Month: February 2006

All Headline News – Young People Play Cupid With The Internet – February 8, 2006: Score one for our favorite playwright this Valentine’s Day. A poll sponsored by AT&T lists the following movies as apparently the most romantic: Love Actually, Shakespeare in Love, Much Ado About Nothing, Ten Things I Hate About You, and Unfaithful.

Much Ado About Nothing is obviously Shakespeare, as of course is Shakespeare in Love (though not in the “He wrote it” sense of the word). But I wonder if everybody on the poll realizes that Ten Things I Hate About You is actually supposed to be a version of Taming of the Shrew? It’s obvious when you look at it — the characters are named Bianca and Kat (Kate?) and the male lead is Patrick (Petruchio). The last names are Stratford and Verona, and they go to Padua high school.

3 out of 5’s not bad. I’m keeping an eye out for Shakespeare references in Love, Actually (which takes place in London, and one of the characters is named Juliet). No clue what “Unfaithful” is doing on a Valentine’s Day movie list, though.

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

Do you read Shakespeare for fun?:

About.com has a simple poll up, do you read Shakespeare for fun, yes or no. Right now it’s just about 50/50, with Yes edging out No 51% to 48%. So go stuff that ballot box!

Technorati Tags: Shakespeare

I see that Alan, who just posted a comment or two, has a Shakespeare blog of his own called “Shakespeare Experience”. Cool. I particularly like the angle it takes: My reflections and thoughts on the works of William Shakespeare, how he inputs the world (dreadful way of putting it isn’t it?) and how my world reflects on and is reflected in his work.

Librivox is a great project that attempts to cross Project Gutenberg (the world of public domain literature) with audio books by getting volunteers to read the classics. How does Shakespeare fit in?

• A Personal Anthology of Shakespeare, compiled by Martin Clifton
• Sonnet 23 (multiple readings)
• Richard II (coming soon)
• All Sonnets (many done)
• Taming of the Shrew (possible – one person has volunteered to read the whole thing!)

Technorati Tags: podcast, podcast review, Shakespeare

Dead White Males: Here’s a neat little podcast worth recommending. It’s not specifically Shakespeare, but “Dead White Males” is produced by Eric Jean, a literature student who is “considering teaching this stuff some day.” I listened to him do just under an hour on Merchant of Venice, which was pretty cool. Mostly a plot summary, but also some commentary on the characters, as well as readings of key passages.

This is not a Shakespeare only podcast, though, so I can only hope that he covers my favorite subject frequently enough that I don’t end up dropping him off my list. Other authors currently mentioned on his homepage include Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Blake, Thomas Hardy and others.

Technorati Tags: podcast, podcast review, Shakespeare