Axel Clark

The title of this book accurately represents Jane Adamson’s approach to Othello, her view of the play, and her critical achievement. Rejecting from the outset the ‘conventionalist’ approach, which would have us discount our own responses and treat the play as ‘artificial’, a ‘purely dramatic phenomenon’ (ars gratia artis: the old lie), she bases her critical judgment on a systematic ... (read more)

In some basic respects, The Recurring Miracle and Antic Fables represent opposite ways of approaching Shakespeare.             Derick Marsh wrote his book in 1960, during a period of imprisonment without trial or charge at Pietermaritzburg prison, after the massacre at Sharpeville. Although he never refers directly to African politics, h ... (read more)

This novel raises more interesting questions about its author than about its characters and action. The story, set in Chicago in 1913–14, is told by a well-to-do businessman, called Mr Cavarley, who sympathises with feminism and females, and sharply criticises men whose sexual and social life is corrupted by ‘the toy idea of WOMAN’. He falls in love with an independent-spirited secretary-ed ... (read more)