Time traveler finds Shakespeare in lust: Vancouver novelist pens historical romance - The Columbian
Never mind today's silly "Karen" stigma. Living the "Jessica" life can turn out to have some pretty unexpected challenges, as we discover in Jessica Barksdale Inclán's lively new historical romance novel, "The Play's the Thing." Playwright and poet William Shakespeare actually invented the name Jessica, at least in its modern form, which first appears in the 1598 play "The Merchant of Venice." The name has certainly aged better than the drama. "The Merchant of Venice," one of the few Shakespeare classics that has faded from the stage, uses a cringeworthy ethnic stereotype. The cartoonishly antisemitic depiction of Shylock, the greedy moneylender, is generally considered by today's audiences to be Shakespeare's second-biggest, second most backward blunder (after the brutal sexism of "The Taming of the Shrew"). "You can't not be troubled by 'The Merchant of Venice,' " said Inclán...