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Concetti Chiave

  • A Midsummer Night's Dream, written between 1594-1596, is a quintessential Shakespearean comedy featuring magic, love misunderstandings, and a happy resolution.
  • The play combines elements of fairy tales with the presence of magical creatures and a love potion, reminiscent of themes in European literature like Tristan and Isolde.
  • Characters come from the lower class, providing comic relief, contrasting with the noble, tension-filled roles in Shakespearean tragedies.
  • The setting in a wooded garden filled with wildflowers and herbs evokes a sensory experience, highlighting the fantastical elements of the narrative.
  • Puck's epilogue addresses the audience directly, playing on the concept of dreams and promising that the magical world of theatre will continue to enchant.

Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Written in 1594-1596, it's one of the most famous Shakespearean comedies.
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 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.

    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.
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.
We shadows It is Puck's last monologue=epilogue
    To the audience: Elizabethan theatre often referred to the audience with the narrator.
What does Puck mean by "shadows"?= philosophically speaking: imperfect copies of Plato's ideas/ =in a world of magic, there are lots of immaterial spirits who can not be trapped/ =actors, material and imperfect interpretation of something which is unreal like platonic ideas. All of these could be perfectly understood by the audience.
    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

  1. Quali sono le caratteristiche principali che distinguono una commedia da una tragedia in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"?
  2. La commedia si distingue per l'uso della magia, le conseguenze comiche e un finale felice, mentre la tragedia ha conseguenze tragiche e un finale tragico. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream", la magia crea un'atmosfera da fiaba e alla fine l'ordine viene ristabilito.

  3. Qual è il ruolo dei personaggi di classe inferiore nella commedia?
  4. I personaggi di classe inferiore, a differenza dei re e delle regine mitologici, fanno ridere il pubblico e possono ridere a loro volta, contribuendo alla leggerezza della commedia rispetto alla tensione delle tragedie.

  5. Come viene utilizzato il giardino nei boschi nella commedia?
  6. Il giardino nei boschi è dominato da fiori selvatici e erbe, che evocano i sensi, specialmente l'olfatto e la vista, e sono ingredienti di pozioni curative, creando un ambiente magico e sensoriale.

  7. Cosa rappresentano le "ombre" nel monologo finale di Puck?
  8. Le "ombre" rappresentano copie imperfette delle idee platoniche, spiriti immateriali nel mondo magico e attori che interpretano in modo imperfetto qualcosa di irreale, un concetto che il pubblico può comprendere.

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