Free Will and Shakespeare
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

Shakespeare used the subject of free will constantly in his plays, poems, and narrative poems. At Shakespeare's time, major pronouncements about free will were emanating from learned minds and being exposed to the western world; and to Shakespeare. In this course we will examine Shakespeare's use of the matter of free will in six plays and coincidentally juxtapose the philosophical thoughts of six brilliant thinkers of his age on the same plays. The plays examined will be: Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest. The six philosophers examined will be: Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, Martin Luther, Calvin, Montaigne, and Dante.