For Next Week: Bevis, Comedy (Chapters 5 & 6) and Re-Cap of Tuesday's class

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1:  According to Bevis, why are the most comic characters usually the "low class" characters? What makes the lower classes "funnier" to audiences, and how does Shakespeare seem to acknowledge this? Is the still true today, when we have less class distinctions than Shakespeare's time did (or than even the British do today)?

Q2: In Chapter 6 Bevis writes that "Behind the smile, then, maybe a socialized snarl; and behind the laugh, a play fight. But behind both of these facial expressions lie real snarls and real fights" (78). How might comedy suggest or cover up real aggression and anger in the play--and in society? Why might, in a way, comedy be the angriest of all genres? (You might think of stand-up comics who are very angry and confrontational in their routines--yet we still laugh at them). 

Q3: In Chapter 5, we get a famous quote from Freud: "the joke is essentially a double-dealing rogue who serves two masters at once" (69). What does this mean? How can a "rogue," or a comic servant like Dromio or Bottom serve "two masters"? What gives them power within the play?

Q4: On some level, all comedy is voyeuristic--meaning it's a spectacle created for our own titilation and enjoyment. And if we're the intended audience, that means we're also an accomplice; we're not innocent by the things on stage that offend us or are offensive to others. As Bevis writes, "to be a witness is to be an accomplice" (85). How might this work in A Midsummer Night's Dream? Where is the audience an "accomplice"?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

IDEAS/PASSAGES FROM TUESDAY'S CLASS

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

* Page 79 : Titania speaks in couplets to Bottom ! Never spoke like this before. A spell, but also the "cliched" love of the lovers...no longer HER speech or HER thoughts

* Page 83: Robin: “My mistress with a monster is in love”; reminding us that she sees a 'monster' or in this case, a man with an ass-head, as her dearest love on earth. We know this isn't so, since she loved her friend and her friend's child, the Changeling, yet she willingly gives this up for 'love.' But is that really what she wants? What she LOVES?

* Page 93: Helena: "O Spite! O Hell!" Can only see their vows of love as comic, mocking...a ‘bad’ performance, like Bottom and the others trying to perform their play. Their 'sincere' love looks ridiculous because they're not being sincere--it's a trick, a spell, and not a true protestation of love. Fake language. 

* Page 97: What real love sounds like: Helena’s chiding of Hermia in blank verse. They had a real relationship and an actual history. So when she speaks to Hermia, she does so in blank verse, her own language. She becomes a real character here. 

THE TRAGIC END!

* Page 103: The all-out war—the women fighting, the men fighting with each other: funny, but also tragic?

* Page 125: Note that Titania not only gives away the child, but no longer speaks in blank verse; she responds to Oberon in couplets again, even after he humiliates her: “There lies your love!” He has broken her...she is now submissive to him (127). 

* Page 133: THE WOMEN DON’T SPEAK! Demetrius 'mansplains' for them: “And will forevermore be true to it." Even when Theseus offers to marry them, they say nothing...so what are they doing in their silence? How do they respond? Shakespeare doesn't tell us. Remember this, because we'll see this again in our next two plays--major characters who fall silent by the end of the play. 

ACT 5: THE PLAY WITHIN THE PLAY (we'll talk more about this on Tuesday)

* Page 143: Theseus (a mythical character) says this events are too unbelievable! Ironic! 

* Page 147: "The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe," a play that is advertised as short and tedious; tragical and merry! Ridiculous! BUT ISN’T THIS PLAY THE SAME WAY? Couldn't the play they're mocking be a satire of their own play? 

* Page 149: HIPPOLYTA—the only voice of dissent; she doesn’t want to watch it, begs them to stop, but they laugh right over her. She is the only woman who gets to speak in Act 5. 

* Page 151: The crazy prologue: “offending with good will!” Like this play??