Shakespeare For All

Part 3 features close-readings of three key scenes in which Antony and Cleopatra articulate their cosmic self-conceptions in language so transcendent that it helps transform their vision into reality.

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Part 2 explores the play’s varied and conflicting perspectives on its leading characters. From the Roman point of view, Antony and Cleopatra are figures who fall from greatness, and their story is a tragedy or even, at times, farce; but from other points of view, Antony and Cleopatra represent a kind of success that could scarcely be achieved or even conceived of in Rome. The episode analyzes the play’s characters, language, and mythic archetypes to ask how the play makes so many viewpoints compelling, and where these competing perspectives leave the audience when the play comes to its end.

Antony and Cleopatra, the last of Shakespeare’s Roman plays, is an epic story that begins with the material of politics and history but expands into the realm of romance, poetry, and myth. Following the events of Julius Caesar – Caesar’s assassination and the triumph of Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar in the resulting civil wars – Antony and Caesar are now joint rulers of Roman Empire. But Antony has left behind Rome and his imperial duties to be with his beloved Cleopatra, the captivating queen of Egypt. Personal and political rivalries bring Antony and Cleopatra to war with Caesar, in a conflict in which “the greater cantle of the world” is at stake. In the end, the lovers are forced out of the field of politics, but enter the space of legend. In this course, you’ll learn the story of Antony and Cleopatra, study two of the most monumental personalities that Shakespeare ever created, and discover how these characters descend into and transcend tragedy

In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Joyce MacDonald, Professor of English at the University of Kentucky. This episode includes key background and context for the play’s historical source material. The 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. 

Part 3 features close-readings of several significant scenes that show how religion, race, and literary tradition function within the violent world of Titus Andronicus and sometimes provoke that violence.

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Part 2 opens with a discussion of the place of Rome in Renaissance culture. It then analyzes the Roman classical sources – sources his audience knew well – that Shakespeare uses to construct his plot, and how Shakespeare’s use of those sources calls their moral values into question. It goes on to discuss the elements of the play that have generated most shock and revulsion – the graphic violence, the irreverent dark humor – and how they relate to the very purpose of theatre.

Shakespeare wrote numerous plays and poems engaged with ancient Roman history. Shakespeare’s Renaissance culture had ancient Rome as its foundation stone. Roman language and literature were at the heart of English Renaissance education, and Rome was held up as a model for English civilization. But in Titus Andronicus, the earliest of his Roman works, Shakespeare crafts a bloody tale of violence and revenge that subjects this entire cultural edifice to searing critique. Are the violence and moral vacuums of this play a perversion of Roman values, or are they a central part of the classical tradition? In this course, you’ll learn the story and historical context behind Titus Andronicus, discover the classical sources that structure this play, and see how the play’s most controversial elements pose a serious question about the purpose of tragedy.

In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Russ Leo, Associate Professor of English at Princeton University. This episode introduces the key historical, political, and literary contexts that shape the play’s questions and themes. 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. 

Part 2 begins with a discussion of the sexual violence and jealousy depicted in the play. It goes on to examine how the play’s sprawling romance plot represents, in symbolic but recognizable form, origin stories for some significant historical phenomena: Britain’s own monarchy, the Renaissance culture of Europe, and what would have been for Shakespeare’s audience the central event of world history: the birth of Christ. It concludes by discussing how these historical forces shape the unexpected moments of spiritual vision, repentance, and peace that conclude the play, and why the play’s particular vision of communities coexisting might be its most powerful legacy for the 21st century.

Part 3 features close-readings of three key speeches that reflect together the central structuring element of the story: how characters fall in order to rise.

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Cymbeline is an epic romance that spans British history, the Roman Empire, religious epochs, and the central themes of Shakespeare’s career. Set in ancient Britain at the time of Augustus Caesar’s reign, it begins with two plotlines that in other of Shakespeare’s plays lead to tragedy: an enraged king disowns a beloved daughter, and a faithful wife is accused of betrayal by a jealous husband. In Cymbeline, however, the generic conventions of tragicomedy, symbolic sites from Britain’s past, and a time-setting that contains a transformational spiritual event, combine to bring unexpected recovery and renewal out of these tragic beginnings. In this course, you’ll learn the story of Cymbeline, see how Shakespeare brings its characters toward unexpected moral change, and discover how this fantastical play represents the origins of some of the most significant shaping forces in his historical world and ours. 

In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Will Tosh, Head of Research at Shakespeare’s Globe, London. This episode discusses the structure, settings, and sources of the play and recounts the story 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. 

Part 3 features close-readings of three key speeches from Helen that reveal her own mingled virtues and flaws and the “remedies” she hopes to find.

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