Of All Things! (Common Reader Editions) - Softcover

Benchley, Robert

3.87

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9781888173611: Of All Things! (Common Reader Editions)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1888173610 ISBN 13: 9781888173611

Publisher: Akadine Pr, 1999

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Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1921. Excerpt: ... XVIII SHAKESPEARE EXPLAINED Carrying on the System of Footnotes to a Silly Extreme PERICLES Act II. Scene 3 Enter first Lady-in-Wsiting (Flourish* Hautboys * and * torches *). First Lady-m-Waiting--Wxaf ho!�€� Where' is1 the* music?" NOTES x. Flourish: The stage direction here is obscure. Clarke claims it should read "flarish," thus changing the meaning of the passage to "flarish" (that is, the King's), but most authorities have agreed that it should remain "flourish," supplying the predicate which is to be flourished. There was at this time a custom in the countryside of England to flourish a mop as a signal to the passing vender of berries, signifying that in that particular household there was a consumer-demand for berries, and this may have been meant in this instance. That Shakespeare was cognizant of this custom of flourishing the mop for berries is shown in a similar passage in the second part of King Henry IV, where * Might be one of the hautboys bearing �€� box of "trognies" for the actors to suck. he has the Third Page enter and say, "Flourish." Cf. also Hamlet, IV, 7: 4. 2. Hautboys, from the French haul, meaning "high" and the Eng. boys, meaning "boys." The word here is doubtless used in the sense of "high boys," indicating either that Shakespeare intended to convey the idea of spiritual distress on the part of the First Lady-in-Waiting or that he did not . Of this Rolfe says: "Here we have one of the chief indications of Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature, his remarkable insight into the petty foibles of this work-a-day world." Cf. T. N. 4: 6, u Mine eye hath play'd the painter, and hath stell'd thy beauty's form in table of my heart." 3. and. A favorite conjunctive of Shakespeare's in referring to the need for a more adequate navy for England. Tauchnitz cl...

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From the Publisher:

A brightly appealing collection of inimitable comic essays by a whimsical master of American humor. Originally published in 1921, Of All Things! and a companion volume, Love Conquers All, published in 1922 and also available now in a Common Reader Edition, were the first books by a true American original, one whose wry, befuddled, and gently exasperated outlook on life can never go out of date.

About the Author:

Robert Benchley, 1899 - 1945 Writer and actor Robert Benchley was born on September 15, 1899 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Benchley was best known for being a humorist and comedian. While an undergraduate at Harvard University, he gave his first comedic performance impersonating a befuddled after-dinner speaker. He became a campus celebrity and he landed the position of editor of the Harvard Lampoon. Benchley worked as a drama critic at Life magazine in 1920. Under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes, he wrote The Wayward Press column for The New Yorker. He also briefly served as managing editor for Vanity Fair where his lieutenants were Dorothy Parker and Robert E. Sherwood. He quit in protest to the firing of Parker. The three of them were among the regulars of the Algonquin Round Table, which was a social circle of New York wits that included Harpo Marx and George Kaufman. As a member of the Algonquin Round Table, he became a poplular radio personality, film actor and screenwriter. Several of Benchley's humorous monologues were performed in short films, which include "The Treasurer's Report" (1928). His comic sketches were collected in fifteen volumes, including "My Ten Years in a Quandary, and How They Grew" (1936) and "Benchley Beside Himself" (1943). His son Nathaniel edited a collection of his essays, "The Benchley Roundup" (1954) and published a biography of his father in 1955. Robert Benchley died in 1945.

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