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With William Shakespeare’s theatre called the Globe, what did he know about maps? More than a century after Shakespeare’s death, Samuel Johnson in his Dictionary defined a map as, “A geographical picture on which lands and seas are delineated according to the longitude and latitude.” For Shakespeare, a map was a basic pattern, but it was [...]
“Salt, maybe some sugar,” commented the Romanian taxi driver. He was pleased to share a part of his life story. He had grown up on a farm that provided almost all they needed. They did not buy much—salt, maybe some sugar. They grew what they needed. They made what they needed. Maybe they would trade with [...]
A good game for historians to play is “Notice what you’re not noticing.” It can be easy to take for granted what survives from the past. Mosaics or monuments, textiles or texts, all represent great expenditure of thought, energy, time, and money. None of them sprang forth fully formed, and they tell us something about commerce [...]
Since the eighteenth century, students of William Shakespeare’s plays and poems have noticed his astute use of legal terminology. In 1780, Edmond Malone, himself a barrister, suggested in his biography of Shakespeare that the Bard had technical legal training. Whether that legal knowledge derived from studying, if not practicing, law, or from his business dealings, especially [...]
Literature in the Twentieth Century Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article Catholic Realism and Fantasy in the Twentieth Century Are realism and fantasy really (or only “fancifully”) opposed to one another, as modern academia—even, and perhaps especially, Catholic academia—seem so often to propose? I have wondered about this question for practically my [...]
“Judge Not… …lest ye be judged.” This Biblical admonition is similar to the universal Christian condemnation of gossip. Both can be confusing. If there’s a Christmas parade downtown next Tuesday, should I not tell my neighbor? Would that be gossip? If Betty has been hospitalized with pneumonia, should I not tell our mutual friend Kathryn? If [...]
“I enclose the ‘Sculptured Scenes from Shakespeare’,” wrote Beverly Hard, “which I hope you will enjoy.” It was 3 May, 1960, and she was writing by hand a thank you note to a friend for inviting her to a luncheon. Her husband, Frederick Hard, was a Shakespearean scholar and president of Scripps College, and she used [...]
In his novel of 1949, The Little Sister, Raymond Chandler has his fictional private detective, Philip Marlowe say of another character, “nobody ever looked less like Lady Macbeth.” Next to Lady Macbeth and her spouse, few couples in Western literature represent such towering but doomed partners in crime. Even the nasty couple in James M. Cain’s [...]