Welcome to the-ferts.blogspot.com,
the official journal of the literature class of 2008!
Do leave a tag if you happen to drop by.
Be friendly, just like us! 8)
Literature class, four times a week, is where we hang out and have fun! We're weird, or should I say, interesting in our own ways. (:
Ms Haiza the Blubbery Wrinkled Whale
Afiqah the Mummy
Bei Ling the Miss Normal
Charissa the Blind Bondi Bile
Dyan the King of Hippies
Fauzan the Beanstalk
Guinevere the Pokey
Nicholas the HornyPorny/Duke of Porn
Shan Jin the Oracle
Sharon the Snug
Wei Jie the Gramp-pp
OH MY I'm so lazy to do this. Ok, I'm gonna focus on the moon! Read it, people.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
As its title suggests, this is a play about dreams, and their often illogical, magical, and sensual character. Midsummer's Night is a time of craziness, of mirth and magic. This magic is enacted in the play through the concept of transformation, both personal and general: Helena would like to be "translated" into Hermia, but, more generally, she claims that love transforms everything it looks upon. While Midsummer is the primary setting of the play, references to May Day also abound. For example, Helena and Hermia are supposedly doing "observance of a morn in May" (167). Pagan rituals of May have generally celebrated sexuality and fertility, and this play does not take a Puritanical stance on either subject: The love in this dream is overtly sensual, linked to the songs, dances, and physical pleasures introduced by the fairies. Together these two framing ritual times provide a tone for the play: love and sexuality within a realm of crazy, magical fantasy.
THE MOON, the key imagery. Oh this one's very interesting and MH didn't really elaborate much. Hehe, hello Mrs Moon, I didn't know you were such an important figure!
The thematic emphasis on transformation and magic is intensified by the key images of the play, in particular, the recurring references to the moon. Like the moon, which constantly metamorphoses, shedding its old self for something new, the lovers will go through several phases before returning, refreshed and slightly altered, to themselves in Act V. Cyclical, constantly transforming itself in the night sky, the moon is an apt image for the dreamy, moonlit scenes of the play in which characters are constantly transformed. In her three phases — the new, virginal moon of the goddess Diana; the full, pregnant moon of the goddess Luna; and the dark, aging moon of Hecate — the moon is linked with all of the various moods of the play.
Here's a critical essay on the moon. READ IT, even though it's super uber long.
With four separate plots and four sets of characters, A Midsummer Night's Dream risks fragmentation. Yet Shakespeare has managed to create a unified play through repetition of common themes — such as love — and through cohesive use of imagery. Shining throughout the play, the moon is one of the primary vehicles of unity. In her inconstancy, the moon is an apt figure of the ever-changing, varied modes of love represented in the drama. As an image, the moon lights the way for all four groups of characters.
The play opens with Theseus and Hippolyta planning their wedding festivities under a moon slowly changing into her new phase — too slowly for Theseus. Like a dowager preventing him from gaining his fortune, the old moon is a crone who keeps Theseus from the bounty of his wedding day. Theseus implicitly invokes Hecate, the moon in her dark phase, the ruler of the Underworld associated with magic, mysticism, even death. This dark aspect of the moon will guide the lovers as they venture outside of the safe boundaries of Athens and into the dangerous, unpredictable world of the forest.
In this same scene, Hippolyta invokes a very different phase of the moon. Rather than the dark moon mourned by Theseus, Hippolyta imagines the moon moving quickly into her new phase, like a silver bow, bent in heaven. From stepmother, the moon is transformed in the course of a few lines into the image of fruitful union contained in the "silver bow," an implicit reference also to Cupid's arrow, which draws lovers together. Utilizing the imagery of the silver bow, Hippolyta invokes Diana, the virgin huntress who is the guardian spirit of the adolescent moon. In this guise, the moon is the patroness of all young lovers, fresh and innocent, just beginning their journey through life. This new, slender moon, though, won't last; instead, like life itself, she will move into her full maturity, into a ripe, fertile state, just as the marriages of the young lovers will grow, eventually resulting in children.
Later in the same act, the moon alters once again, returning to her role as Diana, the chaste goddess of the hunt. Theseus declares that if Hermia does not marry Demetrius as her father wishes, she will live a barren life, "[c]hanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon" (73). Hermia has until the next new moon to make her decision, so the new moon becomes both a symbol of Theseus and Hippolyta's happy union and of Hermia's potential withered life as a nun (or even a corpse), if she does not comply with her father's whim. In a play that celebrates love, marriage, and fertility, the chaste moon is not a welcome image. Therefore, Theseus urges Hermia to marry Demetrius, her father's choice of a husband, rather than spending a barren life in a convent. By the end of the scene, the moon presents herself in another guise: as Phoebe, the queen of moonlit forests. In this role, her "silver visage" will both light and conceal the flight of Lysander and Hermia, as they seek a happy and productive life away from the severe authority of Athens. As the play progresses, the moon will continue her transformations, accompanying all of the characters through their magical sojourns.
Guiding Theseus and Hippolyta as they prepare for their wedding, the moon also shines over the quarreling Oberon and Titania, who seek a way to patch up their failing marriage. As Oberon says when he first sees Titania, they are "ill met by moonlight." Notice how the fairy world is directly connected with the cycles of the moon: As "governess of the floods" (103), the moon, which is pale in anger because of Titania and Oberon's argument, has indirectly caused numerous human illnesses. And Titania invokes a weaker, more passive and "watery" moon that weeps along with the flowers at any violated chastity.
On a more comical level, moonshine is also relevant to the players. As they prepare their performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe," which is also drenched in moonlight, they wonder how they will manage to represent the moon. Bottom has the brilliant idea of leaving a window open during the performance so that the moon can shine in. Quince doesn't like the potential dangers of this natural solution — what if it's an overcast night — and suggests, instead, that one of the actors personify Moonshine by wearing a bush of thorns and carrying a lantern. Thus, Robin Starveling appears in the final act of the play as the Man-in-the-Moon, showing Shakespeare's dexterity in playing with all of the cultural representations that coalesce around a single image: From slender, virgin huntress to full, ripe mother to dark, mysterious crone to comical man-in-the moon, Shakespeare represents the moon in its full complexity.
Most of Shakespeare's images have similarly multiple layers of significance: Their relevance changes with their context, so no image maps simplistically onto a single meaning. Despite the multivalent meanings of the moon in this play, it is still a vehicle for unity, shining on all four groups of characters as they transform themselves in the course of the drama. Drenched in moonlight, this drama is aligned with Hecate's mystical, underworld visions; with the chaste, huntress Diana; and with Phoebe's rich fertility. But it is also aligned with the more comical, folkloric image of the man-in-the-moon, who, in the guise of Robin Starveling the tailor, lights the action of "Pyramus and Thisbe." Part of Shakespeare's skill as a playwright was in skillfully representing all aspects of a potent cultural icon, without destroying the unity of his carefully wrought artistic creation.
Oh yes, this is from Cliffsnotes. I like their commentaries! (8 The book itself is really cheap too. I bought mine at PageOne, vivo. Which reminds me. DYAN, WHEN'S THE OUTING?! I'm so super impatient now.
Comments (0)
Character analysis: - Theseus: Kind and generous. He must enforce the law, but talks privately with Egeus and Demetrius (I.i.115) to get them to relent. He appreciates the effort that goes into the play-within-a-play, and the sincerity of the ordinary people. He lets his imagination turn good people's sincere effort into a good performance.
Hippolyta: More literal-minded than Theseus. She cannot bring her imagination to consider a bad play good. But she notes that the lovers' tale of paranormal experience in the woods presents "great constancy" -- what paranormal investigators look for today. Like most of us, Hippolyta decides, "If they're all telling the same story, there may be something to it."
Philostrate: Master of ceremonies for Theseus. In Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, one of the rival lovers takes the name "Philostrate" to work for Theseus and Hippolyta. This is almost certainly an oblique reference to Chaucer's tale.
Demetrius: Not a nice person. By the time he says he wants to feed Lysander's carcass to his hounds, this seems completely in character. I don't know what Helena sees in him. Neither does she -- such is the irrationality of love, even before the lovers enter the forest. He is the only one who remains under the influence of the magic juice. This is probably good.
Helena: Tall, blonde beauty. Verbal abuse from Demetrius has made her think she's ugly. We have to hope that the love juice never wears off Demetrius, or she is in trouble
Hermia: Short, dark-complected beauty. Spunky and likable.
Lysander: Likable, rationalizer, sense of humor. He suggests Egeus and Demetrius get married. He cites classic stories as models for "the course of true love", and thinks the effects of the love juice are the workings of his own "reason".
Peter Quince: Playwright for the amateurs.
Nick Bottom the Weaver: Enthusiastic. Wants to play all the roles. Likes to overact.
Francis Flute the Bellows Mender: Young man. He points out that he's just getting his facial hair. He thinks this will make playing Thisbe a problem, but this is actually why he was chosen.
Robin Starveling the Tailor: Just a few lines portray a pessimist. He plays the part of the moon. He seems to forget his lines, and explains who he is in prose.
Snug the Joiner: "I am slow of study". The lion need only roar. Actually Snug does learn a few lines.
Tom Snout the Tinker: Literal-minded. Plays the wall. - Here's more interesting stuff. - "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is unusual among Shakespeare's plays in lacking a written source for its plot. The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta was described in Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" and elsewhere. The theme of a daughter who wants to marry against her father's desires was a common theme in Roman comedy. Bottom and his friends are caricatures of amateur players. Shakespeare must have derived his forest spirits from oral folk traditions. The mysterious people of the forest might be in turn helpful (household chores), mischievous (pranks, illusions), or sinister. In "Henry IV Part I", the king relates a folk legend that "some night-tripping fairy" might steal babies and leave a fairy child or someone else's child (a "changeling", see II.i.23). People may have believed, or half-believed, in the fairies (elves, sprites, pixies, leprechauns, and so forth). "Goblin" was the name of a lesser devil in "Piers Plowman", and Puck's aliases include "Hob Goblin" (Robert Goblin). They might also have been imaginary figures of fun that personify nature, as we speak of "Mother Nature" and the artistic "Jack Frost", painter of autumn leaves and creator of the beautiful ice patterns on windowpanes. Literary trips to fairyland included "Sir Orfeo", a retelling of Orpheus's descent to the underworld. Sir Orfeo visits a dreadful supernatural realm in which other humans are imprisoned, looking as they did at the moments of their deaths. "Thomas of Erceldoune" met the fairy queen, who took him to her realm, full of beautiful people living in luxury -- as Satan's cattle.
- The key passage in the play is Theseus's speech on "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" (V.i.5-22). Mentally ill people hallucinate, lovers see ugly people as beautiful, and poets create an imaginary world to give life to ideas ("giving to airy nothing a local habitation and a name"). Fear can make even a normal person in dim light can mistake a bush for a bear. As you read the play, focus on the theme of how emotions, however irrational, color perception. Shakespeare is writing about how fantasy and imagination influence how we see the world, and how we see and behave toward each other. Egeus accuses Lysander of being insincere, and using evil magic to win Hermia's love (I.i.27-32). Actually, it's Egeus who's fantasizing. Hermia says, "I wish my father looked but with my eyes", to which Theseus replies "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look" (I.i.56-57). No two people see the world in the same way. Helena knows Demetrius is a jerk, says he has bad taste in women, etc., etc. But Helena loves him anyway (I.i.226-233). She reflects on love's blindness and sudden changeability (234-245). Demetrius, who remains under the influence of the love juice, remarks after talking with Theseus in the woods that he doesn't know what he dreamed, and what really happened. Theseus says that even the best theatrical productions are "shadows", and that imagination can "amend" (mend, repair) a bad play so it seems good. Notice that Theseus is himself a character in a play. At the end, Puck invites the audience to believe that, if they didn't like the play, they just dreamed it. -
Bottom is a metaphor literalised, a fact that he immediately, though unwittingly, identifies, ‘this is to make an ass of me’ (3.1.106). Whilst it could be argued that this transformation (or ‘translation’ as Quince terms it, 3.1.105) potentially mirrors Apuleius’ in the ascendance from bestiality to the divine, there are other factors to consider. Potential contributory inspiration for Bottom’s metamorphosis includes Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft (1584),[10] Ovid’s Midas, whose mutation is clearly due to his witlessness, ‘The Delian god would not allow ears so foolish to retain their human shape’ (Metamorphoses, 11. 175-6), and the other varied transformations in the Metamorphoses. As if to recall the latter text, animal metaphors abound throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Helena tells Demetrius ‘I am your spaniel … / The more you beat me I will fawn on you’ and begs to be used as he would his dog (2.1.203-210). She then accuses him of having the heart of a wild beast (2.1.229), and invokes a reversal of an Ovidian myth ‘Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase’, that figures herself as Daphne and mild creatures and Demetrius as Apollo and predator, ‘The dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind / Makes speed to catch the tiger’ (2.1.231-3). Helena later wails ‘I am as ugly as a bear’ (2.2.100), a conceit recalled when she describes herself as ‘baited’ by Hermia (3.2.198). Hermia meanwhile is obsessed with snakes, which are obviously phallic. Following her prophetic dream of a serpent eating her heart away (2.2.152-5), she accuses Demetrius of being ‘a worm, an adder … / thou serpent’ (3.2.71-73). Human metamorphosis is also implicated as Helena wishes to be ‘translated’ into Hermia (1.1.191), and the bantering gentility convert animal to animal in mocking the production of Pyramus and Thisbe, ‘The lion is a very fox for his valour. / True, and a goose for his discretion,’ (5.1.224-5). Puck describes his magical shape shifting in 2.1.47-53. In Bottom’s case, however, the metamorphosis is only partial. This may be due to the impossibility of seriously staging an articulate entire ass, though Bottom’s asinine head further recalls the full masks of pagan festivities in a nod to the Midsummer and May celebrations invoked by the play. This monstrous dual identity, of being in transition between two states, is manifested in the mortals’ dreamlike state and the setting itself, the removed, uninhabited wood.[11] The play takes place on the borders of consciousness, being, and civilisation, and thereby is ideal for supernatural, or divine, contact.
One of the more interesting changes which Shakespeare introduces :
- the concept of small, kind fairies.
Robin Goodfellow, the spirit known as Puck, is thought to have once been feared by villagers. History indicates the prior to Elizabethan times, fairies were considered evil spirits who stole children and sacrificed them to the devil. Shakespeare, along with other writers, redefined fairies during this time period, turning them into gentle, albeit mischievous, spirits.
Puck suggests that if we do not like the play, then we should merely consider it to have been a dream. One of the most remarkable features of A Midsummer Night's Dream is that at the end members of the audience are unsure whether what they have seen is real, or whether they have woken up after having shared the same dream. This is of course precisely what Shakespeare wants to make clear, namely that the theater is nothing more than a shared dream. Hence the constant interruption of that dream in the Pyramus and Thisbe production, which serves to highlight the artificial aspect of the theater. Bottom and his company offer us not only Pyramus and Thisbe as a product of our imagination, but the entire play as well.
Puck's suggestion hides a more serious aspect of the comic fun of the play. There is deep underlying sexual tension between the male and female characters, witnessed by Oberon's attempts to humiliate Titania and Theseus' conquest of Hippolyta. This tension is rapidly dissipated by the sure solution which the play assumes, making it seem less real. However, the darker side of the play should not be ignored, nor the rapid mobility with which the actors transfer their amorous desires from one person to the other.
The aspect of the woods as a place for the characters to reach adulthood is made even more explicit in this scene. In the dialogue between Helena and Demetrius, the woods are a place to be feared, and also are a place to lose virginity. As Demetrius warns, "You do impeach your modesty too much, / To leave the city and commit yourself / Into the hands of one that loves you not; / To trust the opportunity of night / And the ill counsel of a desert place, / With the rich worth of your virginity" (2.1.214-219). Thus the forest can be allegorically read as a sort of trial for the characters, a phase they must pass through in order to reach maturity.
Hermia's serpent serves as a sign of the monsters which are in the woods. This plays into the fact that the woods are not only a place which the characters must escape from, but are also a place of imagination. Hermia's fear of her dream, in which the monster and the danger are only imagined, is meant to show the audience that the danger in a play is only imagined by the audience; neither the play nor Hermia's dream are real.
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. --Lysander, Act I, scene i
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.
--Helena, Act I, scene i
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. --Helena, Act I, scene i
And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. --Helena Act I, scene i
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness. --Theseus, Act I, scene i
O hell! to choose love with another's eye.
--Hermia, Act I, scene i
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.
--Flute, Act I, scene ii
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
--Bottom, Act III, scene i
Helena's Soliloquy!
HELENA: How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she? But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste. And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjured everywhere. For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia's eyne, He hailed down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolved, and show'rs of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight. Then to the wood will he to-morrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again.
folks, here's something else i think you might want to take some time to think about. we've already talked a little about the 'dark elements' in amnd. here's a bit more to add to that! You'll need to decide for yourself just how sinister the spiritual powers in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" really are.
Oberon and Titania have manipulated Theseus and Hippolyta.
The boy over whom the fairy king and queen quarrel is the son of an "Indian King" and a "votaress of [Titania's] order", evidently a celibate who was forced by a warlord. (Elsewhere in the play, Oberon calls Queen Elizabeth "the imperial votaress", because she was supposedly celibate.)
Oberon is simply wrong to demand the child of Titania's dedicated servant who died giving him birth.
Shakespeare has changed Greek myth to have Oberon assist Theseus in deserting "Perigenia whom he ravished" (raped, date-raped, took advantage of, or whatever.)
Perigenia is Perigoune (say peh-ree-gou-NAY), daughter of a robber. She hid in an asparagus patch while her father was killed, and afterwards she and Theseus fell in love and had a son who was legendary ancestor of an ancient Greek community. The battle between Oberon and Titania has devastated nature and hurt people. Neither one cares. Note in particular the picture of sheep killed in a flash flood, rotting and being eaten by crows.
Puck "misleads night-travelers, laughing at their harm." This is the will-o-wisp, the eerie light that leads night travellers off the road and into the marsh. Today we suppose that this is swamp gas.
The fairies enact a charm around the sleeping Titania, to ward off the ugly and dangerous creatures of the night -- worms, poisonous snakes, spiders, newts, beetles. "Philomel(a)" is the nightingale (some say swallow); her story from classical mythology involves rape, mutilation, and cannibalism. Note that the "one sentinel" fairy silently betrays his mistress to Oberon, who says to Titania, "Wake when some vile thing is near.".
Titania tells her fairies to cut the legs off bees and pull the wings off butterflies to create creature comforts for Bottom.
you are always insane when you are in love - sigmund freud
my dah-lings
check this out when we do finally get to the part about the four lunatic lovers. The key passage in the play is Theseus's speech on "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" (V.i.5-22). Mentally ill people hallucinate, lovers see ugly people as beautiful, and poets create an imaginary world to give life to ideas ("giving to airy nothing a local habitation and a name"). Fear can make even a normal person in dim light can mistake a bush for a bear.
As you read the play, focus on the theme of how emotions, however irrational, color perception. Shakespeare is writing about how fantasy and imagination influence how we see the world, and how we see and behave toward each other.
Egeus accuses Lysander of being insincere, and using evil magic to win Hermia's love (I.i.27-32). Actually, it's Egeus who's fantasizing.
Hermia says, "I wish my father looked but with my eyes", to which Theseus replies "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look" (I.i.56-57). No two people see the world in the same way.
Helena knows Demetrius is a jerk, says he has bad taste in women, etc., etc. But Helena loves him anyway (I.i.226-233). She reflects on love's blindness and sudden changeability (234-245).
Demetrius, who remains under the influence of the love juice, remarks after talking with Theseus in the woods that he doesn't know what he dreamed, and what really happened.
Theseus says that even the best theatrical productions are "shadows", and that imagination can "amend" (mend, repair) a bad play so it seems good. Notice that Theseus is himself a character in a play.
At the end, Puck invites the audience to believe that, if they didn't like the play, they just dreamed it.
You will find many more such passages. This would be a good paper topic. In a freshman bull session in 1969, I was asked how a beautiful lady falling in love with a donkey-headed loud-mouthed fool related to anything at all. I had no good answer. Four years later -- after observing that the most socially successful among my classmates had been the do-nothings and the substance-abusers -- I could have answered eloquently. Hee-haw!
this i shall dare say, the best way to convince anyone into lit class. study hard guys for both chemistry and lit. now i know lit may seem much more interesting and more fun to study for than chemistry, but you should ive both subjects the same amount of attention.
STUDY TIPS: 1. Do not stay up late for last minute revision 2. take short breaks to drink a water, or just take stretches 3. your mantra shall be: " i know i can pass this" ano not " if i don't pass this..." 4. stay postive and cheerful, talk to someone when not sure 5. sms dyan!! LAUGH OUT LOUD.
