Philomath Series

Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream

ByDr Parul Popat

1. A Midsummer Nights Dream: Its masque like character2. A Midsummer Nights Dream: A Festive Comedy

A Midsummer Nights Dream: Its masque like characterMasque is a play written in verse, often with music and dancing. It was popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was a type of theatre, which was especially popular with kings, queens and the aristocracy in Britain in the 17th century. It involved actors in elaborate costumes, music and dancing. Many of the most popular masques were written by Ben Jonson, with costumes and scenery designed by Inigo Jones. Although masque died out after the English Civil War, many of its features were used in later forms of theatre, opera and ballet. Many of the great poets and dramatists such as Samuel Daniel, Thomas Campion, George Chapman and Thomas Middleton wrote masques. Miltons Comus is generally regarded as a famous masque. Following are the features of a masque:

A masque was generally presented in celebration of a festival or in the honour of a noblemans wedding.A Midsummer Nights Dreamis about a midsummer festival and the aim is to celebrate a forthcoming marriage. The play is all about celebrations and the mood is of holidays and festivals, making the whole experience of the play like that of a revel.

Go Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments,Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.... [I. i. 13-14]

In the opening scene of the play itself, Theseus instructs Philostrate to go and urge the young people of Athens to enjoy themselves and make merry. He tells that sorrowful thoughts should be driven away because they are fit only for funerals. He does not want any one to look pale. He wishes all to share his happiness. The play ends with the marriage of Theseus, Hippolyta and two pairs of lovers and reconciliation between the fairy kind and queen.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is clearly related to the practices of midsummer night, the night before June 24, which was the date of St. John the Baptist's festival. Hence, it is connected with merrymaking, various superstitions and folk customs, dances, and revels. More than any other night in the year, midsummer night suggests enchantment and witchcraft, something that Shakespeare has superbly embodied in his fairy world.

It tells a slender story and mostly in rhyme.A Midsummers Nights Dream is not entirely a masque. One of the reasons is its story. Like other masques, it does not tell a small story. The plot is elaborate and complex. It interweaves four strands in it. The four plots of the play are:1. Theseus and Hippolyta Story2. Love story of the young people

3. Oberon and Titania Episode 4. The comic sub-plot of Pyramus and Thisbe Play

The characters are usually supernatural beings drawn from classical mythology.The play clearly shows an importance role played by supernatural beings. The link between the plots dealing with the fairies. The fairies are responsible for the confusion and final reconciliation. Puck or Robin Goodfellow is a lieutenant to King Oberon who assigns to him various tasks that he promptly carries out. He is a mischievous fairy who plays all kinds of pranks upon people. He frightens the village maidens in various ways. He steals the cream from the milk. He misleads the travelers who are trying to find their destination in the darkness of night. Sometimes he assumes the shape of a stool and when an old woman sits upon it, he slips away so that she topples. In the course of the play also, he carries out certain vital tasks and is indispensable to the play as a whole. His one mistake turns the play in a hilarious comedy and brings to light the themes of play like fickleness of love, theme of dream, irrationality of love etc.

An insight into the peculiar nature of the fairy world in A Midsummer Nights Dream helps us to understand the entire play. Although the fairies certainly possess supernatural qualities, they are nevertheless closely linked to the world of mankind and have their share of human weakness.

The locality is some classical or purely ideal region.The setting is not real familiar London but Athens first and then a wood near it. The whole play has a dream like character and the same has been stressed in the title itself. Most of the action takes place in the wood at night. The characters too refer to it as a vision. Puck too asks the spectators to treat everything as a dream.

In addition to abundance of spectacle, music and many graceful dances are an essential feature of this play. This element of masque is also present in the play. The audience would be fascinated by the spectacle of fairies when Oberon, the King of fairies, appears with his train from one side and Titania, the Queen of fairies with her train from the other side. They present a glamorous spectacle.

The entertainment value of the play is increased by a number of songs given in the play. It is one of most musical of the comedies of Shakespeare. These songs have been contributed by the fairies. After Titania and Oberon have exchanged some bitter words and parted from each other, Titania invites her fairies to dance with her in a circle and to sing a song. The song also serves as a lullaby and makes queen sleep. Later in the play, after reconciliation between Oberon and Titania, Oberon asks for music. When music is provided, Oberon joins hands with Titania and begins to dance.

A Midsummer Nights Dream was undoubtedly intended as a dramatic epithalamium [a bridal song] to celebrate the marriage of some aristocratic couple. Plays written for such festive occasions addressed themselves to an aristocratic audience. They were mostly performed on private stages rather than in public theaters and revealed an entirely different style of performance from the popular dramas. The relationship of A Midsummer Nights Dream to the court masque-something which Act V, Scene I, line 40 draws attention to-also comes in here. The masques formed a central part of the entertainments that were always given at court celebrations. Several noticeable features in A Midsummer Nights Dream clearly relate to the genre of the court masque. The music and dances, the appearance of fairylike creatures possessed of supernatural qualities, the employment of motifs involving magic and metamorphosis, indeed remind one of the court masque.

A Midsummer Nights Dreamas a festive comedyShakespeare has used many genres to convey his stories, especially comedies, tragedies and historical plays.A Midsummer Nights Dreamis a comedy. It is all about celebrations and the mood is of holidays and festivals, making the whole experience of the play like that of a revel. Go Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments,Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth.... [I. i. 13-14]

In the opening scene of the play itself, Theseus instructs Philostrate to go and urge the young people of Athens to enjoy themselves and make merry. He tells that sorrowful thoughts should be driven away because they are fit only for funerals. He does not want any one to look pale. He wishes all to share his happiness.

The play is about a midsummer festival and the aim is to celebrate a forthcoming marriage. The whole plot is entertained by music, dancing and disguise. The festival implies an escape to the woods, to a place out of the limits of ordinary society. It is a world set apart, which marks a break in ordinary life because it implies in the remote past: anything can happen. The wood becomes a place of celebration, leading to imagination, freedom, away from the context of social norms and order. Aberrations (a fact, an action or a way of behaving that is not usual, and that may be unacceptable) are things that are not normally tolerated but that are accepted within the norms of the play: we know that in the end, everything goes back to normal. Aberrations are tolerable as long as they do not last.

Because it is a festive comedy, no single characters control comedy; it is always as if it were a group. We have several groups of characters enjoying their own fun and they sometimes meet. Because it is a comedy, it also ends with reconciliation. All negative features have been pushed aside and it brings back the characters to the beginning of the play but not exactly: something has happened in between. The characters have been through a lot of tension and they have all been affected. Those tensions have been necessary to improve and society is indeed reinforced because the tensions have been solved.

Some facts about its origin and title may help us better to understand the particular nature of the play. A Midsummer Nights Dream is clearly related to the practices of midsummer night, the night before June 24, which was the date of St. John the Baptist's festival. Hence, it is connected with merrymaking, various superstitions and folk customs, dances, and revels. More than any other night in the year, midsummer night suggests enchantment and witchcraft, something, which Shakespeare has superbly embodied in his fairy world. To an Elizabethan audience, moreover, the play's title would have immediately called to mind the so-called "midsummer madness". Thus, by means of his highly suggestive title, Shakespeare has firmly planted the dreamlike action of his drama in the popular beliefs and customs of his time. Furthermore, the title gives theatergoers and readers a clue as how the work should be understood-namely, as an unrealistic creation of the imagination. There are series of dream images containing all the contradictions and inconsistencies that dreams normally possess. Indeed, the dreamlike character of what takes place is repeatedly alluded to.

In Puck's epilogue, for instance, the audience themselves are explicitly addressed: And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend. . . [V. i. 427-29]

In short, the play's title makes significant allusion to the nature and meaning of the work, though it makes no reference to the period of time during which the events of the drama occur. In fact, the action takes place between April 29 and May 1, the latter date, being that of May Day, demanding of course particular celebrations, and for that reason it is perhaps a suitable day for the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta.

Now the wedding of the princely pair is not only the destination of the action: it is also the occasion for which the play itself was written. A Midsummer Nights Dream was undoubtedly intended as a dramatic epithalamium (a song or poem in honour of a bride and bridegroom) to celebrate the marriage of some aristocratic couple. Plays written for such festive occasions addressed themselves to an aristocratic audience. They were mostly performed on private stages rather than in public theaters and revealed an entirely different style of performance from the popular dramas. The relationship of A Midsummer Nights Dream to the court masque-something which Act V, Scene I, line 40 draws attention to also comes in here. The masques formed a central part of the entertainments that were always given at court celebrations. Several noticeable features in A Midsummer Nights Dream clearly relate to the genre of the court masque. The music and dances, the appearance of fairylike creatures possessed of supernatural qualities, the employment of motifs involving magic and metamorphosis, indeed remind one of the court masque.

A Midsummer Nights Dreamis one of Shakespeares greatest comedies. It is not limited to one single comedy and mixes several dimensions: that is what makes it interesting. It is also more than a comedy in the sense that it could have become a tragedy.

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