a question occasioned by reading Thomas Nashe
Why did the Elizabethans think that mustard was so funny?
I'm reading Summer's Last Will and Testament, don't ask me why but it's on my fields list, and it's sort of an allegorical pageant--I guess?--in which Summer calls the various seasons and personifcations (Harvest, Bacchus) to account for what they've been doing, except that an actor playing Will Summer or Summers (depending on edition, apparently, but either way, Henry VIII's fool) sits on the sidelines and makes snarky comments. And one of those comments, after Spring has admitted to being a prodigal, is this: "A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight and fifty pounds in mustard" (96). And I came across another mustard joke in Pierce Penniless as well--plus there's Touchstone's joke in AYLI about pancakes and mustard, and that whole "not without mustard" thing as well. Is mustard the most amusing of the condiments, or something?
In other news: apparently speculative biography is becoming all the rage, as Germaine Greer has written one about Anne Hathaway. John Carey is less than kind in his review:
Shakespeare's Wife
I'm reading Summer's Last Will and Testament, don't ask me why but it's on my fields list, and it's sort of an allegorical pageant--I guess?--in which Summer calls the various seasons and personifcations (Harvest, Bacchus) to account for what they've been doing, except that an actor playing Will Summer or Summers (depending on edition, apparently, but either way, Henry VIII's fool) sits on the sidelines and makes snarky comments. And one of those comments, after Spring has admitted to being a prodigal, is this: "A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight and fifty pounds in mustard" (96). And I came across another mustard joke in Pierce Penniless as well--plus there's Touchstone's joke in AYLI about pancakes and mustard, and that whole "not without mustard" thing as well. Is mustard the most amusing of the condiments, or something?
In other news: apparently speculative biography is becoming all the rage, as Germaine Greer has written one about Anne Hathaway. John Carey is less than kind in his review:
Shakespeare's Wife