After all some faffing with patterns, a return to basics, two legs upon which to stand and move forward. For … More

Though Titus Andronicus is probably felt to be Shakespeare’s worst play by many, The Merry Wives of Windsor is held in a special place … More

It is pleasant to suppose that Shakespeare ended his career in a series of collaborations with Fletcher: Henry VIII, which Shakespeare … More

Identity, though it dances to many tunes, stands on two legs: commitment and recognition. In the recent work on Shakespeare … More

“How ‘blow’? How ‘blow’? Speak to be understood”—demands The Princess to Boyet in the final act of Love’s Labour’s Lost. … More

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the good great houses of Orsino and Olivia insist upon decorum and the traditions of civilization; … More

If I were asked to give a complete account of what it means to dwell, I could do little more … More

This is a post on Shakespeare’s sonnets, read narrowly through Empson’s analysis in Some Versions of Pastoral. A friend of … More

The last line of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” riddles, urging us to return to the start of the poem, as … More