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S. P. Dutta M.A.

(English), ACIB (London)


395 Ramakrishna Palli, Sonarpur, Kolkata 700 150
Voice: 9883494021

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A Midsummer Nights Dream as a Romantic Comedy
Love and romance constitute the nucleus of A Midsummer Nights Dream by Shakespeare.
There are three men and three women who are engaged in love and want a happy consummation
of their love through marriage. The love- affair between Theseus, Duke of Athens and the voluble
Amazonian Queen Hippolyta is determined and they have decided to marry in four days. The love
affair of two other young men and women confront entanglement. Lysander loves Hermia and
Hermia loves Lysander. But Egeus, Hermias father wants her to marry Demetrius who has
switched over his love from Helena to Hermia. Egeus comes to Theseus and complains before
him that if Hermia does not obey him she be put to death in accordance with Athenian law.
Theseus, however, does not take a quick decision but gives Hermia four days time to ponder over
the matter. Lysander and Hermia plan an elopement from Athens to a place, about seven leagues
away from Athens, where a widow aunt of his lives and where the Athenian law does not apply.
At the first step, they plan to move to the woods, a league from the city. They, however, confide
their secret plan in Helena who discloses this fact to Demetrius in order to secure and regain
Demetrius. Lysander tries to convince Demetrius that he should not reject Helena whom he loved,
but Demetrius would not listen to Lysanders reason.
Things, however, do not happen as the characters wish. Demetrius follows Lysander and Hermia
and lovelorn Helena pursues him. In the woods with its idyllic and ideal environs, the romantic
atmosphere reaches its peak. Here we have a kind of situation that we find in the Forest of Arden.
The Duke is not of the of the type of Duke Frederick nor is the city of Athens is so ruthless
(hardnosed) as the court of Duke Frederick in As You Like It but the law is very stringent. Still
the lovers, Lysander and Hermia, are apprehensive that they may be the victims of hostile
Athenian law, which provided that if a girl desired to marry against her fathers will, she would
be put to death or condemned to a nunnery. As the young men and women fall asleep in the
woods, the fairies come. Oberon, the king of the fairies, arrives from the farthest step of India,
and Titania, the fairy queen, arrives from the elf-land. Oberon summons his puck (a mischievous
spirit), Robin Goodfellow (later known as Puck) to apply the juice of Cupids flower on the
eyelids of Demetrius. But as he fails to determine who the real person with Athenian dress is, he
applies the love juice on the eyelids of Lysander who, upon being awakened from sleep, falls in
love with Helena on whom his sight falls at first. This complicates the situation and to amend for
the mistake Oberon advises Puck to apply an antidote on Lysanders eyes. Through the same
process, Demetrius returns to the fold of Helena. There is another sub-plot centring round
Oberon-Titania relationship. They are involved in a dispute over an Indian changeling boy whom
Titania has engaged as her page. To avenge upon Titania, Oberon applies the love-juice on the
eyelids of Titania who upon waking up first finds Bottom the ass and falls in love with him. She,
however, is made to part with the changeling boy in favour of Oberon, and their dispute settled,
Oberon by application of the charming love juice which acts as an antidote makes Titania come
back to senses and gets reconciled with Oberon. After all these happen, the mortal pairs marry
and at the bidding of Theseus are entertained by a play Pyramus and Thisbe which, with its
three songs and a Bergomask dance, takes aloft the romantic temper of the play.
These themes of love and romance apart, there are more ingredients in this romantic comedy. The
locale for resolution of the tangles is shifted to the woods where the lovers fall asleep and dream,
and where the fairies land. The fairies too take part in the action, and while they complicate the

love-affairs, they also help resolve the crises. Not the main plot and the subplots, but the fairies
led by their king and queen appear on the stage in masks. And the play Pyramus and Thisbe is
purely a masque. All these rudiments make A Midsummer Nights Dream a highly romantic
comedy, which in many ways is 'beyond compare' in the whole range of Shakespeares works.
(680)

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