Лучшие подкасты про William Shakespeare (2025)

Sonnet 117 is the first of three distinct but related sonnets that all seek to excuse, or at the very least explain, Shakespeare's own infidelities and inconstancies, first confessed to his lover in Sonnet 109 and, most directly, in Sonnet 110. Here, our poet lists a whole raft of failings on his part in his conduct towards his young man, and posit…

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Sonnet 116: Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds 29:33

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5d ago29:33

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With his celebrated and oft-recited Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare offers not so much a definition as a characterisation of what true love is: unshakeable and unaffected by external changes or temptations, steady and dependable as a lodestar in the darkest, stormiest hour, and everlasting "even to the edge of doom." With its religious overtones th…

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Sonnet 115: Those Lines That I Before Have Writ Do Lie 28:26

12d ago28:26

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With Sonnet 115 William Shakespeare turns his attention to the perplexing paradox that a love that is experienced as complete and absolute and therefore perfect, such as his love for his young man, may turn out, over time, to have been but a fledgling infant compared to the even fuller, more profound, more mature love that it has the potential to g…

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Sonnet 114: Or Whether Doth My Mind, Being Crowned With You 35:51

22d ago35:51

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With his curiously cryptic Sonnet 114, William Shakespeare poses a rhetorical question to his younger lover, asking whether his experience of seeing him in everything he looks at is down simply to his eye flattering him, or to his eye having acquired the ancient mystical art of alchemy and actually turning even ugly creatures into beautiful angelic…

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1 – Act I 29:21

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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1 - Act 1 29:30

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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2 – Act II 29:59

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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2 - Act 2 42:14

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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3 – Act III 36:27

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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3 - Act 3 44:16

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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Sonnet 113: Since I Left You, Mine Eye Is in My Mind 26:49

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With Sonnet 113, William Shakespeare returns once more to the theme of separation, reflecting on how, when he is away from his younger lover, everything he sees takes on his lover's shape and thus reminds him of him. Although we don't know when exactly the sonnet was written and therefore where precisely in the collection it belongs, it would appea…

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4 – Act IV 19:25

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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4 - Act 4 37:49

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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5 – Act V 26:08

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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5 - Act 5 25:40

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More great books at LoyalBooks.comWilliam Shakespeare

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Sonnet 112: Your Love and Pity Doth th'Impression Fill 34:59

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With Sonnet 112, William Shakespeare picks up directly from Sonnet 111 in which he asked his younger lover to pity him, and he now goes one step further by telling him that it is his, the young man's, opinion – and his opinion only – that should ever matter to Shakespeare, because not only is the young man, as Sonnets 109 and 110 expressed, his "ho…

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Sonnet 111: O For My Sake Do You With Fortune Chide 22:26

1M ago22:26

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With Sonnet 111, William Shakespeare shifts focus from his infidelities in relation to his younger lover, addressed in the previous two sonnets, to a general deficiency in his reputation, which he blames squarely on the fact that his circumstances require him to earn a living in the public sphere. This, he claims, has led him to acquire the conduct…

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Sonnet 110: Alas, 'Tis True, I Have Gone Here and There 31:53

2M ago31:53

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With his exceptionally candid and forthright Sonnet 110, William Shakespeare at once completes his apotheosis of his young lover, while at the same time confessing to him that yes, he too has had affairs with other people, but also reassuring him that these other lovers were no match for him and that they pale, compared to him, into insignificance,…

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Sonnet 109: O Never Say That I Was False of Heart 29:44

2M ago29:44

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Sonnet 109 is the first of two truly remarkable sonnets that speak of William Shakespeare's own infidelities towards his young lover during a period of prolonged absence. Although they do not form a strictly tied pair, together these two poems position our poet and his relationship in an entirely new light, because they for the first time genuinely…

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Sonnet 108: What's in the Brain That Ink May Character 29:25

2M ago29:25

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With Sonnet 108, William Shakespeare loops back into sentiments expressed intermittently since Sonnet 76, but particularly again recently in Sonnet 105: I have essentially said it all, there is nothing I can do other than repeat and reiterate and rephrase the praises I have sung and continue to sing for you. What it also picks up from Sonnet 105 is…

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Sonnet 107: Not Mine Own Fears, Nor the Prophetic Soul 39:42

2M ago39:42

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Of all the poems in the collection first published in 1609, Sonnet 107 most clearly and most compellingly seems to refer to external events that shape Shakespeare's world. Because of this, it takes up a pivotal position in the canon, since it may therein hold clues to both its date of composition and to the person it is addressed to. And while ther…

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Sonnet 106: When in the Chronicle of Wasted Time 29:32

3M ago29:32

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Sonnet 106 sees Shakespeare return to eulogising his young lover in outwardly straightforward terms. And rather than looking ahead to times to come when his poetry will continue to pay tribute to his love long after both he and his lover have gone, as several of the other sonnets have done, he here casts his eye back to the past through the lens of…

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Sonnet 105: Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry 24:49

3M ago24:49

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Sonnet 105 presents a playful paradox that is no doubt fully intended on William Shakespeare's part. Addressing, for a change, not his young lover directly, but speaking to the world in general about him and about his love for him, he tells us that we should not see, and in seeing so by implication judge, this love as the worship of a human and the…

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Sonnet 104: To Me, Fair Friend, You Never Can Be Old 33:31

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With his celebrated and much-debated Sonnet 104, William Shakespeare appears to set out to do primarily three things: first and foremost, to reassure his young lover that even now, after some appreciable time has passed since they first met, he, the young lover, is still as beautiful to him, our poet, as he was on the very first day; in other words…

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Sonnet 103: Alack, What Poverty My Muse Brings Forth 24:01

3M ago24:01

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Sonnet 103 is the fourth and last in this group of four sonnets with which William Shakespeare seeks to excuse himself for not writing more poetry to, for, or about his young lover lately. Like the first two in the group, Sonnets 100 & 101 – which are so closely linked that we may treat them as a pair – this sonnet also references the poet's Muse, …

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Sonnet 102: My Love Is Strengthened Though More Weak in Seeming 29:31

4M ago29:31

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With Sonnet 102, William Shakespeare returns to addressing his young lover directly, though still in explanation and indeed defence of the extended period of silence of which Sonnets 100 & 101 spoke, both of which were addressed to his own Muse, admonishing her for her absence. In contrast to those two poems, Sonnet 102 takes full responsibility fo…

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Sonnet 101: O Truant Muse, What Shall Be Thy Amends 28:32

4M ago28:32

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Although at first glance Sonnet 101 can stand on its own, it so closely connects to Sonnet 100 that it really in all likelihood should be considered to form with it a pair within this group of four sonnets that they are both part of. Like Sonnet 100, it addresses itself to Shakespeare's Muse – his poetic inspiration – in a series of rhetorical ques…

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Sonnet 100: Where Art Thou, Muse, That Thou Forgetst So Long 31:58

4M ago31:58

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Sonnet 100 is the first in a group of four sonnets that speak of a hiatus in Shakespeare's poetry writing to his young lover. In the collection first published in 1609, this follows Sonnets 97 and 98, which both highlight an absence from the young man that has felt to Shakespeare like winter, with Sonnet 99 acting as something of a bridge between t…

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Special Guest: Professor David Crystal – Original Pronunciation (OP) 1:21:46

4M ago1:21:46

1:21:46

In this special episode, Professor David Crystal OBE, one of the world's leading linguists with over 100 books to his name and a global reputation as a writer and lecturer on Early Modern English, talks to Sebastian Michael about Original Pronunciation (OP) – the way William Shakespeare and his contemporaries would have pronounced English at the ti…

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Sonnet 99: The Forward Violet Thus Did I Chide 39:26

4M ago39:26

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In the collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare published in 1609, Sonnet 99 is unique for two reasons that are possibly related: it is the only sonnet to consist of 15 lines instead of the usual 14, and it is the only sonnet that leans directly on a known source and can therefore be said to be a more or less direct reworking of an existing…

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Sonnet 98: From You Have I Been Absent in the Spring 29:57

5M ago29:57

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When Sonnet 97 spoke of an absence from his lover that felt to Shakespeare "like a winter" even though it actually took place during the summer and/or autumn, Sonnet 98 speaks of either the same or a similar absence that took place during the springtime in April, which, however, on account of not having his lover around, to Shakespeare also seemed …

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Sonnet 97: How Like a Winter Hath My Absence Been 25:38

5M ago25:38

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Sonnet 97 ushers in a new phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover, which, following the upheaval, anguish, doubt, and direct criticism of the young man contained in the group that immediately precedes it, comes across as a series of almost serene reflections first, once again, on a period of separation in this sonn…

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Special Guest: Professor Abigail Rokison-Woodall – Speaking Shakespeare 51:48

5M ago51:48

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In this special episode, Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Deputy Director (Education) and Associate Professor in Shakespeare and Theatre at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK, talks to Sebastian Michael about the challenges – and joys – of speaking verse in general and Shakespearean verse in particular: how do we do his language justic…

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Sonnet 96: Some Say Thy Fault Is Youth, Some Wantonness 26:09

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With Sonnet 96 William Shakespeare concludes the extraordinary group of sonnets that deal with his young lover's infidelity. Easing off on the harsh criticism of the young man's behaviour voiced in Sonnet 95, he here brings in a new conciliatory tone which acknowledges that the young man's powers of attracting other people are great and that he cou…

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Sonnet 95: How Sweet and Lovely Dost Thou Make the Shame 27:04

6M ago27:04

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With his astoundingly forthright Sonnet 95, William Shakespeare admonishes his young lover in the most uncompromising terms yet, and he rounds off his salvo with another stern warning that even someone as privileged and exalted as he can go too far. It forms the culmination of a progression in tone and stance that has been underway since Sonnet 87,…

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Sonnet 94: They That Have Power to Hurt and Will Do None 26:27

6M ago26:27

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With Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare takes a step back from his discourse in poetry, addressed directly to his young lover, and reflects more broadly and apparently abstractly on a quality of mercy that ought not to be strained. The sonnet makes two at first glance almost separate observations, devoting the first eight lines – the octave – to an eth…

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Sonnet 93: So Shall I Live, Supposing Thou Art True 24:29

6M ago24:29

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Sonnet 93 is the third of three sonnets that pivot William Shakespeare's stance towards his young lover from one of pure praise and adulation to one that not just questions his conduct and character, but begins to actively admonish him. It picks up directly from the closing couplet of Sonnet 92 and imagines a situation in which the young man is unf…

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Sonnet 92: But Do Thy Worst to Steal Thyself Away 25:30

6M ago25:30

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Sonnet 92 continues from Sonnet 91 and sets out a compelling – if perhaps strictly speaking somewhat sophistic – argument why the young man may, as the previous sonnet in its closing couplet considered to be a distinct possibility, leave Shakespeare whenever he feels like it, but without in doing so actually making him, Shakespeare, most wretched a…

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Sonnet 91: Some Glory in Their Birth, Some in Their Skill 27:32

7M ago27:32

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With Sonnet 91, William Shakespeare reclaims his place in the young man's favour, and for the first time in a while – in the published sequence since the group that contains Sonnets 71 to 76 – speaks primarily of how the young man's love privileges him, Shakespeare, above all else. It is for the most part a return to a happier, more confident, more…

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Sonnet 90: Then Hate Me When Thou Wilt, if Ever, Now 22:17

7M ago22:17

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Sonnet 90 is the third of three poems that form a 'group within a group', purporting to accept, even support, any decision the young man may wish to take to leave his poet lover, for whatever reason he deems justified. Its principal message is straightforward: if you are going to leave me, then do it now, while everything else is going against me a…

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Sonnet 89: Say That Thou Didst Forsake Me for Some Fault 34:53

7M ago34:53

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Sonnet 89 continues the line of argumentation set up with Sonnet 88 and expounds on the steps William Shakespeare is willing to take to demonstrate to his young man how fully he is prepared to subject himself to his will and to accept a termination of the relationship as perfectly within the young man's rights. In spelling out the things that Shake…

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Sonnet 88: When Thou Shalt Be Disposed to Set Me Light 22:08

7M ago22:08

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Having bid his lover farewell in Sonnet 87 and effectively conceded that this young man is out of his league, starting with Sonnet 88, and stretching over the next two poems, Shakespeare sets the ground for a spirited fightback that will materialise properly in Sonnets 91 to 96. In its tone and its stance Sonnet 88 seems submissive, even self-debas…

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Sonnet 87: Farewell, Thou Art Too Dear for My Possessing 24:09

7M ago24:09

24:09

With its complete change in tone, Sonnet 87 ushers in a new and decidedly different phase in the relationship between William Shakespeare and his young lover. The sonnet draws on the vocabulary of law, ownership, and finance and in these largely factual terms Shakespeare appears to concede that the young man is simply out of his league: it is the m…

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Special Guest: Professor Gabriel Egan – Computational Approaches to the Study of Shakespeare 1:20:23

8M ago1:20:23

1:20:23

In this special episode, Gabriel Egan, Professor of Shakespeare Studies and Director of the Centre for Textual Studies at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, talks to Sebastian Michael about computational approaches to the study of Renaissance literature in general and to Shakespeare's works in particular: what are the methodologies employed a…

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The Rival Poet 48:14

8M ago48:14

48:14

Much has been written and said, speculated and surmised about the Rival Poet in William Shakespeare’s Sonnets, with hypotheses ranging from the idea that there was no ‘rival poet’ and that Shakespeare essentially made up this figure, through the notion that there was perhaps a rival or possibly several rivals but that Shakespeare is not writing abo…

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Sonnet 86: Was it the Proud Full Sail of His Great Verse 29:42

8M ago29:42

29:42

Sonnet 86 is the last of the Rival Poet group of sonnets, and it gives a final reason why William Shakespeare has, as he himself put it in Sonnet 85, become tongue-tied and been unable to express himself adequately in his praise of the young lover. Together with Sonnet 80 it bookends the group-within-a-group consisting of Sonnets 82 to 85 which tog…

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Sonnet 85: My Tongue-Tied Muse in Manners Holds Her Still 29:13

8M ago29:13

29:13

With Sonnet 85, William Shakespeare concludes the group-within-a-group of four sonnets that concern themselves with his own defence against the charge – evidently levied by his young lover – that his poetry is lacking in lavish expressions of praise and that 'imputes', as Shakespeare himself calls it in Sonnet 83, his silence, or, as it should more…

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Sonnet 84: Who Is it That Says Most, Which Can Say More 23:24

9M ago23:24

23:24

With Sonnet 84, William Shakespeare continues and underpins his defence of himself against the charge, referenced explicitly in Sonnet 83, that he has failed to present his young lover with sufficiently effusive praise and instead remained silent about his unparalleled qualities: not only is it the case – as he told the young man there – that you d…

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