Essays on
Literature

by G.L. Horton

G.L. Horton's newest essays are now being posted on her stageblog.

My Favorite Playwrights?
Who is my favorite playwright? -- After Shakespeare who is above us all and more like a God than a favorite?

Dylan Thomas: Mad Genius? Crazy Drunken Artist?
Thomas wrote six poems as beautiful as any in the language, but his fame came as an ACTOR of poems, others' as well as his own. He communicated the sheer sensual pleasure of poetic language...

Dumbed down or just different?
BFB wrote: My point was that A Little Night Music is a dumbed down version of the original material. GLH replies: Is Cosi Fan Tutti lacking in substance? Is Rossini's Barber a dumbed down version of Beaumarche? . . .

Literature and Ideas
Hamlet is full of academic talk about religion. Tom Stoppard gets away with obscure academic stuff all the time, ditto Kushner, and Michael Frayn's not far behind them . . .

Poetry—Popular Entertainment?
KQK... writes: In an age with even fewer readers? What was the literacy rate in 1638 compared with today? GLH replies: What's with this literacy fixation? Poems are supposed to be recited from memory, and they were recited, and the popular ones remembered and the ones that didn't inspire popularity forgotten, long before anyone thought to write them down . . .

Poetry vs. Criticism—Who is a Poet?
KQK... writes: Somewhere you have to work in the idea that a poet is someone who knows what good poetry is, and then tries to create his/her own. GLH replies: I think this is heading down the wrong path . . .

Poetry—By Any Other Name?
JWK writes: Let's face it: poetry doesn't enjoy the popularity it once did. GLH replies: How many sets of song lyrics-- to say nothing of advertising jingles-- does the average person know well enough to sing along to? Hundreds? Thousands?

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