Tag Archives: Hamlet

Which Shakespearean Hero Is Murdoch?

By Robin Bates | Published: July 27, 2011

So which Shakespeare hero is Rupert Murdoch? Marche floats the names of Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, Richard II and Richard III. I’d peg him as Iago.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Journalism, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Richard II, Richard III, Rupert Murdoch, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

The Bard’s Business Advice

By Robin Bates | Published: March 8, 2011

Later today I’m going to be interviewed, along with my son Darien, by Boomer Alley Radio. As producer Sharon Glassman described it to me, this is “a weekly hour-long show of upbeat, useful information that airs on the CBS news affiliate in LA, across Colorado and nationally via podcast.” Finding a post I had written […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Business, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Tempest, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

After the Mess, Can Obama Be Fortinbras?

By Robin Bates | Published: May 27, 2010

I’ve been thinking recently about how every Shakespearean tragedy concludes with a restoration of order. The stage may be strewn with corpses and the spectator’s heart may have broken into a thousand little pieces, but (as though to provide some reassurance) someone steps forward at the end to set things straight. In Hamlet it is […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Capitalism, Deregulation, Environment, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Nature, Othello, politics, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Is Father-Son Conflict Inevitable?

By Robin Bates | Published: July 22, 2009

I had an interesting conversation with my two sons yesterday as we drove them and my daughter-in-law to the Portland airport, marking the beginning of the end of our summer vacation. The conversation began with me wondering why there weren’t works of literature that accurately capture the kind of father-son relationship that I feel that […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Defoe, David Copperfield, fathers and sons, Great Expectations, Henry IV, Homer, Human Stain, Lawrence Sterne, Nicholas Nickleby, Odyssey, Oedipus, Oliver Twist, Philip Roth, Road, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, Tristram Shandy | Comments closed

Literary Salons with One Who Is Dying

By Robin Bates | Published: July 15, 2009

I have written about my close friend and colleague Alan Paskow, whose lungs (although he does not smoke) have been attacked by an aggressive cancer. One response of the community has been to gather for literary salons every two or three weeks. Anywhere from 15-20 people attend each one, despite busy schedules. In attendance are […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged David Lynch, death and dying, In Search of Things Past, Marcel Proust, Mulholland Drive | Comments closed

After Apple-Picking, Then What?

By Robin Bates | Published: May 20, 2009

So much of the poetry that comforts us in time of death is infused with images of nature, poems like (in my case) Mary Oliver’s “Lost Children,” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Adonais, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Perhaps the reason is that, with death, our natural side asserts its primacy in a way that cannot […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged After Apple-Picking, death of a parent, John Donne, Robert Frost, Sonnet X | Comments closed