humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

"Dominic Hughes" wrote in message
news:2bba117b-eff2-4b4e-913b-ed581fd43331@s12g2000prg.googlegroups.com...

> PC: Are there ever any baths in the bathroom?
>
> DH: Certainly.
>
> PC: Liar. Strats seem to lie automatically.
> We all know the nature of the rooms
> which Americans pathetically call
> 'bathrooms' -- and we all know how
> often baths are present in them.
>
> DH: What a moron you are. We have four bathrooms (and that is what
> we and
> all other Americans call them) in my house -- there is a bath in every
> single one of them.

Has any poster to this newsgroup
come across an ordinary house in an
American city with FOUR bathtubs?

Of the large houses I know, not one has
more than one bathtub. They have
plenty of showers, etc., Most people in
most families take baths only occasionally,
and can get by with one in the house.

My guess is that Dominic |Hughes is
confusing 'bath' with 'lavatory' (or 'w.c.')
-- the porcelain object into which you
defecate.

Is that a common confusion in the USA?


> I've asked Crowley, on a number of occasions, if he can provide any
> evidence to support his claim that Queen Elizabeth was a huge fan of
> bawdy humor? He hasn't ever answered.

I don't remember the request. But the
knowledge is so common that the
question should not need to be asked..

"Her loud, vehement swearing and soldierly boasting made
a strange counterpoint to her elegant dress and coquettish
adornments." (Erickson, *Elizabeth*, page 262)

"To hear the high laugh and the great oaths or, inexplicably,
to watch Majesty soften and observe the intimate, close and
personal attention she might bestow on one who had caught
her attention and the dazed and foolishly happy individual
she left behind in her wake-all this was the compelling figure
of Majesty incarnate. Few who saw Elizabeth in action-in the
court, at the Council table, on horseback, on progress or parade
-ever forgot the autocratic, vain mien which might crumple at
any moment into the bawdy and coarse, depending on her
mood and whim."
(Luke, *Gloriana*, page 387)

>>> 3. Would a concern about the tendency of the
>>> barely-literate, and highly puritan 'middle
>>> classes' of the day to grossly misunderstand
>>> this kind of humour be a sufficient motivation
>>> to go to some lengths to conceal the identity
>>> of the poet, and the nature of his audience?
>
> Crowley has never demonstrated that "the barely literate and highly
> puritan 'middle' class" grossly misunderstood the bawdy humor in the
> plays. The fact is that they understood it just fine - they just
> didn't like it.

Hughes provides a good example of the
Stratfordian mind (as thick as two short
planks). Read the 'Riding on the balls of
mine' speech of the Merchant of Venice.
Find ONE commentary on it -- in ANY of
the published commentaries, or in ANY
Stratfordian publication of ANY sort,
that refers to the bawdy element.


BASSANIO What find I here?
[Opening the leaden casket]
Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,--
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his
And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune. . . .


If no modern Strat understands this
speech, how were Elizabethan and
Jacobean Puritans to make sense of it?

Bear in mind that Portia is a representation
of Elizabeth (scarcely doubted, even by
Strats). Yet here we have the hero of
the play almost explicitly describing her
most intimate parts.

What would Puritans have made of THAT?

> There was certainly no significant threat to the
> stability of the government, as only the delusional would believe.

How ignorant is it possible to get? An
event called the 'Civil War' took place
a mere 40 years after Elizabeth's death.
During those years, England's armed
forces were desperately weak, (since the
monarch could not get money to finance
them). Luckily for England, all its
potential enemies were riven with civil
war -- invariably based on religion. Most
educated Englishmen around that time
believed that such wars were almost
certain to come to England.

In any case, it was not the actual threat
(as seen in retrospect) that mattered.
It was the PERCEIVED threat -- and fears
were (in our eyes) absurdly high.


Paul.