"William Shakespeare and the Roots of Western Civilization" - Paul Cantor

In this lecture, Paul Cantor, who is the Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English at the University of Virginia, talks about Shakespeare and his legacy. If Shakespeare's plays constitute some of the great monuments of Western civilization, one reason is that they are deeply rooted in its grand traditions. Shakespeare's imagination ranged widely in terms of both geography and history. His historical plays chronicle the evolution of the British regime, from the chaos of feudal monarchy to the order of a modern centralized kingship. In his Roman plays, Shakespeare goes back to the ancient world to uncover the contribution of the classical republican tradition to the modern world. As a figure of the Renaissance, Shakespeare was positioned to draw on both ancient and modern traditions, and his plays can help us understand how the confluence of those traditions helped create our world today.
For more information about The Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, visit www.westernciv.ttu.edu.

[@geangarcia2673]

Came here from the Shakespeare and Politics course from UoV. This guy is brilliant!

[@taotuga]

Paul Cantor, Ultimus Romanorum

[@jamesstuartbrice420]

Shakespeare|'s description of how kings suppressed their contempt for the common people in order to win their support reminds me of many politicians today. Biden or Obama in particular pretended to be middle class moderates in their campaigns, but after taking office they tried to fundamentally transform the US into a socialist, oligarchical country governed from the top. Even when they said they were not kings, they acted like ones. And they acted in the interests of their party against the wishes and interests of the American middle and lower classes. Shakespeare was very far-sighted in this regard. It seems like Shakespeare is describing in Merchant of Venice problems that are faced today with integration and assimilation. The civil rights movement achieved most of the goals of inclusion and assimilation, but now the identity politics and tribal movements are trying to create new forms of segregation, such as separate graduation ceremonies, dormitories, associations, etc. And a problem with the biggest recent migrant group seems to be they do not want to integrate or assimilate to the host society, but rather to adapt the host society to their values and customs, with the ultimate goal of replacing the host culture. At least a strong segment of this group wants this ultimate aim and is willing to commit acts of violence and to undermine the government from within. This seems also the goal of far-leftist activists of the Marxist persuasion with their fundamental transformation goal for the USA. So the welcome mat is there for them, but they want to own the building and remodel it. A minority discriminating against the majority, as it were. So Shakespeare merely has to be adapted to understand our situation. If I understand the lecturer's theses, and He is quite illuminatingl I learned a lot from the video.

[@TotalitarianDemocrat]

The left will win!

[@TheWhitehiker]

close analogy.

[@MN8]

sounds like we have to adapt to our situation; maybe we're experiencing something Shakespeare never lived through and only encountered in his studies. Identity politics is what people used to call a "psy-op"; these operations have been conducted in smaller populations to prevent them from developing politically. "Identity politics" has been deployed upon the general population and is gaining traction, I think, due to the prevalent guilt from the genocide deployed on the indigenous people, the hopelessness resulting from the 1963 coup d'etat, and the failure of Americans to overcome barbaric traditions in their own families and generate decent people who can assume responsibility in their communities and act as pillars of society. Unfortunately, money-worship has trumped all thought forms in the US. I guess that's freedom of religion taken in exactly the wrong direction! Supposedly this can be dispelled, but the remedy is complicated. People are separated, wearing masks, not even complaining about the 2020 lack of primary elections and caucus mishaps characterizing our most important institution in that all-important year.

[@allangilchrist5938]

This is precisely what has been taking place in the UK over the past 20 years.

[@drkissinger1]

I'm wringing my brain trying to remember where in Deadwood the Shallow/Silence dialogue was spliced in, but ultimately I blame the fact that Langrishe's troupe was an extremely ignorable plot thread.

[@TheWhitehiker]

Paul is a root.