Shakespeare
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There is an ocean of difference between colloquial conversation in real life and the dialogue that appears in Shakespeare's works, even when his plays are at their least artificial and most mimetic. In its most ordinary use, the word "conversation" means nothing more that the talk in which real men and women engage in the…
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I prefer my opera to be aural rather than visual. Opera is a form that is made for listening, not watching — at least in my view. The music, Mozart or Verdi, is frequently transcendent and most satisfying. But on those occasions when I venture to the opera house and I have to deal with the cultic, cachectic audience and the grand-opera…
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There's an event in Shakespeare's Cymbeline that both intrigues and baffles me — perhaps because I have so pedestrian an imagination. Iachimo wagers that he can seduce Imogen, but he's forcibly rebuffed by the young princess. Unwilling to lose his bet, he resorts to a nasty subterfuge and smuggles himself into Imogen's bedroom while she's…
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I have a sour relationship with "the stage" — and especially with staged Shakespeare plays. The theatre and I just don't get along. I think it's because my expectations are too grand. When I go to the theatre, I want to be ravished, but more often I'm bored, or worse than bored, embarrassed. I long…
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The word to watch in a most riveting speech in Measure for Measure is "paradise." Young Claudio. whose head is scheduled to be lopped off tomorrow morning, is the speaker. He panics — and why shouldn't he? After all, his only slip is that he has impregnated his ladylove Juliet. A venial sin, yet in newly-puritanical Vienna, the…
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Pound for pound, Macbeth is of all Shakespeare's plays the most unrelenting and horrifying. One of its greatest moments occurs when Macbeth, seeking additional guidance, pays a second call on the witches. "How now," he demands, "you secret, black, and midnight hags!/ What is't you do?" The witches' response to his question, though exceedingly laconic, is far scarier than anything the…
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Our understanding of the human brain is mighty slim. As a consequence our therapies for insanity, for head injuries, and for dementia are primitive. When John Donne was dying in 1633, his physicians tied pigeons to his feet. Present-day medicine offers remedies for Alzheimer's sufferers that are no more effective than pigeon tying. Brainwise, we linger in the dark ages…
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As a youth, I could memorize poetry with great ease. Nowadays, with a toe into the water of my eighth decade, what was once a snap has become a frustration. But inasmuch as the authorities continually remind us geezers that we need to keep the intelligence well-lubricated, I persist. Yet it now takes two or three hard weeks to…
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One of my loyal readers (see "Comments" to previous post) wants to know how the word "antres" was pronounced. It's a reasonable inquiry but like many questions about Shakespeare, its answer is not easy. I myself pronounce "antres" just as I would "antlers," but without the "l". If I were to guess at an Elizabethan…