Once I attended a speech given by a professor from a university in Hong Kong. When we introduced ourselves as BE majors, he asked, 「You study English, how many foreign classics have you read? Who is your favorite author?」 We all were in silence. But by that time, I made a decision that I would read Shakespeare at least while I am still in university. And the first book I chose myself is A Midsummer Night』s Dream. For Shakespeare, his tragic works may be more famous than comedies. But I prefer comedy.
The moment I opened A Midsummer Night』s Dream, I thought it』s a tragedy. But it seems that all happiness come after sadness. As Yu Qiu Yu once said, 「Tragedy is not great, neither is comedy, but those tragicomedy that let people read it over with tears and laughter. A Midsummer Night』s Dream is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, who are manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. I found some common points among Shakespeare』s masterpieces, especially his love stories——the protagonists rebel against the traditional established practices and they look forward to a peaceful and equitable world; they even sacrifice their lives to achieve this dream. Hermia dose so. She refuses to follow her father Egeus』s instructions to marry Demetrius, whom he has chosen for her. Juliet and Romeo also do in the same way, they die together for their love.
I guess why Shakespeare wrote like this is that he wanted to do the same thing just like the people he modeled. We all know he had to marry a woman he didn』t like at all, and he didn』t protest. So he modeled these characters on purpose to let them resisted the ruin of society.
The more I read, the greater I think Shakespeare is. If this play had been divided to 10 chapters, I bet you can』t predict what the ending will be. He created the magical juice from a flower called 「love in idleness」， which when applied to a person』s eyelids while sleeping makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening, to make these characters within his grasp. If someday people』s sentiment is controlled by this kind of magical juice, it will be really terrible. Emotions are subjective things, there will be on difference between mankind and machine if our emotion are controlled. This situation can just exist in Shakespeare』s masterpieces. It』s an imagination of us. But finally, Shakespeare made the most beautiful marriages in the world.
Shakespeare』s play is really a cultural peak. A Midsummer Night』s Dream explains the essence of tragicomedy. Lovers are ruthless separated and recombined mistakenly. These lovers are likely to be in an endless dream, but they can』t remember anything when they wake up, except the tears on the canthus. If delight can be compared to Qomolangma, then sorrow is the deepest oceanic trench——Marianas Trench. We can feel a big shock when read this play. We cried but finally laughed. It』s just a midsummer night』s dream.