Rhetorical Analysis of William Shakespeares A Midsummer Night's Dream - Book Report/Review Example

Cheng Zhang 09/17 ENG108 rough draft Rhetorical Analysis of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream is one of his timeless works. Shakespeare is a popularly known playwright, poet, and also he is the greatest writer in the English language and the world pre-eminent dramatist. I finally saw one of his greatest work last semester when I watched the play A Midsummer Nights Dream in the theater of UA. The play was hilarious as well as dramatic. Having watched the play and enjoyed it, I believed that Shakespeare showed his mastery of the English language by employing various rhetorical tools such as metaphor, figure of speeches, play of words in addition to the beautiful prose and verses that we still appreciate until today. The story all begun in the planned wedding of Theseus, duke of Athens and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons where he commissioned Philostrate for an entertainment for the occasion. Thereupon Hermia, daughter of Egeus, Demetrius and Lysander were presented. Egeus wanted Hermia to marry Demetrius but she loves Lysander. She was forbidden and threatened to marry him so they eloped and married in the house of Lysander’s aunt. Hermia tells this to Helena who is in love with Demetrius who hoped to earn his love by telling him the whereabouts of Hermia and Lysander. Demetrius however stalked the couple in the woods where strange characters appeared (i.e. fairies, actors, love potions). A series of strange events happened due to Puck’s mistake such as making couples to mistakenly fall in love with the wrong couple (i.e. Hermia to Demetrius, Helena to Lysander) but was eventually corrected and the couples lived happily ever after. Rhetorical analysis A Midsummer Nights Dream is a comedy drama with characters and circumstances that could hardly exist or happen in real life. The readers however know this and does not take the story at its face value nor believes its plot as factual truth but rather on the practical truths that the story manifests such as how far would human beings pursue love. For example, we know that the character of Bottom would hardly exist in real life and neither do love potions to be true but we know that there are real “asses” as the character of Bottom represents and obsessed lovers in real world which the characters of Helena, Lysander, Demetrius and Hermia represent. The reputation of Shakespeare as a playwright reinforced by the ingenuity of the story also serves as the ethos or credibility of the story. The play may not sound logical nor factual but the practical truth it manifests makes the story appealing and credible. The entire work is also a work of pathos that articulates human emotion of love. The drama of a forbidden love and the quest to have the love of one’s life is a universal theme of love that emotionally appeals to human beings across cultures for we all have felt that passion of love and its concomitant pain, joy, frustration and depression. This can be found in the main characters of the story. First, there was this forbidden love of Hermia and Demetrius which was supposed to be sanctioned by forced marriage Hermia’s father under the pain of death. But Hermia will not heed her father because he loved someone else-Lysander. There was also the obsessed pursuit of Demetrius for Hermia which in turn eloped with Lysander. There was also Helena hoping for the love of Demetrius by telling their whereabouts in the forests. Then there was this mess up by the love potion and corrections made by Puck making the story all more interesting and engaging for readers. Use of Metaphor Shakespeare is a master wordsmith and one of his many ways to capture the imagination of the reader by providing rich imagery of the text is through the use of metaphor. Metaphors is the comparison of two seemingly unrelated subject. One of the most obvious rhetorical tools used by Shakespeare in describing one of the key elements of the play which is love that became more vivid to the imagination of his audience is the use of metaphors. For example, in describing the transitory nature of love, wrote it in line 150 as; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. With the use of the lighting flash as the metaphor, the reader already got an idea of the passing nature of love. That man’s act is controlled by a “spleen” which is associated with rashness provides the reader how quick can love be that could vanish soon just like a flash in the blackness of the night. Style: Verse and Prose The writing style of the play A Midsummer Nights Dream can be categorized into two – verse and prose. One of the very obvious indication that a passage is written in verse is when Shakespeare use capital letters on the beginning of the line regardless of how the previous sentence ended. It may not be obvious unless one counts the syllable but Shakespeare’s verses in the play usually have 10 or 11 syllables in each line and they rhyme. We can take this verse for example; For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your fathers will; Or else the law of Athens yields you up-- Which by no means we may extenuate-- To death, or to a vow of single life.” (I, 1, line 117) Prose in his passages can be identified by length or meters of the words. If the words stretches to fill the space across the page, it is usually a prose. Especially if they are written in small letters except when the word begins a sentence. We can take this dialogue of Bottom in prose as an example: We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. This is almost conversational and very obviously not a verse. Rhythm or repetition Reading Shakespeare without a rhyme or repetition is almost example because rhymes in measured meters is one of Shakespeare’s trademark as a consummate playwright. This is evident in Act I Scene II that reads; And shivering shocks Shall break the locks Of prison gates; And Phibbus’ car Shall shine from far And make and mar Figurative language Shakespeare is a master in using figurative languages. Just like rhymes, figure of speech is often used in his works including the play Midnight Summer Dreams. One of the figure of speech that was unique in this play however is Is his use of paradox or oxymoron or phrases that contains contradictory words. These contradictions are not only limited to words but also in passages. This is evident in Act V, Scene 1 where Nick Bottom and Peter Quince described their performance as “A tedious, brief scene of young Pyramus and his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.”  In this passage, several contradicting terms were present such as “tedious brief scene” where the tiring became a brief scene as well as tragical and mirth. Pun or Play on words Shakespeare’s mastery of the English language is also evident with his puns and play of words. In the play Midnight Summers Dream this can be observed in Act 3 Scene 1 where Puck, changed Nick Bottom’s head into an ass (head of a donkey). Afterwhich, Bottom blurted a dialogue by saying “you see an ass-head” which translates to several and double meanings. It can translated as the literal donkey head (for ass head) and for modern readers, it can also mean as the figurative ass-head where one is dumb. Its double meaning could also be understood as looking at Bottom’s own head or a donkey’s head. Conclusion In sum, Midnight Summers Dream plot about the various forms of love and how far will a person go just to get it is best narrated with the use of various rhetorical tools such as beautiful prose and verses, metaphors and figures of speeches because it does not only make the play incisive but entertaining that generations after Shakespeare can still appreciate the work due to the effective use of these rhetorical tools. Work Cited "Midniight Summer Dream." Midnight Summer Dream. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2014. Read More