Does An Artist Need to Be Tragic to Succeed?

An alarming quote from Lana Del Rey in an interview for The Guardian back in June of 2014 found her asserting, “I wish I was dead already.” Alluding to her idols, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, Del Rey’s wistfulness over the freedom one can achieve through death poses the question: Does an artist need to be tragic to succeed? Seeming to intuit that, yes, an … Continue reading Does An Artist Need to Be Tragic to Succeed?

Is It Possible to Have a Love Like The Kind Depicted in Shakespeare’s Plays?

With the death (and supposed birth) anniversary of William Shakespeare upon us, the usual reflection on the beloved bard’s breadth of work comes into “play.” While seemingly every aspect of his work has been scrutinized, the one element people seem to always take at face value is the all-consuming type of love between his characters. Whether this is because the so-called two-dimensionality of the love … Continue reading Is It Possible to Have a Love Like The Kind Depicted in Shakespeare’s Plays?