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A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay
“Discuss the range of comedic devices Shakespeare has used to achieve humour in the play.”

Today’s audience may not see the humour that appealed to the Elizabethan audience Shakespeare was writing for. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t there and that doesn’t mean the play cannot be, or isn’t funny. The devices of humour Shakespeare did use include mistaken identity, slapstick comedy, and the sense of the ridiculous in human behaviour.

The mistaken identity and misplaced affection among the lovers is a major source of humour throughout the play as gradually Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander lose their dignity and become figures of ridicule. The constant shifting and changing of the relationships within the four of them is confusing and it is this confusion that naturally arises out of their tangled relationships that supports the idea that in the face of love’s power individual identity and personality count for little. Nor ha...

Posted by: Rheannon Androckitis

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