King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies; indeed, some critics have considered it the greatest. It is certainly one of the bleakest. The plot and subplot deftly weave together the principal themes of the play, which include reason, madness, blindness of various kinds, and – perhaps most crucially of all – the relationship between
Literature
This is episode four of the Virtual Franklin Park Reading Series, hosted by Marae Hart. This episode is a showcase of new fiction by acclaimed writers Blake Butler, author of Alice Knott, Tracy O’Neill, author of Quotients, Maisy Card, author of These Ghosts Are Family, and Ashleigh Bryant Phillips, Sleepovers. The Virtual Franklin Park Reading
TODAY: In 1948, S. E. Hinton, best known for her young-adult novels set in Oklahoma, including The Outsiders, which she wrote during high school, is born. “If the pandemic were a war, then we are losing it, if it isn’t lost already.” Siri Hustvedt, in contemplation of a photograph by Rachel Cobb, on what the world
July 21, 2020, 4:08pm It is a truth universally acknowledged that vampires make for the best entertainment content. They do, they just do, and they always have. In the latest news about humankind’s obsession with vampires, Aimee Ortiz reports in The New York Times that an auction house in England is accepting bids on a nineteenth-century
TODAY: In 1664, English poet and diplomat Matthew Prior takes his birthday as an opportunity to chastise the woman he loves for treating him with ‘scorn’ and denying him via a poem, “On My Birthday, July 21.” “We conjure a world that is worthy of us. And then we gather there: unbowed, unburied, unabashed in
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), wrote ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’ in 1816 during the same holiday at Lake Geneva that produced the novel Frankenstein (written, of course, by Percy’s wife, Mary Shelley). Below, we offer a summary and analysis of ‘Hymn to Intellectual Beauty’, stanza by stanza. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty The awful shadow of some
July 20, 2020, 4:21pm Today in adaptation news: Neflix has won the rights to adapt Rumaan Alam’s forthcoming novel Leave the World Behind, with Sam Esmail—of Mr Robot and Homecoming fame—directing, and Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington starring. In the novel, an unspecified global catastrophe wipes out all forms of electronic communication with the outside
TODAY: In 1945, French author and poet Paul Valéry, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 12 different years, dies. “If I’m not willing to spend a few days journeying somewhere for something, it means it’s too far for that particular purpose.” Lydia Davis on the decision to not fly. | Lit
What happens when art and politics intersect? Back before the global pandemic, visitors to The Morgan Library’s exhibition Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being were able to get a surprising lesson in this if they paid close enough attention. The exhibit noted that artists like Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró drew inspiration from Jarry’s work
July 17, 2020, 9:28am Let’s welcome Friday with a little bit of light. This morning, three major arts nonprofits, supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, announced a $3.5 million fund that will be used to give one-time grants (between $5,000 and $50,000) to literary arts organizations, publishers, and nonprofits that have
July 17, 2020, 11:01am Yet again, a debate about color-coordinated bookshelves has sprung up on the internet. This time, it was catalyzed by a tweet from writer and journalist Jennifer Wright, which features said bookshelf style as well as a very fun dress (which is the real star of the show in my opinion): I feel
TODAY: In 1899, Horatio Alger, writer of young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty, dies. Incredibly, 2020 is only half over, which means we’ve got plenty more good books to come… Here are our most anticipated. |
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the meaning and origins of a famous Shakespeare phrase ‘Hoist with one’s own petard’. The expression is well-known, and its meaning is fairly clear to most people: it describes someone who has been scuppered by their own schemes, someone who has come a-cropper
July 17, 2020, 11:08am Variety reports that sales for J.K. Rowling’s books slowed down in June, in a period that appears to be somewhat of an anomaly for the author, as well as out of step with the wider industry. Last year, as sales of print fiction grew by 33.3 percent, Rowling’s sales grew by
TODAY: In 1917, French feminist writer Christiane Rochefort is born. Kelli Jo Ford recommends books that helped her find a way home, from Love Medicine to Salvage the Bones. | Lit Hub “I grew up in a Christian house with a pagan underbelly, and found the two were not quite as oppositional as some may
July 16, 2020, 4:13pm I started writing this post as a counterpoint to the “describe your favorite book in the most boring way possible” trend. It was meant to be something along the lines of “describe a plotless book in the most exciting way possible.” But more I thought about the books below, initially attempting
TODAY: In 1546, writer, poet, and Protestant martyr Anne Askew dies. “You rise in pieces, loved to death, / at last unshackled. / Time will hold your breath.” Read “Salutations in Search Of,” a new poem by Patricia Smith. | Lit Hub “Literature can do one thing no other art form can do: It can let you
‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright’ is a famous speech spoken by Romeo in Act I Scene 5 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But what does he mean by this speech? Although the meaning may appear to be straightforward, when viewed in the context of the play Romeo’s words shed some considerable