Kingsolver answering questions about the lit that shaped her can get us all reflecting on the importance of books in our lives.
Tag Archives: Romeo and Juliet
Disruptive Desire in Shakespeare
In which I examine disruptive desire in 12th Night, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Comedy, gender bending, Midsummer Night's Dream, sexuality, tragedy, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Thoughts on Book Bans
Books are unsettling, which is why they are often banned. But we need to be unsettled to get a handle on the chaos that confronts us.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Hill We Climb", Allison Bechdel, Amanda Gorman, Beloved, Better Living through Literature, Book banning, Circle, David Eggers, Forever, Fun Home, Judy Blume, Lord of the Flies, Robin Bates, Stephen Chbosky, To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison, William Golding, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Does Lit Lead to Illicit Sex?
Dante’s beautifully tragic account of Paolo and Francesca captures–as many great works do–the dangers of total absorption in a relationship.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adultery, Charlotte Bronte, Christopher Marlowe, Dante, Doctor Faustus, Goethe, Inferno, Jane Eyre, Paolo and Francesca, passionate love, Samuel Johnson, Sorrows of Young Werther, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, William Shakespeare Comments closed
To Memorialize, Turn to Poetry
John Lewis’s mentor James Lawson read a Czeslaw Milosz poem at Lewis’s funeral, showing how deeply he understood social activism.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I Dream a World", "Invictus", "Meaning", Czeslaw Milosz, funerals, Hamlet, James Lawson, John Lewis, Langston Hughes, William Ernest Henley, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Teaching Lit in Ljubljana
I share my experiences teaching Shakespeare and post-colonial literature in Slovenia.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, Midsummer Night's Dream, Prešeren (France), travel abroad, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Lit Frees Us from Our Mental Ghettos
In a fine “New Yorker” article, Shakespearean Stephen Greenblatt argues that Shakespeare was incapable to showing anything less than the full humanity of his characters, even the villains. He thereby liberates us from our “mental ghettos.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged anti-Semitism, cultural heritage, Humanities, Merchant of Venice, T. S. Eliot, William Shakespeare Comments closed
