“Literary Theory and Historical Understanding,” Morris Dickstein
Morris Dickstein writes on “Literary Theory and Historical Understanding” in a diffuse article that exemplifies the doom of the provider of an afterword to an anthology. He has to provide an...
View ArticleGeorg Buchner: Lenz
[Here’s a tricky one: should I spell his last name “Buchner,” “Buechner,” or “Büchner” so as best to assist English-speaking people in finding the page?] Hard to read this without thinking of the other...
View ArticleA la Fin Du Temps Perdu
I’ll try not to give away too much here, but the multiyear Proust reading has come to an end, even if the blog hasn’t. Since this isn’t an in-depth analysis but only my own reaction on finishing what...
View ArticleChristian Hawkey: Ventrakl
I wrote a review of this book, a sort of postmodern engagement with Austrian poet Georg Trakl, for the Poetry Project Newsletter. The issue hasn’t been posted online, and since it can be a bit...
View ArticleOne Line from Hamlet
When Stephen spins an elaborate yarn in Ulysses about Hamlet, Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s father and son, and all manner of other things, a yarn that has a little to do with Shakespeare and a lot to do...
View ArticleThe Waste of Spirit in an Expense of Shame
I see Steve Mitchelmore of This Space has called this blog a pile of shit. (I let his Twitter trackback through.) A few years back it probably would have stung me rather sharply, but now it’s more of a...
View ArticleBorges on Shakespeare
On the subject of Shakespeare, his strange impersonalness, and mythology, I think Borges still has it most right. Everything and Nothing There was no one in him; behind his face (which even through the...
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Wilson Knight’s Chart of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Universe
Shakespeare's Dramatic Universe! G. Wilson Knight was a mid-century critic probably most known for an infamous little essay on Hamlet he wrote in 1930 called “The Embassy of Death” (collected in The...
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King Lear, Nihilism, and Mostly Inevitable Hope
I suppose talking about Shakespeare and about King Lear in particular is like talking about the Bible, as far as the conclusiveness of any interpretation goes. But these were a few thoughts I spun out...
View ArticleShakespeare’s Sick, Twisted Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is a sick and disturbing play. Every change Shakespeare made to the source material, including the shift from tragedy to comedy, made it even more twisted. It’s never a good idea to...
View ArticleKeir Elam: Shakespearean Without Taste
J.W. Lever’s Arden edition of Measure for Measure was a great help to me when I was writing that last post, and his, ahem, measured prose made for pleasant reading. Now I’m going to pick on Keir Elam a...
View ArticleGerman Phrase of the Day: eines Echtheitskusses Unangekränkeltheitsdruck
eines Echtheitskusses Unangekränkeltheitsdruck the non-sicklied-o’er pressure of an authenticity-laden kiss (tr. Susan Bernofsky) Robert Walser uses this phrase in his wonderful short story “A Kind of...
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Quantitative Methods in Literary Criticism: Franco Moretti and Brian Vickers
The million-fold increase in computing power over the last few decades has made possible types of quantitative analysis that were previously available only to rulers with access to large amounts of...
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Euripides’ Bacchae: Two Boys at Play
The Bacchae has a reputation as Euripides’ greatest play. It’s hard for me to say. Even for a wildly eccentric and subversive playwright like Euripides, it is very odd. It was one of his very last...
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Shakespeare’s Sick, Twisted Troilus and Cressida
From a Maori production of Troilus and Cressida Troilus and Cressida is certainly sick and twisted, but not in the same way that Measure for Measure is. They are nearly perfect complements to each...
View ArticleJohn Marston and Joshua Sylvester: Renaissance Rewriting
John Marston was one of the nastier Renaissance playwrights, and his lack of restraint eventually appears to have gotten him in so much trouble that he had to leave the stage altogether and enter the...
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