Part 3 starts with a discussion of general reading strategies to help you discover the poetic techniques and insights of any individual sonnet. It concludes with a close-reading of three sonnets from Professor Michael Schoenfeldt that show the extraordinary range of tone, emotion, and perspective in Shakespeare’s poems. Speeches and performers: Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” (Ashley Byam) Sonnet 18, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (Jeff Cornell) Sonnet...

Part 2 focuses closely on the two major “characters” to whom the sonnets are addressed: a beautiful young man, and a woman described as black. You’ll learn how the speaker represents his relationship to these figures and his desire for them, and what significance those relationships might have had in Shakespeare’s culture, as Professor Michael Schoenfeldt discusses sexual identity and race in early modern England. Sonnets Included in Episode 2 Sonnet 20, “A woman’s face with Nature’s own...

The sonnet — a 14-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, conventionally associated with love — was one of the most popular poetic forms in late Elizabethan England. In 1609, Shakespeare published a sequence of 154 sonnets that radically reimagined the question of what love can mean, including the question of who one might desire and what the experience of desire might be like. In the course, you’ll learn about the structure and history of the sonnet, hear individual sonnets of Shakespeare’s...

With Professor Laurie Maguire, Part 2 explores the play’s many ambiguities — its uncertain geography, mental space, and genre — and how they reflect the play’s ethical ambiguities. Does Prospero contrast with or resemble the “foul witch” who was Caliban’s mother, or the brother who betrayed him for the sake of power? Is he a figure of spiritual regeneration or of colonization? We also look more closely at Prospero’s relationship with Caliban and with Ariel, another servant in bondage, who...

Part 3 features close-readings from Professor Laurie Maguire of some of the play’s key speeches: Caliban’s extraordinarily lyrical description of the island; Prospero’s beautiful and disturbing evocation of theatre, and perhaps the world, coming to an end; and Prospero’s renunciation of his magic. Speeches and performers: Caliban, 3.2, “Be not afeard …” (Kelly Hunter, MBE) Prospero, 4.1, “Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended …” (Anton Lesser) Prospero, 5.1, “You elves of hills …”...

The Tempest, one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote, draws on themes and stories that fascinated him throughout his career while also taking his art form to unexpected new places. Set in the course of a single day on a magical island, the play focuses on a magician named Prospero who plots to punish the enemies who exiled him to the island 12 years ago — including his own brother. But will Prospero ultimately follow the route of the revenger like Hamlet? Will the warring brothers make peace,...

In Part 3, Professor Simon Palfrey offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll hear the play’s dark energies emerge through Mercutio’s speech about “Queen Mab”; see how Juliet discovers a new, eroticized vision of the world and of herself as she awaits her wedding night, and witness one of the most iconic scenes in literature, when Juliet on her balcony imagines the possibility of love transforming identity: “What’s in a name?” Speeches and...

With Professor Simon Palfrey, Part 2 looks closely at the play’s characters, and especially at the intelligence and swiftness of Juliet. You’ll see how the lovers apprehend new possibilities of human life, but also how their social world constrains their possibilities; and how the play might seem to offer the possibility of comedy, but how it’s destined for tragedy all along. And the tragedy doesn’t belong only to the young lovers who are thwarted by their parents — it belongs to the parents,...

Children of families who are locked in a fatal feud, Romeo and Juliet risk community, identity, and life to pursue an all-consuming love. Today, Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous love stories in the world. But the play isn’t simply a celebration of love or an idealization of the lovers. This wild and dangerous play lays bare the link between desire and death, between love and loss. The tragedy of Romeo and Juliet isn’t that their love is thwarted or impossible. The tragedy is love....

In Part 3, Professor Emma Smith offers close-readings of some of the play’s most important scenes, which dramatize the wide range of relationships and types of love explored in the play.  Speeches and performers: Orsino, 1.1, “If music be the food of love, play on …” (Jeffrey Blair Cornell) Malvolio and Olivia, 1.5, “I marvel your Ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal …” (Amanda Harris) Antonio and Sebastian, 2.1, “If you will not murder me for my love …” (Kelly Hunter,...

Part 2 looks at the many instances of inversion and transgression, looking at how characters cross boundaries of gender, status, and social role, and how they are punished or rewarded. Professor Emma Smith looks closely at the final scene and how it settles—or doesn’t— the characters’ roles and the play’s own status as a comedy.

Twelfth Night, named for the celebration that is both the culmination and the close of the Christmas festivities, is a bittersweet romantic comedy at once melancholy and merry. Through its central plot, in which the female Viola takes on the guise of the male Cesario and becomes beloved of both men and women, this play is also one of Shakespeare’s most modern approaches to identity and sexuality. In this course, you’ll learn the story and context of Twelfth Night, explore the questions it...

In Part 3, Professor Stephen Greenblatt offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll get an in-depth look at the powerful relationship between Antonio and Bassanio, the climactic confrontation between Antonio and Shylock in the court, and the hard-edged poignancy of the play’s most famous speech: “Hath not a Jew eyes?” Speeches and performers: Antonio, 1.1, “I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it …” (Scott Ripley) Shylock, 3.1, “He hath disgraced me …” (Ray...