Thinking Through Shakespeare, with David Womersley

Thinking Through Shakespeare, with David Womersley

Many readers turn to Shakespeare for the beauty of his language or the power of his stories. But in Thinking Through Shakespeare, Oxford scholar David Womersley suggests that the plays offer something else as well: a way of exploring some of the deepest questions about human life. Womersley looks at tragedies like Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear to show how Shakespeare places audiences inside difficult moral and philosophical problems. The plays raise questions about identity, power, and the tension between doing what is right and doing what is personally advantageous. Rather than presenting clear answers, Shakespeare lets these ideas collide on stage. In this episode, Womersley explains how Shakespeare’s plays become what he calls “crucibles” for thinking. As characters struggle with competing values and impossible choices, audiences go on that journey with them—testing ideas, reconsidering assumptions, and confronting the same enduring dilemmas that have shaped human thought for centuries.

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The Yorkist Pretender, with Jo Harkin

The Yorkist Pretender, with Jo Harkin

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Surekha Davies on the Making of Monsters

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Reimagining Judith Shakespeare with Grace Tiffany

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Julia Armfield Reimagines King Lear in a Drowning World

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Lauren Gunderson on the Women of Hamlet

Lauren Gunderson on the Women of Hamlet

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Shakespeare’s Narrative Poems

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How did early modern England understand race and how has that influenced our thinking? Race is often considered a recent construct, but Shakespeare’s works—both his plays and poetry—reveal a diverse ...

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Nisha Sharma on Adapting Shakespeare for Modern Romances

Nisha Sharma on Adapting Shakespeare for Modern Romances

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Olivia Hussey: The Girl on the Balcony (Rebroadcast)

Olivia Hussey: The Girl on the Balcony (Rebroadcast)

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