Class Notes: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare Colloquium: Shakespeare's Metadrama
Professor Richard Horwich
New York University
Fall 2007

Montrose- drive to a festive conclusion subjects women to male control

replace a corrupt society with a new one

marriage alternaives: Amazons, nuns, fairy camp, sisterhood

childhood friends, then boys got in the way

have to overcome fathers in the comedies

Puck mistaken? or on pupose?

marriage itself an obsstacle -> Theseus/Hippolyta

believed mothers did not contribute genetic material (body heat determined sex)

Lysander/Demetrius pretty close together

Hermia makes a case for rational behind love

Helena made into an animal by her dotage/desperation

love as OCD

I.ii: an actor playing an actor imitating another actor's portrayal of a character

play within a play: what is it doing there? undercuts the danger behind losing yourself, a mirror of what could have happened in the woods, forests/woods highly dangerous (both physically and morally), Hermia insists love is heroic and romantic but Pyramus and Thisbe go "but wait!", "this is th silliest stuff that ere I heard" remarks on the story of the lovers

the couples at the end: Hermia/Lysander (actually? in love), Demetrius/Helena (bewitched), Theseus/Hippolyta (tragic ending) = three degrees of potential happiness

"this green plot": pretending a bare stage is a green plot pretending to be a bare stage

allegorical elements: moon and wall

an apology for limited stage craft? or a challenge?

"no bottom to it": bottom is adapted to the comedic world

dislocations in the social relations in the real world, natural relations in the fairy world

almost everythign is "concord from discord"

comedies have scapegoats, tragedies have tragic heros

Theseus puts more stock in the play than the lovers and vice-versa

suspicion of eloquence throughout Shakespeare

Theseus transitions from governor o lover when he overthrows Egeus' wishes

"a good play needs no excuse," setting up thr epilogue as a wink or a joke

wakes us up, brings out the telescope one more time

Class Notes: King Henry IV, pt. I

Shakespeare Colloquium: Shakespeare's Metadrama
Professor Richard Horwich
New York University
Fall 2007

the many roles of Hal: wayward son, robber, king, true heir

special effects of Falsaff's tale

English hierarchy: Royalty (5) -> Lords/Barons (500) -> Knights/gentires (5000) -> commons

RE: Prince Charles: "what has he done? he's spent 50 years waiting for his mother to die"

time in first scene vs. time in second

JoAnne Akalaitis production at the Public- tavern done in modern dress while courtroom scenes were historically acurate, showed how the world of the court passes put the tavern world is timeless

Hotspur- Fortinbras? Rambo vengence? glory? basically fights to fight

honour hides selfishness

Hotspur/Henry/Henry, Henry/Harry/Hal

Hotspur looks down on the middle class, women

Falstaff and hotspur as comics- imitations, fat and skinny

Hotspur considers the messenger an aberration of natural man (Osrick)

any time a character imitates another character or does impressions, it's fundamentally a play within a play

2.4- three parts, all directed, all about playing

Falstaff's joint stool would have been the same as Henry's throne

Vernon's speech: reported because a) can't have a horse on-stage and b) it's clear the importance (also shows hal is being talked about) -> would have been hoisted up and lowered onto the horse in reality

chivalry- the best man really does win (lost in richard's reign)

if they don't wait, they lose (greater glory in death)

the becoming of a hero requires a new name

question of Falstaff's death can only be answered in perfromance

more a coming of age play than a history play