Pick 2 of Belsey's quotes that interest you or that make a solid point about the play. Write each quote, with MLA, parenthetical citation.
Below each quotation, please write no fewer than 2 sentences of analysis about your thoughts on Belsey's points or greater connections within the play.
Please write your initials at the end of your post.
Due before class on Thursday. Thank you!
"When Bottom wakes up, near the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, after spending a night of love with the queen of the fairies, this formerly masterful and garrulous figure is suddenly very nearly inarticulate. What could he say that would do justice to the experience?" (Belsey 181). In the play, Bottom becomes a creature that best defines his character, an ass. After Tatania falls in love with him and he wakes up, he is so moved by this experience, which he thinks is a dream, that his dimwitted personality momentarily is put aside and he does not say anything stupid, but in fact does something wise by creating a ballad, like poetry, to describe his experience.
ReplyDelete"The play begins with the longing of Theseus and Hippolyta to consummate their love, and the action that follows occupies the intervening space, so that at the end of Act 5 the newly married lovers go off to bed together. Desire constitutes the frame of the play itself." (Belsey 188). Along with Theseus and Hippolyta's desires at the beginning of the play, all throughout the play desire plays a role as a theme. Helena's desire for Demetrius, Lysander and Hermia's desire to marry, Oberon's desire for the changeling child, and Robin's Desire to cause mischief all are major issues that appear throughout the entire play. Another role that desire plays in the play is how all of the lover's desires get mixed up and than fulfilled by the end of they play.
"The fairy queen's temporary devotion to a donkey is the plays clearest and funniest indication of love's arbitrary nature." (Belsey185)
ReplyDeleteAnalysis: I think this is a solid example of the love in the book. In three different stories people fall in love with the wrong person due to Puck. This also shows the plays parody on love implying how it is random and unpredictable.
"The play does not ignore the trace of violence that exists within love when the other person fails to conform to the lover's idealized image." (Belsey185)
Analysis: I think this is talking more about love in general and how people try to place other people into types and how we cant be placed into types just accept people for their differences. Because everyone is different and unique.
-"Romantic love is in this sense oddly impersonal. Because of love's power to idealize, the object of desire seems unique..." (Belsey 183).
ReplyDeleteThis quote depicts the stories view on love. Like in the book, Theseus says that love is for a madman and that it is weird. Here, Belsey points out how love is odd.
-"In one sense comedy produces the wishes it then goes on to fulfill. The play invites us to sympathize with the young lovers" (Belsey 187).
Belsey notices the main plot of this story, which is that when something scornful or great happens, it makes us want to know more. Then, that leads us to want something for one of the characters.
"How else, after all, do people learn to talk about love in the first instance, except by reading love stories? No wonder the four lovers are virtually indistinguishable" (Belsey 183).
ReplyDeleteIn this quote the author, Belsey, that the characters are hard to tell apart because their idea of love is all the same. She is also saying that we all learn about love through love stories, which I don't think is true. We learn about love through our own experience.
"In this way A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers to leave its audience in a state of mind that bears some resemblance to Bottom's when he wakes up from his dream: exalted, perhaps, but a little less assured, less confident, and altogether less knowing than before" (Belsey 190).
In this quote Belsey analyzes the resemblance between Bottom after his dream and the audience throughout the play. I think she has the right idea about the audience and hwo they react to the play. As the play goes on I seem to know less and less about what happening. As for Bottom, he wakes up from his 'dream' and is transformed into someone who is more wise not less knowing.
KB
"None of the distnat voices in the play- romantic, lyrical, or urgent- seems to exhaust the character of love; none of them can be identified with "true" love as opposed to false" (Belsey 186).
ReplyDeleteThis quote resembles when they were in the forest in search of each other and love. Although they didnt have one another, love was still present. Upon death, they died because of love. Another example would be when in the forest. The love for Helena was greater than Hermia. This quickly changed because of the nectar involved in the story.
"A midsummer Night's Dream is a play about love. It proposes that love is a dream, or perhaps a vision; that it is absurd, irrational, a delusion, or, perhaps, on the other hand, a transfiguration; that it is doomed to be momentary and that it constitutes at the same time the proper foundation for lifelong marriage" (Belsey 182).
This quote resembles the symbol of the love in idleness nectar. When the nectar was placed on the eyes, a vision of love and delusion of the mind came into play. It transfigured the characters into believing that they loved whoever they placed their eyes upon. Despite the effects this nectar did allow for lifelong marriages.
"Romantic love is in this sense oddly impersonal." (Belsey 183)
ReplyDeleteThis quote explains the story of the four lovers. Their love is partly based on the love juice from the flower and who Puck tells them to love and not their original desires.
"This is, after all, a wedding night. But by handing over the conclusion to the fairies, the play displaces the apparent closure, the celebration of restored identity and the return to community it has duly delivered." (Belsey 190)
The fairies really controlled the outcome of the play all along. They could control who loved each other and who didn't. This gives the audience a mysterious and dream like feeling when reading or watching the play.
H.N.
"Because of love's power to idealize, the object of desire seems unique, even though it turns out that Hermia and Helena are interchangeable."
ReplyDeleteThis quote says that love makes people believe that the person or thing that they love is special, even though it is most probably not unique at all.
"One reason why the lovers seem comic is that their changes of preference do not appear arbitrary to them"
Thus quote is saying that one of the reasons that the four lovers are funny is because they cannot control their change in lover.
AS
"It [A Midsummer Night's Dream] proposes that love is a dream, or, perhaps, on the other hand, a transfiguration; that it is doomed to be momentary." (Belsey 182) This quote is basically the whole plot of the play: everyone loves who they are supposed to be in love with at the beginning of the play, only to be disorganized and fall in love with someone else when the juice was applied to their eyes. They loved the person momentarily, only to be changed soon after.
ReplyDelete"Romantic love is in this sense oddly impersonal." (Belsey 183) With people falling in love only because of the juice, the love is not actually true love at all. There are no emotions attached, they are only in love with the other person because of the nectar, and not because of true emotion.
JL
"romantic love is in this sense oddly impersonal. Because of love's power to idealize, the object of desire seems unique" (Belsey 183)
ReplyDeletethis quote is telling the main idea of the play. when the flowers juice is put on someones eyes they will fall in love with the first person or thing they see.
The play invites us to sympathize with the young lovers (Belsey 187).
they make you pick a side sometimes on one person more than another. so that it makes u sad when somthing does not go right and happy when something does go right.
RL
"Because of love's power to idealize, the object of desire seems unique, even though it turns out that Hermia and Helena are interchangeable" (193). This quote shows that the the lovers especially Hermia and Helena are hard to differentiate because they all view love in the same way. Love is what moves the story with its ups and downs.
ReplyDelete"How else, after all, do people learn to talk about love in the first instance, except by reading love stories? No wonder the four lovers are virtually indistinguishable" (183). Belsey is once again showing that are hard to differentiate because they all view love in the same way. The characters stories are all so intertwined that seeing who loves who becomes almost impossible during certain parts of the story.
"Bottom's name, and his transformation--an event that clarifies more than it changes his identity--invite the audience to associate him with the least poetic aspects of life, and yet, even as an ass, Bottom has been touched by something special and mysterious, a power that he find unusually hard to define" (Belsey 181). For the first time in the story, Bottom is at a loss for words. Bottom's life and identity will be changed because of Titania. The event shows another wise side and poetic side to Bottom. Bottom wants someone to write down his story to make into a poem.
ReplyDelete"One reason why the lovers seem comic is that their changes of preference do not appear arbitrary to them" (Belsey 185). To the lover's it is sane to them with all the changing of who they love. For example Lysander does not think any more of his love becoming Helena than just a feeling has changed within him. Once they have the potion on their eyes, they cannot determine who they are going to first see when they awake, causing the potion to randomly make someone fall in love. The love square between the lovers is comical because it is an alternating square. At one point both men love Hermia and then they both love Helena.
CJ
Romantic love is in the sense oddly impersonal. Because of love's power to idealize....(Belsey 183)
ReplyDeleteThis quote explains that love can change with the four lovers and it will change. If the love is odd then the love will change with the four lovers.
The play invites us to sympathize with the young lovers. In consequence, we want Hermia to marry the man she loves, in spite of the opposition of her ridiculous father, who supposes that serenades and love tokens are forms of witchcraft.
This shows that the lovers can not always get who they love. Their parents can't always choose for their love.
Nicely done! We will discuss this in class.
ReplyDelete"Because of love's power to idealize, the object of desire seems unique, even though it turns out that Hermia and Helena are interchangeable" (193). This quote shows that they all love in different ways and its all unexpectedly.
ReplyDelete"Romantic love is in this sense oddly impersonal." (Belsey 183)
With people falling in love only because of the juice, the love is not really true love because without the spell they wouldn't be in love.
"After all, do people learn about love in the first instance, except by reading love stories" (183).
ReplyDelete- She is saying Love at first sight, or at first instance is not really a common thing to occur. Its more of a fantasy built in love stories such as This one.
"Special Beauty or magnetism that justifies desire, are drawn in the first place from the culture in which people learn about love."
- Beauty is viewed differently in many cultures and one cannot understand it unless they are living there to learn about love in beauty in the eyes of different people. PM