On the Embodiment of Humanism in William Shakespeare’s Drama
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Name: Peng Huili Student Number: 10080320
Abstract:
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare written sometime in the 1590s. Humanism is an important part in the renaissance literature. Therefore, we will discuss how William Shakespeare use his special talents in applying the humanism to his drama A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Key Words: Humanism, Nature of Love, Friendship, Happiness, Freedom, Justice. Ⅰ.Introduction
A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and their interactions with the fairies who inhabit it and Duke of the Athenians. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and is widely performed across the world. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the most popular of all Shakespearean plays. It elaborates the spirit of humanism. As is well known, the most striking feature of the Renaissance was doubtlessly the flourish of humanism.
Ⅱ.Embodiment of Renaissance in the drama.
1. The introduction of the drama.
Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s dream, takes place during the summer solstice. This day has long been thought of as a time of magic. The play is set in a dark forest full of fairies.
In the play, Oberon, the king of fairies, quarrels with his queen, Titania. Oberon tells his servant, Puck, to put a magic liquid on Titania’s eyes to make her fall in love with the first person she sees. At the same time, two young men and two young women are lost. Puck puts the liquid on the men’s eyes, and they both end up falling in love with one of the women. Puck then sees an actor named Bottom. For fun, Puck decides to turn Bottom’s heads into a donkey’s. Soon after, Titania sees Bottom and falls in love with him.
Unhappy with the mess, Oberon orders puck to change Bottom’s head back, and lifts the spell from Titania. He turns the four confused lovers into two happy couples. Everyone feels that the night’s strange events were just a dream.
At the end, Puck tells the audience that if they did not like the play, they should consider it as just that: a dream. In fact, many people have said that when the play ended, they were not sure whether what they saw was real, or whether they had shared the same dream.
2. Embodiment of Humanism in the drama.
William Shakespeare succeed in applying the humanism to this comedy play.
Humanism is referred to the Renaissance Guiding ideology during the Renaissance movement .Humanism focus on human's nature and is against the theocracy and religious authority. What's more, it critics that human regard the \and some religious thought. On the contrary, humanism advocate rational knowledge, the people with versatile abilities and the love between man and woman. As an important part of Renaissance movement. Humanism literature is provided with some new cultural characteristics and unique literary style.
I will elaborate the embodiment of humanism from following three aspects.
a. Nature of love
Love is a universal theme for many art forms . More often than not , it is love that is spoken of , whether in songs or films . This fact holds most true for literature . Countless poems , short stories , novels and plays revolve around the concept of love . One notable piece of literature that thoroughly deals with love and its nature is A Midsummer Night 's Dream by William Shakespeare . The story features four types of love through its characters : forced love , parental love , romantic love and love between friends .These four different types of love embodies the spirit of humanism.
b. Happiness and Friendship.
The drama tells us that human should persue persongnal happiness actively,treat the frendship seriously.Take Helina as an example,she wins the love from Lysander finanlly even though the Lysander treat her badly.Therefore,Helina didn't give up her right to persue her love,so her spirit of never giving up shows the humanist ideas.It praises people's strengh ,value,love and affection.How to treat friendship is another theme berween Hermia and Helina's relationship.They are friends at first but they become enemy after the magical juice work on the two men they love.Under this situation,they scord, quarrel with each other and forget the friendship between them before. It seems that the author use the sarcasm to critisize people's inner evil nature and appeals people treat the friendship in a correct attitude no matter what happen .I think this is an aspect of humanism. .
c. Freedom and Justice.
Hemia's father is against her marriage at first,but Hemia and Lysander sruggle for their marriage ,which symbolizes the human are against the feudal forbidden system and persue their right of hapiness.During the period of Shakespeare's life,the capitalism has generated and and developed increasingly .New productivity and relations of production with capitalist production produce,under the impact of such several powers , medieval feudalism and the power of religion gradually collapse. It was during at that time that the midsummer night's dream came into being. People are longing for a new relationship, for love freedom, for a better life full of hopes .The hayyy ending of this play brings with the people hope and joy.
The content of this play mentions that Hemia's father intend to master his daughter's
marriage, the fairy king ,Oberon,plans to control his wife,Titania because he order Puck to get the Indian boy useing the magic juice.From this ,we know that,women's statue is still very slow and women are still under the influence of the men.
We can learn that human's power is weak in some aspects and the human beings are eager to change the unfair situation ,which adjustde the reform and change of the sosiety and reflect the humannism ideas.
Ⅲ.Conclusion
A Midsummer Night's Dream stands out the extraordinary literature and drama value by analysing the Humanism . The work is filled with freedom and justice , song of youth, love and ideal of happiness, as well as the victory of humanist ideal after severe struggle against all obstacles, heroes and heroines fight against destiny itself, mould their own fate to their own will;they are sons and daughters of the Renaissance. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”has stood the test of time. There are a lot of people still celebrate midsummer. If you find yourself lost in a forest, lost in love, or lost in confusion on this day, perhaps midsummer fairies will come to set things right for you, too.