A classics scholar and poet turns to Greek mythology, especially the story of Oedipus the King, to explain the drama – or perhaps tragedy – that is taking place in the highest office in the land.
John Lacy, a Restoration actor and playwright, satirised puritans, including in his role as Mr Scruple in The Cheats by John Wilson (right).
John Michael Wright (died 1694/National Portrait Gallery
From ‘islands of pain’ to the ‘peril of exposure,’ writers have captured the fear, emptiness and despair that characterize life during the current pandemic, writes a poet and English scholar.
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)
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.
Waxwork of Shakespeare by Madame Tussauds in Berlin.
Anton Ivanov via Shutterstock
The Bard’s plays have an unfair reputation for being hard. You’re probably reading them in the wrong way.
Engraving from ‘The Fearefull Summer,’ a treatise published after the plague of 1625 and reprinted again in 1636, by John Taylor.
(McGill Library/Paul Yachnin)
Plague ravaged England repeatedly during Shakespeare’s lifetime. The playwright translated the experience of sickness and restoration in many ways on the stage.
The life and work of seminal South African writer, intellectual and politician Sol Plaatje seems more relevant than ever. We look into some of the latest scholarly inquiry.
A modern Christmas Carol.
BBC/Scott Free/FX Networks
Stories like ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ are still relevant today.
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)
Actors and theatre scholars seek to understand how ‘The Tempest’ could have been used by both European colonialists and also by advocates of resistance.
Macbeth’s Scottish heaths may seem a long way from tropical Queensland, but there are points of connection.
Unsplash/Matt Riches
Seeking ways to engage students with Shakespeare’s Scottish play in far north Queensland, highlights disjunctions and surprising correlations between play and place.
Children watch a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Cesare De Giglio/Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare’s first reputation was as a poet, and particularly as a sex poet. He would later incorporate his bawdy inclinations into his most famous plays.
Transversal Theater Company production of Titus Andronicus, 2012.
David Backovsky
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?