{"id":564,"date":"2010-01-08T09:54:19","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T09:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2010\/01\/shakespeare-as-political-analy.html"},"modified":"2010-01-08T09:54:19","modified_gmt":"2010-01-08T09:54:19","slug":"shakespeare-as-political-analy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/01\/shakespeare-as-political-analy.html","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare as political analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll freely admit that I hold in mild contempt anyone who dare not acknowledge Hamlet as the very pinnacle of Shakespeare&#8217;s work. While most of the Bard&#8217;s tales are worthy of the label masterpiece in their own right, Hamlet stands alone (as is appropriate, given his choler).<\/p>\n<p>However, Shakespeare&#8217;s genius was his wisdom about the human condition, and in many ways his observations &#8211; delivered as pithy quotes and comments by his characters across all his works &#8211; are truly timeless. It occurs to me that he had our modern day politics pegged, which gives me a kind of optimism. Here are just a few quotes that I found highly relevant, but there are surely more &#8211; feel free to suggest!<\/p>\n<p><b>MacBeth, Act I Scene 3<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>The Merchant of Venice, Act I Scene 3<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose&#8230; O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A friendly eye could never see such faults.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><b>As You Like It, Act V Scene 4<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>O Sir, we quarrel in print, by the book, as you have books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll freely admit that I hold in mild contempt anyone who dare not acknowledge Hamlet as the very pinnacle of Shakespeare&#8217;s work. While most of the Bard&#8217;s tales are worthy of the label masterpiece in their own right, Hamlet stands alone (as is appropriate, given his choler). However, Shakespeare&#8217;s genius was his wisdom about the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[351,25,26,350],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stranger-than-fiction","tag-literature","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-shakespeare"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Shakespeare as political analyst - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shakespeare as political analyst - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ll freely admit that I hold in mild contempt anyone who dare not acknowledge Hamlet as the very pinnacle of Shakespeare&#8217;s work. While most of the Bard&#8217;s tales are worthy of the label masterpiece in their own right, Hamlet stands alone (as is appropriate, given his choler). However, Shakespeare&#8217;s genius was his wisdom about the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2010\/01\/shakespeare-as-political-analy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-08T09:54:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Shakespeare as political analyst - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Shakespeare as political analyst - City of Brass","og_description":"I&#8217;ll freely admit that I hold in mild contempt anyone who dare not acknowledge Hamlet as the very pinnacle of Shakespeare&#8217;s work. 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City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}