Back from the Dead. An Encounter with Domitius Enobarbus

Abstract

This piece, a fictional conversation with the character of Domitius Enobarbus from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, was inspired by Massimo Guarascio, Professor of Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome and Director of the IV-V Michelangelo Workshop on “Mediterranean Bridging and Changing: the Role of Students, Schools and Professionals”, organized with the support of the Engineering Associations of Mediterranean Countries (13-15 October 2016). The piece was enacted as a performance in the cultural session of the conference, with Guarascio playing Enobarbus as a phantasmatic character, and Rosy Colombo and Alessandro Roccati respectively in their real-life professional roles as Professors of English literature and Egyptian studies. The script deals with the conscious fashioning of the Roman empire after the model of sophistication that was Egyptian culture and the ways in which the Rome-Egypt connection was explored and re-signified by Shakespeare. It is newly edited by its co-authors and printed here as a contribution to the theme of Shakespeare’s Rome, to which the forthcoming no. 4 of Memoria di Shakespeare. A Journal of Shakespearean Studies will be devoted, with particular reference to Antony and Cleopatra.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, fictional interview, ancient Egypt and Rome, cultural transfer, Alexandria, Rome, London