Friday, July 18, 2008

Shakespearean Writer's Block—Now Available in Bottles!

"You shall have wine enough, my lord, anon."
The commodification of Shakespeare is nothing new, but I was struck with the equovocation of this particular one. Does the bottle suggest that one can break writer's block with a simple dose of this merchandise? Or does the bottle, like the porter in Macbeth invite us to consider that it contains the essence of writer's block itself:
much drink may be said to be an equivocator with [the writer at work]: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him . . . (II.iii.31-34)
I suppose Hemingway might disagree, but I can't recall seeing any William Shakespeare brand Absinthe anywhere!

Links: Steele Wines.

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Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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The very instant that I saw you did / My heart fly to your service; there resides, / To make me slave to it; and, for your sake, / Am I this patient [b]log-man.

—The Tempest