http://shakespeareportraits.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-portrait-of-edward-de-vere-suggests.html

In the next week SP will be posting pictures of a newly identified portrait of Edward de Vere. This mystery portrait, long affiliated with William Shakespeare, will add even more fuel to the bonfire of evidence suggesting that the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere wrote under the name William Shakespeare.

I don’t usually post every Authorship story I come across, but people tend to like pictures.

http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2009/05/31/shakespeare-porn-shocker-66331-23749752/ Seems there’s a bit of trouble, or perhaps irony, brewing in dear Stratford on Avon.  “Romeo and Juliet’s Adult Boutique”, purveyor of … well, I’m sure you can guess … got a license to open up shop in Shakespeare’s hometown. Given all the sex jokes Shakespeare wrote, I think it would be funny if they just themed the whole store and had nothing but Shakespeare puns everywhere you look.  The “Much Ado About Nothing” section could be right next to “Country Matters.” …and that’s about as far as I’m gonna take that. 🙂

http://nannygoathill.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-sonnets/

Having now read all 154 of the sonnets, I can confidently say that you have probably already heard the good ones. You know, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ (18) or ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds’ (116) or ‘Being your slave, what should I do but tend’ (57). Not, for example, 143, wherein the Dark Lady is represented as running after the Fair Youth like a farmer’s wife chasing a goose around a yard:  

… I thought this crowd might find something amusing in that post. 🙂

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/guest-column-loves-me-loves-me-not-do-the-math/

…suppose Romeo is in love with Juliet, but in our version of the story, Juliet is a fickle lover. The more Romeo loves her, the more she wants to run away and hide. But when he takes the hint and backs off, she begins to find him strangely attractive. He, on the other hand, tends to echo her: he warms up when she loves him and cools down when she hates him.

So begins this guest article on mathematical modelling of relationships.  I got an extra kick out of it because of the reference to work done at Worcester Polytechnic Institute – my own alma mater, class of 1991 thankyouverymuch. I do think it oversimplifies things, although I have to admit that as as computer programmer and a fan of drama, artificial intelligence and natural language processing, I have long daydreamed about programs that could accurately model and answer questions such as “Why does Juliet love Romeo?” and have it give a half decent response.  Or even better, give it a few key plot points relevant to the relationship, and then have the program sketch out the rest of the story.   (I could go into detail about work done by Roger Schank on story generation, if people are interested… :)) It’s articles like this that suggest one day that might actually be possible.

http://thereformedbroker.com/2009/05/28/quick-shakespeare-lesson-for-the-troglodytes/ I’d prefer not to lump myself in with the “troglodytes”, but this post does make me curious.  I think most of the regular readers here recognize the problem with the quote – people take “winter of our discontent” out of context, and never follow up with the “made glorious summer” bit. What I just learned, I think, is that “winter of our discontent” is not a standalone phrase that generically means “period of time when we are generally gloomy and unhappy with how things are going.”  I realize that in order to understand what’s being said in the play itself you have to put them together, but I guess I always kind of figured that it was two separate things – this period of our life is coming to a close because this new, happier day is dawning. What the blog poster argues, which is new to me, is that “winter” itself implies the transition, so it is not appropriate to just use it by itself.  It’s not translated as “This dark time for us is coming toa a close because of this new dude…” but more accurately, “This transition out of  our dark time has been brought about…”  If you look at it that way, it doesn’t make sense to use it by itself. Did I understand that correctly?  Do you use “winter of our discontent” as a period of time, or as the ending of one?