Pd. 1: A Midsummer’s Night Dream- Illuminator- Post 2
Okay, Mr. Shank, for this group of blogs we are only doing 3 different posts right?
Well anyway, this week, we read Act 3 and Act 4 of a Midsummer’s Night Dream. For my quote this week, I chose from Act 3, Scene 1:
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:
Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.
I thought this was really funny because Titania wakes up and falls in love with a guy with a head of a donkey. It just kind of shows how unexpected “love” can be, even when it is interfered with with magic juice. So, my question for all of you this week is this: From all the love discussions we’ve had in class and from reading Romeo and Juliet, what is your outlook on love and lust? Also, how does this entire play revolve around the love of the different characters?
“That’s all folks!” 
~Sarah L.
Category: Illuminator 2 comments »
May 17th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
My outlook on love and lust:
Well first of all I guess I should define what I think each are.
To me love is when you have people around you whether it is your family or your significant other, you would do anything to see them happy or do anything to help them. No matter what they do you are always there for them and support them.
To me lust is when you could really care less about the person you are with. You just want the joy and satisfaction of sexual contact with that person.
Yes, if you love your significant other a form of lust might be reached, but those the feelings are different and it actually means something to you.
So my view is that love should be cherished and lust is stupid.
This play really shows how love can be seen in different ways between different characters. Like with Sarah’s example of how Titania wakes up and falls in love with a man that has the head of a donkey, shows how love is so complex.
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This is my post for this week, I tried posting it countless times yesterday, but it always gave me a message that said my attempt to post has failed. (Shank, please don’t mark it late, I did try to post before 12, but it gave me that “post failed” message.)
OK, I know I didn’t post last time and I’m sorry but, I had priorities to deal with that were way more important than this.
So far we have read up through Act 4, 3 and 4 for this post, and I think it is a really good play, but I don’t have any real connections. It sort of reminds me of Romeo and Juliet with the whole concept of love. In Romeo and Juliet they are star-crossed lovers, In this play there are some complicated and bizarre love situations.
If you have any connections that are better than the one I just made comment before Sunday night I might be able to elaborate on it a little more, but as of now I made a really crappy connection.
-Kortney Mann
P.S. SHANK THE BLOGS HATE ME! FIX IT!
May 17th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I think that people will many times mistake love for lust. Like in Romeo anday, Shakespeare is equating love and lust as one, to poke fun at the people who mix them up. As we saw in the play, the mixed up “love” lasts only for one night and disappears once they wake up, just as lust lasts only for a short while. Unlike that situation, the true love that the characters feel for each other last throughout the whole play. Therefore, people who confuse lust with love will always have short relationships while people who find real love will probably wind up happy forever. With that said, I have to disagree with Kourtney’s comment in that the quote shows how love is complex. The story is not about complex love, it is a satire of the human tendency to mistake lust for love and it is also about true love conquering love. Sorry Kourtney, but I have to say that you are wrong. The quote is a great example of the play as a whole being a satire of human nature. Titania claims that she is in love with Bottom because of the way he looks and how his voice sounds. This is also making a satire of love at first sight because Bottom has the head of a donkey, and Titania has fallen blindly in love with him.
In answer to the second question, the love between the characters is the driving force of the whole story. Demetrius’ love for Hermia and Hermia’s love for Lysander makes the pair run away into the woods, Helena’s love for Demetrius leads her to tell him that the pair are in the woods, and finally Demetrius’ rebuke of Helena’s love is what causes the fairies to interact with the humans. Also, Puck’s mix up with the juice causes the love of the characters to switch and is the main conflict for the third and fourth acts. Plus, Theseus’ wedding is what is causing the actors to perform a play which explains why they are in the woods. Once they get to the woods, Titania falls in love with Bottom. Finally, Titania and Oberon’s love for the Indian boy is what is causing their feud, which in return leads Oberon to get the flower juice and cause all the problems between everyone. So, it should be clear from this that love is what keeps the play in motion.
Sorry Kourtney, but I can’t think of any connections off of the top of my head right now…
Erin B