literature, education, and early modern drama // the words, words, words of a (former) English teacher // all views are my own and do not represent those of my employer // Dr James Alsop (@readtheshakey)
In this bizarre educational environment it can become very easy to convince yourself that every mistake you make in your learning counts as well, and - what is more - counts against you. How do you respond, then, when you get something wrong? How do you react when you fall short of perfection? The answer is simple, but it's one I wish that I had been told when I was at school...
In this paper, I argue that throughout Antonio's Revenge Marston establishes a clear relationship between the appearances of ghostly characters and glaring shifts in his play’s tonal register. Specifically, ghosts – primarily the recurring figure of Andrugio – appear to both signpost and facilitate a gloriously self-aware metatheatrical undercurrent designed to entertain and emotionally unsettle the audience in equal measure.
Few plays explore the rich dramatic potential of living death as explicitly as Thomas Middleton’s The Lady's Tragedy (or, The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, as the play is sometimes known), a tragedy that in the first three acts alone presents suicide, grave-robbing, defiled corpses, and ghosts. Middleton did *not* do these things by halves.
For a Senecan-styled tragedy of inordinate bloodshed, things work out remarkably well for the characters who survive John Marston’s 1602 Antonio’s Revenge...
Sometimes a play can be so callous, so poorly-judged, so utterly tone-deaf that one isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. On this occasion, however, my mind is rather made up.
Does Branagh's "Hamlet" offer audiences the most complete and compelling version of the Ghost to be put to film. I think so.
From Anne Boleyn to a 20th Century murderer from Oklahoma, it seems that last dying speeches are all the fashion...
