Because more or less anything is better than the Republican primary — any aspect of it — I thought I’d try to counter (in some minor way, a jot or a tittle) the quadrennial sense of despair that comes with the mention of Dixville Notch.
My antidote?
The treasures to be found in those pre-digitized lodes of easter eggs, footnotes in books written by generous minds.
In today’s case, that would be what I found as I finally got my crack at a book I had given my wife this Chanukah, Verdi’s Shakespeare, by one of our national treasures, Garry Wills. There, in the first chapter, Wills made mention of Winter’s Tale, and its alpha and omega of stage directions: “Exit, pursued by bear.”
That’s one of those bits of theatrical trivia that I can’t remember learning. I think my father was the first person I heard say it, misquoting to “exit hurridly,” whenever he wanted to be gone from something dull — or to get his wild and wired son to bed. And like most folks (I guess) I always assumed (at least from the time I realized it had something to do with a play, and not a playacting dad) that any action on stage would have been between an actor and some guy in a bear suit.
But no, Wills tells me — laconically, first, in the body of his text, writing that “when it [Shakespeare’s troupe] had a young polar bear on hand, he wrote a scene stopper…”
That was curious enough. A polar bear? In London. In 1610?
Dive into the footnotes, and it gets better:
It used to be thought that the “bear’ was a man in costume. But scholars have now focused on the fact that two polar bear cubs were brought back from the waters off Greenland in 1609, that they were turned over to Philip Henslowe’s bear collection (hard by the Globe theater), and that polar bears show up in three productions of the 1610-1611 theatrical season….Polar bears become fierce at pubescence and were relegated to bear baiting, but the cubs were apparently still trainable in their young state.”
Well, that explains that. But Wills is a kind and giving writer…and so there’s more:
Since polar bears are such good swimmers, the king even turned them loose in the Thames to have aquatic bear baitings.*
Oh, joy! So much out of so little — and what a reward for the virtuous act of actually looking at the endnotes! There’s threads of all kinds of historical ideas to pull there — everything from thoughts about the extended pre- or early history of globalizing media to the power of spectacle as social glue, then as now — and much more, of course. But what pleased me more, I think, as I retold this factoid to the unwary all day, is simply the images that Wills evoked, playing across my mind’s eye.
Which is to say that nothing here has much to do with the price of eggs. But my brain and my world are enriched, just a little, by the thought of a shambling cub, coat too big for its limbs, rising up on its hind legs to glare at the squealing, hooting, transfixed and terrified audience clamoring just beyond the edge of the stage.
Just thought I’d share…and with that, offer up some more pre-results open thread.
*Wills directs those with yet more interest in the performing beast of Winter’s Tale to Barbara Ravelhofer, “‘Beasts of Recreacion’ Henslowe’s White Bears,” ELR 32 (2202), pp. 287-323 and Teresa Grant, “Polar Performances, The King’s Bear Cubs on the Jacobean Stage,” Times Literary Supplement, June 14, 2002.
Image: Albert Bierstadt, Bears in the Wilderness, c. 1870.
scav
How. brilliant.
Knut has ancestors!
Mustang Bobby
Okay, I have studied theatre for years (and got three degrees for the trouble), but that’s the first I’ve heard of that story. I love it.
MikeJ
Not one David Attenborough joke?
scav
Oh, and I leave this before do the complete dive into the bookcase, but this must be the one I have: The Footnote: A Curious History by Anthony Grafton because how many of them can there be? ! (undoubtedly more than I expect, which justifies the physical dive)
Cheryl from Maryland
Wow. Must get the book.
I wonder what Billy S. and Richie Burbage did for “Pericles”, with the 2nd best stage direction of all time — Enter Pirates.
BGinCHI
Bear baiting was, of course, not a joy for the bear. The aquatic version must have been especially brutal for the dogs who were attacking them.
There are also great anecdotes about bears escaping and running amok in London (Sackerson being the most famous). Bear and bull baiting were extremely popular blood sports in the 16th and 17th centuries.
You could also read The Tempest and see what the white guys want to do with Caliban when they encounter him. Hint: profit by hauling him back to their country for show.
piratedan
one of my favorite footnoted pieces are the Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser. the footnotes provide peeks into the movers and shakers of history.
RSA
I like digressive footnotes, or rather long end notes, the kind in which the author seems to be thinking, “This is interesting, but it would interrupt the flow of the narrative. I’ll still include it.” Sometimes this can be done for useful effect in fiction, as with Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I’m more used to reading them in non-fiction. They really are Easter eggs.
BGinCHI
@RSA: Liked that novel a lot. Hard to believe she sustained that narrative momentum over that many pages.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It’s been a while, but it seems to me the polar bears are a staple of the Beefeaters’ tour of the Tower of London, when they mention the moat was used for a time to house the Royal Menagerie
I’m fan of the footnote myself. The only thing I don’t like about e-books is (at least in my probably already antiquated iPad) notes are very hard to read.
Litlebritdifrnt
Sorry, Obligatory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL6jptOQ84A
dollared
@MikeJ: How about a Marlon-Perkins-sends-Jim-to-wrestle-the-Nile-Crocodile joke?
MikeJ
@dollared: I don’t know if many people in the US know about the “scandal“. It turns out that editing makes narrative flow work better in nature documentaries.
FlipYrWhig
I have a footnote jones myself. My book was 220 pages of text, 56 pp notes, 24 pp works cited.
Johannes
@RSA: Love the Flashman novels! Got an “A” in a Soviet Foreign Policy course by relying of Flashy’s summary of Russian designs on Afghanistan and India and comparing it to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@piratedan: It’s truly amazing the number of unidentified minor players in 19th Century history that turn out to have been Harry Flashman.
Nellcote
Bears in books remind me of Scooter Libby.
freelancer
@RSA:
You would LOVE Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves.
piratedan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): granted, but I really admire Fraser’s style in pulling all those loose threads into making history a fleshy sordid mess.
hitchhiker
@RSA:
Exactly. A recent example is Tom Vanderbilt’s excellent book, Traffic, which is fun enough all in itself . . . but the endnotes make it just delicious.
lahke
Totally off topic, but I got my BJ calendar, and have noticed that the vast majority of pet names are people names: ie, long on Lily, Jack, and other real names, and extremely short on names like Fluffy, Spot, and similar descriptors. (Of course, you may know some folks named Fluffy–don’t want to get all judgmental.)
Is that the general pattern, or are BJ pet owners distinctive this way?
dollared
@MikeJ: I do remember that. I also helped do some dubbing on KCTS documentaries (remember “Death?”), so I have committed that same crime (as an amateur).
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@piratedan: That wasn’t a criticism. I particularly enjoyed that he was two different unidentified people at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
PurpleGirl
OT but it’s about an animal act of sorts:
If there are any P.D.Q. Bach (Peter Schickele fans in this crowd… I was in Carnegie Hall for the performance when Schickele supposedly was late (because he’d been to the Empire State Building that afternoon) and when he did enter the auditorium he was being chased by King Kong. They ran up on the stage, ran around the stage for a few minutes, ran off into the wings, came on stage again but with Schickele chasing King Kong and then firing a gun at Kong (but not hurting him) to get Kong off stage.
FlipYrWhig
@lahke: My feeling on pet names is that it’s my opportunity to use names I like that just aren’t suitable for human offspring. No pet gets humiliated daily for having a funny name and never forgives their parents for it. So I named my first cat “Lazarillo.”
piratedan
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): well I really like the details that Fraser places into the works and the footnotes are incredibly nifty
SiubhanDuinne
Big fan of Wills, but have not yet read Verdi’s Shakespeare. It’s on the TBR list.
Tom, I don’t know whether you’ve ever met GW in person, but it seems to me that such a meetup could be a conversation for the ages: you’re both polymaths, and both terrific writers on a wide range of subjects (a few of which sometimes actually have something to do with what MIT and Northwestern pay you for), with many interests in common but enough diverging interests that I think you would nicely complement each other.
And, picking the smallest of nits here: it’s Garry with two ‘R’s.
Origuy
An anecdote about Shakespeare and Burbage:
Upon a time when Burbage played Richard III, there was a citizen grew so far in liking with him that before she went from the play she appointed him to come that night unto her by the name of Richard the Third. Shakespeare overhearing their conclusion went before, was entertained, and at his game ere Burbage came. Then message being brought that Richard the Third was at the door, Shakespeare caused return to be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third.
— E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare. A Study of Facts and Problems (1930), ii. 212
(from John Manningham’s Diary, Harl. MS. 5353, f. 29v, ed. J. Bruce (1868) ).
The Other Chuck
@RSA:
It is possible to overdo footnotes. See _Infinite Jest_.
Actually it might have worked if they were _foot_notes and not %$*@*& _endnotes_
Roger Moore
@RSA:
It’s even more fun when the author decides, “Oh, who gives a fuck about narrative flow, I’ll just digress”. Herodotus is fantastic this way, and it would really spoil things if he had put all that stuff in footnotes.
Roger Moore
@lahke:
My cat is Jake, but only because I chickened out at the last minute and decided against Ishbaal.
Jeffrey Kramer
Burbage was the first Romeo, and then — less than ten years later — the first King Lear. I’m guessing he played Romeo as a surprisingly mature teenager, and Lear as a remarkably vigorous senescent. Still, he must have been a pretty fair actor.
KS in MA
And there’s Nicholson Baker’s “The Mezzanine,” which is practically all footnotes (in a good way).
Katie5
Love Bierstadt.Ostentatious in style as well as size (e.g., 9 ft tall). But it matched the landscapes he painted. Many of his paintings were were taken around the country as shows. People would pay a nickle or so to experience the awesome (in the biblical sense) West.
Mr B
Too bad Tom didn’t link to this: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/shakespeare-and-verdi-theater/?pagination=false
Paul in KY
Preaching to the choir here, but ‘bear baiting’ is a gruesome bout of animal cruelty about like ‘bull fighting’.
Glad it is not done anymore. Hope to see the end of bull fighting some day.
Paul in KY
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): There’s another series of pulp stories about a guy named ‘Casca’. Was a legionairre who gambled for Jesus’ clothes at crucifixion & was cursed to live forever, always fighting in armies. Thus, Casca ends up in crusades, Ghengis Khan’s armies, WW I, WW II, etc. etc.
Really not bad reads. Casca tells his fellow German troops on the retreat from Moscow in 1943 that it was colder back in Napolean’s retreat. They all wonder how he knows this, etc, etc.
RSA
Thanks for all the recommendations! I’ve been looking for more stuff to read–Flashman, House of Leaves, Traffic, and so forth. I’ve heard of all these but have never read any of the suggestions.
Bill Ridge
You might want to try Science and Civilization in China, by Joseph Needham – extensive research on the industrial revolution in the West all in the footnotes to the parallel developments in China
JBLIII
“Exit, pursued by a bear” is a great Shakespearean stage direction, but my personal favorite comes from Titus Andronicus, Act III, Scene 1: “Enter a Messenger, with two heads and a hand.”