AFTERNOON SEMINARS - The study of key texts in small seminar groups

To understand the approach to texts promoted by the Temenos Academy see: READING ESSENTIAL TEXTS AND THE ART OF STUDY©  Dr Joseph Milne

23 September – 25 November 2026, Wednesdays, 10 weekly meetings

Time             2.30 – 4pm 

Venue           The School of Philosophy and Economic Science

Richard II by William Shakespeare

Leader           Dr Joseph Milne

Text                the Arden edition edited by Charles R. Forker

Shakespeare’s Richard II presents a king with a most sublime power of speech. The potency of speech becomes an essential quality of the play since it is spoken entirely in verse. And yet Richard’s high kingly speech becomes dissociated from his actions in the name of the kingdom. His abuse of sovereign power is incongruous with his elevated royal speech and leads to his eventual enforced abdication. The dramatic unfolding of the play raises questions of the relation between divinely destined sovereignty and the frailty of mortal human nature, symbolised in the tradition of the king’s two bodies. We are asked throughout the play how far King Richard understands himself.

JOSEPH MILNE is the editor of Land and Liberty, the journal of the Henry George Foundation, the author of several Temenos Academy Papers, including The Lost Vision of Nature (2018), and of Natural Law and the Just Society, to be published by Shepheard-Walwyn. He is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy, a member of its Academic Board and teaches the ‘Mysticism’ module of the Foundation Course in the Perennial Philosophy.

Course cost

£120 or £90 Members of the Temenos Academy/Concessions.

Full-time students and Temenos Academy Young Scholars, £50.

Those attending must be aged 18 or over.

To book email temenosacademy@myfastmail.com

[image credit: The Wilton Diptych at The National Gallery, London]