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THE CROSSED LOVERS
Sum up the incidents and characters introduced in the first Act and
ascertain which are most important in influencing the rest of the
story.
It may be noticed that Theseus and Hippolyta and their marriage
festivities are personages and events which make up a decorative
external sort of frame for the whole play, but that the centre of the
action takes its start, primarily, from the conflict of Hermia's love
for Lysander with her father's choice of Demetrius, and, secondarily,
from the clash of Helena's love for Demetrius with his suit for
Hermia. Show how the brisk bit of dialogue between Hermia and Lysander
-
i. 141-166) implies the forthcoming plot. For example, it may be
shown that 'to be enthrall'd to love' (the first folio reading is
love instead of low, which was an emendation of Theobald's,)
[Footnote: See foot note in First Folio edition.] and to have
'sympathy in choice' made as 'momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow,
short as any dream,' is to be the fate of all the lovers in the play,
except Theseus and Hippolyta, and to constitute the substance of the
action.
Consider what relation the second scene has to the story. Is it more
extraneous to the movement than the scene presenting the Duke and his
bride? It is linked to the crossed lovers group, on the one side, by
the part the chief of the 'rude mechanicals,' Bottom, is to assume
with Titania, although this does not appear in the first Act, and
Shakespeare's intention to do something special with this character is
only shadowed forth here by its prominence. On the other side it is
linked to the ducal group still more superficially, merely by the
rehearsal of a piece to be played at the wedding. It may be contrasted
with the preparation in 'Hamlet' for a piece similarly played before
the Court, but which had a vital connection with the action and
characters which is lacking here. Can there be said to be an artistic
design, however, though of a more external sort, in the contrast
between the Court scene and the rehearsal scene, and the realistic
offset the latter scene supplies to the fairy fantasies that are to
follow in the next acts? For instance, it may be shown that the
merriment the clownish scene provides balances the dignity of the
ducal scene. His audience, having put a yoke upon the dramatists by
requiring a clown, his genius is betokened here by his making it an
artistic advantage.
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