MSND: Theseus Slide Show

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MSND Theseus Slide Show

• ENGL 640
• Dr. Fike

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Montrose on Theseus

• Shakespeare uses Plutarch as his major source
  of Theseus-lore but does so highly selectively,
  excluding those events not sorting with the
  nuptial ceremony (v.1.55) nor with a comedy.
  Thus, sedimented within the verbal texture of A
  Midsummer Nights Dream are traces of those forms
  of sexual and familial violence which the play
  would suppress acts of bestiality and incest,
  or parricide, uxoricide, filicide, and suicide
  sexual fears and urges erupting in cycles of
  violent desirefrom Pasiphae and the Minotaur to
  Phaedra and Hippolitus. The seductive and
  destructive powers of women figure centrally in
  Theseus career and his habitual victimization
  of women, the chronicle of his rapes and
  disastrous marriages, is a discourse of anxious
  misogyny which persists as an echo within
  Shakespeares text, no matter how much it has
  been muted or transformed (493-94).

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Theseus in the Renaissance

• My major source, which qualifies Montroses
  wholly negative view of Theseus
• DOrsay W. Pearson, Unkinde Theseus A
  Study in Renaissance Mythography. English
  Literary Renaissance 4 (1974) 276-98.

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Positive View of Theseus

• Theseus dealt with villains in ways that mimicked
  their own unjust treatment of others (e.g., the
  Procrustean bed, named after Procrustes, a
  mythical giant who shortened or stretched people
  to fit his bed).

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More Positives

• Theseus defeated the Minotaur (King Minos taur
  or bull of Minos) in the Cretan labyrinth.
• Minos, the King of Crete, exacted a toll of
  Athenian young people for the death of his son in
  Athens.
• Labyrinth parallels the woods.
• Minotaur parallels Bottom-as-ass.

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Images of the Minotaur

• http//images.google.com/images?qMinotaurhlenl
  rsaXoiimagescttitle

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Still More Positives

• Theseus was a great civic leader who established
  democracy in Athens and gave the city a name, a
  currency, and a class system.
• He was a friend to Oedipus, Hercules, Jason, and
  Pirithous.
• He was the husband of Hippolyta/Antiope (same
  person, different names).

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The Point So Far

• Theseus was an emblem of friendship, virtue, and
  reasons triumph over sensuality.

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Negative View of Theseus

• Infidelity He abandoned Ariadne on Naxos.
  Later he married her sister, Phaedra.
• While Theseus was away, Phaedra hit on her
  stepson, Hippolytus, in a letter. He rejected
  her and destroyed her letter. She later told
  Theseus that the young man had tried to rape
  her. As a result, Theseus had Poseidon destroy
  his son (chariot accident on the beach).

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See the handout from FQ I.v.36ff.

• What connection can you make between this passage
  and MSND?

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The Point

• Hippolytus is the issue of Theseuss marriage
  to Hippolyta MSND 5.1.400-1 And the issue
  they create / Ever shall be fortunate. Not!

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Moreover

• Theseus was responsible for his father Aegeuss
  suicideTheseus did not change sails before
  returning from Crete, and his father assumed the
  worst.
• Also, he and his buddy, Pirithous, decided to get
  them a couple of wives. Theseus wanted Helen, so
  they abducted her when she was 10 years old.
• Pirithous wanted Persephone, so while they were
  sojourning in hell, they left Helen with
  Theseuss mother. Helens people rescued her and
  enslaved Theseuss mother. Meanwhile, Hades
  trapped the two guys in chairs of forgetfulness
  (the model for C.S. Lewiss silver chair in The
  Silver Chair, fyi). Hercules, while in hell to
  deal with Cerberus, rescued Theseus but not
  Pirithous.

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And the point is

• Theseus is responsible for his mothers abduction
  and slavery and for the loss of his friend
  Pirithous in hell. Theseus is a failed harrower
  of hell.

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Virgils Theseus

• Virgil places Theseus among the monstrous
  criminals in Hadesthose characterized by unkind
  and unnatural behavior.

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AND

• Theseus was an absent leader who lost the throne
  to a usurper named Menestheus.
• Theseus was ultimately a murder victimLycomedes
  pushed him off a cliff.

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Summary

• On the one hand, Theseus is a crime fighter,
  monster slayer, civic leader, friend, and good
  husband.
• On the other, he is a poor husband, an unfaithful
  lover, an abandoner of women, an unnatural
  father, and a sex offender.

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What about Theseus in MSND?

• Theseuss opening speechimpatience for sex like
  a greedy son who wants the last third of his
  inheritance.
• Emphasis on law over compassion.
• The marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta will NOT
  live up to Oberons blessing.

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Further Points

• Tension between surface and depth.
• Bedford 162 Re. the principle of
  complementarity Shakespeare seems to have
  been drawn to stories and persons that were
  susceptible to plural and even contradictory
  readings.
• Theseus is a good example of this principle.

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Discussion

• Lets read together what Theseus says about the
  imagination.
• See questions on next slide.

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Theseus and Hippolyta Discuss the Imagination at
5.1.1-27.

• What is Theseuss basic point in response to
  Hippolytas statement?
• Are there differences between the poet and the
  lunatic or the lover?
• What does the poet DO?
• How does Theseus contradict himself?
• What is his attitude toward art, as manifested in
  his selection of playlet?
• What is Hippolytas attitude toward art? Toward
  the story that the lovers have told about their
  night in the woods?
• What is the role of imagination in viewing the
  playlet?

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Pyramus and Thisbe

• How does the playlet comment on the story of the
  young lovers?
• What does it teach us about romantic love?
• How do we view the wedding party?
• Is there a connection to Pucks epilogue?