19.090 Robeson as Othello

                Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 90.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: Brian Bremen <bremen_at_uts.cc.utexas.edu> (80)
         Subject: Re: 19.087 Paul Robeson as Othello: which edition?

   [2] From: "Jan Rybicki" <strybick_at_cyf-kr.edu.pl> (14)
         Subject: RE: 19.087 Paul Robeson as Othello: which edition?

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 08:36:38 +0100
         From: Brian Bremen <bremen_at_uts.cc.utexas.edu>
         Subject: Re: 19.087 Paul Robeson as Othello: which edition?

Because the line is Hamlet's (Act II. scene ii):

Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me
it is a prison.

Brian A. Bremen

On Jun 9, 2005, at 2:03 AM, Humanist Discussion Group (by way of
Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>) wrote:

> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 87.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
> www.princeton.edu/humanist/
> Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu
>
>
>
> Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2005 07:58:26 +0100
> From: "Donald Weinshank" <weinshan_at_cse.msu.edu>
> >
>Fellow Humanists:
>
>When I was an undergrad at Northwestern U. in the 1950's, our
>"sophomore
>lit." class studied Othello. I checked out from the University
>Library an
>astonishing vinyl of Paul Robeson and Uta Hagan (and others,
>obviously)
>reading Othello. I remember two lines from that recording with utmost
>clarity. See Act V Scene II. (The lines are not contiguous.)
>
>Emilia: "I shall speak though Hell itself should gape and bid me
>hold my
>peace."
>
>Iago: " ... for there's no right nor wrong but thinking makes it so."
>
>The latter is a more concise a statement of complete moral
>relativism than
>any I have ever seen.
>
>My attempts to track down this recording to check my recollections
>have been
>fruitless.
>
>Amazon lists this for Robeson.
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000AFSF/ qid=1118275588/sr=8
>-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl15/103-3276522-6042227? v=glance&s=music&n=507846
> but I have no idea if this is the same recording.
>
>IMDB (International Movie Data Base) lists this for Hagan.
>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190614/
> but this seems to be an excerpt rather than the entire play.
>
>Now here is why this matters. Since I want to quote that line of
>Iago's in
>something I am writing, I checked my Random House, New York, 1944
>edition of
>the plays. NO SUCH LINES EXIST IN THAT EDITION.
>
>I have several hypotheses to explain this conundrum.
>
>* My "utmost clarity" of recollection isn't.
>* Robeson, Hagan et. al. were working from a different edition.
>* Robeson, Hagan et. al. made some changes in the text while
>recording.
>
>My query is not urgent but only interesting -- to me, at least.
>
>_________________________________________________
>Dr. Don Weinshank Professor Emeritus Comp. Sci. & Eng.
>1520 Sherwood Ave., East Lansing MI 48823-1885
>Ph. 517.337.1545 FAX 517.337.1665
>http://www.cse.msu.edu/~weinshan

Brian A. Bremen
Associate Professor
1 University Station, B5000
English Department
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-0195
bremen_at_curly.cc.utexas.edu
Phone: 512-471-7842 Fax: 512-471-4909

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 08:37:17 +0100
         From: "Jan Rybicki" <strybick_at_cyf-kr.edu.pl>
         Subject: RE: 19.087 Paul Robeson as Othello: which edition?

     Interesting: Hamlet says "If it assume my noble father's person,/ I'll
speak to it, though hell itself should gape / And bid me hold my peace" in
Act I,2; he then says "for there is nothing / either good or bad, but
thinking makes it so" in Act II,2. Looks like Robeson and Hagan made a bet
to introduce two lines from Hamlet into Othello and see if anyone will
notice. Well, you have.

     A little like a student of mine three years ago, who inserted the
sentence "If you find this sentence, I'll buy you lunch" somewhere in the
middle of his (very boring) M.A. thesis on Jane Austen and Adam Mickiewicz.
Neither I nor the two (very eminent) reviewers got free lunch. Very stupid
to fall for an old trick like that.

     All the best,

     Jan Rybicki
Received on Fri Jun 10 2005 - 03:54:46 EDT