As he wrote in his journal on Dec. 28, 1854, "It would be a very desirable labor for a young literary man, or for that matter, an old one; for the world can scarcely have in reserve a less hackneyed theme than Japan".
Obviously, the Greeks knew enough about poisons to concoct a fatal dose of hemlock for Socrates, but the killing of a king or emperor secretly by poison is an almost hackneyed theme from Mithridates King of Pontus to Roman Emperor Commodus, so I'd need pretty good objective evidence to convince myself that Alexander too met his end that way.
The challenge there is to treat a hackneyed subject in a new way.
"However, the notion that this lowers the value of creative works, is increasingly a hackneyed idea.
Titled "Territories," it press-gangs into service the efforts of a bunch of emerging artists around the somewhat hackneyed theme of mapping.
There are giants, eunuchs and Cyclops-like one-eyed freaks, too even a unicorn, for good measure.Underlying all this learned whimsy is the rather hackneyed theme of stories versus histories, fantasy versus reality, fiction versus fact.
No, Mr. Wang picked the silliest, most hackneyed theme, and managed to make it work.
But the perfunctory epilogue, on the hackneyed theme of Soviet and post-Soviet leaders ruling essentially as tsars, comes across as an ill-judged attempt to demonstrate contemporary relevance.
In what has already become perhaps the most hackneyed theme in gaming, the player's job is to save humanity from (yet another) zombie apocalypse.
This tired, hackneyed theme has been the bread and butter of right wing bloggers, websites, and shrill talk show hosts from the moment Obama set foot in the White House.
And yet Ms. Cho, a young playwright of clear promise, develops even the potentially hackneyed themes with a laconic, natural ease that earns respect and admiration.
