Shakespeare and Pals: Recapping the Bard

Helena loves Count Bertram, but fears he'll never love a commoner. She's right.  We're in the Kingdom of France, and the King is dying of disease. None of his doctors can help, but Helena's dead doctor dad left her a special medicinal formula. In exchange for saving the King's life, the King will let her choose any man she likes for a husband. She chooses her childhood friend Count Bertram. Rather than marry a commoner, Bertram runs away to war. Can Helena snare her man? Is all well in "All's Well"? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)    

Shakespeare's the boss of English literature. Homer's the boss of Western literature! After the Trojan War, lying Odysseus is running a bit late to return home. But he has a good excuse! Gods and goddesses are getting in his way, throwing cyclopses, sea monsters, comely sorceresses at him. Is the foundational text of Western literature a ripping yarn? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: The Odyssey, Homer (trans. Emily Wilson), W. W. Norton & Company.

It's the Trojan War! And young love is in the air. Shakespeare loves him a classical reference, so here's his love story set in the Trojan War. The Trojan nobles Troilus and Cressida love each other, and they manage to tie the knot. Unfortunately, Cressida's father defected to the Greek side, and he has Cressida brought to the Greek camp with him. Can Troilus and Cressida's love survive this?  Is this play a tragedy, or more of a parody of the Greek myths? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Arden Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

A bawdy sex farce Restoration style... by a woman! Virginia Woolf said that, "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Does that raise your expectations a little too high for this sex comedy? Probably. But anyway Aphra Behn gives us a fast-paced story of an Italian noblewoman who does not want to marry a prince, her sister who does not want to become a nun, and an Englishman who'll shag anything that moves. You've guessed it, we're bringing back the explicit tag for this one. Join Michael and Sophie for Aphra Behn's The Rover!

Do Italians do it (Shakespeare) better?  Giuseppe Verdi strips Shakespeare's bawdy farce down to basics, cutting characters, plots, scenes. And he makes the play... better?  Join us to discuss Giuseppe Verdi's opera version of Shakespeare! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

Shakespeare's break out side-character Falstaff gets his own play! It worked so well for Jack Sparrow... Falstaff returns to the stage. There are no wars or princes this time, only love, swindling, and funny accents. Falstaff needs money, so he's going to woo and hoodwink two married ladies. But these merry wives are more cunning that Falstaff expects. Can Shakespeare's rotund philosopher-scoundrel hold a play by himself? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: The Merry Wives of Windsor (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

What if Hamlet but girl... and silent movie? Everything you know about Hamlet is a lie. Actually, Hamlet is a "she". She still needs to kill her uncle though. Asta Nielsen's reinvention of Hamlet may lack some of the depth of the original,  but, hey, she gives us a Hamlet college life AU. Does this 100 year old move stand the test of time? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

Danish guy wants to... This doesn't need an introduction! After many long years, we're here. Shakespeare's masterpiece, the masterpiece of English literature. As Gustave Flaubert said, the three finest things God ever made were Hamlet, Don Giovanni, and the sea. Does Hamlet deserve the hype? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Revenge is a dish best served... with lots of collateral damage... Andrea's dead, but true haters take revenge from beyond the grave. He enlists the spirit of Revenge to kill his murderer, the Portuguese Prince Balthazar. This leads to Andrea's girlfriend falling in love with another man, that man getting murdered, that man's father murdering the murderers, and... so much other stuff... The origin of the revenge tragedy. Without The Spanish Tragedy, there would be no Hamlet. Does the genre grand-daddy live up to Shakespeare's masterpiece? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

We return to Shakespeare's true love: cross-dressers. When Viola gets washed up on the Illyrian coast, she simply has no choice but to dress up as a boy and enter the service of the sexy local lord... Hi-jinks ensue. This good, cross-dressing girl gets caught up in love triangles and mistaken identity. We once more ask: Is Shakespeare good at comedy? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: Twelfth Night (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Phedre's been bit by the love-bug, and it's gonna get a lot of people killed. Athenian Prince Hippolyte thinks the worst thing is for his step-mum Phedre to hate him... Oh, no, no... His step-mum L-O-V-E-S him. She knows it's wrong, but her husband is probably dead, and her maid is an enabler. What could possibly go wrong? We've done the greatest French comedy, Moliere's Tartuffe. Now we're doing the greatest French tragedy -- Jean Racine's Phedre! Does it deserve the hype? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

Boy loves girl. Boy gets banished, then girl gets banished, so boy and girl run to the forest where girl's father is also banished. And girl pretends to be boy to flirt with boy. That old chestnut... Shakespeare loves his cross-dressing heroines, and here we have one of his most famous -- Rosalind. We also get the first of Shakespeare's wise fools.   But is "As You Like It" as we like it? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: As You Like It (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

This time the Shakespeare-thing is... Us! Three years on, we've decided to take a look back at the podcast. How our opinions of Shakespeare have changed, our hot takes, our cold takes, and what is the weirdest Shakespeare thing we've done is? Join us for our three-year retrospective! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]  

The big question: Are the French funny? It wasn't just England that had Renaissance theatre. France had a crack at it, too, and their big-dog of classical comedy was Molière. Orgon's wife and children hate Tartuffe, a mooching, puritanical, hypocritical conman. Unfortunately, Orgon thinks Tartuffe is a saint. Can Orgon family, with the help of a feisty maid, catch Tartuffe red-handed? Has Molière's comedy survived the centuries? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: Molière, Le Tartuffe (Folio classique) Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite (trans. Curtis Hidden Page), Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2027

The one where Brutus gets radicalised by anonymous commenters Conspiracy, assassination, sky-rending omens. Julius Caesar is dictator-for-life, and some people think this might be bad for democracy. But is it right to kill him? And then the second half of the play is about a war that no one remembers. Does Julius Caesar deserve its place among Shakespeare's A-list? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: Julius Caesar (Oxford University Press)  

We're traveling back in time to the inspiration for Shakespeare's Roman plays - Plutarch! Plutarch wrote compact, anecdote-filled, politically-astute biographies of the great Greeks and Romans, and who greater than Julius Caesar? Would Plutarch's tale of the rise and fall of Julius Caesar be worth reading even if Shakespeare never based his Julius Caesar on it? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  Plutarch (trans. Robin Waterfield), Roman Lives (Oxford University Press) Plutarch (trans. Bernadotte Perrin), Caesar (Perseus Digital Library)

We're having a second chance at a first impression. Shakespeare's first play -- AGAIN! Just like Shakespeare got better, so have we. Sophie and Michael go back to Shakespeare's very first play. Does Shakespeare's debut -- packed with love triangles, cross-dressing, and love-able rogues, and hate-able heroes -- benefit from a new light? Tune in to our new episode 1 and episode 36. Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Is Henry V great? Or propaganda? It's great propaganda! In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare invented the modern romantic comedy. Now he invents the modern war film. Henry V fights the valiant, villainous French with a country-crossing army of ethnically diverse warriors (English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh).  Does this patriotic crowd-pleaser still work in our more cynical times? Is it patriotic at all? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: Henry V (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)  

Bringing back the explicit tag for this one! The ladies of Ancient Greece are fed up with the war. Well, you know what men love more than killing each other? Sex! Greek citizenesses are going on a sex-strike till the peace. Comedy ages notoriously badly, but is Aristophanes' edgy, bawdy, snappy satire still a hit? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  Lysistrata and Other Plays, by Aristophanes, trans. Alan H Sommerstein (Penguin Books) Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, trans. Jack Lyndsay (Perseus Digital Library)

Believe Your Girlfriend: The Play Benedict likes Beatrice, and Beatrice likes Benedict, but Benedict and Beatrice don't like that they like each other, so their friends trick them into getting together. Meanwhile, Claudio likes Hero, and Hero likes Claudio, but Don John doesn't like people being happy, so he tricks Claudio into thinking Hero is cheating on him. Claudio... does not take it well. "Romeo and Juliet" was a comedy that became a tragedy. "Much Ado About Nothing" is a comedy that becomes a tragedy and becomes a comedy again. Does it work? Join us to find out!   Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Gay Henry IV! Except not really... Except very much yes! Gus Van Sant's classic of queer cinema recontextualises Henry IV into the world of gay hustlers. Prince Hal is a trust fund kid slumming it, and Poins is our narcoleptic viewpoint character. With lines directly adapted from Henry IV, and sequences remixed from Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight, Gus Van Sant rams Henry IV into modern day. Does it work? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991)  

Shakespeare's only true sequel, a play that depends on its prequel. Does it work? Are the character arcs continued and deepened? Or does this basically redo the previous play but with less focus? Join us to discuss King Henry IV, Part 2! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: King Henry IV, Part 2 (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

What if the comic relief was the main character? The Chimes and Midnight reframes the whole story around Prince Hal's buddy Falstaff. No longer a coming of age story, but a portrait of slow decline of an old thief. This comedy drama is considered one of the greatest Shakespeare films ever made, and Orson Welles one of the greatest Falstaffs. Does it live up to its reputation? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

You ever have to choose between your King dad and your thief dad? King Henry IV's got two problems - rebelling nobles and a rebellious son. Prince Hal spends all his time with low lives in taverns. Could Hal ever possibly rise to the occasion and save the day? Does Shakespeare's coming-of-age, war comedy still hold up? Join Michael and Sophie and find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: King Henry IV, Part 1 (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Boy loves girl. Boy’s father thinks the girl isn’t rich enough. Boy pretends to be in love with a drag king. We’re bringing back the “explicit” tag just for this episode. Tommy M and Tommy D’s saucy talents are on full display in this bawdy City Comedy. There are more innuendos than you can shake your rapier at. Is this play only memorable for its titular cross-dresser, or is there more meat on its bones? Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: Librivox production of The Roaring Girl https://librivox.org/the-roaring-girl-by-thomas-middleton-and-thomas-dekker/ English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology, eds. David Bevington et al. (W. W. Norton & Company)

One of Shakespeare’s great… comedies???? Bassanio needs some cash to impress the wealthy heiress Portia. This couldn’t possibly lead to his best friend getting imprisoned and disemboweled. One of Shakespeare's great plays, full of poetry and incident and nuance, and Romance with a capital R. Is it toppled by the antisemitism at its centre? Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources:  The Oxford Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

It’s Romeo and Juliet as an anime! What more do you want? It’s Shakespeare’s tale, but not as we know it. Verona is a far future city in the sky, and all the nobles ride pegasi. Years ago, the evil Lord Montague massacred the Capulets – all but one. Juliet survived, and now spends her adolescence cross-dressing as a boy and moonlighting as a masked vigilante. But how will her life change when she meets Romeo at ball? Join us for flying horses, daring-do, and shoujo romance! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Romeo X Juliet can be watched on Crunchyroll

The one that you forgot Shakespeare did. King John just can’t catch a break. He’s got challengers to the throne, war with France, and now the Pope’s getting on his back. Desperate times call for desperate measures, which include knocking off his young nephew Arthur. Does this play deserve the obscurity it’s fallen into? Sophie and Michael find out! Sources: The Oxford Shakespeare: King John (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Shakespeare stole all his ideas… from the god of Dreams One of the greatest comic book series of all time, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman plays with almost all human culture, so how could Gaiman overlook Shakespeare? In The Sandman #19, Shakespeare plays Midsummer Night’s Dream for an audience of fairies. In The Sandman #75, Shakespeare longs to retire his magic pen just once he’s finished his play about Prospero laying down his magic wand. Is Neil Gaiman’s use of Shakespeare more than just a clever idea?  Michael and Sophie find out! Sources: Neil Gaiman, The Sandman (DC Comics)

It’s the one with the donkey-headed tradie! An Athenian hero with his Amazon war-bride condemns a young girl to death or nunnery, so young lovers flee into the forest, followed by two other young lovers who don’t love each other yet, so a fairy king tries to fix the love quadrangle, but not before he makes his wife fall for a donkey-man mutant to get revenge on her for not handing over an royal Indian toddler. That old chestnut. One of Shakespeare’s most famous… comedies??? Like a lot of Shakespearian comedies, this one has a dark edge. But does it work as farce or drama? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: The Oxford Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

The Walt Disney of Japan took a break from Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. Did you know Osamu Tezuka adapted The Merchant of Venice? It’s like if Walt Disney adapted Crime and Punishment… which Osamu Tezuka also did… Tezuka had range!  Does Tezuka’s style capture the folktale darkness of the Merchant of Venice? Tune in to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: Japanese edition: Osamu Tezuka, 虹のプレリュード/Rainbow Prelude (Tezuka Productions) (https://bookwalker.jp/def2c50a53-360e-4319-841d-ec4fd920bf7e/)  Christopher Harding, The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives (Penguin Books)

Gayer than Shakespeare – Got your attention? Finding queer subtext in renaissance plays usually takes digging. Not here though. Marlowe has his King and boytoy howling sweet nothings to each other. And this is the Christian 1590s – surely these two disaster gays have a happy ending? Gay love, political intrigue, rebellion, far too many characters – can old Kit Marlowe match the quality and convolutedness of Shakespeare’s history plays? Join Michael and Sophie to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays (Penguin Classics) Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0007%3Aact%3D1%3Ascene%3D1)

The Prequel Tetralogy begins! Before the Richard III, before Henry VI, before the War of the Roses, there was unmanly, luxurious Richard II. Under his all-powerful negligence, a squabble between nobles becomes a cause for rebellion against the crown, with Henry Bolingbroke becoming Henry IV! ... spoilers... Sandwiched between Richard III and the Henry plays, has this history play been unfairly overshadowed? Join us to find out! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: The Oxford Shakespeare: Richard II (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

Turns out we’re publishing this one…   We’re going on an unstructured ramble about the most structured poetic form. This month, we’re looking at five Tudor sonnets – and only two of them are Shakespeare!   A sonnet might just be fourteen, but they pack a lot of food for thought into each one. Join us as we discuss:  Thomas Wyatt’s Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is an Hind Philip Sidney’s “Stella, Since Thou So Right A Princess Art” Richard Barnfield’s “Cherry-lipt Adonis in his snowie shape” Shakespeare’s Sonnet 10 and 55   Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]   Sources: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The Encyclopedia Britannica

We really have been trying to make this podcast more family friendly... Here we have an edgy take on Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet’s problem was there families were too far apart. Giovanni and Annabella’s families are too close. They’re the same family. They’re brother and sister. But that’s not all, we’ve also got street fights, dumb nephews, evil Spaniards, and scene-stealing banditti. Is this Renaissance tragedy more than an exercise in edginess? Join us as we discuss “‘Tis Pity She’s a Sex-Positive Lady”! Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: John Ford, ed. Sonia Massai, Arden Early Modern Drama: 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Bloomsbury Publishing John Ford, entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Ford-British-dramatist

Here’s a hot-take: Romeo and Juliet is a love story. Shakespeare’s tragic love story is so iconic I don’t even need to say anything about it. You’ve Romeo and Juliet with New York gangs and garden gnomes. But join us to see all the details and subtext the updates miss. Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: The Oxford Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

You have no idea what this one’s about, do you? Great title though. Would you believe this romantic comedy about four nobles trying to become celibate scholars actually holds up quite well? Would you believe it has some of Shakespeare’s feistiest heroines? Would you believe it has one of his most realistic depictions of causal romance?  Well, you’re just going have to listen to find out. Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: The Oxford Shakespeare: Love’s Labour’s Lost (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge) Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare: The Biography (Vintage) Johnathan Bate, How the Classics Made Shakespeare (Princeton) Anna Beer, The Life of the Author, William Shakespeare (Wiley Blackwell) Peter Levi, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare (Henry Holt & Co) Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford University Press)

This one gets all the trigger warnings: rape, murder, racism, amputation, cannibalism, questionable anachronisms, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten. Does this draw you in? It certainly scared off centuries of Shakespeare admirers. Some early critics even refused to believe Shakespeare penned this blood bath. Is Titus Andronicus a good riff on the Roman tragedy? Or is it all just a bit much? Michael and Sophie dig in. Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: The Oxford Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge) Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare: The Biography (Vintage) Johnathan Bate, How the Classics Made Shakespeare (Princeton) Anna Beer, The Life of the Author, William Shakespeare (Wiley Blackwell) Samuel Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford University Press)

We’re forced to read “Hamlet” at school. Shakespeare was forced to read “Thyestes”.  Family squabbles turning hyperviolent has a long history, nowhere more violent than in these Ancient Roman classics. Do Seneca’s bloody plays still have power to shock? We dig into “Medea” and “Thyestes”. Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected] Sources: Seneca, Six Tragedies, trans. Emily Wilson (Oxford University Press) Seneca, Four Tragedies and Octavia, trans. E F Watling (Penguin Books)

How does a 400-year-old play feel more old-fashioned than a 2000-year-old one? Shakespeare brings family values, civic virtue, and basic human decency to Plautus’ farce of selfishness and hedonism.   Like West Side Story to Roman and Juliet, Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors is to Plautus’ The Brothers Menaechmus. The mistaken identities and whirling confusion is the same but the values are not.   Join us to discuss adaptations, sanitation, grafting a third dimension onto cardboard cut-outs, and the movie Airplane!   Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]   Sources The Oxford Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

You know how you were forced to read Shakespeare in school? Shakespeare was forced to read Plautus. Any Renaissance writer worth his salt riffed on this Roman Republican comedian. Shakespeare liked this play so much he based The Comedy of Errors on it.   It’s a classic tale of long-separated twins getting mistaken for each other.   Has this 2000-year-old comedy aged well? Get ready for mistaken identity, hedonism, the art of translation, 1960s-style sexism, ancient-style slavery and – above all – brotherly love.   Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]   Sources Plautus, Four Comedies, trans. Erich Segal (the guy who wrote Love Story – you know, the movie your grandfather sort of remembers – ‘love means never having to say your sorry’, that one.), Oxford University Press Plautus, Menaechmi, or The Twin Brothers, edited by Henry Thomas Riley, Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=pl.+men.+1 The Encyclopedia Britannica, Plautus (Roman dramatist), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plautus

Finally! We’re getting to the masterpieces. If Shakespeare had died before this one, do you think this podcast would exist? No! You wouldn’t even have heard of Shakespeare.   For hundreds of years after release, critics of this play thought it was just too bloody and depraved. Does it still have its power to shock? Join us for a bloody tale of fratricide, seduction, propaganda and some of the best speeches in Shakespeare.   Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]   Sources The Oxford Shakespeare: Richard III (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

When you get to the end of the story, where do you go? The beginning! At the end of Henry VI, Part 3, Henry was dead and Richard III was ascendant. Now Shakespeare gives us a Star Wars-style prequel. One question remains: Is this play as good as the Star Wars prequels? Join us for a war story of derring-do, Joan of Arc, and French villains with all the menace of Team Rocket. Make sure to subscribe and share this podcast! Comments and questions can be sent to: [email protected] Sources The Oxford Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Part 1 (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge) Bevington, D. M. (1966). The Domineering Female in 1 Henry VI. Shakespeare Studies, 2, 51–58. Gutierrez, N. A. (1990). Gender and Value in “1 Henry VI”: The Role of Joan de Pucelle. Theatre Journal, 42(2), 183–193. Tricomi, A. H. (2001). Joan la Pucelle and the Inverted Saints Play in “1 Henry VI.” Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, 25(2), 5–31.

If the title isn’t content warning enough… CW: sexual assault and suicide Another narrative poem from the master playwright. A tale of the sex scandal that undid the Roman monarchy. And also a ten-page description of a painting…   Yes, the poem is salacious, but Shakespeare isn’t just slapping together a potboiler. Expanding a three page story from Livy’s History of Rome to one-hundred pages, Shakespeare gives us his famous psychological monologues. Here we have early glimpses of the pen that would bring us Brutus and Hamlet’s soul searching.   Sources The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems The History of Rome, by Titius Livius Fasti, by Ovid

The War of the Roses! A pacifist King, a warrior Queen, rebellious lords, and more battles than you can shake a wooden sword at. And like Revenge of the Sith, we see the rise of one of fiction’s most famous baddies – Richard III!   Is this much-ignored war-story worth picking up? Michael, Greg, and Sophie find out.   Sources: The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare, by Anna Beer, from Wiley Blackwell William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life, by S. Schoenbaum, from Oxford University Press The Life and Times of William Shakespeare, by Peter Levi, from PaperMac Shakespeare: The Biography, by Peter Ackroyd, from Vintage

The Avengers Endgame of its day! The bombastic bio-play of the Middle Eastern conqueror Timur. Written by Christopher Marlowe, smoker, spy, and Shakespeare’s best frenemy. After 400 years does this uber-popular, uber-influential hit of the Elizabethan stage still hold up? Michael, Greg and Sophie dig in.   Sources: Christopher Marlowe: The Critical Heritage, ed. Miller MacLure, from Routledge “Christopher Marlowe” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Charles Nicholl, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-18079 The Cambridge Companion to Christopher Marlowe, ed. Patrick Cheney, from Cambridge University Press: “Marlowe and the English Literary Scene” by James P Bednarz

Why are we doing Part 2 before Part 1? Because like George Lucas, Shakespeare got to Part 1 later.   Shakespeare's first and massively successful history play shows us the too, too pious King Henry VI surrounded by Machiavellian politicians, an adulterous wife, a working class rebellion, and the traitorous Duke of York.   Sources The Oxford Shakespeare: King Henry VI, Part 2 (Oxford University Press) The Life of the Author, William Shakespeare by Anna Beer (John Wiley & Sons) William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life by Samuel Schoenbaum (Oxford University Press) Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)   Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

You up for some epic fantasy that somehow moves faster and slower than The Lord of the Rings? You up for an allegory where Pride is an ogre, Deception is a woman in makeup, and Queen Elizabeth is an elf? Edmund Spenser spins a tale of conflicted knights in a dark world, filled with Soulsborne-esque monsters.   Sources Edmund Spenser, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by Andrew Hadfield The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (Penguin)

Please forgive Michael's audio.... Something was wrong with the mic setup   Struggling for cash during a plague, Shakespeare whipped up this risque mythological mini-epic. Venus and Adonis tells the relatable tale of a strapping young man hounded by the Lust God.   How does Shakespeare expand a five page story from Ovid's Metamorphoses into a 100 page poem? Tune in the find out!   Sources The Life of the Author, William Shakespeare by Anna Beer (John Wiley & Sons) The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford University Press) Ovid's Metamorphoses, trans. Charles Martin (Norton)   Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]

An excursion away from Shakespeare to the next generation of English drama. Considered one of the greatest dramatists of the English language, John Webster's masterpiece is a dark tragedy about love, prejudice, gender and resilience.   Sources The Works of John Webster Vol 1, edited by David Gunby, David Carnegie, and Antony Hammond (Cambridge University Press)   Comments and questions can be sent to [email protected]