Research Proposal on "Midsummers Night Dream"

Research Proposal 5 pages (1603 words) Sources: 3 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

hakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream: A Literary Criticism

Typical of Shakpespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a complex work exploiting the human folly of love and lovers, emotion and responsibility. It is the customary three act play, replete with subplots: Hermia, who is in love with Lysander; the estrangement of Oberon, King of the fairies, and his wife, Titania; Helena and Demetrius, whose relationship is threatened when Oberon interferes with a love potion that puts the cast of lovers into a confused state of mixed and mismatched lovers. The play is playful, the characters flawed by the fate of their humanity or interaction with humans, and fairies represent the imagination of the dream state that characterizes and explains the folly of human emotions, love, and lovers gone awry because of Oberon's interference. The play sums up the fleeting emotional state of human love, and how, when it is manipulated by reason and logic, it becomes even more elusive and misguided.

The play has been the subject of extensive analysis and criticism. "The focus of Dream criticism has varied with the age. Restoration and eighteenth century commentators on drama most frequently fastened on plot, nineteenth century critics on character, and twentieth century writers on language and theme -- though in the last several decades on explicitly political issues as well (Keller, Dorothea, p. 3)." This twenty-first century criticism looks at the play from a combination of these perspectives, and utilizes existing criticism literature to discuss the play in this essay.

The upcoming nuptials of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hipolyta, Queen of the Amazons, and this provides the background for the merriment that ensues as weddings are supposed to be joyous occasions; unless they are forced. The wedding of Theseus and Hipolyta is one of conquered loses all. Hipolyta was conquered, militarily, by Theseus, but he is in love with her. This relationship is revealed in the opening lines of the play:

"Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow

This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,

Like to a step-dame or a dowager

Long withering out a young man revenue (Shakespeare, 2009, online)."

Theseus is looking forward to the union. He laments that the old moon wanes, or gives way to the new moon, too slowly for him. It "lingers" or delays his desires, or his lust for Hipolyta. She, on the other hand, does not disguise her feelings about the marriage, saying:

"Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities (Shakespeare, online)."

She is responding to Theseus' excitement about the upcoming wedding night as one that will, for her, arrive quickly. It will be for her, a night of solemnity. Theseus orders preparations for the festivities, to banish the melancholy, which has no place in a wedding -- at least not his own.

Dorothea Kehler says that "Where Shakespeare stands on the question of whether lovers are deluded by appearances or rather receptive to a transcendant reality remains moot (p. 4)." But it is actually quite relevant, and it is clear that Shakespeare believes lovers are in fact deluded by appearances, and that they create the transcendant reality in their delusion; thus, the dream state and the interplay of the fairies and Puck as the intervener in the human delusion. It is not just relevant, but is tangential to the ultimate moral of the storyline. The opening lines between Theseus and Hipolyta show how Theseus is deluded by appearances; he lusts for Hipolyta as the spoils of war wherein he was the victor. Hipolyta, on the other hand, is a captive victim, with no choice other than do that which Theseus, who now essentially owns her, bids her to do.

This is the prevailing theme of the play, and is supported by the events that unfold. First, when Egeus appeals to Theseus to compel his daughter, Hermia, to adhere to her responsibility as a daughter and to marry Egeus' choice of a husband for her. Egeus is seeking intervention in his daughter's emotions, because she is in love with Lysander. The second event that supports the theme, and underscores that Shakespeare's position on deluded appearances and transcendant reality, is when the Oberon, the Fairy King, intercedes in the relationship between Helena and Demetrius, who is now pursuing Hermia. Shakespeare gives the fairy King the magic to intervene, and to make Demetrius fall once again in love with Helena; but it backfires, because Puck, to whom Oberon has assigned the task of getting a magic potion to resolve the estrangement between himself and his wife, Titania, happens to observe Demetrius treating Helena badly, and instructs Puck to put some of the magical potion into the eyes of a man traveling through the woods dressed as an Athenean. Puck, acting on orders and intuition, as he has not himself seen the man Oberon has instructed him to administer the potion to, puts it on the eyes of the wrong person, Lysander, who then falls in love with Helena, even though he and Hermia have planned to run away so that they can be together.

In the end, it is all summarized by the entertainment at the wedding of Theseus and Hipolyta; a play, about the folly of love. The characters believe their experience under the spell of the potion was a dream.

The cultural tradition of arranged marriages is one that is foreign to Westerners (Mobley, Johnnie Patricia, p. 16). However, in Shakespeare's time, it was customary, and Shakespeare is commenting on the folly of emotional love, and demonstrates arranged marriages, or marriages of purpose, is perhaps not undesirable as emotions tend to create confusion. The reader must keep in mind Shakespeare's own period of time, when marriages were arranged, and remember, too, that a playwright of Shakespeare's stature was often commissioned by royalty. It would not be Shakespeare's goal to offend his benefactors, but it would be okay for Shakespeare to use the play within the play, as he does, and using the common people, as he does, to make light of the practice of arranged marriages.

So one might easily disagree with Kehler that Shakespeare's position on "the question of whether lovers are deluded by appearances or rather receptive to a transcendant reality remains moot (Kehler, p. 4)." From Kehler's discussion of the dream theme in the play, it is perhaps moot.

Criticism from the perspective of language is, like Kehler's summation of Shakespeare's position on appearances and reality, moot. The play is in the language of Shakespeare's time, and one might think that the reader of the play would be familiar with enough with the meaning of the language to easily understand it. The use of language, such as the following phrase by Theseus, both underscores Theseus' rank as the problem solver, or the leader, because it carries the tone of authority.

"THESEUS

"What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:

To you your father should be as a god;

One that composed your beauties, yea, and one

To whom you are but as a form in wax

By him imprinted and within his power

To leave the figure or disfigure it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman (Shakespeare online)."

It also reminds Hermia that it is her duty to follow her father's choice of a husband. "To you, your father should be as a god," is telling Hermia that she should treat her father with the same respect she would have for god, in the same way that she would have blind faith in god. Her father is the highest authority in her life (presumably after her… READ MORE

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