A Facebook friend asked on her timeline for some clarification of Polonius‘ famous lines in Hamlet, which he offers as–perhaps sententious–advice to Laertes: This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell, my blessing season thisContinue reading “Polonius On The Necessity Of Authenticity And Self-Discovery”
Tag Archives: Shakespeare
Falstaff As Zarathustra
There is much that is admirable in Falstaff. He is funny; he has a flair for verbal pyrotechnics; he is lustful; he enjoys food and drink, he is a good friend; he might commit highway robbery, but it is not clear he would want to hurt anyone in the process. Moreover, one suspects he wouldContinue reading “Falstaff As Zarathustra”
The Shock Of The New (Entry On A Class Reading List)
Teaching a new entrant on a class reading list is always a fraught business. It is especially so when the entrant is a well-established member of analogous canons and you have come late to the game. You are dimly aware you’ve ‘neglected a classic,’ and thus rendered your education–in several dimensions–incomplete; you are well awareContinue reading “The Shock Of The New (Entry On A Class Reading List)”
A Literary Semester To Look Forward To
This fall semester, I will teach three classes; all feature literary components. They are: ‘Political Philosophy,’ ‘Philosophical Issues in Literature,’ and ‘Existentialism.’ The following are their course descriptions: Political Philosophy: Shakespeare and Political Theory In this class, we will read Shakespeare’s famous ‘history plays’—Richard II, Henry IV, Parts I & II, Henry V–as political theoryContinue reading “A Literary Semester To Look Forward To”
Brexit, Shmexit: Schadenfreude And How The Old Eat The Young
Old habits die hard. I like watching England lose: in soccer and in cricket mainly, but I’ll admit to cheering for Napoleon too. (I morbidly continue to study the Battle of Waterloo, hoping again and again that that damn fool Grouchy will show up.) English self-destructiveness–think David Beckham during the 1998 World Cup, and theContinue reading “Brexit, Shmexit: Schadenfreude And How The Old Eat The Young”
Dreams of the “Undiscovered Country”
Hamlet suggested that “What dreams may come after / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil / Must give us pause” and that “The dread of something after death / The undiscovered country, from whose bourn / No traveler returns, puzzles the will.” The eternally indecisive Danish prince was right, of course: many, ifContinue reading “Dreams of the “Undiscovered Country””
Waiting for Jury Duty: Crowd Observation Notes
A curious fact about the crowd enduring the interminably long wait to be called for jury duty selection at Brooklyn’s State Supreme Court building today was how its interactions slowly began to resemble those of passengers on an airliner stranded on an airport tarmac. Before lunch, some folks had already dozed off (I had takenContinue reading “Waiting for Jury Duty: Crowd Observation Notes”
Jacob Bronowski on the Missing Shakespeare of the Bushmen
Jacob Bronowski–who so entertained and edified many of us with The Ascent of Man–was very often a wise man but he was also Eurocentric, a weakness that produced astonishingly reductive views about the ‘East’, about ‘uncivilized’ and ‘uncultured’ societies. This inclination is noticeably on display in his dialog The Abacus and the Rose,¹ in the courseContinue reading “Jacob Bronowski on the Missing Shakespeare of the Bushmen”
The Cade Rebellion and the Republican Party
Jack Cade, the leader of the Cade Rebellion, is an entertaining Shakespearean character (Henry VI, Part 2), well equipped by the Bard with many memorable lines. So are his followers, one of whom utters the oft-quoted, ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ As Stephen Greenblatt noted in Will in the World: How ShakespeareContinue reading “The Cade Rebellion and the Republican Party”
Shakespeare, Drayton, and Birdsong, Then and Now
In his The Life and Times of William Shakespeare, Peter Levi wrote, [H]istory and family connection do as much to throw light on Shakespeare as a poet as academic criticism has done, and maybe more. The problem is that England and Stratford and the Elizabethan age are all somehow part of his great mystery, andContinue reading “Shakespeare, Drayton, and Birdsong, Then and Now”
Samir Chopra 