Approaching Shakespeare

Love's Labour's Lost

Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Love's Labour's Lost.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Professor Emma Smith gives the last of her 2017 Shakespeare lectures on his early comedy, Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Henry VI, Part 2

Professor Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a 2017 lecture on the early history play, Henry VI, Part 2.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Professor Emma Smith lectures on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.

All's Well That Ends Well

Professor Emma Smith lectures on Shakespeare’s comedy All's Well That Ends Well.

Cymbeline

Professor Emma Smith continues her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on one of Shakespeare’s later plays, Cymbeline.

Timon of Athens

Emma Smith finishes her Approaching Shakespeare series with a lecture on the play Timon of Athens.

Julius Caesar

This lecture on Julius Caesar discusses structure, tone, and politics by focusing on the cameo scene with Cinna the Poet.

Romeo and Juliet

This lecture on Romeo and Juliet tackles the issue of the spoiler-chorus, in an already-too-familiar play. This podcast is suitable for school and college students.

Coriolanus

This lecture takes up a detail from Shakespeare’s late Roman tragedy Coriolanus to ask about the representation of character, the use of sources and the genre of tragedy.

The Merchant of Venice

This lecture on The Merchant of Venice discusses the ways the play's personal relationships are shaped by models of financial transaction, using the casket scenes as a ce

Taming of the Shrew

Emma Smith uses evidence of early reception and from more recent productions to discuss the question of whether Katherine is tamed at the end of the play.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

This lecture on A Midsummer Night's Dream uses modern and early modern understandings of dreams to uncover a play less concerned with marriage and more with sexual desire

Much Ado About Nothing

Emma Smith asks why the characters are so quick to believe the self-proclaimed villain Don John, drawing on gender and performance criticism to think about male bonding,

Hamlet

The fact that father and son share the same name in Hamlet is used to investigate the play's nostalgia, drawing on biographical criticism and the religious and political

As You Like It

Asking 'what happens in As You Like It', this lecture considers the play's dramatic structure and its ambiguous use of pastoral, drawing on performance history, genre the

King Lear

Showing how generations of critics - and Shakespeare himself - have rewritten the ending of King Lear, this sixteenth Approaching Shakespeare lecture engages with the que

King John

At the heart of King John is the death of his rival Arthur: this fifteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series looks at the ways history and legitimacy are comp

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Pericles has been on the margins of the Shakespearean canon: this fourteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series shows some of its self-conscious artistry and c

Richard III

In this thirteenth lecture in the Approaching Shakespeare series the focus is on the inevitability of the ending of Richard III: does the play endorse Richmond's final vi