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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 8d

Thanks for introducing me to this poet!

Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 8d

Yes ‘on his arm’ is a bit tricky; but it seems to be very much about what she sees — or what the sun “showed” — rather than an objective description?

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Reposted by Philip Schwyzer

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 8d

This is really hard to read. And the thing that is sitting with me the most about it is that it has always legal and possible to do this for decades. The only thing preventing this from having been the norm was a sense of humanity.

This is why we need structural reform. Not just a change in admin.

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 8d

This passage nearly broke me.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 8d

The transformation of what had seemed mundane into something transcendent is perhaps the whole point. Like Yeats in 'Easter 1916': 'changed, changed utterly / a terrible beauty is born.' Only Milligan doesn't feel obliged to acknowledge anything 'terrible' in what she's witnessed.

I dunno, maybe?

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 8d

Maybe something like this Bronze Age 'sun disk'? (Too early for Cuchulainn, but I wonder if objects like these might have featured in Gaelic Revival era illustrations.)
www.ashmolean.org/ballyshanon-...

BALLYSHANNON 'SUN DISC'

This small decorated gold-foil disc was found in 1669 at Ballyshannon, Ireland, by men looking for a place described in an old Irish song where 'a man of a gigantick stature' was buried with gold orna...

www.ashmolean.org

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 8d

Okay, hear me out, what if the dish is just a dish? Probably made of tin, carried by the prisoner as he's on his way to eat or detailed to do washing up? Nothing special at all.

BUT -- caught in the light, it is transformed! Suddenly it resembles the kind of ornament Cuchulainn might have worn. 1/

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Reposted by Philip Schwyzer

Owen Jones @owenjones.bsky.social · 9d

This means that it is now Labour’s official position that Israel is committing genocide.

While at the same time, the Labour government continues to arm that genocide

Absolutely extraordinary!

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 11d

'There's a divinity' is understandably popular as an epitaph, sometimes with interesting variations:

FATE RULES OUR DESTINIES ROUGH HEW THEM AS WE MAY

THERE IS A DIVINITY THAT SHAPES OUR ENDS
ROUGH HEW THEM HOW WE MAY.
A GREAT INNINGS.

(Is that a lost line from Shakespeare's play?)

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 12d

What an incredible poet, what a loss

James Loxley @oldnorthroad.bsky.social · 12d

Tony Harrison, poet
1937-2025

The last stanzas of Tony Harrison’s poem v, first published in 1985:

Next millennium you'll have to search quite hard to find out where I'm buried but I'm near the grave of haberdasher Appleyard, the pile of HARPs, or some new neonned beer.
Find Byron, Wordsworth, or turn left between one grave marked Broadbent, one marked Richardson.
Bring some solution with you that can clean whatever new crude words have been sprayed on.
If love of art, or love, gives you affront that the grave I'm in's graffitied then, maybe, erase the more offensive FUCK and CUNT but leave, with the worn UNITED, one small v.
Victory? For vast, slow, coal-creating forces that hew the body's seams to get the soul.
Will Earth run out of her 'diurnal courses' before repeating her creation of black coal?
But choose a day like I chose in mid-May or earlier when apple and hawthorn tree, no matter if boys boot their ball all day, cling to their blossoms and won't shake them free.
If, having come this far, somebody reads these verses, and he/she wants to understand, face this grave on Beeston Hill, your back to Leeds, and read the chiselled epitaph I've planned:
Beneath your feet's a poet, then a pit.
Poetry supporter, if you're here to find
how poems can grow from (beat you to it!) SHIT
find the beef, the beer, the bread, then look behind.

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Reposted by Philip Schwyzer

Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 13d

📢NEW MAILING LIST FOR CEMS!📢

Exeter's Centre for #EarlyModern Studies recently switched to a JiscMail list to allow people to join/unsubscribe more easily.

FYI: we often host hybrid 🗃️ events.

Interested? Instructions on how to join the mailing list are here:

www.exeter.ac.uk/research/cen...

Centre for Early Modern Studies | Centre for Early Modern Studies | University of Exeter

www.exeter.ac.uk

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 12d

BTW, 'buxom' is almost certainly meant to sound silly here. OED uses this quote to claim that the word could still just mean 'lively' in the period. But almost all the other examples from the 16th/17th c. have a salacious edge.

Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 12d

In this context, the odd quotation makes more sense. It's Pistol arguing for the life of Bardolph (thief + drunkard) after he's been condemned to death. Like Bardolph, 'Reverse' Buller was famous for running away. Did his supporters know the context of the quote - was it all a bit tongue in cheek?

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 12d

Technically this isn't a #ShaxEpitaph, as Buller was alive and attended the ceremony. But the statue participated in a contest over his memory, after he was sacked and dragged in the national press for failures in the Boer War. He died 3 years later.
castinstone.exeter.ac.uk/database/s/e...

Redvers Buller in Exeter - Case studies - Cast in Stone

castinstone.exeter.ac.uk

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 12d

Exeter folk will be familiar with the equestrian statue of Sir Redvers Buller. There's no Shakespearean epitaph on the monument, but at its unveiling in 1905, a celebratory bamboo arch bore the inscription: "A soldier firm and sound of heart and
of buxom valor" (Henry V, 3.6.25).
(1/4)

equestrian statue of Sir Redvers Buller -- often seen with a traffic cone on his head, though not here

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 14d

Spoke too soon! Last line of Coriolanus, 'he shall have a noble memory' (naturally omitting the 'Yet', since the wider passage isn't exactly complimentary).

www.cwgc.org/find-records...

www.cwgc.org

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 15d

And a Victorian epitaph from Two Gentlemen -- the very fitting 'uncertain glory of an April day' ☀️🌤️🌦️.

I'd expected to find examples from Coriolanus, but it seems like there may truly be nothing there that you'd want to say in memory of someone you actually liked. Says something about the play?

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 16d

Got Pericles today!

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18d

So far we've found Shakespearean epitaphs from 30 plays, 16 sonnets, and 3 of the longer poems. The only plays not on our list?

Taming of the Shrew
Henry VI 1 & 3
Two Gentlemen
Love’s Labours
Merry Wives
Coriolanus
Pericles

Cemetery strollers, let us know if you spot a quote from one of these!

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18d

It's very odd. It reads almost as if they'd drafted an article showing why each of the proposed solutions won't solve the problem -- and then decided to flip the argument, without altering the evidence.

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · 18d

I'm itching to share the 29(!) variations on 'after life's fitful fever he sleeps well' we've discovered so far as #ShaxEpitaphs, but don't want to try your patience. Just three:

AFTER LIFE'S TROUBLED JOURNEY SHE SLEEPS WELL
AFTER LIFE'S SCARLET FEVER I SLEEP WELL
LIFE'S FITFUL PLAY IS O'ER

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Reposted by Philip Schwyzer

Hester L-J @starcrossed2018.bsky.social · 25d

Hamlet: Alexander the Great is DIRT now
www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo...
Three Hamlets, musing on the skull: Christopher Eccleston at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (2002); Alan Cumming at the Donmar (1993); Ben Kingsley, RSC (1975)

A photo of a character in a play. Head and shoulders, a young man with a shaved head wearing a black shirt, holding a skull at eye level in his right hand, touching its teeth with his left index finger. He is frowning.

A black and white photograph of a character in a play. A young man with dark hair, wearing dark trousers and a tweed overcoat, is sitting down, holding a skull in both hands on his lap. He is looking at it intently.

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Reposted by Philip Schwyzer

Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 26d

London authorities removed Banksy’s latest mural of a judge attacking a protester. What remains is a shadowy stain, eerily reminiscent of a hooded Grim Reaper wielding a scythe, capturing attention in its own right.

Haunting Shadow of Scrubbed Banksy Mural Goes Viral

The erasure of the mural outside London’s Court of Justice has become a metaphor for widespread government crackdowns on protesters around the world.

hyperallergic.com

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · Sep 8

He has an account on tombsky

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Philip Schwyzer @philipschwyzer.bsky.social · Sep 8

Shakespearean epitaphs don't always reek of Bardolatry. 'Friendly Ben' Dekle was ready to start (or continue) an argument with Shakespeare from beyond the grave.
'LIFE IS NOT A "TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT," BUT RATHER AN ADVENTURE WRITTEN BY THE FINGERS OF GOD.'
#ShaxEpitaphs

Gravestone with the text:
'(Friendley Ben)
Ben H. Dekle
Mar. 4, 1921
Feb. 10, 1978
LIFE IS NOT A "TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT," BUT RATHER AN ADVENTURE WRITTEN BY THE FINGERS OF GOD. WEEP NOT FOR ME FOR I HAVE DONE THAT WHICH, YOU WHO ARE LEFT, MUST DO.

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