William Shakespeare was a famous Elizabethan playwright , dramatist and a poet. Shakespeare contributed around 37 plays. He wrote comedies, tragedies, tragicomedy and Historical plays. He had taken from other sources including the University Wits. He towers among the productivity of drama and has influenced the later dramatist and poets. He is a “man of all ages” and his dramas are enthralling to the readers of all ages.
Shakespeare’s “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream” includes blending of realism and imagination. The play depicts the real characters as well as mythical characters influences from Greek Classical works. The character of Theseus , Hippolyta , spirits are imaginative characters but are blended along with the reality of life. In addition to this, Shakespeare paints another ideal world which is filled with fantasy and the play shows forest as an ethereal world where characters enters the forest to find solution or the forest act as a panacea for the characters.
The play involves gender equality where woman are given equal representation on the stage. The play centers around the problem of Hermia’s marriage and it is the woman who brings a significant troupe to the play. Hermia was represented as a woman who is strong and rebelled against the dominion patriarchal society. She was being forced to get married to Demetrius but she was in love with Lysander and hence she never give up on her love and continued to fight for the true love. Despite being a strong woman, she inhibited a moral character as she listened to her moral conscience as she was unmarried and is unable to sleep next to Lysander in the woods when they were lost.
The element of separation and unification is another important element in the play that shows the exposition and the strike of tragic note where the characters are separated and then reunited in the resolution. Puck’s mistaken error in pouring the Cupid’s love portion to Lysander instead of Demetrius separated Lysander from Hermia and likewise Helena and Demetrius. The couples were in a deep delusion due to the Cupid love portion and their situation became puzzled and was about to be ended in a tragic note yet the plot became incredible and the couples were reunited in the end of the play.
Shakespeare used clowns or fools in his plays. Puck was a clown who act as a catalyst and his mistaken love portion created instability and delusion to the couples. He created a lot of puzzle in the play which bring forth humour and comical relief. Puck’s action always remain out of sight from the external world but it escalated the problem of the couples who were in a verge of being separated forever.
Love and romance is also one of the important elements in the play. There are more than one couple in the play and there are many love triangles as well. Hermia was in love with Lysander and Demetrius with Hermia and Helena to Demetrius. There were many problems and complications the couples faced in the forest but “The course of true love runs smoothly”. The statement clearly highlights the troupe of his idea behind love and romance and its implication in the play.
Lastly, Shakespeare’s comedies always ends with happy marriages. There are many couples who get married at the end. In the play, the couples were announced a marriage at the end and there are many couples Hermia and Lysander as well as Demetrius and Helena. There was a marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta as well in the play which shows the resolution and the ending of the play with a happy note.
One Reply to “Shakespeare’s “A Mid Summer Night’s Dream” as a Comedy.”