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    Arts

    Shakespeare For All

    Shakespeare For All is an engaging, accessible introduction to the life and work of William Shakespeare, featuring world-class scholars and performers.
    You’ll learn who Shakespeare was and what historical events shaped his writing. You’ll be guided through his most popular poems and plays by leading scholars, actors, and interpreters of Shakespeare. And you’ll find the tools you need to become an interpreter of Shakespeare yourself and join in the ongoing global discussion his works have inspired.
    The first course offers a tour through Shakespeare’s moment in history and his life. You’ll also discover strategies for understanding Shakespeare’s stories, characters, and language across his plays.
    At the heart of the series are courses on Shakespeare’s most thought-provoking and beloved plays. Each begins with a detailed summary of the story. Then, a top Shakespeare scholar takes you on a deep dive into the play’s characters, language, and most important questions. Finally, you’ll hear Shakespeare’s language come to life, with original performances from professional Shakespearean actors.
    Shakespeare For All also features a course on Shakespeare’s sonnets — his sequence of 154 short poems that explore revolutionary new directions within the conventional poetry of love — and a bonus course on Game of Thrones and Shakespeare, “The Wooden O and the Iron Throne.”
    Except where otherwise noted, the texts used for this course are from Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems, from The Folger Shakespeare, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library.
    Shakespeare For All is a Lyceum original production.
    Team:
    Zachary Davis (Executive Producer)
    Zachary Davis is the president of Lyceum and host of Ministry of Ideas and Writ Large. He has a graduate degree from Harvard Divinity School and is the founder and organizer of the Sound Education conference.
    Jemma Deer (Associate Producer and Narrator)
    Jemma Deer is a Researcher in Residence at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, currently working on a book on extinction. She also hosts and produces EcoCast, the official podcast of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE).
    Maria Devlin McNair (Course Creator and Managing Producer)
    Maria Devlin McNair received her PhD from Harvard University in English literature with a specialization in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama. She is a writer and Managing Producer for the Harvard Divinity School podcast Ministry of Ideas. She is currently developing a book project on ethics and Renaissance comedy.
    Jack Pombriant (Composer and Sound Designer)
    Jack Pombriant is the associate producer of Writ Large. He received his BM from Berklee College of Music, where he studied music composition and production. He is also a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, where he studied radio and podcast production.

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    Latest Episodes:
    The Merry Wives of Windsor Part 2 - The Characters and the Place Jul 27, 2022
    Show notes

    Part 2 takes a closer look at Falstaff, the jealous husband Master Ford, and the wives Mistress Page and Mistress Ford. It also discusses the aspects of the play that are attracting new attention from scholars and audiences today: the play’s realistic English setting, its engagement with the rise of the middle class, and the ‘proto-feminism’ we glimpse in the wives’ independence and economic power and in their determination to protect those things.

    The Merry Wives of Windsor Part 1 - The Story Jul 27, 2022
    Show notes

    The Merry Wives of Windsor has an unusual status among Shakespeare’s comedies: long dismissed by critics, long beloved by audiences. The only one of Shakespeare’s plays to be set in a recognizably contemporary England, the play tells the story of two witty, confident, women who set a revenge plot in motion when they are propositioned by Sir John Falstaff - the comic star of Shakespeare’s history play Henry IV, now transported to a middle-class milieu in the small town of Windsor near London. In this course, you’ll learn the story of The Merry Wives of Windsor, examine the historical and theoretical contexts of the play that are exciting new critical interest today, and meet two delightfully inspiring heroines as they set out to prove that “wives may be merry and yet honest too.”

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Dr. Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare’s Globe, London. You’ll learn about the intricate construction of the play’s multiple revenge plots and meet the large, diverse cast of Windsor’s inhabitants. This summary is told using the language of the play itself, placing key quotations in context to help you understand where these lines come from and what they mean.

    The Merry Wives of Windsor Part 3 - The Language Jul 27, 2022
    Show notes

    Part 3 features close-readings of several significant speeches from Falstaff, Ford, and Mistress Page. We explore how the play creates its comedy, as well as how Shakespeare introduces an undertone of darkness in the sexual jealousy he would go on to explore in later tragedies.

    Speeches and Performers:

    • Mistress Page, Act 1, “What have I ’scaped love letters …” (Amanda Harris)
    • Master Ford, Act 2, “What a damned epicurean rascal …” (Adam Courting)
    • Falstaff, Act 3, “Have I lived to be carried in a basket …” (Stephen Leask)


    Henry IV 1 Part 3 - The Language Jul 27, 2022
    Show notes

    Part 3 features close-readings of seven of the play’s most significant scenes and speeches. We trace the arc of Hal’s transformation throughout the play, from his first intention to “redeem[] time” to the thwarted realization of his intentions in the play’s climactic battle scene. We also share key moments with Henry IV, Falstaff, Hotspur, and Hotspur’s wife.

    Speeches and Performers:

    • Hal, Act 1, “I know you all …” (Scott Ripley)
    • Lady Percy, Act 2, “O my good lord, why are you thus alone? …” (Kimisha Lewis)
    • Falstaff and Hal, Act 2, “But to say I know more harm in him …” (Scott Ripley)
    • King Henry IV, Act 3, “I know not whether God will have it so …” (Julian Glover)
    • Hal, Act 3, “Do not think so. You shall not find it so …” (Keith Hamilton Cobb)
    • Hotspur, Hal, and Falstaff, Act 5, “O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth …” (Scott Ripley)
    • King Henry IV, Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, “How many thousands of my poorest subjects …” (Julian Glover)


    Henry IV 1 Part 2 - The Characters Jul 27, 2022
    Show notes

    Part 2 delves further into Hal’s intention to “redeem[ the] time.” It examines the competing value systems that Henry IV, Hotspur, and Falstaff represent, where their strengths lie and where they reveal unexpected limitations, and shows how Hal makes use of all these people – sometimes lovingly, sometimes ruthlessly - to shape himself as a leader. It concludes by asking what it might mean for us, as 21st-century audience members, to redeem the time in which we live.

    Henry IV 1 Part 1 - The Story Jul 27, 2022
    Show notes

    Henry IV Part 1 has long been one of Shakespeare’s most beloved history plays. In the 1590s, Shakespeare wrote a series of eight plays based on English chronicle history. This play is named for Henry IV, who deposed Richard II to become king in 1399. But the most captivating characters for many readers prove to be Sir John Falstaff and Henry IV’s son Hal – the prince who would go on to become the legendary Henry V. In this course, you’ll learn the story of Henry IV Part 1, hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars, and watch how Hal navigates his historical destiny and forges his personal identity in a process he calls “redeeming time.”

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Ewan Fernie, Chair, Professor and Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute and Director of the ‘Everything to Everybody’ Project. You’ll learn the historical context behind the play and encounter the extraordinary places and people - from the royal court to the taverns of London, from the honor-driven soldier Hotspur to the unforgettable rogue Falstaff - who shape Hal’s future and offer a panoramic view of English society, within and beyond the official annals of history. This summary is told using the language of the play itself, placing key quotations in context to help you understand where these lines come from and what they mean.

    Shakespeare's Sonnets Part 3 Aug 04, 2021
    Show notes

    Part 3 starts with a discussion of general reading strategies to help you discover the poetic techniques and insights of any individual sonnet. It concludes with a close-reading of three sonnets from Professor Michael Schoenfeldt that show the extraordinary range of tone, emotion, and perspective in Shakespeare’s poems.

    Speeches and performers:

    • Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” (Ashley Byam)
    • Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (Jeff Cornell)
    • Sonnet 116, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” (Amanda Harris)
    • Sonnet 129, “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame” (Amanda Harris)
    Shakespeare's Sonnets Part 2 Aug 04, 2021
    Show notes

    Part 2 focuses closely on the two major “characters” to whom the sonnets are addressed: a beautiful young man, and a woman described as black. You’ll learn how the speaker represents his relationship to these figures and his desire for them, and what significance those relationships might have had in Shakespeare’s culture, as Professor Michael Schoenfeldt discusses sexual identity and race in early modern England.

    Sonnets Included in Episode 2

    • Sonnet 20, “A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted” (Ashley Byam)
    • Sonnet 147, “My love is as a fever, longing still” (Jeff Cornell)
    Shakespeare's Sonnets Part 1 Aug 04, 2021
    Show notes

    The sonnet — a 14-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, conventionally associated with love — was one of the most popular poetic forms in late Elizabethan England. In 1609, Shakespeare published a sequence of 154 sonnets that radically reimagined the question of what love can mean, including the question of who one might desire and what the experience of desire might be like. In the course, you’ll learn about the structure and history of the sonnet, hear individual sonnets of Shakespeare’s performed and analyzed by world-class actors and literary scholars, and discover how gender, status, and race intersect to shape this sonnet sequence.

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a history and overview of Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence with commentary by Michael Schoenfeldt, John R. Knott, Jr. Collegiate Professor of English at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. You’ll learn about the sonnet form and how it came to England from Renaissance Italy, what attracted Shakespeare to this form, and what attracted audiences to Shakespeare’s poetry. You’ll also discover the literary mysteries surrounding the sonnets that have intrigued readers for centuries, and how Shakespeare took this traditional form in unexpected directions.

    The Tempest Part 1: The Story Aug 04, 2021
    Show notes

    The Tempest, one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote, draws on themes and stories that fascinated him throughout his career while also taking his art form to unexpected new places. Set in the course of a single day on a magical island, the play focuses on a magician named Prospero who plots to punish the enemies who exiled him to the island 12 years ago — including his own brother. But will Prospero ultimately follow the route of the revenger like Hamlet? Will the warring brothers make peace, as in As You Like It? Or, as in Twelfth Night, will tempest and shipwreck set the characters on new pathways they didn’t predict? In this course, you’ll learn the story of The Tempest, hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars, and see how Shakespeare recreated old stories in the context of New World exploration and exploitation.

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Laurie Maguire, Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford. You’ll learn how the play reflects contemporary European encounters with Africa, North America, and Latin America (what Europeans called the “New World”), especially through the figure of Caliban: an earlier inhabitant of the island who is made Prospero’s slave. This summary is told using the language of the play itself, placing key quotations in context to help you understand where these lines come from and what they mean.

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