Confessions of a Conservative Atheist
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Hamlet leaves a trail of bodies in his wake not because he is a monster like Macbeth, but because he is less of one, displaying hesitancy at the thought of killing his uncle for whatever reason as most of us probably would in a similar circumstance. If Hamlet were Macbeth, the tragedy never would have… Continue reading If Hamlet were Macbeth, the irony and the contradiction at the heart of Shakespearean morality
A colony like mine can reach almost 6,500 square feet, about the size of a luxury home with five bedrooms. The mound of fungus we farm can rise a foot high, nestled inside with thousands upon thousands of workers tending to it. I am a farmer ant, technically known as an Attini, or fungus-grower. I… Continue reading I am a farmer ant and I grow my own food better than you ever could
Confining the Oscar-winning film to a story of grief undervalues a far more wide ranging work that can be said to include the totality of the human experience in around 4,000 lines, but does so in a way both powerful and accessible. Hamnet, the Oscar-winning film, inspired by real events in the life of William… Continue reading Hamnet, Hamlet, and the infinite nature of a poem unlimited
In 1994, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein almost ruined Kenneth Branagh’s career while this year’s equivalent of a remake from Guillermo Del Toro received almost universal praise despite making almost the same movie substantially worse. In 1994, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein almost ruined Kenneth Branagh’s career. Though opinions of the film have generally improved in the more than… Continue reading Frankenstein and a tale of two Hollywoods
It’s the year 1600 and I am already an accomplished playwright, having written plays and created characters like Romeo and Juliet that would be revered for centuries. This might have been enough for any other artist, but I am not any artist by any means. I am William Shakespeare about to write Hamlet. It’s the… Continue reading I am William Shakespeare about to write Hamlet
It’s a credit to Shakespeare’s genius that he was able to craft one of the greatest plays ever written from such an unbelievable beginning, but it’s also his genius that the opening is the very heart of it all. Despite his protestations, Lear has broken one of the bonds that protects civilization from the lawlessness… Continue reading King Lear and the primal genius of Kenneth Branagh
It is a tragedy not of a single individual or even the entire Roman Republic, but one of power, who has it, who wants it, how they get it, and how it ebbs and flows at the whims of the crowd, exercising their free and fickle will to support who they choose at any given… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and the nature of power in the hands of the people
Jaques, As You Like It’s “melancholy fellow,” is not likely to appear on any list of Shakespeare’s greatest characters, nor is his speech on the nature of his melancholy, but we see in him a sort of proto-Hamlet without the need to wound, opinion unrestrained, as he fancies himself said, claims it is better to… Continue reading Shakespeare’s most underrated character and speech, perhaps
If brevity is the soul of wit, Macbeth’s might be the superior statement of the futility of our existence, an entire philosophy contained in a few simple lines, but the overall meaning couldn’t be more different. It’s as if each speech is itself a prism, and the meaning reflected is based on the direction of… Continue reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth, As You Like It, and all the world’s a stage
Few, if any endings are more tragic, but therein lies Shakespeare’s clever trick. To produce such an effect, he hid a tragedy in what is truly a comedy, the comedy of life itself. Everyone knows Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy because any play that ends with two young lovers, the main characters of… Continue reading Romeo and Juliet and the true nature of tragedy and comedy
