Wednesday It’s satisfying to see national pundits take a page out of Better Living through Beowulf and turn to the classics to understand Donald Trump. Okay, so NeverTrumper conservative Bret Stephens has probably never read this blog, but we both recognize how literature deepens our understanding of the world, including American politics. I particularly appreciate […]
Posted in Aristophanes, Gogol (Nikolai), Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged Aristophanes, Donald Trump, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, Lysistrata, Nikolai Gogol, Othello, Richard III, William Shakespeare | Tennessee Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn’s insensitivity towards gun victims invites comparisons with Lady Macbeth.
“Macbeth,” a psychological study of a tyrant, also illumines aspects of Donald Trump.
To see the decline of the GOP as a Shakespeare drama, one must draw on “Macbeth,” “Hamlet,,” “Henry IV,” and “King Lear.” And throw in Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus.”
Melancholy threatened to paralyze Abraham Lincoln in his early years. Literature helped him give voice to his depression and taught him how to turn it into an asset.
Posted in Byron (Lord Gordon), Poe (Edgar Allan), Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged "Dream", "Raven", Abraham Lincoln, Depression, Edgar Allan Poe, First Inaugural Address, Manfred, unipolar disease, William Shakespeare | Washington Post humorist Alexandra Petri has been having a lot of fun with Trump supporters’ attack on “Julius Caesar.” Here are some of her funniest barbs.
Posted in Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged Aleandra Petri, Crucible, Hamlet, Humor, Ice Man Cometh, Julius Caesar, Long Day's Journey into Night, Master Builder, Newt Gingrich, Raisin in the Sun, Rent, William Shakespeare | According to Adam Gopnik, Shakespeare would have understood the rise of Donald Trump better than we do today. Whereas we see him as a historical oddity, Shakespeare would have seen him as the kind of evil that has always resided within humankind.
Posted in Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Adam Gopnik, As You Like It, Donald Trump, Hamlet, Henry V, Hillary Clinton, King Lear, Merchant of Venice, Richard III, Tempest, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare | Donald Trump’s characterization of late-term abortions as “ripping” harken back to a verb used in “Macbeth.” Most people, however, would argue that both Trump and Macduff are describing caesarians.
A district judge reflects upon what lawyers and judges can learn from Shakespeare, including “Othello,” “Merchant of Venice, “Hamlet,” “King Lear,” most of the history plays, and others.
Posted in Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged Antony and Cleopatra, civility, Hamlet, Henry IV Part 2, Henry IV Part I, Henry VI Part 2, Henry VI Part 3, Julius Caesar, King Lear, lawyers, legal system, Merchant of Venice, Othello, Richard II, Richard III, trust, William Shakespeare | 
