I share the Samuel Johnson chapter from my book-in-progress.
Tag Archives: William Shakespeare
Johnson: Read the Bard, Not Tom Jones
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Clarissa, Henry Fielding, Horace, Plato, Republic, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Tom Jones Comments closed
A Stuck Ship, a Pound of Flesh
The Evergreen cargo ship, stuck in the Suez canal, brings to mind a Shylock passage from “Merchant of Venice.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Evergreen, Merchant of Venice, predatory loans, shipping Comments closed
Cruz Is No Willie Stark or Richard III
Ted Cruz? More Willie Stark crossed with Chevy Chase or Richard III played by Mr. Bean?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged All the King's Men, E. L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey, Richard III, Robert Penn Warren, Ted Cruz Comments closed
Can GOP Wash Its Hands of Capitol Blood?
While the Macbeths share many traits with Trump and his GOP enablers, they had least have the capacity for self-reflection.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Capitol insurrection, Donald Trump, GOP, Macbeth, Trump enablers Comments closed
Trump’s and Shakespeare’s Mobs
Thursday In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II, the ambitious third duke of York, Richard, enlists former officer Jack Cade to instigate a mob uprising in the hopes of overthrowing Henry. Richard makes his designs clear: he wants to “reap the harvest which that rascal sow’d.” To so-called Cade rebellion is temporarily successful, as has been […]
Dreaming of Travel during Covid
A very smart Covid poem circulating on social media at the moment references 11 poems, all about longing to travel.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", "Lake Isle of Innisfree", "Sea Fever", "Green Eye of the Yellow God", "Mandalay", "Milford Haven", "Rolling English Road", "Skye Boat Song", "Upon First reading Chapman's Homer", A. E. Housman, COVID-19, Crown, G.K. Chesterton, J. Milton Hayes, John Keats, John Masefield, Kenneth Grahame, Loveliest of Trees, Michael Drayton, Midsummer Night's Dream, Outlanders, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Henry Boulton, W. B. Yeats, William Wordsworth, wind in the willows Comments closed
A Wretch Concentered All in Self
Look to Sir Walter Scott, not to Shakespeare, to sum up Donald Trump’s exit.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "My Native Land", 2020 election, Donald Trump, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Richard III, Sir Walter Scott Comments closed
In “Crown,” Philip Gets Auden, Not Keats
“The Crown” makes productive use of poetry to move the action. In three Season #3 episodes, we encounter Kipling, Shakespeare, Keats & Auden.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Mandalay", "Moon Landing", British royal family, Crown, Endymion, John Keats, Richard II, Rudyard Kipling, W.H. Auden Comments closed
