Add to this the Scottish theme for a new Scottish dynasty descended from
"the good guys."
All true, David, but with his eye unwaveringly on the bigger prize, which
is why we still read him.
Mark
At 05:46 PM 1/21/2001 -0000, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>Absolutely right about the debating propensities of the unlearned, but I was
>merely reminding that the Elizabethan stage was a 'business venture'. You
>only have to take a peek at Henslowe's 'diaries' or 'accounts' maybe one
>should call them.
>
>Take Macbeth, for instance. Why does it exist? Well James I was a
>self-acknowledged expert on witchcraft, there was a vogue for the
>supernatural on the stage, a Deptford publican, egged on by his wife, had
>sensationally murdered a guest or guests, so it was a likely 'seller', the
>good guys win in the end too, and in the midst of all this we have a poetic
>meditation on time unlike anything in English before.
>
>Heminge and Condell held the catering franchise at the Globe.
>
>Shakespeare was an opportunistic writer, whose intellectual motto could be
>the words he gives Romeo for Juliet:
>
>'Who would not adventure for such merchandise?'
>
>regards
>
>david bircumshaw
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: David Kennedy <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2001 11:56 AM
>Subject: Re: Shakespeare and Christianity.
>
>
>> I think that David B.'s colourful account of the Elizabethan capitalist
>> stage rather misses out on the impact on everyday and cultural life that
>the
>> English New Testament had in the period 1500-1600. Access to the Bible in
>> English had an enormous impact on the spread of literacy. A Royal
>> Proclamation of 1541 stated that English Bibles should be placed in every
>> parish church so that everyone could read them. So great was the interest
>> caused by the appearance of the Bible in English via Tyndale's New
>Testament
>> that a Declaration of 1538 tried to stop unlearned people reading and
>> debating it in taverns and alehouses. Over 200 editions of Holy Scriptures
>> were produced between 1521 and 1600. [For a fuller account see
>Greenblatt's
>> classic Renaissance Self-Fashioning whence cometh these figures,
>> particularly the chapter entitled The Word of God in the Age of Mechanical
>> Reproduction.] Greatly amused tho by the idea of Ole Shakey as the
>> Lloyd-Webber of his day.
>> cheers
>> David
>
>
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