I. The Vice Was the favourite character in medieval morality plays. He is both an intriguer and a deceiver. He creates laughter and engages the audience's sympathy in a conspirational relationship. Richard generates a special relation between word and deed. He tells the audience what he is going to do, then does it and finally recalls what he did: his soliloquies and asides create a feeling of conspiracy. The Vice was also a figure of carnival, who fights the established […]
A Midsummer Night's Dream : a comedy
Introduction Shakespeare has used many genres to convey his stories, especially comedies, tragedies and historical plays. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy. A comedy is a kind of drama which is intended primarily to entertain the audience and which usually ends unhappily for the characters. There are: romantic comedies: revolving around love (As you like it). satiric comedies: see French playwright Molière. I - A Midsummer Night's Dream and the convention of comedy Shakespeare was influenced by the concept […]
Structure in A Midsummer Night's Dream
I - Characters and structure Multiplicity of lines. A Midsummer Night's Dream is remarkable for the many levels of its text. The play is different from Romeo and Juliet or the Taming of the Shrew (which have one main plot) because of the various levels of plots and characters. There are 4 levels: Theseus and Hippolyta, the young lovers, the mechanicals, and the fairies. There are connections between: Theseus & Hippolyta and the young lovers: made by Theseus, member of […]
Introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream
Place of the play in Shakespeare's work A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of the most famous and successful Shakespeare's plays. The play is part of the early work of Shakespeare (1554-1616), it was written and performed in 1595-1596, just after The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. There is a connection between Pyramus & Thisbe and Romeo & Juliet: one character kills himself because he thought his love is dead (tragedy of misunderstanding). It proves […]
Background of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Introduction The characters are set in a given space and time. Shakespeare draws his material from a large body of social background, historical facts and myth: let us see the Greek background, the May festivities, and the fairies and spirits. I - Greek background The play is set in early Greece, in Athens. It is unexpected as so much of the play seems so typically England. Shakespeare was writing at the time where antiquity was the cultural reference, although the […]
Death of a Salesman : an extended introduction
Introduction: the structure of the play In Miller's mind, Death of a Salesman was not an abstract concept but the concrete image of an enormous head that would be on stage, opening up the play, so that spectators would be able to see inside. It was a very ambitious idea and the original title was The Inside of his Head. In Death of a Salesman, the spectator is plunged into the main character's head. There is no linear onward progression […]
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