Shakespeare was one of the greatest dramatists of English literature. His dramas are universally known and popular. He wrote comedies and tragedies with a great success. Particularly, his comedies like As You Like It, A Midsummer Night Dream are very popular. His comedies provoke mirth and laughter and present sunnier aspects of life. The laughter of his comedies comes from characters and their actions. He took more interest in characters than plots yet his plots are woven properly.
His comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream was written in his youth days. Yet it has good plot construction. In it different stories of love are joined together artistically and skilfully. Shakespeare does not known for original plot and many a times recognised as a plagiarist. He takes stories from the well known stories of the past. But he joins the story and its actions with characters powerfully. It makes a well knit plot. In his comedies, his all the plots are always complex and never simple. He connects the different threads of story in to one. Through some important characters, he connects different incidents. A Midsummer Night's Dream presents the story of two worlds.
(1) The Romantic World of Oberon and Titania and
(2) The World of Athens - the factual one of Lysander, Hermia; Helena and Demetrius; and Theseus and Hippolyta. . .
These two worlds are joined by Bottom and Puck.
In this play, the dramatist introduces four different stories of lovers and their love. First we have Theseus and Hippolyta story. It provides the general frame work to the play. Next there is rustic story of interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe. The third story deals with the fortunes of two lovers' pairs. And finally, we have the story of Oberon an...
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... lovers cross many hurdles. And at the end, their romantic love is fulfilled.
In the main story of love, there is a subsidiary plot of Pyramus and Thisbe, an interlude played by Bottom and his companions. But it also creates laughter, when he is seen loved by a beautiful fairy Titania. The interlude story and Titania Bottom love story make parody (burlesque) of the romantic love of four lovers.
In this way, all actions of the play are woven into one thread. Comic incidents follow one another naturally. Different incidents have been blended very vividly. All characters gather at the wedding ceremony of Theseus and Hippolyta. With them, there ring the bells of love-marriage of Lysander and Hermia and Demetrius and Helena. Bottom comes to the palace of Athens to act a play Pyramus and Thisbe. In brief A Midsummer Night's Dream is a fine blended comedy.
The mood immediately changes and we discover that Hermia rather than being filled with filial love is determined to marry Lysander rather than her father’s choice for her. And so the love theme is made more complex as we have the wrathful love of her father confronted by the love of her daughter for the man who is not her fathers’ choice. The love theme is further complicated by the arrival of Helena. Here we see the platonic love of two friends.
When Lysander is speaking to Hermia in Act I, Scene I; he is both stating a truth about the mystery of love, as while as foreshadowing the upcoming trouble in the play. Egeus has made his demands that his daughter obey him and marry Demetrius. The tension between the father and the chosen lover of his daughter has set the conflict into motion. Demetrius has left with Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus to discuss the wedding of the Duke of the Athens. The young lovers Lysander and Hermia are left on stage and he tells her in Lines 132-134: “For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.” He speaks these words to comfort Hermia, but neither has any idea of the crazy night that will come in the
Depending on one’s viewpoint, fantasy and reality can be uncovered in different ways in “A Midsummer’s Night Dream”. Bottom is first seen unifying reality and fantasy by being the one who holds the “Mechanical Play” together within the play as a whole. Bottom is selected for the lead role of the play because of his rather flattering attributes that best are fitting to the role of Pyramus, which according to
To her, my lord, was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia: but, like in sickness, did I loathe this food; but, as in health, come to my natural taste, now I do wish it, love it, long for it, and will for evermore be true to It". Theseus decides to override Egeus's plans for Hermia to marry Demetrius and now will have all three of the weddings in Athens that day. They eventually all depart for Athens Theseus says, "Fair lovers, you are fortunately met: of this discourse we more will hear anon. Egeus, I will overbear your will; for in the temple by and by with us these couples shall eternally be knit: and, for the morning now is something worn, our purposed hunting shall be set aside.
Author of thirty-seven plays and 154 sonnets, William Shakespeare has been known to us as one of the most influential writers of English literature. Written in the mid-1590s, Shakespeare gave birth to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is still considered to have been his most strangest and delightful creation yet. The play reveals to us the magnitude of his imagination and originality. Contrary to many of his other plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream doesn’t seem to have been stemmed from any particular source, though some believe it was written for and performed at a private aristocratic wedding with Queen Elizabeth I in attendance. Some critics have even speculated that it was Shakespeare’s light hearted and silly version of Romeo and Juliet. However, no evidence has ever been found to prove either theory.
William Shakespeare is one of the most well-known authors in history. His works of literature have been studied for years. Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is one of seventeen. Shakespeare knew he was a fantastic author whose work would be admired much after he passed away. He used creative literary devices to add suspense and interest to his writings. One of those includes using a play within a play. Shakespeare uses a play within a play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to add depth and elaboration to the comedy’s theme.
Similar to other works by Shakespeare, such as The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream embellishes the pressures that arise between genders dealing with complicated family and romantic situations. The plot includes a duke who is going to marry a woman he conquered in battle, the king and queen of the fairies embroiled in a fight so fierce that it unbalances the natural world, and a daughter fighting with her father for her right to marry the man she chooses. The girl’s father selects Demetrius to marry his daughter, but she is in love with another man, Lysander, who loves her in return, and her friend Helena is in love Demetrius, but he wants nothing to do with her. Considering the fact that males were dominant during that era, whereas, men chased women, and women remained submissive, Shakespeare dallies with those traditional roles and there are several possible reasons why. Perhaps he made women a stronger force in his plays because he wanted to give his audience a break fr...
There is drama caused between the young lovers initially, when Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Hermia, Demetrius loves Hermia, Helena loves Demetrius, but no one loves Helena. Through this short, complicated ‘love story’, arguments and fights occur. The fairy world then comes into contact with the world of the young lovers. Mischievous Puck causes further complications when he uses magic to anoint a young Athenian male’s eyes, who is in fact the wrong Athenian that Oberon assigned Puck. Puck misuses magic when he plays a silly prank on Bottom, who is one of the Mechanicals, by giving Bottom a head of an ass.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play based on love. Also in this play, there were three types of love shown−love between friends, family members and lovers. Through this play, man can learn many things such as love is influential and that love is strong enough to change the world both positively and negatively bringing readers to the conclusion that love makes us crazy, but it moves the world.
The hilarious play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, tells the twisted love story of four Athenians who are caught between love and lust. The main characters: Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius are in a ‘love square’. Hermia and Lysander are true love enthusiasts, and love each other greatly. Demetrius is in love with Hermia, and Helena, Hermia’s best friend, is deeply and madly in love with Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander try to elope in the woods because Egeus, Hermia’s father, disapproves of Lysander.
...and works very seriously. William Shakespeare is the best writer of all time in the field and time he resigned in. He is widely known as the best and is very famous for his works. He used humor to create the laughter from his audiences. He wrote many works with humor called comedies. His comedies transformed into different type of comedies. Another one of Shakespeare’s techniques is the use of irony. He uses dramatic irony, situational irony, and verbal irony. Irony plays a very large role throughout all of his works along with comedy. He has contributed so much to the English language and literature. William Shakespeare uses everything from new words to new techniques. He created many new words and phrases. Now the English language can always thank the one and only great William Shakespeare for all that he has done for the English language throughout all his works.
The relationship between Demetrius and Hermia is problematic, in that Demetrius is seeking the affections of Hermia, while she is in love with Lysander. However, Hermia’s father approves of Demetrius and tries to force her to marry him, but Hermia refuses because of her love for Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.22-82). Lysander points out the flaw in the situation through this comment, “You have her father 's love, Demetrius –/Let me have Hermia 's. Do you marry him,” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.93-94). The second flawed relationship is between Lysander and Helena, as a result of an enchantment put on Lysander that made him fall in love with Helena. Helena does not want the affections of Lysander, but rather the love of Demetrius, and believes that Lysander is taunting her. In addition, this relationship creates tensions because Hermia is in love with Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 2.2.109-140). Both relationships are not desirable due to a lack of mutual admiration and the creation of non-peaceful and unsatisfying
Next, the misuse of magic causes conflict among the four Athenian lovers. When Puck mistakenly applies the love potion to Lysander’s eyelids. At this point, both male characters of the main plot have fallen in love with Helena, leaving Hermia out of balance. The struggle of the four lovers is one of the more complicated conflicts in the play. The conflict could have been avoided if Puck did not misuse his magic. However, because Puck mistakenly used his magic on Lysander, conflict erupted.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the main conflict is between love and social relations. The play revolves around the magical power of love which transforms many lives. As a result of this, it gets the reader’s emotionally involved through ways of reminding us of love’s foolishness and capabilities, as well as violence often followed alongside of lust. This play shows passion’s conflict with reason. For example, the father presented in the play Egeus, represents tradition and reason while Hermia represents passion for love and freedom. Egeus wants Hermia to marry Demetrius and accuses Lysander of “bewitching” Hermia with love charms and songs. This is one way love’s difficulties are presented in the play between father and daughter. Additionally, Helena recognizes love’s difficulties when Demetrius falls in love with her best friend Hermia. Helena argues that strong emotions such as love can make extremely unpleasant things beautiful. This is another way the play presents love’s difficulties between lovers and capricious emotions.
Hippolyta is a strong yet silent amazonian beauty who is the love of Theseus, Duke of Athens. Although Hippolyta is largely silent in her dealings with love in the patriarchal society, her physical presence speaks for the untold voice she might profit from. Of the four main female characters Hippolyta is the more silent of the four. However, since Hippolyta is the maiden of Theseus she bears heavy in the decisions Theseus makes about the love quarrels within the play. From the words of Theseus the reader can associate that Hippolyta has a strong impact on the actions he takes when dealing with love and marriage: