Oh, by the way, I took an advanced expository writing class which is part of the Secondary Credential requirements for English teachers, and some of the students had no clue how to write an essay. These were seniors too.

When I wrote in the present perfect, they said that I was using the past tense. I have taken graduate courses in English (example of present perfect).

Horatio's lines immediately after Hamlet's death "Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!" are similar to the Catholic requiem "In Paradisum deducat te angeli...aeternam habeas requiem" (May the angels bear thee to paradise...and mayest thou have eternal rest)

It is probably rooted in that line too.

Did the Anglicans during the time of Queen Elizabeth I have the time to reject purgatory?

They were of a differet sort of rebels than Martin Luther and Calvin but I am unfamiliar with the details. I am wondering if it may explain how those lines made it past the censors, who would have been very keen to pick up on slights against the Virgin Queen of England.

Terry

It's hard to pick a favorite because I like them all but I suppose my very favorite would be The Merchant of Venice I taught that one years ago in my high school freshman English class. The students were mainly Alaskan natives and they just loved Shakespeare and reading it out loud together. And my least favorite would be Twelfth Night because the plot was so complicated. Somewhere in between I would say Hamlet ranks high in my choices. As a tragedy it has been the model for many other tragedy plays. My daughter is now a playwright; but she played Lady Anne in Richard III when she was in college. She works as a marketing director of a theater company. They do Shakepearean plays every so often under her direction. I played in The Taming of the Shrew once..don't ask me which part.

"Twelfth Night" is about confusion, I find it confusing too. Ha!

When I took my legal writing course in law school, a paper came back with "pv" all over it. I asked what this meant, and she replied that "you're not supposed to use the passive voice." (actually, the rule is "avoid," and the passive voice properly used is effective in legal writing, but that's another issue).

Dumbfounded, I replied, "Those are the past perfect, not passive."

"Oh. I never could tell the difference."

ARGHH!


hawk

Thanks for that tip, I'll look it up and see if it's available. Derek Jacobi (Brother Cadfael) is probaby my favorite actor. I loved his flamboyant opening narrative scene in Henry V

When I was teaching Medieval History in 1993 at a university I showed the 1989 version of Henry V to the class at the time we were studying the Battle of Agincourt.

Has anyone noticed the significant number of ghosts that turn up in Shakespeare's plays ? It's got to be close to 20. Just one of the many things that make Shakespeare's works so fascinating.

Do you think, Lawrence, that Shakespeare saw a ghost or believed in the existence of ghosts or souls who have died and are seeking prayers?

My former Catholic confessor told me about a priest in Brazil who was visited nightly by souls in purgatory who asked for prayers. He would offer Mass for them the very next day, and then the following night, another tormented soul would visit begging him for prayers too.

I haven't read anything that suggested Shakespeare had ever seen a ghost, but I woulld expect that he did believe in them.

Here's some interesting excerpts from a New Folger's summary of Shakespeare, concerning ghosts and how they were viewed in Elizabethan England

During the Elizabethan period, a ghost was seen as a common feature in most tragedy plays. Shakespeare's Hamlet is a prime example of the use of a 'ghost' to entice fear and apprehension amongst the Elizabethan audience. The ghost can be seen as projecting several functions throughout the play, all of which are vital to the play's ultimate impact. An Elizabethan audience were highly superstitious, held Roman Catholic beliefs of purgatory and were extremely fearful of afterlife and the uncertainty that surrounded it. Such views were powerful connotations that aided Shakespeare to influence his audience with considerable impact.

However, the implications of a ghost were seen as very different for a Elizabethan audience as compared with the perception of a ghost by a modern audience. Therefore it could be said that the disparity in how the ghost is received may diminish the play's impact for a modern day audience.

The audience of Shakespeare's time were surrounded with highly religious concepts. During the period, whilst many were deemed protestants, there were many who challenged the idea of souls and their sins in relation to heaven and hell and continued to practise the old faith. Therefore an Elizabethan audience would have been familiar with the concepts of heaven and hell and the uncertainty surrounding ghosts.

Another of Shakespeare's plays with interesting religious implications is Henry VI Part I. Shakespeare's treatment of Joan of Arc initially appears shocking and anti-Catholic (his character admits to being pregnant by the married Jean Duc'Alencon after she's sentenced to be burned) One however must take into consideration, that Joan of Arc wasen't beatified until the early 20th century. Not to mention that she was burned at the stake by Catholic England, who in the recent reign of Henry V, had a better record than France of stamping out heresy.

I'm currently reading Alice Hogge's hair raising "God's Secret Agents" which is about Catholic priests behind the lines in Protestant occupied Elizbethan England, and in it Hogge makes reference to Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew. "In his play The Taming Of The Shrew, written c.1592, Shakespeare introduced 'a young scholar that hath been long studying at Rheims...cunning in Greek, Latin and other languages'. The role was cover for the amorous suitor Lucentio, enabling him to woo the 'fair Bianca'. But among the audience watching the new comedy, there would have been those who recognized in Shakespeare's words an allusion to an altogather different form of deception. The young Reims scholars they knew,were seminary students fresh from their lessons in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and English, were even now being deployed across the country disguised as tutors, stewards and visiting poor relations.