Episode 263: “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare, Acts 4 & 5

The Literary Life Podcast

Angelina Stanford

Education, Selfeducation, Classicaleducation, Reading, Literature, Homeschool, Arts, Books, Charlottemason, Homeeducation, Homeschooling

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2025

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on The Literary Life podcast, Angelina and Thomas are back to wrap up their discussion of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About About Nothing. Today, after some introductory talk about literary criticism, our hosts cover the last two acts of this play, highlighting how Shakespeare deals with the five act structure. Once again, we see the problem of things being not as they appear in act 4, as well as the ways in which this play is highly allegorical. Other topics they touch on in this episode are: the move from order to disorder and back to order, ultra-romantic versus anti-romantic, pious deception versus malevolent deceptions, and the restoration of the community. Be sure to listen all the way to the end to hear more of Angelina’s thoughts on why interpreting Shakespeare well is so important!

To view the full show notes for this episode, please visit https://theliterary.life/263.

The seventh annual Literary Life Online Conference is open for registration! Please visit HouseofHumaneLetters.com to sign up for that as well as all the other upcoming webinars of 2025!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is not just another book chat podcast.
0:21.6	Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading well.
0:32.6	Explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter end to the great works of literature.
0:40.2	Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week, we will rescue
0:47.1	story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. The literary life is for everyone because in the
0:55.9	words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into
1:02.2	reality. Join us for an ever-unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world.
1:09.7	This is the Literary Life Podcast.
1:30.7	Welcome back to the Literary Life podcast.
1:36.2	I'm Angelina Stanford, and I'm with the man who is most definitely not Dogberry.
1:38.1	No, no.
1:41.4	The very articulate and mysterious Thomas Banks.
1:41.6	I know.
1:44.4	I applied for the neighborhood watch, but they turned down my application.
1:53.1	We are here to finish our series on William Shakespeare's Much ado about Nothing.
1:55.5	Today we're going to talk about Acts 4 and Act 5.
2:01.3	And when we're done, we'll take a step back and see if we can look at the whole story as a whole.
2:06.2	Take a look at the shape of it and see what we learn from looking at it as a whole.
2:10.3	So yeah, we've got a lot of fun things to talk about. Before we get to that, though, a quick reminder. Yesterday was the first class of Jen Rogers' Words of Power, her mini class on
2:17.0	the Inklings,
2:17.6	and we learned about Owen Barfield, and it's fabulous.
2:20.9	And if you thought, oh, no, I forgot to sign up for that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Angelina Stanford, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Angelina Stanford and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.