Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 237 views from the following 19+ countries: Thank you for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.

How can good be distilled from evil? How can sin turn to grace? GOOD FROM EVIL IN HENRY V (1599): In Shakespeare's Henry V , Act 4, Scene 1 (Folger), King Henry says something that some readers and audience members may find strange: "There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out. We should note that this is not at all the same as arguing that evil means can and should be used to achieve good ends: As they say, the ends do not justify the means; but this statement by Henry is very different. Given that Henry was a kind of prodigal son, it seems Henry himself is living evidence that good can be distilled from evil: Perhaps the time he spent with Falstaff not only corrupted him for a time, but also helped him understand aspects of himself, and a wider range of his subjects, better, and therefore made him a better king. Henry's time as a prodigal son was not chosen as an evil means to achieve a good end: He chose to be prodigal...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 288 views from the following 19+ countries: Thank you for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.

Actor and teacher Dan Burkarth was in an Instant Shakespeare production of Antony and Cleopatra recorded from a Zoom performance and available on YouTube. Instant Shakespeare does annual readings of all Shakespeare's plays and has a LinkedIn page here , and a website here . After some initial chatter and clearing of throats, the performance begins about two minutes in, at this YouTube link .  In the 400+ years since Shakespeare's death, performances of all of Shakespeare's plays usually took place long before the advent of motion pictures, TV, and internet. But one could imagine some families holding dramatic readings of Shakespeare's plays, with certain family members doubling or tripling their roles they played to cover all the parts. (It is said that Jane Austen participated in "family theatricals" at home, and it would not be too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that at times these may have included some Shakespeare plays or s...

Love's Labour's Lost has an earliest recorded performance before Queen Elizabeth as part of the court's Christmas festivities in December, 1597. [Title page from the 1598 first quarto, cropped, via Wikipedia . Public domain.] Elizabeth had been promoted as "Virgin Queen," but was rumored to have had affairs, and many in England were anxious about the fact that she had not married and produced an heir; so it is interesting and significant that the play has a theme of how difficult and impractical chastity can be. It's as if Shakespeare said: Court Christmas play? Virgin queen? Rumored affairs? No heir? How about a comedie about failing at chastity, pregnancy before marriage, falling in love, and reforming bad habits? (Let’s face it: Life is not all about work, even for a monarch! It’s about love. Right?) The play preempts heckling from the court by including a masque, which members of the court heckle; it preempts criticism of its playwright for having ...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 193 views from the following 19+ countries: Thank you for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.

 "Teaching Shakespeare in a Time of Hate" by Alexa Alice Joubin and Lisa S. Starks , from Shakespeare Survey 74 , is a remarkable essay, and refers quickly to another remarkable work, Teaching Social Justice Through Shakespeare: Why Renaissance Literature Matters Now , ed. Eklund and Hyman (Edinburgh, 2019). I say this in part because when I attended college (starting in 1976), a majority of English instructors would have preferred to bracket the question of ethics, or the need to teach ethics or justice in a particular social or political or cultural context. English literature, they might say, could deal with style and metaphor and theme and a host of other things we find in the texts, but assuming a need to confront the hate of the times with literature didn't seem among the priorities of the instructors. If that occurred on its own, fine, but other things might be discovered in the texts as well, so better to find where the texts were leading, first, and later, ...

In The Comedy of Errors, "beg" occurs only four times; "poor," 10. The story contains two sets of twins, and each set bears the same name: Two of Antipholus, two of Dromio, the former raised to be masters, the latter bought and raised to be servants (slaves). - Because "their parents were exceeding *poor*," the Dromio twins were "bought and brought up to attend" Egeon's sons (1.1, an act of charity, or exploitation, or both). - But Egeon of Syracuse has traveled to Ephesus as a refugee to find his later-separated sons, risking death by execution because Syracuse and Ephesus are at war. - Solinus, Duke of Ephesus, tells Egeon to *beg* or borrow the money for his ransom to spare his life (1.1). - Luciana, sister-in-law to Antipholus of Ephesus, tells her sister that the love she *begged* for her sister from the Antipholus she believed was her sister's husband, he begged of her (4.2, because unknown to her, the Antipholus who begged lov...

Thank you to readers of this blog for this past week, which the blog's analytics say came to 283 views from the following 19+ countries: Thank you for your interest. I am grateful and humbled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible , about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet. Below is a link to a list of some of my top posts (“greatest hits”), including a description of my book project (last item on the list): https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html I post every week, so please visit as often as you like and consider subscribing.