A deeper look at human nature

So, I was re-reading one of my first blogs (on bravery in Henry V) and I got to thinking about how characters ins Shakespeare's plays--and in stories in general--almost always seem to be up on a pedestal.  They seem to exude all of the characteristics that we all want to have.  Well, the protagonists at least.  I don't think we wish we could murder like Claudius or scheme like Edmund.  But then I got to thinking about A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Now, there's definitely a lot of "love" going on here.  But definitely not the normal kind.  I don't know too many guys who would go up to a girl they like and say something along the lines of:

"I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus' doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen..."

I wonder what people would think if guys/girls suddenly did speak similarly to this.  Would they be freaked out, or would they really enjoy it?  Maybe we should try it out.  :)  We could even record the statistics and turn it into a math thing.  That'd be fun.

Anyway, back on task.  Now, it may be because I just need to see it played out, but I feel like it would be interesting if a play were to delve deeper into the emotion of love than writers generally seem to do.  After all, how many people do experience this sort of romantic development?  We don't all have fairies to play with our lives.  But this definitely does add to the feeling of mystery and allow the audience to slip away into a fantasy world powered by their own imagination.

So, that would be the challenge in writing a play about a deeper love--with the entire roller coaster affect of ups and downs, "do they like me?s," "why did this have to happen?s," etc.  If you could still set it apart from people's lives, but somehow connect it on a deeper level, you could do this I suppose.  So, it sounds pretty tough now that I am writing it, but I think it could turn out pretty interesting.  And perhaps Shakespeare does have some a bit more like this.  He definitely has downer moments in his tragedies, and A Midsummer Night's Dream is meant to be really light-hearted.

In any case, it just really made me wonder, and so I wanted to write a bit about that.  I'm sure I'll revisit this a bit later on.