So

[johnny9fingers]

Alastair Stewart must be the first person ever sacked from the media for quoting Shakespeare:

twitter.com/Adrian_Hilton/status/1222796593117777920

But, thinking about it, there are lines in Othello or Merchant which can only be used onstage and in context; or in a classroom.

How cultures change. Now Our Bill is placed in the same box as Homer and Ovid. The times and mores are all different now. Shakespeare won’t die, much to Molesworth’s chagrin (but not mine) however... it appears that, like Homer, Shakespeare is a transitional writer describing humanity in the process of change, rather than the writer who perfectly described the human condition for all time; and in this he is like Homer.

But maybe all writers merely describe the transitional aspects of humans; we are not the same as the folk of Dickens’ time, but we are not that different either. There is a thread of development (as Ken Clarke mentioned, a Golden Thread) which ties us to the Bronze Age civilisations of Homer, and we can begin to see the changes along the way.

I'm bloody sure I could get sacked from anywhere in the media if I quoted Catullus XVI in translation, but if I were to use the Latin original I know I’d get away with it. I know this as a discussion by lady classicists on Radio 3 included liberal quotations and knowing sniggers. From me too.