logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2023
1h 29m

EP15 – Take My Eyes | Shakespeare, King ...

David Anderson and Eric Williams
About this episode

William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act Four, Scene Five.  Lear has lost his kingdom, his family, his security and his sanity.  When he encounters his old friend the Earl of Gloucester, who has been savagely blinded, we witness one of the strangest and yet richest conversations in all of literature.  Choked with both rage and guilt, Lear intercuts fantasies of revenge with flashes of moral clarity, and fumbles toward a profound articulation of what it means to suffer.

We love hearing from all of you. Please email us at ProfessingLiterature@protonmail.com.

------

Theme Music: "Nobility" by Wicked Cinema

You can also send comments and questions to Professing Literature via Text Message. Click here!

Up next
Jul 2024
EP23 - Knaves Or Jacks? | Dickens, Great Expectations
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations. It takes many years and great disappointment for Pip to understand what happened to him. The protagonist of Dickens’ novel lives amid hope and fear, unaware of who it is that shaped his life and what he should really value. His story is about ... Show More
1h 32m
Jun 2024
EP22 - Until the World Is Mended | A Reflection On J.R.R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is one of the most beloved writers in the English tradition, though that popularity is a source of frustration to many supposedly sophisticated critics and scholars. However, his fans and his detractors alike often miss not just ho ... Show More
1h 33m
Jun 2024
EP21 - Twin Compasses | Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. John Donne came of age in a high culture whose notions of love were shaped by writers like Philip Sidney. Donne’s own love poetry, though, was very different. Scandalously frank, experimental, intellectually complex, Donne disdains ... Show More
1h 26m
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2008
Lear
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss King Lear. Around the turn of 1606, a group of London theatre-goers braved the plague to take in a new play by the well-known impresario, Mr William Shakespeare. Packed into the Globe Theatre, they were treated to a tale of violence, hatred and bet ... Show More
42m 14s
Dec 2017
Hamlet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, most quoted and longest play, written c1599 - 1602 and rewritten throughout his lifetime. It is the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, encouraged by his father's ghost to take revenge on his uncle who murdered him, and is ... Show More
52m 33s
Dec 2017
Hamlet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's best known, most quoted and longest play, written c1599 - 1602 and rewritten throughout his lifetime. It is the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, encouraged by his father's ghost to take revenge on his uncle who murdered him, and is ... Show More
52m 33s
Dec 2021
The Sunday Debate: Shakespeare vs Milton
Nearly four centuries after his death, no writer has matched William Shakespeare’s influence across drama, theatre and poetry but a few have come close. John Milton, say his fans, works on an altogether different, higher plane. In Paradise Lost – one of the most significant poems ... Show More
1h 59m
Oct 2023
555 What Was Shakespeare Really Like? (with Sir Stanley Wells) | My Last Book with David Ellis
Shakespeare's plays and poetry are some of the most towering achievements in the history of humankind. What was Shakespeare the person like? How did he work? What made him laugh? In this episode, Jacke talks to Sir Stanley Wells about his new book What Was Shakespeare Really Like ... Show More
50m 9s
Oct 2019
Shakespeare - Known and Unknown
William Shakespeare is the most famous writer in the English language. He lived more than 400 years ago, but people still read his poetry and plays today. Christy VanArragon and Colin Lowther look at Shakespeare’s life. 
15m 1s
Feb 2014
Jane Austen Vs Emily Bronte: The Queens of English Literature Debate
Who was the Queen of English literature. Was it Jane Austen with her sensitive ear for the hypocrisy lurking beneath the genteel conversation in the drawing rooms of Georgian England? Or Emily Brontë with the complex tale of violent attraction, thwarted love, death and the supern ... Show More
1h 59m
Jan 2021
King Lear, Act 5
In this final recording about King Lear, I chat with Maile and Reagan about Act 5. We ask ourselves if this play is too sad, if ripeness is all, if the gods are just, what Lear has learned about life and love, what true repentance looks like, whether or not Cordelia is dead, what ... Show More
56m 31s
Mar 2024
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Dive into the depths of ambition and despair with Classical Mind Podcast as hosts Junius Johnson and Wesley Walker unravel the timeless tale of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Explore the haunting pact Faustus makes with the devil, as we delve into the intricate web of ambi ... Show More
1h 21m