hidden messages, themes, main concepts?

[ahlefrancais!]

anyone have any suggestions about some of the more abstract and analytical aspects of this play? any of your thoughts would be appreciated (studying for an exam on Monday). Thanks!

[Maria L]

hm, don't have any thoughts on it, since I've never read it, but what is it about? I wanna look into it!

[ahlefrancais!]

actaully it was my first Shakespeare play. my english class read it together. I really enjoyed it, and surprisingly I didn't get as lost as I had thought I would. we read a version called "a parallel text" which pretty much means that on the left hand side pages it's in the original shakespeare lanuage and on the right hand pages it's translated into a little bit easier to understand modern day english. once you start reading it you sort of get into the flow of the older style, and it becomes easier to understand what's going on who all the characters are. A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's comedies so it's a bit lighter and easier to read than his tragedies. it was a light romantic comedy dealing with hilarious miscommunication (thanks to a mischevious fairy named Puck) and a little bit of magic to top it off. I really enjoyed it and am definately going to try reading another comedy in the near future.

[Maria L]

Interesting, I have watched a midsummer's night stream, (I just remembered!) I think the first shakespeare book I read in a class was Romeo and Juliet... it wasn't as tragic for me though - cause people overplay it. Twelfth Night is awesome. Well, I think the underlying message in midsummer's nights stream would probably be a quote from the book " True love never did run smoothly" I think it goes something like that. You can talk about all the love triangles (or even quadralatirals!) that occur. That should help you on your test/exam, I hope.
good luck!

[ahlefrancais!]

yes indeed I do believe you're right about that quote... I also found one line said by Bottom to be quite true: "reason and love keep little company together nowadays"= we are not reasonable and logical when in love.
But I was wondering, is there any other concepts or themes to do with something other than the obvious (love)? Such as perhaps loyalty/betrayal, or selfishness/greed? and if those are correct then what is the message Shakespeare is trying to tell us through them. Oh another thing, would the mood/tone of Midsummer be something like magical or mischevious?
I look forward to hearing your oppinions and thoughts. (oh and yes, the love triangles would be useful to discuss, thanks.)
Talk to you soon.

[Maria L]

Well, Shakespeare was a pretty lovey dovey fellow, I mean, if you want the best thesis, I think one to do about love would suffice. Also, I beleive the tone of Midsummer Night's Dream is probably "happy go lucky" at first hand view, but if you take a closer look at all the events that happen, then you can somewhat predict that Shakespeare did make it in sort of a mysterious almost "creepy" tone. He is underlying an already underlying message - which makes the play even more complex. If you're going for something really simple though, I'd go with mischevious - it hints on the "creepy" tone a little bit, which should do you some good. If you really want the "selfish / human nature" type thesis then I think you could still use love as an advocate, since everyone in that play wants somebody to love - they don't want to be alone - hence they are selfish and will do anything to get what tehy want. I.E: The usage of magic tricks, spellbinding oh yeah and cat fighting :)

[ahlefrancais!]

sweet, thanks that helped a lot. yeah I kind of thought that love was really the biggie but knowing about the other little ones will probably come in useful too. when you said he was underlying an already underlying message, what did you mean? what exactly is the message that he's trying to convey? and about the tone: 'happy go lucky'? is that sort of the equivelent to lighthearted and the characters' actions are not very well thought through?

[Maria L]

yeah, thats pretty much what I meant by happy go lucky

Well the underlying message of the play could be for example: Be careful what you wish for, but with all of the other things going on, and the stupidity of the characters, the message is even more "underlined" than usual.
Therefore, he's underlying an underlying message. :|:)

[The Nights Wing]

I think it is (like Romeo and Juliet) showing the madness of lovers. For instance Titania is blinded to Bottoms, er... imperfections. This is showing that when people are in love, they don't see that their lover is really an, um, donkey. Also, Theseus makes a speech about the madness of lovers in scene 5, I believe.

[adukaboy]

lol
preety good play