¶ … Farce
Midsummer Night's Dream is the quintessential romantic parody. Involving the use of magic potions and mythical creatures, Shakespeare portrays love as a potentially ridiculous pursuit and one totally devoid of reason. When Bottom states to Titania in Act 3, Scene 1, "reason and love keep little company together nowadays," he sums up one of the main themes of the play. Reason and love usually do not coexist, for emotions take on a life of their own. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare exaggerates this common knowledge with genuine comedy and delightful farce. Throughout the play, three types of beings exemplify the irrationality of love. The noble morals, like Hermia and Lysander; the commoners, like Bottom and Quince; and the mythical creatures, the fairies, all typify this theme. From the very first scene, the audience witnesses the absurdity of romantic pursuits.
Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, and Lysander, along with Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus, comprise the Athenian nobility represented in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play opens with a scene between Theseus and Hippolyta, who are due to be married. However, their plans are thwarted by the woes of another couple, or rather, couples. Hermia, the daughter of Egeus, is in love with Lysander, but she has already been bequeathed to Demetrius. To complicate matters, Hermia's childhood friend Helena fawns over Demetrius in what is already a wacky love quadrangle. Helena provides some of the play's most obvious lines that prove the irrationality of love: she is in love with Demetrius and "devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, / upon this spotted and inconstant man," (Act 1, Scene 1, lines 109-110). Demetrius, the object of her affection, is already portrayed as fickle. He is not attracted to Helena but she nevertheless continues to woo him....
Those who watch the play make comments about how silly the play is and the play becomes more and more ridiculous, adding the parts of a Lion and Moonshine, played by two more rustics. In the play, the principle actors, Thisby and Pyramus kill themselves, as Romeo and Juliet did, then Pyramus rises to sing about his death, slumps into death, and then rises again to ask the audience if
There are many elements of Renaissance England seen in the play as well as some elements that refer to Ancient Greece that suggest a combining of worlds. The play, from a humanistic perspective, suggests that everyone is out for themselves and for succeeding in their own quest for love -- despite what the object of his or her affection wants. Midsummer also seems to suggest that humans don't have much
Theseus reminds Hermia that the person she is, with her beauty as an asset that is so appreciated by Lysander, is because she is the product of her father. She is "but as a form in wax (Shakespeare online), a reproduction of her father, "By him imprinted within his power (Shakespeare online). Johnnie Patricia Mobley resolves the conflict between the characters of Hermia and Helena (on whose behalf Oberon intercedes
And while it may seem silly upon first reading or seeing the play, it is clear that a Midsummer Night's Dream also has quite serious ideas. Scholars have noted that the play includes a cultural critique of the Elizabethan era in which it is set (Lamb 93-124). Other critics have noted that the play may contain quite subversive ideas regarding the fluid nature of sexual identity (Green 369-370). Whatever
Magic in a Midsummer Night's Dream and the Tempest By examining the use of magic in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, one can see not only how magic functions within the context of the plays, but also how the use of magic and enchantment would have been received by their historical audiences. Though instigated with differing motives and applied with differing levels of expertise in either play,
This is why Shakespeare included a character and plot of such low comedy in a play with such far-reaching and complex themes; in the end, all of the complexity boils down to a few very simple facts bout humanity. As Valerie Traub notes, "early modern England was a culture of contradictions, with official ideology often challenged by actual social practice," and Midsummer makes this exceedingly clear (131). Such contradictions necessarily
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