order speech from Troilus and Cressida was used by a Tory minister in Britain some years ago to suggest that Shakespeare approved of a hierarchical society - therefore a hierarchical society is a good thing (because we all know that Shakespeare was a universal genius, and what he says must be eternally true) - therefore every right-thinking person should vote to re-elect a Conservative government. I'm not saying everyone (or anyone?) on this list follows this logic, but it remains "common sense" amongst ... erm.. Tory ex-ministers, at least. Yesterday I saw The Merchant of Venice at the RSC and found it deeply depressing. Not only was it a tiresome RSC by numbers production (leather trousers, OTT decor, the cheekie chappie clown who ad libs, mugs shamelessly, plays up to the audience - for goodness sake, the RSC have been doing with this with every wretched clown in the Shakespeare canon for the last 10 years at least - can't they think of something different?) - it's stated intention to "take the swastika out of the play" (quoting the director from memory) left us with a profoundly anti-Semitic play uninflected with any kind of interogative perspective. The opening lines ("3000 ducats... well" etc.) were done in exaggerated sing-song, ham-Jewish tones (got a good laugh from the audience - but what were they laughing at exactly?). And though the Shylock as victim tactic worked to an extent in part one, the trial scene left us with a cold, vicious, Jewish villain thirsting for blood, only to be defeated and left sliding and stumbling on a pile of coins as he tried to leave the stage. Suitably dispatched we move back into the tiresome game of the rings and the play grinds to its happy ending. The audience applaud wildly and everyone goes away thinking... what? That that evil Jew got exactly what he deserved, wasn't it nice that Jessica found herself a sweet Christian boy and got converted, weren't those women clever dressing up as men, and oh, weren't the costumes lovely? Am I being patronizing? I don't know. I do know that to try and "take the swastika out of The Merchant of Venice" opens up very dangerous territory. I don't think this production negotiated it very successfully at all. What was the company trying to mean by Shakespeare in this instance? I'd be interested to hear other reactions. Stevie SimkinThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lee Gibson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 30 Jan 1998 10:03:08 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Post-modernism With all the recent conversation about "meanings," where they come from, how they are "constructed," and so on, this from Wallace Stevens may be of interest ("Poetry and Meaning," _Opus Posthumous_ 249-250). "Things that have their origin in the imagination or in the emotions (poems) very often have meanings that differ in nature from the meanings of things that have their origin in reason. They have imaginative or emotional meanings, and they communicate these meanings to people who are susceptible to imaginative or emotional meanings. They may communicate nothing at all to people who are open only to rational meanings. In short, things that have their origin in the imagination or in the emotions very often take on a form that is ambiguous or uncertain. It is not possible to attach a single, rational meaning to such things without destroying the imaginative or emotional ambiguity or uncertainty that is inherent in them....That the meanings given them by others are sometimes meanings not intended by the poet or that were never present in his mind does not impair them as meanings....It takes very little to experience the variety in everything." Indeed, it does. My own primary complaint against post-structuralism is not that it is founded on what Robin Headlam-Wells and others describe as a set of patently absurd propositions, though it certainly is so founded, nor that it is often drenched in what Richard Lanham characterizes, quite correctly, as "existential self-pity," but, rather, that it imparts so dreadful an abstract sameness to everything it touches. Yeats hated abstractions because, as he said, they are "outside of life." So do I, and for the same reason. Lee Gibson Department of English Southern Methodist University
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0089 Thursday, 29 January 1998. [1] From: Richard Nathan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 16:38:37 +0000 Subj: New NAXOS Recording of HAMLET [2] From: Chantal Schutz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 23:04:37 -0500 Subj: Operatic Shakespeare [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Nathan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 16:38:37 +0000 Subject: New NAXOS Recording of HAMLET NAXOS, which produces many fine budget recordings of classical music, has recently come out with full length recordings of "HAMLET" and "ROMEO AND JULIET." Has anyone else heard the "HAMLET"? The title character is played by Anton Lesser, and in my opinion, he makes the title character a thoroughly unpleasant individual. I know that there are many unpleasant aspects of Hamlet's character, but I've never before heard him come across as so completely unlikable - at least that is the way he strikes me in this recording. Any thoughts? [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chantal Schutz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 23:04:37 -0500 Subject: Operatic Shakespeare The Hamlet opera we have been referring to is by Ambroise Thomas, composed in 1868, first performed in Paris, libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carre (you can find it online quite easily). There are at least 3 other operas on Hamlet, and of course dozens of others on almost all of the comedies and tragedies. I wrote a paper which has some elements of bibliography and links for the Britannica online special site on Shakespeare and the Globe. Check it out at http://shakespeare.eb.com/ All the best Chantal Shakespeare's Globe University of Reading Website: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/globe
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 9.0088 Thursday, 29 January 1998. [1] From: Richard Nathan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 16:34:07 +0000 Subj: MACBETH, Hecate Stuff [2] From: Armando Guerra <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 17:03:37 -5000 Subj: Funeral Elegy to Master William Peter [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Richard Nathan <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 16:34:07 +0000 Subject: MACBETH, Hecate Stuff Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of any major 20th Century productions of MACBETH that have included the Hecate material? [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Armando Guerra <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 28 Jan 1998 17:03:37 -5000 Subject: Funeral Elegy to Master William Peter To all: I was given not long ago, before I subscribed to the list, some photocopies of a manuscript attributed to Shakespeare. It is a funeral elegy dedicated to William Peter. In the upper part of the first page it reads: W[illiam] S[hakespeare], "A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter." (London: G.Eld for T.Thorpe, 1612). Normalized text, ed. Donald Foster. I still haven't found any information, or commentary, on this elegy even though I have searched the National Library. Do any of you know about this? I have not been able to locate information on it. Best regards, Armando Guerra Havana University School of Foreign Languages [Editor's Note: You can order a copy of "A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter" by sending the command - GET FUNERAL ELEGY - toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . You can use the SEARCH FUNCTION to locate the past discussions of FE stored on the Fileserver. If you prefer, you can visit the Shakespeare Authorship Web Site - http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~tross/ws/will.html - where those discussions have been placed together. - HMC]