Today I'll be talking about the final speech in the Symposium, the speech of Alcibiades.
And next week I'll be talking about William Shakespeare's great comic masterpiece,
A Midsummer Night's Dream. I'll give two lectures on The Midsummer Night's Dream.
Roughly speaking, the first lecture will be the more optimistic interpretation of the play
and the second lecture will be a more pessimistic lecture of the play.
As with all of Shakespeare's works, there is an integration of darker and lighter, or happier theme.
And it seems to me perhaps best to consider the play, its scenes and sessions,
from a rather different point of view. Please do make sure that you read A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I will not be summarizing the action of the play, and I'm afraid my lectures might be unusually murky
if you don't know the play already. So you make special effort to read the play
