Verse Forms and Comedy in Shakespeare and
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare and Verse
Opening Question: What is your favorite song?
Can you remember lines from it now? Write some below.
How were you able to remember it? Subject? The rhymes? Does the beat help you retrieve the words?
In Shakespeare we see both (A) distinctive verse (rhyme) and (B) repetitive beats (rhythm) in regular patterns (meter).
Recite the following lines, which are spoken by a fairy in Midsummer Night’s Dream, while stomping about he room. Step on every beat, but stomp on accented or stressed syllables: What thou seest when thuo dost wake, Do it for thy true love take; Love and langush for his sake. Be it lynx or cat or bear, Pard, or boarwith bristled hair\ In thy eye that shall appear When thou wak’st, it is thy dear Wake when some vile thing is near! What is the overall effect or tone of the passage? What is the pattern of rhyme? How many strong or stressed beats to the line? What is the pattern of weak to strong beats, or unstressed to stressed? This particular pattern of verse is called: ________________________________
Now perform the same stomping activity with the following lines, spoken by the nobles in one of the early scenes of the play: How happy some o’er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes, So I, admitting his qualities.
Does this passage have a different sound than the fairy passage? What is the pattern of rhyme? How many strong or stressed beats to the line? What is the pattern of weak to strong beats, or unstressed to stressed? This particular pattern of verse is called: ________________________________
Again, repeat the stomping for the following passage, also spoken by nobles in the early scenes of the play: What say you Hermia? Be advis’d, fair maid. To you your father should be as a god One that comps’d your beauties; yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax By him imprinted, and within his power To leave the figure, or disfigure it. What is the pattern of rhyme? How many strong or stressed beats to the line? What is the pattern of weak to strong beats, or unstressed to stressed? This particular pattern of verse is called: ________________________________ NOTE: This is the form of verse most often used in Shakespeare’s plays.
Finally, stomp the rhythm of this last passage, lines spoken by Bottom in Act I, Scene II: That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes: I will move storms, I will condole, in some measure. To the rest—yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in.
What is the pattern of rhyme? How many strong or stressed beats to the line? What is the pattern of weak to strong beats, or unstressed to stressed? This particular pattern of verse is called: ________________________________ Why do you think Shakespeare uses different verse forms for the different types of characters—fairies, nobles, “mechanicals,” or common folk?
Shakespeare’s Comedies
Remember that Shakespeare was a poet, and therefore fascinated by the possibilities of language, including the comic possibilities. Much of the appeal of his plays stems from verbal wit, puns (plays on words), and double meanings. As we saw in the passages above, Shakespeare often exaggerates differences in the language of characters from different classes-- lower-class, less-educated individuals could not possibly be expected to reflect the same sophistication in their vocabularies as upper-class, highly-educated nobility! For lower-class folks to even attempt the same wit and sophistication is laughable in his mind; he thus includes such attempts in his scripts in order to provide opportunities for upper-class audience members to laugh at the expense of the “groundlings.” The lines of lower-class “clowns” are often riddles with verbal mistakes and mix-ups, particularly with fancy or big words. Consider, for instance, these lines of Bottom’s from Act I, Scene II: We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. [Quick review: what part of speech are the bolded words?] What do you think Bottom is trying to say here? Since they have just agreed to meet in the Duke’s forest for the next rehearsal, how do you think he really means to advise them to rehearse?
But what does the word obscene mean? Do you think he meant to use this word? Why might those who know what the word means find his mistake amusing? What features do you associate with all comedies—literature, plays, movies, or TV shows?
If you said “a happy ending,” that is the chief feature of this literary structure. Do you want a shocker?-- (take a breath) -- Being “funny” is not actually a requirement of comedy! In most comedy, the happy ending involves marriage or some kind of union/reunion that resolves or removes the conflict and brings characters into harmony with one another. So “funny” or not, comedy offers a positive view of life, a reassurance that things work out—it moves from confusion to order, ignorance to understanding, from law to liberty, unhappiness to satisfaction, separation to union. Of course, this reassurance only occurs in the last few minutes. For the rest of the two hours, audiences are to watch and delight in confusion, envy, misunderstandings, and foolishness; humans are shown to be small, silly creatures. Why do you think we laugh at characters whose situations mirror and exaggerate our own human faults and miscommunications?
There are actually many types of comedies—some are romantic comedies, some tragicomedies, others just farce or slapstick (absurd and ridiculous, full of horseplay). Shakespeare’s plays are all complicated mixtures of silliness and romance, light and dark, absurdity and serious depth. Shakespeare’s comedies also serve to reinforce the social order of the time—at least, in the happy ending. The power of dominant groups within the culture (men, the upper class, royalty, etc.) is upheld or reaffirmed and appears, in the end, unshakable and unquestionably right. How might this pattern explain, for instance, why the lower the social class of a character, the more openly they are mocked, and the more ridiculous and absurd their words and actions are? Can you apply these general features of comedy and Shakespeare’s comedy to the beginning of Midsummer Night’s Dream? How? Be specific.
Fare thee well! Stay tuned for more of Midsummer, and ask yourself: what verse form is this group of lines in? Or…Is this scene funny? What’s funny about it?