{"id":284904,"date":"2018-09-07T07:35:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-07T07:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/07\/wenamedthedogkylo-scientia-rex-sandovers\/"},"modified":"2018-09-07T07:35:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-07T07:35:39","slug":"wenamedthedogkylo-scientia-rex-sandovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/09\/07\/wenamedthedogkylo-scientia-rex-sandovers\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

wenamedthedogkylo<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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scientia-rex<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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sandovers<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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prokopetz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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prokopetz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I am 100% convinced that \u201cexit, pursued by a bear\u201d is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we\u2019ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Seriously, we\u2019ll never figure it out. I\u2019ll wager trying to understand \u201cexit, pursued by a bear\u201d with the text of The Winter\u2019s Tale<\/i> as our primary source is like trying to understand loss.jpg when all you have access to is a single overcompressed JPEG of a third-generation memetic mutation that mashes it up with YMCA and \u201cgun\u201d – there\u2019s this whole twitching Frankensteinian mass of cultural context we just don\u2019t have any way of getting at.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

no, but this is why people do the boring archival work! because we think we do <\/i>know why\u00a0\u201cexit, pursued by a bear\u201d exists, now, and we figured it out by looking at ships manifests of the era –<\/p>\n

it\u2019s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter\u2019s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year\u2019s day of 1611.<\/p>\n

we think the answer is polar bears.<\/p>\n

no, seriously! \u00a0in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other \u2018animal sports.\u2019 \u00a0it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral\u2019s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.<\/p>\n

of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren\u2019t they? \u00a0so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they\u2019re too big to be harmless? \u00a0well, if there\u2019s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it\u2019s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences. \u00a0and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear? \u00a0what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity?\u00a0<\/p>\n

and, voila, we have a death-by-bear for the unfortunate antigonus, thereby freeing up paulina to be coupled off with camillo in the final scene, just as the comedic conventions of the time would expect.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

you\u2019re telling me it was an ACTUAL BEAR<\/p>\n

every time I think to myself \u201chistory can\u2019t possibly get any more bananas\u201d I realize or am made to realize that I am badly mistaken<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not just an actual bear. A polar bear cub<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Imagine a fully grown man running offstage to be\u00a0\u201ckilled\u201d by a baby polar bear.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

wenamedthedogkylo: scientia-rex: sandovers: prokopetz: prokopetz: I am 100% convinced that \u201cexit, pursued by a bear\u201d is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we\u2019ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it. Seriously, we\u2019ll never figure it out. I\u2019ll wager trying to understand \u201cexit, pursued by … <\/p>\n

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