Brutus and His Problems
A Lecture by Dr. Lee Oser, College of the Holy Cross
Thursday, February 6, 2025 | 7:00 PM | Bakke Auditorium, Wade Center
In "Brutus and His Problems," Dr. Lee Oser explores the most basic rhetorical question in William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar: the dramatic irony of the audience's understanding the character's real moral position better than they do. This lecture will explore how Shakespeare establishes this situation in his three opening scenes before arguing that Brutus' impediments to self-knowledge reflect his historical situation. Finally, Dr. Oser reminds that Julius Caesar is a meditation on history itself, if we understand what history meant to Shakespeare.
For the Fall Shakespeare Lecture, Dr. Benjamin Weber will explore two connections - one to the Boethian Christian humanism of the Middle Ages, the other to the Christian Neoplatonism of the Renaissance - to consider how Shakespeare offers up images of transcendence in his own work, pointing his readers towards God without always naming Him directly. While, the lecture focuses mostly on Midsummer's Night's Dream, Dr. Weber briefly considers the ways in which the ground Shakespeare covers in this early play lays the foundation for some explorations of transcendence in his later plays.
This presentation discusses how in
The bestselling Victorian novelist, Charlotte Mary Yonge, edited, introduced, and annotated an edition of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I for Church of England schools. Building upon Molly G. Yarn’s pioneering Shakespeare’s ‘Lady Editors’ (2022), this lecture will offer the first sustained exploration of Yonge’s editorial choices. The complacent dismissiveness of bowdlerized editions will be questioned and challenged. Yonge’s introduction and notes were focused on pointing out where Shakespeare’s play departed from historical accuracy. The scene summaries are lucid, and some wonderfully arcane knowledge is included in the notes. Charlotte Yonge’s own precocious and productive life becomes the backdrop and context for celebrating children and adults who love Shakespeare, Falstaff, and Henry IV, Part I. 
Although better known as an apologist, children’s writer, or medievalist, C.S. Lewis also engaged deeply with the works of William Shakespeare. In this talk, Dr. Waters will examine the different and varied ways Lewis explored Shakespeare (and his critics), and his reliance on Shakespeare as a frame of reference pointing not only to the immediate stories, characters, and themes, or even to his own extensive Renaissance learning, but using Shakespeare also to point towards The Story.
Dr. Dunn-Hensley, Associate Lecturer in English, will explore the spiritual dimensions of the play, arguing that Macbeth, rather than depicting a nihilistic vision of the world, which often appears in adaptations, productions, and scholarly analyses, instead presents a spiritual battle with a fully developed sense of God, good, and evil. The lecture features a live performance from Shakespeare's Macbeth by Jeff Cribbs and Jenn Miller-Cribbs, directed by Mark Lewis.
For the inaugural E. Beatrice Batson Shakespeare Society Lecture,