Monthly Archives: October 2019

A Day for Remembering

A Robert Burns poem to remember those we have lost. Happy All Souls’ Day.

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Check Out the Bard for Halloween

Shakespeare does a great Halloween. Check out Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Feuding Beats Shrew-Taming

“Taming of the Shrew” may have set the stage for the far more egalitarian “Much Ado about Nothing,” which launched the feuding couples comedy.

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Feuding Couples Comedy

I have just begun teaching a “Feuding Couples Comedy” course. “Much Ado about Nothing” remains the quintessential example of the genre.

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Playing Cards at an Austen Event

The game Speculation in Austen’s “Mansfield Park” captured the spirit of the age and reenacted many of the relationship dramas.

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Finding God in the Home

Jean Toomer’s “The Gods Are Here” knows that God is to be found as much in the home as on a mountaintop.

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Our Annual Autumnal Striptease

A Scott Bates poem about autumn’s annual striptease.

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Damn Yankees! Oops, I Mean Astros

Washington almost got to play New York in the baseball world series, which would have brought up “Damn Yankees” and the Faustus story. I reflect on that story anyway.

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Card Playing in Jane Austen

Card playing shows up in all of Jane Austen’s major novels but means different things at different times.

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