William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream Essay -- Shakespeare M

William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights DreamShakespeare, in his A Midsummer Nights Dream, practises his characters to cast a sense of derision over the use of the predilection. The lunatic, the lover and the poet are thrown together all on one line, and it is implied that the latter two are as crazy as the first. (Midsummer Nights Dream, V.1.7) Despite this seeming scorn for plays and their ilk, Shakespeare is implementing a strong irony. Characters who scorn the imagination are no more than imaginings themselves and, by this, Shakespeare is actually reinforcing a positive discover of plays of the imagination. Theseuss denial of imaginations worth reads more as apophasis than as any true refutation. Even as he scorns the poet for giving joyous nothing/ A local habitation and a name, he vividly conjures images through metaphor. (V.1.18) Indeed, he is no more than an imagining named by a poet himself which lends the writing still depth on multiple levels. On Shakespeares le vel, Theseus as a character lends himself well to irony he is a sort of Fool in disguise. His witty wordplay and flowing metaphors are backed by his confidence that such shaping fantasiesare more than cool reason ever comprehends. (V.1.5) Theseus considers himself a shaft of cool reason and thus enters the irony, for he dis retrieves his own existence. Only some of the audience may have understood the irony. Shakespeares plays had a wide audience, and both nobles and groundlings that is, peasants attended. The playwrights humor had to keep all classes entertained the nobles because they sponsored the theater (and increased his fame), and the groundlings because their rotten fruit would otherwise voice their displea... ...inforces the positive image of plays which Shakespeare wishes to personate that is, it shows that plays do matter, whether or not you believe they can affect the world just as, in the play, magic does have a hand, whether or not its subjects believe in i t. To strengthen his message, Shakespeare draws parallels between the cynical voice of reason, Theseus, and the nobles in his intended audience. Thus, said nobles might see how little good Theseuss cynicism ultimately did him, and that, as he was wrong in disbelieving in the fairies power over the lovers, he might be wrong in disbelieving the worth of imagination and plays, and their power over the world of cool reason.Works Cited Shakespeare, William. Edited Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. A Midsummer Nights Dream. Folger Shakespeare Library ed. New York Washington Square Press Drama, 1993.