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A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

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What is the genre of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

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A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's comedies.

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In the broadest sense, William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy. It contains elements of a classic Shakespearean comedy, including lovers who must overcome problems to be together (Hermia and Demetrius, Helena and Lysander), parental interference (Helena's father), a complex, interwoven plot lines (here, several plots and subplots involving different combinations of lovers, fairies, and townsfolk), weddings (three, actually), and a happily-ever-after resolution of the plot.

A Midsummer Night's Dream also exhibits characteristics of a pastoral comedy. Although the play begins and ends the Duke's palace, and there are two scenes with the "rude mechanicals" (Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling) in Quince's house, the majority of the play occurs in the forest outside Athens.

The forest in a pastoral comedy is usually an idyllic retreat from the cares and worries of city life. In A Midsummer Night's Dream , however, the forest is...

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more a place of chaos than a place of relaxation and quiet contemplation. The forest dwellers, particularly Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Titania, Queen of the Fairies, are also involved in their own conflicts.

Shakespeare's As You Like It is considered a classic example of a pastoral comedy, but the forest is not quite the idyllic retreat that it appears to be at first, and the residents of the forest seem to have just as many problems as city folk. In this sense, it's no more or no less a pastoral comedy than A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In a roundabout way, A Midsummer Night's Dream is also an example of a comedy of errors. The central element of a comedy of errors is mistaken identity.

In Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, two sets of identical twins—masters and servants—are continually involved in incidents of mistaken identity, with masters mistaking servants and servants mistaking masters.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, characters don't mistake other characters for who they are, but characters mistake each other for what they are. Lysander knows who Helena is, but when he wakes up after having the love potion put on his eyes by Puck, he mistakes Helena for the love of his life and disdains Hermia, the true love of his life. Titania also mistakes Bottom for the love of her life, even though he has the head of an ass.

The "rude mechanicals" and the subplots involving Bottom and Titania and the play-within-a-play of Pyramus and Thisbe include elements of a rustic comedy.

A rustic comedy usually includes a "clown," or a clownish, simple-minded, buffoonish character. A Midsummer Night's Dream has six rustic characters: Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout, and Starveling, also known as the "rude mechanicals." The most clownish of the rustics is Bottom, which is clear to the audience even before he has the head of an ass in the scene with Titania.

Finally, there's Pyramus and Thisbe, the play within the play. Pyramus and Thisbe is overwritten, overplayed, overwrought with emotion, and clearly comedic (at least to the audience) in the context of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is also a tragedy.

The "star-crossed lovers," Pyramus and Thisbe, forbidden to wed because of their families' rivalry, confess their love for each other through a crack in a wall which separates their homes. They agree to meet away from their families. When Pyramus arrives at the chosen location, he thinks that Thisbe has been killed by a lion and stabs himself with his sword. Thisbe sees that Pyramus has killed himself and kills herself as well.

Nevertheless, at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which Shakespeare has woven all of these different types of comedy (and one tragedy), Theseus and Hippolyta, Helena and Lysander, and Hermia and Demetrius live happily ever after.

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What type of play is A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Shakespeare's plays are generally considered to fall into three broad categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is considered a comedy.

There are certainly some situations within the play which could have been portrayed in darker ways. Hippolyta's hand in marriage has been claimed by Theseus; she was once a strong warrior herself yet now finds herself joined to a husband who references the "injuries" he has inflicted upon her to win her love (act 1, scene 1, line 18). Helena is rejected and alone at the beginning of the play, and later Hermia finds herself in the same situation. Men in the play are often portrayed as insensitive to the desires of women. This is reflected in the struggle between Titania and Oberon over the fate of the changeling boy; Oberon doesn't appreciate Titania's maternal instincts and thus uses magic to make her fall in love with Bottom, who has been magically given the head of an ass.

Yet the situations within the play are not presented with a bleak tone. The emotions of the characters become secondary to the situations they find themselves in. Shakespeare uses witty banter, especially between men and women, to provide comedic entertainment. Consider the following exchange:

TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.
I have forsworn his bed and company.

OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton. Am not I thy lord?

TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady. (act 2, scene 1, lines 62–65)

This humor is just enough to keep things light, allowing the audience to chuckle at the fairies' disagreement.

A Midsummer Night's Dream maintains a light and humorous tone through characterization and setting. There are fairies, a magical forest, pranks, and a comedic look at the mess humans tend to make of their love lives. Puck provides ongoing mischief and delivers memorable, amusing lines. He acknowledges that

Those things do best please me
That befall prepost'rously. (act 3, scene 2, lines 122–123)

If one line best captures the comical way this play examines human folly, it is arguably Puck's famous declaration "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" (act 3, scene 2, line 117). Shakespeare crafts the conflicts of the play with a humorous tone and with clever dialogue, eventually bringing events to a cheerful conclusion.

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