William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream is a comedian play that describes the marriage of the duke of Athens, Theseus, and the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, the complicated love story of Hermia and Lysander, and multiple other characters. The central topic of this play is love. Shakespeare makes the readers think of whether love is ration, why people fall in love, and what love is in general. The play received numerous praises and criticisms. The current essay reviews the analysis of A Midsummer Nights Dream conducted by Kelly Bulkeley,
According to Bulkeley, the central topic of Shakespeare’s play is dreaming (Bulkeley 297). What is more, she calls A Midsummer Nights Dream “the greatest celebration of dreaming in the Western literary canon (Bulkeley 298). Indeed, it is impossible to disagree with this view. Undoubtedly, Shakespeare devotes a lot of attention to the issue of love and shows how complicated it might be; however, the topic of dreaming is closely related to the one of love. The word “dream” per se is mentioned numerous times in the play, and for characters, a dream is a way to explain mysterious events that happen to them. Furthermore, from the very beginning, the audience is immersed in dreaming where the concepts of time and space are subjective and where several epochs intertwine with each other. However, Bulkeley makes an important notice that dreams in the play could not be treated as dreams of real people and should be regarded only as literary devices (Bulkeley 314).
The particular attention should be devoted to the fact that dreams are not separated from reality but, on the contrary, are closely connected to it. As a prove of this idea, Bulkeley cites the example of Hermia’s nightmare (Bulkeley 303). The night before Lysander`s escape, Hermia saw a dream where a snake was eating her heart while Lysander was calmly watching at her. This nightmare “directly reflects that waking-world event” and shows the audience how strongly Hermia loves Lysander and how strongly his escape breaks her heart (Bulkeley 303). It could be added that the correspondence of Hermia’s dream with reality makes the discussed play even more mysterious.
At the same time, Bulkeley raises a peculiar question of why Shakespeare chose a snake to eat Hermia`s heart (Bulkeley 303). The most obvious answer is that snakes symbolize betrayal and separation, as proposed in the Bible. However, Bulkeley notices that the action of A Midsummer Nights Dream takes place in pre-Christian times, and, therefore, the choice of a snake could not be justified by religious traditions (Bulkeley 303). The answer provided by Bulkeley is rather untypical. She argues that a snake is a “phallic symbol” because “Lysander has sexually pressured Hermia just before they go to sleep” (Bulkeley 303). From this, it could be inferred that a snake in Hermia`s nightmare is exactly Lysander.
To conclude, the review of A Midsummer Nights Dream by Kelly Bulkeley because it is creative and not traditional. The author of the discussed article analyzes the role and meaning of dreams in one of the most prominent Shakespeare’s plays by referring to the psychological theories of dreaming. Still, the article is not a breakthrough as it does not provide any alternative interpretations of the play.
Summary
The essay discusses the article of Kelly Bulkeley dedicated to the role of such phenomenon as dreaming in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Nights Dream. This article was chosen because it discusses a topic that is not usually analyzed in scholarly literature. Even though Bulkeley marks several curious details on dreaming in the play, generally, the article could not be seen as a revolutionary one since it does not provide any alternative interpretations.
Work Cited
Bulkeley, Kelly. “A midsummer night’s dream: Shakespeare’s play of dreaming.” Dreaming, vol. 30, no.4, 2020, pp. 297-316.