A Midsummer Night's Dream: Notes (2)

Layer 3: Oberon and Titania

• Where does this "layer" belong in the hierarchy?
• The cause of the quarrel, and the language that describes it (2.1.123 ff) [video]
• Resulting cosmic disorder? (2.1.82 ff)
• Beauty and the beast [graphic and videos]
• Puck

Layer 4: The "rude mechanicals" (according to Puck)

• "Hard-handed men of Athens"
• Art (drama) and reality/realism (1.2.65 --"lion"-- and 3.1.8 ff) [video]

The Play-within-the-Play

• Another fifth act that is not structurally necessary
• Theseus and the imagination
• Genre again: Tragedy, farce, and comedy
• Staging
  • Early stages: moralities and interludes
  • The theatre as transgressive space

Loud laughter or delight? The kinds of humour in the play

• Incongruity?
• Embarrassment?
• Laughter at the pain of others?
• Situation?
• Farce and slapstick?
• Dramatic irony?

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This page last updated on 18 September 2002. © Michael Best, 2002.