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Friday, October 31, 2008
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How Now, Spirit!
Character analysis:
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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.
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Here's more interesting stuff.
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"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.
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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.
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Bondi 8)
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