This is a life of bohemia, or the art of interpreting Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale". (1564-1616)

See also : SHAKESPEARE WILLIAM (1564-1616)

From Professor O ’Groats (Paris-Sorbonne) : “I suppose you will not embark either on the false problems of geography, of toponymy. Do you know that Bohemia means Land of Bohemond, that is Apulia, Naples and Calabria ? Of course do not think that I am displaying my knowledge : the bilingual edition of Aubier must give all this information, or no matter which other edition. By the way, with the exception of certain things susceptible to shock our tastes corseted by Molière and Co., this is a delightful play, no ?

Two lads that thought there was no more behind
But such a day to-morrow as to-day
And to be boy eternal. What a rhythm !

Or

Adieu, my lord :
I never wish’d to see you sorry ; now
I trust I shall. Everything is said, and in what fashion !

You are not of my opinion ?, this is pure music ; the story does not count - or very little. But then, pure symbol or fairy play to be read between the lines, just as one follows music ? No doubt some imbecile female student will turn up in order to pick a quarrel with Shakespeare where there is nothing to be done and to find that this is not at all probable or that he is not naturalistic enough !
But are you a Shakespearian ?”

- Antonio :
I attach to the world only the importance it deserves, Gratiano. It is a theatre where everyone must play his role,
mine is that of being sad.
- Gratiano :
May I then be given that of the fool ! The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare)

All the world’s a stage

On the radio a low voice is singing : “I teach at 32 rue de la République ...”. But who does not earn his living with “the little shits” ? The red Dwarf or the green Train of the well-off parts of town, the schools and the ski-resorts, the dance halls and night-clubs, the restaurants and gastronomical canteens, the bottom-pulling transports of these gentlemen-ladies in the tunics of Cardin/Dior (or the others, not to prompt jealousy), it is still as at the time of Elizabeth, it is still the very same : first the circular foetus, round like the Carpentras tomato, shaken up, spun around in the courteous planet’s washing-machine; then the little child, howling and waking up the neighbours at undue hours where the beds in the house are screeching, the female caretaker thinking that someone wants the door opened; then the pupil who on his calamine bike races to his school, sex soft, eyes feverish, like the panicky crustacean beached by the receding tide; then the lover, encased in his jeans and grating away on an asthmatic guitar for the ears of the CSA and at the lips of his miniskirted mistress, breasts fitted into chickpea-halves, who invokes incessantly the law of the apron; then the anti-establishment student galloping to the Sorbonne, face enlightened by neon and the thoughts of Mao under his arm, before returning to his worldly dulcinea in the rallies of the salons of the avenue Foch; then the weaned soldier behind the bars of some military school, promptly and ardently drawing the sword, seeking that bubble, glory, as far afield as the hind-quarter of the moufflons, before cornering the bubble in some particle of a genealogical accelerator; then the judge, fingers clamped to the Law-Code bequeathed by the severe Romans, stuffed with ancient sentences which he throws again and again at the ears of some shipwreck victim of his time, whose sight, nearly extinguished, takes stock of the stars on his sleeves, which he takes for the limits of our universe; then the Fierabras without hearing, without conk and without teeth, whom an insolent nurse pushes, stuck into his wheelchair, towards some black hole whence he will not come back ...

In this way, from the coveting of stardom to that of the state of skeleton, man plays his role and degods a Cesar.

Claude d’Esplas (Les Merlufleaux)
All rights reserved

Translation : Dagmar Coward Kuschke (Tübingen)