http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=e1bd6ffa-c648-4d40-8efd-40dd1b31b444 To make any contribution worth caring about, a philosopher’s study of Shakespeare should do three things. First and most centrally, it should really do philosophy, and not just allude to familiar philosophical ideas and positions. It should pursue tough questions and come up with something interesting and subtle–rather than just connecting Shakespeare to this or that idea from Philosophy 101. A philosopher reading Shakespeare should wonder, and ponder, in a genuinely philosophical way. Second, it should illuminate the world of the plays, attending closely enough to language and to texture that the interpretation changes the way we see the work, rather than just uses the work as grist for some argumentative mill. And finally, such a study should offer some account of why philosophical thinking needs to turn to Shakespeare’s plays, or to works like them. Why must the philosopher care about these plays? Do they supply to thought something that a straightforward piece of philosophical prose cannot supply, and if so, what? I don’t understand a word of it, but I’ve never let that stop me before.  There’s plenty of folks in the audience who are far more well-read than I.

Here’s a game to play.  I’m curious if you’ll all indulge me, or think I’m nuts. Take a tragedy, and tell me what it’s about….in one word. I’ll steal the easy one:   Macbeth is about ambition. Who’s next?   Feel free to repeat if someone else uses your play, especially if you have a different word in mind. (The tragedies, for whoever needs a reminder:  King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Titus Andronicus, Timon of Athens.  I’m only really expecting folks to hit on the first 7 or so, I think the last three are less well known to casual readers.)   [The idea springs from a conversation with a coworker where Anthony and Cleopatra came up, and I was trying to explain why although I read it in high school I think I would better appreciate it now, later in life.  I tried for a comparison, “If Romeo and Juliet is _______, then Anthony and Cleopatra is ________” and found that while I had the answer straight in my head, I couldn’t adequately explain it in as few words as possible. So I wondered if we could collaboratively come up with a single word that would encapsulate each of the great tragedies.]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10045.html The United States Congress does Shakespeare.  Apparently it’s part of an annual arts and education fundraiser.  Never heard of it before, but it sounds like a positive thing. On a related note, I always wonder about women who say Taming of the Shrew is their favorite play.  Is it that they choose to see it with a wink and a Katarina victory at the end?  Or that they enjoy the debate about the real meaning?  I suppose that sort of like a Jewish person saying that Merchant is their favorite?

http://epistles.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/hamlet-the-lost-ending/ Short and silly.