Tag: Hamlet

2,276 words

Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet, adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, is a stunning and introspective story about passages, transfiguration, and the tug of war between male and female spirituality. It begins in a forest, where Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) curls up at the base of a huge, primeval tree with a dark tunnel leading to the underworld, or so it seems. (more…)

2,016 words

Part 2 (Read Part 1 here)

Tiberius vs. Agrippina (AD 27-33)

There were few imperial tables more treacherous than a Roman emperor’s. The less one ate at those gatherings, the better – except if one’s name was Agrippina, granddaughter of Emperor Augustus. (more…)

Johann (Jan) Toorop, Stefan George, 1896; George took great pride in the fact that his profile favored that of Dante’s.

4,669 words

Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)

Stefan George’s Dead Poets Society

The chapters about Stefan George (1868-1933) and those of his inner circle are the most interesting and even-handed of the book. Unlike Nietzsche, George was not primarily a philosopher, but a poet. His verse, however, was deeply influenced by French symbolism, as well as Nietzsche’s muscular ideas that emphasized will, vigor, and a profound dislike of both bourgeois conservatism and egalitarian progressivism. Höfele claims that “the native idiom” of George’s poetry doesn’t translate well. (more…)

4,825 words

Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

Andreas Höfele
No Hamlets: German Shakespeare from Nietzsche to Carl Schmitt
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016

The hardest book reviews to write are those that deal with material that I have enjoyed, but cannot recommend. This is the case for Andreas Höfele’s No Hamlets: German Shakespeare from Nietzsche to Carl Schmitt. Höfele teaches English literature at Munich University, and he has written other books and articles on Elizabethan and Victorian stagecraft, as well as six novels. (more…)

1,521 words

Robert Eggers’ The Northman, a retelling of the medieval Scandinavian legend of Amleth, is a masterful tribute to the Viking era. Eggers recreates the world of the Vikings with painstaking attention to detail and great respect for his subject.

Eggers does not have Right-wing sympathies. He has condemned the so-called “misappropriation” of the Vikings by White Nationalists. Yet his dogged commitment to authenticity has resulted in a film of which Joseph Goebbels would approve. (more…)