My OED word this week actually is quite relevant concerning Jay's post. I researched the term "spirit" in reference to the fairies. One of the dictionary entries for "spirit" was something along the lines of creatures that are unperceived by humans that meddle with their affairs. This, to me, was very applicable to the A Midsummer Night's Dream fairies. Also, the definition said that these "spirits" could make themselves visible at will, which accounts for Titania's appearance to Bottom as well as all the woodland fairies appearance to Theseus' court at his wedding in the final scene. This invisibility of the fairies didn't really dawn on me until Professor Britland showed us a couple clips from the Callista Flockhart/Michelle Pfieffer/Hollywood version. In a couple scenes from that film Oberon and Puck have multiple conversations from what seems like right in front humans (mostly the lovers). I wonder how the lovers overhear or at least see the two fairies. The possibility of the invisibility of the fairies to the humans gives me an entirely different impression of the play. If indeed the fairies are invisible, than they have a lot more control over the mortals than I originally perceived. Obviously they prove to be very controlling, as Oberon basically controls who ends up with who in the end.
One of my favorite characteristics of Bill's plays is their potential to have multiple meanings. I feel like A Midsummer Night's Dream does exceptionally well in this capacity. This comedy really surprised me; having read A Comedy of Errors I had a different expectation of what a "comedy" would be. A Comedy of Errors was a lot of blunders and physical comedy, but A Midsummer Night's Dream (despite it's ridiculousness) has quite a lot of depth, and I value that. I don't think a play has to be a hundred percent dreary and tragic to have some poignant points to it. Your thoughts?
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HAs anyone seen both versions of the movie? I agree that tragedy doesn't have to be a requirement for depth. Often in fact a good satire can bring out more of society's faults than serious writing. My favorite example of this is catch 22. I digress, since that is not shakespeare. I have not read any other of Shakespeare's comedies, but he obviously put a lot of meticulous effort into crafting these plays with the many layers that he did.
I found the idea that the spirits can make themselves visible as they please rather interesting. I knew that the fairies were invisible to the humans but never stopped to think about how Bottom could see the fairies once he had the head of an ass. If they could choose when they were invisible it would allow them to meddle in the human’s affairs and allow for Titania and Bottom to have a relationship. I feel like this was Bill’s intention in using the word “spirits” to describe the fairies.
What I was told in the past is that a “comedy” had a reasonably happy ending while a “tragedy” had and unhappy one. These are rather vague classifications so two plays may be considered comedies even though they are quite different. I don’t think humor has anything to do with the classification either, Romeo and Juliet can be quite funny even though it’s a tragedy.
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