Saturday, March 19, 2011

class notes 3/7 and 3/10

guest: Gretchen Menten

handout: history Antony & Cleopatra continuance of Julius Ceaser
44- Assasination of Ceaser

*Pay attention to place names and maps while reading

Antony & Cleopatra
High School, sexual references, a lot of characters

Scene 1
Nay is the first word spoken
                    presence of rumor or report
                             "The common liar"-Antony
Antony and Cleopatra are never alone together onstage and there are no monologues in the show

Act II scene 2
       Speech on when A&C 1st meet
rumors, rumors, rumors- think about this and their perspective

Rome- order, masculine, cold-hard stuff
Egypt- passion, feminine, soft stuff

"Upon a tawny front" - Description of Cleopatra- she is dark

Mars &Venus- adultery
Mars is Antony- god of war
                      "Love and War"

Natural world is constantly at risk of dissolving

Act I scene 3
"Sir, you and I must part..."
              poetry through love
                       identity- who am I? who are these people?

Act II scene 7
It is what it is

Montane- french philosopher and essayist
-no such thing as a fixed identity

Antony- identity being questioned

Act I scene 4
demasculization of Antony
                     he used to be one way, now he is a different way
                                          whipped

Act II scene 5
he is two-faced

Act I scene 2
"no he, the queen" 

A&C are not young
                identity changes through the years

"infinite variety"- describing Cleopatra
                    The more you have of her, the more you want of her.

Bathos- climaxes and anticlimaxes

Plenty of fish in the sea

History
       Everybody already knows the story

Act III scene 13
           how are they going to be remembered











3/10/11
Revisiting King Lear

Book Worms

Shakespeare helps us to endure the unendurable

Antony & Cleopatra
Cleopatra always needs an audience
                     -she wants to be a beautiful corpse

Egypt and Rome are metaphorical for place of mind

Gypsy- from Egypt

A&C plan to be gods, heres what they do
1. say 2. see 3. do

Isis- goddesss of fertility
apotheosis- to make devine

Antony=Hercules
"The shirt of Nessus is upon me"

Antony's cloud speech

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