I chose to research A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is a text that means a lot to me because of the memories I have reading and performing it in high school with people from all different walks of life, who I would not have been performing with otherwise. When I read and performed it in high school, I only delved into very certain parts of the play, specifically parts I had to perform, so I wanted to research the play as a whole and see what more I could learn about it.
- [psychoanalytical] I could look at the lovers, the rude mechanicals, and the fairies as three different parts of the human mind, even dividing them specifically into id, ego, and superego, and explore the chaos that ensues when they all meet in the woods. What could the woods represent? It would be interesting to explore the effect that the fairies have on the lovers and the mechanicals and how that is representative on how one part of our subconscious might affect other parts of us.
- [ecocriticism] Titania, queen of the fairies, has a very famous monologue towards the beginning of the play where she talks about how things go awry in nature if the fairies are distracted, and, as consequence, not doing their job correctly. That speech could be alluding to the fact that for the rest of the play, the fairies are incredibly distracted, and in every instance it is because the humans were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This might be looked at as a commentary about humans and their corruption of nature, because nature, if left to its own devices, would flourish and thrive.
- [critical disabilities] Helena and Nick Bottom are portrayed as two characters that are estranged and disrespected by their respective worlds and, interestingly enough, they are also the two characters that become the chosen targets for the fairies' magic. It might be interesting to look at what makes the two outcasts the ones who are most susceptible to the fairies, and even, at times, the most pitied and the most dote upon.
- [translation] There are many interpretations of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and not just in the form of theatrical performances. There is a ballet, a foreign film, and even episodes of famous TV shows that portray the original play in a different ways and put different themes in different lights. How the ballet uses movement, the movie uses spanish, and the TV show uses modern language and laugh tracks to put on the play differently would be interesting to explore.
I find your critical disabilities approach very interesting. Not often would being estranged e seen as a critical disability, but it is! I wonder how it might have been if they weren't in that situation? That could be an interesting paper on a prediction about it.
ReplyDeleteI really like your ecocriticism approach, and I think that you could take many different routes with this theory. For example, maybe the way humans are represented in the play (kinda dumb) versus how nature is represented in the play (more pure) reflects their impact on the environment.
ReplyDeleteDifferent interpretations are an interesting way to look at this. Looking outside the literature itself can provide new ideas about the work. I remember first encountering as a child A Midsummer Night's Dream when it was an adaptation on a Disney Channel show. It's completely different than the original, but follows so many of the same themes!
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting angle you could look at with translation studies along those lines is graphic novels. In high school we read a really well down graphic novel of Midsummer NIght's Dream that really added a cool visual angle to the play. Just something to check into!
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