German Phrase of the Day: eines Echtheitskusses Unangekränkeltheitsdruck

eines Echtheitskusses Unangekränkeltheitsdruck the non-sicklied-o’er pressure of an authenticity-laden kiss (tr. Susan Bernofsky) Robert Walser uses this phrase in his wonderful short story “A Kind of Cleopatra,” available in his collection of Microscripts. According to Bernofsky, Walser’s ...

Shakespeare’s Sick, Twisted Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is a sick and disturbing play. Every change Shakespeare made to the source material, including the shift from tragedy to comedy, made it even more twisted. It’s never a good idea to ...

Wilson Knight’s Chart of Shakespeare’s Dramatic Universe

  G. Wilson Knight was a mid-century critic probably most known for an infamous little essay on Hamlet he wrote in 1930 called “The Embassy of Death” (collected in The Wheel of Fire). The essay ...

Borges on Shakespeare

On the subject of Shakespeare, his strange impersonalness, and mythology, I think Borges still has it most right. Everything and Nothing There was no one in him; behind his face (which even through the bad ...

The Waste of Spirit in an Expense of Shame

I see Steve Mitchelmore of This Space has called this blog a pile of shit. (I let his Twitter trackback through.) A few years back it probably would have stung me rather sharply, but now ...

One Line from Hamlet

When Stephen spins an elaborate yarn in Ulysses about Hamlet, Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s father and son, and all manner of other things, a yarn that has a little to do with Shakespeare and a lot to ...

“Literary Theory and Historical Understanding,” Morris Dickstein, Revisited