Discuss William Shakespeare's Presentation of Order and Disorder in ‘a Midsummer Night’s Dream’
Towards the end of the play, as the Athenian nobles prepare for the mechanicals’ performance, Theseus remarks, “How shall we find the concord of this discord?”
This question relates to the whole play; the discords of Oberon and Titania and the lovers having been resolved into concord. The following mechanicals’ play of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ offers a new set of incongruous conjunctions reflecting - as in a distorting mirror - aspects of the earlier discords.
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, 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.
My intention is to examine Shakespeare's concords and discords in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare’s use of these musical terms, concordance and discordance, puts in mind a famous quote of his:
“If music be the food of love, play on,”
This was written soon after AMSND, around 1600, and the idea of music being the sustaining and rejuvenating factor of love is clearly present in AMSND. In act 4 scene 1, following the concordance of the lovers, the removal of Bottom’s “transforméd scalp” and the “release [of] the Fairy Queen”, Oberon and Titania sing and dance to mark that they “are new in amity”. Music is used here to symbolise the return to harmony in theirs and the Athenian’s relationships. Music is simply ordered sound, it is the harmony that humans have found in nature. So, if human order within nature “be the food of love”, it would stand to reason (at least within the world of Mr. Shakespeare) that the Palace Wood of the fairies, as a personified order system within nature, is fundamentally connected with love and music. And this appears to be
This question relates to the whole play; the discords of Oberon and Titania and the lovers having been resolved into concord. The following mechanicals’ play of ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ offers a new set of incongruous conjunctions reflecting - as in a distorting mirror - aspects of the earlier discords.
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, 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.
My intention is to examine Shakespeare's concords and discords in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare’s use of these musical terms, concordance and discordance, puts in mind a famous quote of his:
“If music be the food of love, play on,”
This was written soon after AMSND, around 1600, and the idea of music being the sustaining and rejuvenating factor of love is clearly present in AMSND. In act 4 scene 1, following the concordance of the lovers, the removal of Bottom’s “transforméd scalp” and the “release [of] the Fairy Queen”, Oberon and Titania sing and dance to mark that they “are new in amity”. Music is used here to symbolise the return to harmony in theirs and the Athenian’s relationships. Music is simply ordered sound, it is the harmony that humans have found in nature. So, if human order within nature “be the food of love”, it would stand to reason (at least within the world of Mr. Shakespeare) that the Palace Wood of the fairies, as a personified order system within nature, is fundamentally connected with love and music. And this appears to be