I feel I would be remiss in not mentioning how happy the latest Hark, a Vagrant made me.

Also, while I am here and recommending things connected in some degree to Shakespeare's histories: Francis the Tapster fic! Because awesome.

Dying, Scarlet (733 words) by Lilliburlero
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare
Rating: Teen And Up ( Read more... )

Are this year's Bad Sex Award finalists (link obviously nsfw) awfully disappointing? Like, one of them really just made me hungry for pudding. Actual pudding, I hasten to add (although it's British so probably a Bakewell pudding isn't what I'm picturing when I see the word "pudding," and also, the word "pudding" has just grown completely ( Read more... )

eMusic has an article up called The 13 Grisliest Murder Ballads of All Time.

Now, this includes both traditional songs and not (Eminem's "Stan" is on there), But seriously, any list of the grisliest murder ballads that includes legitimate folk songs but not Long Lankin or Child Owlet -- possibly the most violent of the Child canon -- is not to be ( Read more... )

Because once again she's where I first saw the Stratfordian link of the day: Wouldn't It Be Cool if Shakespeare Wasn't Shakespeare?

Besides, no argument could ever possibly sway the Oxfordian crowd. They are the prophets of truthiness. “It couldn’t have been Shakespeare,” they say. “How could a semiliterate country boy have composed works of such ( Read more... )

nineweaving linked to the National Archive's paleography tutorial a couple of days ago, and I have sort of become addicted to it, because it is fun and because I feel sort of inept for having a Ph.D. in Renaissance lit and yet being unable to read Elizabethan secretary hand (although granted it is pretty hard to read). If I could actually go to the British ( Read more... )

Thing that annoys me greatly: this article, which argues that the sonnets prove that Shakespeare was gay and found women repulsive

Thing that annoys me equally greatly: comments to said article which are all "ZOMG NO SHAKESPEARE WASN'T GAY ELIZABETHANS WERE JUST LIKE THAT ABOUT MALE FRIENDSHIP."

*slaps everybody with fish*THIS IS WHY WE HAVE THE ( Read more... )

The Swinger is a Python hack that works "by taking each beat and time-stretching the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half," according to the blog post I'm linking. And it is SO NEAT ( Read more... )

A List of Things Posted To My Tumblr (and Facebook) Today In Honor of Shakespeare's Birthday (OBSERVED, THERE, BETH, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW):

VIDEOS

( Final scene of Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night )

Pursuant to yesterday's post on the stupidest study ever conducted: Got Medieval comments on it, explaining both their methodology!fail and their art history!fail.

Quite possibly the stupidest study I have ever seen. Some douche analyzed the size of the food relative to the size of the heads in paintings of the Last Supper and concluded OH NOES WE ARE ALL DOOMED.

*beats head repeatedly against desk*

I do not even know where to START. So here, have some better links:

An open letter to conservatives, written ( Read more... )