Here's a blog video that focuses primarily on Act 3 of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but be sure sure to read all five acts for Tuesday's class. We'll talk about the other parts in class. Be sure to leave a comment by Tuesday!
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For Tuesday: The Tempest, Acts 4-5 (last questions for the class!)
Answer TWO of the following: Q1: What do you make of the elaborate play (or "masque," a 17th century genre where allegorical fi...
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Answer TWO of the following... 1. The final act is peppered with scenes and moments that are often cut or condensed in modern pro... -
Please watch the short video (20 min) on Acts 1-2 of the play, focusing primarily on Cleopatra as an actress, and answer the question that f...
No, I do not think true love exists by magic because that would be utilizing supernatural powers and manipulating the course of affairs. What if the magic wears off? Then what would happen? The couple may see the other person as they are and not what they saw before. Not to mention, be in a cloud of confusion of how they saw that person in the first place and how they see them not under the spell because it was through the lens of magic–pseudo. I think this play is a comedy; first, the characters are hilarious, and then the dazed and confused brings laughter. If a comedy was nothing but laughter, we might get bored with it. The tragedy causes conflict and drama, which exposes the reader to various pathos and hooks the audiences’ curiosity about what happens next. This could be considered a manipulative tactic by Shakespeare. Not to mention writers want us to find humor in the parts they emphasize on and as I said previously if it is all humor, we may overlook the significance and humor they intend (text invites) for us to perceive in their work. This question could be extremely controversial conditional to one’s viewpoint as Airostle presumably may disapprove of Shakespeare’s formula, but I believe he would enjoy the play’s outcome. I consider Disney movies to have a similar structure in comedy and tragedy. They display tragedy; for example, Snow White attempts murder, but there is humor in the dwarfs. Belle falls in love with a kidnapper, yet the film exhibits dark comedy. I think the tragicomedy mood swing genre keeps us intrigued.
ReplyDeleteYes, great response here! And what I find fascinating about this play is how funny it is, how exciting it is to watch, and yet, there's this weird undercurrent of dread and darkness. And it ends too soon. The Comedy of Errors takes the full Five Acts to come to a 'happy ending.' This one ends really fast, and then you have two acts of 'clean up.' I think this play is a like a reversal of Romeo and Juliet, which Mary mentioned below. Romeo and Juliet begins as a comedy and functions for one for the first two acts, then tragedy sneaks in at Act 3. In this play, it begins tragic for the first scene, then quickly becomes a comedy, then becomes much more tragic in Act 3, where the humor is dark and threatening (the lovers are all fighting each other, threatening violence, rape, etc.). It's almost like Shakespeare had to pull the plug and figure out a new way to direct the play, since these people are not in love...they're forced to be in love (and to marry each other--that was Theseus' idea!).
DeleteLove the means of magic is not true at all. Love is not something that can be forced by the hand of another. It is something that has to happen on its own and in its own time. I think that forcing what is considered to be the “right” love makes it over all more tragic than it does comedic. However, I feel this is something that will vary drastically from person to person based on their own ideals about love. I do feel that Shakespeare may be throwing off the comedy here. I feel he uses the comedic nature of the play to show the ridiculous side of false or inorganic love. However, I feel that it was a great and clever way to rebel against the social constructs and expectations surrounding love in his era. The play has quite a bit of ambiguity as result of forcing everyone’s hand in love. Obviously if they done it so easily once they can do it again in the future so it is not really a solution to the problem.
ReplyDeleteGreat response...it is a forced way to create a happy ending, and even Puck seems a little mischievous about it (Oberon suspects him of doing it on purpose!). But it seems to satirize the way people really fall in and out of love, sometimes seemingly in the same day. And we always blame it on magic with our metaphors: "I FELL out of love...the magic is gone...there's no sparks or chemistry...etc." So maybe Shakespeare is suggesting that if we don't choose love, but it is chosen for us, it is as random and interchangeable as the characters in this play?
DeleteLove that is forced is never real. Puck using magic to make the lovers fall in love with one another is a way to create conflict by manufacturing attraction. Honestly, the whole relationship between the characters, even before magic is introduced, is strained and dysfunctional. The magic only serves to make matters worse. Shakespeare including this dynamic between his characters seems like an attempt to introduce a tragic element to his play because the audience will be disturbed when they think past the jokes and examine the nature of the relationships. It also seems like Shakespeare is making fun of how fickle young love can be. He does this a little bit in Romeo and Juliet, too: Romeo goes through crushes like people go through socks, and he is ribbed by other characters because of it. However, the whole plot hinges on how insistent he is that Juliet is the one for him, despite the fact that he said the same thing about Rosaline early in the play. When the characters are as fickle as Romeo or Demetrius or Lysander, the audience can't trust that they'll stay true to their current relationship. Most people would expect that, if they play went on past Act V, the relationships would sour.
ReplyDeleteYes, a great R & J connection (it was written within a year or two of this play). Love IS fickle, and the vows of lovers are not to be trusted. Doesn't Hermia promise on the false vows of men? And in this play, that's exactly what they do--vow that they love this person, then turn around IN THE SAME ACT, and vow the opposite. That's insane! As I said below, I find it curious that the women speak so little in the remaining acts, and that Theseus, and not them, propose their marriages. I also wonder what Act 5 is doing here...it's hilarious, but seems like a purposeful distraction. As if to say, "this play isn't funny, so let's stage a NEW one!"
DeleteGloria Evans
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe that true love remains pure when magic is involved. While people in modern society use therapy to maintain relationships that are getting a bit rocky, both parties are aware and involved in the process. If one half of the relationship is unaware of the origin of love or the remedy to the problem in the relationship, it takes the partnership and heart out of the relationship. It was hard for me to think of a modern movie that uses these techniques, but in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ron gets drugged with a love potion and he acts crazily. This doesn’t last very long, but we really see how dangerous it is to manipulate someone’s emotions. It turns them into different people. I think comedy has been kind of redefined, because we see so many movies starting off with the protagonist in a “perfect” relationship that doesn’t end up working because they fall in love with the “bad boy”.
Yes, the Harry Potter is a great example--it's funny, and then it ends (and he goes back to normal). But in this comedy, it doesn't end; they fall in love in the wrong way, and so many times, that it's hard to say who the 'right' partner would have been! I think it's dangerous to assume this play has a happy ending for two reasons: the play essentially ends in Act 3, and the women hardly speak another line for the rest of the play (except Titania, though she's apparently become a moron--as we'll discuss in class). So what gives? If the women are silenced, and only the men are laughing, that makes me nervous. And it can't be an accident...they speak a lot more than the men in Acts 1-3, so why so little in Acts 4-5?
DeleteMaybe I am overthinking this question because my first thought is that if magic is involved in getting two people together, then that love does not seem real. Then I think does God use his "magic" to bring two people together. I grew up in a very strict Pentecostal home. My parents always told me that God would always bring the right man at the right time. Does that not sound kind of like magic? Now that I am married, my mom always tells me that God placed a good man in my life. My husband and I met at a not so religious party, so I really don't think that was God. Finding love is supposed to be intimate in a way. You shouldn't let other people decide who you chose to love. I feel like all of the Disney Princess movies are all forced into love with magic. For example, Cinderella with Prince Charming. They literally dance one time and then the Prince decides he is going to marry whoever fits in the glass slipper. That is not how love should be. It should be about how much chemistry and values you share with a person.
ReplyDeleteNot at all--this is good overthinking (or rather, it's good analysis!). Yes, our culture since Shakespeare's time has used magic as a metaphor for love: "she cast a spell on me," "the sparks were flying," "I'm under his spell," etc. But it suggests that love isn't a choice--that it's out of your control. It might as well be a love potion or a fairy's trick. But also, if it's out of your control to fall in love, are you then able to STAY in love? It would suggest that the whole process is arbitrary...and that's what Shakespeare seems to be hinting at in this play. If Hermia and Lysander can pledge eternal love, and within a single act he's threatening to leave her for dead in the forest, then that doesn't say much about the nature of love or lovers' vows. Note that he wrote this play around the same time as Romeo and Juliet, which either suggests that he's satirizing some of the ideas in that play, or Romeo and Juliet is actually a little more like this one!
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ReplyDeleteI also don't think magic is a good idea whenever your dealing with love. Love is supposed to be organic and about who the person truly is. I am a huge fantasy and romance reader and I think that in about every single romance book I've read truthfulness and authenticity are the most important and pivotal things. I've never been in love and I have to admit that sometimes I wish that someone would magically fall in love with me, but at the same time we all have to recognize that we don't want robotic love. If someone is "forced" to love us, whether that be forced marriage, partnership, proximity..etc, we tend to despise it or, like in many of my romance novels, the characters fall in love, but then one of the characters is like, "no this isn't real because now they're just being kind about this forced thing" and it really wrecks the relationship. All this to say that whenever you use magic to get someone to fall in love with you, it isn't real and whether we like it or not, we know this deep down. The love will never feel the way that it would if it wasn't being forced on them. I am really having trouble thinking of a modern example for this but one that comes off the top of my head is The Little Mermaid whenever Ursula makes Eric fall in love with her.
ReplyDeleteYes, great points--forcing love would be against our will, much as rape is. And yet, isn't most storybook love "against our will"? If people fall in love at first sight, that's not logical or based on thought or even acceptance; it just happens, we "fall" into it. A good romance is one that develops over time, and each person is convinced, logically, that the other person is a good match for them. I don't think we get that in this play, and Shakespeare could have easily done this (he does in other plays, esp. Much Ado About Nothing, where two people who claim to hate one another gradually fall in love). So can this be a happy ending if the people are 'forced' to be in love, or if they've changed partners so many times we no longer remember who loved who?
DeleteAmily Clary: If magic were to exist as it does in fantasys, I do not believe that true love and love by potion and magic would have the same meaning. "Forced love" is not true love. I have always understood that true love is more of when two people click and have a spark that you couldn't have with anyone else. If that love is bound by magic then it is just fake. Love is not supposed to be easy and the point of being in love is that two people could still get through rough patches while still having harsh feelings of intimacy with their partner. As for a comedy this type of behavior makes sense because we know that everything is out of whack and you start asking yourself if they would not have changed their minds eventually if they had never been put under a spell. This type of thing reminds me of Ella Enchanted due to the fact that it includes magic, comedy and love all wrapped up into one movie.
ReplyDeleteYes, good points...but if love is about a spark or about clicking 'magically' with someone else, is that something you can control? Is that of your own free will? If love is chemistry alone, then it isn't something you choose, but is chosen for you (by fate, biology, or whatever). So if it happens so accidentally, couldn't it happen more than once--or dozens of times? Can we be sure a 'spark' only happens once? Or is that our way of hiding from the problem? Both Lysander and Demetrius deeply 'feel' their love for Hermia, and can express it in poetry. And yet, as soon as the 'spark' fades, they can no longer remember speaking like this. That suggests that love is like hunger--it comes and goes, and once you're full, it's gone. Romeo and other lovers act the same way in Shakespeare's plays; they use powerful language to sanctify a momentary act or feeling.
DeleteTo second everyone else, I also do not think love by magic is true. I think that, at least on a base level, this is a universally understood principle. In the majority of both fiction and fantasy there seems to be two undisputable laws, no matter the magic system. One is that no spell can reawaken the dead, and the other is that no spell can make someone fall in love with another. If and when these laws are subverted, the outcomes are never pleasant and usually bring about dire consequences. If it’s not too corny an idea, perhaps there is an implication that true love itself is its own form of magic? However, I think the idea that the persistent expectation of “happily ever after” can endorse tragic results jives with one of the main goals of comedy, which is in fact to look at such idealistic conventions in a sardonic light. A comedy that I can think of working in this manner is the film "Pretty in Pink". I’ve only seen it once, and it was a while ago, but I just remember being really unsatisfied with the movie in general. The protagonist’s two options are either her best friend who harbors a crush for her that is not reciprocated, or the guy she does have a crush on but is held back by the fact that she’s poor and he’s rich. Just the implication that she had to end up with one of them by the end seemed a bit contrived in and of itself. Regardless, her ending up with the latter seems to be an attempt at saying social status shouldn’t matter to love, which is a fine message. But it just felt like so much time was spent harping on this one difference between them that no other aspects that constitute a healthy relationship were able to be explored. There were so determined to overcome other people’s expectations that they never stopped to consider what their own were beyond that.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a great example of the dilemma that Shakespeare is satirizing in this play. Why does Andie only get TWO choices in the play? The friend or the rich guy? Couldn't she reject BOTH? There's no good reason to choose the rich kid, who's kind of an asshole (even though he slightly changes in the film), and her reason should tell her "this won't work." On the other hand, Ducky is a friend and she wants to keep him as a friend; you can't just want to make babies with a friend. So why should she have to choose him even if her reason tells her he's "right"? The movie seems to think love is an equation to be solved, and in the original version of the film, she wound up with Ducky; but test audiences complained. They thought it was too boring. They wanted her to end up with the rich kid. So they changed the ending and had Ducky coupled off with some random girl at the dance (since in a comedy, everyone has to get "married"). But this suggests that love has to be solved immediately, and that there's an obvious conclusion. Shakespeare shows us that there isn't an easy answer, and all the easy answers are fake ones. He makes sure we're not satisfied with the result...though makes us laugh so much in Act 5 that we forget we are unsatisfied!
DeleteI do not think love by magic is true love because love is a choice and those characters did not get that choice. They were placed together undenounced to them. I think we expect some sort of magic to aid in the failing in love process during comedies because we hear so often from real life couples that "the stars aligned for us" or that "I saw a sign in casual passing that told me this is the man for me". These explanations allude to the possibility that love does have "magic". In a comedic creation I think directors and authors use this notion to make fun of the star crossed lovers that we all secretly want to be, but are all tired of at the same time.
ReplyDeleteYes, you're right to say that we believe in magic in real life...all the love metaphors are metaphors of magic: "I'm under your spell," "she cast a spell on me," "I saw stars," etc. We want this magic for ourselves and others, even if we know, deep down, it's not true--or it might be against our will. By this logic, couldn't we fall in love with someone we don't LIKE? If love is magic, it isn't logical...which means we could hate someone and love them. And I've heard of people doing this, too; being deeply attracted to terrible people (that is, people they found morally wrong but sexually attractive). So what does this say about love? Does it really solve all our relationship problems? Or just create new ones?
DeleteThe general consensus here seems to be that true love caused by magic isn't true love, and I find myself agreeing with that. However, if a couple in love by magic experience the same feelings and emotions as a couple in love by choice, then what disqualifies the magic's love? I suppose, this is where the choice of love comes to fruition, but let's bring that point into question. Arranged marriages are something that are still actively present within the world today. While I don't believe in the validity of them; some people do. The people who would be wed through this oftentimes don't see each other for the first time until it's the ceremony. There are a plethora of issues you can find within arranged marriages, but let's look at a somewhat brighter side of it. What if a couple found true love through that arranged marriage? Good for them, but is that love valid? Or is it the choice to give love not the choice of person to love that matters? I realize that I'm overcomplicating a relatively simple point, but oftentimes love is formed through circumstance. What's the circumstance that requires love to be valid?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's a great distinction! And note that Hermia OBJECTS to an arranged marriage which her father proposes (her marrying Demetrius in Act 1). She thinks that's wrong and unjust since she loves another. But isn't Lysander made to love her by Robin? Sure, he loved her 'originally,' but he swore that he loved Helena...so why force him to change his mind? And of course, an arranged marriage isn't about love at all...it's about families, and money, and land. It suggests that marriage SHOULDN'T be about love, since love is irrational and doesn't last. However, good sense and judgment do, and many cultures use astrology and other factors to determine a proper match. Isn't that more sound and logical than simply trusting in fate or luck? Should love be the polestar for all our relationships? Shakespeare might not be convinced...and I think it's hard to feel that our two couples will really be happy in the long run.
DeleteStacy Haigood
ReplyDeleteI do not think that true love created by forces of magic is true love. If it was supposed to be, it should happen on its own. I see that they are the right couples. If their friends had given them a little push in the right direction and it had worked then, that would be great. If Demetrius had gone for Helena when she had told him of Hermia’s plot to elope, that would have been great! Comedy is funny because, it has lots of unexpected twists. You have to wonder how they are going to work their way out of it. Are they going to end up together? Yes, I think his cheating is expected. If the right couples do not end up together it can absolutely be tragic. I would not want to end up with someone who had not really chosen me. When I say chosen me, I mean first choice. I feel bad for Helena. What if someone brings up in random conversation how funny it is that after all this time dreaming of the guy who clearly was in love with her best friend, he magically started loving her?
Jane the Virgin is a modern comedy with a lot of crazy twists especially in the love interest department. Towards the end of the show, Jane and Rafael have finally got everything worked out and are getting married. A couple months before the wedding, Rafael’s ex-stepmother/sister’s girlfriend/mob boss, lets him know that Jane’s deceased husband is not dead. She faked his death. She wiped his memory. Then, she dropped him off in a field in Montana. It’s not the same as a magical interference but, it is a crazy amount of control from one character. She took Jane’s first husband out of the picture before they had even been married a year. She reinserts him right before Jane is supposed to get married again. Jane has to work through her feelings for this man who looks like her previous husband. She has to decide who her true love is now that he is back. Rafael has thoughts similar to mine. He wants to be her first choice and in the end he is. This show is a comedy. It is done in magical realism. It is styled like a telenovela, very hyped up and dramatic.
Yes, great response--and a "telenovela" is very much like the over-the-top comedy and drama of Shakespeare's plays. He knew the plots were crazy, and the character irrational; that's what the audience wanted, and he was happy to give it to them--though he seems to have thought it was pretty silly (which is why Act 5 seems to mock not only the play itself, but also Romeo and Juliet, which was composed around the same time as this play). But this play also questions whether ANY of the couples are meant to be together. Who is Demetrius supposed to love? He started out loving/flirting with Helena, then dropped her for Hermia, then was made to fall back in love with Helena, and then 'fixed' to fall in love with Helena again. But did he ever love her? And if not, should HE? It works out great for her, perhaps, but is it true love if forced? And doesn't it suggest all "falling in love" is arbitrary, and not an act of individual choice? If we can't choose who we fall in love with, how can it be 'real'? And if it's all fake and a kind of divine accident (or fate, perhaps), then does it matter who we fall in love with? Isn't it totally arbitrary? Can anyone love the "right" person in this sense? I think these are the questions Shakespeare is asking in this play, especially by Act 5.
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