The play within the play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  MEG – 02: BRITISH DRAMA

ASSIGNMENT 2020 - 2021

                                                                                                               Max. Marks: 100

1. Discuss the play within the play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

Answer.: The Play-within-the Play: This play within a play is therefore used by Shakespeare to make a subtle point about theatre, namely the fact that it is only acting. The Mechanicals like to perform a play at Theseus’ wedding. Theseus is an enlightened ruler, notable for his wise judgement but there is a limit to his abilities: the problem Egeus gives him seems incapable of solution, so he tries to buy time and work on Egeus and Demetrius. But there seems little hope that the “harsh Athenian law” will produce a solution acceptable to all parties.

In this play the apparently anarchic tendencies of the young lovers, of the mechanicals-as-actors, and of Puck are restrained by the “Sharp Athenian Law” and the law of the Palace Wood, by Theseus and Oberon, and their respective consorts. This tension within the world of the play is matched in its construction: in performance it can at times seem riotous and out of control, and yet the structure of the play shows a clear interest in symmetry and patterning. 

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