Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Before the Shakespeare Revolution: Developments in the Study of Nineteenth-Century Shakespearian Production
- The Meininger Company and English Shakespeare
- Shakespeare at the Burgtheater: From Heinrich Anschütz to Josef Kainz
- Shakespeare on the Melbourne Stage, 1843-61
- Shakespeare in Hazlitt’s Theatre Criticism
- Characterization of the Four Young Lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Queenly Shadows: On Mediation in Two Comedies
- Language, Theme, and Character in Twelfth Night
- The Art of the Comic Duologue in Three Plays by Shakespeare
- ‘Spanish’ Othello: The Making of Shakespeare’s Moor
- Ferdinand and Miranda at Chess
- Shakespeare’s Latin Citations: The Editorial Problem
- The Theatre at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605
- Interpretations of Shakespearian Comedy, 1981
- The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study 1 Critical Studies
- 2 Shakespeare’s Life, Times and Stage
- 3 Textual Studies
- Index
- Plate Section
Characterization of the Four Young Lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2007
- Frontmatter
- Before the Shakespeare Revolution: Developments in the Study of Nineteenth-Century Shakespearian Production
- The Meininger Company and English Shakespeare
- Shakespeare at the Burgtheater: From Heinrich Anschütz to Josef Kainz
- Shakespeare on the Melbourne Stage, 1843-61
- Shakespeare in Hazlitt’s Theatre Criticism
- Characterization of the Four Young Lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Queenly Shadows: On Mediation in Two Comedies
- Language, Theme, and Character in Twelfth Night
- The Art of the Comic Duologue in Three Plays by Shakespeare
- ‘Spanish’ Othello: The Making of Shakespeare’s Moor
- Ferdinand and Miranda at Chess
- Shakespeare’s Latin Citations: The Editorial Problem
- The Theatre at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605
- Interpretations of Shakespearian Comedy, 1981
- The Year's Contributions to Shakespearian Study 1 Critical Studies
- 2 Shakespeare’s Life, Times and Stage
- 3 Textual Studies
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
It has for some time been fashionable to view the four young lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a group with little individual characterization. Stanley Wells, in his Introduction to the New Penguin edition of the play (Harmondsworth, 1967), wrote:
The characterization of the young people is deliberately slight. Shakespeare is not anxious to suggest particularity; they are representative figures, practically interchangeable, as the play’s action shows. In the theatre, of course, their anonymity is less noticeable than in reading.
(p. 18; my italics)The last sentence suggests that much of the characters’ individuality must depend on the physical characteristics and mannerisms of the actors, and such externals as costume. Harold Brooks, on the other hand, in the new Arden edition of the play (1979), concedes that Demetrius and Lysander ‘ are very properly not endowed with much distinctive character’, but finds Helena and Hermia ‘ strongly contrasted in temperament’ (pp. cx-cxi). His conclusion derives from a survey of the lovers' actions. It seems to me, however, that a study of the lovers' use of language reveals that Shakespeare took some pains to endow each of the four with a distinct personality.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shakespeare Survey , pp. 57 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982