Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Lear Also Doesn’t Step Down Gracefully

By Robin Bates | Published: November 9, 2020

We could have anticipated how Donald Trump would respond to losing by reading “King Lear.” All the stages are the same.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Election 2020, King Lear, narcissism, Presidential transition | Comments closed

Trump & Covid: Tragedy or Farce?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2020

Was the Rose Garden event for Trump’s new SCOTUS pick–which became a Covid superspreader event–a Shakespearean tragedy? How about a farce?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged COVID-19, Donald Trump, Game of Thrones, George Martin, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Masque of the Red Death, Richard III, Sophocles | Comments closed

Birthday Wishes at 95

By Robin Bates | Published: September 28, 2020

For my mother’s 95th birthday, I turn to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73” to express my continuing love.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Sonnet 73", Aging | Comments closed

Does Lit Lead to Illicit Sex?

By Robin Bates | Published: August 25, 2020

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, Romeo and Juliet, Samuel Johnson, Sorrows of Young Werther, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight | Comments closed

Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun

By Robin Bates | Published: August 4, 2020

I lost a dear friend two days ago, one who was practically family. I turn to Shakespeare’s “Fear no more the heat of the sun” for solace.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Fear no more the heat of the sun", Cymbeline, death and dying, William Boyd | Comments closed

To Memorialize, Turn to Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: August 3, 2020

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, Romeo and Juliet, William Ernest Henley | Comments closed

Mary Trump, Smiley on Nightmare Families

By Robin Bates | Published: July 13, 2020

To see another family as dysfunctional as the one Mary Trump describes in her recent book, look to Jane Smiley’s “Thousand Acres.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, family dysfunction, Jane Smiley, King Lear, Mary Trump, Thousand Acres, Too Much and Never Enough, Trump family | Comments closed

Covid Costs Us Loved Ones’ Final Words

By Robin Bates | Published: July 12, 2020

Among the many tragedies related to Covid is how family and friends are missing out on final words. Many literary works touch on the importance of this last encounter.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aeschylus, Agamemnon, COVID-19, death and dying, death bed words, Henry Fielding, Richard II, Song of Solomon, Tom Jones, Toni Morrison | Comments closed

Trump and Lear, Addicted to Praise

By Robin Bates | Published: June 22, 2020

Trump, like Lear, needs sycophantic followers to salvage his ego. His Tulsa rally shook him because few of them showed up.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alls Well That Ends Well, Donald Trump, King Lear, Tulsa rally | Comments closed