http://daughterofben.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/shakespeare-math/ The author of this post is doing research on Ben Jonson when she cross-references William Shakespeare and discovers the ratio of material is something like 15:1.  She then goes on to do a sort of “tale of the tape” between the two, figuring out how much time one would need to spend reading the material, and basically comes to the conclusion that while one could in theory “catch up” on what’s been written about Jonson, this will never be true for Shakespeare – the rate at which new material is appearing is just too fast. Then she makes the leap that “it must be fairly difficult (impossible?) to write anything new in Shakespeare studies”, and that’s where I’d disagree.  If that were at all true I think people would have stopped, or at least slowed, a long time ago.  It’s not like we magically ran out of stuff within the last few decades.  Second, the world is a changing place.  100 years ago nobody was writing about what Shakespeare might have done with a word processor, or how Henry V compared to George Bush.  Lastly, it’s not what you write, it’s how you write it.  If you’re saying that nobody can write an introductory book about Hamlet because it’s already been written, I’d argue that nobody can write a story about unrequited love because that’s been written, too.  Sometimes the quality is in the delivery, not the research material.

http://sheehy9.edublogs.org/2008/05/06/romeo-and-juliet-act-i/ Now, see, this guy’s blog I can appreciate a bit more.  For a lesson on Romeo and Juliet he has the students tell a biographical story in which they are to mix relevant quotes from Act I.  The problem would seem to be that not too much happens in Act I :).  But I like this idea much better than the tests I’ve posted in the past that are little more than “True or False, the Prince threatens to put people in jail if they disturb the peace.”  Goes to my whole “Just because he wrote it 400 years ago doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen today” thing.

http://dcamd.com/2008/05/06/my-american-dream/ I don’t know how funny XKCD is for folks who aren’t computer geeks by trade, but if he’s going to do a Shakespeare crossover, I’m there!  (Thanks to Teacher2.0 for finding what is apparently an old comic that I’d missed.)

Just so nobody misses a passing reference in the comments, I wanted to make this item a post of its own.  Nigel Beale is hosting a “Hamlet roundtable” on Thursday of this week featuring four “prominent lit bloggers”.  I’m not really sure what prominent means in this case, but they are: http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/   (Amateur Reader) http://fernham.blogspot.com   (Anne Fernald) http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessions/ (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind) http://www.edrants.com/ (Edward Champion’s Filthy Habits)   They do each appear to reference Shakespeare frequently, although I’m sure how often they are writing specifically *about* Shakespeare.  I think I may have linked the Idiosyncratic Mind one once or twice. Anyway, sounds like it could be worth a watch.  They do appear to be a fairly deep lot (at least, relative to this blog), so your mileage may vary.

http://rfgainey.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/error-of-omission/ I find it hard to debate her logic.