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Articles on Shakespeare

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A military guard of honour wear face masks against the spread of the coronavirus by the Unknown Soldier’s Tomb in Warsaw, Poland. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Poetry has linked war and disease for centuries

From cholera outbreaks to public health actions, war metaphors have long been used to describe diseases, to show what we fear and to explain our world to ourselves.
Martin’s Droeshout portrait of William Shakespeare (1623) Bodleian Library, Oxford.

How to read Shakespeare for pleasure

The Bard’s plays have an unfair reputation for being hard. You’re probably reading them in the wrong way.
Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ contains timeless themes around resistance and colonialism. Here in an engraving by Benjamin Smith based on a painting by George Romney of Act I, Scene 1 of ‘The Tempest’ by William Shakespeare. (Benjamin Smith/George Romney/ Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division /pga.03317)

Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ explores colonialism, resistance and liberation

Actors and theatre scholars seek to understand how ‘The Tempest’ could have been used by both European colonialists and also by advocates of resistance.
Many of Shakespeare’s plays addressed queer themes. Shutterstock

Shakesqueer in love: Exploring the Bard’s queer themes

We will never know whether or not Shakespeare was queer, but we do know his plays often tackled themes of sexuality in queer ways. Will this summer’s productions honour those original ideas?
Songwriters such as Nick Cave (pictured) and the late Yolngu star Gurrumul have often drawn on the scriptures in their work. Paul Bergen/EPA

Why our declining biblical literacy matters

In less than two generations, the proportion of Australians who never pick up a Bible has leapt to seven out of ten. But a robust biblical literacy can help us decode creative works and understand the past.

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