Preliminary thoughts on the display

If we structure the display around a chronological publication history of Shakespeare, here's one way we could organize it:

Shelf 1 - Earliest texts and first generation of editors / Age of Pope
1600 Midsummer Night's Dream quarto
1632 Second Folio
[1709 Nicholas Rowe - EEBO - skip?]
1725 Pope - SC Archives
1733 Theobald - attacked Pope
[1747 Warburton - SC Archives - skip?]

Shelf 2 - Second generation of editors / Age of Johnson
1765 Johnson - best known for his preface
1768 Capell - first editor to base his text on quartos and folios
1773 Steevens - worked with Johnson, extremely quarrelsome

Shelf 3 - Third generation of editors / Romantic Age
1793 Reed - first variorum
1818 Bowdler - SC Archives
1821 Boswell - third variorum

I'm least certain about that first shelf - my instinct is that it's important to show an example of an early quarto and folio, just so people know what the editors were drawing from. It might leave us a little squeezed for space, though. Thoughts?

Shakespeare adaptations

If we stick to adaptations pre-1800, these books look like they'll provide plenty of background information:

Branam, George. Eighteenth-Century Adaptations of Shakespearean Tragedy.
In addition to a very practical complete index listing all the adaptations, Branam gives a good overview of general changes made by adaptations (such as elevating diction or reducing imagery). He divides 18th-century adaptations into three chronological groups.

Dobson, Michael. The Making of the National Poet: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Authorship 1660-1769.
Dobson makes several broad arguments about thematic alterations in the Restoration revisions, focusing on de-emphasizing monarchy and emphasizing domesticity and family, among others. This has a lot of useful treatments of specific revisions, including The Enchanted Isle.

Marsden, Jean. The Re-imagined Text: Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory.
Marsden is not in our library, but most of this very useful book is excerpted on Google Books. It deals with simplifications and thematic changes in the adaptations, with an emphasis on how Shakespearean criticism drove the changes.

Fischlin, Daniel. Adaptations of Shakespeare.
This is actually an anthology, but it provides concise and helpful overviews before each of the twelve adaptations printed.

Shakespeare's Lawsuits

This nytimes article details the various people who have weighed in on the identity of whoever wrote Shakespeare's plays--have you, for instance, ever heard of the Supreme Court case Earl of Oxford vs. William Shakespeare?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9405E7DF1F3DF933A25751C0A9649C8B63&scp=3&sq=shakespeare&st=cse

Incredible.

Restoration Literary Criticism

Below are two links to 1660s literary criticism by John Dryden and Thomas Shadwell. We've talked a bit about Dryden already, but Shadwell is probably new to you. A Restoration playwright and critic, he likely had a hand in revising Dryden and Davenant's revision of Shakespeare's The Tempest, adding songs to make the play even more musical. (The version you skimmed for class two weeks ago is the pre-Shadwell text.)

The text linked to here is the preface to Shadwell's The Sullen Lovers (1668). Dryden's Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1667) is structured as a lengthy conversation between friends. As they discuss the merits of English drama and of the previous generation's playwrights (mainly Jonson, Shakespeare, and Fletcher), they also reveal some of the same preoccupations with the French and with Frenchness that we mentioned last week.

Skim through both as time permits. Be sure, though, to read Dryden's discussion of Epicoene, which he refers to throughout as The Silent Woman . Shadwell's preface, available through Google Books, is included in Restoration Literature: An Anthology, ed. Paul Hammond (NY: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 196-200.

The gentleman pictured above is John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, whom we'll be discussing in class on Thursday. Painted by Sir Peter Lely, c. 1677, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Misogyny Galore

Reading the Restoration Tempest, I've found that the co-editors of Shakespeare's piece not only deigned to add several characters/love interests, but also added a great deal of misogyny to the play's lines.

For instance:
"like most of her frail Sex,
She's false, but has not learned the art to hide it;
Nature has done her part, she loves variety:
Why did I think that any Woman could
Be innocent, because she's young? no, no,
Their Nurses teach them Change, when with two Nipples
They divide their liking."

This is Ferdinand on Miranda, Act 4, Scene 1, starting at about line 80.

It's also interesting to read this play and see what the co-editors' ideas of what a man who had never seen a woman, versus the woman(en) who had never seen a man, would be like. Hippolito's youth seems to make him naively overeager to claim women for himself, so much so that he makes a rival for Miranda in Ferdinand...

Woe, that I am King!*

Miranda brought the importance of bloodlines and class structure in The Tempest today in class, and I thought it was interesting that, going off the conversations of Prospero's power over others in the play, part of his ability to match Miranda and Ferdinand together is based on the absence of the king. There's something like a power vacuum because Prospero removes power from those who would normally be in power, and Shakespeare has Ferdinand often lamenting over the "death" of his father, the king, while emphasizing that his father is the king.

*just paraphrasing. :)

The Reuengers Tragaedie: a side note

In my quest for a copy for the Revenger's Tragedy, I managed to find only the oldest copy owned by the Amherst College library system deep down in the lowest floor of the library. It was published in 1878 and has stiff, yellowed pages that were apparently last perused in the 70s.

Reading it is more entertaining than even Middleton might have anticipated, because I have to sound out all the words in order to understand what they're saying. For instance:

"Within the spend-thrift veynes of a drye Duke, A parcht and juicelesse luxur. O God! One that has scarce bloud inough to liue upon--and hee to ryot it like a sonne and heyre?"

Oh, the boon to the English-speaking world that is standardized English!

Cheapside during Lent

TOUCHWOOD SENIOR
What shift she'll make now with this piece of flesh
In this strict time of Lent, I cannot imagine;
Flesh dare not peep abroad now; I have known
This city now above this seven years,
But I protest in better state of government
I never knew it yet, nor ever heard of;
There has been more religious wholesome laws
In the half circle of a year erected
For common good, than memory ever knew of,
Enter Sir Oliver Kix and his Lady.
Setting apart corruption of promoters,
And other poisonous officers that infect
And with a venomous breath taint every goodness.

In trying to figure out what the promoters were doing in Middleton's play, I found this speech by Touchstone Sr. in the scene before they appear. He's sincerely worried about the fate of the woman he's impregnated and just paid off, because, as he informs us for the first time, this is the "strict time of Lent." The eating of flesh is forbidden - as is whoring and babies out of wedlock. It's a time when all kinds of excess is supposed to be curbed, and according to Touchstone, it is. But his paean to London's "better state of governance" is completely out of touch with everything we've seen int he play.

Of course, this speech - particularly praising London's growing number of laws - sounds more than a little cheeky. Touchstone may be sincere, but Middleton is certainly not; when Touchstone declares his city "religious" and "wholesome," I can't possibly take him seriously. His praise of innumerate new religious laws is a particularly fun way of tweaking them - they don't seem to have had much effect in Cheapside. And of course, when the promoters themselves arrive, we see what seems to be the whole effect of attempts (presumably Puritan) to legislate virtue: people continue to eat meat, but now the promoters occasionally have an excuse to steal it or to obtain bribes.

If Middleton's Cheapside setting is critical for this play, the timing seems just as carefully chosen: what could highlight the hypocrisy of all this eating, drinking, and whoring more than setting the play at Lent? The downfall of the promoters, smack in the middle of the play, is one of the most satisfying scenes for me: a set-piece that could have gone almost anywhere, it has (1) hypocrites, (2) clever antagonists, and (3) the hypocrites getting their comeuppance. What makes the scene a little more complicated than that, though, is exactly who those clever heroes are. Allwit, triumphing over the promoters, is no more virtuous than they are - but at least, it seems, he's no hypocrite.

Possible Research Topic

I know this is (very much) a side thought, but I was fascinated by what someone brought up in class today about Shakesperean/Middletonian ideas about what we today would consider homosexuality. I hadn't before considered the possibility that homosexuality as an identity hasn't always been a widely-accept social norm for ages, and it might be interesting to explore how that's represented in the literature that we read. (Or not, since it's so straightforward.)

On another note, it's also always startling to me that the comedies we read don't consider the keeping of an ingle to be child abuse - was there no conception of consent on the part of women, children, or people of a lower class?

Goldsmiths

The original Goldsmiths' Company Hall -- where, we are told at the end of the play, Touchstone Junior and Moll Yellowhammer's wedding dinner will eventually take place -- is no longer standing. The same holds for the building that replaced it, which was torn down in the nineteenth century. But the Goldsmiths' Company still exists. Its website offers useful information on the Company's history here. Poke around a bit on the site if you have time; we'll talk more about the livery companies in class tomorrow.

Cheapside

Here is a link to the interactive map of early modern London that we consulted in class last week.

A brief but helpful account of the history of Cheapside, as well as a description of its socio-economic make-up, can be found through the same site here.

Hearing: Something to See

To the left are two very different seventeenth-century images of listening. The first, Peter Paul Reubens's Hercules and Omphale, was painted in 1606 and hangs in the Louvre in Paris. The second, by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, is entitled Portrait of the Mennonite Preacher Cornelius Anslo and His Wife, Aeltje Schouten, and is dated 1641 (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). Professor Andaleeb Banta in Amherst's Art History Department shared the Rembrandt image with us; take a look at the preacher's wife's headdress, which is shaped like a second ear.

We might want to think about the gendering of hearing in these images, as well as about the intentional vs. unwilling absorption of sound -- all interesting topics in light of Epicoene, certainly, but also in connection with Chaste Maid.

City Women

On Thursday, we'll spend some time getting our bearings in seventeenth-century London--learning what the city looked and sounded like, who lived and/or worked where, and so on. As you read through Epicoene, pay attention to where the play's action takes place -- which parts of the city do these characters move through and talk about? Try to get a feel for Jonson's London. It's as much a character in this play as Truewit, Morose, or Mistress Otter.

For further reading (if you have time), you might want to turn to Karen Newman's "City Talk: Women and Commodification in Jonson's Epicoene," ELH 56 (1989): 503-18. The article is available through JSTOR, which you can access via the library's website here.

On an unrelated note: K, I found a collection of scholarly essays on chick-lit edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. We have a copy here at Frost (PS374.W6 C48 2006). I haven't looked at it yet, but it may provide useful fodder for thinking through the connections you drew last week between Shakespearean comedy, chick-lit, and generic expectations.

A Short Post on Epicoene

Already my favorite part of the play is Act II, scene ii where Truewit assaults Morose with a verbal waterfall, an unending description of "friends'" elaborate concerns about Morose's impending marriage. Morose's pain is inexplicably funny - possibly because I can't personally identify much with the cause of his agony.

Truly, Ben Jonson had something going for him.

First thoughts, all problematical

With what cruel purpose scripts this Duke his play?
It's quick he knows the truth, and yet he sits;
Adds his own falsehoods, one upon the next,
And only takes offense when he's blasphemed.

It's bad enough to lie yourself so oft;
It's worse, to urge a friend to the same crime;
The premise of the play's a lie concocted,
And all ends well - perhaps - but 'fore that time
Half this play's lies. Can he for them account?
His reckless words and cold, callous behavior
Would seem to profit little, harming much.

What profits it to let offenses lie -
ignore a wife much wronged, and let her weep;
drive maid to mourn a living brother's death -
when but the show of his own power's needed
to end all, fix the matter, and have done?

This monk's no monk - he only wears the habit,
and vows are more than cowls - yet he'll feign
Confessor to the damned, a falser witness
Than Lucio to he: this duke to men.

I'd call him coward, like the lingering juror,
Who dares not speak 'til assent's guaranteed;
T'would be a virtue in him to be dreadful,
But no, it seems this Duke's a useless weed
Best suited to be servant, not a leader,
Or else Angelo's right: and this man's mad.

...

You've likely guessed that I can't stand the Duke.

Giving a Voice to Mariana's Tenor...

I've found a version of Measure for Measure's "Take, O Take Those Lips Away" performed by the Amherst College Concert Choir a few years back. It's different than John Wilson's version (which is the one in the back of my book), but listening to it brings to mind what it might have been like to actually hear these plays performed.

I've tried uploading the sound files as movie files to blogspot, but it appears that I'm unable to do so. However, I thought it was an interesting point simply that Shakespeare could add different shades of melancholy to Mariana's opening scene (4.1). After all, it's in the following dialogue that Mariana and the Duke note, respectively, that "my [Mariana's] mirth it much displeased, but much pleased my woe" and, conversely, that "music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm."

I also thought it was interesting how the lyrics somewhat foreshadowed the action that had was to come, and had already been planned out by Isabella and the Duke/Friar. My favorite part of it is porbably "And those eyes, the break of day,/Lights that do mislead the morn" because, if it refers originally to Mariana's betrayal by the curiously-named Angelo, they also serve well as a depiction of how Mariana deceives Angelo in turn.

"Inviting a Friend to Supper," by Ben Jonson (1616)

TO-NIGHT, grave sir, both my poore house, and I
Doe equally desire your companie :
Not that we thinke us worthy such a guest,
But that your worth will dignifie our feast,
With those that come ; whose grace may make that seeme
Something, which, else, could hope for no esteeme.
It is the faire acceptance, Sir, creates
The entertaynment perfect : not the cates.
Yet shall you have, to rectifie your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better sallad
Ushring the mutton ; with a short-leg'd hen,
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,
Limons, and wine for sauce : to these, a coney
Is not to be despair'd of, for our money ;
And, though fowle, now, be scarce, yet there are clerkes,
The skie not falling, thinke we may have larkes.
I'll tell you of more, and lye, so you will come :
Of partrich, pheasant, wood-cock, of which some
May yet be there ; and godwit, if we can :
Knat, raile, and ruffe too. How so e'er, my man
Shall reade a piece of VIRGIL, TACITUS,
LIVIE, or of some better booke to us,
Of which wee'll speake our minds, amidst our meate ;
And I'll professe no verses to repeate :
To this, if ought appeare, which I know not of,
That will the pastrie, not my paper, show of.
Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will bee;
But that, which most doth take my Muse, and mee,
Is a pure cup of rich Canary-wine,
Which is the Mermaids, now, but shall be mine :
Of which had HORACE, or ANACREON tasted,
Their lives, as doe their lines, till now had lasted.
Tabacco, Nectar, or the Thespian spring,
Are all but LUTHERS beere, to this I sing.
Of this we will sup free, but moderately,
And we will have no Pooly, or Parrot by ;
Nor shall our cups make any guiltie men :
But, at our parting, we will be, as when
We innocently met. No simple word
That shall be utter'd at our mirthfull board
Shall make us sad next morning : or affright
The libertie, that wee'll enjoy to-night.


The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse.
H. J. C. Grierson and G. Bullough, eds.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934. 155-156.

One link, a comment, and a game

Hello all,

I've been paging through Bruce Smith's Twelfth Night: Texts and Contexts, which is - tragically! - not in the library. It is, however, partially excerpted on Google Books, and it makes a great virtual page-through. Highlights are additional excerpts from Manningham's diary and a lot of primary sources on clothing laws: not for cross-dressing, but to regulate social class. I've linked to the clothing section (the sumptuary laws particularly single out "excess in apparel," which I find an interesting phrase).

It's a neat collection, but one of Smith's suggestions bothered me: the idea that both Viola and Sebastian "marry up" in their respective pairings with the Orsino and Olivia. He argued that the first audience of this play was made up of "gentlemen" but not Dukes, and that they would have seen the twins' ascension as an embodiment of their own hopes of social mobility. I'm not sure I agree - I'd always assumed that the twins were also children of some lord or other, and since Sebastian declares 'I know you've heard of' his father in Messaline, I think it's fair to assume the twins aren't social climbers. On the other hand, they're almost certainly stepping up in income, especially since a lot of their wealth has presumably just gone down with the shipwreck.

If Viola/Sebastian are the acceptable side of social aspirations, then Malvolio is (more obviously) the reverse, but it's interesting to compare "Cesario's" thwarted attraction to "his" master with Malvolio's desire for his mistress. What's the crucial ingredient that makes Viola the resourceful heroine and Malvolio the cruelly unfortunate fool? Is it because he's a servant? Too prideful? A hypocrite? A Puritan? Even Phebe gets her (appropriate) sweetheart in the end, but Malvolio not only doesn't get a sweetheart; he doesn't get a happy ending.

On an unrelated note, there's a joke recorded in Manningham's diary that's too good not to share:

"Upon a time when Burbage played Richard III there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of "Richard III." Shakespeare, overhearing their conclusion, went before, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then message being brought that "Richard III" was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that "William the Conquerer" was before "Richard III."

Cross-dressing

Much has been written about theatrical cross-dressing in early modern England, particularly in the last decade or so. Some of this work is excerpted in the Signet edition of Twelfth Night, to which the subject is so obviously relevant.

For contemporary (seventeenth-century) writing about cross-dressing, onstage and off, you might want to take a look at the Hic Mulier/Haec Vir pamphlets--keep in mind, though, that these weren't printed until roughly two decades after Twelfth Night was first performed. (The Wikipedia entry on Haec Vir provides a good introduction to both pamphlets.) A much earlier example is the antitheatricalist (and ex-playwright) Stephen Gosson's late sixteenth-century harangue, a page of which I've pulled from Early English Books Online (EEBO) and will paste below.

And finally, here is a link to a New York Times theater review of a relatively recent Twelfth Night with an all-male cast.

Comedy: Some Background

An excellent introduction to early modern stage comedy, including an overview of the traditions on which it draws, can be found in Richard Dutton and Jean Howard's A Companion to Shakespeare's Works: The Comedies. The book is the third volume in a series published by Blackwell, and it is available in Frost (PR2976 .C572 2003). Here is a link to the book's table of contents.