Monstrous Births and Imaginations: Authorship and Folklore in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
The amateur actors in A Midsummer Night's Dream are compared several times with the fairies who inhabit a forest outside of Athens. This article will investigate the significance of the analogy by exploring commonalities between discursive elements in folklore, physiology, and philosophy that r...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Iter Press
[2016]
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| In: |
Renaissance and reformation
Year: 2016, Volume: 39, Issue: 1, Pages: 115-146 |
| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion AZ New religious movements KBF British Isles TJ Modern history |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | The amateur actors in A Midsummer Night's Dream are compared several times with the fairies who inhabit a forest outside of Athens. This article will investigate the significance of the analogy by exploring commonalities between discursive elements in folklore, physiology, and philosophy that regard imaginative faculties as a powerful force. When contextualizing Shakespeare's representation of acting and writing within early modern assumptions about the nature of the imagination and its relation to popular stories of monstrous births, fairies, and witches, we can see that A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays theatre as a medium containing subversive political and erotic energies that potentially can alter the socio-political landscape. Dans A Midsummer Night's Dream, les acteurs amateurs sont plusieurs fois comparés aux fées habitant la forêt voisine d'Athènes. Cet article examine la signification de cette analogie en explorant les points communs que partagent les discours tenus sur le folklore, sur la physiologie et sur la philosophie : tous considèrent les facultés imaginatives comme de puissantes forces. Lorsque l'on situe les représentations proposées par Shakespeare de l'acteur et de l'écrivain dans le contexte des idées de son époque sur la nature de l'imagination et sur sa relation avec les histoires populaires de naissances monstrueuses, de fées et de sorcières, on constate que A Midsummer Night's Dream représente le théâtre comme un art porteur d'énergies politiques et érotiques subversives, lesquelles peuvent éventuellement modifier le paysage sociopolitique. |
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| ISSN: | 2293-7374 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Renaissance and reformation
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