After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.
Tag Archives: William Shakespeare
Ted Cruz as Lucifer, “Squat Like a Toad”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bram Stoker, Dracula, Henry Fielding, John Boehner, John Milton, Julius Caesar, Lucifer, Paradise Lost, Peter King, politics, Presidential Primaries, Satan, Senate, Ted Cruz, Tom Jones Comments closed
If Trump Tweeted Classic Lit Reviews…
Donald Trump has a very distinctive twitter style., one that would be great for classic book reviews. A BuzzFeed writer imagines how he might have reviewed “Hamlet,” “Tristram Shandy,” “Ulysses,” and other classics.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Albert Camus, Donald Trump, Ernest Hemingway, Hamlet, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Joyce, Lawrence Sterne, Lord of the Rings, Stranger, Sun Also Rises, Tristram Shandy, Ulysses Comments closed
Will Plots vs. Trump Succeed?
“Beware the Ides of March,” the soothsayer tells Julius Caesar. On the Ides of March 2016, Marco Rubio received the unkindest cut from his home state of Florida. But if for perhaps a more apt application of the play, one should look at how members of the GOP establishment are hoping to stab Donald Trump at the July convention.
Drama Shows Us a Way Out of Violence
New School philosophy professor Simon Critchley argues that theatre and the arts in general are vital in helping societies understand and moderate endemic violence. Aeschylus’s “Oresteia” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” are particularly important.
Prospero and the Presidential Primaries
Think of Shakespeare’s “Tempest” as an allegory for the current state of American politics, especially the presidential primaries. It contains visionaries and cynics, orchestrators and disrupters. If Prospero is the island “establishment,” then he enjoys some success but it is qualified.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bernie Sanders, Democratic primary, Donald Trump, GOP primary, Hillary Clinton, politics, Ted Cruz, Tempest Comments closed
Rubio vs. Bush: The Unkindest Cut
The struggle between Jeb Bush and his former protegé Marco Rubio has been described as Shakespearean. The Shakespeare duos that come to mind are Caesar-Brutus, Duncan-Macbeth, and Henry IV-Hal.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged GOP primaries, Henry IV Part II, Jeb Bush, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Marco Rubio Comments closed
Conservative Extremists as King Lear
In another significant post that appeared this past year, I compared GOP extremists to King Lear–more interested in self-indulgent behavior than in responsible governance. The result is a divided country at war with itself.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Benjamin Netanyahu, GOP, Iran, Iran agreement, King Lear Comments closed
