Hello and welcome back to hardcore literature. I'm your host, Benjamin McAvoy, and today we're talking

about a topic that I'm tremendously excited about. It's one of my favorite subjects of discussion

across the entire length and breadth of literature. Indeed, one of my favorite subjects, full stop.

We're talking about Shakespeare's tragedies today, and by the end of this show,

you will have a solid idea of how the mechanisms of Shakespeare's tragedies work harmoniously.

You'll have a strong foundation to go forth and appreciate works like Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth,

Anthony and Cleopatraatra and Othello.

We're mapping the template of Shakespeare's tragedies together.

But first, let's talk about the philosophy underpinning our approach.

Then we'll talk about Shakespeare's tragic period and what came before.

We'll get into the substance of the

tragedies and talk about pity and suffering, hermarsia crisis and catastrophe, fatal deeds

issuing from intensification of character, Elizabethan stage conventions and much more. Before we dive in,

could I also ask you to leave a quick, positive review for hardcore

literature on iTunes? Thank you so much to everyone who has left a great review so far. These really

help tell me that you're enjoying the show and spur me on to create more content. And talking of more

content, we have well over 100 exclusive posts on the great books, long-form

literary lectures on the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Austin, Cervantes, and many more

over at patreon.com forward slash hardcore literature. In the new year, we'll be coming to Shakespeare

in a huge way. We're already reading his sonnets in sequence,

but soon we'll be approaching his plays in depth in a very fun order and ringing as much

poetry and wisdom from them as possible together. Thank you to all my patrons. Thank you for the

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