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Foreigners Understand Shakespeare Better than English-Speakers

Foreigners Understand Shakespeare Better than English-Speakers

by David Tollen | Sep 6, 2022 | The Early Modern Age, Linguistics & Philology

It’s a sad reality, but English-speakers understand Shakespeare less than anyone else. That’s because foreigners regularly translate the bard’s plays — into German, Spanish, Mandarin, etc. — so they’re free to use language they...
“Thay”: Gender-Neutral Pronoun

“Thay”: Gender-Neutral Pronoun

by David Tollen | Oct 5, 2021 | The Postclassical Age (Medieval History), The Early Modern Age, Linguistics & Philology

Here’s a crazy idea that might work. In English, “they” has become the preferred third person singular pronoun, for gender-neutral use. But of course, we use the same pronoun for the third person plural. That creates confusion. Why not revise the...

See the Face of Richard III

by David Tollen | Sep 4, 2013 | The Postclassical Age (Medieval History)

This is cool. King Richard III has been a subject of mystery for more than 500 years. Did he really murder his little nephews, “the Princes in the Tower”? Did he really have a hunchback? Was he as evil as the lead character in Shakespeare’s Richard...

“Anonymous” and the Shakespeare Controversy

by David Tollen | Oct 30, 2011 | The Early Modern Age

Don’t let lukewarm reviews fool you: Anonymous is a really good movie. It includes some far-fetched plot-twists, but overall it builds a compelling drama out of the theory that William Shakespeare did not write Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and the other...
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