Fun fact: When I was sixteen years old, I won a literature scholarship for a creative writing portfolio on tragedy. The portfolio itself was utter garbage, and I cringe even at the thought of the pieces I wrote (I defy anyone to be a good writer at age sixteen), but nonetheless, I’m proud of my […]
Read more "The Tower and Shakespearean Tragedy"The illustrious Benebell Wen recently published a video with her thoughts about soulmates and true love. It’s a fun topic, and one I had previously promised to delve into, so I figured I’d throw out some ideas on the subject. I’ll be frank. I’m a hopeless fricking romantic. It’s really, really bad. For all that […]
Read more "True Love, the Lovers, and the Two of Cups: A Response to Benebell Wen"It’s been a long time since I’ve written a Shakespeare post. Let’s change that. When I say “Shakespearean lovers”, your mind probably goes straight to Romeo and Juliet. Or maybe Antony and Cleopatra. Either way, it’s doubtless a vision of overwhelmingly sappy, passionate love affairs, of True Love™ and destiny and flowery sonnets. But in […]
Read more "Shakespearean Lovers, Competition, and the Five of Wands"One of the first Shakespeare plays I truly fell in love with was King Lear. There’s something incredible about that play, about the sheer scope of it. I first read it when I was maybe twelve or thirteen, and I felt that somehow, this one text contained within it the entirety of the human experience. […]
Read more "“I am not what I am”: Iago, the Moon, and the Disingenuous Soul"At some point in the not-too-distant past, I talked about the mental connection I make between the Magician and the character of Prospero from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Here, I’d like to look at two more Shakespeare characters in connection with the Tarot: Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Read more "Oberon and Titania: The Emperor and Empress"I’m a huge Shakespeare nerd. I always have been. Well, not always, I suppose. I wasn’t born spouting lines from Macbeth. But ever since itty-bitty Jack first read a kids’ version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I have been in love with Shakespeare as an expression of all that is fundamentally human. So today, kids, we’re going to […]
Read more "The Magician, Prospero, and Doctor Faustus"
Jack Chanek 