All’s Well That Ends Well is a late-phase work from 1604-1605, well toward the end of Shakespeare’s career. Queen Bess had been dead for some time; her successor, the profligate James, secure on the throne and parceling out his token and favors at considerable cost
My salad days,When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,To say as I said then. – Cleopatra, Act I, Sc. 5 “As a great encounter between West and East as well as a great love story, Antony and Cleopatra enacts a basic pattern of
This week is the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, compiled and printed by his friends seven years after his death. Thanks, Heminges and Cordell! Hard to imagine these pieces lost, literature that has given so much to the English-speaking world, on
Photo by Sergio García on Unsplash Timon of Athens (rhymes with “Simon”) was written by Shakespeare (whatever that means) in 1605-1606. Queen Elizabeth I had been dead and buried for years now, and her successor, James I (not a son, but a Scottish relation well
Anne Street, Dublin – Photo by Gregory DALLEAU on Unsplash I do actually think about things other than Shakespeare when I’m prepping for an essay. From time to time I pen and post them. Today is the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which took
Troilus and Cressida (1601-ish) is a play largely faded from popular reference. No one even mentions Troilus anymore, and Cressida mostly sounds like a used Toyota, or a hipster au Adam Gopnik from his classic expat memoir, From Paris to the Moon (2001). But when
Photo by Ilona Frey on Unsplash Friends, Romans, lend me your ears. So much of this famous play has seeped forever into our collective reference that it’s hard to remember it’s theater. The conspiracy gone awry, adapted for the stage, still lands. People are, after
The Two Noble Kinsmen is the last of 39 plays to the Shakespeare oeuvre, written toward the end of his career in 1613 in collaboration with his colleague John Fletcher just three years before he died. It wasn’t included in The First Folio (1623, what
Look, th’ unfolding star calls up theshepherd. Put not yourself into amazement howthese things should be. All difficulties are but easywhen they are known. Duke, Measure for Measure, Act IV Sc 3 Measure for Measure is a lesser-known play, and one I’d never before read
