Claudia Rozas, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
A ministerial working group is charged with identifying what knowledge matters in secondary school English. But we need a national conversation about what that means in a modern, multicultural society.
A scene from Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello.’
Universal History Archive/ Getty Images
Considered the greatest writer in English literature, William Shakespeare illustrates views on race and whiteness throughout all of his dramatic works.
Youth theatre encourages actors to connect with characters of canonical plays, but the trajectories of young women within them can make it hard to find redemptive or empowering touch points.
Matu Ngaropo and Ahunim Abebe in Bell Shakespeare s A Midsummer Nights Dream. Photo by Brett Boardman.
There is nothing to lose and plenty to gain in teaching Swift’s Midnights and Shakespeare’s Sonnets together. There’s no dumbing-down, and no need for reductive assertions about who is “better”.
Sonnets still have a reputation for being about the unrequited love of a man for a woman.
AndreasPraefcke/Wikimedia Commons
Miss Americana has been discussed in English literature classes for some years now – sometimes alongside Shakespeare.
The detail of the demon in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ painting The Death of Cardinal Beaufort was revealed after extensive cleaning.
Petworth House / National Trust
The Enlightenment saw science and rational thought replace the religious superstitions of the previous century, and demons became metaphors for the human struggle between good and evil.
Cate Blanchett in Sydney Theatre Company’s The War of the Roses.
Tania Kelley/Sydney Theatre Company
Britain has lost one of its greatest actors in the Irish-born star who found fame in Dennis Potter’s groundbreaking TV drama The Singing Detective.
Asking if computers will be more intelligent than humans distracts us from grasping the underlying ethical problem with the humans who create and use them.
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Corpus linguistics – using computers to analyse texts – can spot patterns and nuances that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The practice of putting images of only deceased or allegorical people on U.S. stamps dates back to 1847.
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The ‘divine right of kings’ may sound obsolete, but it has resonances today. Richard II asks what it means to have power, to take power – and what we’re left with when it’s gone.
Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4 – Robert Thew and Henry Fuseli (1796).
Wikimedia Commons.
There is an interesting new story emerging about the lengths of speeches in early modern plays. In the space of five years there was a dramatic shift in style – and it wasn’t just Shakespeare.
The Tempest’s Caliban was said to voice the fury and distress of the people forced from the Fenlands which were being drained and enclosed.
Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy
Worrying environmental issues dominated the time of William Shakespeare as they do now, from depleted fish stocks and food shortages, to overpopulation and animal exploitation.
A mural to Shakespeare in London.
Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
In the late 16th century, new mathematical concepts were transforming perceptions of the world. Shakespeare’s plays helped audiences to process these changes.
Shakespeare’s First Folio was the first published work to include Macbeth.
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