A Midsummer Night's Dream as an Elizabethan Comedy
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" could have turned out as a tragedy; it can be compared to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Lysander and Hermia love each other but Egeus, Hermia's father, wants her to marry Demetrius. This means they have to disobey Egeus and escape Athenian law to be able to marry. These are comparable characteristics of "Romeo and Juliet", an Elizabethan tragedy. In "Romeo and Juliet", Romeo, a Montague, falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet, but there families do not allow them to marry. The conditions are very similar in both plays but "Romeo and Juliet" is a tragedy whereas "A Midsummer Night's Dream" unfolds into a comedy. This is
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Later in the play Puck, causing mischief, puts an ass' head on Bottom, this makes the unlikely fling with Titania even more comical.
The other working men, Peter Quince, a carpenter, Francis Flute, a bellows-mender, Tom Snout, a tinker, Robin Starveling, a tailor and Snug, a joiner, add to the humour of the play. Like Bottom, they all take the play very seriously but with no acting ability they end up looking ridiculous. Quince tries to use long words but uses them wrongly, 'Bottom, thou art translated', he is referring to when Bottom returns to the rehearsal with an ass' head and must mean transformed. The rehearsal shows greatly their lack of acting abilities; they pronounce words from the script incorrectly, 'Thisbe, the flower ha' odious savours sweet'; Quince prompts Bottom, 'odorous!'. Also, they do not know when they are supposed to speak, Flute says, 'Must I speak now?'.
Their choice of play is not appropriate as it is meant to be performed at a wedding and is the tragedy of two lovers that are forced to speak through a chink in a wall and commit suicide. Luckily the performance turns out to be rather comical and laughed upon by the nobles.
The scene that "Pyramus and Thisbe" is performed in is probably the most comical scene of all. Their complete misunderstanding of acting and performance is clearly is clearly displayed, how they use an actors to play the parts of a
The texts Act I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “Life In The Elizabethan England,” and “Bringing Home The Wrong Race,” all have similar ideas about love, and the restrictions that surround it. Each one have distinctions, these differences give each other a take on the situation of love. These distinctions of the relationships, the similarities, and the differences all make up the body of each text.
lovers, Romeo and Juliet, who take their precious lives but there are also two family’s who have a
We share love with many people, love exists in many ways, one of them is romantic love, this type of love can only work when you are with the right person. In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, the playwright reflects love in his characters. Shakespeare does this by using Hermia and Lysander to demonstrate true love. While Helena and Demetrius represent a false love. He uses Hermia by creating a test whether she chooses duty over love. The catalyst of all the drama where Hermia needs to marry Demetrius was Egeus, Hermia’s father. He is in total disagreement of Hermia marrying Lysander that he decides to give her two options: she marries Demetrius,get killed, or stays nun.
Love, while considered to be a wonderful experience, can also be a turbulent force that causes chaos. In Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, love contributes much to the conflict involving Lysander, Demetrius, and Hermia. This conflict is shown in three ways: Hermia's life is threatened for wanting to marry the man she loves. Hermia and Lysander are forced to make a risky decision to preserve their love, and a hateful relationship forms between Demetrius and Lysander due to their love for Hermia. The confused relationships between these lovers causes turmoil within A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Hermia’s speech in Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, contains an abundance of dream imagery. She has awoken from a terrible dream after falling asleep in the forest with Lysander. They were lost and tired so they decided to rest. Lysander wanted to sleep beside her but, she refused since they are not yet married and while they slept Puck applied a love potion on Lysander’s eyes thinking he was Demetrius. Lysander wakes and is repulsed by the sight of Hermia and never wants to see her again because he is now in love with Helena. Hermia awakes from her terrible dream and retells it thinking that Lysander is nearby listening. Then she realizes that he is not there and she does not see him anywhere. Hermia expresses the sentiment that she will find Lysander or she will surely die. She stated,
Have you ever heard a quote that really stood out to you. And then you went and told you friends that quote and they liked it. And they told people who told other people and then everyone liked. Eventually, you know with all the social media programs these days, its going to end up on facebook or instagram and even more people are going to find out about it. Thats one way a quote can become famous but another way is if it is in a popular movie or book. In this case it is from one of Shakespeare's finest and most known, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the quote “the course of true love never did run smoothly” applies to the different people in the book: the first couple is Hermia and Lysander, Second Demetrius and Helena, and finally Pyramus and Thisbe.
“Though she be but little, she is fierce!” With this statement, William Shakespeare’s character, Helena, depicts Hermia in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. I, conversely, will use this statement to introduce the country of Luxembourg. The Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook affirms that Luxembourg is located in Western Europe and is geographically landlocked, as it is bordered by the countries France, Belgium, and Germany (The World Factbook). The Encyclopedia of the Nations states that Luxembourg is one of the smallest nations in the world with an area of 2,586 sq km, which is slightly smaller than Rhode Island- the smallest state in size of the United States of America (Encyclopedia of the Nations). The World
Shakespeare’s usage of metaphor and simile in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best understood as an attempt to provide some useful context for relationships and emotions, most often love and friendship, or the lack thereof. One example of such a usage is in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play. Here, the two Athenian couples wake up in the forest and fall under the effects of the flower, thus confusing the romantic relationships between them. Hermia comes to find her Lysander has fallen for Helena. Hermia suspects that the two have both conspired against her in some cruel joke, and begins lashing out against Helena. She says “We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, / Have with our needles created both one flower, / Both one sampler sitting on one cushion, / Both warbling of one song, both in one key; / As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, / Had been incorporate. So we grew together, / Like a double cherry, seeming parted; / But yet a union in partition / Two lovely berries moulded on one stem: / So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart; / Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, / Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.” (Shakespeare 2.3.206-13). Shakespeare writes this list of vibrant metaphors to establish the prior relationship between these two characters and to make it evident how affected Helena is by this unexpected turn of events, as well as to add a greater range of emotion to the comedy, thereby lending it more literary and popular appeal.
Love is many things, and is also used as a reference to sight and vision such as blindness. It is much more than aesthetics and wields the power of sight, and can also cause chaos and destruction. Similarly, Shakespeare utilizes two types of blindness by love; the first being physical due to a love potion a fairy king, Oberon orders upon the humans in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummers Night’s Dream. The second, being metaphorical due to Antony’s immense amount of love towards Cleopatra, in which hinders his political motivation in Shakespeare’s, Antony and Cleopatra.
Mandy Conway Mrs. Guynes English 12 16 March 2000 A Critical Analysis of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeare's comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, which master writers only write successfully. Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. Critics find it a task to explain the intricateness of the play, audiences find it very pleasing to read and watch. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a
“ Falling in love is like jumping off a really tall building , your brain tells you it is not a good idea , but your heart tells you , you can fly. And then you die.” In Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are lovers but love ruins a lot of relationships, like the ones in the story. Love messes up everything in life, cause you know it feels ok until something happens like cheating or falling in love with someone else. Love is a powerful force that can ruin relationships.
The rise of tension between characters is another characteristic of comedic plays. After Oberon sees the way that Helena has been treated by Demetrius, he orders Puck to apply the juice to the eyes of Demetrius. Puck accidentally applies the juice to Lysander’s eye, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. After the mistake had been caught, Oberon sends Puck to watch Helena and Oberon applies the juice to Demetrius’ eyes. This causes both men to fall for Helena and now the battle is for Helena and not Hermia. Helena is convinced that this is a joke or prank because neither of the two men loved her before. Now because of Puck’s mistakes the four decide to find a
A Misummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare. In this play there are multiple themes however the most evident theme is love. Why is love an evident theme? It is an evident theme because the play commences with two Greek mythology characters─ the Duke of Athens, Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolita planning their marriage. However as Theseus plans his marriage he has to help Egeus persuade his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Unfortunately both the Duke and Egeus failed to persuade Hermia into marrying Demetrius so the fairies (another set of characters. The fairies in this play consisted of goddess of chastity and Queen of fairies, Titania and King of fairies Oberon and his assistance Robin Goodfellow) decide
Generally, the relationship between the sun and the moon is a metaphorical construct of the male and female gender. However, in William Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the author develops the traditional representation of a gendered sun and moon further, in order to symbolize the two celestial bodies, now, as masculine and feminine oppositions. More specifically, Shakespeare expands on the traditional idea of the sun and moon as a gender concept by identifying both as a union, and the relationships that solidify these bonds, in which he delineates the opposition of romance to the opposition of the sun and moon; in its destructive and regenerative aspect, the moon accompanies the resolution of the conflicts, that is, the infidelity between lovers, and shed its light over a return to individual and social order.
Throughout history literature has changed into many different forms and styles, it has also stayed the same in many different ways, literary techniques and elements are key to a good piece of writing, a perfect example that shows us just this is in, A Midsummer Nights Dream, where we will further explore the different literary elements that were used most notably the plot. The plot of a story lays out the foundation and the background for the entire play to come, we'll compare and contrast this element and look at the different sub elements which are produced. We will define similarities and difference in these elements form both the play o the film. Taking a look at things such as climax, play incidents, and the conflict will all give us