Samuel Lawrence’s 1864 painting of Trollope — my favorite of all the images (I don’t have it in color) Dear readers and friends, Over on Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two, under the stress of the usual stigmatization and occasional spiteful harassment I have to endure where I teach as an adjunct lecturer, I [...]
Archive for January, 2012
How I came to read almost all Trollope
Posted in 19th century novels, cyberspace, listserve life, Net life, Trollope, tagged online reading on January 29, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Susanna Centlivre’s The Gaming [Basset] Table at the Folger
Posted in 18th century, 18th century poetry, Costume drama, Plays, Theater, women's art, tagged Basset Table, Folger theater, Marguerite Gerard, susannah Centlvre on January 27, 2012 | 2 Comments »
The actual table Dear friends and readers, Last night Jim and I went to the Folger Shakespeare theater to see an adaptation of Susannah Centlivre’s The Basset Table. I want to recommend seeing it, urge readers who live in the DC area or not far away to come and enjoy. They (everyone involved it seemed) [...]
The HD Enchanted Island: Opera mash-up
Posted in 18th century, Italian culture, later 17th century, Met HDOperas, Music, opera, sexual experience, Theater, tagged cross-dressing, Dryden/Davenant, Enchanted Island, HD opera, shakespeare, the Met on January 22, 2012 | 10 Comments »
Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) in the midst of a nightmare Dear friends and readers, From the Baroque period we have had opera seria and opera buffa. Now we have opera mash-up. The Met is attempting to dignify their daring creation with a pedigree by using the word “pasticcio.” Not only in opera, but on the legitimate [...]
Foremother Poet: Amy Clampitt (1920-94) amid the thrushes
Posted in 18th century poetry, 19th century poetry, feminism, Foremother Poetry, painting, Plays, Poetry, women's poetry, women's art, tagged Amy Clampitt, birds, thrush poetry on January 19, 2012 | 6 Comments »
Amy Clampitt A Thrush singing in Dorsetshire Dear friends and readers, This foremother poet blog on Amy Clampitt, is done differently from most. I was so taken by her “The Hermit Thrush” after reading a review in Women’s Review of Books of a newly published book of her poems, that I wrote a brief foremother [...]
Graphic Novels: Audrey Niffenegger, Posy Simmonds among other treasures
Posted in book history, comic poetry, girls books, novels of sensibility, romance, women's memoirs, women's novels, women's art, tagged Audrey Niffenegger, elizabeth gaskell, Gemma Bovary, graphic novels, Posy Simmonds, Tamara Drewe on January 14, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Beth Hardiman, from Tamara Drewe Alexandra, from The Night Bookmobile Dear friends and readers, A couple of years ago now I became aware of how graphic novels have grown up; they are no longer fancied up comic books; the art and words can be as complex and moving as many a sheer verbal longer novel. [...]
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 2011
Posted in 20th century culture, Costume drama, feminism, film studies, Movies, mystery-suspense, political novels/films, politics, tagged Le Carre, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on January 8, 2012 | 12 Comments »
Gary Oldman (got up to recall Alec Guiness, but he himself resembles and is photographed to recall LeCarre himself): George Smiley now Dear friends and readers, I went to see this yesterday with Izzy and we both liked it very much. I recommend it as a superbly well done commercially oriented film — as were [...]
Margaret Woffington and Frances Abingdon, hard-working material girls in material worlds
Posted in 18th century, 18thcentury actresses, actresses, feminism, Plays, Theater, women's memoirs, women's art, tagged actresses, catherine clive, female archetypes, francis abdingdon, Mary Robinson, peg woffiington, sarah siddons. george anna bellamy, susannah cibber on January 3, 2012 | 10 Comments »
An imagined portrait of Margaret Woffington’s first interview with theater-owner and manager, John Rich (whose theater harbored many cats is the joke) Francis Abingdon as Lady Bab in in Burgoyne’s Fair Maid of the Oats by John Hickey Dear friends and readers, On and off for the past couple of months, I’ve been reading Felicity [...]
