“Bosola was based on Bozolo, about whom little is known…” The student stands. The teacher braces. Will the student (hereafter: she) know that the teacher (hereafter: he) has been reading nearly verbatim from an online encyclopedia, that he has not read The Duchess of Malfi in any of the six years that he has taught it, and maybe in fact has never read it, he is racking his brain now, casting back to grad school, Shakespeare, yes, of course, read that, and not for the first time, read Jonson, too, Middleton, maybe, Marston, definitely not (James? John?), but Webster occupies a gray area, he is near to certain that he owned the book, can see the cover in his mind, a woman with long curls and conspicuous décolletage, a word whose etymology he knows cold, it refers to the removal of the collet or collar, he even remembers the title page because of the way duchess was spelled, D-V-T-C-H-E-S-S-E, and Malfy instead of Malfi, but that might have been as far as he got, oh yes, the student, oh no, she’s just standing there, staring at him. He nods at her. She loads a pause into the room. “I’m just wondering,” she says. “If little is known of Bozolo, how do we know that Bosola was based on him? I mean, wouldn’t we have to know about him to know if someone was based on him?” The room roars. He nearly wets himself with relief. “Good one, Campbell,” he says, entirely unsure if this is her name.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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