About Shakespeare For All
Shakespeare For All is a series designed to introduce first-time readers and viewers to the life and work of William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright who lived four hundred years ago and whose works are enjoyed today all over the world. You’ll learn who Shakespeare was and what historical events shaped his writing. You’ll be guided through his most popular poems and plays by world-class scholars, performers, and interpreters of Shakespeare. And you’ll find the tools you need to become an interpreter of Shakespeare yourself. This course will help you understand Shakespeare’s work, enjoy the different kinds of pleasure it can bring, and join in the ongoing global discussion about the ideas and questions that Shakespeare brought to life in his words.
The first course offers a tour through Shakespeare’s moment in history and through Shakespeare’s life. You’ll learn about the key historical, religious, and cultural changes that shaped the era in which Shakespeare wrote. You’ll also discover strategies for understanding Shakespeare’s stories, characters, and language in any of his plays that you read. You’ll find strategies for analyzing Shakespeare’s poetry in the course surveying the themes and poetic techniques of Shakespeare’s sonnets--his sequence of 154 short poems that explore revolutionary new directions within the conventional poetry of love. Later in the series, you’ll explore the many directions that Shakespeare’s work has taken in the twenty-first century in bonus courses on topics like “The Wooden O and the Iron Throne: Game of Thrones & Shakespeare.”
At the heart of the series are twenty-four courses on Shakespeare’s most thought-provoking and beloved plays. Each course begins with all the basic information you’ll need to understand the play from the first time you encounter it, including a detailed account of the story and key historical contexts. Our featured scholar then takes you on a deep dive into the play’s characters, its language, and its most complex questions. Finally, you’ll hear Shakespeare’s language come to life, with professional Shakespearean actors giving original performances of speeches from the plays, with detailed close-readings accompanying each speech.
Except where otherwise noted, the texts used for this course are from Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems, from The Folger Shakespeare, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library. <https://shakespeare.folger.edu>
Shakespeare For All is a Lyceum original production available exclusively on Himalaya.
How to Listen
For full access to Shakespeare For All you can subscribe and listen on Himalaya, or access via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or your podcast app of choice.
How to Contact
Comments? Ideas for collaboration? We’d love to hear from you. Write us at maria@lyceum.fm.
Our Address
12 Arrow Street, 103
Cambridge, MA 02138
Team
Zachary Davis (Executive Producer)
Zachary Davis is the president of Lyceum and host of Ministry of Ideas and Writ Large. He has a graduate degree from Harvard Divinity School and is the founder and organizer of the Sound Education conference.
Jemma Deer (Associate Producer and Narrator)
Jemma Rowan Deer is writer, editor, and voice artist based in Berlin. She has a PhD in English, and her book, Radical Animism: Reading for the End of the World, is published by Bloomsbury.
Maria Devlin McNair (Course Creator and Managing Producer)
Maria Devlin McNair received her PhD from Harvard University in English literature with a specialization in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama. She is a writer and Managing Producer for the Harvard Divinity School podcast Ministry of Ideas. She is currently developing a book project on ethics and Renaissance comedy.
Jack Pombriant (Composer and Sound Designer)
Jack Pombriant is the associate producer of Writ Large. He received his BM from Berklee College of Music, where he studied music composition and production. He is also a graduate of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, where he studied radio and podcast production.