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Darwin8u's Reviews > A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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by
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.�
� William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
I think I'm a dozen plays into my First Folio frolic. April means spring, and in my sequential reading of Shakespeare it also means lyricism out the yin yang. Reading a Bloom analysis of either Richard II (#10) or Romeo & Juliet (#11), Bloom (and I'm paraphrasing here) described these three plays as a lyrical triad. Romeo and Juliet = lyrical tragedy; Richard II = lyrical history; Midsummer Night's Dream = lyrical high comedy.
It was a dream and a trip watching Shakespeare weave together the 2x2 love story with the amateur actors with Puck and the fairies. Again, like Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, etc., Midsummer Night's Dream is hard to objectively read because it is so familiar. There are certain plays that have almost become a part of our cultural subconscious. I don't remember ever first learning, reading, knowing this play. It seems to have just always been there -- tickling my memory and my dreams. I have friends with quotes tattooed on their arms: “Though she be but little, she is fierce!� and others that seem more Puck than real. That is the genius of some of Shakespeare's more fanciful plays. Despite them containing magic, etc., they all seem so VERY HUMAN. There is something about Puck and Oberon that seem -- despite their other worldliness -- very grounded in this world.
One aspect of this play I loved, and it is a common Shakespeare conceit is the play within the play, the players, the development of the narrative through a parallel sub-narrative. It is both simple, sublime, and surreal. More important, it works. Obviously, Hamlet is the most well-known example of this, but Shakespeare uses this idea again and again (The Tempest, Love's Labour's Lost) and I LOVE it.
There were also several nice lines, specifically:
- “My soul is in the sky.�
- “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.�
- “Take pains. Be perfect.�
- “Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,
could ever hear by tale or history,
the course of true love never did run smooth.�
- “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.�
� William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
I think I'm a dozen plays into my First Folio frolic. April means spring, and in my sequential reading of Shakespeare it also means lyricism out the yin yang. Reading a Bloom analysis of either Richard II (#10) or Romeo & Juliet (#11), Bloom (and I'm paraphrasing here) described these three plays as a lyrical triad. Romeo and Juliet = lyrical tragedy; Richard II = lyrical history; Midsummer Night's Dream = lyrical high comedy.
It was a dream and a trip watching Shakespeare weave together the 2x2 love story with the amateur actors with Puck and the fairies. Again, like Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, etc., Midsummer Night's Dream is hard to objectively read because it is so familiar. There are certain plays that have almost become a part of our cultural subconscious. I don't remember ever first learning, reading, knowing this play. It seems to have just always been there -- tickling my memory and my dreams. I have friends with quotes tattooed on their arms: “Though she be but little, she is fierce!� and others that seem more Puck than real. That is the genius of some of Shakespeare's more fanciful plays. Despite them containing magic, etc., they all seem so VERY HUMAN. There is something about Puck and Oberon that seem -- despite their other worldliness -- very grounded in this world.
One aspect of this play I loved, and it is a common Shakespeare conceit is the play within the play, the players, the development of the narrative through a parallel sub-narrative. It is both simple, sublime, and surreal. More important, it works. Obviously, Hamlet is the most well-known example of this, but Shakespeare uses this idea again and again (The Tempest, Love's Labour's Lost) and I LOVE it.
There were also several nice lines, specifically:
- “My soul is in the sky.�
- “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.�
- “Take pains. Be perfect.�
- “Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,
could ever hear by tale or history,
the course of true love never did run smooth.�
- “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.�
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Reading Progress
February 9, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
February 9, 2017
– Shelved
April 21, 2017
–
Started Reading
April 21, 2017
– Shelved as:
2017
April 21, 2017
–
Finished Reading
August 15, 2017
– Shelved as:
shakespeare
January 27, 2018
– Shelved as:
drama
