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A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

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Literary Devices in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Summary:

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare employs various literary devices to enhance the play's comedic and poetic elements. In Act 1, Scene 1, Helena uses personification and imagery to discuss love, while rhymed couplets and stichomythia highlight dialogues between Hermia and Helena. Act 1, Scene 2 includes oxymorons, malapropisms, and hyperbole, showcasing Bottom's comedic errors. Act 2, Scene 1 features poetic elements like rhyme schemes and alliteration, along with exposition to reveal character motivations. Puns and foreshadowing appear in Act 2, Scene 2, while Act 4 uses puns, anaphora, and allusions for comedic effect.

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What literary devices are used in Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 226-251 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

In this section, Helena laments that Demetrius's love has turned from her to Hermia and then discusses love's attributes in general. Shakespeare has her use personification: in an extended metaphor, Helena likens love first to a person, and then to a little boy. Helena gives loves human characteristics: it has eyes and a mind, and it sees with its mind (or imagination, a human trait), not its eyes. She then goes on to compare love to Cupid, usually depicted as a young, winged boy, musing that love is indeed like a boy who "forswears" (lies) at his games, perjuring himself "everywhere." Thinking about Demetrius, who one day had nothing but words of love for her, only to turn almost instantly to Hermia, Helena personifies love as a child that can almost immediately be "beguiled" into changing its loyalties.

Shakespeare also uses rich imagery in this passage, meaning he paints a picture with words. First, Helena mentions "wing'd Cupid painted blind." We can see in our imaginations a painting of Cupid, perhaps from a Valentine, depicted with a blindfold so he can't see. Shakespeare also has Helena compare a lover's words to hail, something which might strike us hard but quickly melts. 

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What literary devices are used in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 1, scene 1, lines 198-205?

Different editions of Shakespeare’s plays often offer different accountings of the plays’ line numberings (especially if prose passages are involved).  Therefore, when asking about a specific passage, it’s helpful to give the first and last lines of the passage in which you’re interested.  Lines 198-205 in the Open Source Shakespeare, for instance, include the following lines:

Hermia. God speed fair Helena! whither away?

Helena. Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.

Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair! 190

Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air

More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,

When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,

Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go; 195

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,

My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,

The rest I'd give to be to you translated.

O, teach me how you look, and with what art 200

You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Hermia. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Helena. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

Hermia. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

Helena. O that my prayers could such affection move! 205

Hermia. The more I hate, the more he follows me.

Helena. The more I love, the more he hateth me.

Hermia. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

Helena. None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

This passage employs a number of literary devices. Rhyme, for instance, is used throughout the passage, as are couplets.  The use of rhymed couplets enhances our sense here of a two-part dialogue. Repetition of the word “fair” is used in lines 188-90, while repetition of the word “catch” in lines 194-97. Metaphors appear, for instance, in lines 191-92, especially in the description of eyes as “lode-stars.” Rhetorical balance appears within line 193, within lines 196-97, and within lines 202-09. Alliteration appears in the first three words of line 198 and in the second and sixth words of line 208 (as well as elsewhere).  Most significantly, a method known as stichomythia appears in lines 202-09. Dictionary.com defines stichomythia as

dramatic dialogue, as in a Greek play, characterized by brief exchanges between two characters, each of whom usually speaks in one line of verse during a scene of intense emotion or strong argumentation.

The effect of stichomythia in this exchange is to emphasize the strong contrasts between the situations of Hermia and Helena. Another effect is to make the language sound somewhat contrived and artificial and thus far more suitable to a comedy than to a tragedy. This is especially the case in the present passage since a strong sense of balance exists not only between the lines but within them. People rarely speak this way in "real" life, and so the artificiality and silliness of the speech is emphasized here. It is hard to take such speech seriously, and that is why such speech is perfectly appropriate to a comedy.

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What literary devices are used in Act 1, Scene 2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Quince, the play's director, says that they are going to act "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe," but how can a comedy be lamentable, and, moreover, how could a tale of two horrible deaths be funny? At the very least, "lamentable comedy" is an oxymoron, a combination of two words that are either incongruous or opposite. It sounds totally ridiculous here, and Quince is completely unaware of the fact.

To further confuse matters, Bottom then says that it is a "merry" work. Next, he tells the actors to "spread [them]selves" around Quince to hear the parts, but what he really means is that they should gather around, coming closer, not spreading out or getting farther away: this is a malapropism.

Bottom employs hyperbole, or an exaggeration of the truth to draw attention to some truth, when he says that his emotional performance "will move storms." He means that he will make the audience cry a great deal.

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What literary devices are used in Act 1, Scene 2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is the first time the audience meets the group of players who will perform on Theseus's wedding day. Bottom is the eccentric one who thinks he is better than the other actors and tends to boss around the director, Quince. Ironically, he proves himself to be the fool by making countless mistakes--many of which are embedded in literary devices. The literary devices that are used in this scene include malapropisms, allusions, rhymes and double-entendres. 

First, Bottom has a habit of unintentionally substituting one word for another when he is speaking. When he says one word in place of another, it is the use of a malapropism. The following is an example:

"You were best to call them generally, man by man,

according to the scrip" (I.ii.2-3).

When Bottom says "generally" he really means "individually"; and, when he says "scrip" he forgets the "t". This is a comedic device, but it also shows the audience that he's not as smart as he thinks he is.

The next device is when Bottom makes a reference, or allusion, to Greek characters, such as Hercules. In the process, however, he also includes a malapropism, as shown below:

". . . --Yet

my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles

rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split" (I.ii.21-23).

Note that he substitutes the word "Ercles" for Hercules while making the allusion to the Greek hero.

The next device is the use of rhymes in the poem Bottom recites to show his talents. It's as if he is making up the bad poem on the spot, though, because his rhymes are monosyllabic and simple. He merely rhymes the following: rocks, shocks, locks, gates, car, far, Fates, but he does manage to create and follow a consistent rhyme scheme, which is interesting. And again, he references the Fates which alludes to Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the goddesses who determine the fate of humans.

Finally, a double-entendre, (words that could have double meanings) is found near the end when Quince says the following:

"Some of your French crowns have not hair at all, and then you will play barefac'd" (I.ii.80-81).

The players are discussing types of beards and Quince responds with the above quote. The first double-entendre is "French crowns" which could refer to both "heads" or the French coin. The second one is a reference to "hair," which refers to the actors' hair, but also alludes to the belief that Syphilis caused baldness, which at the time, was very common among the French.

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What literary devices are used in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 2, scene 1?

There are a lot of literary devices being used in this scene, but I would like to focus on the poetic aspects of the scene. Probably one of the first things that a reader or audience will notice is the strict rhyme scheme going on. Right from the start of the scene, audiences will hear the familiar ABAB rhyme scheme. Then the rhyme scheme switches to rhyming couplets. As for the rhythm, it stays mostly with the iambic foot. This means that the syllables alternate an unstressed/stressed pattern. The iambic rhythm is nothing new, but Shakespeare starts it with iambic trimeter. This is something that is characteristic of lullabies, but he builds it into the much more standard iambic pentameter. It gives the scene a really awesome sense of build and progression. Many of the lines present in this scene also contain alliteration. The following four lines are a good example.

Over hill, over dale,
 Thorough bush, thorough brier,
 Over park, over pale,
 Thorough flood, thorough fire.
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What literary devices are used in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 2, scene 1?

The prime literary device used in this scene is exposition. Exposition is used to convey vital background information in a story. When Titania and Oberon appear, much of their dialogue is expositional. We learn that Titania and Oberon's marriage is on the rocks: she has "forsworn his bed" and he is mad she would not give him a changeling child presented to her by a human friend.

Oberon and Puck's conversation sets up the complicating factor of the play: the love potion which will cause great grief and mayhem. Oberon's expositional dialogue shares the rules of the magic flower and informs the audience of his purposes in using it.

Exposition also shares a great deal about character personality and motivation. Oberon and Titania's conflict shows they are both highly emotional, selfish, and even vain people. We learn Puck is mischievous and likes causing trouble.

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What literary devices are used in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 2, scene 1?

This act acquaints us with the magical, fanciful world of the fairies, so Shakespeare uses poetry to convey the enchanting quality of their realm. A fairy speaks with Puck in rhyming couplets: lines end on rhyming words, such as "green" and "queen," "favors" and "savors."

Shakespeare also uses vivid imagery to conjure the world of the fairies. Imagery allows us to imagine we can see, hear, touch, smell or taste what is going on in a scene. Shakespeare describes how Titania loves the young Indian boy she has adopted. She "crowns him with flowers." This is an image because can visualize her doing this. We also learn that Titania and Oberon are fighting over the boy. Shakespeare also helps us visualize  the king and queen of the fairies formerly meeting in harmony near clear fountains or under clear skies: "By fountain clear or spangled starlight sheen." This helps us better understand how their current disharmony causes storms and crop failures. We see too that the "elves" of the kingdom "creep into acorn cups" to hide from the king and queen's anger.  We can picture an elf hiding in a an acorn cup.This image communicates how tiny these fairies are. This is important, because, obviously, real actors, not tiny beings, would play these parts on stage. 

Titania speaks in metaphor when she says to Oberon that his idea that she is seeing other men is "the forgeries of jealousy." A metaphor compares two things without using like or as. A forged signature is a false signature and forged money is fake money, so she is comparing Oberon's idea of her having affairs to a false or fake object. Oberon is speaking false words.

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What literary devices are in act 2, scene 2, of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

One literary device we see in act 2, scene 2, of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a pun. After Titania falls asleep and is enchanted by Oberon's use of the magic flower, Lysander and Hermia enter the scene, feeling exhausted for having lost their way through the woods. Lysander suggests they find a place to sleep for the night. Wanting to preserve her maidenhood, Hermia tells Lysander to find his own bed away from her saying, "Lie further off yet, do not lie so near" (44). In response, Lysander makes a pun out of the word lie. On the one hand, he is using it to mean unfaithfulness; on the other hand, he is using it to speak of lying with Hermia, which has sexual implications. We first see Lysander use the word lie to mean unfaithfulness when he protests his innocence, saying, "O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!," then continues to profess his love for only Hermia, speaking of how their hearts are united (45). He further shows his double meaning of the word lie when he says, "For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie," meaning, in lying next to Hermia, he is not being unfaithful (52).

A second literary device we see in this scene is foreshadowing. Hermia continues to plead with Lysander to allow her to preserve her chastity by lying far away from her, as we see in the following two lines:

Such separation as may well be said
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid. (58-59)

Little does she know that in speaking of "separation," she is foreshadowing their future separation. Lysander will soon be mistakenly enchanted by Puck through the magic flower that makes Lysander fall in love with Helena instead of Hermia. Further foreshadowing is seen when Hermia begs Lysander to never change his love for her:

So far be distant; and, good night sweet friend:
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end! (60-61)

Little does she know that Lysander's love for her soon will change, and the fact that she begs for his love not to change hints to the reader that major changes are soon to come.

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What are some literary devices in lines 53-61 of Act 2, Scene 2 in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

William Shakespeare employs a variety of literary devices in the following passage from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 2, scene 2, lines 53-61):

Hermia. Lysander riddles very prettily: 
Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, 
If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.    [55]
But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy 
Lie further off; in human modesty, 
Such separation as may well be said 
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid, 
So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:   [60]
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!

In line 54, notice how the phrase “my manners” is balanced by the phrase “my pride.”

In line 54, notice the use of alliteration in the heavy emphasis on “m.”

Lines 54-55 are examples of a rhymed couplet, a form used throughout this passage.

In line 55, notice how “Hermia” is balanced by “Lysander.”

In line 56, notice how “love” and “courtesy” are balanced.

In line 58, alliteration is strongly featured thanks to the heavy emphasis on the consonant “s.”

In line 59, notice how “bachelor” is balanced by “maid.”

In line 60, notice how the structure of the first five words echoes the structure of the first four words of line 57.

In line 60, notice how the phrase “sweet friend” echoes the phrase “gentle friend” from line 56.

In line 61, notice the heavy emphasis on alliteration because of the repeated “l” sound.

In line 61, notice how the word “sweet” echoes the use of the same word in line 60.

In short, this passage is full of balanced phrasing and paired phrases – techniques that are appropriate in a play that is so full of emphasis on couples and pairs.

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What effects do the literary devices have in Act 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

In Act 4, scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom, a commoner who has been turned into an ass, awakens from sleep and believes he has dreamed that he became an ass.  As he awakens, he comments,

. . . man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was,—and
methought I had,—but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was.

This passage employs a number of literary devices, including the following:

  • a pun on the word “ass,” which here means “fool” but which can also refer to a donkey. Since Bottom has just recently been turned into a donkey, his claim that “man is but an ass” is comically truer than he realizes.
  • an allusion, in the word “dream,” to the title of the entire play, thus showing that Bottom can sometimes express wit without realizing that he is doing so.
  • anaphora, or repetition of words at the beginnings of lines or sentences, as in the “Methought I was” phrases here.  These phrases, and the hesitation they involve, imply Bottom’s astonishment and confusion at his supposed dream. He tries to explain his thoughts, but he cannot find the words to express himself clearly.
  • bawdy implication, as when Bottom refers to what he thought he “had” when he was a donkey – a statement that is often played for its comically erotic possibilities.
  • Biblical allusion, as in the phrasing “The eye of man hath not heard,” etc., which is often heard as an allusion to 1 Corinthians 2:9: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Critics have interpreted this allusion in various ways, but the fact that there is an allusion to the Bible here seems indisputable.
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What literary devices does Titania use in her speech in act 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

In Act 4, scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ttitania, the queen of the faeries, has fallen in love with a comical commoner named Bottom, who has been literally turned into an ass by Puck. When Bottom expresses a desire to sleep, Titania dismisses the fairies while addressing him by saying,

Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.

[Exeunt fairies]

So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so

Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.

O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

This passage contains a number of literary devices, including the following:

  • alliteration in the first line, in the “th” of “thou” and “thee” and in the “w” of “will wind.”
  • assonance in the first line in the long “i” sound of “I,” “wind,” and “my.”
  • a combination of assonance and alliteration in the second line in “begone” and “be.”
  • a play on words in the similar sounds of “ways away.”
  • imagery of vegetation in the third, fourth, and fifth quoted lines.
  • a simile (indicated by the presence of “so”) in the third quoted line. A second simile is indicated by “so” once again at the end of the fourth quoted line.
  • metrical emphasis on the first syllable of the third and fourth quoted lines, since those first syllables are accented, whereas normally the second syllable would have been accented.
  • metrical regularity in the fifth quoted line, which uses straight iambic pentameter rhythm after the metrical irregularity of the two preceding lines. In an iambic pentameter line, there are ten syllables, and the even syllables are accented, as here: “Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.”
  • metaphor in the phrase “barky fingers,” which compares the branchings of an elm tree to the fingers of a human hand.
  • repetition and balanced syntax in the two phrases beginning with “how” in the final quoted line.
  • balanced syntax (that is, sentence structure), in the third through fifth quoted lines; the balance is emphasized by the presence of the semicolon. The phrase that comes before the semicolon is similar in structure to the phrase that follows it.
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What literary elements are used in act 5, scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

The scene consists largely of a play within a play. In order to pass the rest of the night Theseus and Hippolyta have the workmen perform a version of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. The entertainment that is produced is intended to be like a masque, the type of courtly festive play popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In this case the play-within-play format becomes a kind of parody or satire. The players give a clumsy, comical performance of a story from mythology about the tragic deaths of two lovers. Shakespeare seems to be satirizing not only the genre of the masque, but the Pyramus and Thisbe story itself, and perhaps by extension, the situations that typically occur in ancient myth. Theseus and Hippolyta are amused by the performance and make comical observations during it.

On one level the action of the scene is self-referential. Having the players enact a separate play inside, so to speak, the main one is a device typically used in the Elizabethan theatre (the most famous example would come several years after this play, in Hamlet). So Shakespeare is in effect manipulating and commenting on the literary procedures of his time. But the scene is also a microcosm of the larger message of A Midsummer Night's Dream itself. The whole play is about illusion and how our lives are interwoven with it. The performance by the "mechanicals," though like all of theatre it is based on illusion, is a kind of simplified and comical version of Shakespeare's overall theme that runs through the play.

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What literary elements are used in act 5, scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

A few literary elements that we see in the fifth act are rhetorical schemes and different types of figurative language.

One rhetorical scheme we see Shakespeare making use of in the fifth act is wording repetition. We especially see wording repetition when we notice that Quince's prologue to the mechanicals' play within the play opens in the exact same way that Puck's closing monologue opens. Quince's prologue begins with the line, "If we offend, it is with our good will" while Puck's closing monologue begins, "If we shadows have offended / Think but this, and all is mended" (V.i.115, 418). The repetition of the word "offend" allows the reader to see that, characteristic of his wit, Puck is mocking the mechanicals while at the same time relaying a truth to make amends with Shakespeare's audience.

We also see Shakespeare using figurative language in this act by mixing up word order and meaning. Shakespeare especially uses this scheme in Quince's prologue to show us how little Quince knows about memorizing lines, delivery, or even the meaning of words. Typical of his character, Quince mixes up both word order and meaning in several of his lines. We especially see this in his lines, "To show our simple skill, / That is the true beginning of our end" (). An end is a final goal or result. Hence, what Quince really means to say is that their true goal or end is to "show [their] simple skill," and it does not make sense to refer to their goal as the "beginning of our end." If we were to reword these lines in a way that truly does make sense, we would have something like, "To show our simple skill/ That is the true end of our performance." Thus, we see that not only did Shakespeare put the word "end" in the wrong place, he gave it an entirely different meaning. Mixing up word order and meaning like this is a type of figurative language, or trope. In particular, this type of trope is a catachresis in which the wording creates impossible and nonsensical meaning (Dr. Wheeler, "Tropes").

A final type of figurative language, or trope, we see Shakespeare use in this act is simile. We see an example of a simile after Quince performs, or rather butchers, his prologue, and the other characters begin criticizing it. In particular, Hippolyta compares Quince's performance to the performance of a child playing on a recorder, or other musical instrument, who does not actually know how to play, as we see in her simile, "Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child on a recorder" (129-130). In other words, this simile shows us that neither Quince nor a child actually know what he/she is doing.

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What effects do the literary devices have in Act 5, scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

In Act 5, scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus reads a list of possible plays that are ready to be performed. Last on the list – and the one he chooses – is a play described as

'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.'

Theseus then comments on this description:

Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?

This brief passage uses a variety of literary devices, including the following:

  • oxymoron, in which adjacent words contradict each other, as in the phrases “tedious brief,” “tragical mirth,” “Merry and tragical,” and “hot ice.” The use of oxymoron here implies the incompetence of the playwright and the foolishness of the play he has produced. We can expect a play that is ridiculous and contradictory, with no coherence and no unified effect. Ironically, we can expect a play that is indeed “Merry and tragical” – tragical in the sense that it is intended to be a tragedy, merry in the sense that it is so inept a tragedy that it is actually funny.
  • exclamation, as in the third quoted line, which implies Theseus’s astonishment and his sense of the ridiculousness of what he has just read. Theseus’s sense of surprise and his sense of amusement both foreshadow our own reactions when we witness the play itself.
  • metrical irregularity, as in the final three lines quoted here, which do not display a rigid, predictable, predetermined pattern of accented and unaccented syllables, and which thus sound spontaneous and credible – the kinds of words a surprised person might actually use.
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What literary devices does Shakespeare use in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5, Scene 1 during Theseus and Demetrius's discussion?

In Act 5, scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the following exchange occurs between Theseus and Demetrius as they and the other “privileged” characters watch the amateur (and often incompetent) acting of the “mechanicals” in their unintentionally hilarious performance of a play about Pyramus and Thisbe:

Theseus. I wonder if the lion be to speak.

Demetrius. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

Theseus refers to a performer who is dressed as a lion; Demetrius jokes about fools (“asses”) who speak. His joke anticipates the foolishness of the acting we are about to witness, even as it reminds us of the scene earlier in the play in which Bottom, who had been turned into an ass (a donkey) spoke to Titania.

The most obvious literary device used here is a pun on the word “asses,” which can refer both to donkeys and to foolish humans. Demetrius’s line also employs alliteration through the heavy emphasis on “w,” “l,” and “n” sounds. Finally, Demetrius’s line is nicely balanced, both by the colon and on either side of the colon.

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What are four literary devices used in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

In act II, scene i, starting at line 233, Shakespeare uses the literary device of monologue. A monologue is like a soliloquy in being a speech that expresses a character's thoughts. It differs from a soliloquy in that other characters—or a character—are onstage. They hear it being delivered. Oberon has a long monologue in this act, with Puck at his side. This allows Shakespeare, through Oberon, to describe the fairy world.

This monologue employs imagery, which is description using any of the five senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, or smell. Oberon depicts a sensuous natural world:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk roses and with eglantine.

We can imagine a lush place full of colorful flowers and sweet smells from Oberon's description. Touch (tactile) imagery emerges in the movement of the thyme blowing in the wind. We note too that Shakespeare is using rhyming couplets in this monologue, emphasizing that this is the formal speech of a monarch, not merely everyday conversation.

In act III, scene i, Titania uses personification. Personification occurs when an animal or an inanimate object is given human characteristics. Titania states:

The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower

Titania describes the moon as gazing with a watery eye and weeping as a human being would. It would be typical of the fairies, living in such close harmony with nature, to assign it human attributes.

Titania also uses alliteration in these lines, which is when words beginning with the same consonant are placed in close proximity. Titania uses "m" alliteratively in the "moon, methinks," and in the "w" sounds of "wat'ry" and "weeps." Another literary device she employs is the repetition of weeps, which places emphasis on that sad word.

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What are four literary devices used in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Shakespeare uses rich language in his plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream. The following are just a few examples of literary devices in the text.

I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,

The more you beat me I will fawn on you (2.1)

This is a metaphor, as Helena compares herself to a spaniel. She says she is loyal and will follow Demetrius the way a dog would follow its master no matter what. She is trying to tell him that he cannot chase her away, no matter how mean he is to her.

Vile thing, let loose,

Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent (3.2)

Lysander says this to Hermia when he is entranced. Hermia is his love, but under the spell he is entranced by Helena. He tells Hermia to let him go, using alliteration in "let loose" and a simile comparing her to a snake that he will shake off.

The story shall be changed:

Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase (2.1)

Helena makes an allusion to the myth of Apollo and Daphne. She tells us the story will be different; instead of Apollo chasing Daphne, the roles are reversed, since she is the one pursuing Demetrius.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. (5.1)

Theseus uses personification in this quote. At midnight, a clock would chime twelve times. Theseus calls this an "iron tongue," giving the time a human quality.

Whereat, with blade, with bloody, blameful blade,

He bravely broached his boiling, bloody breast. (5.1)

Quince says this as part of the prologue in the play within the play. His alliteration and repetition add to the comedy of the scene.

These examples demonstrate how some quotes hold more than one literary device. These are some examples of alliteration, repetition, allusion, personification, simile, and metaphor.

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What literary devices are used in lines 2.1.238-42 of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream?

William Shakespeare uses many standard literary devices in his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a number of them appear in the following brief segment of Act 2, scene 1:

Helena. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, 
You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! 
Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:     240
We cannot fight for love, as men may do; 
We should be woo’d and were not made to woo.

  • In line 238, listing or cataloging is used. As Robert Belknap shows in his book The List, this is a technique that can be used by authors in a wide variety of ways. Here it is used to emphasize the comprehensiveness of the mischief that Helena claims Demetrius is capable of doing. His mischief, she asserts, is not confined to a single kind of place; it can appear anywhere and everywhere.
  • In line 238, alliteration (the repetition of consonant sounds) is used in the repeated “t” sounds of “temple” and “town.”
  • In line 239, alliteration is used again in the repeated “d” and “m” sounds, while assonance (the repetition of noun sounds) appears in the long “e” sound of “me” and “Demetrius.”
  • In line 239, Shakespeare emphasizes the caesura – the metrical pause in or near the middle of a line – by starting a new, brief sentence (and an exclamation at that) with the word “Fie.” This technique gives this line, in particular, the impression of sounding like real spoken speech rather than sounding like the monotonously regular rhythms that appear in lines lacking rhythmical variety.
  • The rhythm of line 240, in contrast, is a perfect example of iambic pentameter meter, in which odd syllables are unaccented but even syllables are accented in a ten-syllable line: “Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.” The very regularity of the rhythm of this line stands out in contrast to the less regular-sounding meter of lines 238-39.  However, the regularity of the meter in line 240 is repeated in the equally regular meter of lines 241-42. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, like many of Shakespeare’s earlier plays, is much more predictable in its use of rhythm than is true of some of his later works.
  • Alliteration and assonance appear again in line 240, and indeed they appear together in the words “set” and “sex.” Both of these words emphasize the “s” sound (alliteration) and both also emphasize the short “e” sound (assonance).
  • Alliteration appears again in the third and fourth words of line 241, as well as in the seventh and eighth words of the same line.
  • In lines 241-42, anaphora is used in the use of the same word – “We” – at the very beginning of each line.
  • More alliteration and assonance appear in line 242, particularly in the repeated “w” sounds and long “e” sound of “We” and “be.”
  • Line 242 also plays with slightly varied repetitions of the verb “to woo,” thus emphasizing a key theme of this entire play: wooing, or courtship.
  • Line 242 also implies another major theme of this play: conventional expectations of the contrasting roles of men and women.
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What literary techniques does Shakespeare use in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Shakespeare attempts in this play to create a magical nighttime world as different as possible from the waking, daytime, everyday world of rules, regulation, and rationality that Hermia and Lysander flee. To do this with the limited stage props available in the Elizabethan theater, he relies on literary techniques to conjure a fairy universe.

A chief literary technique Shakespeare uses is imagery. Imagery uses the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch to describe a scene. Shakespeare takes time out of the plot to have the fairies describe their world. We learn that they can fly so fast that they can go from Europe to India or the moon and back in an evening. They are tiny creatures who flit around the flowers and drop love potions into the eyes of sleeping people. Their magical powers, such as the ability to give Bottom an ass's head, helps us understand that most of the play takes place in a slightly lunatic, "other" world where the possibilities break out of normal confines. Oberon, for example, flies between moon and earth and has seen the mythological figure, Cupid. In invoking Cupid, a figure from Greek mythology, Shakespeare also uses the literary device of allusion, or reference to an external idea or figure. In addition, Oberon uses assonance, where words in close proximity begin with the same vowel, such as "arm'd" and "aimed" in line three of the quote below. He also uses alliteration, where words in close proximity begin with the same consonant, such as "loos'ed" and "love-shaft":

That very time I saw (but thou couldst not)
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west,
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon,
And the imperial vot'ress passèd on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

The play also supplies a running commentary on love and its lunacy and does so using aphorism, a literary technique that involves making a short, memorable statement of wisdom. Puck uses an aphorism, for example, when he says this about the effects of love:

What fools these mortals be.

Lysander uses an aphorism when he states, "The course of true love never did run smooth," and Helena when she comments that "love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind." The statements are so pithy and memorable they are used over and over again in other literary works.

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What literary techniques does Shakespeare use in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Literary techniques are certain constructions an author uses to form a story and that give artistic meaning. Many literary techniques are found all throughout A Midsummer Night's Dream.

One technique Shakespeare uses in particular is dramatic irony. In dramatic irony, the audience is aware of something that the character, or characters, is not aware of. In the play, the audience knows that the reason why both Lysander and Demetrius are now pursuing Helena instead of Hermia is due to the fact that Puck enchanted Lysander with the magic flower by mistake. As a result, both men feel that they are legitimately in love with Helena while the audience knows that that is not true. Lysander even claims that his reason has guided him to believe that Helena is the better woman than Hermia, as we see in his lines, "The will of man is sway'd, / And reason says you are the worthier maid" (II.ii.117-118). In addition, Helena disbelieves their sincerity, even accusing both men plus Hermia of conspiring to mock her.

A second literary technique Shakespeare uses is rhetorical schemes. In particular, Shakespeare uses hyperbaton a great deal, which is purposefully putting words in an unexpected order. Specifically, Shakespeare frequently switches the order of the subject and verb. One example is seen in Helena's important, theme-depicting line found in the very first scene, "[T]herefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind" (I.i.240). In this sentence, "wing'd Cupid" is the subject of the sentence. In normal word order, the subject begins the sentence followed by the verb. If we were to write this line in normal word order we would have, "Therefore, wing'd Cupid is painted blind," showing us that Shakespeare indeed employs hyperbaton by intentionally inverting the word order.

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What literary techniques does Shakespeare use in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

The figurative language William Shakespeare uses in A Midsummer Night's Dream includes imagery, personification, and metaphor.

Imagery is the use of any or all of the five senses to invoke vivid impressions on the reader. Oberon’s description in act 2, scene 1 of a hillside or “bank” where Titania is sleeping contains several examples of visual imagery and draws heavily on descriptive smells. The fairy king describes what numerous plants look like and mentions the “sweet” scent of the “musk-roses.”

Personification is the attribution of human qualities to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract concepts. Titania’s speech in the same scene uses imagery extensively in her descriptions of the current state of the world. Specifically, she uses personification in her assertion that the angry moon has caused diseases:

the moon, the governess of floods,

Pale in her anger, washes all the air,

That rheumatic diseases do abound…

Helena’s speech in act 1, scene 1 uses personification to discuss the nature of love. She argues: “Love looks…with the mind.”

A metaphor is a direct comparison of unlike things for effect. Helena also uses a metaphor in comparing love to a child: “therefore is love said to be a child….” The use of metaphor and personification to describe love grounds an abstract concept in familiar terms, making the comparison more legible to readers. A Midsummer Night's Dream is littered with figurative language; for more examples, you can refer to the eNotes guides linked below.

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