Each week Dr. J shares a poem from one of the nineteenth-century American Fireside Poets, reading it aloud and commenting on it to enhance the listener’s enjoyment of the poem.
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Each episode Dr. J selects a passage from American literature, reads it aloud, and discusses what the passage contributes to our understanding of what America and being an American mean.
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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.
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The match between Orlando and Charles the Wrestler considered as a metaphor for the confrontation between every individual human being and the world.By Fireside Poems
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What is America's attitude toward beauty? Is it something valuable for itself alone? Or does it require some other more moral vrtue? Or is it merely something to be shown off? Or something to be disapproved of? Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth asks us to consider this question.By Fireside Poems
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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.By Fireside Poems
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Is John Smith's account of his rescue by Pocahontas true? Does it mater?By Fireside Poems
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Hamlet relates to his friend Horatio how he sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths.By Fireside Poems
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The Calvinist preacher Jonathan Edwards describes his own discovery of he seetness of God.By Fireside Poems
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The Merchant of Venice weighs justice and mercy in the balance, but does it also betray Shakespeare as antisemitic?By Fireside Poems
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Self-reliance doesn't mean selfishness as much as it means self-confidence.By Fireside Poems
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A woman asks her lover to kill his best friend.By Fireside Poems
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W.E.B. Du Bois reflects on the threat to the soul of thiniking of the world in terms of dollars.By Fireside Poems
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Society depends on human sympathy, including sympathy for those who are unhappy, who can also find companionship in literature and art.By Fireside Poems
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As her husband John Adams participates in the writing of the founding documents of the United States of America, Abigail Adams asks him to consider too the wrongs done to women and the rights they should have in the new United States.By Fireside Poems
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The flower Love-In-Idlesess, and particularly its juice dropped on a sleeper's eye, is the source of all erotic love and woe.By Fireside Poems
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Hester presented as the embodiment of the American antinomian spirit.By Fireside Poems
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Julius Caesar waivers over whether to visit the Senateon the Ides of March.By Fireside Poems
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Episode 15: State Colleges and Universities
15:49
15:49
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The value of state clleges and universities to America.By Fireside Poems
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The disapproval of moralists cannot suppres the fun of others.By Fireside Poems
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Writing in 1819, over two hundred years ago, Washington Irving uses the image of a rickety wooden buildiing to represent the United States of America. Why?By Fireside Poems
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Shakespeare seems to bungle a play.By Fireside Poems
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The beginning of social work and social reform in America.By Fireside Poems
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Human dignity requires more than our purely physical needsBy Fireside Poems
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An aAmerican born teen wishes to change the name his Indian-born parents gave himBy Fireside Poems
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In Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra we find two worlds: Egypt and Rome. Egypt stands for life and Rome the denial of life. The tragedy is the triumph of Rome and the denial of life overe Egypt and the affirmation of life.By Fireside Poems
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Guided by the Inner Light of the Quakers, John Woolman in the mid-1700s begins is work as an abolitionist against slavery.By Fireside Poems
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Episode 10: Things Dying and Things Newborn
15:57
15:57
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Ann infnt girl is rescued from the fate her jealous father inends for her.By Fireside Poems
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A man faces bleak Christmas memories.By Fireside Poems
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Episode 09: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
18:15
18:15
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A giant green knight intrudes on the yuletide festivity of King Arthur and his Round Table.By Fireside Poems
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On the American frontier the rifle must yield to the law even when carried by such a likeable guy as Natty Bumppo.By Fireside Poems
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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.By Fireside Poems
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Frederick Douglass tells of the first book he read, The columbian Orator. What we can learn about what books should be taught in schools and what books should be in libraries. The importance of books and the importance of libraries and librarians.By Fireside Poems
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The artifice of art and the reality of loveBy Fireside Poems
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Should America be a land of religious liberty? or should it be the land of God's chosen people?By Fireside Poems
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What is the cost of growing up? All the world?By Fireside Poems
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A family in the 1950s visits the beach, with a storm in the offing.By Fireside Poems
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Do we choose our fates? Are our fates somehow determined? Are we just the victims or beneficiaries of the world's whims?By Fireside Poems
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Ben Franklin provides a model for becoming part of ghte 10%.By Fireside Poems
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Is the irrational, feeling mind dominant over our rational mind?By Fireside Poems
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European maturity and American immaturity as they relates to sexuality and feminismBy Fireside Poems
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A demagogue stirs up a violent revolt by appealing to the mob's resentments.By Fireside Poems
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A passage showing the universal relevance of Herman Melville's classicBy Fireside Poems
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In this life, we all are servants. But whom or what do we serve? And what kind of servant are we?By Fireside Poems
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In America, one can discover within new faculties that elsewhere aren't known to exist.By Fireside Poems
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The essential conflict in Shakespeare and in life: withdrawal from life/engagment with lifeBy Fireside Poems
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J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer plces side by side American idealsand American slavery in pre-Revolutionary America.By Fireside Poems
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Announcingtwo new podcasts: Dr. J's Shakespeare and Dr. J's American PassagesBy Fireside Poems
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Announcing the launch of two podcasts: "Dr. J's American Passages" and "Dr. J's Shakespeare"By Fireside Poems
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Priscilla Mullins and John Alden wed, symbolizing the continuity of life in a true pastoral image.By Fireside Poems
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The young Endymion sleeps Endymion’s sleep . . .By Fireside Poems
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The essence of each poet: Chaucer and ShakespearreBy Fireside Poems
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A young man learns of the death of his beloved when he comes upon a strange ceremony.By Fireside Poems
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