Jill Line, MA
After an early acting career Jill Line took a University of London degree in Drama and Education and became Head of Drama at a London comprehensive school. Later she obtained an MA from the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham and as a Shakespeare specialist taught in the Drama Department of the Roehampton Institute, University of Surrey. An interest in Ficino and Christian-Platonism led to researching this philosophy in Shakespeare on which she is now a well-known lecturer and writer.
She is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy for whom she is a regular lecturer: in March 2010 she will be giving a series of seminars on the literature of Arcadia. At the invitation of HRH the Prince of Wales, the Patron of Temenos, she has been twice a guest lecturer at his Shakespeare Summer School for Teachers with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
She teaches on the Wisdom of Shakespeare Summer School with Peter Dawkins and has lectured and written several papers for the FBRT.
Her many lectures and workshops for other organisations include the Prometheus Trust, the School of Economic Science, the Cambridge School of Philosophy, St Paul’s Girls’ School, the Jupiter Trust, the Croydon School of Philosophy, the Millennium Trust and the Birmingham Literary Society as guest speaker at their Shakespeare Birthday Dinner.
She is the author of Shakespeare and the Fire of Love, Shepheard-Walwyn, 2004, republished in USA under the title of Shakespeare and the Ideal of Love, Inner Traditions, 2006. At the invitation of Mark Rylance, the Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, she wrote a series of essays for their season of Roman plays. Her many articles include ‘Ficino and Shakespeare’ for Friend to Mankind, Shepheard-Walwyn, 1999 and ‘The Principle of Unity in Shakespeare and Ficino’ for the Temenos Review, 2001.