Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Watching Theater as Shakespeare Did

By Robin Bates | Published: February 22, 2011

This past Saturday I got a front row view of what it would have been like watching Shakespeare in the early 17th century. Julia and I journeyed to the replica of the Blackfriars Theater in Staunton, Virginia to watch Comedy of Errors and also John Marston’s 1603 revenge drama The Malcontent. Some of drama’s greatest […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged drama, Economics | Comments closed

Rex Ryan, a Modern Day Falstaff

By Robin Bates | Published: January 22, 2011

Sports Saturday As we move towards the NFL’s conference championships, one of the most interesting stories continues to be loud-mouthed Rex Ryan, the 350-pound coach of the New York Jets. If his team were to win its third straight road game tomorrow, it would be, in the words of Sport Illustrated’s Rick Reilly, the “greatest […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Football, Henry IV Part I, New York Jets, Rex Ryan, Sports | Comments closed

What Fictional Fantasy Means

By Robin Bates | Published: January 6, 2011

Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory. By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Lady of Shallot", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland Alice through the Looking Glass, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, fantasy, Geoffrey Chaucer, Goblin Market, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Idylls of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Barrie, John Keats, Joseph Campbell, Jungle Books, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carol, Man and His Symbols, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rider Haggard, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, She, teaching, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows | Comments closed

The Hell of Ego, the Heaven of Love

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2010

Spiritual Sunday A reader’s response to Friday’s post on the Faustus story has me thinking more about Marlowe’s marvelous play. Marlowe informs us that we don’t need to die to go to hell. If we refuse to listen to the voice of our soul, we can find hell right here on earth. If there were […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Christopoher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, King Lear, Religion, Soul | Comments closed

The Bard Weighs in on the Election

By Robin Bates | Published: November 1, 2010

One curious aspect of this very loud election season has been that the two largest political rallies were staged by entertainers: Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally of August 29 and John Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” this past Saturday. A rightwing pundit and two liberal comedians (one of them who […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Julius Caesar, King Lear, politics, Tempest, Twelfth Night | Comments closed

Thy Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade–True?

By Robin Bates | Published: October 18, 2010

Sunday evenings are for visiting our friends Alan and Jackie. I feel blessed that Alan is sharing his dying with us and that I get to have with him the final conversations I did not have with Justin, my son who drowned. We don’t talk that much about death. Mostly we talk, as we always […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Mermaid Tavern", death and dying, John Keats, Sonnet 18 | Comments closed

The Bard’s Defense of Midsummer Marriage

By Robin Bates | Published: September 9, 2010

Teaching a course in British Fantasy has given me a new perspective on Midsummer Night’s Dream, our first work. The course could be called (borrowing from Bruno Bettelheim) “the uses of enchantment” because our focus is on how and why people turn to fantasy. In our class discussion, we decided that Shakespeare uses his green […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Desire, Marriage, Midsummer Night's Dream | Comments closed

Most Plagiarists Fail to “Sin Nobly”

By Robin Bates | Published: September 8, 2010

Jason Blake’s guest column this week is on the issue of plagiarism. Jason’s experience matches my own: it takes more work to produce a successful plagiarism than to write an acceptable essay. Plagiarism is generally so obvious that the plagiarist resembles Tom Sawyer in the episode involving memorized Bible verses. As you may recall, students […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Douglas Adams, Education, King Lear, Plagiarism, Stanley Fish | Comments closed

American TV, the World’s English

By Robin Bates | Published: August 11, 2010

Image from Poltergeist I am pleased that Jason Blake, who teaches English at the University of Ljubljana, is becoming a regular contributor to this website. As an English speaker living in Slovenia, Jason is particularly sensitive to questions of language. In the following essay he triggers memories for me when he talks about how television, […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bald Soprano, English Language, Eugene Ionesco, George Mikes, How to Be an Alien, Language Acquisition, Romeo and Juliet, teaching, Television | Comments closed