For over 400 years, Shakespeare's plays have enthralled, moved, and enriched each new generation of readers and theatergoers. This lecture series builds the skills that allow you to reach your own understanding of the plays, to deeply comprehend Shakespeare's transcendent poetic language, the spellbinding world of his great characters and stories, and his revelatory reflections on human experience. The tools you learn are yours for years of enjoyment...

Professor J. Rufus Fears presents his choices of some of the most essential writings in history. These are works that shaped the minds of great individuals and that offer an extraodrdinary gift of wisdom to those willing to receive it. Focus is on intellectual history and ethics, taking the underlying ideas of each great work and revealing how these ideas can be put to use in a moral and ethical life. From the Aeneid and the Book of Job to Othello...