Podcast #36 - Shakespeare and The Globe

In 1599, the first Globe Theatre was completed on the south bank of the Thames River. William Shakespeare, along with three other actors, bought a share in the Globe. It stood for 14 years and presented many of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. During a performance of Henry VIII in 1614, a stage cannon ignited the thatched roof and the theatre burned to the ground. However, it was quickly rebuilt and continued to present plays until the Puritans shut down all theaters in London in 1642. It was demolished in 1644.

The American actor Sam Wanamaker initiated the rebuilding of Shakespeare’s Globe after his first visit to London in 1949. Workers began construction in 1993 on the new theatre near the original site. The latest Globe Theatre was completed in 1996; Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the theatre on June 12, 1997 with a production of Henry V.

In 1596, a Dutch student by the name of Johannes de Witt attended a play in London at the Swan Theatre. While there, de Witt made a drawing of the theatre's interior. A friend, Arend van Buchell, copied this drawing. The sketch is the only surviving contemporary rendering of the interior of an Elizabethan-era public theatre. As such, it's the closest thing historians have to an original picture of what the Globe may have looked like, seating 1,500 people between the galleries and the "groundlings."

In addition, there are suggestive descriptions included in the plays themselves, such as the famous Chorus, which begins Henry V: ‘And shall this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France / Or may we cram within this wooden ‘O’...’

The Globe itself was not a truly circular building. An archaeological excavation of the Rose Theatre in 1989 revealed that the Elizabethan playhouses were polygonal buildings. In the same year, a small portion of the Globe itself was excavated and revealed that it was a 20-sided building with a diameter of 100 feet.

For more information about the Globe, click here

View the video tour of the Globe Theatre and Exhibition:

Podcast #35 - The Poetry of Pablo Neruda - a bilingual podcast

Born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Southern Chile on July 12, 1904, he published his first book, Crepusculario (Twilight), under the pen name Palbo Neruda because his family did not approve of his writing. The publication of his second book made Neruda famous and launched him on a long and distinguished career, culminating with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Neruda died on September 23, 1973. He is generally recognized as one of the greatest Latin American poets.

For more on Neruda's life and work, click on these links:

The Nobel Prize Laureates (with additional links)
Biography from Emory University
The Paris Review Interview (download the PDF file)





Podcast #35 - The Poetry of Pablo Neruda - features a discussion with Nicolas Mansito. Nicolas describes himself as a Cuban-Colombian-American and works across the English and Spanish Languages. His first book entitled 3rd & 7th is a collection of experimental poetry produced through constraint writing. Nicolas' work has also appeared in several literary magazines. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Broward College.

The two poems covered by this podcast are: "Inclinado en las Tardes..." (Leaning into the Afternoon-translated by W.S. Merwin) and "Solo la Muerte" (Nothing but Death-translated by Robert Bly).

To listen to the podcast, click here

Podcast #34 - F.Scott Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896, a distant cousin of the author of the National Anthem. He graduated from Princeton University in 1917. In 1920, the publication of his first novel This Side of Paradise made the 24 year-old Fitzgerald famous almost overnight, and a week later he married Zelda Sayre in New York. He and his wife Zelda became symbols of the Jazz Age, a term coined by Fitzgerald.

His most enduring novel The Great Gatsby was published in April of 1925. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940. In 1948, Zelda Fitzgerald died in a fire at Highland Hospital where she had been institutionalized.

For more on Fitzgerald, check out these links:

http://www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/bios.html

http://www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org/biography/index.html

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (1 May 1920) and was later published as part of the short story collection Flappers and Philosophers. It shares a theme with many of his novels: the drive for social status and acceptance by young people during the Jazz Age. The story was based on a letter Fitzgerald wrote to his younger sister, Annabel, advising her how to achieve popularity with boys: "Cultivate deliberate physical grace."

Fitzgerald cut three thousand words from the original version of the story and rewrote it to: "inject a snappy climax."

Podcast # 34 - "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" features Special Guest Speaker Professor Christopher Johnston of Broward College. Professor Johnston received his PhD. in American Studies from Bowling Green University in Ohio.








Click here to listen to the podcast

Podcast #33 - William Blake's "The Tyger"

William Blake
(1757–1827)
William Blake was born in London, in 1757. Although he had little formal education, he made his living with his engravings and watercolors.



In 1789, he published his book of engravings and poems entitled Songs of Innocence and a few years later, in 1794, he followed with Songs of Experience which included “The Tyger.” Blake was part of London’s intellectual circle though he was often labeled as eccentric and delusional. Among the recurring themes of his work were: good and evil, heaven and hell, knowledge and innocence. Blake was ahead of his time and spoke out in favor of sexual and racial equality, rejecting the teachings of conventional religion. Blake's work was not generally recognized by his contemporaries but today he is considered an important and unique talent of the English Romantic Period. He influenced many writers and artists as diverse as Aldous Huxley, Jim Morrison of The Doors, and the film director Jim Jarmusch.

Here are some links to more information about William Blake and his work:


http://www.vu.union.edu/~blake/life.html

http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/blake.htm

http://www.duke.edu/web/secmod/biographies/Blake.pdf



For an introduction to Blake's poem "The Tyger" watch the You Tube video:

Podcast #32 - Fathers and Sons in Hamlet

Shakespeare's Hamlet is a revenge play, but throughout the play we get a clear picture of the character of Hamlet as a man who sees his duty before him but who shirks it at every opportunity. Part of his dilemma is that he knows that the murder of his father was wrong, but he also realizes that vengeance is wrong.

There are 3 sets of fathers and sons in Hamlet: King Hamlet and Prince Hamlet, King Fortinbras and Prince Fortinbras, and Polonius and Laertes. Both Laetres and Prince Fortinbras serve as foils for Hamlet. That is, they provide a contrast to Hamlet and his character and behavior.

Podcast #31 The Mayan City of Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza is a Mayan City on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It was established hundreds of years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and most likely served as the religious center of the Yucatan.

Today it is the second most visited site of Mexico and is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The ruins include the Kukulkan pyramid which is also known as “El Castillo” (the castle).





The Maya originated around 3,000 years ago in present-day Central America and Mexico. The Mayan empire flourished in the southern regions from around 250 AD to 900 AD. The empire in the south collapsed around 900 AD, but the northern Maya thrived until the Spanish conquests of the 16th century AD.

The Maya were skilled farmers and created a sophisticated written language. They also carried on trade throughout a network of cities that went as far south as Panama and as far north as Central Mexico. They developed a number system which included the concept of zero and used their mathematical knowledge along with celestial observations to develop a sophisticated calendar and to create monuments to observe and commemorate movements of the moon, the sun, and Venus. Several of these monuments can still be seen at Chichen Itza today.





In the summer of 2008, we visited Chichen Itza. You can view a short video tour we created for Eye On Literature.



Click here for the Quick Time version

Click here for the IPod version

Podcast #30 - Poetry and the Writing Process with Michael Minassian

In this podcast recorded in the Summer of 2008, Professor Gary Kay and I talk about the writing process and poetry. During our discussion, I read three of my published poems and we talked about the evolution and background of each poem. The poem "Crazy Jane..." was workshopped at a 1999 Poetry Conference in Sante Fe, New Mexico. The leader of that workshop was a poet and editor named Robert McDowell. You can visit Robert's website and sign up for his Free Poetry Mentor Newsletter at:

Robert McDowell

During this podcast I also mentioned the writer Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way and several other excellent books on creativity and writing. You can find out more at:

The Artist's Way


Here is a video of our discussion




You can also hear us discuss a fourth poem entitled "The Arboriculturist" at my blog:

Michael Minassian


In an earlier podcast from 2008, I discussed the Robert Frost Poetry Festival in Key West. This year's festival will be held in April 2009. For more information click on the link:

Robert Frost Poetry Festival