A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20081706 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elliot Krieger (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1979 |
| Pages | 37-69 |
| Publication date | 1979-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Marxist Study of Shakespeare's Comedies (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/978-1-349-04654-6_3 |
| OpenAlex | W4214749491 |
| ISBN | 9781349046546 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 6 |
In A Midsummer Night's Dream the romantic protagonists, confronted with obstacles, retreat from the primary world. Two of the Athenian lovers, Hermia and Lysander, find themselves confronted by, and they willfully oppose, three distinct kinds of obstacles: the law, the state, and the family. Hermia and Lysander wish to marry against the will of Hermia's father Egeus, against the advice of Duke Theseus, and in defiance of the abstract "law of Athens", which, theoretically, transcends human desire, will, and judgment, which, Theseus says, "by no means we may extenuate" (I. i. 119–20). The two lovers do not try to outwit or to deceive Hermia's father, to circumvent the law of Athens, or to win each other through violence, vengeance, or heroics. They oppose these obstacles by devising a strategy of replacement, escape to somewhere beyond the reach of "the sharp Athenian law" (162); they hope to find in a new location the liberating alternative to the restrictions of Athenian civilization. The law of Athens deprives Hermia and Lysander of independence and autonomy; it considers Hermia no more than an object, a piece of property to be disposed of by Egeus:KeywordsPhysical ViolenceAuthority FigurePrimary WorldLiterary ConventionMagic PotionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves
Art · Civilization · Dream · Epistemology · Independence (probability theory) · Literature · Object (grammar) · Political science · Property (philosophy) · Romance · Sociology · State (computer science) · Classical Antiquity Studies · Computer Science · Law · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.71 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2019 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |