The Tragedy of Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth’s tragedy is the tragedy of being a woman. What more powerful way to show this than through a difficult woman to like?
Shakespeare
The Distance of Home
By leaving China, I demonstrated my freedom of choice and a quest for knowledge. Yet physical detachment only heightened my yearning for an emotional homecoming. In the decade since I first boarded a plane to the U.S., distance has lent me both a sharp lens and a soft gaze to examine my country of origin.
Stories Strangely Told: Stories That Break Their Molds
There are stories that break from patterns, and stories that pull so hard at their stitching that they unravel themselves in the process.
Round-Up: Shakespeare, Joe Biden, and North Korean Fiction
From a newly discovered source of Shakespeare scholarship to a collection of North Korean short stories, here’s the latest literary news.
“A Way I Could World-Build in Poetry”: An Interview with Margaret Rhee
Margaret Rhee’s poems use the what-if of machines falling in love as a springboard to launch us into a strange, beautiful, unforgettable new world that is all her own. Earlier this year, we had the chance to talk about poems, robotic realities, and whether someday machines might really fall in—and out—of love.
Reading Frantumaglia After the Unmasking of Elena Ferrante
It’s been impossible to ignore the furor surrounding the revelation of Elena Ferrante’s identity last month. Some consider it an inevitability, yet the majority of her fans seem to feel that it is enough to have been given the gift of her writing, without expressly violating her wishes.
Witches in Literature, or Bodies as Translators of Fear
Lady sorceresses are vessels of fear through their bodies , or representations used to translate terror. A witch’s greatest strength is her body, as when Circe seduces and distract Odysseus from his journey; it is her greatest weakness, too, as when the Wicked Witch of the West is destroyed: doused in water, her body disintegrates.
In HBO’s Westworld, Literature Is the Key to Personhood
HBO’s Westworld is rife with literary references that, like the androids populating the titular park, have started to take on a life of their own.
Round-Up: Frankfurt Book Fair, Bob Dylan, and HENRY VI
From the rise in attendance at the Frankfurt Book Fair to the research that names Christopher Marlowe as a co-author of Henry VI, here are last week’s biggest literary headlines.