sologdin’s Reviews > The Complete Works > Status Update
sologdin
is on page 967 of 1344
Timon of Athens
Famous veteran is over generous and, like Lear, fails to recognize flattery--the same study as in Hamlet and regarding the attempt to read exterior signs on a person for their interior belief. His descent into hostis humani generis is contrasted with actual bandits and a Diogenean cynic philosopher. Here NB the wilderness does not cure the problems of the polis.
— 5 hours, 44 min ago
Famous veteran is over generous and, like Lear, fails to recognize flattery--the same study as in Hamlet and regarding the attempt to read exterior signs on a person for their interior belief. His descent into hostis humani generis is contrasted with actual bandits and a Diogenean cynic philosopher. Here NB the wilderness does not cure the problems of the polis.
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sologdin’s Previous Updates
sologdin
is on page 941 of 1344
History of King Lear
This collection made the decision that the Q and F versions of Lear are not reconcilable and thus amount to two plays rather than variants of one. So here is the Q version; F follows later in the volume. I note that the comic multi-adultery of Falstaff in MWW is here played straight--the tragic result is emblematic of conflating oikos and polis, which is this text's focus.
— Mar 05, 2026 06:35AM
This collection made the decision that the Q and F versions of Lear are not reconcilable and thus amount to two plays rather than variants of one. So here is the Q version; F follows later in the volume. I note that the comic multi-adultery of Falstaff in MWW is here played straight--the tragic result is emblematic of conflating oikos and polis, which is this text's focus.
sologdin
is on page 907 of 1344
Othello
Always marvelous. This time through, I'm seeing Iago as a prototype politics of ressentiment right populist figure. He resents an educated foreigner promoted over him by another foreigner who happens to be dark-complected and married to a local woman. It's the normal nihilistic recipe of Trump-voter concerns, with fears of other religions, miscegenation, purported elitism in expertise, and so on.
— Mar 03, 2026 10:38AM
Always marvelous. This time through, I'm seeing Iago as a prototype politics of ressentiment right populist figure. He resents an educated foreigner promoted over him by another foreigner who happens to be dark-complected and married to a local woman. It's the normal nihilistic recipe of Trump-voter concerns, with fears of other religions, miscegenation, purported elitism in expertise, and so on.
sologdin
is on page 871 of 1344
Measure for Measure
Perhaps my favorite play of his, this one takes on anti-theatrical puritan writings and eviscerates them. We see it in the spectacle created out of sacrament in the duke's disguise but also in the stage-managed creation of Angelo's lust by means of a theater of chastity during an official court appeal. The defense of theater s a general institution couldn't be stronger.
— Feb 28, 2026 07:21AM
Perhaps my favorite play of his, this one takes on anti-theatrical puritan writings and eviscerates them. We see it in the spectacle created out of sacrament in the duke's disguise but also in the stage-managed creation of Angelo's lust by means of a theater of chastity during an official court appeal. The defense of theater s a general institution couldn't be stronger.
sologdin
is on page 842 of 1344
Sir Thomas More
A collaboration, this play presents More's handling of the insurrection of 1517 (xenophobic riots) via cosmopolitan reasoning, then moves to his refusal to sign the king's articles, as a matter of conscience. It strikes a balance between the limits of popular sovereignty and royal prerogative. It's a mess, and wasn't licensed in its time for fear of inciting more nativist riots.
— Feb 27, 2026 07:44AM
A collaboration, this play presents More's handling of the insurrection of 1517 (xenophobic riots) via cosmopolitan reasoning, then moves to his refusal to sign the king's articles, as a matter of conscience. It strikes a balance between the limits of popular sovereignty and royal prerogative. It's a mess, and wasn't licensed in its time for fear of inciting more nativist riots.
sologdin
is on page 811 of 1344
Sonnets, 'The Lover's Complaint,' &c.
No. 126 marks the end of the sonnets addressed to the idealized youth, and then we get grotesque realism regarding the 'dark lady.' 126 itself is incomplete, a disruption of the form that matches the content, say. It's tempting to read the paired 'Lover's Complaint' back into the sonnets as a sort of key, insofar as it is nuanced and the sonnets are laden with grievance.
— Feb 25, 2026 10:11AM
No. 126 marks the end of the sonnets addressed to the idealized youth, and then we get grotesque realism regarding the 'dark lady.' 126 itself is incomplete, a disruption of the form that matches the content, say. It's tempting to read the paired 'Lover's Complaint' back into the sonnets as a sort of key, insofar as it is nuanced and the sonnets are laden with grievance.
sologdin
is on page 776 of 1344
Troilus & Cressida
Menippean satire in the theatre, maybe. Pandarus is a director, stage-managing the central affair--but he is also erotically involved as a spectator of that affair. Bequeathing his 'diseases' to the audience is to critique the mechanism by which an audience spies on the intimacy of others on stage.
— Feb 19, 2026 08:26AM
Menippean satire in the theatre, maybe. Pandarus is a director, stage-managing the central affair--but he is also erotically involved as a spectator of that affair. Bequeathing his 'diseases' to the audience is to critique the mechanism by which an audience spies on the intimacy of others on stage.
sologdin
is on page 742 of 1344
Twelfth Night
I love this one, but on rereading again here, it seems like it's just pieces of other plays snipped out and switched around. The twinfoolery linked to madness is pure COE, and the cruel exclusion of Malvolio has a piece of MOV, even if it lacks a plain axis of oppression, as opposed to how Shylock is handled. Cross-dressing is MOV and AYL, whereas mass marriage is those plus MAN and MND.
— Feb 17, 2026 06:51PM
I love this one, but on rereading again here, it seems like it's just pieces of other plays snipped out and switched around. The twinfoolery linked to madness is pure COE, and the cruel exclusion of Malvolio has a piece of MOV, even if it lacks a plain axis of oppression, as opposed to how Shylock is handled. Cross-dressing is MOV and AYL, whereas mass marriage is those plus MAN and MND.
sologdin
is on page 718 of 1344
Hamlet
A consideration of the opacity of another's interior. Despite the protagonist's certainty and incidental correctness, the epistemological problem is not resolved by the play-within-the-play. That the ghost's testimony itself is rooted in the normal problem of a history play's moral universe being determined by the arbitrary point of theatrical intervention does nothing to enhance interpretive clarity.
— Feb 16, 2026 05:58AM
A consideration of the opacity of another's interior. Despite the protagonist's certainty and incidental correctness, the epistemological problem is not resolved by the play-within-the-play. That the ghost's testimony itself is rooted in the normal problem of a history play's moral universe being determined by the arbitrary point of theatrical intervention does nothing to enhance interpretive clarity.
sologdin
is on page 680 of 1344
As You Like It
Superficially similar to MND, with its forest setting, erotic misrecognitions, and mass marriage, the structural analogue here is really Richard III, focusing on fraternal conflict. Richard famously murders his brother, but this one avoids that result by virtue of reconciliations, achieved perhaps impossibly, but provides a window on how fratricidal tragedy is averted.
— Feb 14, 2026 11:29AM
Superficially similar to MND, with its forest setting, erotic misrecognitions, and mass marriage, the structural analogue here is really Richard III, focusing on fraternal conflict. Richard famously murders his brother, but this one avoids that result by virtue of reconciliations, achieved perhaps impossibly, but provides a window on how fratricidal tragedy is averted.
sologdin
is on page 654 of 1344
Julius Caesar
Against the backdrop of mass slavery, apprehended directly herein only in moments of death scene manumission, the optimate faction proclaims to be defending 'liberty' whereas the populares faction instrumentalize even their own aristocrats and issue proscription bills by fiat. The normal problem of history plays obtains here: the intervention elides much to focus precariously on ethics.
— Feb 12, 2026 06:48AM
Against the backdrop of mass slavery, apprehended directly herein only in moments of death scene manumission, the optimate faction proclaims to be defending 'liberty' whereas the populares faction instrumentalize even their own aristocrats and issue proscription bills by fiat. The normal problem of history plays obtains here: the intervention elides much to focus precariously on ethics.
