Tag Archives: Midsummer Night's Dream

Usain Bolt as Shakespeare’s Puck

By Robin Bates | Published: August 11, 2012

Like Shakespeare’s Puck, Usain Bolt toys with his opponents.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Midsummer Night's Dream, Olympics, Sports, Usain Bolt, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Don’t Underestimate Midsummer Madness

By Robin Bates | Published: June 20, 2012

The summer solstice and Shakespeare’s famous play appear sentimental to us today. They were not always so.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. S. Byatt, Children's Book, fairies, Geoffrey Chaucer, Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck, Puck of Pook's Hill, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, summer solstice, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Shakespeare with a Smart Phone

By Robin Bates | Published: April 25, 2012

The plays would have been different if Shakespeare’s characters had had access to social media.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, social media, Tempest, Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Shakespeare Passages for Halloween

By Robin Bates | Published: October 31, 2011

Shakespeare has memorable passages about ghosts that are appropriate for Halloween.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged ghosts, Halloween, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

What Fictional Fantasy Means

By Robin Bates | Published: January 6, 2011

Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory. By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Lady of Shallot", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland Alice through the Looking Glass, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, fantasy, Geoffrey Chaucer, Goblin Market, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Idylls of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Barrie, John Keats, Joseph Campbell, Jungle Books, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carol, Man and His Symbols, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rider Haggard, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, She, teaching, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

The Bard’s Defense of Midsummer Marriage

By Robin Bates | Published: September 9, 2010

Teaching a course in British Fantasy has given me a new perspective on Midsummer Night’s Dream, our first work. The course could be called (borrowing from Bruno Bettelheim) “the uses of enchantment” because our focus is on how and why people turn to fantasy. In our class discussion, we decided that Shakespeare uses his green […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Desire, Marriage, Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Managing Midsummer Madness (i.e., Sex)

By Robin Bates | Published: June 29, 2010

Midsummer Night’s Dream provides good instruction for the parents of teenagers. First of all, don’t think that you can tyrannically dictate your children’s choices (say, by threatening them with execution). On the other hand, they need guidelines and guidance. There’s no telling how they’ll behave once they are set loose in the forest of their […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged adolescence, Marriage, Midsummer Night's Dream, Relationships, sex, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Shakespeare in the Prisons

By Robin Bates | Published: March 18, 2010

As I am out of town this week, my colleagues have been loaning me articles they have written to share on the website. Here my colleague Beth Charlebois, our Shakespeare scholar, recounts as instance of literary impact at its most dramatic–in this instance, the effect of Shakespeare on inmates of a Missouri correctional institute. […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Midsummer Night's Dream, Prison, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Can We Imagine Another’s Pain?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 5, 2009

In Friday’s post I mentioned how we read and discussed the first few pages of Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World in our most recent salon, held to support colleague Alan Paskow as he battles with cancer. Scarry claims that language is inadequate when it comes to physical pain so […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Body in Pain, Book of Showings, cancer, D. H. Lawrence, Death of Ivan Ilych, Elaine Scarry, Julian of Norwich, Leo Tolstoy, Midsummer Night's Dream, Sons and Lovers, Suffering | Comments closed