Critical Readings

The panel discusses the third act, with a focus on the deterioration of the Roman political situation, Marc Antony's skills as a battlefield leader and a political figure, and the sophisticated psychological understanding of both Octavius and Cleopatra.Continue reading

The panel discusses the second act of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, with a focus on the Roman political situation, the difference between republican and dictatorial rule, and Cleopatra's intoxicating effect upon those caught in her orbit.Continue reading

The panel reads the first act of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, providing an historical overview of the events, and reading the text with attention given to the psychological motivations of the drama and their historical context within Roman culture.Continue reading

The panel reads three poems by Lady Mary Wroth, from The Countess of Montgomery's Urania and Pamphilia to Amphilanthus, discussing their context, social impact, and the paradox of their genre conventionality but also Elizabethan authorial radicalism.Continue reading

The panel reads three poems by N. Scott Momaday, including "The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee", "The Monoliths", and "Rings of Bone" with special attention to the usage of active and passive symbolism, and the function of time, stasis, and circularity.Continue reading

The panel discusses Melville's short story, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", and examines the symbolism of its characters, the meaning of Bartleby's passive resistance, and the various interpretations of the work in light of history and literary theory.Continue reading

The panel reads three, middle-length poems by the XXth century imagist poet, Amy Lowell, with special attention to their use of garden-like symbolism, liminal spaces (physical and temporal), and the moon as a metaphorical representation of transience.Continue reading

The panel reads two later poems by Thomas Warton, including "Verses on Sir Joshua Reynolds's Painted Window at New College Oxford" and "Written at Vale-Royal Abbey in Cheshire," and considers them within the context of Anglicanism and the Enlightenment.Continue reading

The panel introduces one of the Graveyard Poets, Thomas Warton the Younger, and reads in full his most famous poem, "The Pleasures of Melancholy", with attention to how it prefigures the Romantics even as it remains part of the Augustan worldview.Continue reading

In advance of Burns Night, the panel reads four poems by Robert Burns, including "To a Mouse" and "For a' That and a' That", with special attention given to the presence of Romanticism, the use of dialect, and the brotherhood of mankind within nature.Continue reading