Gain a fresh appreciation of, and an authentic window into, the Bard’s genius. Experience the Bard through new eyes, as Shakespeare experts bring you closer to the astonishing beauty and power of his words. After a sojourn with Shakespeare at Sea, you’ll bring home a renewed sense of Shakespeare as a touchstone for transcendent humanity. This vibrant experience will stay with you and enhance your future encounters with the Bard.
All seminars are 90 minutes.
Speaker: Robin Williams
While his plays were designed for performance, Shakespeare considered them to be literary works as well. This seminar will reveal many reasons why you will want to read his plays for the first time, or read them again. Gain a deeper appreciation of the Bard’s poetic and dramatic gifts as you spend time with his writings.
Speaker: Robin Williams
Shakespeare wrote his instructions for the actors directly into his text through such techniques as the forms of address, verse vs. prose, rhyme, shared lines, short lines, soliloquies, and more. Understanding these techniques offers insight into the dynamics and emotional states of the characters, and will enrich your reading and viewing experiences.
Speaker: Robin Williams
When Shakespeare gave names to elements from nature, mythological characters, and historical figures, he was keenly aware of the underlying significance and symbolism of each object and used it to inform the play. In this seminar, explore the substructure of these textual references and unlock the answers to some of his more mystifying allusions.
Speaker: Robin Williams
Stemming from Plato’s Republic, the Great Chain of Being was a philosophy that lasted well into the Elizabethan age, where everything has a place in the proper order. Shakespeare makes references to the Great Chain of Being in every play, and it underlines every relationship. Link into the Chain and add another layer of enjoyment to your readings and viewings. Similarly, examine his use of the word “fortune,” which appears 516 times in his plays, and often relates to the blind woman who turns the Wheel of Fortune.
Speaker: Robin Williams
Shakespeare used poetic techniques and rhetorical devices to make us react in predictable ways. Gain a deeper appreciation of the language in the plays by examining his masterful use of figurative writing. Experiment collectively and individually with writing a few lines of your own using some of the same techniques that Shakespeare used.
Speaker: Robin Williams
What bloody man is that? Do you understand the Porter and his ramblings about “equivocation”? How can a day be both foul and fair? Why three? Why would horses eat each other? Why is everyone getting unsexed? Why do they keep talking about clothes? What’s the story behind those doctors? And what’s a “Thane”? Look beyond the plot of the brilliant Macbeth at these and other motifs that run through the play and unify the themes. We’ll focus on these details as a way to sharpen your acuity for noticing similar nuances in Shakespeare’s works.
Speaker: Robin Williams
Although the word “humour” appears 136 times in Shakespeare’s writings, it never refers to something funny. In his day, the word was used to describe four bodily fluids thought to influence one’s personality and well being. Discover how well your own humours are balanced, and whether you are a phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic, or sanguine person. Recognize which Shakespearean characters you most resemble, and learn which foods you should eat or avoid to balance your humours!
Speaker: Robin Williams
When the Black Death wiped out many clergymen in the fifteenth century, people needed alternative directions on the proper way to die. Thus ars moriendi, the Art of Dying, was developed and by Shakespeare’s time it had become a way of life. This may be why we see death, near death, attempted death, or a semblance of death in every one of his plays. Explore the playwright’s apparent thoughts on the subject and ponder its applications to our own lives and deaths.
Shakespeare, a master of doubling, employs it in his plots, settings and endings, characters, language, and stage illusions. And he generously invites his stage audiences and readers to share his convention in order to increase their awareness of the riches it brings. It is the idea of doubleness and doubling that links Lynn Robson’s seminars.
Shakespeare was fascinated by twins. He was the father of twins and wrote two comedies whose plots revolve around the confusions that can arise from the presence of twins: The Comedy of Errors, a slick, sophisticated play involving two sets of twins; and the beautiful, iridescent Twelfth Night in which the confusion is intensified by cross-dressing. He also liked to “twin” characters to explore identities more deeply, including Hal and Hotspur, Hamlet and Fortinbras, and Celia and Rosalind. Parts had to be doubled so his plays could be performed with a company of around 15 actors, a tradition that continues today. Plots were also “doubled” to create commentary on the action, most famously in King Lear. In some plays Shakespeare “twinned” scenes, repeating but modulating them in each half of a play. This seminar will introduce the theme of ”doubleness” in character, plot, and structure by discussing Twelfth Night, King Lear, and Richard II.
Shakespeare’s two great tragedies that center on love are Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra; one was written at the beginning of his career, the other towards the end. In one the lovers are heartbreakingly young, in the other they appear too old; and one is about love concealed, while the other is a love affair played out on a world stage. We will explore these two plays in depth and discuss how Shakespeare expands what tragedy can be by doubling the number of protagonists and setting private passion and public action in dialogue with each other.
Is Shylock right to demand his pound of flesh? Should Portia forgive Bassanio? Should Isabella sacrifice her virginity in order to save her brother’s life? Does she marry the Duke? Find out if any of these questions has a straightforward answer. In these two ”comedies,” Shakespeare puts justice and mercy on trial, showing that justice can all too easily seem its opposite and mercy can look a lot like punishment.
For most of his career, Shakespeare wrote his plays knowing that they would be performed in two different spaces: The Globe Theatre in Southwark and the royal Court at Whitehall. In 1609, a third space was added — the indoor Blackfriars Theatre — and in response his plays changed, exploiting the more intimate space and the opportunity to play with more spectacular stage effects. We’ll take a look at Elizabethan and Jacobean London — the city where Shakespeare lived and worked for over 20 years — examining the different playing spaces in detail and discussing the effects they had on the plays.
Shakespeare was fascinated by the relationship between the actor and his role, at times featuring the deception and at other times imploring his audience to believe in the part being played. He explores this form of doubleness most profoundly through his English kings, the Henrys and Richards who repeatedly ask such questions as “Are the best kings also the best actors”? and “What happens to man when he becomes a king”? This class will examine and answer those and other questions about kingship and the role that performance plays in the acquisition and maintenance of political power through Richard II, Richard III, and Henry V.
Doubleness and duplicity are written into Shakespeare’s sonnets. They may express love for a handsome young man and a beautiful mysterious lady while at the same time they are about the deceptions lovers practice on themselves and each other. While the narrative is about a love triangle, the subtext is about writing poetry. Images and language speak repeatedly of the transience of youth and beauty, but the poet-speaker is obsessed with the idea of his verse lasting forever. Welcome to the wonderful world of Shakespeare’s sonnets in which you will see that everything changes into something else. We’ll read and discuss individual sonnets in detail, examining how language, images, rhyme, and rhythm are crafted together to produce meaning.
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