A Mid Summer Nights Dream

A Mid Summer Nights Dream



A Mid Summer Nights Dream

History of the Play

Probably composed in 1595 or 1596, A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's early comedies, but can be distinguished from his other works in this group by describing it specifically as the Bard's original wedding play. Most scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream as a light entertainment to accompany a marriage celebration, and while the identity of the historical couple for whom it was meant has never been conclusively established, there is good textual and background evidence available to support this claim.(Hunt, 1986) At the same time, unlike the vast majority of his works (including all of his comedies), in concocting this story, Shakespeare did not rely directly upon existing plays, narrative poetry, historical chronicles or any other primary source materials, making it a truly original piece. Most critics agree that if a youthful Shakespeare was not at his best in this play, he certainly enjoyed himself in writing it.

Preface to the Summary

The initial setting of the play's scenes is Athens under the reign of Theses and Hippolyta, who are themselves characters from ancient Greek mythology. But it must be understood that the "Athens" of A Midsummer Night's Dream is neither that of ancient Greece nor of its Renaissance counterpart, but an amalgamation of the former with the folk culture of Elizabethan England.(Shakespeare, 1997) After Act I, the play shifts to the "fairyland woods" and remains there through Acts II, III, and IV, returning to "Athens" in Act V for the concluding weddings and the performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe" by the uncouth, unskilled, but irrepressible company of Bottom and his fellow mechanicals.

Discussion

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare shows many different kinds of love and marriage. There is the mature love of Theseus and Hippolyta; the more frantic, passionate and unstable love of the young people; and the power struggle between Oberon and Titania. The emphasis is both on the value of love and its strange, irrational aberrations, particularly those associated with the excesses and sudden u-turns of romantic love. The Pyramus and Thisbe play-within-the-play shows (albeit softened by farce), that love can also have tragic outcomes. Pyramus and Thisbe both die, like Romeo and Juliet, because of a misunderstanding. Perhaps as they watch Pyramus and Thisbe, the quartet of lovers might feel particularly grateful that the misunderstandings they went through in the wood were sorted out for good rather than ill.(Howard,2003)

There are many contrasts in the play, including that between reason and imagination, or between the rational and the nonrational elements in human experience. To a Renaissance person there would be no doubt about which was the superior. Reason, the intellect, the discriminating faculty, was what lifted human life above that of the beasts. Not only should reason rule passion, it should also supervise the imagination, which might otherwise run wild, without any basis in reality. (Hunt, 1986) This perspective is embodied in Theseus's speech at the beginning of Act ...