Friday I have lots of thoughts about the Congressional hearings on Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, which opened last night, and am working up a post that references Milton’s rebel angels. I’ll end this week, however, on a lighter note, an interesting footnote that my English professor son alerted me to. Apparently, Laurence Sterne’s […]
Tag Archives: Country Wife
When a Novel Affected Clock Sales
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged clocks, Enlightenment, John Wilmot, Laurence Sterne, Plain Dealer, Tristram Shandy, William Wycherley Comments closed
Trump Scandal as Comedy of Manners
White House scandals are coming into the open. William Wycherley could write a Restoration comedy about it all.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bob Woodward, Donald Trump, White House, William Wycherley Comments closed
A Literary History of the Insult “Cuck”
“Cuck” has become a favorite insult amongst alt-right types. In today’s post I trace literary references to cuckolds going back to Chaucer.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged alt-right, As You Like It, Canterbury Tales, Christopher Marlowe, cuckold jokes, cuckolds, cuckservatives, Doctor Faustus, Donald Trump, Geoffrey Chaucer, Miller's Tale, Othello, William Shakespeare, William Wycherley Comments closed
Women Battling the Marriage Plot
Although men got the quest plot while women were relegated to the marriage plot in the 18th century, a number of women writers found imaginative ways to circumvent it. Among these were Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Lover", Aphra Behn, Haywood (Eliza), John Wilmot, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Marriage Plot, quest plot, Rover, To a Lady in a Letter, William Wycherley Comments closed
Literature Fills Your Life with Color
Having literature always playing in the back of your mind causes the world to pulsate with meaning.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, books on disk, Cyrano de Bergerac. William Wycherley, Edmond Rostand, Gravedigger's Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates, Rover, theater Comments closed
On Supply Side and Self Deception
In Wycherley’s “Country Wife,” the entire society grasps at an implausible story to sustain its self deception. Sounds like the GOP and supply side economics.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged budget cuts, Economics, politics, sequester, William Wycherley Comments closed
The Horror of Sex without Love
Sex without love, the subject of several sex comedies this past summer, was also an issue explored by poets and playwrights in the British Restoration.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Against Constancy, Comedy, Film, Friends with Benefits, John Wilmot, Libertine, No Strings Attached, sex, Sex without Love, Sharon Olds, William Wycherley Comments closed
