Harvard ENGL E-129 - Lecture 7: Antony and Cleopatra

Recorded on Oct 31, 2007.

[@Ozgipsy]

That was amazing. I am absolutely stoked to have stumbled across this. Imagine, a baggy shorts kid from the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, 1000 miles from the most remote city in the world, listening to a brilliant English lecture from a renowned Harvard Professor.

[@dc8058]

How wonderful to be able to attend a Marjorie Garber lecture! She is lucid and entirely focused on sharing her joy of the play and opening the infinite variety of Shakespeare for her students. What a treat! Thank you very much for sharing this lecture and this series.

[@HighKingTurgon]

Hey, A&C is NOT my favorite, but this lecture really makes me want to grab my complete works and dig in. Really excited to watch her Winter's Tale lecture. Because that one I'm 100% with her on.

[@JavidAhmad-IW]

A lecture delivered with professional poise and steadiness of knowledge on the topic. Simply brilliant! Maybe this blog post identifies with your taste as well. best-selling-books-scifi.blogspot.com/2023/05/best-selling-books.html

[@dianagerard1300]

Wonderful lecture. I learnt so much from this. Thank you.

[@Anonymous-hj2ql]

She actually starts talking about the play at 4:10 rest is just questions about students' upcoming exam. Thank me later

[@dsly100]

She doesn't present what little prepared she has to say until the last 20 minutes. The rest is mostly frustrating random filler where she asks dumb questions that would be insulting to an eighth-grader like, "Who do you identify with, Roman or Egyptian?" And the answers drone on. Then some dummy asks why she likes this play the best! But in the end she knows the play and the main ideas but she has little to say about the structure. The desertion of Enobarbus barely mentioned and certainly not understood. (Enobarbus cuts himself adrift from his personal loyalty, an existential disaster, and tries to live with a detached rational decision to be on the right side of history. His peripety occurs when it seems that Cleopatra is about to betray Antony.) No mention whatsover of the water/land symbolism or the many triumphs and processions and tableaux (she does think that Ant & Cleo is the most operatic in the Bard canon which might be true) despite the fact she obviously recalls The Game of Chess in The Wasteland where Cleopatra is now in ironic form the woman with bad nerves or bad teeth.) No mention of the major role of music, the myth of Hercules, the fertility myth of the Nile and Isis. No help with where the recognition scenes are (I only have a couple of ideas there. So weird how even the best professors avoid helping to make the study of literature a genuine subject with its own principles. She licks her fingers every 14 seconds.

[@scottting-a-kee9677]

I enjoyed the lecture!

[@damounjehani6286]

This is great! Thanks so much.

[@tripsxxxbtch3677]

I'm celebrating Bill's birthday watching this.

[@Laocoon283]

Why are the comments on this channel always so wild lmao?

[@Jostolliii]

I know this was recorded several years ago. But if you are still looking at these comments do you think this play has threads of mimetic desire according to Renee Gerard?

[@goodtimepoke]

Hope you figured out an answer buddy.

[@euan4465]

Phsrsalia? What balltle is that 🤣

[@billhaywood3503]

Oh Christ it is Garber!! Greenblatt is a real scholar. An all female production of Macbeth--makes me long for Harry Levin nice scarf Marge

[@KozzmoKnight]

I may be corrupted by HBO, I hazard to think that it was not love that Anthony felt for Cleopatrea, mayhap it was his own fall from glory that he mourned?

[@MatthewHenderson1]

The word "persona" is not Greek as she says around 28:40, but Latin, and perhaps originally Etruscan.

[@judyli6522]

But Latin is derived from the Greek and Etruscan alphabets. Also there is a possibility that the word is derived from the Ancient Greek word prosopon, as well as Etruscan, so we really don't know and she could be right.

[@markh9875]

@@judyli6522 - The Latin alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabet. Any common origin in the languages themselves goes back much, much further. The word "persona" is Latin. It may be derived from or share a common origin with some Greek word.

[@billhaywood3503]

@@judyli6522 possible but speculative but it begs the question she either mispeaks or more likely is ignorant

[@Laocoon283]

​@@judyli6522well if nobody knows than it's not correct for her to say it now is it?

[@idiomas6169]

45:34 the key

[@christopherbrookfield4785]

She certainly likes her scarves, and the sound of her own voice. I would give her one, anytime. 😍

[@Only1INDRAJIT]

If she were a chemistry professor and was working with potassium cyanide

[@rebeccak5753]

IdentiFication ... really?

[@Only1INDRAJIT]

I read it as Identificktion

[@shqamar4532]

Why she licks her finger again and again, its so disgusting as a teacher

[@Laocoon283]

You should see what she does with those fingers behind that lectern

[@jamboo94]

did she just lick her finger? O_O 1:06:16

[@samyamoy]

khalid mana She has a habit to do so. I watched many of her lecture and noticed that!

[@bobmcgahey1280]

dreadful I'd sooner listen to Harry Levin

[@dsly100]

Professors as bad as this should be reprimanded. She comes in with nothing she wants to say. Disgusting. And this is Harvard!!!

[@SansDrachmae]

+Douglas Sly One lecture and you're comfortable jumping to that... wow! It's not unlikely that she teaches a series of classes on any particular play, with one session taking questions and helping students tease out themes which they only detected beforehand, and another with her own opinions and points to make, and so on and so on.

[@rickdeckard1075]

+Douglas Sly its called marxism...it infects everything...

[@rashadimam5114]

If this is Harvad, then my English department in the most fucked place ever, Syria, is waaaaay better than this.

[@kennysanders3364]

you dolt, you can't even spell HARVARD right.

[@rashadimam9517]

+Kenny Sanders BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[@farahali5754]

I prefer men teaching

[@Laocoon283]

Maybe your gae?

[@rashadimam5114]

is 'it' a man or a woman?! I really can't fucking tell!

[@kennysanders3364]

then you really have big problems in life you dolt.

[@rashadimam5114]

+Manin intheworld BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[@marinettemasyrenaud8742]

@Ryan Straker That's when they have nothing vital to add to the lecture. just waste time finding ridiculous faults....literal asswipes.

[@TheNivKo]

Gee that was five years ago... Hope you found the time to grow up

[@Laocoon283]

Yo these comments are outta control lmfao