Reaching Lifelong Goals

As a Non Traditional Student, I place high goals for myself in classes.   I just received my latest ENG 203 Shakespeare research paper back from my instructor.   It was again an A+ grade, a goal that I have reached on all of my papers for this instructor!   I try to challenge his vast knowledge of Shakespeare in all of my work by finding new references and twists on my topics…kind of a badge of courage for me!   On this paper I took on the idea that Shakespeare’s plays are full of wonderful topical references to current events in Elizabethan England.   Through Peter Jensen’s (my prof.) lectures, he opens up all sorts of new research avenues for me with explanations of these topical references (most seem to be “one-liners”, meant to entertain the Groundlings and Penny Stinkards!)  One new annotation that I found for the play Twelfth Night involved a possible new topical meaning to one of Malvolio’s lines.   Mr. Jensen’s comments on my paper opens up a new line of research for me on this one reference.   It seems that the author that I cited may have his Monarchs mixed up!    I’ll have to do some more delightful research on this reference to verify the dating of the events and their use as a “one-liner” joke by Shakespeare.   I’ll keep you all posted on what I find out.   I now submit for your enjoyment, my research paper on Shakespeare’s One Liners:

Shakespeare’s “One-Liners” – Unappreciated by Modern Audiences?

There are many levels of appreciation for the plays of William Shakespeare.   They should always be enjoyed for their literary artfulness at face value.  Theatrical productions are sensory experiences of the Bard’s works through costume, acting, and stage business.  The study of his plays for their historically topical references to Elizabethan England takes Shakespeare to a new level of understanding.   How many of these topical “one-liners” go totally unappreciated by the average theater patron?  Throughout my study of William Shakespeare this year, I have learned of several historical nuggets woven into each script.

Just by taking some of the topical references out of Twelfth Night offers hours of delightful research.  Sir Toby Belch’s line in Act I, scene 3, is a topical one-liner; “Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before ‘em?  Are they to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s Picture?” (12thN, I.3.102-103).   This is a reference to Mary Fitton, where Mall, like Moll, is a nickname for Mary.  Roger Warren’s notes in his edition of Twelfth Night single out this reference with “…various Malls have been suggested for this allusion (if it is one).  The likeliest is Mary Fitton, one of Elizabeth I’s maids of honor, disgraced for bearing the Earl of Pembroke’s child in 1601″ (Warren).  Here is a prime example of a reference that would go totally unnoticed as it passes by in lively dialogue.

Perhaps the most target-rich environment for historical research is the character of Malvolio.  Shakespearean scholars have expended gallons of ink trying to get a handle on Malvolio’s quirky nature.   The gulling of the steward in Act II, scene 5 is a treasure trove of topical Elizabethan references and comic one-liners to research.  The yellow stockings proved to be a belly laugh for the groundlings in the audience.  In a critical essay, Loreen Giese discusses a number of historical ties to their relevance, she states; “The wearing of yellow stockings had particular resonance, as two well-known usages suggest. The wearing of yellow stockings may be most commonly associated with two contexts: the children at Christ’s Hospital, which opened in 21 November 1552 and was officially founded on 26 June 1553, and the dramatic figure Malvolio in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the first performance of which was 6 January 1601/2. Indeed, evidence of this sartorial practice from other literary and legal texts supplements and refines our understanding of their meaning by indicating the sexual symbolism of wearing yellow stockings in early modern London. Specifically, this evidence indicates that some early modern Londoners understood the wearing of yellow stockings to signal illicit sexuality and marital betrayal”(Giese).

Further, she also notes that the color of yellow was not only disfavored by Olivia, but also “Queen Elizabeth I (whose own personal colors were white and black) abhorred yellow. For six years yellow had been the color of danger in her Court–being flaunted by the faction of the Duke of Norfolk until his attainder

and execution in 1572. And the flag of her arch-enemy, Spain, was yellow”(Giese).   The Yellow stockings become a significant plot component in Twelfth Night, and stand alone comically to today’s audience, but to Shakespeare’s contemporaries, their meanings took on a larger context.

“There is example for’t: the Lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe”, Malvolio (12thN.II.5.34-35).  Here, with an explanation during lecture in class, I set out on a new journey of research into a topical reference which would sail over the heads of a modern audience.   William Strachy (or Strachey -1572-1621) is best referenced for his connection to The Tempest from a letter about the shipwreck of the colonial ship Sea Venture off Bermuda in 1609.  Digging for some “Elizabethan scandal” about him was unproductive, but again, Shakespearean studies often yield many interpretations of topical references within Will’s plays.

My research led me to a scholarly work posted online which was available as a book excerpt.   One other possible annotation of this seemingly obscure historical one-liner is proposed by David Frydrychowski.  The abstract for the paper immediately got my attention; “a new solution for the textual cruces of Malvolio’s “Lady of the Strachy,” (TN 2.5.35) a longstanding puzzle of Shakespearean textual annotation. Following George Stevens suggestion that the word might be read as “Starchy,” the author suggests that the reference was to Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset, and a politically significant contemporary Of Shakespeare, whose household was linked in the popular mind with a certain fashion of yellow starch”( Frydrychowski).

If there is indeed a misspelling in the text of this line, this proposed explanation is but one more plausible topical reference to Elizabethan current events that would entertain and educate Shakespeare’s audience at the Globe Theater in 1601/2.   Again, to a modern day audience watching Twelfth Night on stage in the 21^st century, the line makes a whizzing sound as it shoots over their heads.

Frydrychowski states; “the reference was an interpolation which alluded to a matter which had shaken the Crown itself and consumed the popular imagination of the capital – the death of Thomas Overbury and the subsequent popular vilification of Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset and Robert Carr, arriviste courtier”(Frydrychowski).  Which annotation to this reference is correct?  Like many of the obscure historical references in Shakespeare’s works, there can be numerous references, all depending on the Historian’s interpretation and frame of reference.

There is a lifetime of historical research that can be obtained through just the study of Shakespeare’s one-liners.  This small sample is just the tip of the ice berg in only one of the Bard’s masterpieces.   Shakespearean scholars will continue to find new historical nuggets in the cannon, building on the new research into the Elizabethan era today.   How does this affect the audiences of today?  Most patrons of the dramatic arts are not in theaters for a history lesson, they are there to see the plays of William Shakespeare for the enjoyment of the production and entertainment.   Just as they have for the past four hundred years.

Works cited

Warren, Roger Ed. Shakespeare, William, Twelfth night, or What you Will. Ed. Warren, Roger, Stanley Wells .Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.17 April 2010.web

Giese, Loreen. Malvolio’s Yellow Stockings: Coding Illicit Sexuality in Early Modern London. AccessMyLibrary.com. 2006. Promoting Library Advocacy Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England.17 April 2010.web

Frydrychowski, David. “Some old story”: A new conjecture on Malvolio’s “Lady of the
Strachy”.  2010. PL Ballaney Book Online.com. 17 April 2010. Web