The Bicks Pod
Episodes
Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
Episode 20 - Richard II
Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
Tuesday Jan 28, 2020
This week we explore one of the lesser-known history plays, Richard II. The chronological jumping-off point for the story that will eventually result in the Wars of the Roses (covered in previous episodes), this play is a through examination of the distinctions between man and king, god and country, and power and helplessness. Join us for a deep dive into the character of Richard himself, the language used to describe jolly old England, what the play is telling us about fathers and sons, and the interesting set-up for the upcoming Henry IV and Henry V plays.
Ancient Bickerings:
This week we dove into a favourite topic concerning kings named "Richard" - is Richard II a tragic figure? Lindsay said "yay" Aidan "nay" and somehow they both turned out to be wrong and right.
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020
Episode 19 - The Sonnets
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020
Tuesday Jan 14, 2020
Shakespeare's sonnets are often the first and perhaps the easiest entry point for beginning students. They are lovely little bite-sized poems that exist in discrete units which can be appreciated as works of deep emotion and literary beauty or in grand cycles in the poetic tradition that lead the reader through a flurry of emotion when read together with other similarly-themed sonnets. Most of all, they contain some of Shakespeare's most romantic and certainly most famous written passages.
Our study today tackles the sonnets from both angles. We consider the history of the sonnet and the tradition within which Shakespeare wrote his 154-cycle work of art, before branching out into the works themselves, looking at them within the three distinct groups scholars have identified and as works unto themselves.
Eternal Bickering
It's a new year, a new decade, and so our newly named "Eternal Bickering" segment sees us tackling the age-old question of how to read the sonnets: Should they be considered autobiographical or not?
Notes:
- List of Sonnets (with notes)
- An Outline of the Contents of Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The 8 Types of Sonnets and How to Tell Them Apart (check out the Terza Rima, Curtal, and Modern Sonnet!)
- A fascinating article from the British Library about Mary Fitton, scandalized by her out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Shakespeare's patron, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and candidate for Shakespeare's Dark Lady.
Tuesday Dec 31, 2019
Episode 18 - Love's Labour's Lost
Tuesday Dec 31, 2019
Tuesday Dec 31, 2019
It is the humble opinion of your hosts that Shakespeare starts coming into his own as a truly innovative playwright in Love's Labour's Lost. Up until this point, the plays have been fairly straightforward in presentation, structure, and subject matter; in LLL, all of that is played with, to great effect. Starting with this play, Shakespeare starts showing the sense of playfulness as a writer, experimenting with his craft, that marks some of the great works that follow.
A conventional love story on the surface--four noble men fall in love with four noble women; hilarity ensues--bucks the trends of comedy (there's no marriage at the end) and comments on its own production ("That's too long for a play") and does so with tremendous flair and wit that Shakespeare is well-known for today, but which must have been terrifically fresh when the play was first written and performed in the middle-1590s.Join us as we chat about the fun themes presented in this innovative play!Marriage Counselling
In today's bickering session, we debate the question of whether or not Love's Labour's Lost is a comedy or... something else?
Other Notes
The 2000 Kenneth Branagh film has been pretty thoroughly scrubbed from the internet, but we did locate a German trailer for the dub of the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hDoUMvZhk
As well as this audio from the original trailer, mixed up with a webseries that seems loosely based on the same events as the play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVuR945tOqk&feature=emb_logo