Midsummer Night's Eve
Tonight is midsummer night's eve (June 23rd), so in honor, here's my favorite line from A Midsummer Night's Dream:Bottom: A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.I love Bottom. Can't say the same for the rest of the play, which is not among my favorites. A friend of mine once said that he always wished there was a Restoration adaptation of it called The Rude Mechanicals that just cut the rest. I find myself recalling that comment every time I teach it. Here's a shameless shill for comments if I ever saw one, but a related note nonetheless: what's your favorite line in this play? or in Shakespeare? or your favorite in a non-Shakespearean play that deserves more attention? |
by Hieronimo @ 4:18 PM
At 6/24/2006 12:41:00 AM,
James wrote…
"I can gleek upon occasion."
Hands down.
At 6/24/2006 10:46:00 AM,
Simplicius wrote…
"Fair thee well, nymph."
But only because of Victor Jory's sinister delivery of the line in the 1935 Warner Brothers film (dir. Reinhardt and Dieterle).
At 6/26/2006 05:52:00 PM,
Pamphilia wrote…
Oh gosh, Hieronimo, how can I come up with one favorite line in all of Renaissance Drama? James hit the nail on the head with gleeking upon occasion. My other favorite from MND is "you minimus of hind'ring knotgrass made,/ you bead, you acorn."
I think my favorite in all of Renaissance drama right now is the vomiting of neologisms in the last act of Poetaster: "O, I shall cast up my -- *spurious* *snotteries*"
Bathroom humor and inkhorn terms all in one place! Gotta love those early modern nerds. ;-)
At 6/26/2006 06:23:00 PM,
Hieronimo wrote…
Well, to be fair, I didn't say your favorite in all renaissance drama (not that I'd be averse to that sort of comment-whoring). Just your favorite in all Shakespeare. Or your favorite in a non-Shake play that you love. But I like your strategy of picking a favorite "right now"--it's like how I always have a 15-20 movies in my top 10 movies of all time list; or how my favorite album of all time is allowed to change whenever I feel like it, and to include 4 or 5 albums.
Your line reminds me of two lines I love:
Polonius's "That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is a vile phrase"
and Jack in The Roaring Girl: "Here's most... amorous weather, my lord," and when everyone says "Amorous weather?", he says: "Is not amorous a good word?"
Scribble some marginalia
<< Main