FEATURED POSTS
Freedom, Freetown and Fernie’s Fiery Feast
You do not expect a critic of Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard and ...
Honouring Professor Reg Foakes
Professor Reg Foakes, who died at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon just before ...
RECENT POSTS
Worlds Elsewhere
I am pleased to post the following on behalf of Andrew Dickson, a journalist at the Guardian and a Fellow of our exciting new project (with University of Warwick) Shakespeare ...
Fernie’s Freetown Film!
Following on from the recent account of Ewan Fernie’s inaugural lecture, you might like to know that you can watch a recording of it made available by the University of ...
New Year’s Sonnet
Sonnet 15 When I consider every thing that growes Holds in perfection but a little moment. That this huge stage presenteth nought but showes Whereon the stars in secret influence ...
Re-reading Sonnet 76
Sonnet 76 Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quicke change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods ...
Sonnets for Advent 24: Sonnet 146
This is Shakespeare’s most religious sonnet and is not unlike the conceit of John Donne’s ‘Death be not proud’. The poem is damaged and in need of emendation since the ...
Sonnets for Advent 23: Sonnet 138
This sonnet could easily be spoken by Antony about Cleopatra and their ‘age in love.’ It doesn’t take long for ‘simple truth’ not only to be suppressed, but changed into ...
Sonnets for Advent 22: Sonnet 136
Sonnet 136 seems to cry out to be read biographically, ending as it does with the poet’s name: ‘my name is Will’. But the abbreviated form of ‘William’ was a ...
Sonnets for Advent 21: Sonnet 130
In this single poem Shakespeare turns the entire Petrarchan tradition on its head. Instead of praising an unobtainable beauty in romantic and conventional ways, Shakespeare looks beyond surface appearances to ...
Sonnets for Advent 20: Sonnet 129
Contorted, inward looking, self-loathing, guilty, exhilarating and utterly brilliant, this is perhaps the most famous attempt to convey the feeling of lust in any English poem. Sonnet 129 (like Sonnet ...
