ENG2002

Summer 2021

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Midnight Summer Night’s Dream

Being in love means that you have to love or like someone beyond their looks or what they have to offer you, that could mean gifts,money,luxurious lifestyle, etc.  As said by Helena “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.” Someone can see you and fall in love with you because of what they see and notice when they first see you but appearances lie all the time. When you first meet someone they’re nice and sweet but as time goes on a person shows their true colors and you must be willing to accept them for who they are or let them go if you notice that they’re not good for your wellbeing.  As a human being you have to notice their values and how they treat others. I always say that it’s important how a man treats his mother because if he loves, cares, respects and protects his mother then he is more than likely to do the same for his wife. Unfortunately in the Shakespeare plays we see that women don’t have much of a say when it comes to love which is unfortunate because women would end up being with people they didn’t love. What made is worse was that their own fathers would set up a marriage for their daughters like the father Eugeus and his daughter Hermia when he believed that since she belonged to him and he could force her to marry Demetruis and if not he would kill her, it is horrendous to see that a father even had a thought of killing his daughter over a man. 

A midsummer night’s dream

The challenges (frustrations and humiliations) of Love.

The challenge of Love is when you challenge a loved one to do better. Achieves a goal, overcome difficulty, be and do their best, etc., you might be offering them Love by way of challenge. Done well-challenging someone to do or be better implicitly shows that you believe in his or her ability to do better.

Sometimes, I ask myself this question: Can someone get frustrated with someone he loves and not want to be together?

All love stories are frustration stories. To fall in Love is to be reminded of a frustration that you did not know you had. You wanted someone, you felt deprived of something, and then it seems to be there. In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night Dream, jealousy is the most important recurring theme, but jealousy is a feeling of frustration.

William Shakespeare does not have one specific feeling for Love. In this play, he thinks that Love can be unfair, confusing, crazy, unpredictable, and uncontrollable. The classic romance that everyone thinks about in Romeo and Juliet. For this reason, he said in his poem:

“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”.

Love and Marriage and the difficulty of making relationships work. Some related scenes: Act 1 Scene 1: Theseus describes his courtship of Hippolyta, and the confusion of the four lovers begins with Egeus’s formal complaint about his daughter’s involvement with Lysander.

The dominant theme in A Midsummer night’s Dream is Love, a subject to which Shakespeare constantly returns in his comedies. At one level, the story of the four Athenians asserts that although the course of true Love never did run smooth, true love triumphs in the end, bringing happiness and harmony.

The challenge of Love can lead not only to frustrations but also it can lead to humiliations

Humiliation involves an event demonstrating unequal power in a relationship where you are inferior and unjustly diminished. Often the painful experience is vividly remembered for a long time. Because of the powerlessness and lack of control that it exposes, humiliation may lead to anxiety.

The challenges of Love may be complex and might lead to frustrations and humiliations; when someone is frustrated and humiliated in Love, that can lead to depravity and even death.

Extra credit

Hamlet is a play whose major themes are revenge, corruption, religion, politics, appearance, reality, and women. Hamlet is not a true story. However, although Shakespeare’s play is fictional, parts of the tragedy were undeniably inspired by actual moral oral accounts of Danish gleaned from legend and folklore.

I can see through this story three mains characters who are seeking revenge. First off, Hamlet, Fortinbras, and Laertes. All want revenge for the death of their fathers. I enjoy watching Hamlet because, in my opinion, it is the most significant play of all time. Shakespeare does that through the soliloquy, the character alone on stage talking to himself, opening up his mind, and Hamlet does that more than any other character. So there is that Psychological complexity. That is one reason the play is revered.

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).

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