Re: Silver Nemesis reborn, only with cappier music

On 6 Jan, 01:19, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On 5 Jan, 15:47, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

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On 4 Jan, 20:07, "Agamemnon" <agamem...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<pbow...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message

King Lear is recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum
Britanniae
(c. 1136).

Who also made King Arthur a household name. Monmouth collected legends
- Leir in his account is thought to be based on a pagan British sea
god, who had since morphed into a legendary king (much like the tale
of the Fisher King gave rise to Arthur).

And this is the thing. Your basic premise is not in dispute - that
Shakespeare and other dramatists throughout history have drawn
inspiration from earlier work and real characters. The problem is the
absurdist extreme you take it to in insisting that these sources have
to have had a genuine historical basis that closely mirrored the
events in the drama. Characters like Leir probably never existed,
Amleth's story may have been fictitious, Othello was based on a
preexisting story, not a historical governor. Shakespeare wasn't a
historian; he just wanted to tell a good story and used ones he knew.
Shakespeare himself never divided his plays into "comedies",
"histories" and "tragedies" (although the words comedy and tragedy
turn up in the names of several plays) - there was no difference
between A Midsummer Night's Dream and Julius Ceasar in that regard,
nor is there any reason to suppose Shakespeare selectively chose
historical events for tragedy and imaginary ones for comedy - as you
mentioned, some of the comedies may have been historically inspired
(in fact you've been busy arguing that The Tempest is, although this
is very clearly one of the works of pure or almost pure fiction), and
tragedies such as Titus Andronicus were based on entirely fictional
characters and events.

COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSHIT. You have not right or qualification to pick
and
choose.

Titus Andronicus: "Of Shakespeare's four Roman plays, Titus Andronicus
is the only one not about a specific episode of Roman history. The
narrative is completely invented, it's not about a reign that existed
and it's therefore not clear at what point in Imperial Rome it is
set."

BULLSHIT. Its about Titus the son of Vespasian and is Shakespeare's earliest
known play originally known as "Titus and Vespasian" and is recorded in
Philip Henslowe's diary as being performed in 1592-93.

Read the above again. See where you're still going wrong? You're
talking about a completely different play.



http://www.rsc.org.uk/titus/current/director.html

King Lear: Based on a preexisting folk tale first written down in the
12th Century. Clearly, as the list of England's kings of the time is
complete, it relates to no contemporary character, and seems to have
older origins in pagan myth.

BULLSHIT.

King Lear was a REAL PERSON. He is recorded in Historia Regum Britanniae (c.
1136), by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which chronicles the pre-Christian kings of
Britain spanning a 1,900 year period, and originates from texts written in
the ancient Welsh language. The earliest British king was Brutus or Bryttys
who dates back to the time of the Trojan War and gave the country its name.
Lear or Leir reigned for 60 years from 909-849 BC.

You're still having great difficulty telling fiction from reality.
Just because something is referenced in an older source, it doesn't
mean that older source is not itself fictitious in that regard. In a
recent film, there was a character called King Kong. Astonishingly, a
character with this EXACT NAME is recorded in a work over eighty years
old. And this character Tarzan has been around for even longer. Though
I have to admit, the new story of Flash Gordon departs somewhat from
the historical Flash.

And no, the etymology of "Britain" has nothing to do with 'Brutus',
The only source for this is Monmouth's unreliable Historia, and a 9th
Century Welsh work of which an archaelogist, Leslie Alcock, has said
"as an example of the historian's art it is atrocious". The name
certainly didn't come into use until long after the 1100s BC, and may
derive from a native term meaning "high island".

On the Regum:

"It has no independent value as history - when events described, such
as Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain, can be corroborated from
contemporary histories, Geoffrey's accounts can be seen to be wildly
inaccurate - but is a valuable piece of medieval literature, which
contains the earliest known version of the story of King Lear and his
three daughters, and introduced non-Welsh-speakers to the legend of
King Arthur."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_Regum_Britanniae

"He was probably an Oxford cleric for most of his life. His mostly
fictional History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1135-39) traced the
descent of British princes from the Trojans; it brought the figure of
Arthur (see Arthurian legend) into European literature and introduced
the enchanter Merlin, whose story Geoffrey related in the Vita Merlini
(c. 1148-51?). Though denounced from the first by other historians,
the History was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages and
had an enormous influence on later chroniclers."

http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9365431

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/merchantsources.html

Hamlet: Based on what we in the real world call a "legend" - look it

Hamlet was based on HISTORICAL FACT recorded in Gesta Danorum by the
historian Saxo Grammaticus. The line of Danish kings like the British goes
back over 2000 years before Shakespeare to the time of the Trojan War.

Saxo makes the first known reference to this supposed king, and he was
writing in the 12th Century, well after the described events. You have
got to realise that people can put a date to something without that
date long after the event, or even the characters it references, being
correct. There was no line of British kings going back to the Trojan
War; there was no unified Britain. There was an invented chronology
apparently written to give a Welsh king legitimacy in the 9th Century
AD. Any historian will tell you that events recorded centuries after
the events, with a complete absence of contemporary evidence for the
characters or events described, cannot be accepted as "HISTORICAL
FACT".

Prospero was are REAL historical duke of Milan. He was
Prospero Adorno, the exiled Duke of Milan in 1476 AD and died in Naples
in
1486.

The things that happened in The Tempest NEVER HAPPENED TO PROSPERO
ADAMO. It is immaterial whether Shakespeare was inspired to use the
name by a real duke who went into exile before returning home THE
TEMPEST IS NOT A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THAT PERSON.

BULLSHIT. The Prospero of the Tempest was Prospero Adorno the exiled Duke of
Milan in 1476 AD and died in Naples in 1486. The tempest is based on REAL
LIFE PEOPLE AND EVENTS!

You have yet to provide any source for this - it's immaterial when
Prospero Adamo was Duke of Milan, when he was exiled and when he died.
You have done nothing to show that any important event in the plot the
Tempest was in any way connected with him, not even whether he had a
daughter named Miranda.

Take the following exact analogy to your argument to date: Gollum was
a real historical character. We know this because he was based on
Alberich, a character in Wagner's Ring Cycle, and that itself was
based on Norse myth - so it has to be true. There are even two towers
which resemble the towers in the story Gollum belongs to, proving that
it all relates to real historical events with historical characters.

MORE BULLSHIT!

The characters in Wagner's Ring Cycle are REAL HISTORICAL GERMANIC KINGS!

So Gollum IS a real historical figure?

Phil
.

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