By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, and is widely studied and has been subject to considerable analysis. Contrary to what many people think, the ‘merchant’ of the title isn’t Shylock (of whom more below) but the far less famous character, Antonio. So how well do we know The Merchant of Venice? Below, we offer some words of analysis, but first, it might be worth recapping the plot of the play.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Richard III is one of William Shakespeare’s earliest history plays, and the first history play where we see his full maturity as a playwright emerging in his depiction of the central character’s downfall. Although Richard III shows the marked influence of Christopher Marlowe on Shakespeare, we also see signs of Shakespeare overcoming his contemporary’s influence and becoming a distinctive voice in English theatre.
Before we offer some words of analysis about this early history play, it might be worth recapping the plot of Richard III (and ‘plots’ of Richard III the man).
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Here’s a question for you: which great work did Oscar Wilde write while imprisoned in Reading Gaol? Not The Ballad of Reading Gaol – that was written while he was in exile in France following his release from prison – but De Profundis, his long letter to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) sees Wilde reflecting on the nature of sin, crime, love, and hatred in a long poem that has given us a number of famous lines, ‘Each man kills the thing he loves’ being the most memorable. You can read The Ballad of Reading Gaol here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of the poem below.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn’: so begins the antepenultimate sonnet in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets – there are still two more to go in the sequence – but the last sonnet to advance a new argument. (The final pair are more of a coda to the overall cycle.) Sonnet 152 is not one of the most famous or memorable sonnets Shakespeare wrote, and some commentators (such as Don Paterson in his enjoyable Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A New Commentary) have condemned it as misogynistic.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘England in 1819’ is a sonnet by the second-generation English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). It’s one of Shelley’s most angry and politically direct poems, although a number of the allusions Shelley makes to contemporary events require some analysis and interpretation to be fully understood now, more than two centuries on.
Before we offer an analysis of ‘England in 1819’, here’s the text of the poem.