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I've tried to find where the author tells us where Leah may be. I think that he does not tell us specifically, only that it is likely that she has passed on to eternity.

In #481, I meant to recall a line from MND: "What's Thisbe, a wandering knight?"(MND1.2.135). The character named Flute has been assigned the part of Thisbe by the director Peter Quince.

Let's return to the question of Shakespeare's religion. He may have been responding to Marlowe's satirical comment "I count religion but a childish toy and hold there is no sin but ignorance," from...

Hi Danik! Sometimes I think that Leah ran away with a wandering Portuguese knight. Jessica is following her example. Marchette Chute quoted a few lines from a character in LOVES LABOR'S LOST: ...

Harold Bloom asked us why Shakespeare has Antonio demand that Shylock convert. One answer is in the first speech in the play: "And such a want-wit sadness makes of me"(MV1.1.6). Antonio would like...

A little book titled THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM was published in 1599. There, we are told, is a version of Sonnet 144. Professor Bate compares the poem to those of others: "Shakespeare introduces...

Professor Dusinberre, in her introduction to AS YOU LIKE IT, wrote that "THE MERCHANT OF VENICE(1596-7) and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING(1598-9) feature in Portia and Beatrice powerful women who, like...

I botched the numbers in #474. Elizabeth was queen in 1558, not 48.

Happy New Year, Danik. And thanks so much for helping me stay on track. Professor Parrott suggested that Shakespeare himself had a kind of "sex obsession." This may in part be due to the fact that...

In Professor Kenneth Gross' fine book, SHYLOCK IS SHAKESPEARE, he comments on Shylock's last lines: "Shylock abruptly leaves the court; the Christian world wants to know no more about him, but it is...

When Bassanio asks Shylock, "Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?"(MV4.1.123), one might note that the line that precedes Bassanio's is Nerissa's: "From both. My lord Bellario greets your...

Back in post #83, Hawkman asks: "Why does Shylock want to kill Antonio?" He notes a long list. Drkshadow03 responds(#84) that the play is in part about the BIBLE. There we read in DEUTERONOMY as...

As Professor Julia Kristeva noted, R&J, as it has come down to us, was most likely written in late 1596 shortly after the loss of the author's son. It is therefore a kind of elegy. This may be why...

I should say that one might well argue that Ron Rosenbaum is a fan of team Portia as well as of team Shylock. Portia's "Tarry a little, there is something else"(MV4.1.313) seems to bring us all back...

Let's return to historian Michael Woods IN SEARCH OF SHAKESPEARE where he suggests that there are too many unanswered questions left at the end of the play. I think that we have seen that there are...

Thanks Danik. There are two villains in each play. The Duke says to Shylock: "How shalt thou hope for mercy rendering none?"(MV4.1.89). Therefore, the Duke believes that Antonio has done...

Back in post #280 we noted that Oliver in AS YOU LIKE IT echoes the first line of MV, spoken by Antonio. Editors note that Oliver's speech is spoken to the audience: "Farewell, good Charles. - Now...

It can be interesting to compare the anthology SHAW ON SHAKESPEARE with Ron Rosenbaum's THE SHAKESPEARE WARS. Edwin Wilson's introduction to the former begins: "For many people Bernard Shaw's...

As Professor Greenblatt noted, the death of Dr. Lopez , the Queen's physician, may have been noted by Shakespeare. There is a report that at the execution of Lopez, some in the audience giggled at...

In Bevington's introduction we also find: "Portia and Nerissa cleverly present their new husbands with a cruel choice:................The two husbands, who have vowed never to part with these...

I finally found the quote from the "Your favorite quote from Shakespeare" thread. She wrote only that it's from HAMLET: "Are you like the painting of a sorrow; a face without a...

Bevington's comments(#454) came about two years after Bloom's(#453). He was clearly responding to the man from Yale. We have seen that a single speech in the play can be cited to support opposing...

Let's return to Hazlitt's comments from 1817: "he becomes a half-favorite with the philosophical part of the audience who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian...

In Bevington's introduction, along with his notes regarding "paradox' and "ironies" we have "......spiritual as well as financial. Unless one recognizes these aspects of Bassanio's quest, as well as...

"I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Lancelot, if you thus get my wife into corners!" I remember my knee-jerk reaction to Graham Midgley's 1960 essay: "Boy is this guy out in left field. If...