[Lecture Four] Eight Great Plays as Literature and as Philosophy
by Dr. Leonard Peikoff
Total Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Course summary: In this course, Dr. Leonard Peikoff selects eight great plays from Western literature to analyze. He examines the literary and philosophic qualities of each play and indicates how the drama concretizes certain ideas from a variety of philosophies. Peikoff masterfully situates each play in its historical period, both from the world events and philosophic context, as he discusses them. Peikoff builds the whole course around a demonstration of how to arrive at objective esthetic judgments about art. Read more »
In this lecture: This lecture is a discussion of Don Carlos by Friedrich Schiller.
Q&A Guide
Below is a list of questions from the audience taken from this lecture, along with (approximate) time stamps.
| 1:37:25 | I’m just dying for you to elaborate on the notion of romance within the relationship of men. |
| 1:37:55 | Is it possible for sexual attraction to have a non-volitional cause? |
| 1:53:01 | Why do you not include the Grand Inquisitor in your statement of the plot theme? |
| 1:57:28 | Given the state of professional philosophy during the 18th century, do you believe it was actually possible for the non-philosopher, the artist, or the serious thinker who was not a professional philosopher to really identify the contradiction between altruism and the notion of freedom and benevolence and reason, since altruism was always taught at that time as being necessary to any universal view of man… |
| 2:00:58 | I believe you said that double meanings were the highest feat of dialog if you could do them. Would you please talk about the value of double meanings? |
| 2:04:45 | Speaking of double meanings, the line from Othello: “put out the light and put out the light”… I seem to have a different interpretation of that than you had. Mine was basically the murder of Desdemona and putting out the light of her eyes, covering her eyes with a pillow… |
| 2:05:59 | Can you describe your preparation for this entire course, both in terms of the tasks and the time involved? I’d just be interested to know what went into it. |