Really a class about the sublime, and Satan as the sublime in Blake and Shelley, that is Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost, via Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and his allusion to the same line from the Gospel of John that Wittgenstein loved so much ("It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you"), and Shelley's preface to Prometheus Unbound.  To be continued.

Really a class about the sublime, and Satan as the sublime in Blake and Shelley, that is Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost, via Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and his allusion to the same line from the Gospel of John that Wittgenstein loved so much ("It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you"), and Shelley's preface to Prometheus Unbound.  To be continued.

A last class on King Lear focusing on the question "Why does tragedy give pleasure?" Why do we like Johnson's shock at the death of Cordelia so much?  Why do we want depth? (...is the question though I didn't put it quite that way.)  Answer: friendship among mortals (which I almost put that way).  The only friend to a mortal is a mortal (again, almosting it).  Lear is about mortals:  Freud on "making friends with the necessity of dying" echoes Gloucester: "My son came then into my mind, and yet my mind was then scarce friends with him."  Mortality in King Lear is endless, but it's shared.  That's one reason the Fool has to be mortal: a fairy tale spirit who turns out to be the spirit of mortality (as I wish I had quite said).

A last class on King Lear focusing on the question "Why does tragedy give pleasure?" Why do we like Johnson's shock at the death of Cordelia so much?  Why do we want depth? (...is the question though I didn't put it quite that way.)  Answer: friendship among mortals (which I almost put that way).  The only friend to a mortal is a mortal (again, almosting it).  Lear is about mortals:  Freud on "making friends with the necessity of dying" echoes Gloucester: "My son came then into my mind, and yet my mind was then scarce friends with him."  Mortality in King Lear is endless, but it's shared.  That's one reason the Fool has to be mortal: a fairy tale spirit who turns out to be the spirit of mortality (as I wish I had quite said).

More on fairy tale testing in Scene 1. Fairy tales as the world outside our world, which is the world of mortality Lear gets us into.   If you've heard the Shakespeare podcasts on Lear, the fairy tale testing approach is new, i.e. a more recent insight.  After that, the rest of the class is a quick version of the longer exposition in the Shakespeare classes: parallels and stereoscopic near parallels (i.e. parallax) between and among characters: "nothing will come of nothing," repeated with the Fool beginning the recuperation of Lear after his terrible first appearance; the rivalry between Kent and the Fool; Lear as the Fool's only friend.

More on fairy tale testing in Scene 1. Fairy tales as the world outside our world, which is the world of mortality Lear gets us into.   If you've heard the Shakespeare podcasts on Lear, the fairy tale testing approach is new, i.e. a more recent insight.  After that, the rest of the class is a quick version of the longer exposition in the Shakespeare classes: parallels and stereoscopic near parallels (i.e. parallax) between and among characters: "nothing will come of nothing," repeated with the Fool beginning the recuperation of Lear after his terrible first appearance; the rivalry between Kent and the Fool; Lear as the Fool's only friend.

First real day on King Lear.  Window characters who are there at the end as well as the beginning.  How Prufrock thinks of himself.  But how Shakespeare braids them together, so that windows become mains.  Conflict within scenes and between the groups who constitute the members of separate scenes.  Fairy Tale beginning of King Lear.  Lear sets a test for Cordelia, and she fails in his eyes, but wins in France's, which makes France (and Cordelia) win in ours.

First real day on King Lear.  Window characters who are there at the end as well as the beginning.  How Prufrock thinks of himself.  But how Shakespeare braids them together, so that windows become mains.  Conflict within scenes and between the groups who constitute the members of separate scenes.  Fairy Tale beginning of King Lear.  Lear sets a test for Cordelia, and she fails in his eyes, but wins in France's, which makes France (and Cordelia) win in ours.

More on the bucket of poems from the first class, mainly about the personification of love.  Love and shipwreck,  In Plato, in Herbert, Love is personified as the god who personifies.  The burning child as personification of love: Southwell, Freud, Bishop.  The shipwreck is the proof of love, too.

More on the bucket of poems from the first class, mainly about the personification of love.  Love and shipwreck,  In Plato, in Herbert, Love is personified as the god who personifies.  The burning child as personification of love: Southwell, Freud, Bishop.  The shipwreck is the proof of love, too.