"Sacrifice, Mystery, and Incision:" Prof. Francois Xavier Gleyzon on Shakespeare and Paolo Uccello

Prof. Francois Xavier Gleyzon in the Aula Magna

On Tuesday, 16 September, John Cabot University welcomed Professor Francois Xavier Gleyzon for a lecture entitled “Sacrifice, Mistery, and Incision: Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Paolo Uccello’s Corpus Domini Predella.”

Professor Xavier Gleyzon teaches at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Spiral
(Lexington, 2010), Shakespeare and the Archaeology of Shadows (Manchester University Press) 2012),
David Lynch in Theory (Charles University Press, 2011) along with a number of peer-reviewed articles on English Renaissance Literature and Visual Arts. His recent publications include two edited volumes on Shakespeare and Theory I & II (Routledge, 2013). Along with a monograph on The Eucharist in Early Modern Literature, Prof. Gleyzon is currently working on the publication of a Special Issue titled: Reading Milton Through Islam (Routledge, forthcoming 2014).

Gleyzon presented his paper “Opening the Sacred Body: Shakespeare and Uccello” with accompanying readings from The Merchant of Venice and paintings by Crivelli, Cimabue, and Paolo Uccello.

In his work, Gleyzon gives an unconventional interpretation of the sacrament of the Eucharist, seeing it not only as the representation of the body of Christ, but also as the expression of the desire to incise a tortured body to discover the mystery of the hidden God. Gleyzon further stressed the concept of flesh and sacrifice through an analysis of the first scene of the Corpus Domini Predella, as well as the last sequence of The Merchant of Venice.

Learn more about studying English Language and Literature at John Cabot University.