You know how once you bring something into your consciousness, you begin to tune in and notice that thing everywhere. Well, back in August, Frances and I went to see Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. And right there, in the middle of Act V, Scene I, under the starry, moonlit skies, in the middle of New York City, was Shakespeare’s own description of a poet.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Funny how I had never noticed it before even though I’ve seen Midsummer Night’s Dream several times. So I searched and found this recitation of Theseus’ speech interpreted by Anthony Herrera. You can read the text yourself here.
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