{"title":"“The Subject of the Land”: Marcellus in Hamlet","authors":"T. Voss","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V29I1.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V29I1.7","url":null,"abstract":"Marcellus, who speaks the famous line that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, is a small but substantial role in Hamlet. His stage appearance is confined to the first act of the play, yet the details of the part and the character suggest both histrionic opportunities and interpretative demands. Marcellus relates powerfully to the action and ideas of the play as a whole in a more than instrumental way. In this article I offer a close reading of the early scenes of Hamlet in which Marcellus appears, suggesting some points at which actor and director are faced with choices in the interpretation of the role. Even for so small a part there are complexities in the immediate context of the action and in the relationships with other characters. I then undertake an assessment of the ‘character’ of Marcellus, discussing his significance in the play more generally: he relates to the vision and structure of the tragedy as both ready soldier and loyal “subject of the land”.","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125400308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Psychological, emotional and spiritual violence: Carole Langille’s Church of the Exquisite Panic: The Ophelia Poems","authors":"Geoffrey Haresnape","doi":"10.4314/sisa.v29i1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/sisa.v29i1.5","url":null,"abstract":"This essay offers a detailed response to three poems selected from Carol Langille’s Church of the Exquisite Panic: The Ophelia Poems (2012), a collection of fifty or so titles which almost all relate to Ophelia in one way or another. Its intentions are twofold: to follow the thread of feminist awareness in her work, and to explore why Robert Delford Brown’s Church of the Exquisite Panic (established in New York City in 1964) is helpful in defining Langille’s vision of the psychological, emotional and spiritual forms of violence which determine Ophelia’s consciousness in her relationships with Hamlet, with other men in her family and with the Danish court. The three highlighted texts are “Cock”, “Andy Warhol Paints Ophelia” and “Church of the Exquisite Panic”. These idiosyncratic and evocative poems are explored to demonstrate the startlingly contemporary possibilities of Shakespeare’s text. The ingenuity of Langille’s subtle discourse is also examined and illustrated. In essence, she makes positive use of the unconventional liturgy of Brown’s church in order to bring insights to bear upon the Shakespearean text. The enterprise places her in an egalitarian and democratic poetic tradition which may be found in much North American poetry, from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to Carl Sandburg and Audre Lorde.","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131628322","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“A South African’s Homage” – published text and original typescripts in English and Setswana","authors":"Sol. T. Plaatje","doi":"10.4314/sisa.v28i1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/sisa.v28i1.3","url":null,"abstract":"\"A South African's Homage\" - published text and original typescripts in English and Setswana","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"100 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114780034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Lucrece this night I must enjoy thee”: A narcissistic reading of The Rape of Lucrece","authors":"D. Koketso","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V28I1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V28I1.6","url":null,"abstract":"The circumstances under which acts of rape are committed, and the relationship between power and sexual aggression, may seem to be distinctly modern concerns, yet Shakespeare explores them in The Rape of Lucrece (1594). This study seeks to analyse sexual aggression in The Rape of Lucrece using the narcissistic reactance theory of rape, challenging standard readings of the poem. The theory suggests that deprivation of sex will cause some men, especially those who wield power, to desire it all the more and to reclaim it by force. The article uses this theory to examine Tarquin the aggressor’s moral choices, his use of both physical violence and violent language, and his sense of sexual entitlement.","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"79 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127187394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate as climax in Shakespeare’s Plays","authors":"Sophie Chiari","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V29I1.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V29I1.2","url":null,"abstract":"Thanks to the recent advent of ecocriticism in the field of Shakespeare studies, we are becoming increasingly aware that the representation of climate in early modern drama intersects with discourses on crops and food as well as on race and humours. Yet, as climate resists being represented, few critics think of considering its role per se. What did it really bring to early modern audiences? Keeping in mind the Greek etymology of “climate”, klineio or “slope” (latitude), is quite useful to account for a number of references linked to the humoral physiology that prevailed at the end of the sixteenth century. Unsurprisingly, Shakespeare is concerned with the ways in which the local weather durably affects the nature of men as well as with the way their humours are temporarily modified, through the skin, by climate and environment. I argue that this concern actually prompts him to reverse the traditional points of view in order to show that things also work the other way round. Indeed, in some of his plays, the playwright insists on men’s unfortunate capacities to provoke violent climatic (and climactic) disorders and to generate chaos on earth. As an example of the interactions between men and weather in Shakespeare’s drama, I will explore climate as climax in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear. Indeed, in these three works, action is framed by, grounded in, and focused on severe climatic conditions.","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124891257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Macbeth : “The great doom’s image”","authors":"G. Butler","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V26I1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V26I1.5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126319160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stellifying Shakespeare: Celestial Imperialism and the Advent of Universal Genius","authors":"T. Borlik","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V26I1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V26I1.1","url":null,"abstract":"As astounding as it may sound, the classic 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet, which teleports The Tempest to outer space, did not mark the first time Shakespeare left Earth's orbit. In 1852, four years after the publication of The Apotheosis of Shakespeare - a high-water mark of Victorian Bardolatry - Frank Feather Dally's grandiose vision of Shakespeare's ascension to the heavens would come true. As if cued by Dally's poem, John Herschel - the son of William Herschel, the famed discoverer of Uranus - proposed naming the four Uranian satellites then known after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope: Titania, Oberon, Ariel and Umbriel. Since Pope, however, lifted the name Ariel from the ethereal fairy-servant in Shakespeare's Tempest, arguably three of the four are Shakespearean. The tradition would be formally ratified by the International Astronomical Union in 1948, when the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper discovered a fifth moon and elected to name it Miranda after the heroine of The Tempest. Over the past few decades, thanks to the 1986 Voyager 2 mission and the celestial vistas unveiled by the Hubble Telescope, Shakespeare's Uranian progeny have continued to grow. To date, 22 additional Uranian satellites have been discovered; of these, only one (Belinda) has been dubbed after a character in Pope's Rape of the Lock, while the remaining 21 have been christened after the dramatis personae of Shakespeare. And thereby hangs a tale.","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131969025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Magical South African Masque","authors":"I. Bradley","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V24I1.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V24I1.8","url":null,"abstract":"HENRY PURCELL’S “THE FAIRY QUEEN” : directed by Robert Lehmeier. University of Johannesburg, March 2012. (Umculo|Cape Festival / South African National Youth Orchestra Foundation, with the Bloekombos Secondary School Choir and members of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and the Trondheim Soloists.)","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132050437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Three Men and a Broken Mirror: The Tragedy of Richard III","authors":"Marc Maufort","doi":"10.4314/SISA.V23I1.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4314/SISA.V23I1.10","url":null,"abstract":"THE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD III: directed by Fred Abrahamse. National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, July 2010; Arena Theatre, Cape Town, February 2011; Market Theatre, Johannesburg, March 2011.","PeriodicalId":334648,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare in Southern Africa","volume":"74 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115930721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}