Use Of Comedy In A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare

What makes a comedy a comedy? According to Dictionary.com a comedy is a movie, play, or broadcast program intended to make an audience laugh. Though true, this definition does not give a full picture of what a comedy is. The play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, falls under the category of a comedy, rather than a tragedy, because Shakespeare utilizes several of the comedic traits often found in Elizabethan comedies. These methods include farce, low comedy, and closing with a happy ending. Authors typically use farce when they want to place their characters in extreme and exaggerated situations. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the main example of farce is the fact that Bottom had his head switched out with that of an ass, right before his friends ran away from him due to their fear that something
Also, she says that “mine eye is enthralled to thy shape.” That means that she loves how he looks, even though he has the head of a very ugly creature- a donkey. To sum it up in one sentence, farce is used to create humor at the expense of Titania falling in love with ass-head Bottom. There is a very long list of authors and playwrights who use low comedy to effectively create humor throughout their literature. One such author is William Shakespeare, who uses low comedy several times in his play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The first example of low comedy in the play is the pranks played by Robin. Shakespeare wrote,”And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl In very likeness of a roasted crab, And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob And on her withered dewlap I pour the ale.”(II,i,49-52) Robin is saying that he sometimes hides in a cup as an apple, and when someone tries to drink, he spills the ale all over their neck. Throughout the play, Robin plays several pranks that are low comedy because they often contain physical action:a key point in low comedy. Another example of low comedy is