Tag Archives: Richard Sheridan

From Wycherley to Crazy, Stupid, Love

In my “Restoration and 18th Century Couples Comedy” class, my students paired old rom-coms with contemporary films, including “Ten Things I Hate about You,” “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, “Friends with Benefits,” and others.

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Sarah (Malaprop) Palin vs. Obamacare

Sarah Palin’s attack on Obamacare sounds as though it were delivered by Mrs. Malaprop.

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Rightwing Media’s School for Scandal

The gossipy Mrs. Candour in Sheridan’s “School for Scandal” today would be a member of the rightwing media.

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Reading Too Much into a Lover’s Words

A friend scrutinizing the language used in a conversation with her not-quite-boyfriend reminded me of the hypersensitive Faulkland in Richard Sheridan’s play “The Rivals.”

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School for Scandal, Image is Everything

Richard Sheridan School for Scandal, which I’m currently teaching, was reportedly George Washington’s favorite play. It remains relevant today. For one thing, it gets at problems with our “image is everything” society. Here’s the plot. Joseph passes himself off as a “man of sentiment” but in actuality is a cunning villain. He has his eyes […]

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Mocking Adult Anxieties about Novels

“Before,” by William Hogarth (1736) What can happen to your daughters if they read novels? According to William Hogarth, something like the above. Check out the lower left hand corner where a side table is falling over. The drawer has been left casually but deliberately open so that one can see the book that is […]

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The Favorite Books of American Presidents

I’ve had fun discussing the reading of Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas over the last couple of days, and while I’ve come up dry on further posts about the Supreme Court and literature, it has given me the idea of periodically dipping into reading stories of other political figures. I’ll start a list here, beginning […]

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