Back on June 4th, I posted a piece about Arianna Huffington’s article comparing George W. Bush and England’s King Henry V (as depicted by Shakespeare). Of course politicians, advertisers, journalists and others have always mined the English literary canon for stirring sound-bites. (In Blood, Class and Empire, the alternately brilliant and insufferable Christopher Hitchens notes that William Safire went through a purple patch in which a third of his NYT op-ed pieces included Churchillian references.) And today Scott Newstrom, an assistant professor at Amherst College, sent me a pointer to a fascinating essay in which he looks in some detail at the various (and varied) ways in which Americans have exploited the “Prince Hal” character, particularly with respect to George W. Bush. Recommended.
—
The title of this entry is from Emerson. Read Scott Newstrom’s piece for the connection.