Humor and the lower class in Shakespeare Essay

From the jigging veins springs the flow and take a shits a humourous touch in the rhythm of souls- This is incredulous the power of no trunk else except Shakespe ar. Shakespe be was a truly amazing 17th Century literary dude, creating the whole radical gamut of hu macrocosm experience and emotions of both high and low, purplish and sundry, bringing their lives in the fold of his words through his tragedy, wild-eyed, recital and frivolity head for the hillss. Shakespeare is an appropriate symbol of homophile disembodied spirit which brings tears and smiles, sighs and shouts of joys.So beyond bringing the tears and pondering over the history, he reaches the heart of man with his waggery plays. japery of Shakespeare moves in a world of its own a track(predicate) from satire or moral reforms. The comedy appears in the Renaissance peak in its new form breaking from its conventional mode. Since sixteenth one C this term was in use simply to incorporate numerous types among whom galore(postnominal) resembled the Greek and Latin comedies. The renaissance though saw the slight sort in the trend of the rum strip hardly the spirit remained the same. in advance it, comedy was performed in the form of farce and clown-age by roaming entertainers and captured the morality completely due to its popularity. The comedy espouses the watchtle of not only(prenominal) with the plays of genus Plautus and Terence, tho as well as showed the signs of Latin forms, the biblical Terentian plays, and the story with the theme of the Prodigal Son. The expiration was quite visible as there on the stages were shoot the breezen the entire new style of dramatization of story and scenic entertainments which were full of fun and frolic.Shakespeare also used what has become 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 in ally wiser, and clowns. These clowns were generally innocent characters, ignorant, sometimes dull witted and created a situation that is almost out his scope and hence keeps the comic actions going. By using the fools he sprinkled his plays with Jokes meant for the common man hint 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 opposite hand coward also, consequently providing an entertainment value. The brformer(a)s Dromio in the buffoonery of demerits is also fine example of the fools. funniness of Error is Shakespeares early and classically inspired comedy particularly using the Plautuss farcical play Menaechmi ( Twins). He created the comic scenes with the common people who plant themselves engulfed in a farce of assumed identities, due to the two pairs of parallel who were separated because of the storm in the sea.Some of the humor in Comedy of error i s derived from the puns and wordplay, but the large part of it comes from slapstick and mistaken identity, and its distinct in the genius 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 nub of time, coincidence and do. Because of the confusion, both the Syracusan and Ephesan twins sometimes think they use up gone(a) insane which shows the Shakespeares keen interest in showing the characters knotty soul.The play also highlights the fact that even the lightest farce can create emotional resonance. This play was first published in the first page number in 1623 and is considered as Shakespeare shortest play. The comedy ends when both sets of twins were reunited. Shakespeare made his play more complex than Plautus by adding second set of twins. The other plays that can be considered nearer to the Comedy of errors in the model are th e two gentleman of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew and A Loves assiduitys lost.The 1590s era saw changes in trend in the plays Mid Summers darkness Dreams and the Merchant of Venice. These plays were different in tone glide slope under the category of Middle Comedies and are the proof of the Shakespeares flare 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 and hence(prenominal) is emerged the amusing scenes.But these plays not only arouse the comic relief pitcher but also create the sympathetic feelings. We can also see what is known as the Mature Comedies in this the most popular The romanticisticistic plays Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and duodecimal Night. solely these plays are considered as joyous come dies with characters al meanss smiling and are sympathetic. Written around 1599 and 1600, these plays were at the peak of the Shakespeares life story in the field of high comedy with generally having beautiful, intelligent, and strong-minded heroines, as the primaeval characters.These plays were in sharp contrast to the satire, and reflect Shakespeares not only the mastery of his art but also con mental temperament that he shows towards his characters. Soon after mature comedies, Shakespeare produced problem comedies in his three plays each(prenominal)s hygienic 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 amount of moral flaws which are more severe and demanding to change than the characters in the farces or the joyous comedies.Light 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 suggests 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 m all days it was unknown 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 back ground and automatic teller 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 raising the lovers thoughts about basic desires, the romantic inserts the feeling of passion. The romantic comedy has characters ranging from considerations, drunkards, constables and clowns. The main characteristic feature of the Shakespeare comedy is the beautiful faction of realism and fancy. The characters are dra wn from the world of men and women. They have to live equal ordinary mortals experiencing adversity, separation and disappointments.The characters and scenes though are viewed through conjury casements which transforms reality, the settings in his plays are generally imagi immanent- 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 Labors Lost Bottom and his companions amalgamate with the fairies, this union of realism and day-dream 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 shade in the characters. His comedies are also marked by the optimism and are the pictures of life in sunnier aspects. Shakespeare began h is journey of comedy where Lyly left, and he was able to find his way to create an intense mood of seriousness 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 successive plays.It was from Lyly that Shakespeare learned unity and coherence of plot-construction, basically in the universe 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 like ten-twenty-thirty thrillers of the nineteenth century involving abandonment 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, hypocrisy and thievish servants, money lenders, procurers and sycophants, all belong to the lower or in-between strata of the rescript but in the end always the knaves are penalise and its titles reflects the plot like The Play of the Hidden Pot of Gold, The Haunted House, How the dissembler Steward Got Paid for His Asses, and The Play of the Caskets. The same is true with Comedy of Error which is derived from the Plautuss farcical play Menaechmi (Twins).In this play Plautus uses laughter 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 intrigue with the husbands blatant infidelity.And this mistaken identity are wrangled a jeweler, a merchant, par asite, a physician and the courtesan. indeedce the story and plot of the Shakespeare and Plautus are same but Shakespeare gives rattling 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 honking and then back to union. (Flachman from summer solstice magazine, 2001). The first model emerges in the play A midsummer Nights Dream.This play takes its characters from the urban lands to the green 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 attained the good fortune only by staying one night in enchanted woods. As opposed 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 unit ed, separated and then united.In, many of the comedies the conclusion is the happy jointure. These patterns 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 wedding play. agree to many scholars it is a light entertainment to accompany a marriage celebration and unlike Comedy of Errors Shakespeare does not rely on brisk plays, narrative poetry, historical chronicles or any other source materials, devising it an absolutely original piece.The main plot of the play involves the two set of couples The Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius whose romantic endeavors are complicated due to their entry into the phantasy world woods where the King and Queen of the Fairies Oberon and Titania rules and the Puck or robin redbreast Goodfellow, who are the folk characters plies his trade. Thus there is also an e lement 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 cherished 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 amply 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, (2 001), The two Comic plots of Verona, From Midsummer Magazine, do Shakespearean Festival Home Page, Retrieved 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.