On humanism of Renaissance embodied in Shakespeare's drama "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Abstract: Humanismworshipping is an important part in the renaissance literature. Therefore, we will discuss how the famous writer William Shakespeare uses his special talents in applying the humanism to his work A Midsummer Night's Dream. Moreover, we can learn how the work stands out as the extraordinary literature by analyzing the Humanism in William Shakespeare’s Drama A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Key words: Humanism, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love, Marriage, William Shakespeare, Freedom, and A new life
Humanism is referred to as the Renaissance Guiding ideology during the Renaissance movement .Humanism forces on human’s nature and is against the theocracy and religious authority. What’s more, it critics that human regards the "god" as the center and despises so
me religious thought. On the contrary， humanism advocates rational knowledge, the people with versatile abilities and the love between man and woman. As an important part of Renaissance movement, Humanism literature is provided with some new cultural characteristics and unique literary style.
As we all know, one of the most significant literary figures is William Shakespeare who is presumably the most accomplished writer during the Renaissance in England. A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of his famous works in his career. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare in the 1590s. It describes the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and their interactions with the fairies. The play includes three plots, .In the opening scene, Hernia refuses to agree with her father’s wish for her to marry Demetrius. As a result, Edges beg for the duke of Athens, Theseus to give an order. Theseus command that Hemia must marry the man chosen by her father, or else will be punished to death or be lifelong chastity worshipping Diana as a nun. Hermia and her lover Lysander therefore decide to escape through the forest at night. Hermia informs her best friend Helena, but He
lena has recently been rejected by Demetrius and decides to win back his lover by telling the plan to him. Demetrius, followed by Helena, chases Hermia, who, in turn, chases Lysander, from whom she becomes separated. Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, arrive in the same forest to attend Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon is depressed because Titania refuses to give her Indian page-boy Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience and recruits the mischievous Puck to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called "love-in-idleness," which makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing he sees when he awakens. Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the juice on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck puts the juice on the eyes of Lysander, who then falls in love with Helena. When Oberon finds the fault, he makes Puck apply the juice to Demetrius. Due to Puck's errors, Hermia's two lovers temporarily turn against her in favor of Helena. The four pursue and quarrel with each other all night, losing them in the dark meanwhile, several people have been arranged to perform a crude play. Nick Bottom, a weaver, is spotted by Puck, who transforms his head into that of an donkey. Titania is awoken by Bott
om's singing, and she immediately falls in love with him. Consequently, she met Oberon and gives him the Indian boy. Oberon releases Titania and orders Puck to remove the ass's head from Bottom. The magical enchantment is removed from Lysander but is allowed to remain on Demetrius, so that he may receive Helena's love. The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning and they wake the lover’s .To the end, since Demetrius doesn't love Hermia anymore, the lovers decide that the night's events must have been a dream. Theseus cancels Egeus' demand and arranges a group wedding.
Without any doubt, William Shakespeare succeeds in applying the humanism to this comedy play.
Firstly, A Midsummer Night's Dream involves the reality and illusion, the earth land and fairyland, fairytales and human beings. The author uses his fantastic imagination to arrange the plots and characters, creating an interesting play successfully. From the end of play, it’s not difficult for us to know the writer wants to express the theme of this play. Huma
n should peruse personnel happiness actively, treat the friendship seriously. Take Helina as an example, she wins the love from Lysander finally even though the Lysander treats her badly. Therefore, Helina didn't give up her right to peruse her love, so her spirit of never giving up shows the humanist ideas. It praises people's strengths, value, love and affection. How to treat friendship is another theme between Hermia and Helina's relationship. They are friends at first but they become enemy after the magical juice work on the two men they love. Under this situation, they quarreled with each other and forget the friendship between them before. It seems that the author uses the sarcasm to criticize people's inner evil nature and provokes people to treat the friendship in a correct attitude no matter what happens.
Secondly, the author expresses his opinion towards marriage by describing the love between Hemia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, Oberon and Titania. The whole story from beginning to end is with a happy atmosphere, the joy, the lilting rhythms even though the Puck makes some mistakes leading to the misleading. This misunderstanding reflects Shakespeare’ view of marriage of love and the profound thinking, which also is a reflection
of the European Renaissance .Especially, Hemia's father is against her marriage at first, but Hemia and Lysander struggle for their marriage ,which symbolizes the humans are against the feudal forbidden system and pursue their right of happiness. During the period of Shakespeare's life, the capitalism has generated and developed increasingly .New productivity and relations of production with capitalist production were produced under the impact of such several powers. Medieval feudalism and the power of religion gradually collapse. It was during that time that the midsummer night's dream came into being. People are longing for a new relationship, for love freedom, for a better life full of hopes .The happy ending of this play brings with the people hope and joy.
Thirdly, the content of this play mentions that Hemia's father intends to master his daughter's marriage, the fairy king ,Oberon, plans to control his wife, Titania because he orders Puck to get the Indian boy using the magic juice. From this, we know that women’s statue is still very low and women are still under the influence of the men. For example, Hemia's marriage is limited by the ridiculous law because the duke, Theseus once said Hemia will be punished if she is against marrying the man his father was satisfied with. Ha
ving fled to the woods, human being's love suffered from the confusion and misunderstandings generated by the fairies. We can learn that human's power is weak in some aspects and the human beings are eager to change the unfair situation, which adjusted the reform and change of the society and reflected the humanism ideas. What’s more, the real world and the imaginary world are quite different, which infers that the conflict between the different class’s life.The king of the fairies, Oberon and the weaver, Bottoma can be referred to as the representative figure of a dream world. The real world Bottoma can be regarded as one with the low status but he is vulgar and plain .On the contrary,. Oberon gets what he want, the Indian boy, regardless of her wife's feeling. And he didn’t realize his fault that he asks the Puck to spread the magic juice on the people's eyes. The result leads to misleading between the four young people. It looks like that the supporter of feudal system doesn’t respect the ordinary people's right in feudal society, which stimulates the humans to fight against the upper class's strong power, and peruse the happiness and freedom..
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