October
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0733 Tuesday, 30 October 2007 From: Scott Oldenburg <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 30 Oct 2007 10:05:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 18.0703 Most Significant Academic Books on Shakespeare Comment: Re: SHK 18.0703 Most Significant Academic Books on Shakespeare I've been holding off to avoid repetition. For a while it looked like all of the books I hold in highest regard would make it in the first few posts, but as the thread dies out, I'd like to add a few great academic books (one or two of which may already have been mentioned): . Harry Berger (1997): _Making Trifles of Terrors: Redistributing Complicities in Shakespeare._ . Leah Marcus (1996): _Unediting the Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton._ . Louis Montrose (1996): _The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of Playing._ . Patricia Parker (1996): _Shakespeare from the Margins: Language, Culture, Context._ . James Shapiro (2005): _A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599._ Best, Scott Oldenburg _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0732 Tuesday, 30 October 2007 [1] From: Elliott Stone <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 17:18:08 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0716 Paintings in Stratford [2] From: Arthur Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 09:01:09 +0000 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0716 Paintings in Stratford [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Elliott Stone <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 17:18:08 -0400 Subject: 18.0716 Paintings in Stratford Comment: Re: SHK 18.0716 Paintings in Stratford Shakespeare's source for the Rape of Lucrece was Ovid's Fasti and Livy's Roman History as William Farina has pointed out. However, it seems that Lucretia in her grief and agony appears to be seriously contemplating a painting or a series of paintings depicting the fall and sack of Troy. I had hoped this summer to see, along with Professor Noemi Magri, the frescoes in Mantua by Gulio Romano that seem to be the possible or perhaps probable paintings that are referred to in this long poem. You will recall that this is the same artist that is named in the Winter's Tale. Sadly I was not able to keep this appointment. The Queen's collection of Italian Renaissance Paintings on view this summer in London included some wonderful examples of Romano's work. Best, Elliott H. Stone [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Arthur Lindley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 09:01:09 +0000 Subject: 18.0716 Paintings in Stratford Comment: Re: SHK 18.0716 Paintings in Stratford The relevant (very) new book on this topic is: Tara Hamling and Richard L Williams eds., *Art Re-Formed: Re-assessing the Impact of the Reformation on the Visual Arts* (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Oct. 2007) ISBN 9781847183118; US price $99.99. Sample pages, including table of contents, can be found at the publisher's website: www.c-s-p.org. Regards, Arthur Lindley _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0731 Tuesday, 30 October 2007 [1] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:53:35 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews [2] From: Lysbeth Benkert-Rasmussen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 14:19:04 -0500 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0713 Problem Shrews [3] From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 14:47:08 -0500 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews [4] From: Harry Rusche <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 17:09:31 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews [5] From: David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 21:26:39 -0400 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews [6] From: Anna Kamaralli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 Oct 2007 09:04:07 +0000 (GMT) Subj: Re: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:53:35 -0400 Subject: 18.0723 Problem Shrews Comment: Re: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews I take mild exception at Cary Dean Barney's comment that >All of these alternative "Shrews" seem to be ways of escaping >what is perceived to be Shakespeare's intent Presumably this includes my view that the main action in the play is a Commedia dell' Arte farce and that by restoring the entire Sly framework we can see the grand metajoke. I cannot see how restoring the entire text of the play and performing it in the fashion that it clearly invites can be regarded as a flight from the author's expectations. To be sure, it is legitimate to argue that Shakespeare did not write the later Sly scenes; but that it a textual issue, not a critical one. Assuming that WS wrote the later Sly scenes substantially as given in (Q), the "intent" seems fairly obvious, at least to me. [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lysbeth Benkert-Rasmussen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 14:19:04 -0500 Subject: 18.0713 Problem Shrews Comment: RE: SHK 18.0713 Problem Shrews My apologies in advance for a fairly long post. When critics argue that the text of The Taming of the Shrew does, indeed, support a reading that portrays Petruchio as an abuser and Kate as a victim of an oppressive patriarchal system, they are correct. I would, however, like to point out an alternative to this; however, you will have to bear with me a bit, since it will at first sound as though I am being facetious. Yes, Petruchio's script gives him the lines of an abuser, but so does Bugs Bunny's script give him the lines of a violent sociopath. The script for any Three Stooges movie also would read (sans stage directions and sound effects) as incredibly violent (talk about a dysfunctional family). Here is what I tell my students about the play. There are two distinct, textually-supported ways to stage it. The first stages the play seriously, using a non-ironic reading that explores what could very well have happened to an intelligent, assertive woman raised in a patriarchal culture by a single father and a snot-of-a-little sister who knows how to play the game. The second way to stage the play is as a comedy, following what I call the Bugs Bunny Rules of Comedy (a name that I think maybe I should copyright - with tongue firmly in cheek, of course). To do this, the play can only funny if 1. There is no serious threat that someone will really get permanently hurt, and so, he audience never has to feel nervous about anyone's safety. Elmer Fudd's gun blows up in his face repeatedly, yet he always walks away. 2. The character on the receiving end of the violence is the one who first started the fight. Wile E. Coyote, after all, is trying to kill the Road Runner, and so there is some poetic justice when he falls off the cliff and gets smashed under a boulder. "The Shrew" can be staged this way. After all, we never actually see Petruchio hit Kate, so if the characters are well cast (he cannot seem physically threatening; she cannot be not small and physically weak), we never feel nervous that she really is going to be hurt. Add to this that Kate is the one who starts the fight. She is the first one to throw an insult; she is the first one to try and hit someone (Petruchio included). So, in one sense, she kind of has it coming to her. The most masterful version of the play I have seen was staged by the American Conservatory Theater of San Francisco in 1976 (now available on DVD). ACT staged the play as a commedia dell'arte production that heavily emphasized physical comedy. There is also a clear attraction between Kate and Petruchio from the start-when Kate sees Petruchio for the first time, she walks slowly all the way around him and (from behind) gives him a very long once over before showing the audience her obvious appreciation for Marc Singer's well-built physique. It is very funny. Yet the comedy is not the production's only asset. In and around the slapstick, we watch the pair's obvious and instantaneous chemical attraction to one another grow into mutual respect and devotion, and we get to watch Kate get her long-awaited, and very public, revenge on her snotty little sister during the final scene. So, yes, I would argue that the play can be staged as a comedy; even better, it can be staged as a comedy that still says something sophisticated about the nature of romantic and familial relationships. Lysbeth [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Donald Bloom <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 14:47:08 -0500 Subject: 18.0723 Problem Shrews Comment: RE: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews Shrew is a problem only if you (a) demand coherence in a work of art, but (b) refuse to accept the coherence that's there. This sort of refusal is quite common, actually, whenever urgent political, religious and moral questions are involved. And that seems to be the case with this play This first sticking point is, of course, Katerina. If you play her as an obnoxious bitch who is violent, abusive, and completely unreasonable then the taming she receives makes perfect sense. It is funny, just what she deserves, and of great benefit to her, for she ends up loved and happy. If you wish her to be the pathetic victim of domestic abuse, you have a beginning (where she is violent, brutal and irrational) and an ending (where she is loved, loving and contented) that make no sense. This can be handled by letting it go and putting on a play that makes no sense, or making a hash of the beginning and the ending in order to fit the idea of abuse and brainwashing. The second, also of course, is Petruchio. If you play him as a sadistic thug then his triumph at the end is little short of nauseating. But if you play him as a breezy, cheery sort, brimming over with self-confidence and the enjoyment of life (not to mention as being a battle-tested soldier who cannot be frightened by a noisy female), then it all works well. And it coheres readily with the portrayal of Kate as an obnoxious bitch. The real problem with Petruchio is his love for money. Shakespeare was joking about a phenomenon that we no longer joke about, the rather cynical attitude toward marriage and its possibilities in regard to financial self-improvement that was common at the time. I don't think it's impossible to bring the audience in on this joke. But if you deal with it as if Petruchio were a 21st century fortune-hunter then you once again spoil the fun. I have seen excellent - indeed, side-splitting - productions that followed the course recommended above. The audience may not end up being much edified about 21st gender theory, but they do have a good time. Cheers, don [4]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Harry Rusche <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 17:09:31 -0400 Subject: 18.0723 Problem Shrews Comment: Re: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews My colleague Sheila Cavanagh saw "Taming" in D.C. this weekend, and she says Petruchio shows up for the wedding in the identical strapless gown that Kate is wearing. Now that is funny! Harry Rusche [5]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Frankel <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 21:26:39 -0400 Subject: 18.0723 Problem Shrews Comment: RE: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews TheatreUSF will be producing Taming of the Shrew in February, directed by guest artist Tim Luscombe. In this production Petruchio will be played by a female, in part because she was the strongest (i.e., best) actor to audition. I'm not part of the production team, but I understand the decision has been made to keep the character male -- the degree of disguise is still under discussion, I believe. I'll be happy to report back about the production when I see it. cdf [6]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Anna Kamaralli <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Friday, 26 Oct 2007 09:04:07 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 18.0723 Problem Shrews Comment: Re: SHK 18.0723 Problem Shrews Solutions to staging The Shrew today are not always as simple as they seem, and we have to think through the full extent of the message being communicated. For instance, your daughter's idea about suggesting Stockholm syndrome does prevent the play from being a comedy, as well as implying that the only option for an unruly woman in this world is to be broken by it, which is a shame when there is so much good funny stuff in the play. On the other hand, the trouble with trying to convince ourselves that the last scene actually shows Kate and Petruchio in an alliance against the others (in some sort of mutually-driven scam) is that the image they present of themselves challenges only what the others thought of them as individuals, but does not challenge at all their idea of what a relationship should look like, so they clearly have not risen above the society from which they come, or got beyond concerning themselves with what people think of them. Petruchio's last action, bar his exit, is to make sure he publicly humiliates (in the most literal sense, requiring her to make explicit the extremes of her humility) his wife. This may be the act of a man who considers her better than the other women, but not one who considers her too good to abase herself in front of the other men. And Carol's solution poses the problem that, if the subject under discussion is how best to stage the play today, do you really want to have it implied that if Kate acts as Petruchio's equal in public it would humiliate him? Worse still, trying to make it a happy ending by presenting Kate as wretched and unhappy at the beginning and transformed into radiant satisfaction by the end just reinforces the notion that there is something wrong with women who do not conform to directives to be submissive, and that abuse is 'for their own good'. What he does to her is abuse, legal and socially sanctioned, and we shouldn't trivialize it or give it our approval by showing how much 'better' she is for it. And yet we can't let the play go, because it tantalizes us with two scenes (Petruchio's first meeting with Kate in II.1 and their exchanges in IV.3) which are fun and joyous. We want these to be the model for the whole play, but they are not. No one is harmed by calling the sun the moon when no one for a minute really believes that it is. This is a fundamentally different thing from saying that a woman should place her hand below her husband's foot in a room full of people who are eager to accept that as the truth. But I believe there is a way out: I have a pet theory, derived from Michael Friedman's The World Must Be Peopled: Shakespeare and the Comedy of Forgiveness. Friedman proposes a model of a comedic sub-genre that applies in a remarkable number of Shakespeare's plays (Two Gentlemen, Much Ado, Measure, All's Well and to some degree Cymbeline and Winter's Tale). Each of the plays that Friedman classifies as a Comedy of Forgiveness shows a man who mistreats the woman who loves him rewarded with a happy ending, despite a sense that he does inadequate penance, in proportion to the abuse. He notes a literary and performance history of dissatisfaction with this, of regarding it as a flaw in the plays, and of attempting to 'narrow the gap between what the Comic Hero deserves and what he gets by using elements of performance either to reduce the Comic Hero's blameworthiness or to increase the sincerity of his repentance and the severity of his punishment'. One of the things that distinguishes such plays from more straightforward Romantic Comedies is an emphasis on the incorporating of rebellious elements into socially and legally sanctioned unions that will go on to perpetuate the legitimate family, and confirm the bonds between potential patriarchs. Instead of the Senex providing the obstacle to the mutually desiring hero and heroine, the hero and heroine themselves create frustrations that must be subsumed into a union that controls female unruliness and male lust and/or anxiety about female sexuality. Although Friedman uses the Shrew to illustrate certain points and even includes a chapter called "The Taming of the Shrews" in which he discusses the curbing of the shrew figures in these plays, like Beatrice and Isabella, he stops short of including Shrew in his list of Comedies of Forgiveness. I think if the pattern is that a man sins unforgivably against a woman, but is forgiven anyway, due to a combination of her love for him and society's need to reincorporate them both into its social structures, then The Taming of the Shrew, by this measure, is a Comedy of Forgiveness. When looking at the action of the play from this point of view, we are not being asked to approve of Petruchio's treatment of Katherina, quite the contrary, but we are being shown that abominable behaviour can be forgiven for the sake of love and a strong community. Kate's last speech is the required gesture of forgiveness to the Forgiven Comic Hero, and if we aren't left feeling somewhat queasy when we watch this in performance then, as with those versions of Much Ado About Nothing that seek to exonerate Claudio, the production has made things too easy for us. Regards, Anna P.S. When Katherina says she will 'try' whether Petruchio is a gentleman, in II.1, it is usually played that she slaps his face. It seems to me that what she should do here is goose him (passing thought). _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0730 Tuesday, 30 October 2007 [1] From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 09:08:09 -0500 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [2] From: Carol Barton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:16:37 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [3] From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:14:26 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [4] From: Helen Whall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:28:31 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [5] From: Carol Morley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 09:08:59 +0000 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [6] From: Lynn Brenner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 17:24:01 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [7] From: Scott Shepherd <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 18:56:31 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: R. A. Cantrell <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 09:08:09 -0500 Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie >See >Hamlet's soliloquy in Act 3, Scene 3 when he decides against killing >Claudius while the king is kneeling "at prayer." The lines from >3.3.72-96 only reveal Hamlet's reaction to what he thinks is happening. >As an audience, we have just had the privilege of hearing Claudius >remark about his inability to pray because he is unwilling to act by >giving up his queen and his crown and so we know that part of what >Hamlet says is most certainly not true. Hamlet says he will not "take >[Claudius] in the purging of his soul, / When he is fit and seasoned for >his passage" (3.3.85-6). While this represents the "truthful" reaction >on the part of Hamlet, it is not the "truth" of what is really happening >with Claudius. It has long been my view that Prince Hamlet, when not in the action of the play, is seen by the audience as watching the play with them. He steps in and out of the play; in to take his part, out to either watch or to deliver his soliloquies directly to those who have shared his view of the action. There are many passages in the play such as the one above quoted that can be best explained in this manner. All the best, R.A. Cantrell [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carol Barton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:16:37 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Nicole Coonradt is correct. I think your friend may have misinterpreted--or misrelated?--the professor's meaning. A soliloquy reflects the "truth" as the speaker *perceives* it--that is, he or she is thinking private thoughts, and is not being duplicitous or disingenuous or otherwise masking his or her true feelings and beliefs. But that is not to say that the speaker *knows* the truth: Othello believes that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him, Gloucester believes that Edgar has betrayed him, and Romeo believes that Juliet is dead, but that doesn't mean in any of those cases that what the speaker *thinks* is true reflects truth in the empirical sense. Thus when Othello says OTHELLO It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,-- Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!-- It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood; Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then put out the light: If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me: but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again. It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree. he truly believes that his wife has betrayed him--"it is the cause" for which he is about to kill her, "else she'll betray more men." He's wrong, but he's not "lying." Similarly, when Hamlet sees and hears his father's ghost in the bedchamber scene (but Gertrude doesn't), it makes us wonder how "true" the things he has reported previously in soliloquy were--but we never suspect him of *lying* either. Hope that helps make the distinction clear. Best to all, Carol Barton [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Larry Weiss <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:14:26 -0400 Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie I think Nicole Coonradt is spot on when she says >Soliloquy is thought verbalized so that the audience knows >what the character is thinking. I don't know of any definitions >that say "soliloquy = truth," ergo, whether *what* the person >speaks is "truth" is a different thing. That would be to say, by >extension, that "thought = truth," wouldn't it? An author might want us to understand that a character misperceives the actual situation and, therefore, describes it inaccurately in soliloquy. In that case, the author will usually provide ample clues as to the "actual" state of facts. But (with the possible exception of theatre of the absurd), a drama would be far too chaotic if a character lies to the audience about what he or she is thinking -- i.e., what the author expects the audience will understand from his words about his state of mind. Given this rule, what do we make of the following from "How all occasions ..." (26 monosyllabic words, beginning and ending with caesurae): ... I do not know Why yet I live to say, "this thing's to do" Sith I have cause, and will and strength, and means To do't. ... No fair peeking at the thread we had a few years back. [4]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Helen Whall <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 12:28:31 -0400 Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Soliloquies are a fascinating way to bring up other issues of "knows to be true" versus "believes to be true" versus material truth verses truthy truth. The only reliable "knows to be true" soliloquies rely on material truth. A character tells us what he or she has "really" done or what will be done. Here the convention helps with exposition even as setting up for the audience that knowledge-tease, dramatic irony. When soliloquy seems to be more a matter of the character thinking out loud (sort of the three little circle beneath the cartoon balloon), the speaker "believes" what he or she says to be true, and it may be, even if we in the realm of dramatic irony know differently. Or, in the realm of never-ending interpretation, we believe the character is wrong or that the character is self-deceiving. Anyone think of a soliloquy that breaks down those premises? Helen Whall [5]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Carol Morley <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 09:08:59 +0000 Subject: 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: RE: SHK 18.0714 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie For me, soliloquies show the audience the character unmediated by the need to perform to any other on stage intruders. They DO show us exactly what the characters are thinking- that seems to me to be exactly their point, and 'meaning'. Of course, some characters are so fundamentally twisted/ dishonest/ dumb/ self-deluding that they wouldn't be expected to deliver 'truth' at any price, but the characterisation, at these points, I believe to be consistently truthful to the character's inner lives. And that's a meaningful theatrical convention too. Carol Morley [6]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lynn Brenner <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 17:24:01 -0400 Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie >Virtually every soliloquy Macbeth has consists of rationalization >and self-deception. Antony has one short soliloquy; it consists >of fooling himself about why he is going to ditch his wife and >run back to Egypt. The proposition is 'true' only if it means that >we're supposed to think that this is what the character is thinking. >In that form, of course, it's also meaningless. Surely not. Watching Macbeth and Antony deceive themselves adds immeasurably to our understanding of who they are and how they see themselves. It's even more interesting when the character who's rationalizing his actions is someone who prides himself on seeing the world as it really is -- e.g., Iago. I assume the professor means that in a soliloquy, the character is telling the truth as he sees it. I think he's right about that. Lynn Brenner [7]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Scott Shepherd <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 18:56:31 -0400 Subject: 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie Comment: Re: SHK 18.0722 Soliloquies - Truth or Lie The truth-in-soliloquy principle is not meant to rule out self-deception or cases where the speaker is simply misinformed. The idea is that the soliloquizing character will not knowingly tell us something he does not actually believe. Not everyone agrees with this. For example, some readers don't trust Iago when he says he suspects his wife with Othello. Or Hamlet when he claims to think the ghost "may be the devil." The truth-in-soliloquy argument says it's absurd to imagine Iago or Hamlet practicing deception not on another character but on the audience itself. The common-sense understanding being that the audience doesn't exist in Iago's or Hamlet's imaginative reality, so there is no one to lie to, therefore no point in lying. The counter-argument I suppose is that in a real theater there *is* a felt relationship between the audience and a fictional character who addresses them directly, and in that context we should not be surprised to detect the sort of posturing, defensive justifications, ass-covering omissions, etc. that one ordinarily detects in a person explaining his actions to "the public" or some other sort of interested nonparticipant. _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 18.0729 Tuesday, 30 October 2007 [1] From: Alan Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:41:27 -0300 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry [2] From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 11:27:42 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry [3] From: Peter Holland <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 14:55:39 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry [4] From: Mike Shapiro <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 19:32:00 -0400 Subj: RE: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry [5] From: Norman Myers <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 24 Oct 2007 22:20:04 -0400 Subj: Re: SHK 18.0710 Ellen Terry and Shakespeare Conferences [1]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Alan Young <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Monday, 22 Oct 2007 11:41:27 -0300 Subject: 18.0721 Ellen Terry Comment: Re: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry Read Laurence Irving's biography, HENRY IRVING, for some useful information. Have you visited Ellen Terry's house at Smallhythe in Kent (now managed by the National Trust)? See: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-smallhytheplace/ I assume you have read Terry's autobiography, THE STORY OF MY LIFE. What does the Oxford online DNB have to offer? Good hunting. Alan Young [Editor's Note: "What does the Oxford online DNB have to offer?" 4,249 words] [2]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Evett <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 11:27:42 -0400 Subject: 18.0721 Ellen Terry Comment: Re: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry The directory issue of PMLA (I stopped my membership when I retired from full-time teaching) used to contain a pretty full list of upcoming conferences. I see in the online version that it's not there any longer. Does anybody know if it has been supplanted, perhaps by some kind of online resource? If so, that would be a place for Courtney Glenny to look for upcoming meetings in the UK. There have, of course, been recent announcements on this list for British conferences. David Evett [3]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter Holland <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 14:55:39 -0400 Subject: 18.0721 Ellen Terry Comment: Re: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry Well, I must be having a really bad day and I don't want to sound as if I am patronising a young graduate student, but I would have thought a moment's research (e.g. reading a few pages of any of the many excellent studies of Terry or searching for Terry on Google) would have shown that there is a major collection of materials on and by Terry (including costumes [with the recently-restored beetle-wing dress she wore as Lady Macbeth], her working copies of plays, and masses of her theatre memorabilia, etc etc etc) at the Ellen Terry Museum at Smallhythe in Kent, a collection which has been in the guardianship of the National Trust for nearly 70 years. Not exactly obscure information, is it? So, one obvious answer to Courtney Glenny's enquiry 'Is there a place in England I could go and research her letters/written work?' is Smallhythe. [4]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Shapiro <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Tuesday, 23 Oct 2007 19:32:00 -0400 Subject: 18.0721 Ellen Terry Comment: RE: SHK 18.0721 Ellen Terry You may find the book, Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence, by Terry and Shaw (Edited By Christopher St. John) (Author) helpful. [5]----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Norman Myers <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. > Date: Wednesday, 24 Oct 2007 22:20:04 -0400 Subject: 18.0710 Ellen Terry and Shakespeare Conferences Comment: Re: SHK 18.0710 Ellen Terry and Shakespeare Conferences Courtney Glenny-- I suggest you do a thorough search of Dissertation Abstracts. Because she was well-known as Henry Irving's leading lady and Gordon Craig's mother, Terry may have been thoroughly covered in all aspects, and you may have difficulty finding something "original" to say. Good luck. Norman Myers Professor Emeritus, Theatre Bowling Green State University _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook,This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 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