The Iconoclast - New English Review

Monday, 31 October 2011

Crown of Horns: Male Self-Betrayal in Shakespeare

by David P. Gontar (November 2011)

Tell me where is cuckold bred -
Or in the heart, or in the head?
Is it merely fantasy,
Or what we truly want to be?

I. The Self-Cuckolding of a Trojan

There are passages in Shakespeare that seem to leap off the page as though composed yesterday. A good example occurs in Troilus and Cressida, where two lovers, about to launch an affair, cynically take the measure of male potency in relation to female desire. The results are revealing, and not particularly reassuring. more>>>

Posted on 10/31/2011 2:18 PM by NER

Comments

3 Nov 2011

We already have Theodore Dalrymple (a doctor) for some years on this site and now a successful lawyer writing wonderful literary essays with a focus on Shakespeare. Keep it up, the humanities may need some input for quite a long time from people with a wider experience of life and mercifully uncorrupted by the current specialist university faculties and their preposterous "postmodernity".

I'm 18 and have applied to medical school- but I prefer literature to most science if I have spare time to do some reading. It is encouraging for me to see things like this, even if I cannot see myself ever being a professional critic or journalist on top of my main career.