Where rhyme gets its reason!In a historical survey of English literature, I take a personal and philosophical approach to the major texts of the tradition in order to not only situate the poems, prose, and plays in their own contexts, but also to show their relevance to our own. This show is for the general listener: as a teacher of high school literature and philosophy, I am less than a scholar but more than a buff. I hope to edify and entertain!
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A TRUE CRIME PODCAST Hosted by Joshua Diaz Chris McDonough and Dr. Gary Brucato Here is a just some of Dr. Brucato's credentials. Click the link to read the full bio. https://www.coldcasefoundation.org/dr-gary-brucato.html Dr. Brucato, who earned his Ph.D. at the New School for Social Research in New York City, is a clinical psychologist, researcher and author in the areas of psychotic illness and violence. Dr. Brucato has over two decades of clinical experience, having trained at Creedmoor ...
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John Webster's Sensational The Duchess of Malfi
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Send us a Text Message. Let's head back to the theatre for a really blood-soaked tragedy! And while we're at it, let's think about the intersection between art and social criticism. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com F…
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Episode 14: Nobody Has Been Cleared. Everybody is a suspect.
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Send us a Text Message. Join Chris, Dr. Gary and Josh as they explore deeper the reasons law enforcment won't name a POI by name or suspects in certain cases, also why they won't clear people who have proven alibis. Is this a mistake? The guys debate the topics in this episode/ Support the Show.By The Witness Box
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Flesh and Spirit: The Writing of John Donne
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Send us a Text Message. Poet and priest John Donne's work seems to transcend its early 17th century moment and feels as fresh and alive to us as anything written today. In this episode, we look at the following texts: "The Bait" "Elegy 19: To His Mistress Going To Bed" "Batter my heart" "Death, be not proud" "The Flea" "A Valediction: Forbidding Mo…
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Episode 13: The Disappearance Of Sebastian Rogers
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Send us a Text Message. February 25, 2024 Sebastian Rogers vanished from his home in Hendersonville TN, between the hours of 9PM and 6AM. What could have happened to him? What challenges does a 15 year old autistic child on his own if he ran away? Or is there something much more sinister about his disappearance Support the Show.…
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Episode 12: The Mind Of A Political Assassin
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Send us a Text Message. "The Mind of a Political Assassin" is a compelling exploration of the psychological, ideological, and social factors that drive individuals to commit political assassinations. Here’s a summary of the key themes and insights typically covered in such an analysis: Support the Show.…
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"Drink to me only with thine eyes": Ben Jonson's Lyrics
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Send us a Text Message. Today, we'll wrap up our Jonsonian mini-series by looking at some his lyrics, including poems from the 1616 Works and songs from his plays. If you'd like to read along, just ask Uncle Google to serve up these titles: "On Something, that Walks Somewhere" "On My First Daughter" "On My First Son" "Song: To Celia" "Still to be N…
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Send us a Text Message. Join the crew as they discuss all things EVIL. Hear the personal experiences of men that have looked EVIL in the eyes. Dr. Gary Brucato, Chris McDonough, and Josh Diaz take the conversation to new depths in this thrilling and chilling episode. Support the Show.By The Witness Box
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Send us a Text Message. It's Independence Day here in America, so today's show takes the opportunity to look at some of writing of early English colonists in New England and how their ideas contributed to the national ethos that would emerge in the coming centuries. Additional music from Internet Archive: "Stars and Stripes Forever." John Philip So…
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Episode 10: Summers Wells, 3 years later.
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Send us a Text Message. Summer Wells was a five-year-old girl who went missing from her family's home in Hawkins County, Tennessee, in June 2021. Her disappearance sparked a massive search effort involving local law enforcement, the FBI, and numerous volunteers. Despite extensive efforts, including ground searches, K-9 units, and aerial searches, S…
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Episode 9: The Rachel Morin Case: An Arrest is made.
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Send us a Text Message. Nearly a year after she was killed on the Ma and Pa Trail in Harford County, Rachel Morin's suspected killer is in police custody, authorities said. Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 23, El Salvador, was arrested Friday at a sports bar in Oklahoma, accused of killing Morin last August. Support the Show.…
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"A Pretty Kind of Game": Ben Jonson's Volpone and The Alchemist
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Send us a Text Message. We'll finish our look at Ben Jonson's comedies today with perhaps his most well-regarded efforts: Volpone, or The Fox and The Alchemist. Additional music: "In Town Tonight" by Eric Coates, perf. Reginald Dixon. From the Internet Archive. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google…
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Episode 8: Rex Heuermann Faces More Charges. Disturbing documents found.
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Send us a Text Message. Here is the downloadable PDF of the topic of discussion if you would like to look it over https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/5a1e906a-Rex-Heuermann-Bail-Application-Form-2023-7-14-23-_FINAL.pdf Gilgo Beach serial killings suspect Rex Heuermann now faces charges in the deaths of six women spanning …
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Episode 7: Dates With Significance.
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Send us a Text Message. Significant dates have a remarkable influence on our moods, often acting as emotional landmarks that punctuate the timeline of our lives. These dates can be personal, such as birthdays, anniversaries, or the anniversary of a significant event, or they can be cultural or historical, like holidays or commemorations. The impact…
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Humorous Humors: Ben Jonson's Early Comedies
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Send us a Text Message. Today, I look askance at two plays by Ben Jonson, whom many see (not me, though) as the greatest English playwright bar Shakespeare: Every Man In His Humour and Every Man Out of His Humour. These have become the paradigmatic examples of the 17th century "comedy of humours." Thank you to the Internet Archive for providing pub…
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Episode 6: PT: 1The Madeline Soto Case: Interview with a monster.
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Send us a Text Message. Please consider becoming a supporter to help us continue to produce podcasts. https://www.buzzsprout.com/881932/supporters/new Unlock the darkest secrets of a criminal mind as we, Joshua Diaz, forensic psychologist Dr. Gary Brucato, and detective Chris McDonough, unravel the Stephen Stearns case alongside language expert Sus…
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Send us a Text Message. Today, we take a historical survey of the Bible in English, from early partial translations and paraphrases in the 7th century through the magnificence of King James I's Authorized Version of 1611. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Ema…
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Send us a Text Message. On this episode of THE WITNESS BOX we discuss The emergence of THE NEW EVIL as detailed in the book written by Dr Gary Brucato. You can order THE NEW EVIL here https://www.amazon.com/New-Evil-Understanding-Emergence-Violent/dp/1633885321 Dr. Gary Burcato bio-https://www.coldcasefoundation.org/dr-gary-brucato.html Chris McDon…
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Send us a Text Message. On this episode of THE WITNESS BOX we discuss The emergence of THE NEW EVIL as detailed in the book written by Dr Gary Brucato. You can order THE NEW EVIL here https://www.amazon.com/New-Evil-Understanding-Emergence-Violent/dp/1633885321 Dr. Gary Burcato bio-https://www.coldcasefoundation.org/dr-gary-brucato.html Chris McDon…
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More than the Dark Lady: Aemilia Lanyer's "Eve's Apology in Defense of Women"
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Send us a Text Message. Today we look at Aemelia Lanyer's pioneering and influential work, "Eve's Apology in Defense of Women" from 1611's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Insta…
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Episode 3: The Case Against Barry Morphew
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Send us a Text Message. The Barry Morphew case gained significant attention in May 2020 when his wife, Suzanne Morphew, disappeared under mysterious circumstances from the small town of Salida, Colorado. Suzanne was reported missing on Mother's Day, sparking a massive search effort involving law enforcement agencies and volunteers. https://www.cold…
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Send us a Text Message. In this gripping episode, we delve deep into one of the most infamous cases in American history: the trial of O.J. Simpson. With meticulous research and expert analysis, our hosts reexamine the evidence, the trial proceedings, and the societal impact of this landmark case. Listeners are taken on a journey through the timelin…
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Fair Youths and Dark Ladies: Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Send us a Text Message. For our final episode focusing on Shakespeare, we look at his sonnets, arguably the most famous collection of lyric poems in the language. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagr…
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Episode 1: Dr. Katherine Ramsland: Shawna Garber ruled out as a BTK victim and The Serial Killer's Apprentic
2:10:18
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Send us a Text Message. The Witness Box is a True Crime Podcast hosted and produced by Joshua Diaz. Joshua has been in broadcasting/podcasting for over 10 years while producing multiple podcast, consulting on many other and hosting 2 different shows on Youtube, The Lab and Lab After Dark, Joshua has teamed up with an ALL-STAR cast. Chris McDonough …
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"You taught me language": Shakespeare's The Tempest
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Send us a Text Message. For our (probably) final episode on Shakespeare's plays, we sail through The Tempest, a late romance which has attracted historical and psychoanalytical interpretations, but stands out for many readers as perhaps a play in which a version of Shakespeare himself appears as the protagonist. Audio clip from The Tempest ; 2004 N…
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The Felix Culpa: George Herbert's "Easter Wings"
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Send us a Text Message. To mark the Easter holiday, we return to George Herbert, Jacobean poet and priest, and his most famous work, the pattern poem "Easter Wings." Here's a link to an image of the poem: https://clinicalpsychreading.blogspot.com/2016/03/easter-wings-george-herbert-15931633.html Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate th…
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Send us a Text Message. While most people know Shakespeare as a playwright, he saw himself as a poet in the quite traditional sense. Today, we'll look at his two major narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. clip from "Mrs. Robinson" by Paul Simon; perf. by Simon and Garfunkel. 1968. Taken from We Got Good at It: A Wrecking Crew …
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Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Lear and the Absurdity of Suffering
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Send us a Text Message. The Tragedy of King Lear, while considered by many as Shakespeare's greatest play, is also his most devastating. In this episode, we consider what Lear has to say about the meaning of human suffering. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! …
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Send us a Text Message. In this episode, we look at how our current concerns with identity politics intersects with those of Shakespeare's plays which portray sexist, racist, or anti-Semitic material. Fair warning: this episode will deal with language and tropes that some may find uncomfortable Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the…
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Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth: A Love Story
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Send us a Text Message. Is Shakespeare's darkest tragedy a cautionary tale about ambition? a bit of Jacobean mythmaking? Or is it the portrait of a deeply committed marriage gone catastrophically wrong? With apologies for all the appalling accents . . . . Performance Clip: Macbeth with Orson Welles, Fay Bainter, and the Mercury Acting Co. Mercury T…
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Who is There?: Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Hamlet
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Send us a Text Message. Shakespeare's Hamlet has not been out of production for over four centuries and its profound examination of the human condition continues to capture the hearts and minds of people the world over. Join me in Elsinore as we think about what some have called the greatest drama in history -- perhaps even the greatest literary ac…
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Send us a Text Message. Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year! Here's a little subcast episode on poet Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks," the first Christmas carol sanctioned by the Anglican Church around the turn of the 18th century. Recording: "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night" THE B.B.C. CHORUS; Berkeley Mason Write…
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Honor, Ethics, and Assassination: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
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Send us a Text Message. Is political violence ever justified? Who decides? And what ethical systems can evaluate the justice of such acts? Today, we look at the ethics driving the characters of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen…
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Send us a Text Message. Welcome to the Subcast! On today's bonus episode, I give a little poddie-training on perhaps the most significant publishing event in English literature: the presentation of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen…
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"I am a woman; when I think I must speak": Shakespeare's Rosalind and Beatrice
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Send us a Text Message. In this episode, we'll look at two women who are generally regarded as among the greatest female characters ever written: Rosalind from Shakespeare's As You Like It and Beatrice from his Much Ado About Nothing. Their wisdom, intelligence, and emotional depth challenge Renaissance gender assumptions and inaugurate a line of d…
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Happy Thanksgiving! George Herbert's "Gratefulness"
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Send us a Text Message. 17th-century poet and priest George Herbert offers a playful poem reminding us to strive for gratefulness. I am, myself, very grateful for all the support you all have offered me. Thank you so much! Additional sound: "Mahna Mahna" from The Muppet Show (1977). Downloaded from Internet Archive. Support the Show. Please like, s…
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Send us a Text Message. In today's discussion, we take a look at the character of Henry, Prince of Wales, who will become King Henry V in the group of plays including Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V, sometimes called "The Henriad." Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen.…
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Happy Halloween from Herrick's "The Hag"!
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Send us a Text Message. Trick or treat! Here's a bone-us episode on Robert Herrick's "The Hag," about a witch's night ride with the Devil! Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, a…
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Despair and Damnation: Marlowe's The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus
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Send us a Text Message. Here's a good one for the Halloweeny season: Christopher Marlowe's most famous play. A scholar sells his soul to the Devil for ultimate knowledge and power! Correction: In this episode, I misidentify the author of "The Devil and Tom Walker" as Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is, of course, Washington Irving. Extra musical selection …
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Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: A Tragedy of Sonnet-Lovers
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Send us a Text Message. Does Romeo and Juliet even need an introduction? Well, this time on the poddie, we'll look at the play's tragic lovers through the lens of the Renaissance sonnet, how that poem style's postures shapes the action, making character fate. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, …
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Concord of this Discord: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Send us a Text Message. Shssshh! Drift off into Shakespeare's most rhymy and least rational play! Today, it's The Dream! Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, and YouTube. If you…
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History, History Plays, and Historiography: Shakespeare's Richard III
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Send us a Text Message. We're here! Finally, our first Shakespeare play episode. Today, we'll look at The Tragical History of King Richard III. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.com Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Tik T…
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Send us a Text Message. You may be surprised at how the rivalry between these early Elizabethan theatrical superstars played out! Betrayal, torture, assassination; this is tabloid-worthy stuff! Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishliterature…
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"Violence Prevails": Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy
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Send us a Text Message. Oooh, you're in for a bloody one today, dear listener! Perhaps the most popular revenge tragedy in the 16th-century: Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. Wildly infamous, wildly influential, wildly excessive -- just wild! It inaugurates the fashion for revenge tragedy that will dominate theater for the next decades, and paves the way for …
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The Sum of Glory: Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great Parts 1 and 2
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Send us a Text Message. Perhaps the first great play of the Elizabethan stage, Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great is relentless and ruthless. How are we to understand a bloody conqueror and tyrant? What does Marlowe mean by this spectacle of his success? We'll look at those questions today! Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcas…
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Send us a Text Message. A bonus episode on the Subcast looks at the early modern English theatre, the culture and atmosphere of Elizabethan playgoing, as a prologue to our multi-episode discussion of the great English dramatists of the age, and for all time! Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, o…
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A Still Queer Voice: Richard Barnfield's "The Affectionate Shepherd"
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Send us a Text Message. This week on the poddie, we discuss a lesser known -- but by no means a lesser quality -- Elizabethan pastoral by Richard Barnfield called "The Affectionate Shepherd." In sophisticated, learned verse, Barnfield highlights the homoerotic elements (not always so) latent in classical and early modern bucolics, which I think a h…
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Live with Me, Be My Love: Pastoral Eclogues
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Send us a Text Message. If you listen to much modern American country music, you notice that many of the songs conjure up an idealized vision of small-town rural America, distinct from (and presumably superior to) life in urban areas. The fact that many of these songs are written in large cities like Nashville points to a kind of constructed nostal…
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Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene: The Legend of the Redcrosse Knight
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Send us a Text Message. Today we'll look at the most famous tale from Spenser's epic The Faerie Queene: Book I "The Legend of the Redcrosse Knight." We'll discuss its allegorical and neoplatonic dimensions while doing a quick drive-by of a passage from Mutabilitie Cantos. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spot…
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Send us a Text Message. As Americans mark Independence Day, I wanted to out that the shift in Western thinking that eventually produced a document like the Declaration of Independence began with a doctrine of the 16th century Protestant Reformation and its influence on Tudor political thought. Support the Show. Please like, subscribe, and rate the …
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The Perfect Pattern of a Poet: Edmund Spenser's Lyrics
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Send us a Text Message. Some say he is the first real poet of the English Renaissance. Whatever that may mean, Edmund Spenser certainly looms large in 16th century English literature. In this first of two episodes, we will look at his paradoxically traditional and innovative lyric poetry, especially The Shepheardes Calendar, Amoretti, and "Epithala…
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