Shakespeare and Pals: Recapping the Bard

011 The First Masterpiece: Richard III

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 shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
 
Sources
The Oxford Shakespeare: Richard III (Oxford University Press)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage, edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)

010 Joan of Arc’s in This One! Henry VI, Part 1

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: shakespeare.pals@gmail.com
SourcesThe 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.

009 Roman Psycho: The Rape of Lucrece

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

008 Richard III, the early years: Henry VI, Part 3

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

007 Shakespeare’s Rival: Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Part 1

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

006 That Play You’ve Sort Of Heard Of: Henry VI, Part 2

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 shakespeare.pals@gmail.com

005 The Dark Souls of Poetry: Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (Book 1)

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)

004 Chaste-Boi and Cougar-Lady: Venus and Adonis

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 shakespeare.pals@gmail.com

003 A Woman, Her Husband, Her Brother and A Priest: John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi

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 shakespeare.pals@gmail.com

002 Renaissance Red Pill: The Taming of the Shrew

Well, we had to do this one eventually...
 
Michael, Sophie, and Greg take you through Shakespeare's early comedy The Taming of the Shrew. We will meet young lovers, old gender roles, and a middling farce. Does the play hold up artistically or morally -- tune in to find out!
 
Sources
The Life of the Author, William Shakespeare by Anna Beer (John Wiley & Sons)
Shakespeare: The Critical Heritage edited by Brian Vickers (Routledge)
The Taming of the Shrew, The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series edited by Barbara Hodgdon
 
 
Comments and questions can be sent to shakespeare.pals@gmail.com