Talk:The Palace of Truth

The Mountebanks
Gilbert's later opera, The Mountebanks drew on The Palace of Truth for some of its material. What material? It's difficult to spot, unlike the obvious Dulcamara/L'Elisir and Rosencratz and Guildenstern/Hamlet references. Adam Cuerden talk 07:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Dunno. Marc's Discography says so here.  You're the Mountebanks expert.  -- Ssilvers 13:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

IMO, he's probably extrapolating a bit too much from the "magic device to make people act differently and reveal deeper psychology". It's a connection, but it's hardly the only two places Gilbert used something like that. Gentleman in Black is probably a lot closer to how it's used in Mountebanks. With all respect due to Marc, he's managed to understate and overstate Palace of Truth's importance in the same claim: Palace of Truth's real importance is that its Brechtian way of having them act as if saying one thing whilst saying something different is not only pre-dating Brecht's techniques, but also often reused by Gilbert - Engaged, for instance, has a lot of use of it in a subtle, more refined form. "Oh bitter joy" from the Sorcerer is perhaps an example. Indeed, it may even have been developed into such things as "When I was a lad". There are some touchstone early plays of Gilbert that have consequences all throughout Gilbert's career - I'd say Dulcamara (e.g. Sorcerer, Mountebanks), Gentleman in Black (e.g Ruddigore, Mountebanks), and so on, that noone seems to note enough.

Unfortunately, of course, this is all Original Research. Adam Cuerden talk 14:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

As source of names of lemur genera
See Etymology under Fork-marked lemur. Kostaki mou (talk) 19:40, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * OK, I added something about it to the article, together with an explanatory footnote. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:30, 11 February 2015 (UTC)