Harvard ENGL E-129 - Lecture 3: Measure for Measure

[@jamesraymond1158]

Her lecture is like reading something with hypertext. At every opportunity, she diverts to give the story more context.

[@SurrenderPink]

Begins at 4:10.

[@tripp8833]

more like 9:10 she's rather long winded

[@tomomanpanama]

You're a saint.

[@stevennewit5729]

Useful. Thanks. I thought this play was worth reading just for the word 'concupiscible' which I intend to work into conversation at every opportunity.

[@spiritualpolitics8205]

The phrase it appears in made me laugh night while reading it. The rhythm is wonderful.

[@peterfrengel3964]

Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. (Wallace Stevens)

[@ruthgoodwin8414]

Brilliant analysis of this play, brings out all its complexity. Wish I was a literature student again.

[@davidwaldheim1147]

Wish I were, ma'am!😉

[@regisgoat]

Start at 4 min. Lots of chat about whether the students are registered or not and what their papers are going to be about right before then...

[@plekkchand]

resistance is freedom, indeed...very good lecture, to be taken with many grains of salt.

[@tomomanpanama]

This lady is absolutely brilliant. The discussion of the continual interplay between the now and then of the play and its interpretations is great. Her comment about us not being able to "wish away" disagreeable parts of the play from a modern perspective is particularly poignant, especially as she's saying this back in 2007.

[@seanwiberg]

particularly like the announcements at the beginning! keep it up

[@giantsparkplug3462]

The Red Sox game to which she refers is Game 1 of the 2007 ALDS. They beat the Angels (Angelos?) 4-0. Discuss.

[@edthoreum7625]

52:00 clarence thomas & anita hill?

[@TheAIMEEASH]

Very interesting lecture!

[@MaartenVHelden]

Is the assignment available for me somewhere online? I understand that revision or examination is not possible, but I would like to try to write a paper also.

[@bottomhead2518]

So write a paper. Nothing's stopping. What's your question about the text (a why or how question)? Any question a text evokes, the text will answer. Hunt for the answer. The answer is your thesis statement. Then all you have to do is prove it with evidence and analysis.

[@bishnuregmi1147]

Her lecture sounds natural.

[@mohammedswalihp4900]

Any Indian literature student here thinking the about the difference in the way of teaching Literature between Indian Universities and American

[@greylithwolf]

Gosh I wish I could participate in these class discussions.

[@Laocoon283]

Let's discuss it right now lol. You have access to thousands of people through the comments. What do you have to say?

[@gregoryburridge726]

Hello, i m happy to have learned this in high school ; tragedy = hero dies, comedy (not necessarily funny)= hero lives, according to classical cannon. This orients the plays printing and billing. "Kind of incest",=rheorical ploy. Functioning aristocrats are trapped into amassing and preserving power outside of the doctrine of the ten commandments and quite in line with the Jesuit contract. The hero of "M,for m" = the activated reflexion of the public. An extremely rare phenomena in theater.

[@ericmead9601]

@ 50:39 PROCLAIM!

[@aliglimmer6071]

I yelled that too😔😂

[@antigonemerlin]

"But no writer sits down--no good writer and no bad writers--says okay, here are the rules about a tragedy. It's got to have this and that." NOW you tell me. And here I was, spending all my time on TV Tropes, thinking it would improve my writing. Isn't that kind of the point of formulaic writing though? I know one writer who moved from level design to writing novels, and the way he plans arcs is kind of like that.

[@johnnyjohnny-cg7np]

Would have been nice to give the name of the actual lecturer

[@Terencegaffney]

The name of the lecturer is Marjorie Garber. Shakespeare after all is the name of one of her books

[@joshuasobitan3217]

What is the lecturers name. I would like to quote her in my next essay. Her analytical skills are amazing.👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

[@Terencegaffney]

The name of the lecturer is Marjorie Garber. Shakespeare after all is the name ozone of her books

[@jannysarloa9703]

Nice.

[@jennflprofileupdated8931]

Big flame things

[@The_Custos]

This was excellent until it delves heavily into anachronistic suppositions to try and explain the text with feminist theories and "S&M" points. Isabella saying she would rather bear torture and show it proudly than give up her virtue and honour is not a pro-S&M assertion! It is about professing a commitment chastity even unto suffering, and of being ready to suffer great public pain rather than surrender to baseness. This was a fine discussion of the play with many contributions to make, until it compromised itself by referring to degenerate sexual acts as if that was an original meaning of the play. Anachronistic, and not what the character was saying at all if we look at the dialogue. After all, Vienna is filled with moral decay, and Isabella wants to escape it into the convent (not into S&M perversions), the character wants to keep her purity, not escape it.

[@edthoreum7625]

33:00 & 54:45?

[@ebenzakein]

Being beaten and to wearing the markings of this beating would be a performance of her chastity. I think the idea is that Isabella sort of "gets off" on remaining chaste and therefore would derive pleasure from this performance. In that sense, there is an S&M component here, because she takes pleasure from pain. In the introduction lecture, it was said that the plays always exist in multiple times; the time they are set, the time they were written, and the time they are being read. The plays themselves have anachronisms and looking at them through today's lens does not detract from discussion, but adds to it.

[@The_Custos]

@@ebenzakein it's a moral decay reading, as if virtue is degenerate or a sexual kink, very out of place.

[@fudgyboo]

@@The_Custos I understand where you are coming from, but you disregard what she says at 5:35. We, as readers of the play, cannot remove the ideas we have of the present and only look at the play from the past sense. Nor should we. The cultural zeitgeist has changed since the play was initially written and we cannot help but place our own understanding of humanity into the text. I don't know if that is what Shakespeare was going for initially, but it is certainly what has made his plays as famous as they are today.

[@Laocoon283]

​@@ebenzakein Bwahahah you really just talked yourself in a full circle to redefine chastity as s&m. This is the problem with intellectuals they toungue tie their way into blurring the lines between definitions.

[@uncatila]

sit at the feet of Shakspeare and do not try to adapt it toodern stupidity and modern illiteracy of faith & Religion.

[@vikingjanch]

One core skill of human interaction, is how to spend a lot of time saying not very much - because there really isn't very much to say; the core of human life can be written on the back of a post card, I would suggest. The core human problem is time, intimately tied up with self-awareness.

[@sm1135ster1]

The core human problem is exaggerated self importance.

[@jennflprofileupdated8931]

Major for majorYea!

[@tedparr2711]

I'm 10 minutes in and I'm still waiting for something substantive to be said. Number one thing they teach at Harvard is how to sound smart while saying virtually nothing.

[@NikolaiRogich]

Frighteningly true. How tragic to be so neurotic and trite at the same time.

[@yu-wantang5267]

How Too Much Rational en" Measure for Measure" Who's The Lord logical Plotting Duke by The Lords? "Angelo, by British Constitution of Queen's Principlextol Lady GrandOr, thou raped your Wife in FuturealiFe-er!" (from Measure for Measure, in Harvard Scholars' Study, New Heaven) Duke May flowering Micro-economic, en Ethnics Home rule, proclaiming how his fan Angelo betraying His King Semiotic No-man-Femalet's Leave male, adultery. Angelo for punished exiledramticodEve's Puck, return Shrine of Roman Sinners' orphans, to erecting Puritan College theological, till Declined London Shoot Down Sinking Pass English via Sky no-winged screwidnowildness! His Nun is still the bait Girl Innocent! by Professor Yu-wan, Tang (Yale Creative English Writing, Yale U.)

[@sm1135ster1]

Christ, I am so delighted I learned Shakespeare from acting , not from these babbling dullards.

[@sm1135ster1]

The academics have edited Shakespeare scripts more than the Bible. Read the first folio Shakespeare and compare it to a standard one used in university. Most of the punctuation was meant as stage movement for the actor, academics changed it because they didn't understand this.. that's just for starters.

[@sm1135ster1]

For an actor it is ...

[@frankfeldman6657]

Your producers had to make crucial decisions based on one or more of the possibilities presented here.

[@Laocoon283]

You should just try and read it yourself...???

[@sm1135ster1]

@@Laocoon283 kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHjFi3adfbZso5o

[@MatthewHenderson1]

She seems pretty rude to some of the students asking questions

[@thezentrader]

Because it's Harvard. If they don't get it and haven't done their homework they shouldn't be there...

[@rowenakwan]

i find it a very intellectual discussion between the prof and her students....she's not rude, i feel that she is just being direct. And when she disagrees, she always find sources and support from the play. And I do think she is very open-minded concerning getting opinions from students. And she does encourage them to speak, most of the time, she respects the different opinions, and takes a step more to ask the students to give the class evidence to support their opinions. And this is what tertiary education should be.

[@thezentrader]

well put!

[@haroldcreacy8831]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, there is nothing rude, offensive, or discourteous about the professor's teaching method.

[@plekkchand]

I doubt very much that interpretation .Much more likely is that once they get there they can ask anything. She is not rude.