Shekhar Kapur’s film Elizabeth, starring the hugely talented Cate Blanchett, opens with the burning of three heretics at the stake. As the woodpile is lit beneath them, a religious dignitary expresses his token wish that they burn in hell forever, a sentiment shared by many in the gloating crowd. Scenes such as this were commonplace in 16th century England and much of Europe, as…
Saul Bellow made some interesting comments about the novel in an interview with The Paris Review. Literal truth versus artistic licence. ‘Literalism, factualism,’ he said. ‘will smother the imagination altogether.’ Do we, as writers, attempt to recreate the physical world down to the minutest detail, or do we accept the limitations of this approach and opt for a more free-flowing…
