How Shakespeare Revolutionized Tragedy, with Rhodri Lewis
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Release Date: 10/22/2024
Studying Shakespeare Now
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Forget dusty textbooks and silent classrooms—the Folger Shakespeare Library has released new teaching guides designed to make the Bard’s works more engaging, accessible, and inclusive than ever before. In this episode, Peggy O’Brien, the editor behind these guides, and teachers Deborah Gascon and Mark Miazga, co-authors of the lesson plans for Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth respectively, explore how the Folger Method transforms student understanding by focusing on performance, collaboration, and creative engagement with Shakespeare’s language. The discussion also addresses...
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Farah Karim-Cooper on The Great White Bard (Rebroadcast)
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Can you love Shakespeare and be an antiracist? Farah Karim-Cooper’s book The Great White Bard explores the language of race and difference in Shakespeare’s plays. Dr. Karim-Cooper also looks at the ways Shakespeare’s work became integral to Britain’s imperial project and its sense of cultural superiority. But, for all this, Karim-Cooper is an unapologetic Shakespeare fan. It’s right there in the subtitle of her book: “How to Love Shakespeare While Talking about Race.” Far from casting Shakespeare out of the classroom or playhouse, Karim-Cooper shows new ways to appreciate him. By...
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How Shakespeare Revolutionized Tragedy, with Rhodri Lewis
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Shakespeare is often associated with tragedy, but did you know that he changed the genre? In this episode, Rhodri Lewis, professor of English at Princeton University and author of Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, explores how Shakespeare redefined tragedy in ways that still feel modern today. Through a close examination of plays like Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear, Lewis explains how Shakespeare shifted the traditional classical form of tragedy, introducing characters who deceive themselves and struggle to understand their own nature. From the...
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Tabitha Stanmore on Practical Magic in Shakespeare’s England
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Forget witches, broomsticks, and cauldrons bubbling over—when it came to real magic in Shakespeare’s time, most people turned to their local cunning folk. These magical practitioners wielded spells to cure illnesses, recover lost items, and even spark a bit of romance. Far from the dark, devilish image popularly associated with witchcraft, cunning folk were trusted members of society, providing magical services as casually as a modern-day plumber or dentist. In this episode, Barbara Bogaev talks with Tabitha Stanmore, a scholar from the University of Essex, about the fascinating,...
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Will Tosh on the Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
How did Shakespeare engage with the complexities of gender and sexuality in his time? Was his portrayal of cross-dressing and same-sex attraction simply for comedic effect, or did it reflect a deeper understanding of love and attraction? In this episode, host Barbara Bogaev speaks with scholar Will Tosh, who delves into these questions in his new book Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare. Tosh, head of research at Shakespeare’s Globe, explores Shakespeare’s work in the context of Early Modern London—a city bustling with queer culture. This conversation touches...
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Throughlines, with Ayanna Thompson and Ruben Espinosa
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
How can educators effectively incorporate discussions about race into the study of Shakespeare and other premodern texts in the college classroom? Barbara Bogaev speaks with scholars Ayanna Thompson and Ruben Espinosa about Throughlines, a pedagogical resource developed by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University. This free online tool offers professors a variety of accessible teaching materials for incorporating premodern critical race studies into their teaching. Specifically designed for use in higher education, the materials include lectures,...
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Juliet, Then and Now, with Sophie Duncan
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Was Romeo and Juliet your first brush with Shakespeare? Whether it was on stage, on screen in films by Franco Zeffirelli or Baz Luhrmann or Shonda Rhimes’ Still Star-Crossed, or in the pages of the Folger Shakespeare edition, your early experience probably shaped how you see Juliet. Over 400 years, our thinking about Shakespeare’s first tragic heroine has shifted repeatedly, revealing as much about us as it does Shakespeare’s play. Oxford professor Sophie Duncan, Shakespeare scholar and author of Juliet: The Life and Afterlives of Shakespeare’s First Tragic Heroine,...
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Completing the Canon: Barry Edelstein on The Old Globe's Henry 6
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
This summer San Diego’s Old Globe became one of only 10 theaters in America who have produced all of Shakespeare’s plays (or 11, depending on how you count it) with their production of Henry 6. Artistic Director Barry Edelstein shares the details of how they tackled staging Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3—three rarely seen works with more than 150 characters, and condensed it into two exciting nights of theater. The epic production includes contributions from nearly a thousand San Diegans, many of whom have participated in the Globe’s community programs. He also talks about producing...
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Colman Domingo on Sing Sing and the Power of Theater
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Can a musical comedy featuring Hamlet and Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger change lives? Actor, playwright, and director Colman Domingo thinks so. In Sing Sing, he stars in a true story about the power of theater. Inspired by the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing prison, Domingo plays Divine G, imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, who finds purpose by acting in a theater troupe. When a wary outsider joins the group, they decide to stage their first original comedy. The ensemble cast stars formerly incarcerated actors and RTA alumni, including...
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The Brief Life and Big Impact of the Federal Theatre Project, with James Shapiro
Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited
Imagine: a fiercely idealistic, politically progressive artist takes the stand at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The chair of the committee is a hard-right demagogue with a gift for sound bites and a fixation with Communism. If you’re picturing Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade in the 1950s… think two decades earlier. This story played during the Great Depression. The congressman was Martin Dies, a Texas Democrat. On the stand was Hallie Flanagan, the director of the Federal Theatre Project, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ambitious program to rescue live...
info_outlineShakespeare is often associated with tragedy, but did you know that he changed the genre? In this episode, Rhodri Lewis, professor of English at Princeton University and author of Shakespeare’s Tragic Art, explores how Shakespeare redefined tragedy in ways that still feel modern today. Through a close examination of plays like Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear, Lewis explains how Shakespeare shifted the traditional classical form of tragedy, introducing characters who deceive themselves and struggle to understand their own nature. From the slasher-style Titus to the complex interiority of Juliet, Shakespeare experimented with plot, language, and character to push the boundaries of tragic drama, giving audiences an unsettling yet profoundly human insight into the flawed nature of existence.
Rhodri Lewis teaches English at Princeton University. His previous books include Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness (Princeton) and Language, Mind, and Nature: Artificial Languages in England from Bacon to Locke. Outside the academy, he writes for publications including The Times Literary Supplement, Prospect, The Literary Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 22, 2024. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.