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This podcast is aimed at a non-specialist audience interested in acquiring what Northrop Frye called, in the title of one of his books, an educated imagination. Its materials are drawn from the many c... more
FAQs about Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education:How many episodes does Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education have?The podcast currently has 232 episodes available.
February 25, 2024Episode 152: Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Shakespeare’s Late Career. The Four Romances. The History of the Genre of Romance. Act 1, Scene 1: Storm at Sea.The four romances at the end of Shakespeare’s career, belonging to an age-old genre, the tale of wonders and marvels, from the Wanderings of the Odyssey to fantasy and science fiction in our time. Act 1, scene one. Why try to stage a storm at sea? A touchstone: how various people face imminent death. ...more39minPlay
February 18, 2024Episode 151: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Act 5. Four Possible Marriages, Many Questions. The Double Meaning of “Measure for Measure”: An Eye for an Eye, or Forgive Us as We Would Be Forgiven?The Duke returns and passes judgment. Mariana pleads for Angelo, wanting him despite his faults. Remarkably, Isabella pleads for Angelo. Four possible weddings: Angelo and Mariana, Isabella and the Duke, Claudio and Julietta, Lucio and the prostitute he got pregnant. A happy ending? The double meaning of “measure for measure,” according to justice or to mercy. ...more40minPlay
February 11, 2024Episode 150: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Acts 4 & 5. The Duke’s Plan to Fool Angelo. The Duke’s Return. Isabella and Mariana Arrested for Slandering Angelo. Lucio Unhoods the Friar.The Duke’s plan to fool Angelo by substituting the head of Barnardine won’t work because Barnardine humorously refuses to be hanged. So they substitute the head of an already dead criminal for Claudio’s. The Duke “returns” in Act 5. Isabella and Mariana accuse Angelo but are arrested for slander. Lucio unhoods the Friar—to reveal the Duke. ...more39minPlay
February 04, 2024Episode 149: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Acts 3 and 4. The Turning Point in Act 3: the Duke Introduces Mariana, Jilted by Angelo. Pompey and Mistress Overdone Arrested.In the middle of Act 3, at a dark moment, the plot turns. The Duke speaks of Mariana, abandoned by Angelo, now in the “moated grange.” Tennyson’s famous monologue “Mariana.” Pompey and Mistress Overdone are arrested. Lucio has gotten a prostitute pregnant and refuses marriage and child support. ...more38minPlay
January 28, 2024Episode 148: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Act 3. Claudio Begs Isabella to Save His Life. Her Cold, Furious Rejection. The Deeper Motives of Fallible Human Beings.When Isabella informs Claudio of Angelo’s offer, that his life may be saved if she has sex with Angelo, in terror of death he begs her to do it. Her cold, angry response, lacking all compassion, is absolutely unChristian, and we have to probe her deeper psychology, her need to be sheltered from life and its imperfections. ...more40minPlay
January 21, 2024Episode 147: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Acts 2 and 3. Angelo Attempts to Extort Sex from Isabella. The Duke, as Friar, “Comforts” Claudio by Saying That Life Is Not Worth Living.Angelo is reluctant to come right out and say it, but finally tells Isabella that she must give herself up to him sexually in order to save her brother’s life. The Duke, as Friar, counsels Claudio that he should be detached about death because life is not worth living. This is a possible religious attitude, though not one that Shakespeare’s comedies ever endorse. ...more38minPlay
January 14, 2024Episode 146: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, Act 2. The Constable Elbow Arrests Pompey for…Something. Isabella Pleads for Claudio’s Life, and Angelo Is Struck with Lust.Elbow, the Constable, has arrested Pompey because something insulting was said to his wife when she entered the whorehouse to ask for stewed prunes. Elbow is so confused that we never learn more. Isabella pleads for her brother’s life, and Angelo, after she leaves, discovers he is sexually obsessed with her. ...more41minPlay
January 07, 2024Episode 145: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Act 1. Angelo Put in Charge of Vienna. Claudio Condemned to Death for Getting His Fiancée Pregnant. The Duke Disguises Himself as a Friar.The Duke of Vienna puts young Angelo in charge in his absence, but disguises himself as a Friar and intends to observe what goes on in his absence. Angelo has Claudio arrested because his fiancée Julietta is pregnant, though they are engaged in a binding, though secret contract. Lucio goes to the convent to fetch Claudio’s sister Isabella to plead to Angelo for Claudio’s life. ...more40minPlay
December 31, 2023Episode 144: Concluding Discussion of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: the Threefold Larger Thematic Pattern. Introduction to the Problem Comedy Measure for Measure.The common pattern of all three plots in Twelfth Night: a deadlocked conflict of opposites into which a third factor enters to transform the situation. In all three plots, this involves a character with two identities and gender ambiguity. Introduction to Measure for Measure: the meaning of the designation “problem play.” ...more38minPlay
December 24, 2023Episode 143: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Acts 4 and 5. The Tormenting of Malvolio. The Great Recognition Scene of Act 5.Feste as Sir Topas the cleric accuses Malvolio, desperate and shut up in darkness, of being mad. Act 5 is a single scene of multiple recognitions, climaxing when Viola/Cesario is standing on stage and her identical twin brother Sebastian walks on: “A natural perspective, that is and is not.” The couples are sorted out, Viola and Orsino, Olivia and Sebastian. Malvolio stomps out, vowing revenge. ...more43minPlay
FAQs about Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education:How many episodes does Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education have?The podcast currently has 232 episodes available.