“Double Falsehood”, a drama linked to William Shakespeare 250 years ago but whose authorship was disputed, is a genuine work by the bard (shown here), a British academic has said.
AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis
THE GIST:

• An 18th century playwright had claimed his work, performed in 1727, was based on a work by Shakespeare.
• The claim was met with wide skepticism at the time.
• Now a professor says the play was, in fact, likely based on a Shakespearean work called “Cardenio.”

---

Is this love’s labor no longer lost? A scholar says a play written in the 18th-century is very likely based on a missing work by William Shakespeare.

After years of literary investigation, a professor at the University of Nottingham said Tuesday he’s certain “Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers” was born out of “Cardenio,” a play Shakespeare scholars believe existed.

Some scholars believe Lewis Theobald’s “Double Falsehood,” first performed in London’s West End in December 1727, was based substantially on the Bard’s “Cardenio.”

“There is definitely Shakespearean DNA,” said English literature professor Brean Hammond, who has worked since 2002 to determine if “Double Falsehood” has Shakespearean roots. Arden Shakespeare, an authoritative publisher of the Bard’s works, has released an edition of the play edited by Hammond — a decision the publisher acknowledges is controversial.

Arden’s general editor, Shakespeare scholar Richard Proudfoot, agrees with Hammond and says there is no absolute way of knowing if “Double Falsehood” is based on Shakespeare’s work, but he argues it is a “sufficiently sustainable position” that it represents the play in some form.

“My position is one of fairly confident — but cautious — acceptance,” he said.
Read more here.

This is a tricky question, where science and religion often hide, or collide. It’s answered in a diversity of ways by different cultures at different times, by different physicians in different hospitals, different shamans in different tribes. Is it when your heart stops working (as in Japan and Shintoism)? When your soul leaves your body (as in Tibet and Buddhism)? When your brain stops working? When a certain part of your brain stops working? Who decides when you’re dead?

Can you be dead in body, but not in mind? Vice versa?

Cogito ergo sum?

A new study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine adds intriguing neuroscientific fuel to the fires already ablaze around these questions.

Typically, when a severely head-injured patient is checked for consciousness soon after his or her accident, the physician might look for the ability to track a moving item with the eyes or say “lift a finger if you can hear me,” and then if answered in the affirmative, maybe “lift two fingers for yes, one for no.” At some point over time, if there’s no response and apparent unconsciousness continues, the patient is considered to be in a ‘persistent vegetative state.’ Doesn’t sound too good, nobody’s happy. What to do?

Challenging enough question. But, now along comes Martin Monti and his colleagues in Belgium. They add a new test for consciousness, applied to fifty-plus folks in a proclaimed vegetative state. Monti et al., using an MRI machine (which monitors for active neurons in the brain), watch these folks’ brains when they are asked a question. And, amazingly a handful of the patients’ brains light up ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ just like your brain or mine would if we were asked a question.
Read more at altnet.org

PostSecret