Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

A Woman 600 Years Ahead of Her Time

By Robin Bates | Published: February 7, 2025

If Chaucer’s created a timeless and transcendent character in the Wife of Bath, it is because he listened–really listened–to women.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beowulf, Christian misogyny, Defence of Poetry, Feminism, Geoffrey Chaucer, Harold Bloom, Percy Shelley, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Wife of Bath | Comments closed

Trump Doth Murder Sleep

By Robin Bates | Published: February 4, 2025

Trump and Musk are current-day Macbeths, out to murder American democracy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Macbeth, Trump's coup | Comments closed

Trump Has Let Slip the Lapdogs of War

By Robin Bates | Published: January 27, 2025

In pardoning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, Trump has cried “havoc” and let slip the dogs of war (to quote from “Julius Caesar”).

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Jan. 6 insurrectionists, Julius Caesar, presidential pardons | Comments closed

Shakespeare in a Divided America

By Robin Bates | Published: January 16, 2025

Shapiro’s “Shakespeare in a Divided America” shows that the Bard has made an appearance in most of American history’s key moments.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged censorship, Hamlet, James Shapiro, Julius Caesar, MAGA, Merchant of Venice, Othello, Romeo and Juiet, Shakespeare in a Divided America | Comments closed

Lit Packs a Powerful Punch

By Robin Bates | Published: January 3, 2025

My book “Better Living through Lit” this past year was only one of several making the case that literature can be social dynamite.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beloved, Ben Jonson, Better Living through Literature, book bans, Christopher Marlowe, Dangerous Fictions, Harold Bloom, Hesiod, Homer, Iliad, Lyta Gold, Odyssey, Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, Plato, Toni Morrison | Comments closed

Atkinson Uses Lit to Explore Dying

By Robin Bates | Published: December 23, 2024

Atkinson, in “A God in Ruins,” uses literary fragments to explore the process of dying. She includes excerpts from Shakespeare, Blake, Hopkins, Wordsworth and others.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Adlestrop", "God's Grandeur", "Holly and the Ivy", "Lamb", "Ministry of Angels", "On First Reading Chapman's Homer", death and dying, Edmund Spenser, Edmund Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Keats, Kate Atkinson, Love in Ruins, Midsummer Night's Dream, Spring and Fall, Tempest, William Blake | Comments closed

Stop the Clocks: This Is the Hour of Lead

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2024

Auden’s mourning poem “Stop All the Clocks” captures the mood of those who saw a fascist triumph in the American presidential election.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "After great pain a formal feeling comes", "Stop All the Clocks", Donald Trump, Election 2024, Emily Dickinson, Kamala Harris, King Lear, W. H. Auden | Comments closed

America: Indivisible Despite the Divides

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2024

As the American election hangs in the balance, Alicia Ostriker holds two contradictory visions of America in balance.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "I Too Sing America", "Ghazal America the Beautiful, Alicia Ostriker, America the Beautiful, American Dream, Langston Hughes, Midsummer Night's Dream, Patriotism, Star Spangled Banner | Comments closed

Kamala Harris as Shakespeare’s Henry V

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2024

Kamala Harris resembles Shakespeare’s Henry V in some important ways.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Election 2024, Henry V, Kamala Harris | Comments closed