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  3. Television

  4. How to Read and Understand Shakespeare

TELEVISION

How to Read and Understand Shakespeare

Series: Great Courses
4.5
(84)
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Episodes
24
Rating
TVPG
Year
2013
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

Shakespeare's plays are masterworks, but they can be hard to understand for a modern English speaker. Gain direct insight into Shakespeare's writing in this course which explains how to enter Shakespeare's world, how to grasp what's happening in his plays, and how to enjoy each play on both the page and the stage.

Related Subjects

  • How To
  • Educational

Episodes

1. Approaching Shakespeare - The Scene Begins

30m

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Consider four points of entry for understanding what's happening in a Shakespeare play. Learn how to approach a single dramatic scene, focusing on Shakespeare's richly metaphorical use of language. Begin to grasp the playwright's use of stagecraft, and how his plays require the audience's active participation and powers of imagination.

2. Shakespeare's Theater and Stagecraft

30m

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Here, envision theatrical London as it existed in Shakespeare's time. First, consider Shakespeare's fundamental intent to 'hold the mirror up to nature': to imitate the living world. Then learn about the colorful milieu of Elizabethan theater; its conventions of physical space, scenery, and costumes; and how the playwright created theatrical 'reality' through language.

3. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Comic Tools

30m

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In his comedic plays, Shakespeare drew on the classical Roman model of comedy. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, see how he expands the form, using the archetypal plot devices of 'blocked love,' its resolution at either the altar or the grave, and the escape from urban life to the magical world of the forest.

4. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Comic Structure

30m

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This episode explores key principles for understanding and appreciating Shakespeare's comedies. Grasp the thematic elements of a shift from friendship to romantic love and of severe testing of the characters. See how the three-part structure of the comedies leads inevitably to reconciliation and regeneration.

5. Romeo and Juliet - Words, Words, Words

30m

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Shakespeare's primary tool as a playwright is words themselves as dramatic expressions of character and meaning. In Romeo and Juliet, see how Shakespeare ingeniously uses language to distinguish class and personality, and how he uses the poetic form of the sonnet in creating a sublime language of love.

6. Romeo and Juliet - The Tools of Tragedy

30m

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Continuing with Romeo and Juliet, observe how the famous balcony scene shifts the action and sense of the play toward a new kind of character-driven tragedy. In the play's unfolding, note the role of the tension between fate and free will, and the arc of development whereby Juliet becomes a great tragic figure.

7. Appearance versus Reality in Twelfth Night

30m

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As one of his outstanding 'mature' comedies, Twelfth Night reveals themes and elements that are keys to all of Shakespeare's plays. Discover how the comedy revolves around crises of identity, the need to distinguish external appearance from internal reality, and a reversal of power roles.

8. Twelfth Night - More Comic Tools

30m

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In Shakespeare's encompassing vision of Twelfth Night, observe how the young characters' movement toward self-knowledge and mutual love contrasts with plot elements of isolation and rejection. See how the remarkable heroine Viola, a figure of grace, acts as an agent of redemption for the entire world of the play.

9. Richard II - History and Kingship

30m

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In his history plays, Shakespeare addresses profound issues of politics, philosophy, and religion. In Richard II, engage with core thematic elements that drive the history plays: the question of the 'divine right' of kingship, the larger meanings of historical events, and the conflict between brothers: an emblem for civil war.

10. Politics as Theater in Henry IV, Part I

30m

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Here, the dynamic of appearance versus reality illuminates the making of a king. In the dual world of the Court and the Tavern, witness Shakespeare's use of theatrical role-playing to reveal Prince Hal and Falstaff to themselves, and grasp how Hal's journey to kingship takes on the nature of a calculated 'performance.'

Extended Details

  • SeriesGreat Courses
  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

Marc C. ConnerActor