A Midsummer Night's Dream (Vol. 29) - The Supernatural And The Imagination
THE SUPERNATURAL AND THE IMAGINATION
David P. Young (essay date 1966)
SOURCE: "Bottom's Dream," in Something of Great Constancy: The Art of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Yale University Press, 1966, pp. 111-66.
[In the following excerpt, Young argues that Shakespeare uses the dream motif and fairy magic in A Midsummer Night's Dream to explore philosophical and psychological ideas, focusing in particular on the relationship between nature and art.]
"Man is but an ass," says Bottom, "if he go about to expound this dream." That might serve as a warning to commentators. Serious discussions of comedy always take place near the precipice of academic fatuity. Nonetheless, it is possible to be too cautious; studies of Shakespeare's philosophical and psychological preoccupations have in the past dealt almost exclusively with the tragedies and histories. Such exclusion inevitably leaves the impression that the comedies are somehow...
[The entire page is 35101 words long]
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