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 […]
Tag Archives: William Shakespeare
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
Lear Also Doesn’t Step Down Gracefully
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?
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
For my mother’s 95th birthday, I turn to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 73” to express my continuing love.
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, Romeo and Juliet, Samuel Johnson, Sorrows of Young Werther, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight Comments closed
