Rhodri Lewis
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rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis
@rhodrilewis.bsky.social
2K followers 1.6K following 280 posts

Literature, ideas, history, the arts | Reading & writing & teaching | Shakespeare's Tragic Art out now from @princetonupress.bsky.social | Writing a life of Frank Kermode | bit.ly/2vbBoIN

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rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · 22d
I confess that I didn't give legal theory or practice a second thought when writing my book on the tragedies--but I'm extremely glad, and grateful, that Gary Watt has made me think again
doi.org/10.1017/S174...
Shakespeare’s Tragic Art By Rhodri Lewis , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024. 381 pp. | International Journal of Law in Context | Cambridge Core
Shakespeare’s Tragic Art By Rhodri Lewis , Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024. 381 pp.
doi.org

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

garethwatkins.bsky.social
Gareth Watkins @garethwatkins.bsky.social · Oct 28
New from me in the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social: the media seem determined to mainstream the ideas of Eliezer Yudkowsky, but they can't reckon with his bizarre (and very unserious) ideas about death.

www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/1...
The guru of the AI apocalypse
Eliezer Yudkowsky is confusing a very human obsession with death and a very modern fear of a techno-deity
www.newstatesman.com

Reposted by Talia Schaffer, Rhodri Lewis, Mary Burke

marshslibrary.bsky.social
Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · Oct 6
Delightful doodles of some pipe smoking Georgians found by Maddock Fellow Danielle Magnusson on the works of Ben Jonson, printed in 1616 #Readers #Epigrams
Bottom corner of a 17th century book showing drawings Title page of 'Epigrammes' by Ben Jonson, showing doodles at the bottom of the page

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Sep 11
The young David, per Vignon, looking uncannily like Helena Bonham-Carter

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Sep 11
Lovely to see this in a sort of hard copy

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

prospectmagazine.co.uk
Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Sep 4
1,174 pages and 69 chapters…but Ron Chernow’s massive Twain biography still manages to miss the mark, says @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.
How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark
This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

prospectmagazine.co.uk
Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 23
Ron Chernow has written biographies of Rockefeller, Washington and Hamilton—the latter of which inspired the famous musical. But his new book on Mark Twain is sub-par, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.
How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark
This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

prospectmagazine.co.uk
Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 19
Ron Chernow’s blockbusting biography tells us everything about American literature’s founding father, Mark Twain—except that which makes him interesting, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.
How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark
This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

prospectmagazine.co.uk
Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 16
Ron Chernow has written biographies of Rockefeller, Washington and Hamilton—the latter of which inspired the famous musical. But his new book on Mark Twain is sub-par, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.
How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark
This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Aug 15
Thank you!

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Aug 13
Thank you!

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

prospectmagazine.co.uk
Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Aug 12
Ron Chernow’s blockbusting biography tells us everything about American literature’s founding father, Mark Twain—except that which makes him interesting, writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.
www.prospectmagazine...
How Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain misses the mark
This blockbusting book tells us everything about American literature’s founding father—except that which makes him interesting
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 30
Four stages of an archive trip. 1. Excitement/fear at all the new stuff you might find. 2. Relief that all is actually quite manageable. 3. Surely there’ll be something to show for my two days sifting these uncatalogued boxes? 4. It is what it is.

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 30
So, if any of you have spotted typos in Shax's Tragic Art, I'd love to hear of them. (Am doing corrections for the paperback, and only have eight so far; there must be many more.)

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 12
Only thought crime!

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 11
"When Adam won Eve's hand, / He wouldn't stand for teasin'. / He didn't care about / Those apples out of season." Ambushed by Cole Porter on the train. Pleasingly.

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 8
Ended up being murdered, curiously enough...

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 8
Morris Shapira, “Critical Twiddle-Twaddle,” Delta 26 (1962): 10-21

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · Jul 8
“‘Al’ is a marketing term. It doesn't refer to a coherent set of technologies. Instead, the phrase …is deployed when the people building or selling a particular set of technologies will profit from getting others to believe that their tech is similar to humans”
Excellent & uncompromising.
Read it!
A copy in my hand of The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 7
The sheer energy that the Leavisites wasted in hating.

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 6
I've been lucky enough to have had some excellent discussions (podcast and otherwise) about Shakespeare's Tragic Art, but I think this set of questions may have been the best.
www.christianhumanist.org/2025/06/chri...
Christian Humanist Profiles 271: Shakespeare’s Tragic Art
Living among human beings gives an observant person plenty of occasions to think about delusion.  Whether one watches the young revolutionary or the aging politician, the conspiracy theorist or the…
www.christianhumanist.org

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 1
Pleasing to learn that when Stephen Spender went to Paris to investigate the 1968 student revolt (staying with his friends the Rothschilds), he was repeatedly mistaken for Marcuse.

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jul 1
Good to have reason to be back in here for a day.

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 18
Trying to figure out who this character from Kermode's autobiography was. "Paul H-F", undergrad at Liverpool in late 1930s. Ends up directing a molecular biology lab at Yale (or similar, I suppose, as Kermode may have been shielding). Have drawn a thoroughgoing blank. Thoughts?

Reposted by Rhodri Lewis

prospectmagazine.co.uk
Prospect Magazine @prospectmagazine.co.uk · Jun 18
“Muriel Spark led an implausible life,” writes @rhodrilewis.bsky.social.

Does Frances Wilson’s new biography, ELECTRIC SPARK, manage to capture the author’s complexity?
www.prospectmagazine...
Confronting the enigma of Muriel Spark
The novelist’s 1940s and 1950s resonated with mystical echoes of her past and future. Can a new biography capture this complexity?
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

Reposted by Valentina Bold

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 11
I enjoyed the chance to revisit Muriel Spark while reviewing Frances Wilson's new life of her for @prospectmagazine.co.uk.
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/7009...
Confronting the enigma of Muriel Spark
The novelist’s 1940s and 1950s resonated with mystical echoes of her past and future. Can a new biography capture this complexity?
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 5
Love it!

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 5
Have tried and failed to figure it out, but her work was "partly in anthopology, partly in English". They didn't hire her in the end, as they gave the person then doing the job (a fixed-term lectureship) an extra year.

rhodrilewis.bsky.social
Rhodri Lewis @rhodrilewis.bsky.social · Jun 5
Am amused by Kermode's response to being informed of E. H. Gombrich's opinion that a renaissance specialist he planned to hire at UCL was "not a scholar and never will be".