Midsummer’s Night’s Dream
Always a summer fave?
“Rediscovering an X-rated A Midsummer Night’s Dream means engaging with its dark, adult depictions of dangerous desire.” Page 85.
That is a succinct suggestion from the scholar Emma Smith’s This is Shakespeare.
“So A Midsummer Night’s Dream is less a romantic comedy in which boy meets girl than a satire on romantic comedy, in which boys ricochet between girls at random, revealing the shallowness of their impulses.” Page 87.
The depiction of the fantastical ardor of a male character whose drive can pivot on the smallest circumference?
Hint: in real life? Exactly.
But confirmation bias, in literature study?
“Just as Victorian ideas about childlike fairies have shaped the play’s reception, so too has the often-repeated assertion that the play was written for performance at some aristocratic marriage. Since there is no evidence for this, and no specific wedding has ever been convincingly identified as the occasion for the play, the idea looks like one of those critical myths that are useful largely in telling us what we would like to believe.” Page 91.
Some “critical myths that are useful largely in telling us what we would like to believe.” Seems a common enough thread in Shakespeare stuff — current events notwithstanding?
The play was spirited, well-performed, and seeing them, three in a row? It was best saved for the last.
Jealousy, apparent in the first two, of course in Othello, then, more as a humorous trope in Merry Wives, but jealous Oberon, in Midsummer’s plot? Worth an exploration. But first, to bed.
Easily the fun one of the weekend, and easily a favorite.
Other notations?
Week of 2.15.99
Week of 10.15.2001
Week of 12.21.2006
Week of 1.8.2009
Week of 5.67.2022
#Shakespeare
the Portable Mercury Retrograde
