Saccio, Peter

William Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (Complete set of 6 DVDs + Course Guidebook)

Chantilly, VA: The Great Courses / The Teaching Company, 1999.
DVD set of 6 discs in box + paperback guidebook.

Course #280. Peter Saccio, Actor/Director and Leon Black Professor of Shakespearean Studies and Professor of English, Emeritus at Dartmouth College, conducts 36 half-hour lectures introducing the plays of William Shakespeare and delineating the achievement that has made Shakespeare the leading playwright in Western civilization. The key to that achievement is his “abundance,” not only the number of plays he wrote and the length of each one, but also the variety of human experiences they depict, the multitude of actions and characters they contain, the combination of public and private life they deal with, the richness of feelings they express and can provoke in an audience and in readers, and the fullness of language and suggestion.  These lectures include:

Disc 1

1. Shakespeare Then and Now
2. The Nature of Shakespeare’s Plays
3. Twelfth Night – Shakespearean Comedy
4. Twelfth Night – Malvolio in Love
5. The Taming of the Shrew – Getting Married in the 1590s
6. The Taming of the Shrew – Farce and Romance

Disc 2

1. The Merchant of Venice – Courting the Heiress
2. The Merchant of Venice – Shylock
3. Measure for Measure – Sex in Society
4. Measure for Measure – Justice and Comedy
5. Richard III – Shakespearean History
6. Richard III – The Villain’s Career

Disc 3

1. Richard II – The Theory of Kingship
2. Richard II – The Fall of the King
3. Henry IV – All the King’s Men
4. Henry IV – The Life of Falstaff
5. Henry V – The Death of Falstaff
6. Henry V – The King Victorious

Disc 4

1. Romeo and Juliet – Shakespearean Tragedy
2. Romeo and Juliet – Public Violence and Private Bliss
3. Troilus and Cressida – Ancient Epic in a New Mode
4. Troilus and Cressida – Heroic Aspirations
5. Julius Caesar – The Matter of Rome
6. Julius Caesar – Heroes of History

Disc 5

1. Hamlet – The Abundance of the Play
2. Hamlet – The Causes of Tragedy
3. Hamlet – The Protestant Hero
4. Othello – The Design of the Tragedy
5. Othello – “O Villainy!”
6. Othello – “The Nobel Moor”

Disc 6

1. King Lear – “This Is the Worst”
2. King Lear – Wisdom Through Suffering
3. King Lear – “Then We Go On”
4. Macbeth – “Fair is Foul”
5. Macbeth – Musing on Murder
6. Macbeth – “Enter Two Murderers"

Item #900849
ISBN: 156585571X

6 discs in case, 36 lectures, 30 minutes per lecture, includes 141pp 5-1/4 x 7-3/8" guidebook in pictorial wrappers.

Previously owned set in excellent unused condition.

Price: $45.00