In Fragments d’un discours amoreux, Roland Barthes presents “absence / absence” as integral to lovers’ discourse, defining it as such: “[a]ny episode of language which stages the absence of the loved object—whatever its cause and its duration—and which tends to transform this absence into an ordeal of abandonment” (Barthes 13). Staging the absence of loved ones is a central theme in the work of Maggie O’Farrell, whose novels frequently contemplate loss and bereavement, processes of remembering and forgetting, the dynamics and role allocations within the family, and the preciousness and fragility of life itself.
View More “Remember me”: Significant Absences and the Fragility of Family in Maggie O’Farrell’s HamnetTag: Shakespeare
Incipience and the Historical Subject
Every year at 4am on the Monday that follows Ash Wednesday, the street lighting is turned off in the city of Basel, north Switzerland. The “Morgestraich” precession that follows signals the start of the Fasnacht Carnival. During…
View More Incipience and the Historical SubjectShakespeare in the English National Curriculum
Cultural criticism and cultural histories of the development of English as a subject place special emphasis on the role of intellectuals, education and national identity…
View More Shakespeare in the English National CurriculumShakespeare and Lady Gaga
Revelling in Bad Romances; music video murders by poisonous catering and flame-throwing bras; elaborate (dis)guises involving raw meat…
View More Shakespeare and Lady Gaga