Okay, I can’t help but add some terrible sexual puns in my paper on Shakespeare’s own sexual puns. I wonder if my TA will snag this one:
The Clown then proceeds to give Cleopatra a snake which is representative of the male sex organ (Quintis 130) and puns about his “worm” continually. When asked by Cleopatra, “Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there,” the Clown replies, “Truly, I have him but I would not be the party that / should desire you to touch him” (5.2.243-246). He becomes relentless with his jokes, stating that he knew “a very honest woman, but / something given to lie… / she died of the biting of it” (5.2.250-251). Lie in this situation means to be untruthful, but also to lie with a man. The scene is loaded with innuendo.
thecamcorder:
aspectralfire:
So here’s the opening paragraph to my essay on Antony and Cleopatra.
Although A.C. Bradley’s article “Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra” from Oxford Lectures on Poetry, and Anna Jameson’s “Cleopatra” from Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, Historical contain enough first person plurals to make any New Critic’s blood boil, both articles touch on something essential to the reading of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Bradley notes that at the beginning of the play, Philo describes Antony as “a strumpet’s fool” (260). Bradley then contrasts such a negative representation of Antony with what he deems “the tragic greatness, the capacity of finding in something the infinite and of pursuing it into the jaws of death” (261). Thus he recognizes the duality of Antony’s character: he is both a fool and a hero. Likewise, Jameson views Cleopatra as an “antithetical construction” and a “consistent inconsistency” (244). Both Bradley and Jameson briefly touch on the ambivalent representation of Antony and Cleopatra. Bradley concludes that the play is unlike the rest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, while Jameson calls Cleopatra “an astonishing portrait of… originality”(Bradley)(Jameson 248). As a test case, one may look to the death of both Antony and Cleopatra to find such ambivalent representation. Sexual language and images in Antony’s death scene, as well as in Cleopatra’s, lend a comedic variable to the end of the play; while conversely, the hyperbolic idealization Antony and Cleopatra have for one another imbues their deaths with a level of tragedy.
I really hope this doesn’t go over her head/get too muddled.
Don’t know how your prof will react, but I appreciate that bit about blood boiling.
Yeah, luckily we are just turning in a draft tomorrow. If she hates it, I’ll remove it, but knowing her, she’ll find it humorous.
Lit nerd jokes, ftw!
So here’s the opening paragraph to my essay on Antony and Cleopatra.
Although A.C. Bradley’s article “Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra” from Oxford Lectures on Poetry, and Anna Jameson’s “Cleopatra” from Characteristics of Women, Moral, Poetical, Historical contain enough first person plurals to make any New Critic’s blood boil, both articles touch on something essential to the reading of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Bradley notes that at the beginning of the play, Philo describes Antony as “a strumpet’s fool” (260). Bradley then contrasts such a negative representation of Antony with what he deems “the tragic greatness, the capacity of finding in something the infinite and of pursuing it into the jaws of death” (261). Thus he recognizes the duality of Antony’s character: he is both a fool and a hero. Likewise, Jameson views Cleopatra as an “antithetical construction” and a “consistent inconsistency” (244). Both Bradley and Jameson briefly touch on the ambivalent representation of Antony and Cleopatra. Bradley concludes that the play is unlike the rest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, while Jameson calls Cleopatra “an astonishing portrait of… originality”(Bradley)(Jameson 248). As a test case, one may look to the death of both Antony and Cleopatra to find such ambivalent representation. Sexual language and images in Antony’s death scene, as well as in Cleopatra’s, lend a comedic variable to the end of the play; while conversely, the hyperbolic idealization Antony and Cleopatra have for one another imbues their deaths with a level of tragedy.
I really hope this doesn’t go over her head/get too muddled.
