The Introductory class, Fall, 2010, of the course on Homer to Milton. Readings will include the Iliad, the Odyssey, some Plato, Aristophanes's Clouds, some Ovid, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, and Paradise Lost. The first class is about the attitude of Homer, Dante, and Milton to the visionary company of poet-prophets they seek to join.
Last lecture of the course, concluding with The Winter's Tale. Narrative memory and forgetting. Resurrection. Winter's Tale compared and contrasted with King Lear, specifically with respect to the Fool and Cordelia. Men of stone vs. stone coming to life in the last scene.
Introduction to The Winter's Tale: why is Leontes jealous? of whom? what does Mammilius remind him of? Doubling of Mammilius and Perdita. Time frames: 23 years, 16 years, 7 years. Things dying, things new born. Paulina. Hermione.
We conclude our study of Antony and Cleopatra, paying more attention to Cleopatra, and the two of them together: the'r love, their rages, their suicides. Cleopatra compared to both Ophelia and Gertrude. Female sexuality. Dido and Aeneas. Love, death, and immanence.
Mainly on Antony: Fulvia; his men's loyalty; the departure of Herucles, and of Enorbarbus; the quickness with which Eros sees what he'll want to do; the quickness with which Enobarbus sees he's done it; Dolabella as Enorbarbus's double; Cleopatra's dream; instances of "an Antony;" his preternatural generosity.
Antony and Cleopatra a new departure: not about public vs private but about two modes of publicity: present and future. O'erflowing the measure, again. Enobarbus as a new experiment in the series of window characters starting with Aumerle and including Horatio, Kent, the Fool, Edgar, and Banquo. Hamlet loves Horatio who is dispassionate in judgment; Kent is like Horatio but Edgar and the Fool go much farther in focusing on the window; Macbeth kills Banquo; Enobarbus betrays Antony.
Introduction to Antony and Cleopatra as a new kind of tragedy: one which doesn't seek the freedom of complete loss or amor fati . Contrasted with Macbeth, written simultaneously. Macbeth is about the maximum of loneliness in a tragic figure; Antony and Cleopatra is about what having a friend till the end offers by way of a relationship to time and loss. Lady Macbeth compared to Lear. Antony and Cleopatra compared to A Midsummer Night's Dream ....
Talk on the anonymity of the narrator and narratee in Proust, and their relation to the losses that occur in the book but not in the narrative. Illustration of idea that Proust presents the converse of Cavell: uncountable external worlds but only one other mind. How narrator turns into his mother watching his mother turn into his grandmother. Roger Caillois and vision as mimesis. Discussion session (poorer audio) for all the papers.
Nicolas de Warren's talk on "Aspects of the Imagination in Proust," in the way faces are perceived and make one feel perceived; the recognition of the other; and their relation to love and to death.
Richard Moran's talk on four kinds of relationships between the voluntary and the involuntary in Proust, and their relation to eros and to aesthetic response.
April Vacation Bonus: Proust and Philosophy Conference at Wellesley College. Part 1: Short Intro (audio sketchy). Laura Quinney convenes seminar and everyone introduces her- or himself.
Second and concluding lecture on Macbeth before two-week break: the solitude of the present moment; the only relief to that is friendship; Banquo as window, like Bullingbrook, Horatio, Kent, the Fool, and Edgar; but Macbeth murders Banquo and must not look to have friends (Seyton is his last forlorn hope), and so is lost in time, like tears in rain, time's bank and shoal eroded into dust and ashes.
Somewhat fumbling and disappointingly inarticulate account of time and the specious present in Shakespeare, and its most intense presentation in Macbeth. The difference between the character (with his history and prospects) and the subject, existing in the present only which is all that exists, and experiencing his history and prospects as outside of himself. Tragedy, time, and pure subjectivity.
Edgar. His relation to Gloucester, and to Edmund. The kindness of the gods. Jacob and Esau reunited. Exchanging charity. Love between mortals.
Embarrassing parents and what they know; what does Edmund want?; sibling competition and bonding; the fool and Cordelia
The oddness of writing a tragedy about a person whose life is already just about over; some flushing of the coverts of the microglot in order to consider the modes and methods of Shakespeare's delicate suggestiveness; the opening lines of the play; Edmund's embarrassing and embarrassed situation.
More on Hamlet's relation to representations of revenge; their relevance; the difficulty of distinguishing between crime and punishment; the failure of moral luck to provide a distinction; Hamlet compared to Vertigo; Horatio's dispassionate judgment; how Hamlet defeats Claudius as a matter of drama and theatrical dynamic and not the establishment of facts antecedent to the start of the play.
A continuation of the analysis of Hamlet, both character and play. What is the nature of Hamlet's interiority? What relation does it have to his being a character in a drama? How does he parallel, and how diverge, from Laertes? The possibility that Claudius is Hamlet's father is treated, with respect to what this would mean from the point of view of the ghost. The disappearance of the ghost in Act V is noted and considered. Preferences among preferences or second order desires are introduced....
Introduction to Hamlet; idea of revenge in law and in tragedy (revenge as representation of crime); characters of Horatio, Claudius, and Hamlet
Classes start up again February 22. In the meantime, here's a talk I gave at Wayne State on February 12, on biological game theory and narrative, with almost no Shakespeare in it, but lots of Golden Balls: I think it's pretty followable as a podcast, but you won't get the visuals of the YouTubes I show at the end. Comment if you want links to the videos.
A compressed and rapid survey of some of the major issues in The Merchant of Venice
We complete our analysis of the story arc of Midsummer Night's Dream , an arc formed out of a mosaic of characters, consider especially the relationship between our interest in the erotic life of others, and the experience of theater. We end by discussing the melancholy elements of the play which give its moments of happiness both depth and value.
We conclude our discussion of Richard II and segue elegantly into a discussion of A Midsummer Night's Dream
Discussion of Richard's last soliloquy, and other laments about nothingness, and subjectivity.
We continue our consideration of Richard II, and the deep and complex chess game, played both in private and in public, between Richard and Bullingbrook, with Mowbray and Gaunt as their pawns.
We begin considering Richard II and Shakespeare's work generally via Sonnet 73 ("That time of year"), which introduces us to Shakespeare's thinking about time.
