Verbal jokes wee seen as puns and mispronunciations, and slapstick knockabout comedy, which were generally seen with the scenes with the workers in it, both practising and performing the play. Overall, Bottom is the main character when it comes to verbal jokes in the play.
For example in Act 1 Scene 2 when the workers are rehearsing the play, throughout it bottom will mispronounce words. He mistakes “Erlces” for Hercules and uses the word “Phibbus” instead of Pheobus.
The next kind of comedy seen in the play is mistaken identity. This can be used when characters cross-dress, and people are in disguise. During the play, mistaken identity is important as it is one of the major story lines; Puck mistaking Lysander for Demitrius results with him falling out of love with Hermia, and in love with Helena.
Another example of this in the play is when Bottom ends up with an ass’s head. This is seen as funny, because Titania falls in love with him, which is very strange as she is the fairy queen, and he is a worker with the head of an ass, “ O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted.”
Music and poetry is not seen very frequently in the play, only twice. At first, we hear some music when the fairies sing a lullaby to Titania in order for her to fall asleep, “Newts and blind worms do no wrong, comer not near our Fairy Queen”.
The second time is Act 5 scene 1 when there is a song and dance during and after the workers play, “will we sing, and bless this place”, “Sing, and dance it trippingly”.
The final kind of comedy is a dark note, which is when one person is left unhappy, or that there is an under-current of a serious issue. The way this is presented throughout the play is in a number of ways.
Firstly, the power of the fairies is quite scary, and they can fool the mind, and mess with people’s feelings. Another example is the fact that throughout the play there is the undertone that if Hermia does not marry whom her father wishes her to, she will be killed, “As she is mine, I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this gentle man, or to her death” (Act 1 Scene 1).
Finally, the whole reason why Titania was made to fall in love with Bottom was to distract her so that Oberon could be able to take the Indian boy off her. It is strange to think that an argument between two fairies results in a love triangle between two men and women.
In conclusion, I believe it is clear that overall A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy according to the standards of the Elizabethans. This is due to the fact that it uses all the different ways that the writers would bring comedy into a play. Shakespear used all all the types of comedies that would or could appear in a play in this play. Therefore, in my opinion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream does satisfy the Elizabethan conventions for a comedy.
