I have been asked to prepare a learning plan for my study of the play; this post constitutes that plan. My preparation has resulted in three parts; the rest of this post will be reviewing each of them.
- Preliminary reading of synopsis and analyses of the play that I have found in various locations on the interwebs.
- Selecting a film version or two that I intend to view as part of my study.
- Preparing a plan for my own personal analysis of the play based on my preliminary research.
1. To start off, I went to a couple of the usual synopses sites that I visit when studying Shakespeare: pink monkey.com and spark notes.com. I found interesting information at both.
PinkMonkey provided me with an excellent synopsis of the play. I feel like I understand the basics of the play now as well as its major characters: the Lord of Athens, the young Athenian lovers, the faeries, and the acting troupe in the woods. I look forward to enjoying the humor of Puck as he wreaks havoc on the lovers—who are already having a heck of a time just trying to solve their little love triangle—by applying love potion here and there and everywhere, causing much confusion and distraction. All in all, I am sure that A Midsummer Night's Dream will prove an entertaining read.
Next, I wanted to learn a little about the themes of the play and other analyses that have been made so that I could come up with an approach to the play that I could apply to my own study. I found excellent write-ups concerning major and minor themes from both sites.
PinkMonkey's theme page discussed the obvious themes of love and marriage and the difficulty that is sometimes present in romance. The SparkNotes theme page gave me a wonderfully more extensive writeup on some of the themes and motifs present; much of the inspiration of my mode of study for this play was found at the SparkNotes themes page.
Along with this, I intend to watch the BBC animated version of the play. You can view it below.
3. Finally, I came up with a plan for my approach and analysis to the play. As I read trough the themes and motifs listed on the SparkNotes page, I became intrigued by the idea of balance being a major factor the in the play on many levels. It influences the relationships of the lovers as well as that of Oberon and Titania; it influences the believability of the play, or at least aids in helping the audience accept the dreamlike quality of much of the play; the lack of balance that is apparently ubiquitous throughout the main action contributes and is even essential to the humor of the story. Not only that, but the idea of balance is what makes the play a comedy—the lack of balance and its eventual restoration is the very definition of a comedy. Obviously, it seems to play a large part.
3. Finally, I came up with a plan for my approach and analysis to the play. As I read trough the themes and motifs listed on the SparkNotes page, I became intrigued by the idea of balance being a major factor the in the play on many levels. It influences the relationships of the lovers as well as that of Oberon and Titania; it influences the believability of the play, or at least aids in helping the audience accept the dreamlike quality of much of the play; the lack of balance that is apparently ubiquitous throughout the main action contributes and is even essential to the humor of the story. Not only that, but the idea of balance is what makes the play a comedy—the lack of balance and its eventual restoration is the very definition of a comedy. Obviously, it seems to play a large part.
Throughout my reading of the play, it is my intention to look for and list examples where this idea factors in to the action of the play and its influence on the characters, the story, and the audience. I'm sure that a consideration of the use of this idea on the stage—in production, costuming, acting, and elsewhere—could prove useful as well. Along with analyzing the text, I will interpret my analysis visually. I find the concept of balance to be a very visual one and as I am an aspiring designer, I find the challenge of interpreting the use of balance in A Midsummer Night's Dream visually to be a fun and satisfying mode of studying the play. I am leaving my plans for this representation intentionally vague to allow myself room for creativity in bringing this part of my plan to fruition.
Well, that is my plan. I am looking forward to it—especially for the feedback and comments that I hope to receive about the visual interpretations that I post. Hopefully they can incite some useful discussion.
P.S. I know this is a day late, sorry about that. I have a three-word excuse: best friend's wedding.
I do have a question here, maybe I missed it in your post. Are you talking about the balance among relationships needing restoration? I haven't read/seen Midsummer Night's Dream for a long time, so maybe I just need a refresher.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do mean balance in the relationships, but also in other ways. For instance, Titania being in love with Bottom, who now has the head of an ass. There is an obvious lack of balance in that unnatural relationship: Titania is beautiful and womanly while Bottom is ugly and clumsy. There is also a lack of balance in the love triangle: two men like one woman, and the other woman is left without a man that likes her, though she likes one of the men. Basically, there are asymmetrical pairings among the relationships.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but there is also a lack of moderation and balance among the characteristics of the type of characters: the mechanics are merry while the lovers are serious; the faeires are graceful and the mechanics are clumsy, etc. There is a lot of contrast and lack of balance in this way as well. Hopefully that helps you understand more what I mean.