Critical opinions on the play

3.2 Critical opinions on the play

“I am convinced,” says Coleridge, “that Shakespeare availed himself of the title of this play in his own mind, and worked upon it as a dream throughout.” The poet, in fact, says so in express words:

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this (and all is mended),

That you have but slumber’s here,

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend.

But to understand this dream–to have all its gay and soft and harmonious colors impressed upon the vision, to hear all the golden cadences of its poesy, to feel the perfect congruity of all its parts, and thus to receive it as a truth, we must not suppose that it will enter the mind amidst the lethargic slumbers of the imagination. We must receive it

As youthful poets dream

On summer eves by haunted stream.

No one need expect that the beautiful influences of this drama can be truly felt when he is under the subjection of literal and prosaic parts of our nature; or, if he habitually refuses to believe that there are higher and purer regions of thought than are supplied by the physical realities of the world. If so, he will have a false standard by which to judge of this, and of all other high poetry–such a standard as that of the acute and learned critic, Dr. Johnson, who lived in a prosaic age, and fostered in this particular the ignorance by which he was surrounded. He cannot himself appreciate the merits of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: “Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts in their various modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author designed. Fairies, in his time, were much in fashion; common tradition made them familiar, and Spenser’s poem had made them great.” And thus old Pepys, with his honest hatred of poetry: “To the King’s theatre, where we saw “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.”[2] Hallam accounts “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” poetical more than dramatic; “yet rather so, because the indescribable profusion of imaginative poetry in this play overpowers our senses, till we can hardly observe anything else, than from any deficiency of dramatic excellence. For, in reality, the structure of the fable, consisting as it does of three, if not four, actions, very distinct in their subjects and personages, yet wrought into each other without effort or confusion, displays the skill, or rather instinctive felicity, of Shakespeare, as much as in any play he has written.”

The Main Part.

1.1.2 The idea and composition of the play

In order to understand a play, we have to work harder than did the Elizabethan or Jacobean audience. To see a play entire (in the theatre or on film), without interruption apart for the interval, may be needed for us to appreciate Shakespeare’s strong sense of narrative drive, and to see how the text is not the play but a (loose) blueprint for performance. On the other hand, study of text and editors’ notes may be necessary for us to appreciate some of the attitudes the contemporary audience brought into the theatre. Such notes may explain images and highlight patterns or structures which otherwise we might not “hear”. They may explain semantic change (changes of meaning) in words or phrases used by the playwright to convey important ideas to his audience.

In watching Shakespeare in performance we are not likely ever to enjoy the instant pleasure of experiencing a work of art (like a feature film or soap-opera or first-person novel) which uses conventions and a range of cultural references which we at once understand. What is amazing is that so much is still accessible, and that by adapting the delivery of lines, and giving some visual clues, performers can make the plays work today.

The division of plays into five acts is more apparent to the dramatist (to whom it gives an idea of how the play’s narrative structure will appear in performance) than to the audience (though modern audiences often know act and scene numbers). For the student (you), the numbering of acts and scenes is of enormous importance in identifying a given point in the narrative. When quoting a passage, always give act and scene number, while line numbers are helpful, too.

This play is a comedy. Shakespeare first informs the audience of the (very serious) problems of the young lovers, and of the fairy king and queen, counter pointed by the less serious (to us) problems of the mechanicals in presenting their “play”. By bringing the different groups of characters together in the wood, the author is able to show how the characters become more confused, before Puck, at the end of Act 3 separates the young lovers, the antidote to the love-in-idleness juice is given to Lysander, and in 4.1 Titania is also “cured” before the lovers are found by Theseus, and Bottom wakes with a hazy recollection of his “dream” (which may be no less articulate than the lovers’ attempts to recall what has happened in the wood).

Most of Act 5 is superfluous to the main plot, but indispensable as comic comment on the potential for tragedy in the love of passionate young couples. Act 5 is not just an epilogue, however: the action of the three principal fairies in blessing the newly-weds, and the children to be conceived is a necessary conclusion to the misunderstandings which have gone before. Here, as in Theseus’ kindly advice to Hermia in 1.1 (“Know of your youth, examine well your blood…”), in Titania’s long exposition of the results of her quarrel with Oberon (2.1) and in the joy with which the fairies “rock the ground whereon these sleepers be” (4.1), we see the play’s real and serious concern with fertility in the natural world, and in the world of men and their rulers, a concern which the Elizabethan audience would feel very strongly.

In the beginning of the play a number of important relationships are established, and much narrative information is given. But we see some of the themes of the play examined, and there is interest in the action and language; for these reasons the scene could be chosen by examiners. The scene can be divided into a number of episodes:

·  Theseus’ and Hippolyta’s preparations for marriage;

·  Egeus’ complaint and Hermia’s defence before Theseus;

·  the dialogue of the two lovers and Lysander’s plan for escape;

·  their disclosure of the plan to Helena;

·  Helena's soliloquy about love.

It will be seen that the scene is marked by various exits and entrances, so that particular groupings can be contrived. At other points, as when Theseus speaks to Hermia, others remain on stage, but are at best witnesses of something more intimate.

As the play is concerned with depicting conflict in love, in several relationships, we meet here two of the four principal pairs or groups:

·  Theseus and Hippolyta: They have been at odds but are now reconciled, and their maturity contrasts with the passion of youth;

·  the four young lovers who are to have such strange experiences in the wood.[3]

When we next meet Demetrius and Helena (2.1) and Lysander and Hermia (2.2) we need little explanation to know where they are and why. The wood is briefly mentioned here as a most pleasant place by day, and imagined (209 ff.) as equally pleasant by Night’s: we, and the lovers, are unprepared for the danger and activity we will later see in this wood[4].

Shakespeare opens with a very formal, ceremonial procession, marked by the dignity, balance and stateliness of speech of the ruler and his consort; this is almost at once disturbed by the angry tirade of Egeus and the barbed exchanges of the young men. Between these, we find an intimate exchange which contrasts with the public quality of the procession and Egeus’ complaint. Here Theseus tries a very direct and honest appeal to Hermia’s judgement, keeping his authority as a means of last resort, and playing for time, though Hermia’s outspokenness almost frustrates this. We are struck by Hermia’s boldness (allowing for her sex, her youth and Theseus’ status) which Shakespeare renders more plausible by her own apology for the “power” which emboldens her. We are also struck by Theseus’ reluctance to command, his readiness to reason; while this brief exchange goes on, the others on stage are peripheral: the whole stage area could be used to show the opposition between the rivals, as Egeus commands each to “stand forth”. Theseus and Hippolyta probably occupy a central, raised position, even perhaps sitting on chairs (to represent thrones). For the exchange with Hermia, Theseus will come forward, perhaps leading her by the hand, so that their conversation is shared with the audience. Theseus’ gravity and diplomacy are in sharp contrast to the heated words which follow. In order that tempers may cool before he probes the seriousness of Demetrius’ new-found love for Hermia and dropping of Helena, Theseus leads away the angry father and his favorite. In her words to her lover, we again see Hermia in an intimate situation, but her forceful yet dignified answers to the duke are here replaced by a less restrained manner. She and Lysander speak in tones which would be comic if not delivered with such force. The arrival of Helena does not curtail this: she, too, speaks with passion and seems to lack a sense of proportion. There is some variety (but there will be more anon) in the verse form here. To achieve a mood of seriousness in the opening, the playwright uses blank verse. (Blank verse accounts for most of the text in most of Shakespeare’s plays, but is used much more sparingly in this play). This is sustained until Helena’s arrival, after which the characters speak in rhyming couplets. These are naturally more suited to comic moods and to the rapid imparting of narrative information. A number of other features should be noted. Left alone on stage, Lysander and Hermia speak in an over-wrought manner, marked by such phrases as “How now, my love” or “Ay me” (verbal sighs, almost) and the stichomythia (verbal fencing) of the six alternately-spoken lines beginning with “O” and “Or”, leading to the famous comment about “the course of true love”. This technique, with the further embellishment of rhyme, is used again when Hermia and Helena speak (194 ff.) of Demetrius. Helena’s soliloquy is notable for the repeated reference to “Cupid” (“a child”, “as boys…the boy”). She claims that love is blind, and yet seems herself “blind” to her own mistakes: she fawns on Demetrius, when she should play hard to get, and now intends to help him – for the brief benefit of sharing his company – to prevent the escape of her rival in his affections. But the most striking image in the scene, and the most touching, is that chosen by Theseus and echoed by Hermia, in lines 76 to 79, in which the theme of maternity (“the rose distilled”) is contrasted with the noble sacrifice of perpetual virginity, the “rose” which “withering on the virgin thorn/Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness”. To which the retort comes: “So will I grow, so live, so die”, rather than yield to Demetrius’ claim.

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