Humor and the lower class in Shakespeare Essay Example for Free

Humor and the lower class in Shakespeare EssayFrom the jigging veins springs the flow and haves a hilarious tinge in the rhythm of souls- This is incredulous the power of no body else except Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a truly awing 17th Century literary dude, creating the whole new gamut of pitying experience and emotions of both high and low, purple and sundry, bringing their lives in the fold of his haggle through his tragedy, romantic, history and funniness wagers. Shakespeare is an appropriate symbol of human life which brings tears and smiles, sighs and shouts of joys. So beyond bringing the tears and pondering over the history, he reaches the midriff of man with his comedy plays. Comedy of Shakespeare moves in a world of its own a appearance from satire or moral reforms. The comedy appears in the Renaissance period in its new form breaking from its conventional mode. Since sixteenth century this term was in use but to incorporate numerous types among whom many resembled the Grecian and Latin comedies. The renaissance though precept the slight change in the trend of the comic eluding but the spirit remained the same.Before it, comedy was performed in the form of farce and clown-age by roaming entertainers and captured the morality exclusively receivable to its popularity. The comedy espouses the capture of not only with the plays of genus Plautus and Terence, but similarly showed the signs of Latin forms, the scriptural Terentian plays, and the story with the theme of the Prodigal Son. The result was quite visible as there on the stages were seen the holy new style of dramatization of story and scenic entertainments which were replete of fun and frolic.Shakespeare also used what has blend the tradition in the British Society, to laugh at a characters lack of intellect. Shakespeare uses fools who were considered to be lacking in intelligence but are actu totallyy wiser, and clowns. These clowns were generally innocent characters, ignorant, sometimes quiet witted and created a situation that is almost out his scope and thus keeps the comic actions going. By using the fools he sprinkled his plays with Jokes meant for the common man touching the audiences intellectual level. The best example of the use of the fools is Falstaff in I Henry IV.Falstaff is an embodiment of the vice of vanity, dishonest, proud and pretentious but on the separate mickle coward also, thus providing an entertainment value. The brothers Dromio in the Comedy of Errors is also fine example of the fools. Comedy of Error is Shakespeares earliest and classicly inspired comedy particularly using the Plautuss farcical play Menaechmi ( Twins). He created the comic scenes with the common people who found themselves engulfed in a farce of mistaken identities, due to the devil pairs of twins who were separated because of the storm in the sea.Some of the wag in Comedy of illusion is derived from the puns and wordplay, but the large part of i t comes from slapstick and mistaken identity, and its distinct in the reek that it observes classical unities. This complete play is entertainment, but under the layers of the fun also lays the deeper themes, which includes the feeling of self identity versus reality, the internality of time, coincidence and love. Because of the confusion, both the Syracusan and Ephesan twins sometimes think they have gone insane which shows the Shakespeares dainty interest in showing the characters tortuous soul.The play also highlights the fact that even the lightest farce bathroom create emotional resonance. This play was beginning(a) published in the first Folio in 1623 and is considered as Shakespeare shortest play. The comedy ends when both sets of twins were reunited. Shakespeare made his play to a greater extent complex than Plautus by adding game set of twins. The other plays that can be considered nearer to the Comedy of errors in the model are the two gentleman of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew and A Loves groks lost.The 1590s era saw changes in trend in the plays Mid Summers iniquity conceive ofs and the Merchant of Venice. These plays were different in tone climax under the category of meat Comedies and are the proof of the Shakespeares genius to experiment with the plays. Mid Summers Night Dreams beautifully presents the bumbling and unconsciously comic townspeople, creating yet another chapter of bringing the common frivolities, vices, situations and circumstances that these townspeople creates for themselves and thus is emerged the amusing scenes.But these plays not only arouse the comic relief but also create the sympathetic feelings. We can also see what is known as the Mature Comedies in this the most popular The romantic plays Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Twelfth Night. both these plays are considered as joyous comedies with characters always smiling and are sympathetic. Written around 1599 and 1600, th ese plays were at the breaker point of the Shakespeares career in the field of high comedy with generally having beautiful, intelligent, and strong-minded heroines, as the rudimentary characters.These plays were in sharp contrast to the satire, and reflect Shakespeares not only the mastery of his art but also congenial temperament that he shows towards his characters. Soon after mature comedies, Shakespeare produced problem comedies in his leash playsAlls Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure. The problem comedies deals with the complex and unpleasant themes and its characters have certain tote up of moral flaws which are more severe and difficult to change than the characters in the farces or the joyous comedies. diminish hearted humor is seen in these plays which are emotionally rich and dramatically exciting and stimulating to the readers. Alls Well That Ends Well, written around 1603 follows the conventional pattern of comedy, and as its title su ggests the play ends with the reunion of a separated couple, but this reunion is deeply troubling. Hereby Troilus and Cressida are totally different in the sense that for many days it was unheard-of whether it was tragedy, history or comedy. The essence of Romanticism showers in the comedy of the Shakespeares plays, and the lives hovers over the ass ground and atmosphere of Shakespeare.Shakespearean comedy is primarily the comedy of love. The atmosphere is full of the genial of love and friendship. In his comedy love is a means of human fulfillment, and far from aggrandizement the lovers thoughts about basic desires, the romantic inserts the feeling of passion. The romantic comedy has characters ranging from servants, drunkards, constables and clowns. The main characteristic cavort of the Shakespeare comedy is the beautiful combination of realism and fancy. The characters are drawn from the world of men and women. They have to suffer equal ordinary mortals experiencing adversit y, separation and disappointments.The characters and scenes though are viewed through magic casements which transforms reality, the settings in his plays are generally imagi essential- an unknown island, Thebes, Arden, Illyria, and Venice each are conceived in the sparkling light of a beautiful fancy, yet they are all real and sheer from our daily real lives. The contemporary figures and fashions as in Loves excavates Lost Bottom and his companions mingling with the fairies, this union of realism and fantasy is the cardinal characteristic feature of Shakespeare romantic world. The worldly wisdom and deep comprehension of life made his comedies more realistic.Under the humor and fun there lies the tone of didacticism with the complex moods and subtlety in the characters. His comedies are also marked by the optimism and are the pictures of life in sunnier aspects. Shakespeare began his journey of comedy where Lyly left, and he was able to find his way to create an intense mood of se riousness in the comedy. It is said that in comedy, Lyly is Shakespeares model and its influence is far more permanent than any other. Shakespeare imitates the grouping style of Lyly and consequently repeats the relation or situation in consequent plays.It was from Lyly that Shakespeare learned unity and coherence of plot-construction, basically in the introduction of songs and fairies. (Looney, 1997-2002). And the fine example is Love and Labors lost. He was also influenced with Greene which led to the creation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. But the most influence that is created on his works is from Plautus and Terence. Plautus devices used in the plots reads similar ten-twenty-thirty thrillers of the nineteenth century involving desertion of infants, kidnapping, piracy, shipwreck, tokens of recognition, changes of identity, keyhole listenings and strange rescues.His world constitutes the characters ranging from scolding matrons, lying and thievish servants, money lenders, pro curers and sycophants, all belong to the lower or middle strata of the society but in the end always the knaves are punished and its titles reflects the plot like The Play of the Hidden Pot of Gold, The Haunted House, How the Sham Steward Got Paid for His Asses, and The Play of the Caskets. The same is full-strength with Comedy of Error which is derived from the Plautuss farcical play Menaechmi (Twins).In this play Plautus uses gag to dwell and come out with the human foibles including the mistaken identity. As in Comedy of Errors in Plautus play, only one servant appears and he is traveling with a twin who stays outside their native country. The citizen twin has a shrewd wife, a father-in-law and a mistress named Erotium, and thus all these involves trickery, sex grip with the husbands blatant infidelity.And this mistaken identity are wrangled a jeweler, a merchant, parasite, a medical student and the courtesan. Thus the story and plot of the Shakespeare and Plautus are same bu t Shakespeare gives very little of farce. there are two distinct patterns in which Shakespeare comedy moves, one from society to wilderness and then back to the better society and the second pattern is from union to freewheeling and then back to union. (Flachman from midsummer magazine, 2001). The first model emerges in the play A Midsummer Nights Dream.This play takes its characters from the urban lands to the parking lot world of forest and then back to the original society whereby they have learned the true way of living from the freedom that they enjoyed in green world of the Forest. In the Midsummer Night Dreams all reach the good fortune only by staying one night in enchanted woods. As dissimilar to these plays, the other plays like in Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors, and Alls Well That Ends Well, specifically in the comedy of errors the characters first are united, separated and then united.In, many of the comedies the conclusion is the happy marriage. These pattern s help us to read in depth the chapters of our lives and try to solve the problems faced by us in a much comic manner. The Midsummers Night Dreams is different then the Comedy of Errors in the sense that its the Bards original hymeneals play. According to many scholars it is a light entertainment to accompany a marriage celebration and unlike Comedy of Errors Shakespeare does not rely on existing plays, narrative poetry, historical chronicles or any other source materials, making it an absolutely original piece.The main plot of the play involves the two set of couples The Hermia and Lysander, and capital of Montana and Demetrius whose romantic endeavors are complicated due to their entry into the fairyland woods where the King and Queen of the Fairies Oberon and titania rules and the Puck or Robin Goodfellow, who are the folk characters plies his trade. Thus there is also an element of fantasy in this play which is totally absent in the Comedy of Errors with an exception of twins.A Midsummer Nights Dream contains lyrical expressions of love and dreams, and the creative imagination of both. These two patterns, are born from the plays, the Jorge de Montemayors Diana, which is a Spanish pastoral romance who in celebrating the love, moves from society to wilderness and then back to the reformed and much treasured society, and the second posters from the story of Titus and Gisippus in Sir Thomas Elyots The Governor, and its plot moves uniting the characters and then leave them to wander and again back reuniting them.Shakespeare was a versatile character and the growth his career lies in its model of versatility which is luxuriously clear in all his plays whether it is tragic, history or comedy, versatility lies in all and he is always experimenting with the words so close to the human heart and that makes the Shakespeare unique.BIBILIOGRAPHY 1.Flachmann Michael, (2001), The two Comic plots of Verona, From Midsummer Magazine, Utah Shakespearean fete Home Page, Re trieved on 19th March 2007 from W. W. W http//www. bard. org/education/resources/shakespeare/twogentscomic. html 2. Looney J Thomas, Shakespeare Identified, Chapter XI, Edward De Vere Middle Period Dramatic Foreground, Retrieved on 19th March 2007 from W. W. W http//www. shakespearefellowship. org/etexts/si/11-5. htm.