Summer 2021

Category: Announcements (Page 2 of 3)

Week 2: William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Post on Play due Monday, June 14 (by midnight)

Hi Everyone,

You did a wonderful job with your posts on Oedipus Rex and Lysistrata (and some intrepid souls even posted on Spike Lee’s amazing film Chi-Raq). [I will be posting all grades in the gradebook link on course site.] Read through these posts (and my responses) again to get a fuller appreciation of the richness, genius, and wisdom of the playwrights Sophocles and Aristophanes (and Brooklyn filmmaker Spike Lee!!!).

Please watch my video lecture “Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age,” which introduces our next author and work.   Once you watch my video, I ask that you read Shakespeare’s greatest (in my opinion) Romantic Comedy: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1596).  A mature play published after “Romeo and Juliet,” it’s a brilliant, fun, and zany exploration of true love, true hate, and the arbitrariness of human emotions. As Puck, the mischievous spirit, famously says: “What Fools These Mortals Be”!  Indeed, especially when it comes to love!

This week’s homework is as follows:

Read:  William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596)

If you prefer, here is a modern text translation of the play. You can read the modern translation next to Shakespeare’s original text.

View: Film adaptation of the play (1968) by the Royal Shakespeare Company (on Amazon Prime).  I recommend watching the film with the SUBTITLES to fully enjoy Shakespeare’s magnificent language.

For a wonderful theater-esque experience, I also recommend the NYC “Shakespeare in the Park” production (1982):  (Midsummer Night’s Dream Part I,  MND Part II) .

It’s somewhat long but wonderful and gives a sense of what it’s like to watch a live play in New York’s Outdoor Delacourte Theatre.  This summer “Shakespeare in the Park” is producing Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor” — more on this amazing event later.

Post a Response to a speech, scene, character, theme, or other dramatic element that you find particularly intriguing (due Monday, June 14).  BE SURE YOU DON’T REPEAT WHAT A PREVIOUS STUDENT HAS WRITTEN.  DON’T USE OUTSIDE SOURCES FOR THIS. I WANT TO HEAR WHAT YOU THINK.  The modern text translation of the play may be helpful here.

REMINDER: To post a comment, simply click on “comments” (above), write comment, and “post”

Possible themes and topics to consider (be sure to provide quotes to support your assertions):

  • The challenges (frustrations and humiliations) of love
  • The role of dreams (and the forest) as representative of the human subconscious
  • Puck’s love of mischievousness (the role of the troublemaker or “trickster” figure)
  • Transformation (theatre/art as chance to view alternative possibilities) (human fickleness)
  • Reason vs. unreason (desire) as opposing forces
  • The natural world (of chaos and play) set against the urban world (of laws and obedience)
  • Gender/power issues in the play (how is power over others played out?)
  • Analysis of the play-within-the-play (what’s so funny about Bottom’s group of actors? What role does it play?)
  • The moon as a symbol of “lunacy” – Night vs. Day as symbolism
  • Inconstancy vs. constancy (who stays true to themselves? who changes affections regularly?)
  • Illusion vs. reality (how does play help viewers distinguish between each?)

Extra Credit: Read William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1601) and/or watch the 1948 film version of Hamlet (featuring Lawrence Olivier).

For an excellent modern rendition, I recommend the film starring Mel Gibson (Hamlet).

Opportunities with NYPIRG — posted for KEVIN DUGAN

Hello everyone! NYPIRG, the student advocacy group at City Tech, is offering opportunities to join students from across New York this summer in advocacy and volunteer opportunities. To learn more, please visit https://bit.ly/NYPSUM21.

Every other week throughout the summer, NYPIRG will be hosting citywide Student Activist Meet-Ups and Student Leader Meetings. Student Activist Meet-Ups allow you to join students from all across New York to learn about how you can get involved, as well as learning new skills from NYPIRG staff members. Student Leader Meetings are based on NYPIRG’s different issue projects including environmental protection, higher education affordability, establishing a public bank, improving our mass transit, and so much more! If you are at a campus with a NYPIRG chapter in the fall, we also offer for-credit internships where you can learn how to lead campaigns that work on issues in our communities and across New York.

To learn more about these opportunities, please fill out our form at https://bit.ly/NYPSUM21. If you have any questions, please make sure to include them at the form and someone will get back to you as soon as possible!—–

Best,

Kevin Dugan he/hisRegional Supervisor
(516) 361-4006New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG)

Post a Response to Oedipus and Lysistrata

I wanted to first start off by sharing a quote, written by Albert Einstein. As quoted “ The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance”. This quote is an example of how many leaders around the world today use arrogance as a way of power to themselves to control the people. You can be ignorant in a sense where you lack certain knowledge making you unaware of your own limitations. On the other hand, being arrogant according to Einstein is far more dangerous, in which you can’t distinguish the difference between your pride and stubbornness, escalating negatively the way you approach things among yourself and others. 

Throughout the play, Oedipus’ attitude is filled with stubbornness and madness that he failed as king to find the truth of Laius’ killer. Even though his own people are dying from the plague his whole focus was to find the killer and prove to himself that he is still the almighty, unstoppable, reckless king of his century. For instance, after the prophet Tiresias enters the palace, he and Oedipus quarrel bitterly, making Tiresias blurt out the identity of Laius’ murderer. As stated in lines 381-384,Oedipus tells Tiresias “ Nothing! You, you scum of the earth, you’d enrage a heart of stone! You won’t talk? Nothing moves you? Out with it, once and for all”. It can be demonstrated that instead of being caught up proving his existence of power, he should have prioritized bringing about relief to those families who lost someone to the plague. This particular scene brought to my attention how many presidential leaders around the world failed as a nation to recognize the needs of its people as the cases were going up day by day. For example, the president of India, Ram Nath Kovind, failed as a leader to control the spread of the virus and like many leaders cared about the economy rather than the lives of its people. In which there was lack of financial relief, basic medical equipment such as oxygen and due to oxygen shortage people died on the streets.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 ENG2002

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑