Since Sexson decided to one up my by reading the secondary text I picked beofre entering his class (and then cuckolding me by reading it first) I decided to pick up Bloom on A Midsummer Night's Dream. We all know Sexson's feelings about Harold Bloom and the predictability of him reading it.
Bloom portrays similar routes of understanding that Sexson is delving into during class (and in fact he uses the idea of a puzzle [or perhaps that Jessie Weston in From Ritual to Romance] in his description). Since this may be one of Sexson's favorite criticisms concerning a Midsummer Night's Dream I have decided not to quote heavily from it (only one), but anyone wishing to read it is welcome to borrow it after Jon Orsi returns it to me. It is only 32 pages long and a very, very rewarding read and quite possibly the easiest essay by Bloom. Ever.
Here it goes. Bloom states "Bottom suggest an apocalyptic, unfallen man, whose awakened senses fuse in a synesthetic unity" ( Bloom 26) and gives us perhaps the basest example of exactly what Shakespeare wishes his audience to comprehend and thus awake. Synesthasia is where people mix up seeing colors with tasting them,, Tasting Colors, etc. etc. It is a very real disease that Vladimir Nabokov suffered from (if you are planning to go to graduate school, I highly recommend that you have immersed yourself in Nabokov and that they know). While seemingly having no proof (at least brought forward by Bloom) that Shakespeare wanted this perception, I found it myself in Act V where Theseus states that an understanding of this goes where "cool reason" cannot go.
"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends." (P. 279, Act V, Verse 4-6)
"And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend."- From Puck's Epilogue (P. 284, Epilogue, Verse 419-421)
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