Second Chances, Shakespeare, and Freud, with Adam Phillips and Stephen Greenblatt

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The desire for a second chance provides the engine for many of Shakespeare’s plays. In their new book, Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud, Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt and psychologist Adam Phillips argue that this fascination with the second chance links Shakespeare with one of his biggest 20th century fans: Sigmund Freud. Shakespeare helped Freud think about second chances—why we desire them so deeply, and why, sometimes, we push them away. Host Barbara Bogaev talks with Greenblatt and Phillips about how reading Freud alongside Shakespeare can help illuminate both writers’ insights into human nature. Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud is available from Yale University Press. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published May 21, 2024. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Rob Double at London Broadcast and Voice Trax West in Studio City, California. Final mixing services provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	On today's episode, one underlying desire unites nearly all of Shakespeare's main characters,
0:06.0	comic and tragic. It's positively Freudian.
0:15.8	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore,
0:20.7	the Folger director. According to a new book by Shakespearean, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger Director.
0:22.6	According to a new book by Shakespearean Stephen Greenblatt and the psychologist Adam Phillips,
0:27.9	the desire for a second chance provides the engine for many of Shakespeare's plays.
0:33.5	In comedies like As You Like It in Twelfth Night, the characters get a chance to start again at the end of the play.
0:39.3	In tragedies like Othello and King Lear, the heroes realize that they're too late for a second chance.
0:45.3	And romances like The Winner's Tale dramatize the return of loved ones for a second chance after all hope seems lost.
0:53.3	In second chances, Greenblad and Phillips argue that this fascination with the second chance
0:59.0	links Shakespeare with one of his biggest 20th century fans, Sigmund Freud.
1:04.0	Like Shakespeare's characters, Freud's patience yearn for a redo.
1:09.0	A central experience or trauma keeps them coming back.
1:13.3	Freud read Shakespeare's plays closely and cited them frequently in his own writings.
1:18.1	Shakespeare helped Freud think about second chances, why we desire them so deeply and why,
1:23.9	sometimes, we push them away.
1:26.7	Here are Adam Phillips and Stephen Greenblatt in conversation with Barbara Bogave.
1:34.2	It does seem self-evident that the definition of a second chance is a redo, but as I was reading your book,
1:41.8	the term became kind of slippery. And I kept thinking of the adage that
1:47.0	you can't step in the same stream twice. So why don't we start with defining our terms?
1:53.0	And I'll throw that to you, Adam. What is the second chance? Well, I think a second chance
1:58.6	primarily implies, of course, that there was a first chance.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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