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A Midsummer Night's Dream As A Comedy Analysis

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Early Greek comedy was strongly contrasted to grandeur and gravity of the tragedy. Aristophanes, the Grand Master of Comedy, used different types of humor in his work, including farce, jokes with sexual connotation, satire and literary parody. Unlike tragedy, the storyline does not originate from traditional mythological heritage or legends, but is the product of the creative imagination of the writer, main topics including political and social satire. Over the centuries comedy was moving away from those topics, focusing on family issues - the nature of relationships and love complications in particular. Such a universal theme was destined to survive - indeed, it was traveling from Greece via Roman Empire, the rebirth of classical themes in …show more content…

In this comedy, the complexity of dramatic plot was brought to virtuosity. It is composed of four interlaced stories about the wedding of the Athenian duke Theseus and the Amazon Queen Hippolyta, experiences of young Athenian lovers Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, fight between the fairy king Oberon and Queen Titania over a changeling child, and preparation of an amateur play about Pyramus and Thisbe (as well as the tragic love between Pyramus and Thisbe – the very content of this "drama within drama”). All these stories are interconnected in a seemingly easy and straightforward sequence of events by the omnipresent motive of love, which in one form or another, exhilarated or serene, comical or tragical, uplifting or down-to-earth, pervades the whole …show more content…

Although it has been a subject of numerous critics and analyses, A Midnight Summer Dream is almost impossible to be critically analyzed, its beauty is omnipresent and can’t be overseen. It is a comedy of love, as Benedetto Croce indicates (Kennedy, 1999, p.386-387). William Hazlitt (1845) wrote „The reading of this play is like wandering in a groove by moonlight: the descriptions breathe sweetness-like odors thrown from beds of flowers” (p.87).
“In a play constructed along Shakespeare's lines (or nowadays in movie, novel, or short story) outward actions and their resulting incidents do indeed flow from the inward goals of character, but such goals are neither always in harmony with each other, nor with outward behaviour. Insofar as there are discrepancies characters become complex, of the kind that Forster calls "round," much more like ourselves or the people we know!” (Oatley, 2006,

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1. When I first began reading this piece of work I knew I was going to enjoy it! The reason for this was because it reminded me of Romeo and Juliet! I also realized that this story was told in the third person through an unknown person as the narrator. I also realized that towards the middle it got a bit confusing for me that sometimes I had to take a minute and go back to assure I understood everything.

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Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream film adaptation creates a fantastical spin on the well-known Shakespeare play. The director is able to create an effective dream-like setting with the use of projections, lighting, and puppetry. From the beginning, there is a sense of wonder created, as without word or introduction, Puck, played by Kathryn Hunter, glides onto stage and lays down on a mattress supported by branches. Puck is then lifted into the air and a large white sheet consumes the stage. Even for those familiar with the play, such as myself, it immediately commands your mind to travel to the dream world Taymor has created.

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Toba Beta once said: "“Justice could be as blind as love.”   Shakespeare 's play A Midsummer Night 's Dream captures the blind bias of both love and justice.   Egeus, a respected nobleman in Athens, arranged for his daughter, Hermia, to marry nobleman Demetrius.   Egeus tells his daughter that she must obey his wishes: if she does not, she can either choose to become a nun, or die.   Hermia, much to her father 's dismay, is deeply in a mutual love with a different nobleman, Lysander.

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“Pyramus and Thisbe” tells the story of two young lovers who are forbidden to be together due to the fact that their families are enemies. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream tells the story of the chaos and craziness that surrounds the days prior to Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. In both of these stories, the reader is able to find several similarities and differences.

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Athens vs the Forest In Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare there are two settings, Athens and the forest where the four layers of ploy take place. First in Athens the royal wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. Second is the story of the four Athenian lovers (Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena) in the forest. Third is the conflict between fairies (Oberon and Titania) in the forest. Last is the effort of the “rude mechanicals” to put on a play.

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Some people feel that it`s quite challenging locating differences between a written story and its film, though, however, some people find it considerably simple to detect differences between the pair. A Midsummer Nights Dream was undoubtedly great cinematic film made in 1999. However, the written play of A Midsummer Nights Dream was much more detailed and more informational. The differences I noticed were the following: The Indian boy and his role, the setting, characters and examples of similarities. First of all, the primary anomaly I noticed implies the Indian boy and his role during the piece.

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Philosophical approach on the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream Submitted to: Prof. Eliezer V. David Submitted by: Jan MarveManaligod KristianDacara Bryan RonhellTangonan MarckRacell Diego BSME-2C Philosophy is the study of the theoretical basis of a particular branch of knowledge or experience. In every story there is a philosophy. It is the way of the author to show the moral lesson of the play.

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They are the perfect example of difficulty of love, that is, passionate circumstances in which an injustice or discrepancy interferes in the consistency of the engagement. Finally, the habitual happy end in comedies is produced, although they have had problems to achieve it like the love potion; the second are Demetrius and Helena. Their relationship has evolved during the play. At first, Demetrius is in love with Hermia, but it is at the end when his love for Helena appears. However, Helena has been always in love with him.

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The Ironic Scenes of Shakespeare’s Famous Play “Never did mockers waste more idle breath,” cried Helena, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, incorrectly thinking she was being mocked (Shakespeare 3.2 170). This is one of multiple examples of dramatic irony in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more about a character 's situation than the character does. This is one of three types of irony, the other types are situational and verbal.

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In William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream the circumstances surrounding love have been put into question, this occurs when a magical nectar is put in the eyes of three major characters, and changes their feelings towards the people in their lives. Titania, Lysander and Demetrius all have had the nectar put into their eyes, though Demetrius avoids having this done to him in act 2 scene 2 which is the scene that the focus of this paper will be looking at. Throughout the play, we focus largely on the love life of Helena, which unfortunately does not seem to exist. She is in love with Demetrius, whom does not care for her in the same way, he does not cherish her at all before he is under the influence of magic. Once Lysander declares

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With many of the different scenes throughout the play, the theme of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is that love is difficult. In the play when Hermia 's father tries to tear Hermia and Lysander

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In the real world, love is a very fragile force. Love can be easily broken and manipulated by multiple other outside forces. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the two most basic themes are the chaos and order that are the causes of all the actions that take place. Chaos versus order in A Midsummer Night’s Dream also is a representation of Yin and Yang. Yin, represents the bad or darkness in the world, this is the chaos in the play.

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Today, men and women have equal rights, but that does not mean life has always been simple for both genders. When Shakespeare writes A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are roles, behaviors, and expectations for the dominant men and submissive women. This literature portrays the major changes in the lives of both sexes throughout the years, which shows the advances women gain with time. The gender issue of men being dominant and women being submissive used in the drama, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, shows the differences in the roles, behaviors, and expectations appropriate for each gender and is an example of an outdated stereotype.

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