> Jonson, De Shakespeare Nostrat, _Timber_
>
> He was (indeed) honest, and of
> an open, and free nature: had an EXCELLENT
> FANCY; brave notions, and gentle expressions:
>
>
> Milton, L'Allegro
> 139: Or sweetest Shakespeare, FANCY'S child,
> 140: Warble his native wood-notes wild.
>
> *******************************************
>
>
> But know that in the Soule
> Are many lesser Faculties that serve
> Reason as chief; among these FANSIE next
> Her office holds; of all external things,
> Which the five watchful Senses represent,
> She forms Imaginations, Aerie shapes,
> Which Reason joyning or disjoyning, frames
> All what we affirm or what deny, and call
> Our knowledge or opinion; then retires
> Into her private Cell when Nature rests.
> Oft in her absence MIMIC FANSIE wakes
> To imitate her; but misjoyning shapes,
> Wilde work produces oft, and most in dreams,
> Ill matching words and deeds long past or late.
> Som such resemblances methinks I find
> Of our last Eevnings talk, in this thy dream,
> But with addition strange; yet be not sad.
> Evil into the mind of God or Man
> May come and go, so unapprov'd, and leave
> No spot or blame behind:
>
> Milton, _Paradise Lost Book V_
>
> ********************************************
>
> _Imagination and the Presence of Shakespeare in Paradise Lost_. By Paul
> Stevens. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
>
> Review by Nigel Smith
>
> Imagination and the Presence of Shakespeare in 'Paradise Lost'
> is probably a mistitled book. Professor Stevens is certainly concerned
> with theories of imagination and the way in which these theories helped
> to determine the language of Milton's epic. There is also a
> consideration of Shakespeare's presence, confined mostly to instances
> in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _The Tempest_. The significance of
> echoes from other plays are discussed, though a central consideration
> of echoes from the tragedies would have produced a very different work.
> As the book stands, we are shown how MILTON TAKES THE SHAKESPEAREAN
> INCARNATION OF FANCY and modifies it, so that it becomes associated,
> via COMUS, with EVIL in Paradise Lost, unless it is governed by Reason,
> so reflecting the divine. In this latter case, imagination is part of
> the epic design to expound divine revelation. The autonomous conception
> of imagination in Shakespeare becomes 'the means by which Milton is
> led to understand the psychological mechanisms of faith'.
>
>
> (snip)
>
> However, this book is not about Shakespeare's presence in
> Milton, so much as an attempt to read Paradise Lost in the light of
> Renaissance theories of imagination, with a firm belief in Milton's
> pursuit of a prophetic role. With the central notion of the imagination
> as, ideally, a mirror of divine truths, Stevens portrays the essential
> difference between the phantastike, which is produced by the fancy,
> governed by the individual, or generated by diabolic agency, and the
> eikastike, where fancy can reflect the divine in order to fashion forth
> the wonder of prophecy. Around these two opposites, the moral structure
> and experience of Paradise Lost are revealed, setting the visually
> idolatrous against the spoken and analytical. Stevens takes as his
> major source for prophetic theory the Cambridge Platonist John
> Smith's Of Prophecy (1660) as testimony to William Kerrigan's
> elevation of this work well over ten years ago. The exposition of Smith
> is informative, but, like Kerrigan, Stevens's application of the
> theory of prophecy to Paradise Lost is rather reductive, making the
> poem less interesting, less complex and contradictory than in actuality
> it is. One element missing is the tension between the narrator and each
> of the characters. We are shown how fantasy and the icastic operate in
> the characters with careful deliberation, but we do not see how these
> collide and conjoin in the narrator's perspective. IN fact, they
> serve to enhance the contradiction between prophetic aspiration and
> FALLEN GENRE which makes Paradise Lost so combative and compelling.
>
> ********************************************
>
> From: _Plato and Pierce on Likeness and Semblance_, Chang, Han-liang
>
> In a well known essay, "What is a Sign?" Peirce uses 'likeness' and
> 'resemblance' interchangeably in his definition of icon. The synonymity
> of the two words has rarely, if ever, been questioned. Curiously, a
> locus classicus of the pair, at least in F.M. Cornford's English
> translation can be found in a late dialogue of Plato's, namely, the
> Sophist. In this dialogue on the myth and truth of the sophists'
> profession, the mysterious 'stranger', who is most likely Socrates
> persona, makes the famous distinction between eikon (likeness) and
> phantasma (semblance). For all his broad knowledge in ancient
> philosophy, Peirce never mentioned this parallel; nor has any Peircian
> scholar identified it.
> There seems to be little problem with eikon as likeness, but phantasma
> may give rise to a puzzle which this paper will attempt to solve. Plato
> uses two pairs of words: what eikon is to phantasma is eikastikhn (the
> making of likeness) to phantastikhn (semblance making)
> (snip)
> As Plato uses it, eidolon (image) is an equivalent to phantasia which
> covers eikon and phantasma. The first kind of representation is
> relatively 'positive' because of the positive value (i.e. likeness) of
> the representation (representamen) to the object it aims to represent.
> On the other hand, the second kind of representation is not desirable
> because it's a poor or imperfect representation in terms of
> verisimilitude. We have observed that the word phantasma carries some
> associations unintended by Plato or even irrelevant tot the Platonic
> context. In his Institutio oratia the Roman rhetorician Quintilian
> says: "What the Greek call phantasiai, we call visiones, imaginative
> visions through which the images of absent things are represented in
> the soul in such a way that we seem to discern them with our eyes and
> to have them present before us. " Quintilian already interprets
> Phantasia as somthing imagined rather than real. Later in the 15th
> century, Ficino defines 'phantasica simulachra', his translation of
> phantasma, as feigning 'what do not exist' (non existentium'). And in
> the 16th century Italian critics, Gregorio Comanini for one, mistook
> the Platonic 'phantastic' in the sense of 'out of proportion' for 'out
> of fantasy' (imaginative). the error apparently results from the
> transposition of the sign from the immediate sense perception to the
> less accessible 'imagination'. It is important to adhere to this sense
> perception because it is actually what survives the changing shape of
> phantasia, in Gerard Watson's words, 'what appears particularly to the
> eyes.'
>
> full text:
>
http://www.lttc.ntu.edu.tw/academics/changhl/Louvain%%20paper.pdf
>
> ********************************************
>
> Sidney, _Defence of Poesy_: eikastike vs. phantastike
>
> But grant love of bewtie to be a beastly fault, although it be verie
> hard, since onely man and no beast hath that gift to discerne bewtie,
> graunt that lovely name of love to deserve all hatefull reproches,
> although even some of my maisters the Philosophers spent a good deale
> of their Lampoyle in setting foorth the excellencie of it, graunt I
> say, what they will have graunted, that not onelie love, but lust, but
> vanitie, but if they will list scurrilitie, possesse manie leaves of
> the Poets bookes, yet thinke I, when this is graunted, they will finde
> their sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost; and
> not say, that Poetrie abuseth mans wit, but that mans wit abuseth
> Poetrie. For I will not denie, but that mans wit may make Poesie, which
> should be eikastike{104}, which some learned have defined figuring
> foorth good things to be phantastike{105}, which doth contrariwise
> infect the fancie with unwoorthie objects, as the Painter should give
> to the eye either some excellent perspective, or some fine Picture fit
> for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable
> example, as Abraham sacrificing his sonne Isaack{106}, Judith killing
> Holofernes{107}, David fighting with Golias{108}, may leave those, and
> please an ill pleased eye with wanton shewes of better hidden matters.
> But what, shal the abuse of a thing, make the right use odious?
>
> *********************************************
>
> _Comus_, John Milton
>
> 745: COMUS. Why are you vexed, Lady? why do you frown?
> 746: Here dwell no frowns, nor anger; from these gates
> 747: Sorrow flies far. See, here be all the pleasures
> 748: That FANCY can beget on youthful thoughts,
> 749: When the fresh blood grows lively, and returns
> 750: Brisk as the April buds in primrose season.
> 751: And first behold this cordial julep here,
> 752: That flames and dances in his crystal bounds,
> 753: With spirits of balm and fragrant syrups mixed.
> (SNIP)
>
> 837: LADY. I had not thought to have unlocked my lips
> 838: In this unhallowed air, but that this juggler
> 839: Would think to charm my judgment, as mine eyes,
> 840: Obtruding false rules pranked in reason's garb.
> 841: I hate when vice can bolt her arguments
> 842: And virtue has no tongue to check her pride.
> 843: Impostor! do not charge most innocent Nature,
> 844: As if she would her children should be riotous
> 845: With her abundance. She, good cateress,
> 846: Means her provision only to the good,
> 847: That live according to her sober laws,
> 848: And holy dictate of spare Temperance.
> 849: If every just man that now pines with want
> 850: Had but a moderate and beseeming share
> 851: Of that which lewdly-pampered Luxury
> 852: Now heaps upon some few with vast excess,
> 853: Nature's full blessings would be well dispensed
> 854: In unsuperfluous even proportion,
> 855: And she no whit encumbered with her store;
> 856: And then the Giver would be better thanked,
> 857: His praise due paid: for swinish gluttony
> 858: Ne'er looks to Heaven amidst his GORGEOUS feast,
> 859: But with besotted base ingratitude
> 860: Crams, and blasphemes his Feeder. Shall I go on
> 861: Or have I said enow? To him that dares
> 862: Arm his profane tongue with contemptuous words
> 863: Against the sun-clad power of chastity
> 864: Fain would I something say;--yet to what end?
> 865: Thou hast nor ear, nor soul, to apprehend
> 866: The sublime notion and high mystery
> 867: That must be uttered to unfold the sage
> 868: And serious doctrine of Virginity;
> 869: And thou art worthy that thou shouldst not know
> 870: More happiness than this thy present lot.
> 871: Enjoy your dear wit, and gay rhetoric,
> 872: That hath so well been taught her DAZZLING FENCE;
> 873: Thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced.
> 874: Yet, should I try, the uncontrolled worth
> 875: Of this pure cause would kindle my rapt spirits
> 876: To such a flame of sacred vehemence
> 877: That dumb things would be moved to sympathise,
> 878: And the brute Earth would lend her nerves, and SHAKE,
> 879: Till all thy MAGIC STRUCTURES, reared so high,
> 880: Were SHATTERED into heaps o'er thy FALSE HEAD.
>
> ********************************************
> Comus speaks:
> 162: Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
> 163: Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
> 164: Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
> 165: That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
> 166: Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
> 167: And makes one blot of all the air!
> 168: Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
> 169: Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend
> 170: Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
> 171: Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
> 172: Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
> 173: The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
> 174: From her cabined loop-hole peep,
> 175: And to the tell-tale Sun descry
> 176: Our concealed solemnity.
> 178: In a LIGHT FANTASTIC round.
>
> ********************************************
>
> Jonson, _Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue_, 1618 - masque including
> dancing BOTTLES and TUNS:
>
> Do you hear, my friends? to whom did you sing all this now? Pardon me
> only that I ask you, for I do not look for an answer; I'll answer
> myself. I
> know it is now such a time as the Saturnals.for all the world, that
> every
> man stands under the eaves of his own hat and sings what pleases him;
> that's the right and the liberty of it. Now you sing of god COMUS
> here, the
> Belly-god. I say it is well, and I say it is not well.
> (Snip)
> Beware of dealing with the belly; the belly will not be
> talked to, especially when he is full. Then there is no venturing upon
>
> Venter; he will blow you all up; he will thunder indeed, la: some in
> deri-
> sion call him the father of farts. But I say he was the first inventor
> of great
> ordnance, and taught us to discharge them on festival days.
>
> ********************************************
>
> For what's this Edward but a belly god,
> A tender and lascivious wantoness,
> That thother day was almost dead for love?
> Shaks - Edward III
>
> ********************************************
>
> Works of Aristophanes: Introduction; Aristophanes
> Monarch Notes 01-01-1963
>
>
> When we compare these criteria to Aristophanic comedy, we find that
> Old
> Comedy's characters are humble people or private citizens; the actions
> are
> sometimes domestic, but often they have important and great meanings;
> comedy
> ends happily, usually in a festival; the style is humble and the
> diction is
> not only colloquial but obscene; comedy deals with fantastic, invented
> situations, but also with contemporary problems disguised by surface
> fantasy;
> and love and seduction are incidental and a small part of Aristophanic
> comedy.
>
> Comedy ultimately derives from the komoidia, the song of the komos or
> revel, particularly the revels which took place at the festivals of
> Dionysus,
> the god of the vine and, more importantly, of fertility. According to
> Aristotle, comedy's origin is with the leaders of the phallic
> performances.
> The phallic komos developed in primitive times when it was discovered
> that the
> phallus and the female genitalia were directly related to the
> production of
> children. Even today, for example, the Australian aborigine believes
> that
> reproduction occurs from the influence of particular nature and totem
> spirits,
> not from sexual intercourse. The phallic ceremony took place at
> festivals,
> particularly those of Demeter (a grain goddess) and Dionysus (the god
> of the
> vine), and it consisted of a religious procession of the revelers and
> dancing
> and singing to ensure the fertility of the crops. Occasionally, the
> phallic
> rite included intercourse in the fields so that the fertility of the
> participants might affect the fertility of the land.
>
> Old Comedy, or Aristophanic Comedy, modifies the ritual into art. But
> Aristophanic Comedy still retained vestiges of the old ritual. The
> phallus
> plays a prominent part in the costuming and staging of the play; the
> play ends
> generally in a gamos or festive union of the sexes, either at a party
> or in
> marriages; and the off-color references to male or female genitalia are
> not so
> much obscene as carry-overs of the old ritual. With later Aristophanic
> Comedy,
> these elements tend to disappear or be played down.
>
> In 486 B.C. comedy was officially recognized in Athens and became a
> part
> of the Dionysian celebrations at the Great Dionysia as well as the less
> formal
> lenaea. By the time Aristophanes wrote his first play, Old Comedy was
> well
> established, but the only examples that have survived are the first
> nine of
> Aristophanes' eleven extant plays.
>
>
>
> ********************************************
>
> "Remapping Elizabethan Court Poetry", Jonathan Gibson
> from _The Anatomy of Tudor Literature_, ed. Mike Pincombe
>
> Antagonism between Sidney and Oxford reached its height in 1579 in the
> famous 'tennis court quarrel'. Superficially about precedence, this row
> (in which Ralegh seconded Oxford; see Peck, 1978, p.428) has been
> linked by many commentators to Oxford's and Sidney's different views
> about the French marriage. Sidney's position in 1579 was made difficult
> not just by his braving of Oxford but also by his composition of the
> widely-circulated 'Letter to Queen Elizabeth' opposing the marriage
> plans. Probably as a result of these difficulties, Sidney temporarily
> withdrew from ocurt - not 'banished' so much as strategically absent.
> In 1580, as the marriage negotiations faltered, the Oxford group
> imploded. Over Christmas 1580, Oxford seems to have been persuaded by
> Leicester (???-NLD) to switch sides and to accuse Henry Howard, Charles
> Arundel and Francis Southwell of treasonable plotting. In reply,
> Howard, Arundel and Southwell made accusations of 'murder, pederasty,
> necromancy, atheism, lying, drunkenness, and sedition' (Nelson, 1999)
> against the Earl. (Oxford was also accused of having tried to
> assassinate Sidney.) This 'sordid round of wild accusations in all
> directions' (Peck, 1978, p.428) is our major source of information
> about the activities of the Oxford group. As D.C. Peck says, the
> <
> companions who had passed whole days in conversation...but had now
> fallen to recriminations>>. (1978, p.429). Many members of the coterie
> ended up as exiles and plotters. A few - Stafford, Ralegh, Gorges and
> Oxford among them - slipped back with relative ease into mainstream
> society (p.100)
>
> ********************************************
> Puttenham:
>
> Chapter 8 of the first book of "The Arte of English Poesie":
>
> "Now also of such among the nobilitie or gentrie as be very well seen
> in many laudable sciences, and especially in making or Poesie, it is so
> come to passe that they have no courage to write and if they have, yet
> are they loath to be knowen of their skill. So as I know very many
> notable gentlemen in the Court that have written commendably and
> suppressed it agayne, or els sufred it to be published without their
> own names to it, as it were a discredit for a gentleman, to seeme
> learned, and to show himselfe amorous of any good Art."
>
> chapter 31 of the first book of "The Arte of English Poesie":
>
> "And in her Majesties [i.e., Queen Elizabeth's] time that now is are
> sprong up another CREW OF COURTLY MAKERS Noble men and Gentlemen of her
> Majesties owne servauntes, who have written excellently well as it
> would appeare if their doings could be found out and made publicke with
> the rest, of which number is first that noble Gentleman Edward Earle of
> Oxford. Thomas Lord of Bukhurst, when he was young, Henry Lord Paget,
> Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Walter Rawleigh, Master Edward Dyar, Maister
> Fulke Grevell, Gascon, Britton, Turberville and a great many other
> learned Gentlemen, whose names I do not omit for envie, but to avoyde
> tediousnesse, and who have deserved no little commendation."
>
>
> Book 1, Chapter 31, Puttenham mentions playwrights:
>
> "That for Tragedie, the Lord of Buckhurst, and Maister Edward Ferrys
> for such doings as I have sene of theirs to deserve the hyest price:
> Th' Earle of Oxford and Maister Edwardes of her Majesties Chappell for
> COMEDY and ENTERLUDE."
>
> ********************************************
>
>
http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2005/febmar/bing.html
>
> What's A Few Drinks Between Friends?
> Exploring the ancient drinking party with students
> Peter Bing, Associate Professor of Classics
>
> Say the word "symposium" today, and people usually think of an
> academic gathering, an assembly of eggheads presenting and discussing
> scholarly papers on a given topic. In its origins, however, the term
> was anything but academic. It derives from the ancient Greek word
> "symposion," which means an occasion for "drinking together,"
> or a drinking party. For some years I have been teaching a course
> called The Ancient Drinking Party, which looks at what people did when
> they gathered to drink together, mainly in Classical Greece. Its title
> never fails to elicit sly smiles from students and the desire to know
> if the course includes a practicum; among colleagues from other
> disciplines it raises eyebrows, and they express surprise that one
> could teach a whole course on ancient drinking customs-what, after
> all, is a few drinks between friends, even if they're ancient Greeks?
>
> That question presupposes the answer "not a whole lot," implicitly
> trivializing the practice of drinking. Yet scholars who study the
> convivial customs of different societies, contemporary or past, know
> how revealing they can be of a people's values and preoccupations,
> its social order and beliefs. In most societies, the consumption of
> alcohol is rich in cultural significance. Some undergraduates find
> certain ancient practices regarding alcohol use eerily familiar from
> what happens in those alcohol-soaked rites of passage in Emory's
> fraternities and sororities during rush and pledging; other practices
> again they find quite alien. Either way, the ancient symposium helps
> them understand and navigate the drinking culture that surrounds them.
>
> As it happens, the symposium is not just one of the most central but
> arguably the best attested social institution of ancient Greece. It was
> the occasion for which poets composed most of the lyric song that
> survives, and its activities often also formed the subject of that
> song. It is described in numerous ancient histories and forms the
> setting and theme of many philosophical works-preeminently Plato's
> Symposium and that by Xenophon, central texts in the class. Ancient
> clay drinking ware survives in quantity, and it was often painted with
> scenes of sympotic activities (several outstanding examples are on view
> in our Carlos Museum). Finally, archaeology has uncovered the remains
> of many private and public drinking rooms, giving us a clear impression
> of the space in which the ancients drank. We can thus approach the
> symposium from a rich variety of sources and form a remarkably
> comprehensive picture of its workings.
>
> First of all, the ancient symposium was the indisputable preserve of
> aristocratic males. Citizen women were strictly excluded, the only
> female participants being hired musicians and dancers who often
> performed sexual services as well. The men reclined on couches-a
> custom taken from the Near East towards the end of the eighth century
> B.C. Bolstered by pillows, they propped themselves on their left
> elbows, their right hands free for gesturing, putting down their cups
> on the small three-legged table in front of each couch, and reaching
> for snacks. The party was on an intimate scale, typically with seven
> couches arranged along the four walls of the room, one or two men to a
> couch, all oriented toward each other, with nothing behind them to
> distract from their counterparts across the room - an ideal space for
> sophisticated discourse.
>
> And what did people drink? The beverage of choice was wine, always
> mixed with water. This mixture set a Greek apart as Greek, for to drink
> wine straight was thought uncivilized: only a barbarian would do so
> (the monstrous Cyclops of Homer's Odyssey is a paradigm of
> uncivilized drinking for gulping down quantities of unmixed wine
> Odysseus offers him). Consequently a large mixing bowl, or krater, held
> a special place in the room. Often crowned with garlands, it was
> considered a stand-in for the patron divinity of the symposium,
> Dionysus, who was embodied in the wine itself.
>
> What was the proper proportion of wine to water? This topic was hotly
> debated. The didactic poet Hesiod soberly suggests three parts water to
> one of wine, while Alcaeus, an aristocratic poet from Lesbos, demands
> something stronger:
> Let us drink! Why do we wait for the lamps? There is only an inch of
> day left. Friend, take down the large decorated cups. Dionysus gave men
> wine to make them forget their sorrows. Mix one part of water to two of
> wine, pour it in brimful, and let one cup jostle another.
> It was the declining power of the aristocracy that gave the drinking
> party its particular importance in Greek society. Faced with the rise
> of the Greek city-state, or polis, in the seventh century B.C., which
> greatly restricted their power, aristocrats retreated into the clubby
> private world of the symposium, creating there a kind of anti-polis. In
> that setting, and with alcohol as their social glue, they could
> strengthen ties that bound their class together, sing songs and play
> games that expressed group values, and complain about the wretched
> state of the world. Sometimes they went further and formed
> conspiracies, sealed by oaths sworn over wine, to overthrow the
> government and return to power.
>
> In this they mostly failed. Yet from the perspective of the state such
> private gatherings were always a source of fear. Fifth
> century B.C. Athenian democracy tried to co-opt sympotic practice
> through state sponsorship but was unable to prevent aristocratic clubs
> from meeting in private. These gatherings remained hotbeds of political
> opposition, an ongoing threat that lay beyond the regime's control.
> Aristocratic groups did nothing to dispel that image. At the end of a
> symposium, it was customary for inebriated partygoers to file out into
> the night in a riotous ritual procession known as the komos. Taking
> wine and cups along with them, they paraded through the streets, making
> noise, insulting citizens, vandalizing property, and generally
> demonstrating that their group was above the law. Members of a group
> might even make a "pledge" to undertake some particularly heinous
> act; its aim was little more than to bind the conspirators together
> through the very outrageousness of their deed. This belligerent aspect
> of the sympotic group seemed to hit home with special force last term
> as the Pi Kappa Alpha ("Pike") fraternity was expelled from Emory
> for its members' persistent involvement in brawling and anti-social
> behavior. It was uncanny to read in the Emory Wheel (December 3, 2004)
> of a frat brother condemning "the tyranny of Emory's . . .
> regime," with its oppressive, "un-American administration," just
> as ancient members of sympotic brotherhoods railed against the
> tyrannical state that tried to rein them in.
>
> But solidarity in the ancient brotherhood was fostered in other, more
> constructive ways as well. One of the most striking was through a
> mentoring relationship between mature adult members of the sympotic
> company and its younger participants. These relationships sought to
> instill in the youths the ideals of the group, not the least how to
> behave in a civilized manner at drinking parties. Here moderation is a
> recurrent theme, as we see in a passage from the poet Euboulos:
> Three kraters only do I mix for the temperate-one to Health, which
> they empty first. The second to Love and Pleasure, the third to Sleep.
> When this is drunk up, wise guests go home. The fourth krater is ours
> no longer, but belongs to Hybris: the fifth to Uprour, the sixth to
> Drunken Revel, the seventh to Black Eyes. The eighth is the
> Policeman's, the nineth belongs to Biliousness, and the tenth to
> Madness and Hurling-the-Furniture.
> Between the youths and their older counterparts there arose deep bonds
> of friendship, which frequently included an erotic component. This
> sexual bond, which was encouraged in aristocratic circles, has been
> termed "pedagogical pederasty." Frequently celebrated in poetry and
> depicted in vase-painting, it received its most memorable theoretical
> validation in Plato's Symposium, where the love of an older lover for
> his youthful beloved is seen as inciting both of them to virtuous
> action.
>
> ********************************************
>
> Encomium \En*co"mi*um\, n.; pl. Encomiums. [NL., fr. Gr. ? (a
> song) chanted in a Bacchic festival in praise of the god; ?
> in + ? a jovial festivity, revel. See Comedy.]
> Warm or high praise; panegyric; strong commendation.
>
> ********************************************
>
> commedia
> Italian, from Greek komos 'revel', aoidos 'singer'
> Tale or romance with a happy ending; the term is used in Italian
> literature. Unlike the term 'comedy' in English literature, it applies
> not only to drama (see commedia dell'arte) but also to other literary
> forms, such as Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy/Divina Commedia
> 1307-21.
>
> ********************************************
>
> Munday's Acrostic Poem: Edward de Vere, Earle of Oxford
> (snip)
>
> Eche one dooth knowe no fables I expresse,
> As though I should encroche for priuate gayne:
> Regard you may (at pleasure) I confesse,
> Letting that passe, I vouch to dread no paine.
> Eche where, gainst such as can my faith distaine.
>
> Or once can say, he deales with FLATTERYE:
> FORGING his tales to please the FANTASYE.
>
> ********************************************
>
> The Ancient Debate Over Non Being Plato vs Gorgias the Sophist
>
> But according to Parmenides, images have no place in the world. For
> they are curious hybrids. Being and Non-being are intertwined in an
> image because in its very being an image is genuinely a likeness. It
> certainly is an image, but precisely as an image it is not the
> original. But there are images and images. Some preserve the
> proportions of the original and are truthful likenesses; others are
> distortions-phantasms and apparitions of the original. The sophist is
> naturally identified as a producer of such apparitions. He gives
> "phantastic" accounts and induces, for profit, deceptions and false
> opinions in the soul. To hold a false opinion is to think that what is
> not, is and what is, is not; to speak falsely is to say that what is
> not the case is the case and the reverse. The Sophist is a maker of
> false verbal images. He cunningly appeals to the great Parmenides
> himself, who had denied that exactly this was possible: to think and to
> say what is not (Brann, 1995, 2-3; White, 1993).
>
> ********************************************
>
> Sonnet 72 - Shakespeare
>
> For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
> And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
>
> *********************************************
>
> Gibson's "Oxfordian Insincerity":
>
