A Midsummer Night's Dream Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Research Paper Example According to Stephen Greenblatt, â€Å"This is a world in which outward appearance is everything and nothing, in which individuation is at once sharply etched and continually blurred, in which the victims of fate are haunted by the ghosts of the possible, in which everything is simultaneously as it must be and as it need not have been† (60). Many of these often confusing issues became the subjects of the major literature produced during this era such as in William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Although the exact date of when Shakespeare wrote this play is unknown, with most estimates suggesting it was perhaps around 1595 or 1596, the confusion between tradition and contemporary times is highlighted within this play through Shakespeare's deliberate use of a play within the play. One of the most effective means of reinforcing the major concepts of a story’s plot or of highlighting individual character traits is to include some form of repetit ion within the text. Shakespeare was a master at this kind of repetition as is seen in many of his plays including Hamlet and Midsummer Night's Dream. However, he uses these forms of repetition for entirely different purposes. In Hamlet, the play within the play is used to both show the audience actions that took place prior to the play's opening as well as to expose the guilty conscience of the king and thus prove to Hamlet that vengeance is justified. In Midsummer Night's Dream, though, the play is used to link tradition to present day in such a way as to demonstrate that despite the perception that times are changing drastically, unsettling many in their comfortable traditional views, human activity and emotion really hasn't changed all that much. To accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, Shakespeare incorporates an entire mini-play within the greater work. This mini-play appears in Act 5 and its action functions to almost duplicate the principle characters and actions found within the larger work. Not only does it reiterate some of the key points of the major work, but this mini-play also functioned to directly address an element of the audience that might otherwise have felt omitted. In Shakespeare's time, everyone attended the plays as a major form of entertainment, but the uneducated lower elements of society didn't always fully understand the high comedy offered by the playwright. By providing this mini-play, even these elements of the audience were able to enjoy the play and understand its message. Thus it is possible to examine this mini-play in order to gain greater appreciation and understanding of the larger play. Within its simple one-scene setting, this mini-play serves to expose the exaggerated romanticism of the lovers, the timeless struggle of young people attempting to marry for love despite the wishes of their parents and the sometimes disastrous problems that can only occur in the confusing darkness of night. Although many of Shakespea re’s plays can be traced to earlier stories as a means of linking them with tradition, this particular play has fewer historical connections. According to Mabillard, Geoffrey Chaucer’s story of the Knight’s Tale in his Canterbury Tales is one probable source for the play - both the master play and the mini-play. The Knight's Tale is told from the