Shakespeare
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The Rogue’s Guide to Shakespeare on Film #12: Hamlet (1996)
#12: Hamlet (1996) With his Hamlet (1996), the gulf between Kenneth Branagh’s acting and that of his Hollywood peers widens. In the early going of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Denzel Washington doesn’t quite know what to do. In the early going of Hamlet, Jack Lemmon (like Washington, one of the finest actors Hollywood has… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #40: A Reflection
Shakespearing #40 by David Foley A Reflection I’m supposed to come up with some final thoughts about Shakespeare after my long trek through the plays, but I keep thinking about his books. I recently stumbled on a Times article from 2005 in which the author flogs the old idea that Shakespeare couldn’t have written his… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #39: Two Noble Kinsmen
Shakespearing #39 by David Foley The Two Noble Kinsmen “There’s many a man alive that hath outliv’d/The love o’ th’ people.” This is Palamon in The Two Noble Kinsmen, congratulating himself that his impending execution will spare him this and “prevent/The loathsome misery of age.” It’s a line Shakespeare supposedly wrote. One of the stories… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #38: Henry VIII
Shakespearing #38 by David Foley Henry VIII As John King wrote two weeks ago, there’s sadness in The Tempest. The notion that, in Prospero, Shakespeare is throwing down his own books of magic (what John calls “the ending before the ending”) gains force when you’ve followed the trajectory of his work from the beginning. It… Continue reading
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Episode 160: Ciara Shuttleworth!
Episode 160 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download. In this week’s episode, I talk to the poet Ciara Shuttleworth, plus Don Royster writes about how Isaac Asimov helped him to appreciate Shakespeare. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES To read about Ciara’s post-residency road-tripping with Flat… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #34: Pericles
Shakespearing #34 by David Foley Pericles Last week I mentioned a tug-of-war I’d felt in college between the Shakespeare-as-literature and the Shakespeare-as-drama camps, but now I wonder if I just don’t get academics in general. In his introduction to the Pelican edition of Pericles, Stephen Orgel of Stanford calls the play “a masterpiece—which is to… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #31.1: Cry, Trojans! (An Interlude)
Shakespearing #31.1 by David Foley Interlude: Cry, Trojans! I’ve had to take a break from Shakespearing for a couple of weeks, so as an interlude, here are some thoughts on the Wooster Group’s Cry, Trojans!, their performance of the Trojan scenes from Troilus and Cressida. It began as a co-production of the whole play with… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #31: Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespearing #31 by David Foley Antony and Cleopatra One reason I wouldn’t be a good playwriting teacher is that I wouldn’t know how to teach inconsistency. It’s one of those things I think you either get or you don’t, one of those things that suggest certain elements of writing can’t be taught. Mostly I mean… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #30: Macbeth
Shakespearing #30 by David Foley Macbeth “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,” says Banquo of the weird sisters, and this disconcerting geologic claim captures the nightmare quality of Macbeth. Like a nightmare, the play inverts the relationship between the solid and the insubstantial: the world we think we know becomes shot through with… Continue reading
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Shakespearing #17.2: Another Interlude, This Time Out of Sequence
Shakespearing #17.2: Orlando Shakes’ Merry Wives by John King Note: Once more I am commandeering David Foley’s blog in which he offers his impressions while reading Shakespeare’s plays chronologically. This interruption happens to be a review of a current production of one of Shakespeare’s comedic masterpieces. Orlando Shakespeare Theater is among the best companies interpreting Shakespeare… Continue reading
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The Drunken Odyssey is a forum to discuss all aspects of the writing process, in a variety of genres, in order to foster a greater community among writers.
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