Every day, new horrors. And you can choose not to read things you can do nothing about. But then you wouldn't read much would you? (1) You'd disappear into reading all the Shakespeare you never read/saw or read/saw but have completely forgotten because you're older than Methuselah. To choose an example entirely at random. Every... Continue Reading →
Love’s Labour’s Lost (Bard to the Bone #13)
Year written: mid-1590s Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): Up and coming guy. Perhaps responding to a kind of “dare” about a good play not being able to include both clowns and kings? Plot in a paragraph: The King of Navarre and his three best mates are going to... Continue Reading →
Two Gentlemen of Verona (Bard to the Bone #12)
Year written: 1594 Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): Possibly his first play? Or first comedy, anyway. Plot in a paragraph: Valentine and Proteus are bezzies. Valentine heads to Milan and falls in love with the Duke’s daughter, Silvia. Proteus wanted to stay in Verona and woo Julia, but... Continue Reading →
The Comedy of Errors (Bard to the Bone #11)
Year written: 1594 Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): xx Plot in a paragraph: An old guy is about to be chopped merely for being in Ephesus. He’s given a day to come up with a ransom. Unbeknownst to him, one of his two identical twin sons (the one... Continue Reading →
As You Like It (Bard to the Bone #10)
Year written: 1599 As You Like It - Wikipedia Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): He was having a bit of an annus mirabilus, wasn't he, our Bill Plot in a paragraph: Rosalind and Celia are cousins as close as close sisters. Ros is banished by her uncle, who... Continue Reading →
Merry Wives of Windsor (Bard to the Bone #09)
Year written: 1594 Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): - there’s a story, too good to be true, that Shakespeare was given two weeks to write a play about Falstaff in love. Given by who? Well, good queen Bess… Plot in a paragraph: Falstaff thinks he can con some... Continue Reading →
Industrial disease vs additional degrees (Song lyrics spoof)
One of my favourite Dire Straits songs (of many) is "industrial disease" - for its cynicism, its jauntiness and the immortal lyric "sociologists invent words that mean industrial disease". Today on Bluesky I found myself advocating for a reboot of industrial disease with the words "additional degrees". Well, here we are... Industrial diseaseAdditional degreesNow, warning... Continue Reading →
All’s Well That Ends Well (Bard to the Bone #08)
Year written: any time between 1598 and 1608!! Plot in a paragraph: Helen wants to marry Bertram, and cures a king to force matters to a head. Bertram flees to the wars, and is then tricked into consummating the marriage with Helen. And they’re all going to live happily ever after? Probably not… Things that... Continue Reading →
Measure for Measure (Bard to the Bone #07)
Year written: 1603-4 Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): xx Plot in a paragraph: The Good Duke goes on a trip, leaving Vienna in the hands of his deputy Angeo, who has a stick up his ass about “fornication”. A guy called Claudio is condemned to death for impregnating... Continue Reading →
King John (Bard to the Bone #06)
The good news is that I have in fact been continuing with the Shakespeare stuff, the "remedial accumulation of cultural capital"). I just, for various reasons, haven't been putting up posts. So, over the next few days, you will get Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well, Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like... Continue Reading →
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