Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary defined woman & man with deeply rooted anti-men gender bias. Johnson masochistically enjoyed women dominating him. … Read the post Johnson’s Dictionary and life shows gender bias & gender subordination
Institutions holding rare objects like Shakespeare’s First Folio won’t sell them for any price. Well-endowed institutions also won’t die. … Read the post institutional ownership reduces First Folio liquidity
The First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623, provides a benchmark price for an up-market, popular book about four centuries ago. … Read the post over past four centuries, books much cheaper, but less price dispersion
The National Portrait Gallery takes a medieval approach to defending privileged stories of national heroes such as Shakespeare. … Read the post a Shakespearean portrait after the Internet Reformation
Among the cocky young men in the new ruler’s entourage, one wears a t-shirt declaring, “business is good.” The back of his t-shirt adds, “my business is killing.” Such a combination of power, inhumane interests, and brutality, writ large, animates Shakespeare’s King Lear. For a production with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Director Robert Falls has … Continue reading King Lear’s great falls: Robert Falls directs at Shakespeare Theatre
Euripides’ ancient Greek play Ion shows the god Apollo to be violent, immoral, and duplicitous. We moderns don’t imagine gods to be like this. Neither did Ion, a foundling raised within Apollo’s Delphi temple to serve its needs. The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Ion, directed by Ethan McSweeny, brings together family … Continue reading Shakespeare Theatre's tragic Ion
Rebecca Bayla Taichman’s Twelfth Night, performed at Washington DC’s Shakespeare Theatre, prioritizes psychological drama and psychoanalytic conceptualism. … Read the post psychodrama: Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Theatre
In Shakespeare’s time, controversy raged about the values of words, images, and actions. Is God’s word meant to be proclaimed in liturgy, or is God most effectively encountered in personal reading of scripture? Can images and physical gestures support communication with God? Authorities across the sixteenth century suppressed physical practices of worship, white-washed interiors of … Continue reading a theatrical exploration of Shakespearean sense
Purported portraits of Shakespeare have attracted considerable public interest. A scholar recently explained: If Shakespeare study today is a lively mix of wishfulness, mythology and scholarship, this may simply be because we don’t know what he looked like, and what we do know about him is unsatisfactory. … How did this money-worried little capitalist, who … Continue reading a Shakespearean portrait of bad public reason