Critical Analysis of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor of the Renaissance era. He was often called England’s national poet, in discussed as the ideal dramatist of all time. Shakespeare writes many plays and sonnets. In his play, he does not follow two unities from three unities which was established by Aristotle in his ‘On the Art of poetry'. The three unities are ‘Unity of time', ‘Unity of action', and ‘ Unity of place'.
Among the Unities, Shakespeare follows only one unit that is Unity of action which is justified by reason to it is wanted to present the plot as an in severable whole. But, he follows the ground for the unities of time and place to be entirely confusing. Shakespeare neatly violates this principle in many of his dramas.
Firstly, According to Aristotle, any drama needed to feature unity of place. for example, Macbeth, beings on a Warfield and has scenes in Macbeth’s fortress and England among other places.
Secondly, Aristotle thought that a drama should only one portray events over the way of a single day ( this is the unity of time). Many of Shakespeare’s plays, for example, Romeo and Juliet, take in place over the way of different days or even longer. Finally, unity of action suggests that the plot should not comprise any inconsequence or subplots. Some of Shakespeare’s plays ( Macbeth for example) could be said to follow this principle, but others, like King Lear, are fully intricate and feature a number of malicious subplots.
Now, talks about Shakespeare’s merits and demerits in his play A Midsummer Nights Dream.
Theseus, Duke of Athens, is ready for his marriage to Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, with a four-day festival of luxury and entertainment. He discounts his Master of the Rejoice, Philostrate, to find worthy enjoyment for the occasion. Egeus, an Athenian nobleman, marches in Theseus’s court with his daughter, Hermia, and two young men, Demetrius and Lysander. Egeus wishes Hermia to marry Demetrius (who loves Hermia), but Hermia falls in love with Lysander and refuses to comply. Egeus asks for the full punishment of law to fall on Hermia’s head if she despises her father’s will. Theseus gives to Hermia until his wedding to consider her options, warning her that violating her father’s wishes could result in her being sent to a promenade or even executed. Nevertheless, Hermia and Lysander plan to release Athens the following night and marry in the house of Lysander’s aunt, some seven leagues distant from the city. They make their motive known to Hermia’s friend Helena, who was once engaged to Demetrius and still loves him even though he jilted her after meeting Hermia. Hoping to rake up his love, Helena tells Demetrius of the elopement that Hermia and Lysander have planned. At the appointed time, Demetrius stalks into the woods after his meant to the bride and her lover; Helena follows behind him.
In these same woods are two very different groups of characters. The first is a group of fairies, including Oberon, the fairy king, and Titania is fairy queen, who has latterly turned from India to bless the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. The second is a group of Athenian craftsmen rehearsing a play that they wish to perform for the duke and his bride. Oberon and Titania are at odds over a young Indian prince given to Titania by the prince’s mother; the boy is so beautiful that Oberon wishes to make him a knight, but Titania rejected him. Seeking revenge, Oberon sends to his merry servant, Puck, to get a magical flower, the juice of which can be spread over a sleeping person’s eyelids to make that person fall in love with the first thing he or she sees upon waking from the sleep. Puck gets the flower, and Oberon tells him of his plan to spread its juice on the sleeping Titania’s eyelids. Having seen Demetrius act unkindly to Helena, he orders Puck to spread some of the juice on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Puck meets with Lysander and Hermia; and thinking that Lysander is the Athenian of whom Oberon spoke, Puck afflicts him with the love potion. Lysander happens to see Helena upon awakening and falls deeply in love with her, disowning Hermia. As the night progresses and Puck effort to undo his mistake, both Lysander and Demetrius end up in love with Helena, who believes that they are mocking her. After watching their love for Helena, Hermia becomes so jealous and she tries to challenge Helena to a fight. Demetrius and Lysander mostly to do fight for Helena’s love, but Puck confuses them by mimicking their voices, leading them apart until they are lost separately in the forest.
When Titania wakes in sleep, the first creature whom she sees is Bottom, the funniest of the Athenian craftsmen, whose head Puck has mockingly transformed into an ass. Titania passes a ridiculous interaction devoting on the ass-headed weaver. At the last, Oberon gets the Indian boy, Puck spreads the love potion on Lysander’s eyelids, and by morning all is well. Theseus and Hippolyta find out about the sleeping lovers in the forest and take them back to Athens to be married—Demetrius now loves Helena, and Lysander now loves Hermia. After the group wedding, the lovers watch step and his fellow craftsmen perform their play, an incompetent, hilarious version of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. When the play is completed, the lovers go to bed; the fairies in shortly go away to bless the sleeping couples with a defensive charm, and then they vanish. Only Puck remnant, to ask the audience for its forgiveness and approval and to urge it to keep in mind that the play as though it had all been a dream.
In this play, there have some merits and demerits of Shakespeare. This play's dialogue is based on actual conversations and all the characters are distinctly individual. Which are the merits of Shakespeare. And also this play’s theme is realistic and convincing of its portrayal of human nature. This play seems to write without any moral purpose and the plot of this play does not develop properly.
