Tag Archives: Twelfth Night

Shakespeare Was Malvolio

By Robin Bates | Published: July 4, 2016

Recent research shows how much of a social climber Shakespeare was. The knowledge gives us new insight into characters like Malvolio and Othello.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Christopher Marlowe, Comedy, Doctor Faustus, Jane Austen, social climbing, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Defending the Canon vs. New Attacks

By Robin Bates | Published: May 25, 2016

Yale English majors have been complaining about requiring them to study canonical writers. Here’s is why they are wrong.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged canon, canonical works, Herbert Marcuse, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Stories Have Always Opened Up the Future

By Robin Bates | Published: April 12, 2016

An anthropologist argues that human beings took over the world because they had the ability to compose fictions. Literature continues to point the way forward for us as a species.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Cognitive Revolution, evolution, Geoffrey Chaucer, language, stories, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Christie as Prufrock & Other Lit Allusions

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2016

Political pundits have been turning to literature to talk about the GOP primaries. This past week saw citations of Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, and Richard Adams (“Watership Down”).

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alice through the Lookinglass, Donald Trump, GOP primaries, Lewis Carroll, Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Macbeth, Marco Rubio, politics, Presidential politics, Richard Adams, T. S. Eliot, Ted Cruz, Watership Down | Comments closed

A Cosmic Theory of Literature

By Robin Bates | Published: November 11, 2015

My attempt at an overarching theory of literature and its place in human history and human progress.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Sir Philip Sidney, Terence, Wayne Booth, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Can Lit Also Be a Force for Evil? A Debate

By Robin Bates | Published: October 22, 2015

The classics are capable to doing great good but can they also do harm? Even as they powerfully open up the mind to new possibilities, can they also close it down? A debate.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Anabelle Lee", Aristotle, Bridge to Terabithia, Charles Dickens, Earth Sea Trilogy, Edgar Allan Poe, George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jane Austen, Katherine Paterson, Middlemarch, Old Curiosity Shop, Percy Shelley, Plato, Pride and Prejudice, Sir Philip Sidney, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ursula Leguin, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

The Bard Endorsed Same Sex Marriage

By Robin Bates | Published: June 29, 2015

In “Twelfth Night,” 400 years before Obergefell v. Hodges, Shakespeare dreamed of same sex marriage. He would have been celebrating Friday after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Obergefell v. Hodges, Same Sex Marriage, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

10 Memorable Poetic Pick-Up Lines

By Robin Bates | Published: May 19, 2015

10 memorable pick-up lines from poetic greats. Try them at a bar near you.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Flea", "Phyllis Be Gentler", "The Lover", "To His Mistress Going to Bed", "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time", Andrew Marvell, Aphra Behn, Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond de Rostand, Jane Austen, John Donne, John Wilmot, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Pride and Prejudice, Robert Herrick, Rover, To His Coy Mistress, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Gaga Feminism & 12th Night

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2015

“Gaga feminism” is a playful challenge to conventional social definitions. Shakespeare can be seen as writing “Twelfth Night” in the spirit of gaga feminism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Dadaism, deconstruction, gender identity, Lady Gaga, postmodernism, Surrealism, William Shakespeare | Comments closed