Appreciating Shakespeare with Doctor Rap

Series II, Podcast G: Measure for Measure

A discussion of one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies.
The wedding of Justice and Mercy.

The source of two of the Thompson quotations is Philip Thompson, Dusk and Dawn: Poems and Prose of Philip Thompson, ed. Gideon Rappaport (San Diego:  One Mind Good Press, 2005), pp. 223–26; a third quotation was heard in private conversation with the poet. 

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Series II, Podcast F: Twelfth Night

Discussion of the play: Twelfth Night or What You Will
5 Key Lines
20 Specific Line Notes

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Series I, Chapter 7: Why All the Footnotes? Shakespeare's Mental Furniture

Session 5:
Decorum
Realism or Morality Play?
"Foreground Is Background"

References in the section on Decorum are to Madeleine Doran, Endeavors of Art:  A Study of Form in Elizabethan Drama, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), p. 217–218, and to George Puttenham, Art of English Poesy, III.xxiv (quoted in Doran, Endeavors of Art, p. 217).

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Series I, Chapter 7: Why All the Footnotes? Shakespeare's Mental Furniture
Session 4: Disintegrating Forces:

The Protestant Reformation
Machiavelli
The New Science

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Series I, Chapter 7: Why all the Footnotes? Shakespeare's Mental Furniture
Session 3:

The Doctrine of Correspondence
Authority
Christianity
Renaissance Humanism and Classicism

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Series I, Chapter 7: Why All the Footnotes? Shakespeare's Mental Furniture
Session 2: The Human Order:

Monarchy vs. Democracy
The Two Bodies of the King
The Family
The Individual
Soul and Body
The Humors
The Five Wits

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Series I, Chapter 7: Why All the Footnotes? Shakespeare's Mental Furniture, Session 1:

Words We Know
Words We Don't Know
Shakespeare and Electricity
The Medieval Synthesis
The Cosmic Hierarchy

Notes:
The reference to Lewis is to C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964, rpt. 1988), pp. 10–13.

 For the source of the idea of hierarchy in Plato’s Timaeus and its extension in Aristotle’s De Anima and Metaphysics, see Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea, William James Lectures at Harvard University, 1933 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936, 1964), Ch. 2. The most valuable modern discussion of the Renaissance ideas of hierarchy and correspondence, and a source for some of the information in these podcasts, is E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (New York: Vintage, 1959).

The reference to St. Benedict is to St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries, tr. Leonard J. Doyle (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, St. John’s Abbey, 1948), p. 88. 

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Series II, Podcast D: As You Like It

New prelude/postlude: Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, Third Movement, quartet version, in the public domain.

Upcoming, Why All the Footnotes: Shakespeare's Mental Furniture 
with a better mic.
Thanks for technical and other help to N. A., A. G., J. G., F. H., and A. R.

Questions? Email [email protected].

Series I, Chapter 6: Unity in Variety,  Session 3: Setting, Theme, Audience

The third session in the chapter on Unity in Variety looks at settings, themes, and then brings in the audience as contributor to the unity of a play.

Coming next, As You Like It, with a format upgrade: Prelude and postlude.

Questions? Email [email protected].

Series I, Chapter 6: Unity in Variety, Session 2: Unity in Variety seen in

Figures of Speech
Action
Scenes
Characters
Plot


Next session: Setting, Theme, Audience

Questions? Email [email protected]