{"id":669,"date":"2013-01-08T19:41:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T19:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/?page_id=669"},"modified":"2013-01-08T21:22:43","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T21:22:43","slug":"from-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/issues\/current-issue\/from-the-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0The editorial board of the <\/span>Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference<\/em> is proud to present the fourth volume of its annual journal.\u00a0 The works included here were first presented at the 2011 conference, entitled \u201cShakespeare and Ethics,\u201d which convened November 3-5 at Michigan State University in East Lansing.\u00a0 The seven papers published here were selected from the forty-two papers and two plenary talks.\u00a0 The conference was generously supported by the Michigan State University Department of English; The Douglas Peterson Bequest, MSU; The Graduate School, MSU; The Dean\u2019s Office, College of Arts and Letters; The Department of Theater, MSU; The Center for Gender In Global Contexts, MSU; and The American Shakespeare Collective.<\/span><\/p>\n

The volume’s first essay, \u201cTime Served in Prison Shakespeare,\u201d examines the difficult questions that emerge when Shakespeare is performed in situations defined by state control.\u00a0\u00a0 Niels Herold calls on Zden\u011bk St\u0159\u00edbrn\u00fd\u2019s description of \u201cdouble time\u201d\u2014the sense that the events of a dramatic performance occupy a short time in the present while simultaneously inhabiting a longer-reaching historical expanse of time\u2014to explore how plays like The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em> intersect with the unique sense of time experienced by prisoners.\u00a0 With the help of Matt Wallace, Herold’s essay explores how inmate actors \u201cexpress this double time of confinement and performance as a mode of dramatic production that both historicizes and presentizes\u2026The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 In so doing, Herold’s essay simultaneously addresses scholarly debates regarding the usefulness of character criticism as incorporated in programs like Shakespeare Behind Bars, as well as larger ethical questions of the redemptive power of theater.<\/span><\/p>\n

In \u201cHamlet\u2019s Hard-Boiled Ethics,\u201d meanwhile, James A. Lewin argues that \u201cHamlet\u2019s tragic flaw cannot be separated from the political background of his times and the uncompromising idealism of his ethics.\u201d\u00a0 Reading the play in terms of film noir, the essay calls on a tradition of detectives from Oedipus to Sherlock Holmes to Sam Spade to investigate Hamlet\u2019s reactions to the chaos surrounding him in Elsinore.\u00a0 Lewin uses Spade\u2019s retelling of an unseen character\u2019s existential crisis after a close encounter with a falling steel beam to trace Hamlet’s adjustments to a world where danger seems to drop from the sky without warning.\u00a0 In the end, Hamlet\u2019s ability to accept his destiny and act without ego allows him to fulfill his role without becoming, strictly speaking, a revenger.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Summers begins \u201cMuch Virtue in If\u201d:\u00a0 Ethics and Uncertainty in Hamlet<\/em> and As You Like It<\/em>\u201d with a related emphasis on the uncertainties in Hamlet<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cBefore embarking on the morally and spiritually dangerous course of executing another human being,\u201d Summers argues, \u201cHamlet wants to make sure he has his facts straight.\u00a0 What could be more reasonable, or more virtuous?\u201d\u00a0 These habits of ethical decision-making suggest that the play advances \u201csomething like a recovered Aristotelian ethic\u201d while questioning the moral system of commonplaces embodied in Polonius\u2019s character.\u00a0 Summers extends his analysis to incorporate the uncertainties upon which As You Like It<\/em> thrives, concluding that the instability\u2014the \u201ciffness\u201d\u2014at the basis of the comic play illustrates a peacemaking urge, a \u201cposture\u201d that expresses a \u201cwillingness to suspend even truth and personal conviction\u2026in favor of peacemaking and gentleness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Allison Grant focuses in on the sexual politics intertwined in this drive toward peacemaking in As You Like It<\/em>.\u00a0 In \u201cThe Dangers of Playing House: Celia\u2019s Subversive Role in As You Like It<\/em>,\u201d Grant argues that the play creates a space for same sex relationships that threaten the patriarchal order\u2019s reproductive imperative.\u00a0 Celia\u2019s offer to make Rosalind into Duke Frederick\u2019s heir reveals a new depth of emotional, financial, and social commitment in her relationship to Rosalind.\u00a0 This is intensified even further by Celia and Rosalind\u2019s setting up housekeeping in Arden, where their financial and emotional partnership is solidified.\u00a0 Expanding upon work by Valerie Traub and Will Fisher, Grant\u2019s essay explores the circulation of desire in Arden, reading Celia\u2019s sudden marriage at the end of As You Like It<\/em> as an illustration of how far Celia will go to maintain her commitment to Rosalind\u2014that is, to keep her as a part of the family.<\/span><\/p>\n

In marked contrast to this tone of acceptance and reconciliation, Brandon Polite examines the extreme price that the concept of honor demands in some of Titus Andronicus<\/em>, The Rape of Lucrece<\/em>, and Othello<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTortured Calculations: Body Economies in Shakespeare\u2019s Cultures of Honor\u201d traces the effect of talionic law in these works.\u00a0 Calling on Jean Am\u00e9ry and Susan J. Brison in his analysis of Titus Andronicus<\/em>, Polite argues that Titus formulates his torture of Chiron and Demetrius to equal the pain of Lavinia\u2019s rape. In the end, however, the play \u201cultimately shows us that the consequences\u2026of considering justice a matter of balance or evenness, can be just as gruesome as those resulting from the unprincipled, imprecise barbarism over which it supposedly marks an advance.\u201d\u00a0 The talionic system in Titus<\/em>\u2014as well as in The Rape of Lucrece<\/em> and Othello<\/em>\u2014dwells on the masculine control of women\u2019s bodies; when these female bodies cannot be controlled, they are \u201ccannibalized by\u2014both consumed by and expelled from\u2014their respective talionic systems and the patriarchies that reinforce them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The individual\u2019s role within the cycles of history is also a central focus of \u201c\u2018How this World is Given to Lying!\u2019: Orson Welles\u2019s Deconstruction of Traditional Historiographies in Chimes at Midnight<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Jeffrey Yeager\u2019s analysis of Welles\u2019s representation of the systematic glorification of war, at the expense of the individuals involved in the fighting, shows Chimes at Midnight<\/em> as interrogating the ethics of the war film.\u00a0 Examining Welles\u2019s film alongside Olivier\u2019s Henry V<\/em>, and Tillyard\u2019s analysis of the Second Tetralogy as the institutionalization of the Great Man school of history, the essay articulates Falstaff\u2019s powerless position after his rejection by the king.\u00a0 Yeager concludes that \u201cHal\u2019s immersion within the tavern world, his locus amoenus<\/em>, and friendship with Falstaff is only illusory; power and order must be restored and Falstaff must be punished in order to restore the chronicle history as a convenient fiction over the suppressed truth of the cyclical view.\u201d In the end, then, \u201cPrince Hal must reject Falstaff not because he is the ideal king as Tillyard suggested but because Falstaff, unlike any other character, understands the fine veneer shaping the legacy of Hal and the nature of history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The question of kingliness drives Lindsey Simon-Jones\u2019s explorations of language use in \u201cLexical Dichotomy and Ethics in Macbeth.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Her statistical analysis of the play\u2019s text illustrates changes in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth\u2019s speech, showing that they gradually come to use more Germanic than Latinate terms as their plans grow bloodier.\u00a0 Simon-Jones reads these shifts in relation to early modern debates regarding the use of the English language in government and education, concluding that \u201cthe language of Macbeth<\/em> plays on deep-seated and long-held linguistic prejudices which suggested that, in some cases, the use of a particular kind of English (particularly in its archaic and Germanic forms) might imply one is unsuited for royalty and kingship.\u201d As the play moves toward Act 5, Simon-Jones\u2019s analysis shows, the quantity of Latinate terms decreases, placing \u201cgreater emphasis on the Germanic derivations\u201d and thus marking his \u201cethical and moral Otherness through language.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The fine of works of these authors are not only the only contributions that have made this volume possible.\u00a0 Sandra Logan\u2019s organizational efforts at Michigan State University provided the first forum for these original papers; Edmund Taft\u2019s devotion to the Selected Papers<\/em> established this publication as a means of continuing the conference\u2019s projects and conversations.\u00a0 Without them, this issue would not exist.\u00a0\u00a0 I would also like to thank the members of the editorial board for its dedicated service and thoughtful input, Co-Editor Gabriel Rieger for his commitment to the journal, and Assistant Editor Marlia Fontaine-Weisse for her patience and resourcefulness throughout the publication process.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0The editorial board of the Selected Papers of the Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference is proud to present the fourth volume of its annual journal.\u00a0 The works included here were first presented at the 2011 conference, entitled \u201cShakespeare and Ethics,\u201d which convened November 3-5 at Michigan State University in East Lansing.\u00a0 The seven papers published here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1384,"featured_media":0,"parent":51,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-669","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1210,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/669\/revisions\/1210"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ovsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}