This particular set, six discs in a single binder and with a single professor, from the much larger series that I bought in 2024. I am writing the reports on this particular course as I go because the whole series is 7 binders, 42 CDs, and 84 lectures in total–it might take me eight months or more to get through them.
This set is taught by Professor Ronald Herzman and is subtitled “Literature of the Renaissance”. Of course, those of us in the know will tell you that the dates of “the Renaissance” differ based on geography; the Italian Renaissance, for example, was far earlier than the English Renaissance. So this set of lectures would cover a broad swath indeed
Individual lectures include:
- Christine de Pizan
- Erasmus
- Thomas More
- Michel de Montaigne
- François Rabelais
- Christopher Marlowe
- William Shakespeare — The Merchant of Venice
- William Shakespeare — Hamlet
- Lope de Vega
- Miguel de Cervantes
- John Milton
- Blaise Pascal
It started out with a lecture on an obscure author, a woman who wrote a book about women who is unknown today unless you’re in the academy–and by “today,” I guess I mean the end of the 20th century. Hell’s bells, but the youth of today might not know any of them except maybe Shakespeare. And maybe I was a little deeper into books than most, even amongst my cohorts at the university.
At any rate, I’ve got many of these authors in Classics Club editions, including the Montaigne I started reading in 2017 (and have since re-shelved). As you might know, gentle reader, I am working through the complete works of Shakespeare in a multi-decade (probably) project (most recently A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
So: It made me want to delve into the works I’m not currently reading, so it’s got that going for it. Unfortunately, they will wash over me during the remaining lectures so that the feeling will pass. Hopefully, I won’t rush out to buy anything which will hold down my chair side table for years (I bought Pamela after hearing The English Novel in 2020, and I probably started it not long after–which makes me glad I did not run out and buy Tom Jones, too).
So I am on the downhill slide on these lectures; only three more binders, 36 lectures to go. And, looking ahead (or at least to the next set, “Neoclassic Literature of the 17th Century”), I have to think that the further into the more recent past we go, the less I’ll be inspired to read the authors. If the book makes it into the 20th century, that’s likely true. But I will still get something out of it, even if I don’t remember it.
