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Tag Archives: Shakespeare
Shakespearean Scandals
Although William Shakespeare is central to our cultural canons, his plays are full of the worst sort of social ills, including racism and sexism. Stephen Greenblatt talks about these literary scandals.
Shakespeare’s Stings
From name-calling and caterwauling to general abuse, Shakespeare’s 38 plays include more than 10,000 insults. Wayne Hill and Cynthia Ottchen, authors of Shakespeare’s Insults: Educating your Wit, provide a livlely and colorful sampling.
Reading for Difference
A discussion of the sonnets of William Shakespeare.
Political Shakespeare
Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield discuss their book, Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism (1985).
Two Williams
Maynard Mack recently spent a fellowship year at the National Humanities Center working on a forthcoming study of Shakespearean tragedy, his most recent book is a biography of Alexander Pope, published in 1986.; During her year at the Center, Aileen Ward worked on forthcoming biography of William Blake. She won the 1964 National Book Award for John Keats: the Making of a Poet.
Shakespeare’s ‘Green-ey’d Monster’
Othello is the most popular of Shakespeare’s tragedies, yet the object of continuing critical disparagement. Why is this so? How do the themes of human sexuality, love, betrayal, and jealousy combine and diverge to produce Othello’s popularity with theatre-goers and its disapproval on the part of literary critics?
The Play’s the Thing: Shakespeare Then and Now
April 1985, marks the anniversaries–dating back to the years 1564 and 1616–of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, the world’s most popular poet and playwrght. What account’s for Shakespeare’s popularity? Why is Shakespeare a cultural reference point?
From Plautus to Tootsie
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the young Danish prince remarks of tragedy and comedy that Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, a comment that indirectly acknowledges Shakespeare’s dramatic debt to classical sources, some of which reached him by way of 16th-century Italian Renaissance literature. What are these sources, how are they transformed by Renaissance Italian and English writers, and do they reach academic and popular audiences in the 1980′s?
Rare Books in the Electronic Age
The centrality of books and printing to the world’s cultural and social order is indisputable, and institutions such as the British Museum, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress house vast collections of books. Among these are rare or unique items notable for scarcity and special characteristics of printing, binding, illustration, ownership, or publication. What will become of rare books as cultural documents or aesthetic objects in a time increasingly affected by electronic and computerized writing, publishing, record-keeping and communication?
Notions of the Tragic in Western Literature Part 3
How do literary and dramatic conceptions of tragedy in Western literature broadly connect to personal issues such as the family and religion and to wide cultural issues such as social classes, institutions, and beliefs? Is there such a thing as the tragic vision ? Through a discussion ranging from Aeschylus to Shakespeare and from Calderon to O’Neill, the panelists offer some answers and insights about Christian and bourgeois tragedy, about some literary and philosophical influences upon tragedy (such as determinism and naturalism), and about some connections between notions of the tragic and values such as honor, responsibility to state and self, and sacrifice.
The State of the Language Part 2; Back to Nature
In the series’ second part, Connie Eble, Margreta DeGrazia, Michael Montgomery, and Ronald
Butters describe the state of the English language and standards. In particular, they discuss who decides standard English usage, how these measurements changed and have evolved since the days of Shakespeare, whether contemporary English usage is in decline, and some of the connections between the usage of language and larger cultural considerations. The speakers begin by outlining the lack of linguistical standards in the Elizabethan era, when there was a higher tolerance for malleability and variance in English language, vocabulary, and syntactic structure (homonyms are mentioned in particular). There is a discussion of whether Elizabethan English is the high point of English language or literature, followed by a debate about connections between literarature and language in the Elizabethan era. This segues into a conversation about the ties between modern literacy standards, literacy levels, and criticism of English language standards. The speakers discuss Americans’ perception of linguistic history (Appalachian slang is mentioned in particular), the debate between standards and eloquence (the views of drama critic John Simon are described), and “pop grammarians.” The interview’s conclusion is that change is the natural state of language, and no human language is completely fixed.
At the time of this interview, Butters was professor of English at Duke University and editor of the journal American Speech. De Grazia was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1982-83) and professor of English at Georgetown University. Eble was professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Montgomery was professor of English at the University of South Carolina.
In the commentary “Back to Nature” [23:50], Werner Dannhauser claims that “it is as forthrightly sexual beings” that people are most natural. He describes the current inaccessibility of sexual information, and how sex has changed in the last 15 years. He cites the women’s liberation movement as responsible for most of the changes to sexual attitudes and behavior in the United States. Women are no longer viewed as mystical, misunderstood, “wondrously strange” creatures whom men try to please. Instead, he says that feminists must be pleased as a group, and he posits that all feminists “distrust nature,” blame a hostile environment, and place their faith in socialization. By distrusting nature, women ignore and are not grateful for the “very special” gifts nature has given them. The speaker notes how American feminists ally themselves to liberal political parties, ignoring the treatment of women in Marxist countries. Feminism calls for sexual equality, yet “forever bends in a direction of assaulting sexuality as such.” Dannhauser calls for sexual reform in American culture.
At the time of this interview Dannhauser was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1982-83) and professor of government at Cornell University.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond.
Energy from a Cultural Perspective; Shakespeare Today; The Education of Journalists; Review of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole; Commentary on Ambition
John Opie and John Agresto talk about the ongoing conflict between risk and security in the way Americans think about the energy crisis. They discuss the meaning and value of humanism, and suggest that a historian’s perspective might contribute to our understanding of, and finding solutions to, the energy crisis.
At the time of this interview, John Opie was professor of environmental history at Dusquesne University and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1980-81), where he participated in a seminar entitled Energy and the Values of Modern Society. John Agresto was a staff member at the National Humanities Center.
The second segment [6:45] features John Sisk, who discusses his career teaching and writing about Shakespeare. Sisk addresses the persistent influence of Shakespeare’s writings on contemporary attitudes toward love, sex, and marriage.
At the time of this interview, John Sisk was professor of English at Gonzaga University,
In the third segment [11:13], three scholars weigh in on the state of journalism education and the value of journalism schools. When this interview was recorded, Pulitzer Prize winner Vermont Royster, the former editor of the Wall Street Journal, taught at the School of Journalism of the University of North Carolina. Hugh Holman was Vice- Chairman of the National Humanities Center Board of Trustees, and Kenan Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Terry Eastland was editor of the Norfolk, Virginia Pilot.
This episode’s fourth segment [19:45] features a review of John Kennedy Toole’s 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces, presented by Kent Mullikin, assistant director of the National Humanities Center.
Finally [26:00], William Bennett, then director of the National Humanities Center, comments on American young people, contemporary attitudes, and the importance of ambition.
This edition of Soundings was conducted by Wayne J. Pond and Kent Mullikin.