Best Folger Shakespeare Library Podcasts (2024)

1
Judi Dench On Seven Decades of Shakespeare, with Brendan O’Hea 40:56

3d ago40:56

40:56

In her new book, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, Dame Judi Dench and actor/director Brendan O'Hea chat about her long history with the Bard. On this episode, Dench and O'Hea join host Barbara Bogaev to talk about Dench's experiences playing Ophelia, Gertrude, Lady Macbeth and Titania. Plus, parrots, Polonius, dirty words, Ian McKellen, why …

1
Shakespeare and the Environment, with Todd Andrew Borlik 33:47

17d ago33:47

33:47

Land enclosure. Wildlife management. Erosion. Pollution. Mining practices. Today, we’d call these environmental issues. But, hundreds of years before the modern environmental movement coalesced, these issues also appeared in Shakespeare’s plays. We talk to Todd Andrew Borlik, a professor at the University of Huddersfield and author of Shakespeare B…

1
Ramie Targoff on Women Writers of the English Renaissance 37:32

1M ago37:32

37:32

In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf famously imagined what might have happened if Shakespeare had a sister who was as gifted a writer as he was. She invents “Judith” Shakespeare, and concludes that this female genius would have been doomed.But that’s not the end of the story. If Woolf had read Mary Sidney, Aemelia Lanyer (nee Bassano), Anne Clif…

1
Green World: Michelle Ephraim on Discovering Shakespeare and Reevaluating The Merchant of Venice 33:22

1M ago33:22

33:22

In her new memoir, "Green World," Shakespeare scholar Michelle Ephraim tells the story of how she came to Shakespeare relatively late in her education. Although she didn’t grow up with Shakespeare, Ephraim became transfixed by "The Merchant of Venice" as a grad student. In particular, she found herself drawn to Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, and the …

1
Eddie Izzard on Performing Hamlet Solo 32:11

2M ago32:11

32:11

Eddie Izzard has a long record of dramatic roles. But it’s her decades of experience as a stand-up comedian that prepared Izzard for her recent solo shows—first Great Expectations, and now Hamlet at New York’s Greenwich House Theatre.From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published February 27, 2024. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights…

1
Shakespeare and Disgust, with Bradley J. Irish 34:30

2M ago34:30

34:30

Maybe there really was something rotten in Denmark. On this episode, we talk with Bradley J. Irish about disgust in Shakespeare. In his new book, Irish identifies the emotion, which combines physical revulsion and moral outrage, as one of the central thematic emotions in Shakespeare’s plays. In his close readings across the canon, Irish finds disgu…

1
Rita Dove on Shakespeare and Her Poem of Welcome for the Folger 37:06

3M ago37:06

37:06

When the Folger reopens on June 21 and you come to take a walk in our new west garden, look down at the garden bed. There, you'll see a new poem, written for the Folger by US Poet Laureate emerita Rita Dove. This week, she joins us on the podcast to read that poem aloud for the first time. Plus, Dove reflects on how writing for marble is different …

1
John Guy And Julia Fox on Their New Biography of Anne Boleyn 33:44

3M ago33:44

33:44

Even after appearing in a Shakespeare play, historical romance novels, a Broadway musical, and prestige TV dramas, there's still more to learn about Anne Boleyn.A new biography by the team of husband-and-wife historians John Guy and Julia Fox takes a scholarly look at the evidence surrounding Anne’s rise and fall. They freshly examine well-known ac…

1
David and Ben Crystal Share Shakespeare Quotations for Your Everyday Life 35:13

4M ago35:13

35:13

Shakespeare has the perfect lines for riding into battle or stumbling around a stormy heath. But does he have the right stuff to take us on a daily commute or a trip to the grocery store? On this episode, David and Ben Crystal join us to talk about their new book, "Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life," which offers daily Shakespeare quotes you can…

1
What Happened to the Princes in the Tower, with Philippa Langley 33:25

4M ago33:25

33:25

The most unforgivable crime in Richard III has to be when the king orders the murder of his two young nephews, Edward and Richard. But what if Richard III was framed?Philippa Langley is the amateur historian whose commitment to righting a historical wrong led to the discovery of Richard III’s remains a decade ago. Langley wasn’t a scholar—she was a…

1
Will Somer: Peter K. Andersson on Henry VIII's Court Fool 31:20

5M ago31:20

31:20

What comes to mind when you think about a "court jester?" What if we told you that fools in the Tudor court didn’t look or sound anything like the zany clowns you have in mind?Historians don’t know much about Will Somer. We know he was Henry VIII’s court fool, but the details of his biography—and, crucially, his comedy—were never recorded.By Shakes…

1
Isabelle Schuler on Lady Macbeth and Queen Hereafter 30:58

5M ago30:58

30:58

Isabelle Schuler’s debut novel Queen Hereafter attempts to fill in a backstory for Lady Macbeth. The book takes place in 11th century Scotland, where a king’s reign tended to be short and brutal. For her version of Lady M, Schuler didn’t rely on Shakespeare or his source material, Holinshed’s Chronicles. Instead, she looked to the annals and sagas …

1
Shakespeare's Sonnets Part 3 30:50

5M ago30:50

30:50

Part 3 starts with a discussion of general reading strategies to help you discover the poetic techniques and insights of any individual sonnet. It concludes with a close-reading of three sonnets from Professor Michael Schoenfeldt that show the extraordinary range of tone, emotion, and perspective in Shakespeare’s poems. Speeches and performers: Son…

1
Shakespeare's Sonnets Part 2 25:33

6M ago25:33

25:33

Part 2 focuses closely on the two major “characters” to whom the sonnets are addressed: a beautiful young man, and a woman described as black. You’ll learn how the speaker represents his relationship to these figures and his desire for them, and what significance those relationships might have had in Shakespeare’s culture, as Professor Michael Scho…

1
400 Years of Shakespeare's First Folio, with Emma Smith 29:22

6M ago29:22

29:22

The First Folio—the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays—hit bookstores 400 years ago this November. Emma Smith of Oxford University tells us just what this famous book has been up to for the past four centuries. We explore notable collectors like Sir Edward Dering and our founders, Emily and Henry Folger; how the 18th-century slave trade…

1
Shakespeare's Sonnets Part 1 21:22

6M ago21:22

21:22

The sonnet — a 14-line poem with a strict rhyme scheme, conventionally associated with love — was one of the most popular poetic forms in late Elizabethan England. In 1609, Shakespeare published a sequence of 154 sonnets that radically reimagined the question of what love can mean, including the question of who one might desire and what the experie…

1
Shakespeare's "The Tempest" Part 3: The Language 27:30

6M ago27:30

27:30

Part 3 features close-readings from Professor Laurie Maguire of some of the play’s key speeches: Caliban’s extraordinarily lyrical description of the island; Prospero’s beautiful and disturbing evocation of theatre, and perhaps the world, coming to an end; and Prospero’s renunciation of his magic. Speeches and performers: Caliban, 3.2, “Be not afea…

1
The Bloomsbury Group and Shakespeare, with Marjorie Garber 31:05

6M ago31:05

31:05

We talk with Harvard Professor Marjorie Garber about how modernist writers of London’s Bloomsbury Group made Shakespeare their own. Garber’s most recent book—her twentieth—is Shakespeare in Bloomsbury. In it, she traces the influence of Shakespeare on the members of the Bloomsbury Group, that circle of early 20th-century intellectuals included nove…

1
Shakespeare's "The Tempest" Part 2: Characters and Questions 23:10

6M ago23:10

23:10

With Professor Laurie Maguire, Part 2 explores the play’s many ambiguities — its uncertain geography, mental space, and genre — and how they reflect the play’s ethical ambiguities. Does Prospero contrast with or resemble the “foul witch” who was Caliban’s mother, or the brother who betrayed him for the sake of power? Is he a figure of spiritual reg…

1
Shakespeare's "The Tempest" Part 1: The Story 23:13

7M ago23:13

23:13

The Tempest, one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote, draws on themes and stories that fascinated him throughout his career while also taking his art form to unexpected new places. Set in the course of a single day on a magical island, the play focuses on a magician named Prospero who plots to punish the enemies who exiled him to the island 12 year…

1
Patrick Stewart on a Life Shaped by Shakespeare 31:34

7M ago31:34

31:34

Sir Patrick Stewart joins us on the podcast to talk about how Shakespeare has shaped his life. Stewart tells host Barbara Bogaev about his Yorkshire youth, his audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company, playing Starfleet Captain Jen-Luc Picard, and more.Stewart's memoir, "Making It So," is available now from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Sc…

1
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" Part 3: The Language 31:10

7M ago31:10

31:10

In Part 3, Professor Simon Palfrey offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll hear the play’s dark energies emerge through Mercutio’s speech about “Queen Mab”; see how Juliet discovers a new, eroticized vision of the world and of herself as she awaits her wedding night, and witness one of the most iconic scenes in l…

1
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" Part 2: Characters and Questions 21:45

7M ago21:45

21:45

With Professor Simon Palfrey, Part 2 looks closely at the play’s characters, and especially at the intelligence and swiftness of Juliet. You’ll see how the lovers apprehend new possibilities of human life, but also how their social world constrains their possibilities; and how the play might seem to offer the possibility of comedy, but how it’s des…

1
Michael Patrick Thornton on Learning to Breathe Again with Shakespeare 29:58

7M ago29:58

29:58

Sometimes, the beauty of Shakespeare’s poetry takes your breath away. In the case of today’s guest, Shakespeare gave him his breath back.You may recognize actor Michael Patrick Thornton from his roles on TV series like Private Practice and The Good Doctor. Twenty years ago, Thornton had just started out in his acting career when he suffered two spi…

1
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" Part 1: The Story 23:48

7M ago23:48

23:48

Children of families who are locked in a fatal feud, Romeo and Juliet risk community, identity, and life to pursue an all-consuming love. Today, Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous love stories in the world. But the play isn’t simply a celebration of love or an idealization of the lovers. This wild and dangerous play lays bare the link betwe…

1
Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" Part 3: The Language 35:06

8M ago35:06

35:06

In Part 3, Professor Emma Smith offers close-readings of some of the play’s most important scenes, which dramatize the wide range of relationships and types of love explored in the play. Speeches and performers: Orsino, 1.1, “If music be the food of love, play on …” (Jeffrey Blair Cornell) Malvolio and Olivia, 1.5, “I marvel your Ladyship takes del…

1
The Many Lives of John Donne with Katherine Rundell 34:28

8M ago34:28

34:28

We talk with author Katherine Rundell about the extraordinary life —or should we say lives? — of John Donne, who wrote some of the 17th century’s most complex and intellectually dazzling poetry. Rundell, a fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and the author of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne takes us through Donne’s evolution from …

1
Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" Part 2: Characters and Questions 24:59

8M ago24:59

24:59

Part 2 looks at the many instances of inversion and transgression, looking at how characters cross boundaries of gender, status, and social role, and how they are punished or rewarded. Professor Emma Smith looks closely at the final scene and how it settles—or doesn’t— the characters’ roles and the play’s own status as a comedy. Learn more about yo…

1
Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" Part 1: The Story 24:10

8M ago24:10

24:10

Twelfth Night, named for the celebration that is both the culmination and the close of the Christmas festivities, is a bittersweet romantic comedy at once melancholy and merry. Through its central plot, in which the female Viola takes on the guise of the male Cesario and becomes beloved of both men and women, this play is also one of Shakespeare’s …

1
Shakespeare and the Ocean, with Steve Mentz 33:18

8M ago33:18

33:18

Today, we sail the seven seas with Shakespeare. In addition to being a dedicated swimmer, Steve Mentz is a professor at St. John’s University. His books, including 2009’s At the Bottom of Shakespeare’s Ocean, connect literary criticism with marine ecology. Mentz talks with Barbara Bogaev about Shakespeare’s oceanic metaphors, how much Shakespeare r…

1
Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" Part 3: The Language 27:31

8M ago27:31

27:31

In Part 3, Professor Stephen Greenblatt offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll get an in-depth look at the powerful relationship between Antonio and Bassanio, the climactic confrontation between Antonio and Shylock in the court, and the hard-edged poignancy of the play’s most famous speech: “Hath not a Jew eyes?…

1
Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" Part 2: Characters and Questions 24:37

8M ago24:37

24:37

Part 2 discusses the play’s central characters, their profound bonds of intimacy and animosity, and the effect of money on those bonds. Professor Stephen Greenblatt explores the way that Shylock took hold of Shakespeare’s imagination and how Shakespeare transforms a stereotypically villainous figure into something much larger and more complex. You’…

1
Farah Karim-Cooper on The Great White Bard 32:18

9M ago32:18

32:18

Can you love Shakespeare and be an antiracist?Farah Karim-Cooper's new book, The Great White Bard, explores the language of race and difference in plays such as Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and The Tempest. Karim-Cooper also looks at the ways Shakespeare’s work became integral to Britain’s imperial project, and its sense of cultural supe…

1
Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" Part 1: The Story 22:49

9M ago22:49

22:49

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most gripping and challenging plays. Labeled as a comedy in Shakespeare’s First Folio, today it resonates as tragedy as well, thanks to its most unforgettable character: the Jewish moneylender Shylock. Shylock experiences humiliation and oppression at the hands of the Venetian Christians, particularly …

1
Shakespeare's "King Lear" Part 3: The Language 30:40

9M ago30:40

30:40

In Part 3, Professor Palfrey offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll witness the king and the beggar in the heart of a storm; the naked man and the blind man on the edge of a cliff; and the father and daughter on the cusp between life and death; and you’ll learn how Shakespeare takes us into strange, impossible n…

1
Isabella Hammad on Enter Ghost 32:39

9M ago32:39

32:39

A Palestinian production of Hamlet in the West Bank is the backdrop for Isabella Hammad’s new novel, Enter Ghost. Hammad’s first novel, the beautiful and sprawling The Parisian, won international acclaim in 2019. Granta included Hammad in its decennial “Best of Young British Novelists” list earlier this year. The narrator of Hammad’s new novel is S…

1
Shakespeare's "King Lear" Part 2: Characters and Questions 27:16

9M ago27:16

27:16

Part 2 explores the way that Shakespeare revised the original Lear story and the way he revised his own play to create a uniquely wrenching form of tragedy. Professor Simon Palfrey also discusses the literary and generic traditions that inspired the play, showing how the central characters can be interpreted very differently depending on the litera…

1
Shakespeare's "King Lear" Part 1: The Story 24:04

9M ago24:04

24:04

King Lear has perhaps the most expansive cosmic scope of any of Shakespeare’s tragedies. In this play, Shakespeare retells the story of an aging king from Britain’s ancient past who divides his kingdom among his daughters, only to have them turn against him. This story originally had a redemptive, tragi-comic ending; Shakespeare takes that story an…

1
Mat Osman's The Ghost Theatre Imagines the Lives of Elizabethan London's Child Actors 31:37

10M ago31:37

31:37

Mat Osman's new novel, The Ghost Theatre, takes us flying over the rooftops of Elizabethan London and down into the gritty lives of its child actors. A historical novel set in a vibrant and sensuously reimagined Elizabethan London, the book's main character is Shay, the daughter of a clairvoyant who lives among a community who worship birds. When S…

1
Shakespeare's "Henry V" Part 3: The Language 41:14

10M ago41:14

41:14

Part 3 features close-readings of some of the play’s most significant speeches, with Professor Stephen Foley. Through Henry’s private soliloquy, we trace his moments of insight and blindness. In the Chorus’s inspiring invitation to the audience to recreate the Battle of Agincourt in their minds, and in Henry’s stirring speech to his own troops befo…

1
Shakespeare's "Henry V" Part 2: Characters and Questions 24:37

10M ago24:37

24:37

Part 2 opens with a discussion of the history play genre and of how history shapes and constrains the plays’ protagonists. With Professor Stephen Foley, we then explore the complex character of Henry himself, asking why this figure has given rise to so many conflicting interpretations and how Henry’s unique political role should influence the way w…

1
Adrian Lester on Playing Rosalind, Henry V, Othello, and Hamlet 36:55

10M ago36:55

36:55

We could listen to Adrian Lester talk about acting all day… but he's a busy man, so we’ll settle for this 37 minute episode. The actor joins us to discuss some of his most famous performances, including Rosalind in Cheek by Jowl’s acclaimed 1991 all-male As You Like It, Hamlet with Peter Brook, and Henry V and Othello with Nicholas Hytner. Plus, Le…

1
Shakespeare's "Henry V" Part 1: The Story 23:20

10M ago23:20

23:20

Henry V is one of the most celebrated of Shakespeare’s history plays. In the 1590s, Shakespeare wrote a series of eight plays based on English chronicle history, telling the stories of civil wars and wars abroad, of the rise and fall of kings. Henry V was an English monarch who won great military victories in France in the early 1400s, and Shakespe…

1
Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Part 3: The Language 29:20

10M ago29:20

29:20

In Part 3, Professor Tiffany Stern offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant speeches. You’ll discover the surprising biblical resonances in a speech by the foolish Bottom and see how the epilogue shifts the play from a story about magic to a magic spell placed on the audience itself. Speeches and Performers: Titania, 2.1, “Set y…

1
Greg Doran on Forty Years of Directing Shakespeare 35:44

11M ago35:44

35:44

On today’s episode, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s former Artistic Director takes a look back at four decades of staging Shakespeare. Greg Doran’s career as a Shakespearean director began in the late 1970s, when he was a teenager. By the time he stepped down as the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company earlier this year, Doran had dir…

1
Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Part 2: Context and Questions 20:44

11M ago20:44

20:44

Part 2 addresses the play's central questions about comedy, tragedy, and passion by examining its language and plot motifs. Professor Tiffany Stern will guide you through the play’s sometimes dark, sometimes humorous, but always honest exploration of love — where it comes from and why it doesn’t always make sense. You’ll also discover how A Midsumm…

1
Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Part 1: The Story 20:16

11M ago20:16

20:16

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedies. At the same time, it’s a play that explores the darker and more dangerous side of love. Four young lovers flee into the forest where their romantic entanglements become even more entangled thanks to the magic of the fairy king, Oberon — who also puts a spell on his wi…

1
David West Read on & Juliet 29:20

11M ago29:20

29:20

Start with Shakespeare’s "star-crossed" lovers and fold in the songs of Swedish pop hitmaker Max Martin… what do you get? The hit Broadway musical & Juliet, currently running at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York and nominated for nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical.The show imagines what would happen if Juliet…

1
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" Part 3: The Language 32:09

11M ago32:09

32:09

In Part 3, Professor Michael Dobson offers close-readings of some of the play’s most important speeches, including Brutus’s deliberation over Caesar’s assassination and the rival speeches given by Brutus and Antony to “Friends, Romans, countrymen” at Caesar’s funeral — speeches that display the potential power of rhetoric. Speeches and Performers: …

1
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" Part 2: Characters and Questions 23:21

11M ago23:21

23:21

Part 2 focuses on the play’s key interpretive questions: how we are invited to judge the central characters. Is Caesar, in Shakespeare’s story, really a tyrant who needed to be killed? Is Brutus a noble political hero or a misguided egoist? With Professor Michael Dobson, you’ll discover how Shakespeare restructured this familiar story to make easy …

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