Margarette Lincoln— So wrote John Donne, poet and priest, who described London in the 1600s as “a place full of danger and vanity and vice,” neatly encapsulating its horror and allure. The contradictions of London life, its mansions and hovels, its opportunities and epidemics, and the annual influx of migrant
Paula Marantz Cohen— Before I ever read Shakespeare, I read George Eliot. I was inspired to study Victorian literature by George Eliot’s novel, Middlemarch. I love all Eliot’s work, and I especially love Middlemarch. Yet I want to argue with the general belief that Eliot is a hugely empathetic writer. Eliot shows a
Walter Goffart— Yale’s Elizabethan Club was founded in 1911, a big year not just at Yale. A pandemic in Manchuria was an unpromising start. This pneumonic plague was fully checked by the wearing of cloth facial masks. A tragic note was struck again by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in
Terry Eagleton— One of the things we mean by calling a piece of writing ‘literary’ is that it is not tied to a specific context. It is true that all literary works arise from particular conditions. Jane Austen’s novels spring from the world of the English landed gentry of the
Peter Lake— It is, of course, notoriously difficult to say anything novel, or even arrestingly interesting, about Shakespeare. In fact, I never intended to write a book about Shakespeare at all. But I fell into a set of questions and interests that resulted in a book, if not simply by accident, then at
Gabriel Josipovici— Hamlet is the best-known work of literature in the English (and perhaps any) language, but it is also one of the most puzzling. We all feel we know it intimately, yet when we try to put that knowledge into words we find we hardly know it at all.
The Yale Center for British Art celebrates its grand reopening on May 11th, and this summer it will offer a marvelous exhibition: “The Poet of Them All”: William Shakespeare and Miniature Designer Binding from the Collection of Neale and Margaret Albert. Nearly one hundred exquisitely bound miniature editions of plays, sonnets, and
In Why Acting Matters, respected and insightful writers on movies and theater David Thomson examines the allure of the performing arts for both the artist and the audience member while addressing the paradoxes inherent in acting itself. Thomson reflects on on-stage versus film acting, and on the cult of celebrity. He scrupulously
In last week’s post, available here, Danuta Borchardt explained some of the immediate challenges she faced in translating Trans-Atlantyk, a novel by the celebrated Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. The farcical adventures of a penniless young writer stranded in Argentina are narrated in the style of the gawęda, a tale told by the fireside. The
See all 20% off titles in our YUP Backlist History promotion! In a key moment of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the titular character famously declares: I could be well moved, if I were as you; If I could pray to move, prayers would move me; But I am constant as the