Comment On the Passage From a Midsummer Night’s Dream, In Whatever Way Seems To You Appropriate With Regard To Such Matters As Content, Dramatic Presentation, Form, Language, What It Reveals of the Play As a Whole, and How It Exemplifies Shakespeare&

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LAURA HAWKINS

2H

SHAKESPEARE

PROF. FULLER

COMMENT ON THE PASSAGE FROM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, (IV.i. 185-END) IN WHATEVER WAY SEEMS TO YOU APPROPRIATE WITH REGARD TO SUCH MATTERS AS CONTENT, DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, FORM, LANGUAGE, WHAT IT REVEALS OF THE PLAY AS A WHOLE, AND HOW IT EXEMPLIFIES SHAKESPEARE’S PRACTICE MORE GENERALLY.

This passage from A Midsummer Night’s Dream occurs near the resolution of the play, when unions between lovers are being strengthened and the different worlds of the play are in the process of becoming reconciled.  To facilitate the typical harmonious denouement of a Shakespearian comedy, the diverse subplots and imaginative worlds that exist within the drama must come together, resulting in a comedic closure in which harmony reigns.  The appearance of two different sets of characters that belong to the development of two different subplots in this extract illustrates Shakespeare’s wider practice in the comedy: that of orchestrating numerous subplots, which all terminate at the conclusion of the play with marriage, celebration and harmony.  

The plot strands featured in this passage - the love battles between Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena; and the preparations by the group of mechanicals, led by Nick Bottom, to stage a play, – constitute only two of the four subplots to be found in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  The story that provides the context and impetus for much of the action in the play is the impending marriage of Theseus of Athens to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and later its celebration.  Theseus and his court in ancient Greece provide the frame for the play, and Theseus stands in judgement of the affairs of the exponents of the courtly world.  It is he who establishes the tone of the play at the outset: “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour / Draws on apace.  Four happy days bring in / Another moon” (I.i.1-3), and also he who summarises the trend for order at the end: “Lovers, to bed; ‘tis almost fairy time /…A fortnight hold we this solemnity / In nightly revels and new jollity” (V.i.357-363).  A fourth subplot centres on the fairy kingdom, and particularly the quarrel between Oberon and Titania.  The magical aspects involved in the plots of the aristocrats and the mechanicals derive from this source, and the mythical and altogether unreal dimension of this realm allows Shakespeare to weave together different plots into a coherent whole without having to give it the semblance of ‘reality’.  It is the sudden absence of this illusory world in the lives of both the aristocrats and of Bottom that provides the subject for the passage in the fourth act, as both groups ponder whether it has all been a dream: “It seems to me / That yet we sleep, we dream.” (IV.i.192-3)

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream weaves together three diverse worlds to create one consistent but essentially timeless universe.  The two young sets of lovers are representative of the aristocratic court of ancient Athens, and as such are subject to the rules and conventions by which the court is governed.  The rustic population of the Elizabethan English countryside is presented through the depiction of the mechanicals, of which Bottom is the most prominent character.  These two diverse groups, with lifestyles, language and habits that differ wildly, find themselves subject to the same puissant force of fairyland and its representatives.  This is a ...

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