Civic Studies » Shakespeare & his world

in praise of John Florio

Peter — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:00:40 +0000

I find myself nearly finished writing a book whose hero is Michel de Montaigne. In the manuscript, I quote him many times. I have read large swaths of his Essays in M.A. Screech’s translation, which is learned and reliable (and good English prose). I translate the passages that concern me most. But sometimes I also […] Continue reading →

Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689

Peter — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 18:36:53 +0000

(Palo Alto) I recommend Healey’s 2023 history of 17th-century England as an important and enjoyable work. I grew up thinking about this topic, since my Dad was a scholar of English intellectual life in the 1600s and he regularly taught British political history. In that century, England was on a path toward global power and […]

The post Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 appeared first on Peter Levine.

Continue reading →

the progress of the king (note #4 from the Levine library)

Peter — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:19:23 +0000

Last week I wrote about my copy of the Rheims-Douai Bible, an English translation made by Catholics in 1582 and smuggled into Protestant England for Catholic laypeople to read. One of the translators, Edmund Campion, is now a saint, tortured to death for his secret work in England. This Bible refutes the widespread myth that Catholics […] Continue reading →

A 1582 Catholic translation of the Bible into English (note #3 from the Levine library)

Peter — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 14:42:34 +0000

Many people seem to believe that the medieval Church forbade translating the Bible into modern languages–in order to monopolize access to scripture–until a technological innovation (moveable type) and/or the Reformation liberated people to read the Bible in their own tongues. This story is false: translations were regularly made during the Middle Ages. It also neglects […] Continue reading →

Reformation propaganda (note #2 from the Levine library)

Peter — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:28:58 +0000

This post is one of a series about books that my father left to me and that now line my office shelves at Tufts. More on how that happened is here. In a folio volume of almost 2,000 dense pages, informally known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Foxe describes the persecutions of true-believing Christians […] Continue reading →

Coryat’s Crudities (note #1 from the Levine library)

Peter — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 13:56:13 +0000

For reasons that Angela Nelson describes in this article, my office at Tufts contains about 2,000 books printed before 1800 that my late father collected. Recently, I brought a ladder to campus so that I can see what’s on the upper shelves. I’m planning to pull down a book or two at a time and […] Continue reading →

setting a price on people in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline

Peter — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 13:46:46 +0000

In Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber observes that people usually want to distinguish sharply between their fellow human beings and other animals or objects. Therefore, most societies treat money in either of two ways. Some societies use money for ordinary commodities and abhor using it to buy people. They prohibit not only slavery […] Continue reading →

Velazquez, The Spinners

Peter — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 12:44:52 +0000

One story Minerva, goddess of weavers, Had heard too much of Arachne. She had heard That the weaving of Arachne Equalled her own, or surpassed it. Arachne was just a poor girl, but her artistry had brought her fame. The nymphs came down from the vines on TmolusAs butterflies to a garden, to flock stunnedAround […] Continue reading →

two degrees of Christopher Marlowe

Peter — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 18:33:01 +0000

In The Reckoning (1994), Charles Nicholl carefully investigated the 1593 murder of Christopher Marlowe, arguing that it resulted from a struggle between the rival spy networks of Walter Raleigh and Robert Devereux (the 2nd Earl of Essex). It’s a compelling … Continue reading → Continue reading →

“a different Shakespeare from the one I love”

Peter — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 16:23:10 +0000

“Kids today don’t appreciate Shakespeare.” That is a tired, perennial complaint. It is not the point that the eminent Shakespearean Stephen Greenblatt makes in “Teaching a Different Shakespeare From the One I Love.” In fact, he admires the way his … Continue reading → Continue reading →