At the end of Midsummer Night’s Dream, after the lovers have left the dreamscape of the woods, our characters return to the city and gather together to celebrate the nuptials of the king and queen, and watch the masque of Pyramus and Thisbe.
The poet Malcolm Guite has a brilliant lecture, featured on the Imagination Redeemed podcast, about the Theseus speech and the Gospel of John, connecting imagination and incarnation.
Thanks for the reminder about this monologue—it definitely deserves more consideration.
I think part of the job of any creative endeavor is to give an aspect to the world of imagination “a local habitation and a name” as Shakespeare suggests. But what I find so strange about poetry in particulear is that the use of abstraction through metaphor, allegory, rhetoric, etc. creates a clearer manifestation than straight exposition. Not always because the writing is always flexible enough to allow readers to inject their own ideas and meaning into the words—sometimes the writing is quite specific. But how interesting that nonetheless, there’s more truth to be found there than mere facts can provide.
The poet Malcolm Guite has a brilliant lecture, featured on the Imagination Redeemed podcast, about the Theseus speech and the Gospel of John, connecting imagination and incarnation.
That sounds wonderful. Thank you for the recommend. I've been hearing a lot about Guite lately.
Here's the link to the lecture.
Guite is really delightful. His YouTube channel is the best: cozy poetry chats in his book-lined study, usually with a pipe and whiskey in hand.
https://www.anselmsociety.org/blog/ri-thnp9
Thank you Melanie. Whiskey and a pipe. A man after my own heart!
So beautiful
Thank you Vince
Thanks for the reminder about this monologue—it definitely deserves more consideration.
I think part of the job of any creative endeavor is to give an aspect to the world of imagination “a local habitation and a name” as Shakespeare suggests. But what I find so strange about poetry in particulear is that the use of abstraction through metaphor, allegory, rhetoric, etc. creates a clearer manifestation than straight exposition. Not always because the writing is always flexible enough to allow readers to inject their own ideas and meaning into the words—sometimes the writing is quite specific. But how interesting that nonetheless, there’s more truth to be found there than mere facts can provide.