William Shakespeare's Use of Song in the Early Comedies

Shakespeare's Use of Song in the Early Comedies

Undertaken to determine what features make a song germane to the story in successful musical theater, this study outlines some characteristics of Shakespeare's use of song. Chosen from the plays with which the present author is most familiar-the early comedies-are three substantial pieces (each headed in the play by either "Song" or "sing," and each with at least two stanzas and refrain): "You Spotted Snakes," "Sigh No More," and "Under the Greenwood Tree." A close reading of the lyrics and surrounding text will establish the contribution of the song to plot, theme, and character, and a study of the form itself will support these aspects and perhaps explain the success of the lyrics in making a song.

First in the study of Shakespeare's songs, "You Spotted Snakes" of A Midsummer Night's Dream (II.ii.9-24) demonstrates each of the aspects outlined above. To begin, by answering Queen Titania's command "Sing me now asleep" (II.ii.7), this lullaby serves to advance the plot: during the song the queen not only retires but achieves such slumber as endures undisturbed by King Oberon's ensuing mischief. This function resembles that of "Let Me the Canakin Clink" in Othello II.iii.71-75), explains Seng: "not only to establish an atmosphere . . . but to 'stretch' stage-time and make Cassio's rapid drunkenness plausible" (186).

Further, Seng relates, an Elizabethan audience "believed that music had actual therapeutic value": the fairy song is "more than a lullaby, or even a magic lullaby; it is a charm to ward off evils" (31-32). That the song lulls Titania asleep is its obvious function, but that it also saves her from the snakes and spiders should be apparent even to modern audiences...

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...r, 10 May 1993: 97-98.

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