Dr. J's Shakespeare: Recent Episodes
Fireside Poems
Each episode Dr. J reads a dramatic passage from one of Shakespeare’s plays and discusses how it and the play its from equip us for life’s challenges as well as giving us the pleasures of art.
The match between Orlando and Charles the Wrestler considered as a metaphor for the confrontation between every individual human being and the world.
Shakespeare portrays the combat between Hector and Achilles differently that it's portrayed in Homer's Iliad. Shakespeare is cynical about Achilles, cynical about Hector, and cynical about the Trojan War. There is no heroism and no dignity.
The masculine toxicity of Shakespeare's Othelloo isn't Shkespeare's, but Othello's; similarly the racism in Othello isn't Sakespeare's, but Iago's.
Do we choose our fates? Are our fates somehow determined? Are we just the victims or beneficiaries of the world's whims?
In this life, we all are servants. But whom or what do we serve? And what kind of servant are we?
The essential conflict in Shakespeare and in life: withdrawal from life/engagment with life