To give some slightly more serious thoughts, what I take away from Act IV is just how important the Clown is. This is the most conventionally Arthurian material so far – it’s telling the oft-retold story of the dragons and the castle, Merlin’s early prophecies, and the promise of Uter’s line. With the subplots and the Devil sidelined, the material…[Read more]

Also strong Han Sol0-chasing-stormtroopers energy to ‘Enter Edol, driving all Vortiger’s Force before him‘.

🤣🤣🤣

Merlin: the original Roadrunner

Genuine live footage of Proximus.

There’s so much great stuff happening in this thread that makes me wish these discussion boards had Facebook-stlye ‘reaction’ options 😂 I’m so glad Ellie got deep into the beard discussion and Andrew into the music!

I wanted to pick up on the Devil’s ‘frying-pan’ face and Dave’s comment about the apparently instant costume change — I’m…[Read more]

Still baffled by what a decent chap the Devil appears to be.

Alright! This is what I came for: antic dances, devil charms, quotes from Doctor Faustus, antic dances!

I feel like a pretty solid chunk of my research career so far has involved saying “But what IS an antic dance?” “What IS hollow and infernal music?”

But let’s back up a bit first. I’m really impressed with just how comprehensively the term…[Read more]

Those familiar with my research background won’t be surprised if I confine my discussion to Act 3’s presentation of Merlin as newborn with a beard because it is AMAZING.

But what in holy hell is going on? Early modern masculine ideology is clear that, in order to be considered a man, one must have a beard. Lucina assured us that Merlin will be…[Read more]

I don’t even know where to start. So much awesome in one act. I can only offer random thoughts.

There’s some good poetry here! It has a smoothness that you don’t often get with Rowley. I like, “This world is but a masque, catching weak eyes, / With what is not ourselves but our disguise, / A vizard that falls off, the dance being done, / And…[Read more]

To answer Nora’s question…

The structure of the three plots, up to this point, certainly seems to match something like The Witch of Edmonton, where each of Dekker, Rowley, and Ford took responsibility for one plot line (again, if I’m remembering correctly?)….then again, everything’s about to start crashing together in Acts 4 and 5, so who knows?…

[Read more]

Since there’s been some discussion of Webster and his potential influence, Edol reminded me of Webster’s Sir Thomas Wyatt (play and character). Wyatt “would run through fire” for the sake of the true Queen, but transforms into fury and martial resolve when she follows her hormones (like Aurelius) and marries a Spaniard. I haven’t made a lines…[Read more]

I’m sorry, I broke one of the three cardinal rules and forgot to introduce myself before we got started. I’m Anna, and I want to expand my reading of Early Modern plays by playwrights other than Shakespeare. This one sounds gloriously outré enough to shoot right up to the top of the list. I’m in Sydney, so will probably post at odd times,…[Read more]

Late to the party once again, but I just wanted to quickly add a half-formed thought about how highly concerned this act seems to be with women as threats to masculinity. There’s an interesting parallel being drawn here between Joan and Artesia, both of whom are called “witch” and “devil” by men whose ideas of themselves are threatened by them.…[Read more]

A miscellany of thoughts today – what an act!

3.1 is a great scene. I love how Joan is speaking verse while her brother is in prose; she’s sustaining the narrative of being in a courtly romance while he repeatedly undermines it. In this sense, when the Devil appears, I feel like he’s continuing to play into Joan’s narrative, and at this stage -…[Read more]

One last quick thought before I get to other work for the day: some really exciting stuff for Ellie’s work on forests and danger in this act. The Devil appears in the forest, Merlin’s “monstrous” birth happens in the forst — and yet, the Devil shows much more care to Joan than we’ve seen from any of the courtly men she’s encountered so far. All…[Read more]

Coming back to this thread having read Act 3 again, I’m thinking back to one of Dave’s early questions about collaboration (and his nod to the possibility that the artificial crab is either a nod to Webster or (if I’m understanding correctly?) possibly a hint that Webster was a collaborator on this play). The structure of the three plots, up to…[Read more]

I haven’t quite finished all of Act 2, but, David, thanks for that note about the Roy Hudd connection. That’s the edition of The Birth of Merlin that the library at Warwick has, and until I saw your comment I was a bit confused by the reference in the catalogue to it containing a chapter by Roy Hudd… I was thinking “surely not that Roy Hudd?!”,…[Read more]