By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul’: so begins Act 5 Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Othello, with Othello’s speech leading up to his killing of Desdemona. This is the final scene of the play; by the end of it, Othello and Desdemona will both be dead, the tragedy brought to its grisly conclusion.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The story of Aaron building a golden calf for the Israelites to worship may strike us a strange episode in the history of the people of Israel, as that story is told in the Old Testament. But there are some interesting reasons why the ‘golden calf’ makes more sense when placed in its historical context.
Let’s take a closer look at the golden calf story, which can be found in the Book of Exodus (chapter 34).
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By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Grief fills the room up of my absent child’: so begins perhaps the most celebrated and moving speech in all of King John, which is not exactly a Shakespeare play that’s replete with celebrated speeches. The play lurks somewhere in the attic of Shakespeare’s oeuvre, out of sight, gathering cobwebs, as if best forgotten.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘A Country Doctor’ is one of the best-known and most widely studied short stories by Franz Kafka (1883-1924). This short story, which Kafka wrote during the winter of 1916-17, tells of a country doctor who makes a visit to a nearby village to tend to a sick boy, but the doctor’s account of his experiences is full of bizarre and unlikely details – details which make us question the doctor’s sanity.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Here’s a seemingly uncontroversial statement: in 1847, a novel called Jane Eyre was published; the author was Charlotte Brontë. One of the most famous things about Jane Eyre is that the male love interest, Mr Rochester, has locked his first wife, Bertha Mason, in the attic of his house.