Lack of Realism in Shakespearean Plot

The purpose of this research is to examine the connection between the supposed lack of realism in Shakespearean plot, setting, and characterization, and the apparent difficulty that modern readers of Shakespeare encounter with the text as a result. The plan of the research will be to set forth the bases on which such a connection may be asserted, and then to discuss, with reference to selected plays, how such difficulties can be understood and perhaps overcome.

The lack of realism of A Midsummer Night's Dream is so obvious that it seems superfluous to mention it. The setting is supposedly ancient Athens, but this is not the Athens of history, for the impending marriage of two mythical characters, Theseus and Hippolyta, is the anticipated occasion. Supposedly real-life characters, the young lovers and their parents, are in jeopardy because Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius, and to avoid the death penalty for filial impiety, she betakes herself (followed by Demetrius, Lysander, and Helena) to what turns out to be an enchanted forest populated by fairies and elves.

The fact that A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy may allow a willing suspension of disbelief with regard to plot, character, and setting. As Brown, et al., suggest, the young Athenian lovers of the play make very good Elizabethans and Shakespeare never intended that they should be mistaken for ancient Greeks. On the other hand, it may be difficult for the modern reader to become attuned to the fact that the play is

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ts own problems with verisimilitude, both in spite and because of the fact that it is anchored by the facts of history. Shakespeare's principal source was undoubtedly Plutarch, and the core of the story is undoubtedly the assassination conspiracy against Caesar. The falling-out of the conspirators leads to civil war and finally to the accession of Octavius. All this is the stuff of melodrama and action-adventure stories, amplified by the growing sense of guilt that dominates Brutus's life. Meanwhile, however, the play abounds with dreams and portents, and the dramatic function of the supernatural seems to provide the plot with cosmic significance. Caesar's wife has a premonition of his death, which he dismisses. But later, he eagerly takes in Decius's specious interpretation of Calpurnia's dream: This dream is all amiss interpreted; It was a vision fair and fortunate: Your statue spouting blood in many pipes, In which so many smiling Romans bathed, Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck Reviving blood, and that great men shall press For tinctures, stains, relics and cognizance. This by Calpurnia's dream is signified (II.i). One way of looking at this passage is that Shakespeare is deliberately showing that Caesar is just as

Category: Literature - L