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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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One of the more interesting changes which Shakespeare introduces :
- the concept of small, kind fairies.
Robin Goodfellow, the spirit known as Puck, is thought to have once been feared by villagers. History indicates the prior to Elizabethan times, fairies were considered evil spirits who stole children and sacrificed them to the devil. Shakespeare, along with other writers, redefined fairies during this time period, turning them into gentle, albeit mischievous, spirits.
Puck suggests that if we do not like the play, then we should merely consider it to have been a dream. One of the most remarkable features of A Midsummer Night's Dream is that at the end members of the audience are unsure whether what they have seen is real, or whether they have woken up after having shared the same dream. This is of course precisely what Shakespeare wants to make clear, namely that the theater is nothing more than a shared dream. Hence the constant interruption of that dream in the Pyramus and Thisbe production, which serves to highlight the artificial aspect of the theater. Bottom and his company offer us not only Pyramus and Thisbe as a product of our imagination, but the entire play as well.
-shanjin
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