CANS 406 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Michel De Montaigne, Anthropocentrism
22 May 2018
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Animals, Transformation and Midsummer Night’s Dream
-Plato’s Allegory of the Cave puts into question how we feel about our freedom and our rights
-Shakespeare’s makes us think about forced and free conversion, and the bearing it has on our
personhood
-We imagine ourselves as autonomous beings
-Degradation into the state of animals, a downgrading
-We give ourselves superiority because we are not animals, we separate themselves as part of our
claim of sophistication/superiority
-Animals have no language, moral conscience, sense of divinity or dignity
-Shakespeare deals with human exceptionality
-Michel de Montaigne talks about our human pride, and how ridiculous it is – he tries to open
our eyes to our animality, talks about animals as communicative, conscious beings
-Questions of relationship with animals present in this play
-Bottom is turned into an ass, but the ass inside him also rises
-Hermia’s speech Act 2 Scene 2 on the features of civilized, human life – “human modesty”
-Focus on civility
-A whole zoo of animals in the woods mentioned
-The lovers are pulled down by their own desires into animality
-Hippolyta pushes back against Theseus by mentioning Hercules – idea of animality merges with
idea of harmony
-Bottom: “Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard.”
-Snout saying he is changed, Bottom still doesn’t get it – it’s even funnier because he
says “this is to make an ass of me”
-Bottom also becomes much more civilized than he was before – he starts to sing to himself
about birds and wakes Titania wakes: “So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape”
-Bottom is full of gracious talk: “methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that”
-Bottom becomes a figure for the wisdom that is beyond the wisdom of man – but it’s an ass that
has this wisdom
-Bottom is changed: “methought I had”… “man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this
dream”
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Document Summary
Plato"s allegory of the cave puts into question how we feel about our freedom and our rights. Shakespeare"s makes us think about forced and free conversion, and the bearing it has on our personhood. Degradation into the state of animals, a downgrading. We give ourselves superiority because we are not animals, we separate themselves as part of our claim of sophistication/superiority. Animals have no language, moral conscience, sense of divinity or dignity. Michel de montaigne talks about our human pride, and how ridiculous it is he tries to open our eyes to our animality, talks about animals as communicative, conscious beings. Questions of relationship with animals present in this play. Bottom is turned into an ass, but the ass inside him also rises. Hermia"s speech act 2 scene 2 on the features of civilized, human life human modesty . A whole zoo of animals in the woods mentioned. The lovers are pulled down by their own desires into animality.
