billybookblog

*contains spoilers* The themes of Shakespeare’s plays are more often than not deeply aligned with the social and political feeling of their times, and this can very much be said of this particular play, The Tragedy of King Lear . Over the last forty-or-so years, King Lear seems to have apparently overtaken Hamlet as the undisputed king of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and not without good reason (however true or false you or I might claim this assertion to be – and it’s FALSE, yes), as it deals with a jungle of themes, such as genuine and affected madness, filial relationships, life, death, blindness, folly, responsibility, loyalty and honour; all of these themes are interchangeable and quite often converge, and that’s exactly how Shakespeare manages to both confuse and enlighten in equal measure. But that’s where the fun is, right? Around the time of its initial performance on St. Stephen’s Day, 26 th December, 1606, King James I was already making attempts at unifying the isle nations,...

*contains spoilers* The Brontë sisters are famous for their collective intelligence and creativity; their time spent together at home, fearing both the threat of tuberculosis (caught by the two eldest Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, at school, resulting in their deaths) and the inefficiency of the local sewage system in Haworth, known to pose a considerable threat to the locals’ health – the average life expectancy because of these irrigation issues was a paltry 26 – meant that their bond was unusually academic and literary. Compounding this was the overarching patriarchal social system of the time, and so, in order to be taken seriously, the sisters took pseudonyms on publishing their more than worthy material – though all texts faced backlash for their progressive and plain-speaking natures. Anne Brontë therefore published this considerable work under the name of Acton Bell in 1848, less than a year before her death at the age of 29, and it was, in typical fashion, roundly chast...