Each week Dr. J shares a poem from one of the nineteenth-century American Fireside Poets, reading it aloud and commenting on it to enhance the listener’s enjoyment of the poem.
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Each episode Dr. J selects a passage from American literature, reads it aloud, and discusses what the passage contributes to our understanding of what America and being an American mean.
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Each episode Dr. J reads a dramatic passage from one of Shakespeare’s plays and discusses how it and the play its from equip us for life’s challenges as well as giving us the pleasures of art.
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The match between Orlando and Charles the Wrestler considered as a metaphor for the confrontation between every individual human being and the world.Por Fireside Poems
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What is America's attitude toward beauty? Is it something valuable for itself alone? Or does it require some other more moral vrtue? Or is it merely something to be shown off? Or something to be disapproved of? Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth asks us to consider this question.Por Fireside Poems
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Shakespeare portrays the combat between Hector and Achilles differently that it's portrayed in Homer's Iliad. Shakespeare is cynical about Achilles, cynical about Hector, and cynical about the Trojan War. There is no heroism and no dignity.Por Fireside Poems
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Is John Smith's account of his rescue by Pocahontas true? Does it mater?Por Fireside Poems
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Hamlet relates to his friend Horatio how he sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths.Por Fireside Poems
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The Calvinist preacher Jonathan Edwards describes his own discovery of he seetness of God.Por Fireside Poems
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The Merchant of Venice weighs justice and mercy in the balance, but does it also betray Shakespeare as antisemitic?Por Fireside Poems
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Self-reliance doesn't mean selfishness as much as it means self-confidence.Por Fireside Poems
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A woman asks her lover to kill his best friend.Por Fireside Poems
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W.E.B. Du Bois reflects on the threat to the soul of thiniking of the world in terms of dollars.Por Fireside Poems
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Society depends on human sympathy, including sympathy for those who are unhappy, who can also find companionship in literature and art.Por Fireside Poems
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As her husband John Adams participates in the writing of the founding documents of the United States of America, Abigail Adams asks him to consider too the wrongs done to women and the rights they should have in the new United States.Por Fireside Poems
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The flower Love-In-Idlesess, and particularly its juice dropped on a sleeper's eye, is the source of all erotic love and woe.Por Fireside Poems
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Hester presented as the embodiment of the American antinomian spirit.Por Fireside Poems
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Julius Caesar waivers over whether to visit the Senateon the Ides of March.Por Fireside Poems
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The value of state clleges and universities to America.Por Fireside Poems
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The disapproval of moralists cannot suppres the fun of others.Por Fireside Poems
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Writing in 1819, over two hundred years ago, Washington Irving uses the image of a rickety wooden buildiing to represent the United States of America. Why?Por Fireside Poems
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Shakespeare seems to bungle a play.Por Fireside Poems
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The beginning of social work and social reform in America.Por Fireside Poems
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Human dignity requires more than our purely physical needsPor Fireside Poems
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An aAmerican born teen wishes to change the name his Indian-born parents gave himPor Fireside Poems
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In Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra we find two worlds: Egypt and Rome. Egypt stands for life and Rome the denial of life. The tragedy is the triumph of Rome and the denial of life overe Egypt and the affirmation of life.Por Fireside Poems
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Guided by the Inner Light of the Quakers, John Woolman in the mid-1700s begins is work as an abolitionist against slavery.Por Fireside Poems
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Ann infnt girl is rescued from the fate her jealous father inends for her.Por Fireside Poems
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A man faces bleak Christmas memories.Por Fireside Poems
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A giant green knight intrudes on the yuletide festivity of King Arthur and his Round Table.Por Fireside Poems
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On the American frontier the rifle must yield to the law even when carried by such a likeable guy as Natty Bumppo.Por Fireside Poems
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The masculine toxicity of Shakespeare's Othelloo isn't Shkespeare's, but Othello's; similarly the racism in Othello isn't Sakespeare's, but Iago's.Por Fireside Poems
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Frederick Douglass tells of the first book he read, The columbian Orator. What we can learn about what books should be taught in schools and what books should be in libraries. The importance of books and the importance of libraries and librarians.Por Fireside Poems
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The artifice of art and the reality of lovePor Fireside Poems
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Should America be a land of religious liberty? or should it be the land of God's chosen people?Por Fireside Poems
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What is the cost of growing up? All the world?Por Fireside Poems
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A family in the 1950s visits the beach, with a storm in the offing.Por Fireside Poems
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Do we choose our fates? Are our fates somehow determined? Are we just the victims or beneficiaries of the world's whims?Por Fireside Poems
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Ben Franklin provides a model for becoming part of ghte 10%.Por Fireside Poems
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Is the irrational, feeling mind dominant over our rational mind?Por Fireside Poems
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European maturity and American immaturity as they relates to sexuality and feminismPor Fireside Poems
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A demagogue stirs up a violent revolt by appealing to the mob's resentments.Por Fireside Poems
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A passage showing the universal relevance of Herman Melville's classicPor Fireside Poems
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In this life, we all are servants. But whom or what do we serve? And what kind of servant are we?Por Fireside Poems
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In America, one can discover within new faculties that elsewhere aren't known to exist.Por Fireside Poems
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The essential conflict in Shakespeare and in life: withdrawal from life/engagment with lifePor Fireside Poems
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J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer plces side by side American idealsand American slavery in pre-Revolutionary America.Por Fireside Poems
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Announcingtwo new podcasts: Dr. J's Shakespeare and Dr. J's American PassagesPor Fireside Poems
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Announcing the launch of two podcasts: "Dr. J's American Passages" and "Dr. J's Shakespeare"Por Fireside Poems
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Priscilla Mullins and John Alden wed, symbolizing the continuity of life in a true pastoral image.Por Fireside Poems
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The young Endymion sleeps Endymion’s sleep . . .Por Fireside Poems
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The essence of each poet: Chaucer and ShakespearrePor Fireside Poems
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A young man learns of the death of his beloved when he comes upon a strange ceremony.Por Fireside Poems
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