Rated 5 out of
5
by
wooknight from
Marvellous journey through Shakespeare
The professor is extraordinarily well versed in all things Shakespeare and he makes the plays come alive . Most importantly he provided a toolkit of super tools to analyze and understand Shakespeare plays .
Date published: 2020-08-12
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Flaningan20 from
Excellent throughout
Dr. Conner is articulate, easy to listen to, and exceedingly knowledgeable. I recommend his course on Shakespeare without reservation. Superb!
Date published: 2020-08-06
Rated 4 out of
5
by
Judy1954 from
Great course!
I really learned a lot about how to appreciate Shakespeare both in the written word and in theaters. I love the way the Professor used "tools" to make the Bard's plays more accessible.
Date published: 2020-07-19
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Paraquita123 from
Shakespeare comes alive and becomes understandable
Professor Connor does an excellent job of translating Shakespeare and pointing out various devises used in the plays. I am a homeschool mom and I have three high school students taking this class. They all stated that this class is not only interesting and entertaining, but also very helpful in understanding Shakespeare's works.
Date published: 2020-05-06
Rated 5 out of
5
by
sally692 from
How to read and understand Shakespeare
This is one of the best courses I've taken from the Great Courses. I don't know much about Shakespearean plays. I find Professor Conner's lectures engaging and illuminating. He is an excellent professor with deep knowledge about the subject, and presented all the material in scholarly manner, but never a dull moment. His voice and lecture style is excellent as well. I usually listen to only one lecture at a time and can't wait for the next one to begin. He also inspires the students to want to learn more on their own and give us the space for our own interpretation with his guidance. I love this course so much, that after I finished it, I was so excited to find a new course taught by Dr. Conner on Irish identity. I'm only at the beginning of this new course, but already enjoying it immensely.
I also learned that Professor Conner will be the new incoming president at Skidmore College. I want to wish him all the Best as he embarks on this new journey. We need educators like him to teach and inspire the younger generations.
Date published: 2020-05-02
Rated 4 out of
5
by
By my so potent art from
Great Introduction and Overview of Shakespeare
I consider myself at best an intermediate student in Shakespeare.
I've read most of the popular writing; Bloom, Greenblatt, the Arden Intro and more. Seen a half dozen plays live, and lots of films. Welles' Chimes at Midnight will always hold a special place in my heart for its perfect visualization of the single most heart breaking scene (to me) in the whole canon.
And I learned a lot in this series of lectures.
Particularly in the connections between plays and the concepts Shakespeare explores again and again in different variations. This may sound silly, but for me this series was very thought provoking and stimulated some good discussions between my Labradors and myself.
I will say the use of the word Tools to describe his approaches to the plays is a little off-putting. If I use my 'Block to Love' Tool, I may also need my 'Altar' or Tomb' Tool. But the analysis is valid, in my view.
With that single caveat, I would highly recommend this course to anyone, regardless of their level of experience with Shakespeare.
Date published: 2020-02-13
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Ophelia from
How to Read And Undestand Shakespeare
What Professor Conner know and teaches about Shakespeare's plays from a historical and humane context is incredible! I would recommend it to the novice
on Shakespeare as well as to the expert. One of the better courses I've ever taken.
Thank you Professor Conner!
Date published: 2019-12-26
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Slross from
Interesting and great explanations
I have read all of Shakespeare and enjoyed it, but after taking these classes I understand so much that I missed before!
Date published: 2019-01-21
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Globetrotter from
Pure Intoxicating Inspiration
Any person or any age with a longing to break through the language barrier of the great works of the Master Bard, William Shakespeare, will be totally delighted with the outstanding presentation by Professor Marc Conner - Shakespeare lover and lecturer extraordinaire. This is the second time I've bought Professor Conner's course on How to Read and Understand Shakespeare. because I wanted to spread the delight of this lecture and gave my first set to a friend, and now I want to go through the course again on my own.
I can not recommend this course highly enough. It inspires one to think deeper and broader about Shakespeare's stunningly creative use of words and language devices. His metaphors and smilies leap out at us and grab us by their brilliance, with Professor Connor as our guide.
One need not rush through the lectures. Go slowly, replay and re-listen, because the lectures are never dull, but always informing.
Professor Connor has a hugely pleasing voice - a wonderful tone and delivery, and never irritates with those common speech disfluencies that many professors have that are so distracting from the content. Pure pleasure. Treat yourself to the best - take this amazingly fearless journey into the world of Shakespeare with an awesome world-class guide.
Date published: 2019-01-13
Rated 5 out of
5
by
mansell01 from
Professor provides helpful strategies like entering the forest, warring parents, and e-books story lines to help students understand Shakespeare.
Date published: 2019-01-11
Rated 5 out of
5
by
PreviouslyInterested from
Increase Your Love Of Shakespeare (More)
I have listened to this 3 times already, and loaned it to my Renaissance-man friends. The professor is enthusiastic, clear, inviting, positive, and really knows his topic but makes it very accessible to us.
Date published: 2018-09-22
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Spence from
Outstanding review and analysis
Outstanding review and analysis of Shakespeare's 12 plays he covers.
Date published: 2018-06-29
Rated 5 out of
5
by
LoMac from
Great for Teachers
"How to Read and Understand Shakespeare" has given me as a history teacher background that I didn't have and can incorporate to help out my fellow literature teachers providing not only historical context, but also historical accuracy and pointing out the historical inaccuracies.
Date published: 2018-04-08
Rated 5 out of
5
by
dportlu from
Shakespeare Table Setting and Appetizer
Professor Conner's lectures are enjoyable and insightful. The listening quality of his voice is great as is his enthusiasm for the subject. His performance of portions of the plays make one wish he was reading the full play to you rather than you reading it yourself. With the "tools" to better understand the structure and plot of the plays and the examples from many of the plays, you will want to revisit or discover Shakespeare.
You will not be taught the meaning of many of the words/meanings that are not common to modern usage but knowing the direction the play and its characters are heading will make your journey easier.
Date published: 2018-02-14
Rated 5 out of
5
by
LisaAnne from
Love to learn
Making history come alive. The great courses are an amazing way to get history into my car!
Date published: 2017-10-18
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Aldo from
Excellent
I was looking for something on line that could help me to know and understand more about Shakespeare and his work.
This series of lectures is exactly what I was looking for.
If you are completely ignorant as me about the subject, I strongly advise to follow each lesson related to a play while watching the play itself (I downlad them from the global theatre site but I assume there may be other good on line resources available). And it is also useful to have the text at hand.
Date published: 2017-09-17
Rated 5 out of
5
by
noname999 from
Very interesting and informative.
Outstanding presentation. This course covers a lot of ground and it helped make some additional sense of recollections of previous performances I've attended and helped me appreciate the plays I've seen after viewing the lectures. I will refer to these lectures for a long time to come.
Date published: 2017-06-26
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Jeff A from
Marc Conner brings out your complete curiosity.
I have been buying these courses for almost 20 years! Most of them are great. However, Marc Conner goes far beyond that high bar. I just finished his Irish History course and am now almost through his Shakespeare course...just fantastic. I would like to meet and talk with him someday.
Date published: 2017-04-06
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Sbrick888 from
Gets to the heart of the plays
I really enjoyed the series. The lectures really summarized the important themes well And gave me tools to apply to all the plays, even those not covered in detail.
Date published: 2017-04-05
Rated 5 out of
5
by
ams1 from
I bought this course about a month ago. I like the lectures so well that I've listened to each one of the 24 twice. Dr. Connor has a very engaging style of presentation and I learned something in every lecture that I had not known before. I am not an expert on Shakespeare by any means, but I had previously read and studied in class 3 or 4 of the plays he focused on and found something fascinating in each lecture that was new to me. I initially thought his approach of using "tools" to understanding Shakespeare was a bit of a cliche, but actually found them useful. I also very much appreciated his talking about the different editions of Shakespeare's works and his pointing out the particular advantages and disadvantages of the editions he recommends. Taking this course led me to going back to Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest and reading them again in their entirety. The course truly enriched my appreciation of Shakespeare
Date published: 2017-02-26
Rated 4 out of
5
by
tommyd555 from
Great Analysis
Excellent analysis and insights on 12 of Shakespeare’s plays; While the “tools” discussed for understanding Shakespeare didn’t help understand the language/text as much as they'd hope, they could help explain some of the plots or what Shakespeare was trying to achieve.
Pluses:
• Excellent literary analysis and insights on the following plays:
1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
2. Romeo and Juliet
3. Twelfth Night
4. Richard II
5. Henry IV, Part I
6. Henry IV, Part 2
7. Henry V
8. Macbeth
9. Hamlet
10. The Merchant of Venice
11. Measure for Measure
12. The Tempest
Minuses:
• My one gripe is that the “tools” presented by the professor don’t seem to truly be tools to me. At least not what I was expecting going in. I thought they would've been focused on helping one understand the sometimes difficult text Shakespeare uses and would've involved translations of common words. Instead their helpfulness was more in explaining why Shakespeare did something specifically with one of his plots or what he was trying to achieve to help one appreciate the overall cohesiveness of his plays.
If you often find yourself confused following Shakespeare plots then this course and the tools presented will truly help you appreciate the beauty and genius of Shakespeare by allowing you to see and understand the complexity of the plots. If you are looking for assistance on reading the plays such as meanings of words, text, and lines then this may not be the best course for you. But I could see anyone at any level taking alot from this course. I have read every one of his plays, have seen over 50 live performances, and read alot of critical analysis but I learned quite alot from this course and enjoyed the professor's style.
Date published: 2017-02-14
Rated 5 out of
5
by
RMF45 from
Love it!
I've always loved Shakespeare, but quite often got lost in trying to follow the dialogue and plot. This professor clarifies things beautifully and in a very entertaining way.
Date published: 2017-01-27
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Bear from
Through the Instrument My Pate Made Way
Whether you are a Shakespeare novice or a devoted fan, this fabulous course offers insights and approaches to increase your understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's craft and the stories and characters in the plays themselves. I have this course on audio. Professor Conner's presentations are outstanding: clear and straightforward, with easily understandable explanations and analysis, delivered with enthusiasm. His stated goal for this course is to make Shakespeare's plays more accessible (and less intimidating) to readers and viewers, and he succeeds. He does so through a detailed examination of a dozen plays, showing how Shakespeare repeatedly uses several "stock" plots, characters, settings, stagecraft, dramatic techniques, and themes, mixing and matching to build the basic frameworks and engines for his comedies, tragedies, histories, and romances. Professor Conner explains how each of these components works and how they fit together -- leading to a greater understanding of why things happen the way they do in Shakespeare's plays. Armed with this understanding of the components, we are then better able to appreciate how Shakespeare takes these basic pieces and customizes them, enhances them, gives them greater depth, beauty, subtlety, and power, transforming them from basic theater to, well, Shakespeare.
Professor Conner refers ad nauseam to using "tools" as a roundabout way of identifying the standard components that Shakespeare employs in his plays -- like saying "our screwdriver helps us to take this apart" instead of saying "it is held together with a screw." I think that is a deliberate (if annoying) device to reinforce his message of active empowerment: _anyone_ can use this knowledge (Professor Conner's "tools") to look inside any of Shakespeare's plays and understand them without confusion or intimidation.
Date published: 2016-09-09
Rated 4 out of
5
by
huzza1599 from
reading Shakespear
the course is very interesting ,and very helpful in understanding the plays. I was not very pleased after I bought the course to see that the next week it was 50 dollars cheaper. I my thing twice before buying another course!
Date published: 2016-09-06
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Diverdick from
Excellent
An excellent presentation. This is not the usual pedantic presentation I see too often. Very understandable and interesting.
Date published: 2016-07-03
Rated 5 out of
5
by
BeedeBoy from
Finally I appreciate Shakespeare
Professor Marc Connors’s tools are illuminating; his enthusiasm, infectious; his method, captivating. He has guided me from trying to read Shakespeare with opaque frustration to deep, personal enjoyment. I’ve gone from floundering without the least penetration, to underlined and margin noted appreciations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV Part 2, Henry V, Macbeth, Hamlet, Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, and The Tempest. He has given me the enthusiasm and tools to go on my own to appreciate King Lear and add Julius Caesar, Othello, and Anthony and Cleopatra to my literary bucket list. This guy doesn’t have any idea who I am, and yet he is one of the most respected teachers I have had in a life now spanning 60 years. Please, if you want to be able to read and obtain a personal appreciation of Shakespeare but have been discouraged in prior attempts, take this course.
Date published: 2016-04-20
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Mike M from
Superb Course!
Hallmark of a great professor is his ability to deepen and expand my enjoyment and appreciation of an interesting subject--in this case the great literature of Shakespeare. Prof. Conner's insightful commentary on each of the plays he touches in this course should enrich your Shakespeare reading and playgoing. He focuses on a number of keys ("tools" he calls them) for gaining a richer understanding of the plays' structure, plots, staging and storylines.
One example is the "block to love" (usually from a parent) that sets the stage for Midsummer Night's Dream or Romeo and Juliet. The comedy sees the loving pair together in the end and a happy order restored to the world. The tragedy sees this block unmoved and the lovers doomed (perhaps by fate?) to a sad and unhappy end. Prof. Conner illustrates these keys throughout the course; they will surely enhance my future enjoyment of the plays. I hope they do the same for you.
Date published: 2016-04-07
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Ark1836 from
To Listen or Not to Listen…
This is a fantastic, but short, course providing techniques for understanding Shakespeare. As a precursor, I have always enjoyed the wit of Shakespeare and his command of language. Shakespeare mastered wordcraft like no one before or since, and I am awed by his ability to layer multiple meanings into a simple phrase. So, a reader of this review should understand that I am more than a little biased toward the Bard. The professor is more than a little biased too and clearly admires Shakespeare as the greatest writer in the history of the English language.
This course does not attempt to analyze all of Shakespeare's plays. Instead, this course presents interpretative techniques such as the "foul is fair and fair is foul" technique and the "block to love" technique. He explains various techniques, then selects a play where a technique works particularly well and applies the technique to that play. In that manner, the professor provides detailed analysis for about a half-dozen of Shakespeare's plays. The professor does a good job explaining the techniques and demonstrating the application. Though I was a fan of Shakespeare before this course, I feel better armed now to interpret plays. The professor shared new insights and thoughtful observations. The professor has made me even more interested in Shakespeare, and I look forward to my next opportunity to catch a play.
Date published: 2015-10-13
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Thankful2Study from
All's Well That Ends Well!
I liked the Bard of Avon before this course, but I love him even more now having watched "How to Read and Understand Shakespeare".
All the time I was watching the course, I kept thinking, "Why was this course not around when I was in high school?" While I did enjoy reading Shakespeare in high school, my teachers didn't really help explain how to properly read the text. They would point out the references that he was making to mythological and historical characters and events and explain the meaning of certain words. But overall, I wasn't taught how Like many high schoolers I relied on Spark Notes to read the text for me.
Professor Connor creates a toolkit for readers to use when reading through Shakespeare. It is like a cheat sheet, if you will, I help For Example, all of his pays have a "double plot", one plot concerning upper class characters and another concerning lower class characters. Both storylines mirror and contrast each other. Another is the "Block to Love", some character or situation that arises that prevents a young couple from marrying. This crops up in A Midsummer Night's Dream in the form of the Athenian Law and in The Merchant of Venice with the three caskets. Yet another is "Altar or Tomb". This tool is used to identify a play as either a comedy or tragedy.
After taking his course, I picked up my copy of Shakespeare's plays and read "As You Like It". Using the tools that Professor Connor showed me, I was finally able to enjoy reading a Shakespeare play. I plan of reading all of the Bard's plays throughout my life and I have someone to thank for it.
I personally feel that "How to Read and Understand Shakespeare" should be adapted to high school classrooms. I strongly believe that students would have a love to the Bard's work and would respond readily to Professor Connor's teaching.
Date published: 2015-09-23
Rated 5 out of
5
by
BGZRedix from
Outstanding and Wonderful!
I am amazed that there are any negative reviews here, truly. This is an outstanding and wonderful *introduction* to "how to read and understand Shakespeare."
Now, some have complained that they would have to read the plays, too, to fully appreciate this course. That is correct and, um, should not be too much of a surprise. This is an overview of the greatest writer in the English language. (For my money, the only thing that comes close is "Moby-Dick.") Would you take a course about Michelangelo without looking at his work?
However - I disagree moderately with my TGC friend and Number One reviewer, Jacqueline, in that I believe this course can be greatly enjoyed, and is very worthwhile, even if you have never read any Shakespeare. In this case it will provide an excellent basis on which to proceed, in addition to being fascinating in itself. And it will hopefully serve as a powerful motivator to actually read these magnificent plays. If you are already familiar with many or most of the plays, all the better. The course will, unless you are already a Shakespeare scholar, add greatly to your insight and appreciation.
(Note that I say "read," rather than "see." It is Shakespeare's words which are magnificent; a performance can range from wonderful to abysmal. And I certainly and strongly suggest that you read any play before you see it, if at all possible.)
Professor Connor is as fine a professor of literature as I have ever heard. His unfailing enthusiasm is matched by the depth of his insights, his straightforward yet elegant style, and his superb organization. Plus, for a survey course, there is a remarkable depth to his discussions. Some reviewers found his use of "tools" of analysis to be a bit too cute and obvious; they are, but overall I found that they facilitated my thinking in an organized manner and added to my ability to understand and appreciate the works.
So - This course has my highest recommendation for any, no matter how experienced with the material, with an interest in literature and Shakespeare.
Date published: 2015-06-23
