dagblog - Comments for "Ask Me About Shakespeare"

Wish we had "like" buttons

Ramona — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 22:35:15 +0000

In reply to Shakespeare is enormously

Wish we had "like" buttons here. This thread is amazing.

or used to wipe behinds The

jollyroger — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 22:20:04 +0000

In reply to Yeah. No daily newspapers

or used to wipe behinds

The change from papyrus to paper must be one of civilization's great leaps forward...

What he said.

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 22:02:19 +0000

In reply to That is a wonderful response.

What he said.

Had front row seats once for

Lurker — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:59:22 +0000

In reply to The last time I sat in the

Had front row seats once for a concert by Ritchie Havens in a hot smoky folk club. Havens was sweating from the spots and the exertion, and drops of sweat were flying off his goatee as he sang. Flying right into my face.

Never could listen to him after that without revulsion.

Conclusion: front row sucks.

The Elizabethan Church of

jollyroger — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:54:30 +0000

In reply to Well, the Anglican Church

The Elizabethan Church of England ...has some hard-line Calvinist theological ideas, especially about...predesination.

Huh...didn't know that. the whole "visible elect" thing, as a way of coping with the tension between an omnipotent, omniscient deity and quotidian morality is such a hoot!

Yeah. No daily newspapers

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:51:15 +0000

In reply to For some reason I had assumed

Yeah. No daily newspapers yet. Those are an 18th-century thing (or as we say in the English department, a "long-18th-century thing, meaning the Restoration years too). Journalism comes later, and journalist-theater-critics later still.

And there are no theater programs. Those are also later inventions.

The playbills of the time are literal bills, as in "post no bills" -- single sheets of paper announcing the day's play, pasted up against posts and walls as advertisements. But we no about this from people describing them, not because any survive. Like most pieces of paper ephemera (i.e., things designed for short-term use), and even many printed objects that weren't so ephemeral, they got thrown away or recycled: used as kindlng or as baking parchment, recycled to stiffen the bindings of other books, or used to wipe behinds.

Thank you. I'm glad you liked

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:39:09 +0000

In reply to That is a wonderful response.

Thank you. I'm glad you liked it.

Well, the Anglican Church

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 21:38:00 +0000

In reply to It is useful in the context

Well, the Anglican Church isn't one thing. It changes over time, and there are internal divisions about direction. In fact, the different wings of the Church are fighting all the way up to and into the English Civil War, when the fighting gets real.

Henry VIII founds one version of the Anglican Church, closer to Catholicism than any other Protestant Church is, and near the end of his life he draws back and makes it even more conservative.

But after he dies, his son Edward VI and his advisers make the Church much more strongly and ideologically Protestant. Then there's a time out after Edward dies and his sister Mary becomes Queen, and the whole country becomes officially Catholic again. Then Elizabeth succeeds Mary, and the Protestant Church of England is back, in a slightly different version than before: not as hard-line Protestant as Edward's, not as Catholic-lite as Henry's. And there are different factions constantly pulling the Church in both directions.

The Elizabethan Church of England has some things in common with the Catholic Church, like a hierarchy of bishops and a fair amount of ceremonial ritual. But it also has some hard-line Calvinist theological ideas, especially about salvation, damnation, and predestination.

The Anglicans answer the question "How should our church be organized?" like the Catholics, except for the Pope part. The Anglicans answer the question "How do we get to heaven?" like serious Calvinists.

LOL. Well done, lad.

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 13:11:57 +0000

In reply to For some reason I had assumed

LOL. Well done, lad.

That is a wonderful response.

MrSmith1 — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 10:54:38 +0000

In reply to Shakespeare is enormously

That is a wonderful response. Thanks. Made my morning.