Not Shakespeare for the fall - Ben Jonson's best, plenty of revenge, and the New Shakespeareans

What I Read in August 2026 – what he hopes to gain from all this knowledge

What I Read in July 2026 – Some links found verbal form, others remained mere promises, mist, soft approximations of thought.

<i>The Dutch Courtesan</i> by John Marston - They sell their bodies; do not better persons sell their souls?

George Chapman's <i>All Fools</i> - some wit, some wealth

Misreading Thomas Mann's <i>Doctor Fasutus</i> correctly - who has not felt how aestheticism prepares the way for barbarism in one’s own soul

Thomas Heywood's early melodrama <i>A Woman Killed by Kindness</i> - I’ll say you wept, I’ll swear you made me sad

Getting a bit heavy-handed, aren’t you, Inspector? - some British culture via <i>An Inspector Calls</i>

<i>The Malcontent</i> by John Marston - Come down, thou ragged cur, and snarl here

<i>The Tragedy of Hoffman</i> by Henry Chettle - The first step to revenge

John Marston's <i>Antonio and Mellida</i> and <i>Antonio's Revenge</i> - Here’s flesh and blood which I am sure thou lov’st

Thomas Dekker's <i>The Shoemaker's Holiday</i> - hire him, good master, that I may learn some gibble-gabble; ‘twill make us work the faster

You, that have so graced monsters, may like men - <i>Every Man in His Humour</i>

Kawabata's <i>The Sound of the Mountain</i> - He began to feel that there was some sort of special little world apart over behind the shrubbery

What I Read in November 2025 – The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike

Not Shakespeare for next year - Jonson, Marston, satire, revenge

<i>Edward III</i> - This fellow is well read in poetry

Marlowe's restless <i>Doctor Faustus</i> - I’ll burn my books!

History before Shakespeare - <i>The Famous Victories of Henry V</i> - he hath taken the great raze of ginger that Bouncing Bess with the jolly buttocks should have had

<i>The Spanish Tragedy</i> - Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds!

Marlowe's <i>Tamburlaine</i> plays - Threatening the world with high astounding terms

Where I Walked in September 2025, and with Whom – The great affair is to move

Christopher Marlowe's <i>Dido, Queen of Carthage</i> - for I love thee not, – And yet I hate thee not.

The magician becomes a bureaucrat - what Alejo Carpentier's <i>The Kingdom of This World</i> is about

<i>Gammer Gurton's Needle</i> - it would have made thee beshit thee / For laughter