Explore every episode of the podcast The Classic English Literature Podcast
Dive into the complete episode list for The Classic English Literature Podcast. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Title
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The Ambiguity of Wit: William Wycherly's The Country Wife
Charles II reopened the theatres in 1660 and inaugurated the second golden age of the English stage. Today's show looks at one of the bawdiest plays to come from the period, a "comedy of manners" whose clever use of language points to the reality of style over substance.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Today marks the anniversary of one of the most mythologized battles in Anglo-Irish history: the Battle of the Boyne. In July of 1690, King William III soundly defeated James II and secured Ireland's Protestant supremacy while sowing the seeds for centuries of violent conflict. The battle also marks the debut of one of Ireland's most prominent writers, Dr. Jonathan Swift, whose poem "Ode to King William" celebrates the Orange victory.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
As Americans celebrate Independence Day, I'm here once again to remind them of the debt American independence owes to English literature and history. Stick in the mud. Today, we look at a genuinely weird poem that allegorizes the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (an event that would lay the groundwork for the American Revolution nearly a century later) as a cup of tea. So, pour yourself one -- milk first or last, doesn't matter to me -- and enjoy the show!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Aphra Behn's Oroonoko: Blurring History and Romance
In today's chinwag, we'll explore a candidate for the first novel in English by the first professional female writer in English: Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688). It's the story of an African prince and his beloved, who are betrayed into slavery and do not live happily ever after. The novel seems a modest heroic romance, but I think Ms. Behn has a more complex project up her sleeve . . . .
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Dear Diary: Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn, and Navel-Gazing as History
Today we look at the diary, a form of writing that became extraordinarily popular over the course of the 1600s. We'll especially look at famous diarists such as John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, who not only chronicle details of their personal lives, but also give first hand accounts of the dramatic history of the period: the Restoration of the Monarchy, the Great Plague, and the Great Fire of London.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Today, a bit of a genealogy of a now little read mock epic -- Samuel Butler's Hudibras -- which takes Chaucer and Spenser and Jonson and Cervantes, mixes them all up into a gloopy goo, and sprays it all over lemon-sucking Puritans!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Forward to the Past: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress
Put on your comfortable shoes and grab your walking stick because today we're embarking on the most famous allegory in the English language: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from 1678. We'll cross plains, endure temptations, descend valleys, fight monsters, and ford rivers in our quest for the Celestial City! Along the way, we'll talk about how this most Puritanical of texts is, ironically, deeply indebted to the ideas of the preceding religions it rejects. Last one there's a rotten egg!
An apology: please do forgive the plosives on this episode. Reckon I got too near the microphone's pop filter. I shall work on my technique in future.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Nasty, Brutish, and Naturally Free: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and the Social Contract
The political upheavals of 17th century England demanded new answers for old political questions: what is the purpose of government, how is power legitimated, and who may wield it? Philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke reasoned from the same premises, but arrived at rather different conclusions. Balancing those conclusions is the primary task of liberal democracies to this day.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Early Science Fiction: Lunar Geese and Blazing Worlds
We often think of science fiction as a particularly modern genre of storytelling, born of the science and technology of the electronic and digital age. But speculative fiction goes back centuries, back to the beginning of what we now call the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s. On today's show, we look at two of the foundational books in the genre: Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moon and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World. May the Force be with us!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Which is better: the life of ascetic contemplation or one of passionate sensuality? Let's see what the last great poet of the Stuart era, Andrew Marvell, has to say about that.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
The Earliest Tales of Robin Hood (Out of Time Episode 2)
Here's another episode in our foundling series "Out of Time." Today, I correct an oversight from our 15th century literature discussions and survey the very earliest surviving tales of the outlaw and all-around-swell-guy Robin Hood! Let's jump in the Wayback Machine!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
To Justify the Ways of God: John Milton's Paradise Lost (episode 2)
We return to Milton's magnificent octopus today with an eye toward evaluating the epic's success according to its own mission statement: "to justify the ways of God to men." How does Milton approach the great theological problems of evil and suffering, divine foreknowledge, and free will?
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Sexy Satan: John Milton's Paradise Lost (episode 1)
Sexy Satan, what have you done? You made a fool of every one!
On this episode we tackle the rather thorny question of Paradise Lost's charismatic protagonist (?) or antagonist (?) or antihero (?): the hottest guy in Hell. Why does an epic on the cosmic history of Christianity, written by a radical Puritan, present us with so commanding and appealing a character?
Additional music: "Gonna Fly Now (Theme from Rocky)" by Bill Conti. https://archive.org/details/rocky_202111/1976+-+Rocky/01.+Gonna+Fly+Now+(Theme+from+Rocky).mp3
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
In 1638, John Milton -- whom many see as perhaps the (second) greatest poet in English -- produced what many think to be his first major poem: the pastoral elegy "Lycidas," written to memorialize the tragic death of a college classmate. Ah! But it's so much more than that!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
The original "War on Christmas"! This year's stocking stuffer looks at England's Christmas ban from 1647 to 1660 and at a rather quirky pamphlet entitled "The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas." Season's greetings, Litterbugs!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Today we have a slightly different kind of show -- literary analysis takes a bit of a back seat to historical context. We'll look at the turbulent period between 1625 and 1660, when England went to war with itself over the roles of the monarchy and of Parliament. We'll look at primary historical documents as well as a little poetry to get a sense of the state of the nation as it begins its rise to a world power.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
This Subcast episode marks the American Thanksgiving holiday by looking at two early accounts of the celebration by Pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow and then turns to that great hymn of thanksgiving -- Psalm 107 -- from The Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in what would become the United States. We'll also look at what's called the "Puritan Plain Style" of composition, a marked departure from the ornate literature of its Anglican contemporaries.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Today we look at the love children of John Donne and Ben Jonson, a group of monarchist soldiers during the English Civil War. Collectively known as the Cavalier Poets, they are numerous. We'll look at some representative poems today by Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, and the ill-fated and unfortunately named Sir John Suckling.
Additional music: "Consort for Brass" by Kevin MacLeod "La Violetta" by Claudio Monteverdi; perf. The Boston Camerata, dir. Joel Cohen "In Town Tonight" by Reginald Dixon; perf. Eric Coates
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Cant, Costume, and Cutpurses: Dekker and Middleton's The Roaring Girl
Let's head into the Fortune Theatre for a performance of one of the most innovative and deceptively complex comedies of the English Renaissance. The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cutpurse explores the fluidity of social identity by the protagonist's use of clothing and language.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
"The test of experience": The Philosophy of Sir Francis Bacon
We'll get a bit philosophical today and look at the English language's greatest influence on the scientific revolution: politician, philosopher, and scientist Sir Francis Bacon. His Essays and "The Four Idols" from Novum Organon are our focus.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Vikings Are A Thing! The Scandinavian Influence on English (Out of Time Episode 1)
This is the first of what I'm calling the "Out of Time" episodes, an embedded series of Subcast shows that fill in gaps I may have missed along the way. Today, we fly our Out-of-Time-Machine all the way back to the 8th-century to see how the Danish invasions left an indelible mark upon English language and literature. Pack your battle-axe!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Here's a short episode to answer a special request by a loyal listener! Let's dive a little deeper into the various versions of Shakespeare's Hamlet that have come down to us!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
An Unintended Episode: English Country House Poems
I had not thought to do an episode on the English country house poetry of the 17th century, but was recently reminded of their place in the survey of early modern literature, so here's a look at that peculiar subgenre.
In this show, we'll look at Aemilia Lanyer's "A Description of Cooke-ham" and Ben Jonson's "To Penshurst."
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Let's head back to the theatre for a really blood-soaked tragedy! And while we're at it, let's think about the intersection between art and social criticism.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Poet and priest John Donne's work seems to transcend its early 17th century moment and feels as fresh and alive to us as anything written today. In this episode, we look at the following texts:
"The Bait" "Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going To Bed" "Batter my heart" "Death, be not proud" "The Flea" "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" "Meditation 17" from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
Additional music: "You Can Leave Your Hat On" by Randy Newman. Sail Away. Reprise Records. 1972. Accessed as public domain through the Internet Archive.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
"Drink to me only with thine eyes": Ben Jonson's Lyrics
Today, we'll wrap up our Jonsonian mini-series by looking at some his lyrics, including poems from the 1616 Works and songs from his plays. If you'd like to read along, just ask Uncle Google to serve up these titles:
"On Something, that Walks Somewhere" "On My First Daughter" "On My First Son" "Song: To Celia" "Still to be Neat"
Additional music from Internet Archive: "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" perf. Paul Robeson, 1938. "In Town Tonight" by Eric Coates, perf. Reginald Dixon.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
It's Independence Day here in America, so today's show takes the opportunity to look at some of writing of early English colonists in New England and how their ideas contributed to the national ethos that would emerge in the coming centuries.
Additional music from Internet Archive: "Stars and Stripes Forever." John Philip Sousa. perf Twentieth Century Fox Orchestra "The Love Boat Theme." perf Jack Jones
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
"A Pretty Kind of Game": Ben Jonson's Volpone and The Alchemist
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Today, I look askance at two plays by Ben Jonson, whom many see (not me, though) as the greatest English playwright bar Shakespeare: Every Man In His Humour and Every Man Out of His Humour. These have become the paradigmatic examples of the 17th century "comedy of humours."
Thank you to the Internet Archive for providing public domain recordings of The Benny Hill Show and Fawlty Towers theme songs.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Today, we take a historical survey of the Bible in English, from early partial translations and paraphrases in the 7th century through the magnificence of King James I's Authorized Version of 1611.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
More than the Dark Lady: Aemilia Lanyer's "Eve's Apology in Defense of Women"
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Fair Youths and Dark Ladies: Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
"You taught me language": Shakespeare's The Tempest
For our (probably) final episode on Shakespeare's plays, we sail through The Tempest, a late romance which has attracted historical and psychoanalytical interpretations, but stands out for many readers as perhaps a play in which a version of Shakespeare himself appears as the protagonist.
Audio clip from The Tempest ; 2004 Naxos AudioBooks. Taken from The Internet Archive
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
While most people know Shakespeare as a playwright, he saw himself as a poet in the quite traditional sense. Today, we'll look at his two major narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece.
clip from "Mrs. Robinson" by Paul Simon; perf. by Simon and Garfunkel. 1968. Taken from We Got Good at It: A Wrecking Crew Anthology 1962-1971. The Internet Archive.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Lear and the Absurdity of Suffering
The Tragedy of King Lear, while considered by many as Shakespeare's greatest play, is also his most devastating. In this episode, we consider what Lear has to say about the meaning of human suffering.
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In this episode, we look at how our current concerns with identity politics intersects with those of Shakespeare's plays which portray sexist, racist, or anti-Semitic material.
Fair warning: this episode will deal with language and tropes that some may find uncomfortable
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth: A Love Story
Is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy a cautionary tale about ambition? a bit of Jacobean mythmaking? Or is it the portrait of a deeply committed marriage gone catastrophically wrong?
With apologies for all the appalling accents . . . .
Performance Clip: Macbeth with Orson Welles, Fay Bainter, and the Mercury Acting Co. Mercury Text Records. From the Internet Archive (archive.org)
Additional Music: "The Rout of Moy" perf. Albannach. 2006. From the Internet Archive (archive.org)
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Who is There?: Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet
Shakespeare's Hamlet has not been out of production for over four centuries and its profound examination of the human condition continues to capture the hearts and minds of people the world over. Join me in Elsinore as we think about what some have called the greatest drama in history -- perhaps even the greatest literary achievement of all time!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year! Here's a little subcast episode on poet Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks," the first Christmas carol sanctioned by the Anglican Church around the turn of the 18th century.
Recording: "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night" THE B.B.C. CHORUS; Berkeley Mason Writer: Nahum Tate (Traditional Christmas Carol); (Text: (1696); Tune: "Winchester Old" 16th Cent.)
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Honor, Ethics, and Assassination: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
Is political violence ever justified? Who decides? And what ethical systems can evaluate the justice of such acts? Today, we look at the ethics driving the characters of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Welcome to the Subcast! On today's bonus episode, I give a little poddie-training on perhaps the most significant publishing event in English literature: the presentation of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
"I am a woman; when I think I must speak": Shakespeare's Rosalind and Beatrice
In this episode, we'll look at two women who are generally regarded as among the greatest female characters ever written: Rosalind from Shakespeare's As You Like It and Beatrice from his Much Ado About Nothing. Their wisdom, intelligence, and emotional depth challenge Renaissance gender assumptions and inaugurate a line of deep-feeling, wise-cracking female characters down to our own day.
Excerpts from "As You Like It" c. 1964 The Shakespeare Recording Company and "Much Ado About Nothing" c. 1960 The Dublin Gate Theatre; both downloaded from the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/audio)
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Happy Thanksgiving! George Herbert's "Gratefulness"
17th-century poet and priest George Herbert offers a playful poem reminding us to strive for gratefulness. I am, myself, very grateful for all the support you all have offered me. Thank you so much!
Additional sound: "Mahna Mahna" from The Muppet Show (1977). Downloaded from Internet Archive.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
In today's discussion, we take a look at the character of Henry, Prince of Wales, who will become King Henry V in the group of plays including Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V, sometimes called "The Henriad."
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you!
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Despair and Damnation: Marlowe's The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus
Here's a good one for the Halloweeny season: Christopher Marlowe's most famous play. A scholar sells his soul to the Devil for ultimate knowledge and power!
Correction: In this episode, I misidentify the author of "The Devil and Tom Walker" as Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is, of course, Washington Irving.
Extra musical selection from "Faust" by Charles Gounod, perf. Orchestra And Chorus Of The Théâtre National De l'Opéra.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: A Tragedy of Sonnet-Lovers
Does Romeo and Juliet even need an introduction? Well, this time on the poddie, we'll look at the play's tragic lovers through the lens of the Renaissance sonnet, how that poem style's postures shapes the action, making character fate.
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!
Concord of this Discord: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber Orchestra Subcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish Guards Sound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.org My thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!