Writing Because I Can
Feb. 5th, 2024 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo It's cold. it's damp, there's a muscly wind blowing. It's February.
I might read some more Elizabethan/Jacobean drama. It's good stuff. The theatres were roaring like furnaces and a whole tribe of ambitious, clever young men were feeding the flames. This happens in the arts every so often: all the talent gets funneled into one pariicular art form. For the Jacobethans it was drama. In 17th century Holland it was painting. In the mid 20th century across the English speaking world it was rock music. Always there's one name that stands out from the welter- Shakespeare, Rembrandt, the Beatles.
Actually I've already started reading other Shakespeare-era stuff. I've got the White Devil on the go...
I nearly got into Cambridge. I think I flunked the interviews. I remember one interview in particular. This high-powered don asked me about my Eng Lit favourites. And I said "Jacobean Drama". What I should have said is "I adore the Duchess of Malfi". So the inevitable happened and he asked me a question about the Revenger's Tragedy. I had read the Revenger's Tragedy but i wasn't that enthralled by it- so I floundered.
The Duchess of Malfi is so bloody good. Very different from Shakespeare. Very studied. And Webster is one of our greatest poets. It's odd how little we know about him. We don't even have his dates of birth and death. Most of his output is hackwork, collaboration- and then- apparently back to back- he produced two great plays.
I didn't really mind not going to Cambridge. As it happens I went there later- as a theological student. It wasn't the cheeriest experience of my life....
I might read some more Elizabethan/Jacobean drama. It's good stuff. The theatres were roaring like furnaces and a whole tribe of ambitious, clever young men were feeding the flames. This happens in the arts every so often: all the talent gets funneled into one pariicular art form. For the Jacobethans it was drama. In 17th century Holland it was painting. In the mid 20th century across the English speaking world it was rock music. Always there's one name that stands out from the welter- Shakespeare, Rembrandt, the Beatles.
Actually I've already started reading other Shakespeare-era stuff. I've got the White Devil on the go...
I nearly got into Cambridge. I think I flunked the interviews. I remember one interview in particular. This high-powered don asked me about my Eng Lit favourites. And I said "Jacobean Drama". What I should have said is "I adore the Duchess of Malfi". So the inevitable happened and he asked me a question about the Revenger's Tragedy. I had read the Revenger's Tragedy but i wasn't that enthralled by it- so I floundered.
The Duchess of Malfi is so bloody good. Very different from Shakespeare. Very studied. And Webster is one of our greatest poets. It's odd how little we know about him. We don't even have his dates of birth and death. Most of his output is hackwork, collaboration- and then- apparently back to back- he produced two great plays.
I didn't really mind not going to Cambridge. As it happens I went there later- as a theological student. It wasn't the cheeriest experience of my life....
