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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 Merchant of Venice Part 1: The Story Aug 04, 2021
    Show notes

    The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most gripping and challenging plays. Labeled as a comedy in Shakespeare’s First Folio, today it resonates as tragedy as well, thanks to its most unforgettable character: the Jewish moneylender Shylock. Shylock experiences humiliation and oppression at the hands of the Venetian Christians, particularly the merchant Antonio. But when Antonio must borrow money from Shylock to help his beloved friend Bassanio woo the wealthy Portia, Shylock finds his dearest enemy in his power — and we see what harvest hatred reaps. In this course, you’ll learn the story of The Merchant of Venice, hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars, and witness how this comedy plumbs the difficulty and discomfort that shadow our most hostile and our happiest relationships.

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Stephen Greenblatt, John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Professor Greenblatt discusses the complicated historical context behind Shakespeare’s representation of Venice and of Shylock, and the role Shylock comes to play in Shakespeare’s comedy. 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.

    King Lear Part 3: The Language Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    In Part 3, Professor Palfrey offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll witness the king and the beggar in the heart of a storm; the naked man and the blind man on the edge of a cliff; and the father and daughter on the cusp between life and death; and you’ll learn how Shakespeare takes us into strange, impossible new places via the words and bodies of his actors.

    Speeches and Performers

    • Lear and Edgar, 3.4, “Poor naked wretches …” (Michael Bertenshaw)
    • Edgar and Gloucester, 4.6, “Come on, sir …” (Kelly Hunter, MBE)
    • Lear, Edgar, and Kent, 5.3, “And my poor fool is hanged …” (Michael Bertenshaw)
    King Lear Part 2: Characters and Questions Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    Part 2 explores the way that Shakespeare revised the original Lear story and the way he revised his own play to create a uniquely wrenching form of tragedy. Professor Simon Palfrey also discusses the literary and generic traditions that inspired the play, showing how the central characters can be interpreted very differently depending on the literary lens through which we see them. Finally, we focus on the recurring concept of “nothing” in the play, watching how King Lear strips everything away from its characters to reveal what might lie at the bare foundation of human life.

    Henry V Part 3: The Language Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    Part 3 features close-readings of some of the play’s most significant speeches, with Professor Stephen Foley. Through Henry’s private soliloquy, we trace his moments of insight and blindness. In the Chorus’s inspiring invitation to the audience to recreate the Battle of Agincourt in their minds, and in Henry’s stirring speech to his own troops before the battle, we see how Shakespeare’s words shape history, and how history is reshaped in the act of being remembered.

    Speeches and Performers:

    • Chorus, Prologue, “O, for a Muse of fire …” (Anton Lesser)
    • Henry V, Act 4, “What infinite heart’s ease …” (Ruth Page)
    • Henry V, Act 4, “If we are marked to die … Saint Crispin’s Day.” (Paterson Joseph)
    King Lear Part 1: The Story Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    King Lear has perhaps the most expansive cosmic scope of any of Shakespeare’s tragedies. In this play, Shakespeare retells the story of an aging king from Britain’s ancient past who divides his kingdom among his daughters, only to have them turn against him. This story originally had a redemptive, tragi-comic ending; Shakespeare takes that story and changes it to create an almost scandalously shocking tragedy. In this course, you’ll learn the story of King Lear, hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars, and watch Shakespeare strip the world down to nothing.

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Simon Palfrey, Professor of English at the University of Oxford. You’ll see how Shakespeare structured his play around parallel storylines and characters to draw out its key themes, and how he used the character of “Poor Tom” — a beggarly madman whose words are often dismissed as nonsense — to take the play into unexpected metaphysical territory. 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.

    Henry V Part 2: Characters and Questions Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    Part 2 opens with a discussion of the history play genre and of how history shapes and constrains the plays’ protagonists. With Professor Stephen Foley, we then explore the complex character of Henry himself, asking why this figure has given rise to so many conflicting interpretations and how Henry’s unique political role should influence the way we judge him. Finally, we trace the arc of the play, from its moral crisis in battle to its sudden shift to romantic comedy, to ask what redemption can be found after the tragic suffering of war.

    Henry V Part 1: The Story Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    Henry V is one of the most celebrated of Shakespeare’s history plays. In the 1590s, Shakespeare wrote a series of eight plays based on English chronicle history, telling the stories of civil wars and wars abroad, of the rise and fall of kings. Henry V was an English monarch who won great military victories in France in the early 1400s, and Shakespeare dramatizes his famous victory at Agincourt. In this play, Shakespeare gives us the most heroic of his kings — while also showing us the process by which history and heroes are created. In this course, you’ll learn the story of Henry V, hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars, and learn what makes Henry V one of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic heroes.

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Stephen Foley, Associate Professor of English and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University. You’ll learn the historical context behind the play and see how Shakespeare structured this war story both to scrutinize the English king and to offer a view of English society as a whole. 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.

    A Midsummer Night's Dream Part 3: The Language Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    In Part 3, Professor Tiffany Stern offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant speeches. You’ll discover the surprising biblical resonances in a speech by the foolish Bottom and see how the epilogue shifts the play from a story about magic to a magic spell placed on the audience itself.

    Speeches and Performers:

    • Titania, 2.1, “Set your heart at rest: The Fairyland buys not the child …” (Amanda Harris)
    • Bottom, 4.1, “When my cue comes, call me …” (Dame Harriet Walter)
    • Oberon, 5.1, “Now, until the break of day …” and Puck, “If we shadows have offended …” (Kelly Hunter, MBE)
    A Midsummer Night's Dream Part 2: Context and Questions Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    Part 2 addresses the play's central questions about comedy, tragedy, and passion by examining its language and plot motifs. Professor Tiffany Stern will guide you through the play’s sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, but always honest exploration of love — where it comes from and why it doesn’t always make sense. You’ll also discover how A Midsummer Night’s Dream reflects the way that Shakespeare’s own company performed his plays, and why that knowledge can help you become a better reader of Shakespeare.

    A Midsummer Night's Dream Part 1: The Story Jul 29, 2021
    Show notes

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedies. At the same time, it’s a play that explores the darker and more dangerous side of love. Four young lovers flee into the forest where their romantic entanglements become even more entangled thanks to the magic of the fairy king, Oberon — who also puts a spell on his wife, Titania, so she falls in love with Bottom, a man with an enchanted donkey’s head. In this course, you’ll learn the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, discover how the play’s fantastical elements actually represent universal issues in our everyday lives, and hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars.

    In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Tiffany Stern, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama at the Shakespeare Institute. Professor Stern discusses the play’s context, structure, and distinctive mix of comedy and tragedy, as created by the “play-within-a-play” — the “tragic” story of Pyramus and Thisbe performed by one group of characters to celebrate the others’ weddings. 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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