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truepennySpent today doing literature searches in the MLA Database. Now have 9 pages of citations to track down. Have lost all will to use personal pronouns.
The beady eyes of a magenta-colored platypus are a wonderful deterrent to shirking.
That is fucking all.
The beady eyes of a magenta-colored platypus are a wonderful deterrent to shirking.
That is fucking all.
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I--
Date: 2003-06-20 04:26 pm (UTC)Re: I--
Date: 2003-06-20 07:44 pm (UTC)But, yeah, Elizabethan & Jacobean drama takes concentration. At least you were reading fun stuff like The Jew of Malta. V. fond of that play.
Re: I--
Date: 2003-06-20 07:49 pm (UTC)You know, I'm still puzzled by the idea that the Jew is anti-semitic. I mean, okay, Kit might not have known an actual Jew if he sat on one, and Barabas is a bit stereotypical, but he and Abigail are far more sympathetic than any of the Christians tin that play.
There are no good guys in Marlowe: only people you pity more than you hate, and the odd doomed innocent.
More reasons Shakespeare was not Marlowe: Kit believes in stage directions. Okay, they're usually "He stabs him." But at least they're there. *g* (is amusing self today)
I haven't read Bussy D'Ambois.
Re: I--
Date: 2003-06-20 08:32 pm (UTC)If you're going to start in on the more obscure Eng. Ren. tragedies, let me suggest The Maiden's Tragedy (Beaumont and Fletcher), or anything by John Ford (John Shirley's The Cardinal is also lots of fun, although very late Caroline), over Bussy D'Ambois. I have hopes that the Revenge will be better; I'll keep you posted.
A new edition of Chapman's Homer came out a few years ago, and that might be worth your while.
The anti-Semitism thing ... well, Shylock and Barabbas are, AFAIK, the only two Jewish characters in all of English Renaissance drama. They are, yes indeed, stereotypes. They could hardly be otherwise. And I think it's much easier for people who want a whipping boy to look at the villainous nature of Shylock and Barabbas than it is to notice that the Christians in The Merchant of Venice and The Jew of Malta don't come off so terribly well, either. And of course Renaissance productions (as with Victorian productions) would have played up the stereotype for all it was worth, with the red wig and all.
Shakespeare and Marlowe were both using the automatically (in their culture) villainous figure of the Jew to point out things about Christians. I think that gets missed a lot.
God, you can tell I've been working on my dissertation all day. It turns me into Madame Infodump. Sorry.
Re: I--
Date: 2003-06-20 08:39 pm (UTC)Seriously.
And infodump all you like. It's (a) fascinating and (b) useful.
By the way, I have about 25 K of this monster, whenever you decide you want to have a look at it--send me an email addy at ursa (at) wizard (dot) come.
Hey, do you have any idea where (preferably online) to find the text of Greene's little blast at all the more talented playwrights? *g*
Re: I--
Date: 2003-06-20 08:43 pm (UTC)Will send email address tomorrow. Too tired now. Losing personal pronouns again. Must go sleep.
Re: I--
Date: 2003-06-20 08:45 pm (UTC)I do not. :-P But there you have it.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-20 07:41 pm (UTC)This is thin, wussy, watered-down hell compared to what doing it by card catalog would be like.
But I still feel like I spent all day with a bunch of Visigoths hitting me over the head with nerf bats.
Dunno what I'll do tomorrow, but it for sure won't be anything to do with libraries, databases, or catalogues. That I know.