Blogging the Renaissance

The Dark Backward

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Shakespeare, Colbert, and Greenblatt

In case anyone missed this a few weeks ago:

I love the way Colbert one-ups his distinguished guest.

At 11/01/2008 11:17:00 AM, Hieronimo wrote…

Yes, although Colbert's quotation kind of says the precise opposite of what he wants it to say, doesn't it?

He says, "we're not that happy now" but then quotes Richard saying that war has turned into "merry meetings."
At 11/01/2008 11:30:00 AM, Anonymous wrote…

For someone who claims to have been the lost third member of Simon and Garfunkel, Greenblatt was awfully boring.
At 11/01/2008 12:35:00 PM, Simplicius wrote…

Although Richard is unhappy about the turn from "stern alarums" to "merry meetings," just as a war-mongerer like Colbert would be, so it does have a certain logic to it (irony piled upon irony).

It was more the look of surprise on G's face that I had in mind when Colbert came right back at him with his own Shakespearean quotation. And, really, who quotes "Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings" nowadays?

I didn't know about the lost trio of Simon, Garfunkel, and Greenblatt. Do tell, Anonymous.
At 11/01/2008 04:15:00 PM, Anonymous wrote…

Oh, yes. Apparently he was also briefly part of the embryonic Monty Python, as well as a threat to TS Eliot's elderly bones:

"I spent a summer as a counselor at a summer camp where I played the guitar and sang mournful folk songs with a fellow counselor. He talked about introducing me to a pal of his with the idea that we might possibly sing together, but, with my eye on college, I declined," Greenblatt said. "My fellow counselor was Art Garfunkel, and his friend was Paul Simon." As a student at Yale College (Class of 1964) Greenblatt "chummed around" with now vice presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman, who joked at the time that since Greenblatt wanted a life in letters, Lieberman would, if he ever became President, appoint Greenblatt Postmaster General. Also while at Yale (Ph.D. 1969), Greenblatt "rushed out of a corner drugstore and knocked down an elderly man who turned out to be T.S. Eliot. He survived." And, while studying for a B.A. (1966) and M.A. (1969) at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he performed with a group of students who went on to become the Monty Python's Flying Circus troupe. "My name occasionally turns up in the early shows," he said, "usually in grotesque situations and invariably drawing a somewhat mysterious laugh from the studio audience." (source)

And, of course, I found out about this in the first place because of Paul Stevens's article on Greenblatt in New Literary History.
At 11/01/2008 04:22:00 PM, Simplicius wrote…

I had no idea G is apparently a real-life Zelig or Forrest Gump. Thanks, Anonymous!

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Saturday, November 01, 2008

Shakespeare, Colbert, and Greenblatt

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