This week on Required Reading, we dust off our middle school readers and learn about high schoolers in love. We read Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the passionate and mature love of a 13 and 15 year old. It's basically Elizabethan Degrassi.

Co-Hosts: Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, Mike Carroll

"n Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud. In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers’ final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers." From the Folger Edition back cover.

This week we are reminding you that this is the best of all possible podcasts. We talk Candide by Voltaire! Keep on reviewing and subscribing so we can continue doing this! or perhaps, this is our last episode and we will go to tend our gardens.

Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann

Panel: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll Here from us!

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Michael Carroll

Candide is Voltaire's 1759 satirical masterpiece, wreaking havoc on the excesses of 18th century French Enlightenment culture. The story begins with our protagonist Candide, a young man living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. This idyllic life is abruptly interrupted, however, by a series of painfully disillusioning events that set him off on a wide-ranging journey. This edition is based on the unattributed 1918 translation published in the U.S. by Boni & Liveright in 1918.

François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit and his advocacy for freedom of speech and religion.

This week we get the energy up by having Mike Carroll talk about Beowulf again! We plan on coming out with an episode every first and third Friday of the Month for the rest of the school year and hopefully you come along for the ride with us! We are starting out with Grendel by John Gardner a deceptively short book for the complex magnitudes it contains. So sit back and enjoy our conversation about the Grendel in Grendel.

Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann, Mike Burns, and Mike Carroll.

This elegantly haunting retelling of the Beowulf saga turns the tables: instead of the heroic warrior, the monstrous Grendel narrates the tale—from his vantage point, with his blend of bitter irony, existential rumination, and lonely longing.

Grendel, the original “monster” of ancient legend, voices his own story in a world he finds bewildering and violent. He and his mute mother dwell in a cave, shaded from human society yet tormented by their encroachment. When a blind harpist—known as the Shaper—arrives at the Danish mead‑hall, Hart, his forged myths and stirring songs both enchant and horrify Grendel, setting in motion a philosophical struggle between storytelling’s awakening magic and the stark, chaotic truths he senses beneath it.