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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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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!
lots of love
ms haiza
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