One curious aspect of this very loud election season has been that the two largest political rallies were staged by entertainers: Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally of August 29 and John Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” this past Saturday. A rightwing pundit and two liberal comedians (one of them who […]
Tag Archives: King Lear
Most Plagiarists Fail to “Sin Nobly”
Jason Blake’s guest column this week is on the issue of plagiarism. Jason’s experience matches my own: it takes more work to produce a successful plagiarism than to write an acceptable essay. Plagiarism is generally so obvious that the plagiarist resembles Tom Sawyer in the episode involving memorized Bible verses. As you may recall, students […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Douglas Adams, Education, Plagiarism, Stanley Fish, William Shakespeare Comments closed
After the Mess, Can Obama Be Fortinbras?
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, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Nature, Othello, politics, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Republicans Need a Shakespearean Fool
William Dyce, “King Lear and the Fool in the Storm” (1851) There’s been a lot of talk about bubbles in recent years. Tiger Woods’ bubble, which cut him off from his fellow human beings, may have led to some of his self-destructive behavior. The Vatican has been living within a bubble for a while, unable […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged politics, Republican Party, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Republican Invective and King Lear
One of the memorable moments in the history of the U.S. Congress occurred in 1954 when Joseph Welch, head counsel for the United States Army, found one of his young lawyers being attacked by Joseph McCarthy. The turning point in the hearings occurred when Welch said forthrightly, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Democrats, politics, Republicans, Rhetoric, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Father-Daughter Separation Dramas
My wonderful daughter-in-law Betsy, in response to one of my posts about father-son relationships, began meditating about father-daughter relationships on her own blog. We agreed that, while the dynamics are different, in one way they are similar: daughters like sons must establish separate identities, a process that is difficult and often involves a struggle. […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged All the Pretty Horses, Charles Perrault, Cormac McCarthy, Donkey Skin, fathers and daughters, separation dramas, William Shakespeare Comments closed
