I’m not really sure. But here’s an article I enjoyed: Steeped in Shakespeare “Shakespeare’s plays were ubiquitous in antebellum America. They inhabited the schoolbooks, including Scott’s Lessons in Elocution, which Lincoln read as a boy. Dozens of editions circulated through the states and territories. The plays visited rural and urban stages in scenes and declamatory […]
Author: Dwight
Never one to do things in a consistent order (or even an order that even makes sense), I wanted to write about this movie before discussing the book. So I apologize in advance for referring to the work without directly addressing it first. For those unfamiliar with Eugene Onegin, here is a brief synopsis shamelessly […]
Alexander Pushkin by Vasily Tropinin (1827) Picture sourceI only know a little bit about Alexander Pushkin but find him a fascinating character. My limited introduction to him so far has been the movie Amadeus, which took his play “Mozart and Salieri” as a starting point. Eugene Onegin will obviously suffer since I am dealing with […]
Notes written by Nabokov about finishing Lolita“I have only words to play with!” That one quote continues to stick with me as my favorite line of the book as well as representative of so much within it. In the same declaration, Humbert Humbert bemoans the fact that he does not have Lolita to “play with,” […]
Picture source at FilmPosters.com Unfortunately I had to watch the movie in fits and starts over several days, but hopefully I won’t bungle any of the facts of the movie. There is a good overview and recap of the film at American Movie Classic’s filmsite.org. Two Views of Lolita, both of which are higher on […]
A geographical scrutiny of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolitaby Dieter E. ZimmerPicture source Part Two was somewhat of a disappointment to me, which I’ll try to explain as I go along. The wordplay and parodies continue, but some contradictions (or at it seems to me) ultimately undermine the book. The seductive language continues, lulling the reader […]
This cartoon originally appeared in The New York Times Book Review on September 14, 1958. The caption reads, “Go get your own copy of ‘Lolita.’” Picture source The book developed slowly, with many interruptions and asides. It had taken me some forty years to invent Russia and Western Europe, and now I was faced by […]
This is the first book covered in the online Shakespeare course I joined. Shapiro’s work goes into detail on Shakespeare’s achievements in 1599 (a remarkable output–Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and the first draft of Hamlet ), his business dealings, and the national scene within which he worked. The approach of […]
The vacant ice looked tired, though it shouldn’t have. They told him it had been put down only a few minutes ago following a basketball game, and after the hockey match it would be taken up again to make room for something else. But it looked not expectant but resigned, like the mirror simulating ice […]
Picture source So Humbert the Cubus schemed and dreamed—and the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights. Then, figuratively speaking, I shattered […]