 |
 |
I'm only now looking over this discussion, which I've found quite interesting. As an anecdote: last summer I was in NYC and had the opportunity to work with a director/acting teacher who teaches Shakespeare and classical theater at a prominent conservatory. A great actor and teacher, but I shuddered a bit when he said that he teaches Tillyard's *World Picture* as one of his main texts to his acting students (the other text he uses is Barry Edelstein's *Thinking Shakespeare*). I made a few vague comments about Tillyard's... questionable value, which he seemed to recognize, but he said that "Greenblatt is too difficult" for his actors to handle. I ended up sending him the notes I took on Tillyard, which aim at deconstructing his thesis, and told him to share them with his students. The whole situation raised the issue for me that I think many people really do want something like Tillyard's "Key to All Mythologies" (as Elisabeth said above) for Shakespeare, and for most art, even: a decoder ring that easily reduces all imagery to a coherent, easily digestible (and discardable) series of discrete "meanings." On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 4:37 PM, Joe Parry <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Sorry! It must be the Spenserian in me. > > From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on > behalf of Catherine Butler <[log in to unmask]> > Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at 3:34 PM > > To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: Re: Tillyard > > "Tiltyard" is a wonderfully Renaissance typo! > > Cathy > > On 19 September 2017 at 22:31, Joe Parry <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Maybe another way of saying what Jon said—and not as good as what Jon >> said—is that inescapably we work with models. We do so less explicitly >> than the natural and social sciences, but we do it nonetheless. Teaching >> and communicating with each other kind of makes us do it. Our cholarship >> may not necessarily address the larger model, but what we do, or the >> implications of what we do, is to improve the model, isn’t it? >> >> The other term we can use here is “useful fictions.” Tiltyard’s model, >> like Burkhardt’s model, were fictions that turned out to be not useful at >> best, harmful at worst, but they still conditioned, if not configured, the >> subsequent debates we have about what’s wrong with them. We’re searching >> for more useful models that no longer exclude human beings on the basis of >> their gender, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. Indeed, I think >> it’s fair to say that we’re trying to replace static models with more fluid >> ones. But I agree that we ought to own up to our own implicit models—to >> the extent we can know them—and admit to ourselves that the best we can >> ever do is to work with the most useful fictions we can derive from the >> evidence before us. >> >> Yes, I’ve been teaching a course with a biologist (bio-physicist), and >> it’s infected my thinking. >> >> Joe Parry >> >> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on >> behalf of Elisabeth Chaghafi <[log in to unmask]> >> Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> >> Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at 2:28 AM >> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> >> Subject: Re: Tillyard >> >> That's a very interesting point about "Weltanschauung" normally being >> applied to the subjective mindset of an individual rather than a mindset >> shared by a whole group of people - though the word does have quite >> Tillyardish connotations even in German, actually. As in: it implies a >> closed, self-contained system that is completely consistent and completely >> logical within itself (it was supposedly coined by Kant, or at least that's >> what the Grimm brothers believed). >> I suppose the main difference is that Tillyard probably genuinely doesn't >> think there's anything wrong with making sweeping generalisations about >> "the Elizabethans" and their beliefs (or at least not any more wrong that >> making generalisations about "the French"). Whereas more recent authors >> would probably tread a bit more carefully and distinguish between the >> existence of ideas that some people subscribed to (or were perhaps just >> repeatedly told that they ought to subscribe to in specific contexts) some >> of the time, and the assumption that because those ideas existed everyone >> must have subscribed to all of them all of the time. But at one level >> they're still trying to pin down generally shared beliefs and attitudes to >> explain the works and actions of "the Elizabethans". >> For what it's worth, when I read *The Elizabethan World Picture* as an >> undergraduate, it was introduced with numerous caveats, so we all more or >> less ended up reading it as an introductory reader of early modern theories >> of order. And if you read it in that way (which admittedly isn't what >> Tillyard would have had in mind) I'd say it does still have its merits; it >> only becomes problematic when you read it as the Key to All Mythologies >> that it's trying to be. >> >> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 6:01 AM, Jon Quitslund <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >> >>> I would like to see this discussion carried a little further. I read *The >>> Elizabethan World Picture *as an undergraduate, and I learned a good >>> deal from it, much of which I later found to be at best over-simplification >>> and wishful thinking. But I used the book in the early years of my >>> teaching, and probably misled some students into thinking the Elizabethans >>> were rather simple-minded -- which some of them certainly were by our >>> standards. I believe that "Put Away Your World Picture" was first >>> delivered as a paper at an MLA conference, and around that time, like many >>> others, I saw the light. >>> >>> For the benefit of a generation or two of younger scholars, it's worth >>> considering what "EMWT-type thinking" was, and whether something much like >>> it is with us today. I would agree with Penny that "we are probably all >>> guilty," but maybe not of thinking like Tillyard. The main fault that was >>> found with him during the sixties-era revolt against received opinion was >>> that he regarded Sir John Davies and Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton and >>> their audiences as basically all of one mind, confident in the reality of a >>> great chain of being, a stable language in which poetry was almost >>> ready-made, rooted in familiar commonplaces, and a proper social order was >>> understood to be grounded upon organic and hierarchical principles, >>> divinely ordained and evident in the cornucopian order of nature. >>> >>> I think Tillyard's articulation of a "world picture" involved >>> articulating something more doctrinaire than was implied in the German >>> concept of "Weltanschauung." (I once had a book titled *Kant's >>> Weltanschauung*: the term means something different when applied to the >>> mind-set or assumptions of a single author.) When Foucault and others >>> undertake to describe a late medieval or an early modern *mentalite, *are >>> they guilty like Tillyard? Along those lines it's certainly possible to >>> over-simplify and mis-identify the dynamic principles at work in a culture >>> that's not one's own. But I think the motives and the results of the >>> inquiry are quite different. >>> >>> Since Harry has commented briefly on Tillyard, perhaps he will reflect >>> on the assumptions involved in his essays on "ecology of the mind," which >>> meant so much to me after I put away my Tillyard. >>> >>> Jon Quitslund >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sunday, September 17, 2017 1:02 AM, Penny McCarthy < >>> [log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> >>> >>> I was taught by both Dollimore and Sinfield on an MA course. I was just >>> reflecting that though they inveighed against The Elizabethan World >>> Picture, it was clear from seminars that they thought ‘The Elizabethans’ >>> had no sense of the self. We are probably all guilty of EWP-type thinking. >>> It’s problematic, because of course there are differences of ‘mentalite’ >>> (forgive the absence of accent) between historical periods. >>> >>> >>> Penny >>> >>> >>> >>> On 17 Sep 2017, at 05:52, Dennis Moore <[log in to unmask]> wrote >>> >>> One classic statement of the point is the chapter "Put Away the World >>> Picture" in Herbert Howarth,* The Tiger's Heart* (Chatto & Windus, >>> 1970). >>> >>> Dennis Moore >>> >>> Hi, Jim, >>> >>> I hope you’re well and happy. I don’t remember whether or not it was I >>> who said that about Tillyard. It could have been. I thought his reading of >>> the Henriad was atrocious. I still do. >>> >>> Best wishes, >>> >>> Harry >>> >>> >>> > On Sep 16, 2017, at 12:41 PM, James Broaddus <[log in to unmask]> >>> wrote: >>> > >>> > Who was it that suggested, some two or three decades past (?), in >>> print, that we should forget about the Elizabethan World Picture. >>> > >>> > I think the person particularly had in mind Shakespeare scholarship. >>> > >>> > Please excuse the cross listing. >>> > >>> > Jim Broaddus >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >