Steeped in Shakespeare
“Shakespeare's plays were ubiquitous in antebellum America. They inhabited the schoolbooks, including Scott's Lessons in Elocution, which Lincoln read as a boy. Dozens of editions circulated through the states and territories. The plays visited rural and urban stages in scenes and declamatory excerpts as well as larger productions, and crystallized a turning point in the Webster-Hayne debate of 1830, in which senators disputing the future of the union and the territories alleged blame for the political crisis by fighting over the significance of Banquo's ghost.”
Who in our political class today even knows who Banquo is? But then I don’t know how to earmark millions of dollars to special interests. So I guess we’ll call it even.
And now for something completely different:
No comments:
Post a Comment