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Updating Roman Jakobson’s ‘Poetic Function’ with Vector Semantics
Read more: Updating Roman Jakobson’s ‘Poetic Function’ with Vector SemanticsKurzynski discusses how poetry extends beyond sound and rhythm and taps into a deeper network of meanings.
Top 5 Representations of the Weather in Shakespeare’s plays
By Sophie Chiari In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are plagued by the dog days that overdetermine the climate of the play and turn heat into hate. Interestingly, Shakespeare’s sources all set the story in a cold winter which put forward…
John Pollock Picks the Lock of the Mysterious ‘Shakespeare Box’
John Pollock’s new article on the true provenance of ‘Mr Shuckspr’se Box’ begins with an auction, although true to our ‘advanced age’, it is a live webcast auction. Our author bids on ‘A 17TH CENTURY IRON STRONG BOX’ and wins…
Walter Scott the “mighty minstrel” and Marmion
Walter Scott’s poetry dominated the early years of the nineteenth century but has subsequently fallen into relative obscurity. The first scholarly edition of Marmion (1808), the second of Scott’s grand historical narrative poems, has recently been published and sets out…
Utopia: A round-table discussion
Sir Thomas More (1477 – 1535) was the first person to write of a ‘utopia’, a word used to describe a perfect imaginary world. The term was first published in 1516, and became the short title of his book about an…
The Douglass family and the roots of activism and social justice
By Celeste-Marie Bernier and Andrew Taylor Frederick Douglass. Just the name alone is enough to inspire us to think of a life lived in activism and an unceasing fight for social justice. But there are other names in the life…
A Quiz on Shakespeare and Science – Part 2
By Sophie Chiari and Mickaël Popelard The second part of our quiz poses another 14 questions on Shakespeare and science. Missed the first part? Check it out here. How often does Shakespeare refer to atomism in his plays? Page 123, Jonathan Pollock:…
A Quiz on Shakespeare and Science
By Sophie Chiari and Mickaël Popelard In this two part quiz, the editors of new book Spectacular Science, Technology and Superstition in the Age of Shakespeare pose some interesting questions in relation to Shakespeare and science and go on to quote from…
Chastity and Capitalism, from Shakespeare’s England to Trump’s America
By Katherine Gillen Interest in Shakespeare’s economic philosophy intensified in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, reaching beyond academic circles into public discourse. For example, New York’s Public Theater hosted an event called “What Are We Worth? Shakespeare, Money and…
An unfinished masterpiece by Robert Louis Stevenson
By Gillian Hughes Many of Stevenson’s longer works of fiction might be characterised as historical novels: in Weir of Hermiston Stevenson excavates Edinburgh’s Golden Age, that of Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, and also its surviving physical traces in the…