As an "Arts Consultant" I seek to show artists and society how all the different mediums of art are highly intertwined and reliant upon one another.
The Shakespeare Bridge to Music
Did Shakespeare use music in his plays? If so, how did he incorporate it in his plays? Did he use music as it is used in an opera today?
After taking a class this past quarter at Northwestern University on this subject, my eyes were opened to how music contributes to the vitality of Shakespeare's plays. Throughout his plays, he uses aspects of rhyme and rhythm in the way his play's lines are structured and written. In addition, Shakespeare frequently verbally describes music being sung or heard by actors in order to allude to important events that are about to occur or instill a certain context of mood on a scene. To explore this concept in detail, I've chosen to examine Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
To help understand the discussions below, I will give a mid-summer's length summary of the play...
A man Theseus and a woman Hippolyta are getting married soon. A woman Hermia is destined to marry Demetrius, who loves Hermia, but she loves another man - Lysander. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away and get married in a forest. Due to previous crushes and secret telling, Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius end up in the forest.
There, they meet some fairies and some Athenian craftsmen (The title of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is starting to become more clear in meaning...). Due to marital conflict between the king fairy Oberon and the queen fairy Titania, a love potion ends up being spread on Lysander, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. Both Lysander and Demetrius end up in love with Helena.
More of the love potion is spread on Titania, by Puck (who has been doing the spreading all along), which causes her to briefly love Bottom, one of the craftsman who's head has been turned into a donkey's head. In the end, both couples end up marrying who they had originally intended to, Hermia with Lysander and Helena with Demetrius. Puck ends the play by apologizing for his mistakes with the love potion and tries to escape his blame by urging the audience to think of the past events as all just a dream.
Now, one of Shakespeare's first use of music in the play.
Location: Act II.1.134-140
These stated musical references are only three of approximately 18 explicitly noted ones from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. All of these alludes to music make up a major part of what makes Shakespeare's writing unique and genius. While Shakespeare does not use music in the same way that major opera composers like Guiseppi Verdi and Richard Wagner used it in their operas, Shakespeare uses it in an equally essential way. Author Christopher Wilson describes it well in his Shakespeare dictionary - "The practical and metaphorical functions of music and sound often serve important structural and thematic purposes, and are an integral part of Shakespeare’s dramatic technique and poetic language.". After examining A Midsummer Night's Dream, it is clear that you cannot really have Shakespeare without music.
This fact is a fantastic example of how seemingly different art forms such as literature and music, when presented at their highest level, actually cannot be separated from one another.
The Shakespeare Bridge to Music
Did Shakespeare use music in his plays? If so, how did he incorporate it in his plays? Did he use music as it is used in an opera today?
After taking a class this past quarter at Northwestern University on this subject, my eyes were opened to how music contributes to the vitality of Shakespeare's plays. Throughout his plays, he uses aspects of rhyme and rhythm in the way his play's lines are structured and written. In addition, Shakespeare frequently verbally describes music being sung or heard by actors in order to allude to important events that are about to occur or instill a certain context of mood on a scene. To explore this concept in detail, I've chosen to examine Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
To help understand the discussions below, I will give a mid-summer's length summary of the play...
A man Theseus and a woman Hippolyta are getting married soon. A woman Hermia is destined to marry Demetrius, who loves Hermia, but she loves another man - Lysander. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away and get married in a forest. Due to previous crushes and secret telling, Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius end up in the forest.
There, they meet some fairies and some Athenian craftsmen (The title of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is starting to become more clear in meaning...). Due to marital conflict between the king fairy Oberon and the queen fairy Titania, a love potion ends up being spread on Lysander, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. Both Lysander and Demetrius end up in love with Helena.
More of the love potion is spread on Titania, by Puck (who has been doing the spreading all along), which causes her to briefly love Bottom, one of the craftsman who's head has been turned into a donkey's head. In the end, both couples end up marrying who they had originally intended to, Hermia with Lysander and Helena with Demetrius. Puck ends the play by apologizing for his mistakes with the love potion and tries to escape his blame by urging the audience to think of the past events as all just a dream.
Now, one of Shakespeare's first use of music in the play.
Location: Act II.1.134-140
OBERON
"My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music?"
In this first mention of music in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare describes the music the mermaid is singing as harmonious and beautiful. He makes clear that as a result of its beauty, it calms the sea from its storms and makes the stars come down from the sky to listen. We can see that in this scene Shakespeare uses music as a means of calming and capturing the minds and hearts of the characters in the play and the audience. This music also sets up a crucial event in the play, which follows the previously stated lines. Act II.1.140-145
OBERON"That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the Earth,
Cupid all armed. A certain aim he took
At a fair vestal thronèd by the west,
And loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts."
Oberon goes on after this line to describe how Cupid's arrow does not affect the virgin and go onward to pierce a white flower which then turned purple and became the love potion that is used later in the play.
Shakespeare's second allude to music in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Location: Act IV.1.15-20
Text:
BOTTOM "I must to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvelous hairy about the face. And I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.TITANIAWhat, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?BOTTOMI have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and the bones.TITANIAOr say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.BOTTOM Truly, a peck of provender. I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow."
At this point in the play Bottom and Titania come across the Athenian lovers asleep in the forest grove. Bottom and Titania sit down to relax and Bottom requests that his head be scratched. Titania asks him if he would like to hear music to perhaps enhance his relaxation as his head is being scratched. Note, that again we see music being used as a means of relaxation, a mood setting device, or a pause from the current events of the story. This mention of making music with "tongs and bones" further describes the simplicity of Bottoms character. Tongs and bones were very common during these days as a very simple rhythm instrument (429Wilson). When Titania mentions food after this musical reference, this makes some sense in my mind as food is often associated with music and vice versa. However, we find out from reading further that their talk about food turns into a joke about how Bottom has the head of a donkey. This creates question in my mind as to whether the reference to music is more of a joke as well. However, due to the way Shakespeare uses music consistently throughout the rest of the play, I have concluded that here, Shakespeare is using the serious reference to music to bring out the contrast of the “appetite for hay” joke.
Shakespeare's third allude to music
Location: Act IV.1.63-66
OBERON
Silence awhile.—Robin, take off this head.—Titania, music call, and strike more deadThan common sleep of all these five the sense.
TITANIA
Music, ho! Music such as charmeth sleep!”
These lines occur in the play after Oberon has obtained the Indian Boy from Titania and Oberon says the charm to remove the love potion from her so she realizes that when she awakes she is sleeping with a man that is rather close to looking like a donkey! Here, Shakespeare uses music again to calm and even put to sleep characters in order to do accomplish something - to allow Puck to restore Bottom’s head.
This fact is a fantastic example of how seemingly different art forms such as literature and music, when presented at their highest level, actually cannot be separated from one another.
Bibliography
- R. Larry Todd. "Mendelssohn, Felix." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed June 9, 2014,http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/51795pg12.)
- Wilson, Christopher R.; Calore, Michela. Music in Shakespeare : A Dictionary. London, GBR: Continuum International Publishing, 2005. ebrary collections. 9 Jun. 2014. <http://site.ebrary.com/lib/northwestern/Doc?id=10224932&ppg=16>
- Gooch, Bryan N. S., David S. Thatcher, Odean Long, and Charles Haywood. "A Midsummer Night's Dream." A Shakespeare Music Catalogue. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. 969. Print.
- Brobeck, Carol. "Films and Recordings." Folger Shakespeare Library. N.p., 4 Mar. 2005. Web. 09 June 2014.
- "A_MIDSUMMER_NIGHTS_DREAM. FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY Ballet Complete." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 09 June 2014.
- "Midsummer Madness - Shakespeare Birthplace Trust." Midsummer Madness - Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 June 2014.
- Folkerth, Wes. The Sound of Shakespeare. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
- Smith, Bruce R. The Acoustic World of Early Modern England: Attending to the O-factor. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1999. Print.
- Owens, Jessie Ann. "Noyses, Sounds, and Sweet Aires": Music in Early Modern England ;. Seattle, Wash.: Univ. of Washington., 2006. Print.
- Wilson, Christopher R. Shakespeare's Musical Imagery. London: Continuum, 2011. Print.
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