Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Taming Americans through Gaslighting

Increasingly we are being gaslighted by Donald Trump and his GOP followers. Carl Rosin identifies “Taming of the Shrew” as one of the great plays about gaslighting.

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Trump Love: I Lie with Him and He with Me

Shakespeare Sonnets 138 and 147 describe Trump Love only too well.

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Is Old Age Becoming Overrated?

A “New Yorker” article on aging turns to literature to debunk the notion that aging is a good thing.

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Who’s Afraid of a Feuding Couple?

Is Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” a feuding couples comedy? Perhaps yes if you add the adjective “dark.”

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Verbal Combat Trumps Soft Romance

Shaw contributed some great plays to the feuding couples comedy genre, including Man and Superman and Pygmalion.

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Desire vs. Law in Shakespeare, Euripides

If a play turns comic or tragic often depends how how the clash between law and desire is negotiated.

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Check Out the Bard for Halloween

Shakespeare does a great Halloween. Check out Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Feuding Beats Shrew-Taming

“Taming of the Shrew” may have set the stage for the far more egalitarian “Much Ado about Nothing,” which launched the feuding couples comedy.

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Feuding Couples Comedy

I have just begun teaching a “Feuding Couples Comedy” course. “Much Ado about Nothing” remains the quintessential example of the genre.

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