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At the end of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock gets himself into quite a legal pickle. Unlike many tragedies (and many proverbial pickles), Shylock’s situation is entirely of his own making –due to his rigid adherence to law, not his… more

Book review: A Dirty, Filthy Book: Sex, Scandal, and One Woman's Fight in the Victorian Trial of the Century, by Michael Meyer, Penguin UK

Publication date: February 8 2024

Shannon Chamberlain, in her Reading Room post on the character of Thomas Wyatt in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, offers a lovely reading of the historical Wyatt’s brilliant sonnet, “Whoso List to Hunt.” 

It shouldn’t be surprising chez Shakespeare, but whenever I pick up Twelfth Night, I am amazed by the continual invitation to play – the ludic dare to experiment with gender, sexuality, crossdressing, feasting, drinking, and social… more

To drink or not to drink? To laugh or not to laugh? To jest or not to jest? These are the questions that run through Sir Toby Belch’s mind during the entirety of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Yet, beneath his jocular, inebriated… more

To drink or not to drink? To laugh or not to laugh? To jest or not to jest? These are the questions that run through Sir Toby Belch’s mind during the entirety of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Yet, beneath his jocular, inebriated… more

The story repeats itself every time I teach literature. The discussion about texts, almost inexorably, ends up with students trying to figure out whether the text is 'good' or 'bad'. As if, in the end, as judges on a pedestal, our… more

Sarah Skwire doesn’t say YOU MUST READ SHAKESPEARE…but if you do, you’ll probably learn from him. And then you can reread him later to learn more and different things. In this hour-long conversation with Sabine El-Chidiac at The… more

In 1699, Jonathan Swift, one of our favorite writers, made a list of resolutions for his life. While they weren't technically New Year's resolutions, we present them here for the entertainment and edification of our readers.

The final cause of the Trojan War was Agamemnon's choice to sacrifice Iphigeneia at Aulis after the goddess Artemis bound the troops there due to a perceived slight. The goddess insisted that the blood of Atreus be spilt, or no… more

What is the nexus between liberty and Breaking Bad, named by Rolling Stone as the third-best television show of all-time?  The archetypal tale of Walter White’s “transformation from Mr. Chips to Scarface” teaches that there is… more

What could possibly connect the spirit of Christmas, A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge, and Dante’s Inferno? Though they are differing representations at the literal level, each work portrays a similar underlying religious… more

Though Dante Alighieri is well known for his Inferno and the fact that he was happy to include bishops, popes, and kings in it, it would surprise many readers to hear that he included Santa Claus in his infernal masterpiece… more

Though the Christmas season is rapidly approaching, and Christmas trees, both artificial and natural, are adorning the homes of many individuals, it is far less likely that the denizens of those homes understand the origin of their… more

When As You Like It opens, the political world of its unnamed duchy is truly out of joint. At both the familial and ducal level, injustice is ascendent. What marks the play as a comedy—rather than one of Shakespeare’s blood-thirsty… more

During the past few weeks, as Jews in America, Europe, and Israel have been experiencing an upsurge an antisemitism unlike anything the world has seen since the Holocaust—an increase in Jew-hatred so alarming that it prompted Senate… more

In the 2300s B.C., Sargon the Great united a disparate collection of city states located in Sumer in the southern portion of modern-day Iraq. By doing so, he created the world’s first empire, the Akkadian Empire. Having solidified… more

Sir Thomas Wyatt, a Tudor courtier, the first English translator of Petrarch’s sonnets, and a famous poet in his own right, is a supporting but important character in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall novels. Mantel first introduces him… more

It might seem weird to be including renowned horror novelist Stephen King in this essay series on classic pulp fiction. For one thing, he’s still alive, and for another thing, he’s not exactly known for pulp magazine short stories.… more

“THE OCTOBER COUNTRY …that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country… more

When we think of the classics, we usually think of long, sober epic works of literature that address very serious themes—war, individual and societal turmoil, vengeance, treachery, and tragedy. 

One of the most famous dinner parties in literature occurs in Book Five of Milton's Paradise Lost. Eve is busily preparing the evening meal when Adam comes running to tell her that the Angel Raphael is arriving to join them. Adam… more

J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings presents several societies with different approaches to government. The most prominent include the idyllic Shire, the grand realm of Gondor, the hardy kingdom of Rohan, and the absolute… more

“All my stories,” wrote H.P. Lovecraft, “unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time by another race who, in practising black magic, lost their foothold and were… more

One of the surprise cultural hits of this past summer was the three-part Netflix docu-series Arnold, which has scored a 96% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and which has been lauded by critics and audiences alike.