Tag: shakespeare
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The Quality of Love
When King Lear begins to realize the truth of his daughters’ love, he exclaims, “Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted fiend!” He never understood the quality of his own love.
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The Decision of Meaning
The happiest person in Romeo and Juliet is Rosaline, who had the good sense to be uninvolved. Romeo spent his initial scenes declaring her matchless beauty, his undying love, that there would never be another woman for him, etc., up until he met Juliet and immediately began saying all those things about her instead. Romeo…
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The Crux of the Tragedy
Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the English language. I know because everyone says so. Like most of you, I was compelled to experience his greatness in school, and I did not particularly enjoy it. (It was Othello. I could not work out the math by which the Great Handkerchief Scandal resulted in murder.) Earlier…