Etymology gleanings for August 2022
The history of “cheek by jowl” and especially the pronunciation of “jowl” could serve as the foundation of a dramatic plot, says the Oxford Etymologist in this week’s blog post.
East and west the preachers mouth: St. Anne Blackfriars in early modern London
The experience of churchgoing at St Anne’s was undoubtedly shaped by the unconventional situation and layout of the place of worship, but in ways that are now hard to recover. Religious experience, like any other, is embodied experience that unfolds in particular spaces and physical conditions. St Anne’s parishioners may have considered the unorthodox nature of their worship space an unhappy accident of history, or they may just as readily have imbued it with special symbolic significance, making it an important focus of their collective identity.
Monument: what did Shakespeare look like?
In this OUPblog, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ presents a compelling case that Shakespeare designed his own funerary monument: a memorial less about death than about a life of accomplishment.
Has Russian journalism returned to Soviet era restrictions?
Simon Huxtable explores the history of Russian journalism in the Soviet Union and asks how, or whether, it compares to the situation of Russian journalists after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Bequest: why did Shakespeare bequeath his wife a “second-best” bed?
In this OUPblog, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ explores why Shakespeare left Anne Hathaway his “second-best” bed – and what this tells us about their relationship.
What does UK law say about strikes?
Every day there are reports of further strikes. Chaos on the railways, airlines, teachers, the NHS: the list goes on. Whilst strikes cause huge disruption for the public, they are also one of the few levers available to employees to bargain for their position. This blog post looks at what the main rights and requirements are, both for employers and employees, once a strike has been called.
Wedding: how did Shakespeare become a London playwright?
In this OUPblog post, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ asks: just when was Shakespeare’s birthday?
A democracy, if we can keep it
At this fearful time in American democracy, the best way to starve anti-democratic forces of their energy is to change the subject away from conservative religion and demand investment in civic education, democratic localism, and human rights.
Religion: was Shakespeare raised Catholic?
In this OUPblog post, Lena Cowen Orlin, author of the “detailed and dazzling” ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ asks, was Shakespeare raised Catholic, and what role did his father, John, play.
Cut out characters and cracky plots: Jacob’s Room as Shakespeare play
“Why, within the world of the novel, is Jacob unknowable? He is the hero of a Shakespeare play.” Emily Kopley uses Virginia Woolf’s letters with her brother to examine her first experimental novel, “Jacob’s Room”.
Pulling the whole length of one’s leg
Today, most English speakers will recognize the idiom: to pull one’s leg means “to deceive playfully, to tease.” Its origin has not been discovered. I usually stay away from guesswork, but in a blog, vague conjectures may not do anyone any harm.
A summer playlist inspired by Oxford World’s Classics
To help curate your summer playlist and reading list, here are 10 songs and Oxford World’s Classics we recommend you add to your rotation:
Democracy at work? France’s uncertain political future [long read]
In the last of our essays, we discuss the unexpected outcome of the legislative elections and look back on the electoral cycle as a whole. What does French politics look like after a series of fractious campaigns? And do the results offer any hope for the future?
Spelling Reform and after
In this blog post, the Oxford Etymologist discussed the English Spelling Reform movement.
Classical music, privilege, and ghosts of the French Revolution
The word privilege is a lightning rod in United States culture. For some, it indexes systemic inequities shaped by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, while for others, it represents a “woke” vocabulary used to enforce political correctness. Perhaps unsurprisingly, accusations of privilege have reached the classical music world.
The perennial problem of succession [long read]
These days it is perhaps difficult to put oneself emphatically into a world in which the dynastic realm appeared for most men as the only imaginable ‘political’ system”, writes Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities, his seminal book on the origins of modern nationalism. But this was the world a large majority of all Europeans lived in before the French Revolution and in many cases up until the First World War.