Critical opinions on the play

2.1. Some words about William Shakespeare and his play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

1.2. Chapter 1. Compositional Structure of the play and its scene-by-scene analysis.

2.3. Some words about William Shakespeare and his comedy “ A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

1.1. The theme of my qualification work sounds as following: “A MidsummerNight’s Dream”This qualification work can be characterized by the following:

The actuality of this work caused by several important points. We seem to say that Shakespearealways remains actual for us because his works, even written three centuries agohis immortal poems, tragedies, chronicles and comedies tell about the modern things and phenomena which are happen to be in our lives, such as humans’ qualities, the problems of war and peace, love, revenge, etc. And our work becomes much more actual because of the reason that this year we remembered the 1390^th anniversary passed after his deathso the significance of our work can be proved by the following reasons:

a) William Shakespeare for the British literature is of the same value as Pushkin for the Russians, Navoi for the Uzbeks, Abai for the Kazachs, Balzac for the French, etc.

b) “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of the latest plays of Shakespeare which was written not long before the author’s death. That is why this comedy can demonstrate us the way of mental thinking of the late Shakespeare.

c) Though having written about the ancient Greek life, this comedy reflects the real state of affairs happened in Anglia of the period of the 16^th century.

d) The book also worth studying for its brilliant language, cast of the personages, ideas and dialogues within the scenes.

Having based upon the actuality of the theme we are able to formulate the general goals ofour qualification work.

b) To analyze the major scenes in the play and to show their significance for the plot.

c) To prove the idea of modernity in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

d) To mention and compare between themselves the critical opinions concerning to the play.

If we say about the new information used within our work we may note that the work studies the problem from the modern positions and analyzes the modern trends appeared in this subject for the last ten years. Mainly, the newality is concluded in a wide collecting of internet materials dealing with the play. The practical significance of the work can be concluded in the following items:

a) The work could serve as a good source of materials for additional reading by students at schools, colleges and lyceums.

b) The problem of difficult reading of Shakespeare’s language could be a little bit easier to understand, since our qualification work includes the chapter concerning the question mentioned.

c) Those who would like to possess a perfect knowledge of English will find our work useful and practical.

d) Our qualification work is our little gift to memory of the outstanding English writer.

Having said about the scholars who dealt with the same theme earlier we may notion T. Shcepkina-Kupernik and A.Lozinsky, who made a great input to the popularization of the great English in our country, A.Anikst, who prepared the first “Russian Follio” of Shakespeare’s works, J.Coleridge, Dr.Jonson, Alfred Bates and many others.

If we say about the methods of scientific approaches used in our work we can mention the method of general analysis was used.

The newality of the work is concluded in including the modern interpretations of the play.

The work is composed onto three major parts: introduction, main part and conclusion. Each part has its subdivision onto the specific thematically items. There are three points in the introductory part: the first item tells about the general characteristics of the work, the second paragraph gives us some words about the author of the play and the history of his work “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, while the third part of introduction analyzes the critical works dedicated to the immortal comedy of William Shakespeare.. The main part of our qualification work consists of four chapters which, in their turn, are subdivided into several thematically paragraphs. The first chapter of the main part discusses the compositional structure of the comedy, its plot and main idea. Here we also gave the particular attention to the description and further analysis of the most meaningful scenes in each act of the play. The second chapter thoroughly takes into consideration the peculiar features of Shakespeare’s language. In this chapter we tried to make our conclusions to the points of verse and prose correspondence, rhethoric, patterning and wordplay talent of the “Avon Bard”. The third chapter takes into consideration the main themes touched upon the play, and their correspondence to the described epoch from the one side, and their actuality in the 21st century from the other. The last chapter of the main part observes the characters of theirplay and their interrelations in respect to the society, mental and age status. In conclusion to our work we gave our ideas got in the result of our investigation and appreciated the future perspectives of the latter. At the very end of our qualification work we supplied our work with the bibliography list and the internet materials.[1]

2.1. William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeare’s comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, which master writers only write successfully. Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. Critics find it a task to explain the intricateness of the play, audiences find it very pleasing to read and watch. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a comedy combining elements of love, fairies, magic, and dreams.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is more or less contemporary with Romeo and Juliet, and dates from the mid 1590s. In it, Shakespeare is painstaking in his attention to details of language (as in the early Love’s Labors Lost), but the play also shows the maturity of his best later work in its stagecraft. It is one of a group of plays known sometimes as festive comedies – the others being “As You Like It and Twelfth Night’s”. The plays are associated with festive seasons and traditional celebrations. “A Midsummer Night’sDream” is more democratic than many of Shakespeare’s plays – rulers, nobles, workmen and spirits all dominate the drama at different points. As a term to describe a category (kind) of play, tragedy (which means “goat song” in classical Greek!) originates in Athens in ancient times. Aristotle (a philosopher and scientist, but no playwright) describes rules or principles for the drama which tragedians should follow. These rules have proved helpful as a working description, but should not be seen as absolute: Shakespeare, in practice, ignores them more or less. Comedy is a term applied to the humorous plays of Greek (e.g. Aristophanes) and later Roman (e.g. Terence) dramatists. For Shakespeare, a comedy is a play with a happy ending – it may or may not be comical in the modern sense of being humorous. In trying to arrange Shakespeare’s work into categories (as for publication in book form) editors have produced a third category, of histories. More recently critics have noted that Shakespeare’s latest plays do not fit any of these categories easily. Thus we have problem plays (or tragicomedies) in Measure for Measure and All’s Well that Ends Well and pastoral plays or romances in Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. We should know that these labels were not consistently or even commonly applied in Shakespeare’s time. Plays classed as tragedies (such as Macbeth) may have a clearly historical subject. Some of our “histories” (such as Richard II and Richard III) were advertised as tragedies at the time of their performance. Shakespeare wrote plays to be seen in a complete performance which would, for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, last about two and a half hours. The play would be performed by daylight (between about two and four o’clock) in the purpose-built open air theatres, or with artificial light (lanterns and candles) in private houses of wealthy patrons (The Tempest may well have been originally written for private performance: many of the special effects work best indoors and under artificial light; both Hamlet and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” show plays-within-the-play which are performed indoors, at Night’s). The plays were not written to be read or studied and (hand-written) copies of the text were originally made only for the use of the performers. It is important to remember this when you study the play as a text (with extensive editorial comment) on which you will be examined. Shakespeare’s company was the most successful of its day, and his plays filled the theatres. Many (most?) of the audience in a public performance would lack formal education and be technically illiterate (this does not mean that they were unintelligent). But these were people for whom the spoken word was of greater value than is the case today: they would be more attentive, more sensitive in listening to patterns of verse and rhyme, and aware of imagery (word pictures).

The intervals between Shakespeare’s “scenes” represent changes in time or place, but not of scenery, which would be minimal or non-existent. Basic stage furniture would serve a variety of purposes, but stage properties and costume would be more elaborate and suggestive. A range of gestures and movements with conventional connotations of meaning was used, but we are not sure today how these were performed.

Although we can observe features of the play’s language on the page, it should be noted that the play was written (never published) by Shakespeare for theatrical performance, and that effects of language are meant to be heard, as by an attentive audience they would be. Moreover, few of these effects are merely decorative; most help interpret the action on stage. In discussing the play’s language, you should not merely list matters of interest, but should structure your comments according to categories or some other arrangement. The headings under which this section of commentary has been arranged may help.

By narrating events, Shakespeare is able to shorten the time directly represented on stage while providing the audience with necessary background information. Good examples of this would be Puck’s account to the fairy of his master’s quarrel with Titania, or Titania’s own account of how she came by the changeling child. Where a tale may be already known to most of the audience, the narration can be very brief, as in Theseus’s “I wooed thee with my sword/And won thy love, doing thee injury”. More immediate events not directly shown may also be narrated, as when Puck tells the audience he has gone through the forest “But Athenian found I none”, or when Oberon tells Puck how he has met Titania, “Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool” (Bottom) and that she has given up the child. Description, often with an element of narration, is essential to this play.

Imagination is an important theme, and the playwright boldly initiates a debate about imagination in the latter part of the play. “The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse if imagination amend them”, to which comes the retort that in watching Pyramus and Thisbe the “audience” must compensate for the defective imaginations of the “performers”. In the Dream, as elsewhere, Shakespeare depends upon, but successfully excites, the audience’s imagination. Things that cannot possibly be shown on stage are described vividly to us. These include:

· Lysander’s and Hermia’s description to Helena, in 1.1, of the moonlight and the wood;

· Helena’s description in 3.2 of her “school-days’ friendship” with Hermia, with its repeated images of “union in partition”,

· and Puck’s description of Night’s terrors at the end of the play (“Now the hungry lion roars/And the wolf behowls the moon”) contrasted with the security of those in Theseus’s house (“…not a mouse/Shall disturb this hallow’d house”).

A sense of the fairies’ magical power and of exoticism is established in references to remote places (“the farthest steppe of India” or “the spiced Indian air”) or Puck’s ability to circle the earth in “forty minutes” (much less on stage). The wood, too, is exotic and ambiguous: it is beautiful but dangerous. The description of these things contrasts with the more homely and familiar elements: the native English flowers and herbs, and the folk traditions reflected in Puck’s account of his mischief. Often narration and description are mixed. This is true of the example cited above of Titania’s account of the “votaress” of her order, as well as of her account of the disruption in the natural world caused by her quarrel with Oberon. Oberon, in his account of the “fair vestal, throned by the west” also mixes narration with descriptive detail, as does Puck when he explains to his master how “Titania wak’d and straightway loved an ass”. The frequent references to the wood and the moon instruct us to keep thinking of what we cannot directly see, while a line such as “weeds of Athens he doth wear” explains Puck’s mistaking Lysander for Demetrius. What the playwright conveys here is not sartorial information but the nature of Puck’s error. Lysander could be wearing any style of clothing and we will accept what Puck says.

Comment is of course frequent in Shakespeare: characters comment on their own situation, on others’ actions, or more generally. In the play’s first act Lysander, Hermia and Helena comment on their own situation and move on to make general statements about love. Helena’s general comments are wiser, as her own conduct is more foolish. In the final act of the play comes Theseus’s extended discussion of the imaginations of poets, lovers and madmen, while some of the most memorable comment is made pithy by its brevity: “Reason and love keep little company together nowadays” and “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Theseus’s long speech on imagination is addressed ostensibly to Hippolyta but has the quality of thinking aloud usually found in the soliloquy, while two other remarkable extended comment-speeches (Helena at the end of 1.1, and Bottom at the end of 4.1) are soliloquies. All of these invite the audience to reflect, with the speaker, on the subject of his comment. In this play songs have a special place, as in The Tempest. They allow unusual verse-forms, and these suggest to the audience the magical power that the fairies command. For the magic of “Cupid’s flower” and “Dian’s bud”, a rhythmic tetrameter couplet (eight syllables, or seven by omission of the unstressed syllable, but always with four stresses) is used, and becomes the characteristic voice of Oberon, Puck and Titania in the latter part of the play. (In 2.1, not doing magic, but discussing their own affairs all three use the pentameter line, whether in couplets or blank verse.)

For the proper view of their plight we should look to other characters in the play. We are invited to sympathize with their situation, but to see as rather ridiculous the posturing to which it leads. This is evident in their language which is often highly formal in use of rhetorical devices, and in Lysander’s and Hermia’s generalizing of “the course of true love” (the “reasons” they give why love does not “run smooth” clearly do not refer to their own particular problems: they are not “different in blood”, nor mismatched “in respect of years”). Pyramus and Thisbe is not only Shakespeare’s parody of the work of other playwrights but also a mock-tragic illustration of Lysander’s famous remark. This is evident in a number of similarities to the scenes in the Dream in which the young lovers are present. Before the play begins, and at its end, as Demetrius loves Helena, we see two happy couples; but Demetrius’ loss of love for Helena (arising from, or leading to, his infatuation with Hermia) disturbs the equilibrium. That Demetrius really does re-discover his love for Helena in the wood (as opposed to continuing merely in a dotage induced by the juice of love-in-idleness) is clear from his speech on waking. Unlike his “goddess, nymph, divine” outburst, this defence of his love and repentance for his infatuation with Hermia (likened to a sickness) is measured and persuasive. The critic who objects to the absence of any stage direction for the giving to Demetrius of Dian’s bud, the antidote to Cupid’s flower, can be answered thus: in a performance, the audience is not likely to detect the omission; we may suppose the effects of the flower to wear off over time, but Demetrius’ love does not; in any case, Puck could “apply” the “remedy” to the eyes of each “gentle lover”, at the end of Act 3, if the director is troubled by this seeming discrepancy. But the best reason is that Demetrius’s profession of his new-found love makes the antidote or its absence redundant in his case. Early in the play we laugh at what the young lovers say. Lysander is aware of his and Hermia’s sufferings, but to pontificate about “the course of true love” generally, to say it “never did run smooth”, is risible. The alternate lines in which Lysander proposes a reason why love does not “run smooth”, while Hermia comments on his statement, invite ridicule, as his “or” (leading to another reason) is followed by her “O”, bewailing the cause of the lovers’ suffering. In the same scene, we note how the same device (_tichomythia) is used rather differently, as Hermia and Helena expound Demetrius’ preferences: “I frown upon him, yet he loves me still”/”O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!”. Here the use of similar vocabulary with opposite meaning is made emphatic by the rhyming couplet. When Helena soliloquizes about love, at the end of the scene, she speaks wisely, in her general account, but her inability to be wise in her own situation is comic. Disclosing her rival’s flight to Demetrius, to enjoy his company briefly, seems perverse, but is wholly plausible: young people in love often do silly things. In the wood, we see the likely outcome of Oberon’s orders to Puck, as we know that a man in “Athenian garments” could be Lysander, who, according to Demetrius and Helena, is already in the wood. But the multiple confusion caused by the love-in-idleness among the four lovers is richly comic in its variety. Each has a different understanding of the situation.

· Lysander sees no reason why he should not reject Hermia (in spite of his rash promise: “And then end life, when I end loyalty”) as love justifies this conduct, an exaggerated version of Demetrius’s disloyalty to Helena previously.

· Demetrius loves Helena, and wishes to resume his earlier claim on her affections. Each man loves her and cannot see why she doubts him.

· Hermia has no doubt that they love Helena, but believes Helena to have used doubtful means to steal Lysander’s love (Egeus has earlier accused Lysander of doing this to woo his daughter).

· Helena disbelieves all three, assuming that Hermia’s complaints are feigned, and that “she is one of this confederacy”. The characters have no proper understanding of what they feel; the whole episode is a Night’smare magnification of the madness love ordinarily can lead to. And when the men “seek a place to fight”, they are serious in their purpose. But the audience is assured by Oberon’s vigilance and Puck’s activity that “all shall be well”. And the proper response to them is to agree with Puck: “Lord, what fools these mortals be”. The actors should play the parts without any sense of irony, however.[11]

For a more sympathetic view of the lovers, we should consider Theseus’s attempt (1.1) to show Hermia how much she would lose, to “endure the livery of a nun”. The appeals to “desire”, “youth” and “blood” show his awareness of the sexual desire of a young woman, while his comparison of the “rose distill’d” to that on the “virgin thorn” delicately advertises the attraction of maternity. Hermia’s reply shows her understanding of his reason, and her determination. In the duke’s presence she is shown at her best; when he leaves, her conversation with Lysander is touching initially, as they comfort each other, but soon becomes overwrought, exaggerating their passion. In Act 4, suddenly with no cause for further enmity, there is no hint of a grudge on the part of any; each has, impossibly, it seems, the prospect of immediate marriage to the preferred partner, while the feuding of the previous Night’s is remembered but, in its many confusions (changes of desire, seeming betrayals, quarrels, voices from nowhere) thought of as a dream. This view is anticipated by the pair of six-line stanzas spoken by Helena and Hermia at the end of Act 3. Each is a moving expression of despair and resignation (though Helena’s “O weary Night’s, O long and tedious Night’s” has a hint of Pyramus’s “O grim-looked Night’s, O Night’s with hue so black!” about it. If Puck hints at how we are to see the lovers in the wood, Theseus is able, in the final act, to articulate our happiness at the comic resolution: “Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love/Accompany your hearts”, while we inwardly endorse the fairies’ blessing and Oberon’s promise that the lovers’“issue” shall “ever…be fortunate”, the couples “ever true in loving”. We rejoice to see Lysander’s pessimistic utterance contradicted.

1.3. Having said about Shakespeare’s comedies we dare to say that it is the most important milestone in the creative activity of him. But even amongst his immortal works of this kind the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” stands in the special play. The first reason of this lies in the period of writing of it. The play is referred to the third, last period of creative activity, it is seemingly summarizes the whole life of the dramatist and the death of the main heroes at the fourth act is a hint for the closest death of Shakespeare himself. So one another reason for the significance of the comedy follows just after: it maybe the only work of Shakespeare where the humour and laughter are being mixed with the tragedy. And this mixing appears on the background of the exact description of humans life and characters which are closely similar to the historic chronicles. In our work we tried to demonstrate this spirit of comedy mixed with the tragedic chronicles of the author himself.

Our work aimed to show the novelity of the play though it was written three-four centuries ago, we tried to prove that even being a dream the narration does not lose the real character. We made our conclusion that fairy tales cannot but link with the real life and the problems of life, love, happiness, sadness, revenge exist in both at the Heavens and the Earth.

2.3. In our qualification work we tried to give some light to the following items:

a) To show the unusual, unique compositional structure of the play on the example of the most significant scenes of each act of the play.

d) To compare the different features of the main heroes in their controversy and similarity.

Having worked on our qualification work we could do the following conclusion and notes:

2) The main idea of the play was to show the interrelations between life and dream, the different state of minds of illiterate but kind and passionate wandering actors and foolish, cruel, envious power “handers”.

3) The main themes of the play are order and disorder, love and marriage, appearance and reality.

4) The genius of the author is concluded in mixing and installation of one narration into another, assistance of prose and poetry with single repliques and comments.

In the very end of our qualification work we would like to say that the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” seems to us as the most meaningful not only for those who is interested in Shakespeare but for the whole humanity.

2. Alfred Bates The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 13. ed.. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1996. pp. 152-157.

3. Вильям Шекспир Комедии, хроники, трагедии.Собр. соч. в 2тт., Т.1 М. ИХЛ. 1988 стр7-31

5. ADAMS, JOSEPH QUINCY. A Life of William Shakespeare. New York; Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1923.

7. BARBER, C. L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959.

8. BENTLEY,GERALDEADES. Shakespeare,a Biographical Handbook. Theobold Lewis, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

9. BETHELL, S. L. Shakespeare and [he Popular Tradition. London: King and Staples, 1944.

10. BROWN,JOHNRUSSELL.Shakespeare and His Comedies.London: Methuen and Co., 1957.

11. CLEMEN, WOLFGANG. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery. London: Methuen and Co., 1951.

12. CRAIG, HARDIN. An Interpretation of Shakespeare. New York: Dryden Press, 1948.

13. ELLIS-FERMOR, UNA M. Shakespeare the Dramatist. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1948.

14. PALMER, JOHN. Comic Characters of Shakespeare. London: The Macmillan Company, 1946.

15. PARROTT, THOMAS MARC. Shakespearean Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949.

16. PRIESTLEY, J. B. The English Comic Characters. London: The Bodley Head, 1925; reprinted 1963.

18. SITWELL, EDITH. A Notebook on William Shakespeare. London: Oxford University Press, 1928.

21. WILSON, J. DOVER. The Essential Shakespeare. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1932.

21. Аракин В.Д.История английского языка. М., 1985

22.Иванова И.П. Чахоян Л.П.История английского языка. М., 1976

25. Смирницкий А.И.История английского языка.(Среднеанглийский и новоанглийский период). Курс лекций. М., 1965

26. Ярцева В.Н.Историческая морфология английского языка. М., 1960

27. Ярцева В.Н.Исторический синтаксис английского языка. М., 1961

28. Ярцева В.Н.История английского литературного языка IX – XV веков.М., 1985

32. Морозов М.М. Парфенов А.Т.Комментарий. ЯзыкШекспира

[2]Alfred Bates The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 13. ed.. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1996. pp. 152-157.

[3]ВильямШекспирКомедии, хроники, трагедии. Собр. соч. в 2тт., Т.1 М. ИХЛ. 1988 стр7-31

[4]BENTLEY, GERALD EADES. Shakespeare, a Biographical Handbook. Theobold Lewis, ed. New Haven: YaleUniversity

[5]BROWN, JOHN RUSSELL. Shakespeare and His Comedies. London: Methuen and Co., 1957.

[6]. CLEMEN, WOLFGANG. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery. London: Methuen and Co., 1951

[7]ELLIS-FERMOR, UNA M. Shakespeare the Dramatist. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1948.

[8]PARROTT, THOMAS MARC. Shakespearean Comedy. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1949.