"If murder consumes a life, a human, is it not a kind of cannibalism?" SO incredibly thought provoking, especially within the context of ongoing colonial and racial violence. The very fact that it is ongoing , never ceasing, proves even more that the hunger is insatiable. This is a great video, and one I will return to every once in awhile.
One of the books I referenced at the end, Tasting Difference by Gitanjali Shahani, really influenced the way I think about cannibalism and colonization. It's a bit pricey on Bookshop (academic books are so annoyingly expensive!!!) but if you want a splurge or can find it at a library, it's really worth a read!
"How cannibalism collapses the borders between one body and another." That really is awesome, will probably be stuck in my brain for a while. All of the examples probably will.
miss glutenberg, i am obsessed with you. i just made my sister sit down with me and watch this whole thing. exactly the style of content i love to consume / yearn to create. well done!
I have literally never commented on a TH-cam video but I am now because I enjoyed this that much. Thank you so much for this funny and broadly erudite dive into early modern English drama. I hope to see more of your content in the future!
TH-cam recommended this video to me and I'm so glad I watched it. This was a fascinating topic and you presented it in a clear and thought provoking manner. I also want to compliment the editing and your setup. Everything was very smooth, your lighting is perfect, and your backdrop is engaging. I also love your necklace (and your hair looks amazing).
super interesting topic!!! As strange as this sounds, Titus Andronicus was my introduction to horror and arguably the reason why I fell in love with the genre. I've never watched a live production, but Titus (1999) starring Anthony Hopkins still lives rent free in my head
Thank you so much for this video. I find the topic interesting, specifically the references to comparing European civilization to others for "savagery." I would love to see more content on literary topics. Thanks again, and good luck with your writing project.
I haven't commented on your videos yet but I must thank you for this one! Very interesting, plus it's easy to see you have studied this topic a lot. I am a scholar of ancient Roman literature myself and the use of cannibalistic metaphors is something that pops up quite frequently even in texts written 2000 years ago.
Yeah some Roman lit is even referenced in early modern English cannibalism! Titus Andronicus alone has references to Seneca's Thyestes and Ovid's telling of the Tereus and Philomela myth. Thanks for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed!!
This is my first youtube comment ever I think, but this is the first time I’ve found a video essay that itches my brain in the right way. You feel like I have one of my lecturers as my best friend and I’m being treated to the inside of your mind. (Also I was already loving this video but as soon as you turned around and revealed the bookshelf bourbon I immediately hit subscribe)
I have been consuming (lol) a lot more cannibalism media recently than I intended to after seeing the new musical SWEPT AWAY, so this video cane out at the perfect time!!
Woah I hadn't heard of that musical but I just looked it up and, hello, Avett Brothers!!! Definitely going to check that out. If you're interested in consuming even more cannibalism content, you might be interested in the novel A Certain Hunger - I think the way that book talks about cannibalism as a form of intimacy probably influenced some of what I said in this video, it really worked its way into my brain!
This video is awesome and hugely inspirational to me as an English literature student! Maybe I’ll turn some of my research papers into video essays someday…!
Currently in the midst of my final year in art school and I'm examining the provocative narratives of love and hunger, through metaphorical cannibalism. This was such a treat!
Such a fascinating topic! And all your puns were great and gave me a good laugh 😊 Also, congratulations on your recently obtained PhD! 🎉 I’ve been debating for years getting my Master’s in English Literature (maybe PhD), and you’re one of the TH-camrs that’s inspired me to go for it. Thank you ❤
That's so nice, thank you!! I like to pass on the advice I got when I was applying to grad school: one of my undergrad professors told me, if you want to get a Master's degree, just apply for PhD programs. Master's degrees more often require you to pay tuition, whereas PhD programs get funding, and you can always drop out of the program after you've gotten the Master's degree if you don't want to keep going. I'd initially thought I might drop out after the point when I earned my MA, but then it turned out I wanted to keep going!
I watched the play Titus Andronicus twice and I did not think too much of it. I found it disgusting when the mother ate her two sons and Lavinia had her tongue and hands cut off. A few people who saw this play fainted or started breathing heavily.
Yes, it’s a really upsetting play - I almost had to leave a classroom once in grad school because watching a clip from a performance of it was making me so physically uncomfortable. The version I saw performed last year really minimized the visual violence: every character carried around a lit taper candle, and the violence was done to the candle instead of their bodies. So, Lavinia’s candle was cut into smaller pieces instead of having her hands severed, and any time a character died, they just had their candle blown out. It made it a lot easier to stomach. But still, I don’t plan to ever watch a performance of it again.
Your section on Titus Adronicus reminds me of a paper I wrote on it in my first year of college. It was a while ago, but I think my argument was something along the lines of, though Temara was tricked into an act of literal cannibalism, Titus has been engaging in a 'consumption' of his own children since the very beginning of the play - he murders one of his sons for his disobedience, he mourns another and talks about displaying his body in a coffin (not a pastry coffin this time!) - acts that fundamentally serve to 'nourish' Titus in his role as a leader. Though he isn't physically consuming the bodies of his children, he is still using them as, as you said, 'ingredients' for sustenance. Also, haunting choice for the Globe production of Titus!! Must have been chilling!!
That’s a really interesting reading, it makes sense! If I remember right, Titus says that he initially had 20 sons, but almost all of them have now died…that’s a pretty high rate of his kids being consumed by war and ambition
Thank you so much for making this video, it certainly does provide "food for thought"! Call me morbid, but I found something very touching in Tamora attempting to consume as much of her sons as possible... Whereas disgust makes her body a coffin, this interpretation transforms it into a shelter.
I love the way you phrased that! And I really agree. Usually this play makes me feel viscerally upset, but there really is something poignant about the idea of Tamora wanting to return her children to the safety of her body. This staging also had every character carrying a lit candle throughout the performance, and then any violence against that character was done on the candle rather than the actor's body. So, a dismemberment = a piece of the candle cut off, and a death = the flame extinguished. I liked it a lot, it meant that all the gore wasn't too distracting or off-putting.
A friend of mine sent this video for me and it's mindblowing. Never had I thought about this subject in my entire life. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I'm gonna be reading those books for sure.
I'm glad you enjoyed!! I did link those to all these books on Bookshop, but the academic ones can be really expensive, which is annoying. But I think you can read some of them for free online through Archive.org !
This video popped on my feed as I'm in the process of starting a new book on cannibalism aswell but in the 18th/19th century The The Delectable N*gro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within U.S. Slave Culture.
You're the second person now who has mentioned this book to me, I don't usually read much American lit or history but I'm going to check it out! The Matt Williamson chapter I referenced at the end of this video comes from one of the books I linked in the reading list, "To Feast on Us as Their Prey," which in other chapters quotes from the narratives of formerly enslaved men who talk about being afraid that they would be eaten by their captors - it sounds like this book you're referencing is kind of the next chronological step in that.
i think another way cannibalism dehumanises people is not just by painting those who are committing it as barbaric and uncivilised, but also in the case of mummy: declaring those who are consumed as non human - yet another manifestation of racism
Wow, so interesting. I find people's views on cannibalism and the way it is viewed culturally so interesting. I agree that the though of irl cannibalism is horrific, but I cannot help but wonder what it is that separates the body of a human from non-human animals. Many people horrified by cannibalism are not horrified by the consumption of the flesh of other species. Thank you for the video, definitely goin to take a look at some of these books & plays :)
Your words on the othering of people of different cultures and races in order to dehumanise them, and the cannibalism of mummies is also very interesting. If we are able to think of others as non-human, it certainly goes a long way in allowing us to do terrible things to them. Sometimes I wonder if this would be different if 'being human' was not a qualifier for the empathy that we show to those that we consider to be our equals.
Took my first Shakespeare class this past semester and really fell in love with Titus Andronicus despite its gore wrote two papers on it lol thank you for making this video!
I have such a love/hate relationship with Titus! There’s parts of it that are so interesting, like the banquet or Aaron as a character, but the Lavinia plot is just…so upsetting. But I guess that’s just how it goes with a lot of Shakespeare haha you get some high highs but some very low lows as well.
I've been deep in a Buffy rewatch lately, and making this video made me think more about vampires and cannibalism! Talk about an overlap of desire, hunger, and violence.
Unironically, I started having a fascination with cannibalism after reading Moby dick but couldn't figure out a normal approach to explore the subject. Obviously.
"If murder consumes a life, a human, is it not a kind of cannibalism?" SO incredibly thought provoking, especially within the context of ongoing colonial and racial violence. The very fact that it is ongoing , never ceasing, proves even more that the hunger is insatiable. This is a great video, and one I will return to every once in awhile.
One of the books I referenced at the end, Tasting Difference by Gitanjali Shahani, really influenced the way I think about cannibalism and colonization. It's a bit pricey on Bookshop (academic books are so annoyingly expensive!!!) but if you want a splurge or can find it at a library, it's really worth a read!
"How cannibalism collapses the borders between one body and another." That really is awesome, will probably be stuck in my brain for a while. All of the examples probably will.
such a great video omg, im obsessed with the way you lead the topics and link the plays and the books with eachother, soooo good!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
miss glutenberg, i am obsessed with you. i just made my sister sit down with me and watch this whole thing. exactly the style of content i love to consume / yearn to create. well done!
I have literally never commented on a TH-cam video but I am now because I enjoyed this that much. Thank you so much for this funny and broadly erudite dive into early modern English drama. I hope to see more of your content in the future!
I am honored to be your first TH-cam comment - thanks for watching!
the how to lose a guy in ten days analogy was superb
TH-cam recommended this video to me and I'm so glad I watched it. This was a fascinating topic and you presented it in a clear and thought provoking manner. I also want to compliment the editing and your setup. Everything was very smooth, your lighting is perfect, and your backdrop is engaging. I also love your necklace (and your hair looks amazing).
super interesting topic!!! As strange as this sounds, Titus Andronicus was my introduction to horror and arguably the reason why I fell in love with the genre. I've never watched a live production, but Titus (1999) starring Anthony Hopkins still lives rent free in my head
Thank you so much for this video. I find the topic interesting, specifically the references to comparing European civilization to others for "savagery." I would love to see more content on literary topics. Thanks again, and good luck with your writing project.
This video was so fascinating, I hope you do more of them!!
I haven't commented on your videos yet but I must thank you for this one! Very interesting, plus it's easy to see you have studied this topic a lot. I am a scholar of ancient Roman literature myself and the use of cannibalistic metaphors is something that pops up quite frequently even in texts written 2000 years ago.
Yeah some Roman lit is even referenced in early modern English cannibalism! Titus Andronicus alone has references to Seneca's Thyestes and Ovid's telling of the Tereus and Philomela myth. Thanks for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed!!
This is my first youtube comment ever I think, but this is the first time I’ve found a video essay that itches my brain in the right way. You feel like I have one of my lecturers as my best friend and I’m being treated to the inside of your mind.
(Also I was already loving this video but as soon as you turned around and revealed the bookshelf bourbon I immediately hit subscribe)
I have been consuming (lol) a lot more cannibalism media recently than I intended to after seeing the new musical SWEPT AWAY, so this video cane out at the perfect time!!
Woah I hadn't heard of that musical but I just looked it up and, hello, Avett Brothers!!! Definitely going to check that out. If you're interested in consuming even more cannibalism content, you might be interested in the novel A Certain Hunger - I think the way that book talks about cannibalism as a form of intimacy probably influenced some of what I said in this video, it really worked its way into my brain!
This video is awesome and hugely inspirational to me as an English literature student! Maybe I’ll turn some of my research papers into video essays someday…!
Currently in the midst of my final year in art school and I'm examining the provocative narratives of love and hunger, through metaphorical cannibalism. This was such a treat!
Such a fascinating topic! And all your puns were great and gave me a good laugh 😊
Also, congratulations on your recently obtained PhD! 🎉 I’ve been debating for years getting my Master’s in English Literature (maybe PhD), and you’re one of the TH-camrs that’s inspired me to go for it. Thank you ❤
That's so nice, thank you!! I like to pass on the advice I got when I was applying to grad school: one of my undergrad professors told me, if you want to get a Master's degree, just apply for PhD programs. Master's degrees more often require you to pay tuition, whereas PhD programs get funding, and you can always drop out of the program after you've gotten the Master's degree if you don't want to keep going. I'd initially thought I might drop out after the point when I earned my MA, but then it turned out I wanted to keep going!
@@GlutenbergBible Thank you for the advice!! 😊
This is fascinating; I'm so glad this video was recommended to me. Subscribed.
I watched the play Titus Andronicus twice and I did not think too much of it. I found it disgusting when the mother ate her two sons and Lavinia had her tongue and hands cut off. A few people who saw this play fainted or started breathing heavily.
Yes, it’s a really upsetting play - I almost had to leave a classroom once in grad school because watching a clip from a performance of it was making me so physically uncomfortable. The version I saw performed last year really minimized the visual violence: every character carried around a lit taper candle, and the violence was done to the candle instead of their bodies. So, Lavinia’s candle was cut into smaller pieces instead of having her hands severed, and any time a character died, they just had their candle blown out. It made it a lot easier to stomach. But still, I don’t plan to ever watch a performance of it again.
Oh this is fantastic! Thank you for making this research accessible!😊
Your section on Titus Adronicus reminds me of a paper I wrote on it in my first year of college. It was a while ago, but I think my argument was something along the lines of, though Temara was tricked into an act of literal cannibalism, Titus has been engaging in a 'consumption' of his own children since the very beginning of the play - he murders one of his sons for his disobedience, he mourns another and talks about displaying his body in a coffin (not a pastry coffin this time!) - acts that fundamentally serve to 'nourish' Titus in his role as a leader. Though he isn't physically consuming the bodies of his children, he is still using them as, as you said, 'ingredients' for sustenance.
Also, haunting choice for the Globe production of Titus!! Must have been chilling!!
That’s a really interesting reading, it makes sense! If I remember right, Titus says that he initially had 20 sons, but almost all of them have now died…that’s a pretty high rate of his kids being consumed by war and ambition
This is so fascinating and you are so good at breaking down complex concepts into digestible (haha) portions!!
Hahaa thank you for watching and thank you for the great pun!
Thank you so much for making this video, it certainly does provide "food for thought"!
Call me morbid, but I found something very touching in Tamora attempting to consume as much of her sons as possible... Whereas disgust makes her body a coffin, this interpretation transforms it into a shelter.
I love the way you phrased that! And I really agree. Usually this play makes me feel viscerally upset, but there really is something poignant about the idea of Tamora wanting to return her children to the safety of her body. This staging also had every character carrying a lit candle throughout the performance, and then any violence against that character was done on the candle rather than the actor's body. So, a dismemberment = a piece of the candle cut off, and a death = the flame extinguished. I liked it a lot, it meant that all the gore wasn't too distracting or off-putting.
A friend of mine sent this video for me and it's mindblowing. Never had I thought about this subject in my entire life. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, I'm gonna be reading those books for sure.
I'm glad you enjoyed!! I did link those to all these books on Bookshop, but the academic ones can be really expensive, which is annoying. But I think you can read some of them for free online through Archive.org !
This video popped on my feed as I'm in the process of starting a new book on cannibalism aswell but in the 18th/19th century The The Delectable N*gro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within U.S. Slave Culture.
You're the second person now who has mentioned this book to me, I don't usually read much American lit or history but I'm going to check it out! The Matt Williamson chapter I referenced at the end of this video comes from one of the books I linked in the reading list, "To Feast on Us as Their Prey," which in other chapters quotes from the narratives of formerly enslaved men who talk about being afraid that they would be eaten by their captors - it sounds like this book you're referencing is kind of the next chronological step in that.
Super fascinating, thank you for sharing your knowledge of these dramas and your intriguing analyses.
Horrifyingly fascinating. Thank you for this overview. We need a pun counter. 😉
I couldn’t resist the puns! I just hope they weren’t… in bad taste 🫢
@@GlutenbergBible not at all. The topic required a bit of levity.
you have found a new fan with this video essay
Great video! I also went to see a shakespeare play at the globe on my birthday last year hahah
wonderful video! I shared this with my friends
What a great way to grow my TBR 👍🏻
i think another way cannibalism dehumanises people is not just by painting those who are committing it as barbaric and uncivilised, but also in the case of mummy: declaring those who are consumed as non human - yet another manifestation of racism
Absolutely!!
the video we've all been waiting for !!!
Wow, so interesting. I find people's views on cannibalism and the way it is viewed culturally so interesting. I agree that the though of irl cannibalism is horrific, but I cannot help but wonder what it is that separates the body of a human from non-human animals. Many people horrified by cannibalism are not horrified by the consumption of the flesh of other species. Thank you for the video, definitely goin to take a look at some of these books & plays :)
Your words on the othering of people of different cultures and races in order to dehumanise them, and the cannibalism of mummies is also very interesting. If we are able to think of others as non-human, it certainly goes a long way in allowing us to do terrible things to them. Sometimes I wonder if this would be different if 'being human' was not a qualifier for the empathy that we show to those that we consider to be our equals.
love this
Your video is beautiful and amazing thank you so much ❤️❤️
That’s so cool I am now in love with you and I am going to go read those books thank you
Took my first Shakespeare class this past semester and really fell in love with Titus Andronicus despite its gore wrote two papers on it lol thank you for making this video!
I have such a love/hate relationship with Titus! There’s parts of it that are so interesting, like the banquet or Aaron as a character, but the Lavinia plot is just…so upsetting. But I guess that’s just how it goes with a lot of Shakespeare haha you get some high highs but some very low lows as well.
reading interview with the vampire now and this video was really fitting and rich!
I've been deep in a Buffy rewatch lately, and making this video made me think more about vampires and cannibalism! Talk about an overlap of desire, hunger, and violence.
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Unironically, I started having a fascination with cannibalism after reading Moby dick but couldn't figure out a normal approach to explore the subject. Obviously.
Oh interesting! I never read Moby Dick all the way through, I didn’t know there was a cannibalism connection there!
Thank you for this cursed knowledge haha
EPIC YT FEED PULL!!!!!!!!
Ooooo you had to end with such a bad joke!!
Couldn’t resist!
Are you trans?❤
Nope, I’m cis!