The big thing that struck me within this last Act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the meaning (and even just the presence) of the Epilogue. Puck is the speaker, and he begins:
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here,
While these visions did appear;”
He is suggesting to the audience that if they found any of the play offensive, it may make them feel better to think of it simply as a dream. My initial response to this was to question the necessity of an epilogue. It seemed silly to me for Shakespeare to have included such an ending, because it felt like he was making apologies for his writing. I eventually had to admit to myself, however, that Shakespeare does not often do random things for no reason, so there must be more to it.
Perhaps Shakespeare was really trying to pull the audience into the action, and make them feel like a participant in the play. Puck’s suggestion that the audience has been sleeping the entire time directly relates to what the characters have been doing. Each time a character falls asleep, something supernatural and dreamlike occurs to them. They may wake up to find themselves in love with someone they would have never actually been interested in, or they may find that the love of their life suddenly wants someone else. The next time they go to sleep, problems like this seem to somehow resolve themselves. With all these strange occurrences happening to the people in the play, it seems natural that the same thing is going on with the audience. Since there is so much confusion about what is real or not, Puck’s suggestion that the play in itself is a dream actually begins to feel like a possibility. The audience sits there the entire time, laughing at the mishaps of all these characters, feeling with dramatic irony that they know so many things the characters themselves are completely unaware of. Puck turns the tables with this Epilogue. Now the audience becomes unsure of whether what they saw, and begins to ask questions about what just happened. Did they simply see a play? Was the play intended to seem like a dream in its entirety? Or did they fall asleep and dream this confusing dream? It’s certainly an interesting concept that Shakespeare plays with, and he leaves each member of the audience with a different opinion on what they experienced.
5 comments:
I think it's interesting that Puck is the one who delivers the epilogue. It's as if he is the author of the play. He is the one who made the mistake of giving the potion to Lysander, so in a way all the confusion (and the plot) of the play are all his doing. What is especially telling is at 5.1.12-22. Theseus is explaining how the poet takes his imagination and translates it so that it is available for others, but that in doing so he/she runs the risk of miscommunication. This is what Puck does: he allows for the lovers to fall within their harmonious pairings, but not before some mishaps. Theseus uses the word "tricks" the very thing Puck does both when he messes up (the potion switch) and when he fixes things (tricking Demetrius and Lysander into not fighting.) His epilogue, then, may be another trick, only this time (as you mentioned) he's playing it on the audience.
Elyse, I like your notice of Puck's epilogue. Turning the tables on the audience and trying to confuse them definitely adds another layer to the play. Did we really just read this play or have the last two weeks of school just been a dream?
It's also interesting to think about how Puck actually addresses the audience at the end of the play. Did he know we were there the whole time? Is he trying to just cover up his own mistake on Oberon's orders?
The epilogue is so very "Inception" of Shakespeare, I guess Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie better watch out for Puck's epilogue.
Elyse, I like your notice of Puck's epilogue. Turning the tables on the audience and trying to confuse them definitely adds another layer to the play. Did we really just read this play or have the last two weeks of school just been a dream?
It's also interesting to think about how Puck actually addresses the audience at the end of the play. Did he know we were there the whole time? Is he trying to just cover up his own mistake on Oberon's orders?
The epilogue is so very "Inception" of Shakespeare, I guess Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie better watch out for Puck's epilogue.
I don't know if you have seen the movie Inception or not but so much of the Epilogue reminds me of the movie. What is a dream and what is reality and ultimately does it really matter which is which because both are an shaping experience either way...
PS Lauren we had the exact same thought!!!!!
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