MIdsummer Nights Dream Opinion

This play was pretty funny, though I don't think it was quite as humorous as Taming of the Shrew. Bottom was very funny though in his extremely foolish antics. We saw an early version of slapstick which holds strong as an important part of comedy to this day. Again, this play remained funny and relevant to the humor of humans for over 300 years which was amazing to me and makes my opinion of Shakespeare as a genius even stronger. This was interesting to think about because it shows how humans have not changed deep down over centuries and the same things make us laugh and even cry.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear;
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.

Puck speaks this towards the end of the play as a monologue to the audience, and it speaks almost the entire theme of the play which is its dreamlike state. He his explaining that if anything bad did happen then you can just forget about it because it was nothing more then a dream. Shakespeare wanted his play to seem this way, very light hearted and care-free. "And this weak and idle theme," obviously Shakespeare knew this would not be his most ground breaking play due to its nature, but he achieved what he wanted to write, something that would not offend or make his audience question, and escape from their probably troublesome lives.

A Midsummer Nights Dream Analysis

This play by Shakespeare amazed me because it was a comedy that was written so long ago, but remains very funny even to this day. We see Shakespeare use literary techniques that enter the audience and reader into a dream like state where it is hard to distinguish the truth from what is just a fairy tale. We see a wedding being confused and mixed up due to a fairy's mix up with magic spells. The characters are comical and some try to put on a play for the people getting married, this is pretty much the biggest conflict in the play making it an altogether feel good production. I think that is what shakespeare was going for when he wrote this play, he needed something that would make the audience forget about their troubles and enter a world that was care free and even the biggest mistakes came out as comical.

Macbeth Opinion

Macbeth was pretty decent though not my favorite because it felt more serious then Richard the third and was not as fun to read and learn about Macbeth's struggles. The project that we did on this was fun though and showed how Shakespeare's plots can relate to things that could happen in today's society. My favorite part about Macbeth was the fact that Shakespeare created the conflict inside Macbeth's head, the concious that an average, decent human being would have.

Macbeth Quotation

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

In this stanza we see the position of Lady Macbeth who plays a key role in turning Macbeth into a killer. Her transformation is also and interesting one in the book as she abandons her women like role and takes on that of a blood thirsty man. She is merciless and wants nothing but to succeed no matter what the costs. She says "come to my women's breasts, and take my milk for gall" this quote shows her transforming herself into something terrible as women are portrayed as nurturing through the symbol of breasts she changes that to gall, something far from nurturing and harsh.

Macbeth Analysis

Much like Richard the Third, Shakespeare shows us the downfall of the human mind and the conflicts that arise inside it. Macbeth is a noble man in the beginning of the novel but due to temptation and the coaxing words of those around him, he falls into the path of evil and eventually pays for his deeds by the hand of McDuff. In this play, unlike Richard the Third which displays a completely evil man, Shakespeare shows us the descent of a noble man into the place of an evil man. We are able to feel the struggle in which Macbeth goes through, trying to keep his dignity and also trying to advance in his life and become more wealthy.

Richard the third opinion

I liked Richard the Third, Richard was so immensely evil that he was almost comical in times due to his relentless wickedness. It was probably my favorite of the Shakespeare that we read, it was also interesting since it was a history and to some extent true. Probably not to the dramatic effect that Shakespeare went to but we can assume that Richard the third was an evil king in the English monarchy.

Richard the third quote

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
. . .
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
. . .
Why, I in this weak piping time of peace
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
(I.i.1–40)

This passage is truly genius, I smiled reading it. You can picture Richard looking out of a window in the castle seeing lovers and children all happy with life. There is no war, no famine, everything is fine. Except for Richard, he is deformed and loathes to see these peoples happy faces. So he takes it upon himself since he is not meant for sports or the looking-glass to ruin everyone else's lives. For what reason? None other than his own pleasure. Essentially that is what these three stanzas mean and they, even so early in the play, show us what kind of a character Richard is going to be.

Richard the third analysis

In Richard the third we see the incredible greed and evil that human beings are capable of possessing. Richard betrays him family and his friends for his personal benefit. He commits unspeakable crimes that would be on par with that of a serial killer in todays society. Among Richard's most heinous crimes is the killing of a husband and then marring the deseaced's wife and then killing her. Also under his command was the killing of small children. Shakespeare encompassed in this history the evil that is capable from a single human being. In his writing he was able to make the audience hate a character passionately.