The Four Worlds of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
I
n Midsummer, Shakespeare gives us a vision of the collision of four worlds, Athens, the world of young lovers, the fairy world, and the world of the tradesmen, or rude mechanicals. The story of Theseus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons was told in several variations in Greek mythology. What seems clear in Shakespeare’s version is that Theseus is smitten with the woman he “woo’d... with my sword.” Hippolyta is not a submissive bride. In Act V, she offers the opinion that the young lovers are telling the truth about their night’s adventures. She opines that their agreement on the details of events prove that they really happened. The concerns of the Athenians of the court mirror those in the Elizabethan court, with Egeus, pressing the duke to solve a domestic problem. The mismatched lovers of Midsummer live in their own world as they struggle to find the path to mature love. As a comedy, Midsummer reminds us how love can make us foolish and blind, especially in the knockabout affairs of Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena. We laugh at the chaos of this love because we know everything will turn out all right. As Puck says, “Jack shall have Jill. Naught shall go ill.” In Shakespeare’s time, fairies were not the sugary delicate creatures we see them as now. Rather they were elemental spirits who soured milk, brought misfortune, or changed the weather. Any small misfortune emanating from the natural world could be attributed to the fairies. In act II a fairy inquires of Puck:
“...are you not he that fright’s the maidens of the villagery; Skim milk,
and sometimes labor in the quern [hand mill] And bootless [futilely] make the breathless housewife churn...” 12.)
It wasn’t until Sir Edmund Spenser created The Faerie Queen as a double for Queen Elizabeth I that the new, more benign image of fairies began to emerge. Midsummer is planted firmly between the two images.
“What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?” The rude mechanicals, tradesmen of Athens, are identified by their occupations. Tom Snout for example, wears his occupation in his name. He is a tinker, who fixes tin pots. The spout of a kettle was often called its “snout.” In the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream even humble workmen have dual lives, with artistic yearning, however humble. The story of Pyramus and Thisbe first appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Played for laughs in Midsummer, it may also be parody of Romeo and Juliet, which was written around the same time. The organizational meeting chaired by Peter Quince may be a comic simplification of the squabbling in Elizabethan share troupes, with actors jockeying for the best roles. Verse: “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.” The four lovers speak in rhyming couplets, silly verse for silly people. The down-to-earth rude mechanicals talk in prose. The royals use blank verse, and the fairies rhyme, with Oberon sometimes using blank verse.
“This was lofty!”