Shakespeare and Love

It all started with a crush, a banana, and a tote bag.

When I first made the epic half-mile move from my childhood home in Porter Square to the Ivy Gates of the Yard, I was giddy with excitement about my newfound freedoms and resources. Sleeping in! Choosing my own classes! And, of course, taking advantage of the fact Harvard Computer Services gives students free access to Adobe Photoshop. (To this day, I have yet to manage to download more than a ten-day demo, despite several admirable attempts. But a week and a half was more than enough time to Photoshop my roommates into wacky pictures). Before turning my friends into crying babies and overweight nude models, though, I responsibly used my new toy for academic purposes: making a fake wedding picture of me with my unbearably charismatic and sexy Shakespeare professor, John Parker.

I signed up for John’s class, Shakespearean Genres, on the last day of shopping period in an attempt to balance out my Cores and History concentration requirements with a course for which I’d already read all but one of the books. But it only took a few lectures before I started showing up to class early in order to get a front row seat (I had plenty of competition) and lingering at the end of lecture trying to work up the courage to approach my newfound love interest. When John announced that he found a banana under his podium, I giggled and felt warm inside. When he spent an hour exploring the sadomasochistic undertones of The Merchant of Venice, I tingled. When he drew explicit sketches of body-parts on the chalkboard, I was his.

Enter Photoshop. After a disastrously awkward trip to John’s office hours, I decided to channel my undying affection into artistic means. The wedding photo satisfied my passion for a while, but eventually I needed to take our relationship to the next level—so I ordered the picture on a tote bag. Ostensibly it was a gift for my best friend, which I swore was ironic, but when she failed to use it everyday, I stole it back (sorry, Kippy).

It did not, however, end with the tote bag. The more enthralled I became with John, the more his enthusiasm for the Bard rubbed off on me. Somewhere over the course of my stalking-filled semester, I fell in love with the books inside the bag—Othello and Hamlet earned prominent places on the shelf I had previously reserved for the Harry Potter canon, and eventually scored a shelf of their own. When John tragically left Cambridge to move across the country, I sought another Shakespeare course in honor of his memory. I was rewarded not long after by Shakespearean Tragedy, where I fell hard for the deep, dulcet speaking voice and dynamic lecture style of my next love: Professor Stephen Greenblatt. I switched from being an aspiring History concentrator to British Hist & Lit, before moving across the Barker Center to the English department, home to many of Harvard’s hotties.

While not everyone goes so far as accessorizing with mementos of their academic love interests, I soon discovered to my delight that I’m not alone in following my heart to the classroom. The sex appeal of teaching staff has the happy power of arousing interest—in the subject matter. For example, my roommate was drawn to the linguistics department after Professor Andrew I. Nevins caught her fancy, and another friend packs her schedule by auditing extra courses taught by professors with sexy accents. Every female in my Shakespearean Tragedy section flocked to the course’s typically under-attended film screenings whenever our irresistible TF was overseeing them. Traditional academics may look down upon sex as a means of drawing students into lecture halls, but if it inspires us to explore previously unconsidered fields, take extra classes and show up to optional events, it can’t be all bad.

The recent immigration en masse of undergrads from the Sciences to the Humanities goes to show that this trend is becoming more pervasive than ever before. After all, who wouldn’t prefer to spend section listening to one of Her Majesty’s finest discussing Henry IV with a British accent rather than frantically deciphering an unintelligible Math TF?

I’m not (necessarily) advocating adding “lovability” or “sexiness” as categories in the Q Guide; I’m just saying that it always helps to remember that a spoonful of eye-candy helps the medicine go down.

—Nicole G. White ’09 can be reached at nwhite@fas.harvard.edu. She is currently in a one-sided lover’s quarrel with Stephen Greenblatt.