Each of William Shakespeare‘s tragic, comedic, romantic, dramatic, and confusing plays is filled with rich dialogue. There is no shortage of witty come-backs and thoughtful remarks. His work is constantly being performed or re-imagined because of how veracious his portrayal of humanity is. Shakespeare lovers have often commented on his humorous, highly offensive, if not perplexing, insults. While much of Shakespeare’s language is outdated, these insults are far from dead. Use them at your own discretion; some of the perpetrators of these remarks did not make it out alive. Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1j4eInc Image couresty of https://bit.ly/1Mb2fd3 Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1OW6knk Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1RsoJq8 …
It’s national poetry day, so we decided to celebrate by picking some beautiful and poignant lines of poetry for our readers to enjoy! I Know Why the Cages Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1FUVlYs Digging by Seamus Heaney Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1OocwCS Let America be America Again by Langston Hughes Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1L95cqt You Fit Into Me by Margaret Atwood Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1RwaDnJ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas Image courtesy of https://abcn.ws/1FUWKhD Hug o’ War by Shel Silverstein Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1mFMejMor A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg Image courtesy of https://bit.ly/1LoAEAd What are some of your favorite poems? Featured image …
The Swedish Academy has announced the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich. Alexievich, the first author from Belarus to win the prize and the 14th woman out of 107 award winners, is known for her hard-hitting journalistic work, particularly Voices From Chernobyl: the Oral history of a Nuclear Disaster, which documents the nuclear disaster in Ukraine. On her website, Alexievich explained why she chose journalism, with an emphasis on eye-witness accounts: “I’ve been searching for a genre that would allow the closest possible approximation to how I see and hear the world. Finally I chose the genre of actual human voices and …
Shakespeare’s plays are no stranger to adaptations. A selection of novelists have been given an exciting opportunity to pick one of Shakespeare’s plays and turn it into an updated, re-imagined novel. The project, known as the Hogarth Shakespeare series, is a celebration of the prolific playwright and comes just in time for the 400th anniversary of his death (2016). The project features award-winning and acclaimed authors who will transform Shakespeare’s work to prose, utilizing his plots, themes, symbols, and motifs in a contemporary setting, while staying, “true to the spirit of the original plays,” according to the publisher’s website. Jeanette Winterson, Whitbread Award-winner …
To many, sexuality is a matter of privacy. To T.S. Eliot, his sexuality was a source of inspiration and a common theme in his poetry. A new edition of T.S. Eliot poetry reveals that his sex life, contrary to common popular opinion, wasn’t completely bleak. Eliot’s previously published work portrays his sex life as broken and depressing, in part due to his troubled first marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, as well as a few failed trysts. His negative feelings on sexuality, as expressed through his writing, also served as a symbol of his distaste for modern society. Louis Menand of The New Yorker once said …
