Hi, this is Chris McGregor.

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Discerninghearts.com presents great works in Western literature with Joseph Pierce, who is an internationally acclaimed

author and literary scholar whose work explores the great writers of Western literature

through a Catholic and classical lens. He has written numerous best-selling books on figures

such as Shakespeare, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Oscar Wilde, Alexander

Solzhenitsyn, and El Arbogg. A frequent lecture and longtime contributor to EWTN, he serves as

visiting professor of literature at Ave Maria University and as editor of St. Austin Review.

Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pierce.

I'm your host, Chris McGregor.

Arguably, Shakespeare's finest and most important play, Hamlet, is also one of the most misunderstood

masterpieces of world literature. To be or not to be may be the question, but the answer has

alluded many generations of critics. What does it mean to be? And is everything as it seems to be? Probably the darkest of all Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth, is also one of the most challenging. Is it a work of neelistic despair? Quote, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, unquote. Or is it a cautionary tale,

mourning of the dangers of Machiavellianism and relativism? Does it lead to hell and hopelessness?

Or does it point to a light beyond the darkness? We now begin our discussion on William Shakespeare's

...