We are not Shakespeare scholars. We have neither the education, resources, or frankly the intelligence to engage with Shakespeare’s work the way anyone who’s actually published a paper about Shakespeare does.

We are amateurs.

But none of the names we’re talking about today are amateurs. All of them have left some sort of important imprint on the study of Shakespeare. And we've rounded up the highlights and put our own Bicks-ified spin on it for your listening pleasure. We hope you'll enjoy!

Links:

• A decent history summary (via Encyclopedia Britannica) 
• Another quick summary of big names
• Francis Meres:
  • https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/palladis-tamia-one-earliest-printed-assessments-shakespeares-works-and-first
• John Weever:
  • https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/epigrams-oldest-cut-critical-responses-and-allusions-shakespeare-and-three-his
• Ben Jonson:
  • https://literatureessaysamples.com/a-biting-elegy-ben-jonson-on-shakespeare/
• John Dryden:
  • https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_97-01/973_dryden.html
• Alexander Pope:
  • http://jacklynch.net/Texts/pope-shakespeare.html
• Samuel Johnson:
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/24776308
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
  • http://theshakespeareblog.com/2015/10/samuel-taylor-coleridge-and-shakespeare/
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
  • https://frenchquest.com/2020/12/01/goethe-on-shakespeare-a-tribute-1771/
• New Criticism:
  • https://whatapieceofwork.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/the-new-criticism/
• Northrop Frye:
  • https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442689886
• Stephen Greenblat:
  • https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/books/review/will-in-the-world-reinventing-shakespeare.html
• Feminist Criticism:
  • https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Feminist-criticism-and-gender-studies
• Deconstructionist:
  • http://ejournals.org.uk/bjll/%5Bpp3-pp12%5D_ARTICLE_1.pdf
• Shakespeare in Africa:
  • https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Shakespeare_in_Africa
• Shakespeare in Asia:
  • https://asiatimes.com/2016/12/asian-scholarship-william-shakespeare-second-none/
• Shakespeare in Central/South America:
  • https://www.wordtrade.com/literature/shakespeareR.htm
• Shakespeare in Indigenous Contexts:
  • https://fellowsblog.ted.com/why-shakespeare-deserves-a-native-american-perspective-fd5ab5ba556e
  • https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2019-10-15/native-american/umaine-lecture-why-native-theater-is-embracing-shakespeare/a68040-1

Ancient Bickerings

Which academic school (if any) would you describe the other one belonging to?