Literature Program Presents

Literature Salon:
On Cunning, or, Art and Craft in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

This presentation draws on a chapter-in-progress from Professor Desai's next book project, tentatively titled How Shakespeare Judged His Art: Lofty, Stately, Cunning, Rare, Fair. An attempt to reconstruct how writers in early modern England approached literary craft, the book focuses on some of the terms Shakespeare and his contemporaries used when appraising their work. "Cunning"— a term affiliated with domains as distant as courtly poetry, military strategy, and racially suspect "gypsies"—appears in Antony and Cleopatra to demonstrate how elitism and racecraft operate by playing fast and loose with the proximity between skill and deceit, technique and trickery. An excerpt of this chapter draft will be circulated beforehand, and the presentation will include ample time for questions and for discussing research methods, the writing process, and the practical challenges of starting a new project.

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For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].

Time: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EST/GMT-5

Location: Olin Humanities, Room 204

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