by Annette Rubery | Jul 23, 2023 | Literature, Shakespeare
Symposium scene: banqueters playing the kottabos game while a girl plays the aulos. Attic red-figure bell-krater. © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons. I’ve got plans to re-read King Lear this year, and – as a kind of run-up – I decided to read Timon of Athens,...
by Annette Rubery | Jul 6, 2023 | Literature, Shakespeare
If there’s one idea, for me, that’s central to As You Like It, it’s freedom. I think of this play – first performed in 1599 – as Shakespeare’s most verdant (even more so than The Winter’s Tale). Having studied it 30 years ago, I thought I knew it, but a re-read...
by Annette Rubery | Jun 24, 2023 | Book review, Literature
Like many readers of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, I knew almost nothing about the poet before picking up the book apart from vague memories of learning about metaphysical poetry at school. The fact that Donne’s poems seem to be either sexual or...
by Annette Rubery | Jun 16, 2023 | Book review, Literature, Shakespeare
One of the biggest improvements to my life in 2022 and 2023 has been to re-engage with Shakespeare’s work. There’s been such joy – as well as healing – in reading The Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar and Cymbeline. I’ve now embarked on...
by Annette Rubery | May 21, 2023 | History, Literature
New leaves on our cutting of Johnson's Fourth Willow, Spring 2023. Photograph: Annette Rubery. Dr Johnson figure, carved from the wood of the Third Willow. Houghton Library, Harvard. Photograph: Annette Rubery. When the Corporation of Stratford-upon-Avon wanted the...
by Annette Rubery | May 3, 2023 | Literature, Shakespeare
Cymbeline directed by Gregory Doran (2023). Gregory Doran’s production of Cymbeline at the Royal Shakespeare Company (2023) is a triumph. It’s the 50th production which Doran (now Artistic Director Emeritus) has staged for the company, and quite a challenge (the...
