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| Shakespeare's Spirituality: Interviews with Martin Lings (DVD) |
| This page includes details on the DVD "Shakespeare's Spirituality: A Perspective" |
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Click cover for larger image.
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Author(s):
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Subjects(s):
Christianity
Lings, Martin
Poetry
Spiritual Life
Symbolism
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Price: $24.99
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ISBN: -
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Format: DVD (NTSC)
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Run Time: 2 hrs, 1 min
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Number of discs: 1
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Region: All
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Description
Dr. Martin Lings (1909-2005) was a well-known author, editor, and translator of works in comparative religion, but he had also been a scholar of the works of Shakespeare. Lings' book Shakespeare in the Light of Sacred Art was hailed as a major contribution to the understanding of the spiritual symbolism and meanings found in the mature works of William Shakespeare. This video DVD captures Dr. Lings' thoughts on Shakespeare and spirituality following over 60 years of Lings' research and thought on the subject. Ira B. Zinman, author of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Bible: A Spiritual Interpretation with Christian Sources, recorded these interviews with Martin Lings shortly before the latter's death, leaving us with over two hours of insights on the Bard, as well as Lings' own reminiscences on his early experiences with English literature, his teacher C.S. Lewis, and the plays of Shakespeare. (For more on Shakespeare and spirituality, click here to see our Shakespeare and Spirituality Resource Page.)
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More Information
Detailed Description
About the Author
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Excerpts
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Dr. Martin Lings (1909-2005) was a well-known author, editor, and translator of works in comparative religion, but he had also been a scholar of the works of Shakespeare. Lings' book Shakespeare in the Light of Sacred Art was hailed as a major contribution to the understanding of the spiritual symbolism and meanings found in the mature works of William Shakespeare. This video DVD captures Dr. Lings' thoughts on Shakespeare and spirituality following over 60 years of Lings' research and thought on the subject. Ira B. Zinman, author of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Bible: A Spiritual Interpretation with Christian Sources, recorded these interviews with Martin Lings shortly before the latter's death, leaving us with over two hours of insights on the Bard, as well as Lings' own reminiscences on his early experiences with English literature, his teacher C.S. Lewis, and the plays of Shakespeare.
For more on Shakespeare and spirituality, click here to see our Shakespeare and Spirituality Resource Page.
In the two hours of wide-ranging interviews with Mr. Zinman on this DVD disc, Dr. Lings discusses these, and other subjects:
- His coming of age in regard to his lifelong love of Shakespeare, as well as his early spiritual orientation.
- His own introduction to Shakespeare in text, and on the stage.
- Martin Lings’ growth and how he came to understand the deeper meanings often found in Shakespeare’s mature plays.
- How Shakespeare’s work can be considered “sacred art,” and the higher functions of art in general.
- The major theme of Shakespeare’s great plays: the “purification of the fallen soul.”
- Shakespeare’s contact with the esoteric movements of his time.
- Remarks on the spiritual depths found in Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth, in particular.
- Recollections of Dr. Lings on his relationship with his tutor at Oxford, C.S. Lewis.
- Thoughts on the medieval (and thus Shakespeare’s) understanding of “the Intellect,” on Humanism, on the Middle Ages, and on Dante.
- The difference between the education of Shakespeare's time and modern education, including the effect of evolutionism
- How Shakespeare’s writing impacted his (i.e. Martin Lings’) life.
- What makes Shakespeare “great.”
- How Shakespeare’s plays should be produced to best effect.
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Martin Lings (1909-2005) was a leading member of the “Traditionalist” or “Perennialist” school and an acclaimed author, editor, translator, scholar, Arabist, and poet whose work centers on the relationship between God and man through religious doctrine, scripture, symbolism, literature, and art. He was an accomplished metaphysician and essayist who often turned to the world’s great spiritual traditions for examples, though he is probably best known for his writings on Islam and its esoteric tradition, Sufism.
Dr. Lings co-edited The Underlying Religion (2007) with Clinton Minnar. This book is a survey of central perennialist ideas and authors. Dr Lings contributed the following essays to various World Wisdom books:
Click here for more information
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"Dr. Lings, in this interview by Ira Zinman, illuminates his experience [i.e. his first reactions to Shakespeare's plays]—which is surely shared by many who appreciate the works of Shakespeare—by explaining the nature of sacred art, in the context of an account of his own life's spiritual journey. The resulting film will be appreciated both by admirers of Lings, who will treasure this last footage of Dr. Lings before his death, and anyone who has experienced the sacred in a work of fiction and wondered how it can reside there."
—Abigail Tardiff, from a review on the Radius Foundation website (click here for the full review).
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Martin Lings: "Art does not rely on didactic teaching, like a servant, to gain its ultimate effect. Its function is not so much to define the spiritual wisdom as to give us a "taste" of that wisdom, each according to his [own] capacity. And, Shakespeare’s plays give us the taste of that wisdom…they’re not bent on didactic teaching. It’s the total effect that is the taste in question. It’s amazing, how play after play of Shakespeare overwhelms us with this taste which we cannot define, and which gets forgotten, of course, but, if it’s repeated, over and over again, and if one adds to it, of course, sacred rites which are…performed with a view to the same purification, then, it is not forgotten, lost, it is not lost. We enter in with Shakespeare to this extraordinary Beauty with which he himself had conceived the harmony of the universe."
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