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Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education

This podcast is aimed at a non-specialist audience interested in acquiring what Northrop Frye called, in the title of one of his books, an educated imagination. Its materials are drawn from the many courses in literature and mythology that I taught, combined with material from my book The Productions of Time, for which I hope the podcast may provide an accessible introduction, with concrete examples.

Episode 261: The 5th Anniversary of Expanding Eyes. A Thank You and Six Birthday Poems.

37 mins; March 31, 2026

Episode 260: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Act 5. The Double Recognition Scene. Perdita’s True Identity Is Discovered. Second, Paulina Reveals a Sculpture of Hermione That Is Hermione Herself.

39 mins; March 22, 2026

Episode 259: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Acts 4 and 5. Florizel Defies His Father and Plans to Elope with Perdita. Autolycus Exchanges Clothes with Florizel and Takes the Shepherd to the King.

39 mins; March 15, 2026

Episode 258: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Act 4: The Sheepshearing Festival. The Debate between Perdita and Polixenes and Its Thematic Importance.

39 mins; March 08, 2026

Episode 257: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Act 4. The 16-Year Gap between the Play’s Two Parts. Perdita, Now 16, in Love with Florizel, the Son of Polixenes.

39 mins; March 01, 2026

Episode 256: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Act 3. The Unjust Trial of Hermione. The Oracle of Apollo. The Death of Mamillius. Antigonus Abandons Perdita and Is Killed by a Bear.

39 mins; February 22, 2026

Episode 255: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Act 3. A Psychological Reason for Leontes’ Paranoid Jealousy. Enter Paulina, Fearlessly Confronting Leontes, Leaving His Infant Daughter.

36 mins; February 15, 2026

Episode 254: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Act 2. Leontes Arrests His Own Wife, Puts Her in Prison. Leontes’ Paranoia: A Psychological Explanation.

38 mins; February 08, 2026

Episode 253: Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. Shakespeare’s Late Career: Blackfriars Theatre and the New Genre of Romance. The Jealousy of Leontes.

37 mins; February 01, 2026

Episode 252: Shakespeare’s Othello: Othello’s Death and the Theme of Judgment.

38 mins; January 25, 2026

Episode 251: Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 5: Sudden, Violent Explosion after Long Build. Roderigo Wounds Cassio, Cassio Wounds Roderigo, Iago Kills Roderigo. Othello’s Speech before Killing Desdemona.

38 mins; January 18, 2026

Episode 250: Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 4. Iago Goads Othello to a Murderous Frenzy. Cassio Makes Fun of Bianca, Who Is Infatuated with Him. Othello Strikes Desdemona in Front of a Venetian Emissary.

38 mins; January 11, 2026

Episode 249: Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 3 Continued. Othello and Iago Swear a Demonic Vow. The “Lost” Handkerchief. Emilia: Jealousy Is “Motiveless.”

38 mins; January 04, 2026

Episode 248: Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 3. The Turning Point. Iago’s Temptation of Othello, Successful in a Single Scene.

37 mins; December 28, 2025

Episode 247: Shakespeare’s Othello, Act 2. The Illusion of a Happy Ending. The Mystery of Iago’s “Motiveless Malignity.” A Drunken Cassio Disgraces Himself.

39 mins; December 21, 2025

Episode 246: Shakespeare’s Othello. Acts 1 and 2. The Move from Venice to Cyprus. Storm and the Turkish Fleet Drowned. The Characters Make Their Way Off the Water One by One.

39 mins; December 14, 2025

Episode 245: Shakespeare’s Othello. Act 1. Desdemona’s Father Accuses Othello, but Loses His Case. Othello Will Be Sent to Cyprus to Defend Against the Turks.

37 mins; December 07, 2025

Episode 244: An Introduction to Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice. The Meaning of the Full Title. Othello’s Place Among the Four “Major Tragedies.” Voices in the Dark.

37 mins; November 30, 2025

Episode 243: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Acts 4 and 5. The Bitter Outcome. Lady Macbeth Dies, Birnam Wood Comes to Dunsinane, Macbeth Falls. Can He Be Called a Tragic Hero?

42 mins; November 23, 2025

Episode 242: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Act 3: Banquo’s Ghost Attends the Banquet. Macbeth Returns to the Witches and Gets Three More Prophecies.

37 mins; November 16, 2025

Episode 241: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. From the Murder of Duncan to the Murder of Banquo. The Hilarious Speech of the Drunken Porter.

36 mins; November 09, 2025

Episode 240: Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Acts 1 and 2. Prelude to Murder: the Dagger Soliloquy. The Murder Itself.

38 mins; November 02, 2025

Episode 239: Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act 1. The Witches and the Prophecy. Duncan Declares His Son Heir Apparent and Macbeth Plans Murder.

39 mins; October 26, 2025

Episode 238: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The Scottish Play, in Honor of King James of Scotland and England. Background about the Historical Macbeth. The Opening Scenes.

38 mins; October 19, 2025

Episode 237: William Blake, Jerusalem, Chapters 2-4. Albion Redeemed by the Imagination. Apocalypse as Awakening into Vision

40 mins; October 12, 2025

Episode 236: William Blake’s Jerusalem, Definitive Epic of the Work of the Imagination. The Great Debate of Los and the Spectre of Urthona.

38 mins; October 05, 2025

Episode 235: William Blake’s Milton, Book the Second. Inspired by Milton’s Spirit, a Vision of Nature Redeemed by the Imagination. Milton Renounces His Selfhood and Reunites with His Emanation.

40 mins; September 28, 2025

Episode 234: William Blake’s Milton, Book 1. Milton Returns to the Fallen World to Achieve a Definitive Vision. He Enters Blake Himself through his Left Foot.

39 mins; September 21, 2025

Episode 233: Blake’s Four Zoas. Nights 7-9. The Final Demonic Images, But Also the Reversal Due to Los United with the Spectre of Urthona and Enitharmon. The Final Apocalypse.

42 mins; September 14, 2025

Episode 232: William Blake’s The Four Zoas, Nights 6 and 7. Urizen Explores His Dens. His Confrontation with Orc, Who Becomes a Serpent. Los Unites with the Spectre of Urthona and Enitharmon.

38 mins; September 07, 2025

Episode 231: Blake’s The Four Zoas. Los Dances Mad After the Effort to Stop the Fall Has Affected Him. The Birth and Chaining of Orc. Urizen Explores His Dens, the Fallen World.

39 mins; August 31, 2025

Episode 230: William Blake’s The Four Zoas. Blake’s Mythology Is Psychological, Not Supernatural. The Zoas as Functions of Albion’s Mind. The Rest of the Cast of Characters: Emanations and Spectres.

39 mins; August 24, 2025

Episode 229: William Blake’s The Four Zoas. A Brief Plot Synopsis as Scaffolding for a Poem That Does Not Have a Sequential Plot. Why the Poem Can’t Be Read as a Linear, Causal Sequence.

39 mins; August 17, 2025

Episode 228: Blake’s Psychological and Epistemological Interpretation of the Fall. The Cosmic Man Albion Falls into the Illusion of the Subject/Object Split, the “Cloven Fiction.” Why Did Albion Fall?

38 mins; August 10, 2025

Episode 227: William Blake’s The Four Zoas. The Fall of Albion as a Fall into Unreality, a Delusional State—the State We Are Living In. A Quick Sketch of the “Plot.”

39 mins; August 03, 2025

Episode 226: The Developing Mythology of William Blake in The Four Zoas: the Fall of the Cosmic Man Albion into Four Disunited Figures: Orc/Luvah, Urizen, Los, and Tharmas.

38 mins; July 27, 2025

Episode 225: William Blake’s First Attempt at an Definitive Epic of Total Vision, The Four Zoas. Why It Remained Unfinished, and Yet Indispensable.

37 mins; July 20, 2025

Episode 224: Blake’s Poem of Women’s Liberation and the Liberation of Desire, The Visions of the Daughters of Albion

39 mins; July 13, 2025

Episode 223: The Mythology of William Blake. Orc Becomes a “Dying God” Figure. Urizen Fights and Kills His Own Son, Fuzon, Nails Him to the Tree of Mystery.

37 mins; July 06, 2025

Episode 222: William Blake’s Mythology: The Fall of the False God Urizen, Given Form by Los. The Splitting of Male and Female in the Fall, and the Birth of Orc.

38 mins; June 29, 2025

Episode 221: William Blake, The Book of Urizen. Urizen, the Aspect of the Divine That Falls Out of the Larger Cosmic Identity. His Fall Is Identical to the Creation of the Fallen World.

37 mins; June 22, 2025

Episode 220: Blake’s Prophecy America. A Mythological Vision of the American Revolution. Recorded on No Kings Day, June 14, 2025

36 mins; June 15, 2025

Episode 219: Blake’s Mythology. The Bible Retold, the Partial Fall of God. Blake’s Mythology. Orc, Figure of Energy and Revolution

38 mins; June 08, 2025

Episode 218: Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The Liberation of Energy through the Imagination, Which Turns Energy and Form into Contraries, Not a Negation.

38 mins; June 01, 2025

Episode 217: William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The Great Revolutionary Hope: The Liberation of Energy and Desire.

37 mins; May 25, 2025

Episode 216: Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience: His Protests against Social Injustice; His Early Feminism (“The Sick Rose”). “London”: The Vision of Experience as the “Mind Forg’d Manacles.”

37 mins; May 18, 2025

Episode 215: An Introduction to William Blake. Blake as a Key to Modern Mythology and to the Promethean Pattern. The Songs of Innocence and Experience.

36 mins; May 11, 2025

Episode 214: Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound. Conclusion: Acts 3 and 4. Expanding Visions of Transformation through the Power of the Mind Liberated by Love.

39 mins; May 04, 2025

Episode 213: Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, Act 3. The Beginning of the Transformation of Nature and Humanity after the Fall of Jupiter.

38 mins; April 27, 2025

Episode 212: Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, Act 2. In the Depths, Asia Asks Demogorgon Who Rules Even Jupiter. “The Deep Truth Is Imageless.”

37 mins; April 20, 2025

Episode 211: Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, Act 2. The Descent of Asia and Panthea to the Cave of Demogorgon.

38 mins; April 13, 2025

Episode 210: Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound. Prometheus Regrets the Curse He Pronounced on Jupiter. Mercury and the Furies Arrive.

36 mins; April 06, 2025

Episode 209: Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, Act 1, Scene 1. Prometheus Wants to Recall His Curse on Jupiter, but Can’t Remember It. His Mother, Earth, Tells Him to Summon a Phantasm.

37 mins; March 30, 2025

Episode 208: Poems about Prometheus as Heroic Rebel, by Goethe and Byron. The Preface to Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.

37 mins; March 23, 2025

Episode 207: Versions of Prometheus between Aeschylus and Shelley—and New Versions of Pandora.

36 mins; March 16, 2025

Episode 206: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, Act 4. Prometheus’ Defiance of Zeus’s Messenger Hermes. The Later Reconciliation of Zeus and Prometheus. Prometheus and the Romantic Era.

36 mins; March 09, 2025

Episode 205: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, “Act 3,” Io, the Innocently Tormented Woman. Instead of Pandora, a Positive Female Figure.

35 mins; March 03, 2025

Episode 204: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Second Unit or Act: Prometheus Speaks to Oceanus, Who Counsels Obedience. Prometheus’s Long Speech about the Fire of the Creative Mind.

35 mins; February 23, 2025

Episode 203: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. The Conventions of Ritualized, Stylized Greek Tragedy. The Opening Scene: Prometheus Bound to the Rock by Hephaestus.

41 mins; February 16, 2025

Episode 202: The Myth of Pandora in Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days. Zeus’s Revenge against Humanity: the Artificially Made Woman, Pandora.

37 mins; February 09, 2025

Episode 201: The Myth of Prometheus. The Earliest Version of the Myth, in Hesiod’s Theogony. A Negative Portrayal.

38 mins; February 02, 2025

Episode 200: John Donne’s Love Poems. Poems of Disillusionment, Hate, and Requited Love Here on This Earth.

41 mins; January 26, 2025

Episode 199: The Love Poems of John Donne. Two Satiric, Erotic Poems: “Elegy 19, On His Mistress Going to Bed,” and “The Flea.”

38 mins; January 19, 2025

Episode 198: Shakespeare’s “The Phoenix and Turtle.” The Paradox of Two Who Are Also One.

39 mins; January 12, 2025

Episode 197: Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Ironic Themes in the Beautiful Youth Sequence. The Even More Ironic Themes of the Dark Lady Sequence.

38 mins; January 05, 2025

Episode 196: Shakespeare’s Sonnets. A Thematic Spectrum of the Possibilities of Love, from Ideal to Ironic.

37 mins; December 29, 2024

Episode 195: Shakespeare as an “Equivocal” Artist. His Texts Generate “Equivocal” Possibilities and Force Us to Choose Their Meaning. The Sonnets as Interpretable in That Sense.

36 mins; December 22, 2024

Episode 194: Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The Will to Order Versus the Undecidable.

38 mins; December 15, 2024

Episode 193: Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Autobiographical or Not? The Mysterious Dedication. The “Beautiful Youth” Sequence and the Theme of Immortality

38 mins; December 08, 2024

Episode 192: Shakespeare’s Life and the Conspiracy Theories about It. An Introduction to the Sonnets.

37 mins; December 01, 2024

Episode 191: The Arthurian Vision, Recreated through Time. The Tragic End as Recounted in Malory’s Morte Darthur.

36 mins; November 24, 2024

Episode 190: The Symbolic Pattern of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Two Contests or Games. Human Striving as Loyalty to a Virtue or Cause: Gawain’s Greatness.

36 mins; November 17, 2024

Episode 189: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain Tempted Three Times by the Lady. Gawain’s Triple Ordeal beneath the Green Knight’s Axe. The Poem’s Enigmatic Ending.

38 mins; November 10, 2024

Episode 188: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The 2nd Fitt. A Year Passes. Gawain Arms Himself. The Shield with the Pentangle. The Lord of the Northern Castle and His Wife. The Lord’s Wager.

37 mins; November 03, 2024

Episode 187: The Development of the Arthurian Story. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: the First Fitt or Part. The Green Knight’s Challenge.

37 mins; October 27, 2024

Episode 186: From Old English to Middle English. The New Genre of Romance. The New Theme of Courtly Love.

37 mins; October 20, 2024

Episode 185: Beowulf, Part 3. The Final Fight with the Dragon and Beowulf’s Death.

38 mins; October 13, 2024

Episode 184: Beowulf, part 2. The Fight with Grendel’s Mother. Victory and a Celebration That Is Also a Farewell Party.

34 mins; October 06, 2024

Episode 183: Beowulf. Hrothgar’s Lineage. The Building of Heorot and Attack of Grendel. Beowulf Arrives, Fights, and Defeats Grendel.

36 mins; September 29, 2024

Episode 182: Introduction to Beowulf. A Mysterious Poem in Many Different Ways.

36 mins; September 22, 2024

Episode 181: The Beginnings of English Literature. The “Northumbrian Renaissance” of the 7th and 8th Centuries. Bede’s History and “Caedmon’s Hymn,” the first English poem.

37 mins; September 15, 2024

Episode 180: An Introduction to Old English Language and Literature. From the Indo-Europeans to the Anglo-Saxons.

38 mins; September 08, 2024

Episode 179: Goethe’s Faust. Acts 4 and 5. Act 4: War for the Emperor. Act 5: Faust’s Final Project and His Death. Saved by Angels and the Eternal Feminine.

43 mins; September 01, 2024

Episode 178: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2, Act 3. The Union of Faust and Helen of Troy, and the Birth and Death of Their Child Euphorion. Illusion, Dream, or Symbolic of a Non-Literal Truth?

37 mins; August 25, 2024

Episode 177: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2, Act 3. The Union of Faust and Helen of Troy. Parallel to the Quest of Homunculus for Galatea. Another Failure of Faustian Striving, or Something More?

36 mins; August 18, 2024

Episode 176: Goethe’s Faust, End of Act 2. Homunculus Breaks His Glass Jar and Plunges into the Sea in Front of Galatea, Union of Consciousness and Matter, Fire and Water

37 mins; August 11, 2024

Episode 175: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2, The Classical Walpurgis Night. The Quest of Four Groupings across a Mad Tea Party of Mythology.

38 mins; August 04, 2024

Episode 174: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2, Act 2. The Homunculus, Alchemical AI, Announces the Classical Walpurgis Night. Three Quests During that Night.

38 mins; July 28, 2024

Episode 173: Goethe’s Faust, End of Act 1, Beginning of Act 2. Faust Descends to the Mothers but Is Knocked Unconscious Trying to Seize Helen of Troy. In Act 2, Wagner Has Become an Alchemist.

38 mins; July 21, 2024

Episode 172: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2. The Carnival Masque, Satire on Greed. The Mysterious Boy Charioteer. Faust Prepares to Descend to the Realm of the Mothers.

36 mins; July 14, 2024

Episode 171: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2, Act 1. Faust and Mephistopheles Solve the Financial Crisis of the Holy Roman Emperor by Inventing Fictional Wealth. A Parable for Our Time.

38 mins; July 07, 2024

Episode 170: Goethe’s Faust, Part 2. Faust as Antihero, Not Tragic Hero, Redeemed, by the Sacrifice of an Innocent Female Figure. Act 1: The Rainbow of the Waterfall, Spirit Immanent in This World.

38 mins; June 30, 2024

Episode 169: Goethe’s Faust. End of Part 1, The Opening of Part 2, Act 1. Gretchen’s Tragedy. Can Faust Be Judged Morally? Part 2: Move into the Larger Social World, and into Psychological Depths.

39 mins; June 23, 2024

Episode 168: Goethe’s Faust, Part 1. The Walpurgis Night Festival: Demonic Sexuality on the Mountain. Meanwhile, Elsewhere, Gretchen Descends into Madness and Tragedy

39 mins; June 16, 2024

Episode 167: Goethe’s Faust, Part 1. The Tragedy of Gretchen, Continued. Faust Kills Valentine, Gretchen’s Brother. Faust and Mephistopheles Attend the Witches’ Sabbath on Walpurgis Night.

37 mins; June 09, 2024

Episode 166: Goethe’s Faust, Part 1. The So-Called “Gretchen Tragedy.” Faust Seduces Gretchen, Whose Friend Martha Encourages Her.

37 mins; June 02, 2024

Episode 165: Goethe’s Faust, Part 1. The Witch’s Kitchen. A Youth Potion for Faust. The Ideal Feminine in a Mirror. Faust Sees Margarete. He and Mephistopheles Invade Her Bedroom and Leave Jewels.

38 mins; May 26, 2024

Episode 164: Goethe’s Faust. Part 1. Mephistopheles in Faust’s Lab. The Famous Pact—with a Twist.

35 mins; May 19, 2024

Episode 163: Goethe’s Faust, Part 1. Faust and Wagner Amidst Celebration of Easter and Spring. A Black Poodle Follows Faust Back to His Study, and Turns into Mephistopheles.

39 mins; May 12, 2024

Episode 162: Goethe’s Faust, Part 1, Opening Scene, “Night.” Seeking Knowledge, Faust Conjures the Macrocosm and the Earth Spirit. The Latter Dismisses Him. He Is Saved from Drinking Poison.

39 mins; May 05, 2024

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Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education

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