Shakespeare--Antony and Cleopatra (1606)

I did a series on this for my original blog back in 2009, (Here and Here) to which I do not have anything substantial to add at this time. Antony and Cleopatra still ranks as one of my personal favorites in the Shakespeare ouevre, along with the other Roman plays, mostly because I don't have the sense that too many other people have claimed it as one of theirs. I need some patch of ground in the realm of Shakespeare appreciation on which to stake a foothold. Also its cleanness and formal perfection of composition has always impressed me, though I suppose other writers are able to give us something approaching this, and the most forcefully sentient people are more drawn to the robust protean energy of the most essential works.

This is the second Shakespeare play to come up on the IWE list, and the first tragedy. The alphabetical order is fine for this as I will be reading most of the plays that are on it for the second, third, fourth, etc, time. I have been on a bit of a Shakespeare binge lately--four plays in the last month for my "A" list plus this one and I am evidently overwhelmed as far as being able to pick out any especial insights or mildly interesting thoughts I had in reading it. I seemed to have had more to say directly in 2009. At that time I had not read any Shakespeare in several years, and I also think my mind was in one of those periodic windows in one's life where it is receptive to new impressions of old things. Also the rhythm of how I read now, especially for this IWE list, has seemingly been adjusted to consume the long novels which dominate it, so when plays come up, especially the super classics like Sophocles and Shakespeare, I want to spend some time with them, but my perception is not adjusting to the scale and density of the work. In truth, I am having difficulty in organizing and executing this essay. For one thing, though one of the purposes of this program of reading is to detach myself somewhat from the contemporary mental environment, it still seeps in, and of course I still crave a certain degree of intellectual camaraderie with the living, which I have never been able to obtain to my satisfaction. On this latest occasion I kept noting Shakespeare's attitudes with regard to what men should be like and what women should be like, which seemed to exist within a more or less traditional framework, though of course as with most of the better authors it recognized the existence of outliers, even if he largely maintained that the ideal even for these was ultimately to be constrained within a version of the traditional roles that was acceptable to them. Like a lot of people, the election, and the intense reactions and emotions it is provoking in people, are having effects on me. I was never attracted to Trump, but trying to persuade myself that Hillary Clinton is as wonderful as we are increasingly pressured to concede that she is only causes me to be unhappy and surly. The contempt and lack of respect for men that she projects and legions of her supporters openly revel in is not something I am able to embrace or celebrate. I told people, jokingly as I thought, that as long as Hillary Clinton demonstrated at any point in the campaign anything resembling respect for men who are not potentially large donors that she would have my vote. We are now two weeks from the election and I am still waiting. I am not going to vote for Trump, and I don't understand beyond the most primitive level why his supporters have put their hopes in him, but in my own life it is the increasingly aggressive and obnoxious progressives who loom as the greater problem, because I don't agree with their attitudes where men, particularly of the heterosexual, European descended variety are involved. I do not want a full restoration of 1950s gender roles and attitudes even if that were possible, but men do need to figure how to reassert themselves and play a strong and at least an equal part in life and regain some of the respect they have lost with women as well as among themselves, or I think we will continue to see very ugly politics centered around gender divisions and other various resentments. The current atmosphere is untenable.

But what of Antony and Cleopatra? The political choice wasn't really that appealing in that conflict either, to one of a democratic mindset. It was probably for the best that Augustus Caesar prevailed. He was the more modern man, though symbolically at least, more associated in the mind with despotism and unassailable power, while Antony symbolically represented the last link to the Republic, and a less absolute state. But I guess you should read my older posts on this play, since I really have not come up with any new thoughts since the last time.

The Challenge

Once again the magic words invoke so blatantly the great characters of the play that nearly all of the contestants in the Challenge can claim a Roman theme:

1. Hail, Caesar (movie).................................................................1,055
2. Stacy Schiff--Cleopatra: A Life....................................................731
3. Bernard Cornwell--Death of Kings................................................513
4. Tom Holland--Rubicon: Last Years of the Roman Republic.........259
5. Suetonius--Lives of the Twelve Caesars........................................200
6. Julius Caesar (movie--1953).........................................................194
7. Clay Griffith--The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire #1).......................154
8. Anthony Everitt--Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor....148
9. Barry Strauss--The Death of Caesar..............................................139
10. Colleen McCullough--The October Horse...................................129
11. Joanne DeMaio--Beach Blues........................................................80
12. Isaac Asimov--Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare.............................66
13. Joseph Max Lewis--The Diaries of Pontius Pilate........................66
14. Steven Saylor--The Triumph of Caesar.........................................62
15. Chris Scarre--Chronicle of the Roman Emperors..........................45
16. The Last Days of Pompeii (movie--1935)......................................40


Round of 16

#16 The Last Days of Pompeii over #1 Hail, Caesar

Hail, Caesar is probably a better movie, but the general custom of the Challenge favors older movies in head-to-head matchups.

#15 Scarre over #2 Schiff


Scarre is shorter by 77 pages.


#14 Saylor over #3 Cornwall


Two basically identical books, genre novels published 2 years apart, both available. Saylor is 9 pages shorter.


#4 Holland over #13 Lewis


History (I think) beats more genre work.


#12 Asimov over #5 Suetonius


Suetonius would have been the choice, especially as Asimov clocks in at over 800 pages, but Asimov has an upset coming in this tournament, and he gets it in the first round.


#11 Demaio over #6 Julius Caesar

#7 Griffith over #10 McCullough

Battle of genre novels. Griffith about 400 pages shorter.

#8 Everitt over #9 Strauss

I can't tell if the Strauss is a serious book or not. Otherwise, they look pretty similar. Strauss is slightly shorter, but Everitt too is entitled to an upset. Which he does not need to get by here however.


Round of 8

#4 Holland over #16 Last Days of Pompeii

#7 Griffith over #15 Scarre

Griffith also had an upset in reserve.

#8 Everitt over #14 Saylor

#12 Asimov over #11 Demaio

The Asimov is 843 pages but I can't have it lose to a literal beach novel.

Final Four

#4 Holland over #12 Asimov

#8 Everitt over #7 Griffith

Championship

#4 Holland over #8 Everitt

The Holland is about 30 pages longer but it looks like a more solid book. Plus Holland also has an upset in reserve, which cancels out Everitt's unused upset in an extremely tight title game.

Sophocles--Antigone (441 B.C.)



We have an interlude now in the midst of these long books with a couple of foundational, all-time standard plays. Antigone, especially, is so short (or, if you prefer, concise) that even going over it at the most leisurely pace possible while still getting any productive reading done, a couple of days is about the maximum required to complete a reading in English. I don't remember how many times I have had to read this, for school, or one list or another. Three? Four? This time felt to me like the most successful effort, that I had the best frame of mind, concentration, the best overall grasp of the literary and mythical world in which the play took place. Of course one can only get so far reading it in English. It is pretty much certain at this point that I will ever become proficient enough in Greek to be able to really read the literature, beyond making painstakingly slow translations, which I can do to some extent now, though my vocabulary remains weak. So I am not going to kill you with a lot of literary analysis, which you will either already know or can get elsewhere. I read the old Elizabeth Wyckoff University of Chicago translation, which is the good old mid-century scholarship I am most comfortable with and have the most trust in with regard to emotional tone and things like that. This (the tone) seems to me at least, based on my biases and school experiences, what Greek literature conveyed into English should be like, especially for middling intellects. 



The concern with order and duty and the conflict between the competing ideas of what constitutes these that form the subject of the play made a stronger impression on me on this occasion than they had formerly, perhaps since in our own time these ideas as they apply to governing bodies and societal harmony, and oddly to me, perhaps even the cosmos itself, are weakening and being relentlessly questioned. They are not associated with promoting a greater, or common good, at least the ideas of duty and order that are invoked. Such ideas were strong however among ancient writers and in the systems that they devised or made records of. Creon comes across negatively in the play because he wishes to suppress an action rooted deep in custom and long practice for the sake of order. The implication is that he is attempting to impede the carrying out of necessary activity, of necessary duty, which is the true source of order. The importance of Antigone's being a woman is not of paramount significance to me, other than that I think it heightens the drama of the act of defiance, and suggests an awareness and interest in the feminine will and capacity for opposition that is not always evident in classical authors....      

I had inserted a heading here to be filled out later called Notes on my feelings. That would be feelings evoked by this reading. Naturally any Greek reading evokes memories, usually fond enough ones, of my school days, and will always continue to inform my encounters with these kinds of books, because I can associate them with the people, and social activities of that time, which in many instances involved real experiences and relationships rather than the more imaginary ones with which I associate other kinds of books. The story I accept as a kind of fact in itself, possessed of a being that is greater and more essential to the aspects of human existence that are of interest to me. And all of that.

The Challenge


The magic words for Antigone are frequently ones that are very particular to itself. This has the effect, as with other classical stories, of leaving a very small field for the tournament.

1. Virginia Woolf--Night and Day..............................................................301
2. Charles Boyce--Shakespeare A to Z..........................................................31
3. Antigone (film--Greece 1961)...................................................................25
4. Harold Bloom--Bloom's Critical Interpretations: Oedipus Rex................23
5. John Gardner/John Meier--Gilgamesh......................................................22
6. Seamus Heaney--The Burial at Thebes.....................................................21
7. Eleanor Fuchs--The Death of Character: Perspectives on Theater, etc.....0
8. Dina Gujesnova--European Elites and Ideas on Empire 1917-1957..........0
9. Patricia Clark--Wreath For the Red Admiral...............................................0




Play-in Round


#8 Gujesnova over #9 Clark


I can't tell what kind of book the Clark is, but libraries don't have it anyway.


Round of 8


#1 Woolf over #8 Gujesnova


#7 Fuchs over #2 Boyce


#6 Heaney over #3 Antigone


#4 Bloom over #5 Gardner/Meier


I don't particularly like Harold Bloom, but his book here is shorter than Gilgamesh, and I don't think I am really up for that epic at this time anyway.


Final Four


#7 Fuchs over #1 Woolf


The Fuchs book is fairly obscure, but there are places that have it, and it is only 224 pages. Woolf is intriguing here, since I have never heard of this particular novel. However it runs around 450-500 pages, and especially with the insertion of the Knausgaard book into the slot where the challenge books go, I am going to need some shorter winners.


#6 Heaney over #4 Bloom


Championship


#6 Heaney over # 7 Fuchs


The Heaney book is actually just his version of the Antigone, which would be technically illegal. However, being a Nobel Prize winner and one of the handful of most celebrated poets in English of the last fifty years, his version probably can be counted as a work of literature in itself rather than a straight translation. And at 79 pages, it is practically a no-brainer here.

October Update

A List: Between books currently

B List: Between books currently

C List: Karl Ove Knausgaard--My Struggle: Book 1........196/441

For the A-List I have just finished a trio of Shakespeare plays--Measure For Measure, Cymbeline, and Henry V--that I had not managed to read before. I decided to tally up the overall number of Shakespeare plays I have read through via these lists, and to my surprise this recent batch just put me over the halfway point, at 20 out of 37. I thought I must have read more by this point. But it is legitimate, I have missed thus far most of the early comedies and histories, as well as the five or so plays that are generally obscure, Pericles, King John, Henry VIII and so on. Measure for Measure and Cymbeline were better than I was anticipating. Henry V was mildly disappointing in that I was expecting it might join the ranks of my all-time favorites, and parts of it certainly have that quality, but I was not positively enthralled by it all the way through on this first reading anyway as I thought it possible I might be. At this point of my life, expectation plays an outsize part in my response to literature and other works of art encountered for the first time after having only read about them, in some instances over the course of decades.

I am working on an essay for a book I have just finished for the B-list. I have made a rule that I cannot move on to the next book on this list until the posting for the previous book is published, otherwise I would never complete them, Hopefully that will be up in the next day or two.

The Knausgaard is also a deviation from my usual strict system. An old classmate had a copy mailed to me because he wanted me to read it, the first volume anyway, and the series has received effusive praise among the intelligentsia here so I decided to take it up. To this point it is largely a record of memories of ordinary life as experienced by a Norwegian teenager--and a heterosexual male at that--in the 1980s. Knausgaard is only about a year older than I am and I also went to high school in a cold northern place that was not unpleasantly a couple of decades behind the times in certain aspects. So his experiences are very similar to mine, with the exception that he was, if not a full-blown stud, a little less hopeless with the ladies during his high school years. There was at least some mild kissing and breast touching going on, and this with Scandinavian girls too, it must be borne in mind. I have to admit, the enthusiasm for this writer among many normally jaded and scornful critics and intellectuals, the kind of people who understand everything new and move with it and are bored by anything that is at all informed by the past we have left behind, is puzzling to me. I do not yet see the genius and brilliance that these other very exacting people are evidently seeing. I am not persuaded that it is not coming, because I am quite fascinated by the attraction it has for this self-consciously smart and superior class of readers, and I really want to know what they are finding in it. I don't dislike it, and I am curious to finish the first volume at least--maybe I will continue on to the other books down the line, one a year or something like that--but it does not strike me as being particularly funny (maybe this is because, as the argument was made against Bob Hope, Knausgaard is not Jewish, and Americans are conditioned now to understand humor as existing in the form in which it has been presented by Jewish comedians for the last 80 years). I also do not think the writing itself is that special. He constantly records very plain and seemingly unimportant exchanges of conversation verbatim, but then when a brash and confident boy comes into a room at school where the author is sitting with a girl he is in love with and the intruder proceeds to cast a spell over her and prompts her to (unconsciously?) open her legs when he takes a step near her (this was a good observation) he does not actually transcribe what this rival said that was so mesmerizing and effective, which I was dying to know. But perhaps this is consistent with the overall plan of the book...

No pictures this month. Too late in the evening.  

Author List Volume XI

Henry IV of England (1367-1413) Born: Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire, England. Buried: Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, England.


Henry V of England (1386-1422)  Born: Monmouth Castle, Monmouth, Wales. Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England. Cradle, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, City, London, England. College: Queen's (Oxford)


Henry VI of England (1421-1471) Born: Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England. Buried: Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England.






Laurence Olivier (1907-1989) Born: 26 Wathen Road, Dorking, Surrey, England. Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England. Riad Laurence Olivier (Hotel), Marrakech, Morocco. College: Central School of Speech and Drama






Catherine of Valois (1401-1437) Born: Hotel Saint-Pol, St Paul Church, 4eme, Paris, France. Buried: Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England.




Henry VIII of England (1491-1547): Born: Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London, England. Buried: St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England. Hampton Court Palace, Richmond-upon-Thames, London, England.


Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482) Born: Pont-a-Mousson, Lorraine, France. Buried: Angers Cathedral, Angers, Anjou, France.




Lady Grey (Elizabeth Woodville) (1437-1492) Born: Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, England. Buried: St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, Windsor, Berkshire, England.

James II of England (1633-1701) Born: St James's Palace, Westminster, London, England. Buried: Church of the English Benedictines, Rue St Jacques, 5eme, Paris, France.

Cecil Scott Forester (1899-1966) Beat to Quarters (1937), Ships of the Line (1938), Flying Colours (1939) Born: Cairo, Egypt. Buried: Loma Vista Memorial Park, Fullerton, Orange, California.

Arthur Joyce Cary (1888-1957) The Horse's Mouth (1944) Born: Bank Place, Derry (Londonderry), Northern Ireland. Buried: (?) College: Trinity (Oxford)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Marble Faun (1860) Born: Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace, 54 Turner Street, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts.(*****3-4-01*****) Buried: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts.(*****7-20-97*****) House of the Seven Gables, 115 Derby Street, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts.(*****3-4-01*****) The Wayside, 455 Lexington Road, Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts (*****7-20-97*****). The Old Manse, 269 Monument Street, Concord, Middlesex, Massachusetts. College: Bowdoin.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680) Hudibras (1663-78) Born: Strensham, Worcestershire, England. Buried: St Paul's, Covent Garden, London, England (*****6-21-99*****)

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) Humphrey Clinker (1771) Born: Dalquhurn, Renton, Strathclyde, Scotland. Buried: Old English Cemetery, Livorno, Tuscany, Italy. Cameron House, Loch Lomond, Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, Scotland. College: Glasgow.

In my old literary tourism guides from the 1970s and 80s the Cameron House, which was home to the Smollett family for many generations, was apparently open for regular tours and contained a small museum dedicated to the writer in one of its rooms. It looks as if now it has been transformed into a five star luxury resort, however.

Pierre Loti (1850-1923) An Iceland Fisherman (1888) Born: La Maison Pierre Loti, 141 Rue Pierre Loti, Rochefort, Poitou, France. Buried: Saint Pierre d'Oleron, L'Ile d'Oleron, Poitou, France. Pierre Loti Hill, Istanbul, Turkey. Pierre Loti Tepesi (Café), Idris Koeskue Cad, Eyup, Istanbul, Turkey. Pierre Loti Hotel, Sultanahmet, Istanbul, Turkey. College: Brest Naval College.

Robert Graves (1895-1985) I, Claudius (1934) Born: 1 Lauriston Road, Wimbledon, London, England. Buried: Deia Cemetery, Deia, Mallorca, Islas Baleares, Spain.  La Casa de Robert Graves, Carretera Deia a Soller, Deia, Mallorca, Islas Baleares, Spain. College: St John's (Oxford).  

Claudius (10 B.C.-54) Born: Lyon, Rhone-Alpes, France. Buried: Mausoleum of Augustus, Campus Martius, Rome, Lazio, Italy. Claudius Therme, Sachsenbergstrasse 1, Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Livia (58 B.C.-29) Born: (Rome?) Buried: Mausoleum of Augustus, Campus Martius, Rome, Lazio, Italy. Painted Garden of the Villa of Livia, National Roman Museum, Palazzo, Massimo, largo di via Perretti 1, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Tiberias (42 B.C.-37) Born: Rome, Lazio, Italy. Buried: Mausoleum of Augustus, Campus Martius, Rome, Lazio, Italy. Villa of Tiberius, Sperlonga, Lazio, Italy.

Lancelot

Guinevere Born: Old Oswestry Hill Fort, Oswestry, Shropshire, England. Buried: Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, England.

Pelleas

Ettarre

A.S.M. Hutchinson (1879-1971) If Winter Comes (1921) Birthplace: India.

For whatever reason there is a real dearth of biographical information available about Hutchinson compared to just about every other author on this list. I can find nothing with regard to a gravesite or scattering of ashes, whether he attended a university or not, or any more precise birth location than "British India".

Homer (before 700 B.C.) The Iliad (c.800 B.C.) The Odyssey (c.800 B.C.) Born: Smyrna, Turkey. Buried: Tomb of Homer, Plakoto, Ios, South Aegean, Greece.

I am aware that there is no hard historical evidence that any particular poet named "Homer" ever lived, or that either of these places has a definite connection with anyone with a claim to be the author of the Homeric poems. I am not a scholar, however, and in the absence of any positive evidence of anything, I happily revert back to these traditional memes, which have their origins in antiquity itself. While numerous cities and islands have also staked claims to being the birthplace of the legendary poet, the Smyrna (Izmir) claim is the one I have seen the most and in the most affable sources, so it is the city I have settled on to honor the poet pending further evidence.

George Chapman (1559-1634) Born: 35 Tilehouse Street, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England. Buried: St Giles in the Fields, Camden, London, England.

Nestor: Nestor's Palace, Chora, Peloponnese, Greece.

Machaon Born: Trikala, Thessaly, Greece. Buried: Gerenia, Messenia, Peloponnese, Greece.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) Born: Oscar Wilde Centre, 21 Westland Row, Dublin Ireland. Buried: Cimitiere du Pere-Lachaise, 20eme, Paris, France. Oscar Wilde House, 1 Merrion Square, Dublin, Ireland. College: Trinity (Dublin); Magdalen (Oxford).

Halldor Kiljan Laxness (1902-1998) Independent People (1945) Born: Reykjavik, Iceland. Buried: Fossvogskirkjugardur, Reyjavik (Hofudborgarsvaedi), Iceland. Gljufrasteinn, Posthof 250, Mosfellsbaer, Iceland.

 







Liam O'Flaherty (1896-1984) The Informer (1925) Born: Gort na gCapall, Inis Mor, Galway, Ireland. Buried: Haven't found this yet. College: University (Dublin).


Victor McLaglen (1886-1959) Born: Stepney (Tower Hamlets), London, England. Buried: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Los Angeles, California. Quiet Man Cottage Museum, Circular Road, Cong, Mayo, Ireland. Danagher's Restaurant, Cong, Mayo, Ireland.








Charles Sheldon (1857-1946) In His Steps (1896) Born: Wellsville, Allegany, New York. Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery, Topeka, Kansas. Charles Sheldon Museum, 1248 SW Buchanan Street, Topeka, Kansas. (maybe). College: Brown.