Both of Harvard's lecturers on Shakespeare will take leaves of absence next year.

Alfred B. Harbage, Henry B. and Ann M. Cabot Professor of English Literature, who teaches English 124, will take a leave next Fall to write the volume on Elizabethan drama for the Oxford History of English Literature.

Harry T. Levin '33, Irving Babbit Professor of Comparative Literature, lecturer in English 123, will be on sabbatical for the entire year to lecture at the University of Indiana and Churchill College, Cambridge.

Harbage and Levin teach Harvard's undergraduate Shakespeare courses, English 123 and 124 respectively, in alternate years.

Harbage has been granted teaching absence from the Fall semester of his course, scheduled for 1966-67, but he said last night that he did not know what arrangements will be made for the course. The University has named no replacement for Harbage.

Levin's sabbatical does not interfere with his teaching duties since his course will not be given next year.

Harbage was asked to write his part of the Oxford history last spring and was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation grant to work on the project.

He emphasized that individual volumes of the history have come out over a period of 20 years. He felt that he would be through with the Elizabethan drama volume in about four years.

"This is a terribly hard job," Harbage said, "Oxford wants the book to be standard work for the next 40 or 50 years."

Levin will deliver the Patten Lectures on Renaissance Literature at Indiana University in the fall. He will spend the spring semester as an Overseas Fellow at Cambridge.