Concetti Chiave
- The play, written between 1594-1596, is a renowned Shakespearean comedy, using elements common to both comedies and tragedies, such as love misunderstandings and magic.
- Magic and love potions play a crucial role, creating a fairy tale atmosphere with elves, fairies, and sprites, leading to a temporary social disorder that is humorously restored.
- Characters mainly belong to the lower class, unlike tragedies; this distinction contributes to the comedic tone, with humor often derived from interactions and societal contrasts.
- The natural setting, particularly a garden rich with sensory details, enhances the comedic elements, contrasting with the more somber use of sleep and nature in tragedies.
- Puck's final monologue invites the audience to reflect on the play's dreamlike quality, emphasizing theatre's transformative and ephemeral nature.
Written in 1594-1596, it's one of the most famous Shakespearean comedies.
Common Elements Between Comedy and Tragedy
In common with tragedies: five acts, use of magic, love misunderstanding. If it has comic consequences and a happy end, it will be a comedy. If it has tragic consequences and a tragic end, it will be a tragedy.
In this case, use of magic makes the comedy look like a fairy tale, due to the presence of elves, fairies, sprites and of a love potion, a topos= a theme repeatedly used throughout all the different European literatures, for example Tristan and Isolde and Arthurian Literature. When someone is under the effect of a love potion, he can not be accused of anything because he is not "in this world". In tragedies as well there is a social disorder and everyone tries to re-establish the original order, but it is not possible because too many die. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, on the contrary, love potions cause a game of couples, but at the end the order is restored.
Characters and Social Classes
Characters are from the lower class, except for kings and queens taken from mythology, not nobles like in tragedies. The first ones make the viewer laugh and they can laugh, the second ones are not able because the tension is too high (in fact there were funny interlude to relax the audience). Comedy is a lighter machine, tragedy is a war machine, heavy, complicated, in constant war between characters and within the characters.
Comic and Tragic Effects of Sleep
There are sleeping characters,with funny effects, where tragedies' sleeping characters are dead instead, for example Hamlet's father is killed while he was sleeping, and Macbeth kills the King while he was sleeping.
The Garden and the Senses
Besides, the garden in the woods where comedies' characters are sleeping is dominated by wild flowers, like primroses, violets, musk-roses,eglantines, and by herbs like thyme, which were ingredients of potions used to cure in ancient medicine. There are also animals like snakes, and all of this is felt with the five senses, especially smell and sight.
Final Monologue of Puck
It is Puck's last monologue=
To the audience: Elizabethan theatre often referred to the audience with the narrator.
Awakening and Promise of Puck
What can the audience do if they have been perturbed by the fantastic display they have witnessed? They can simply wake up, because it is A Midsummer Night's DREAM, there is no problem of perturbation.
What promise does Puck make while taking leave from the audience? He promises to do better in the future, because everything can happen in theatre.
Domande da interrogazione
- What are the common elements between Shakespearean comedies and tragedies?
- What role does sleep play in the comedic and tragic effects within Shakespeare's works?
Both genres share a five-act structure, the use of magic, and themes of love misunderstanding. However, comedies like "A Midsummer Night's Dream" have comic consequences and happy endings, while tragedies result in tragic consequences and endings.
In comedies, sleep leads to humorous situations, whereas in tragedies, sleeping characters often face death, such as in "Hamlet" and "Macbeth."
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