Sueño De Una Noche De Verano Segun Frye

INTRODUCTION: In this paper I will try to debate the relationship between the arguments of Frye on his article “Mythos of Spring” and Shakespeare´s play “A Midsummer Night´s Dream”, taking into account…

One of Frye´s arguments about comedy, refers to the theory of comic construction from drama, using incidentally illustrations from fiction. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeareconstructs a comic situation from the drama of the lovers Demetrio and Hermia, that cannot achieve their will together, and use fictional characters like Oberon, Titania , the elf and the fairies.
Fryes says that generally, a young man wants a young woman but he finds some opposition, usually paternal. However near the end something enables him to achieve his will. This is exactly what happens inA Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Lisandro is in love with Hermia, and even though her father opposes, in the end they can get married. At the beginning of the play, the obstructing characters, like Egeo (Hermia’s father) and Teseo (duch of Atenas) are in charge of the play’s society, but at the end a new society crystallizes: hero and heroine (Lisandro and Hermia). This cristallization is thepoint of resolution, that Frye calls “cognitio” , and generally this point is signalized by a party at the end of the play, as it was the party of the triple wedding in our case (Teseo and Hipolita; Lisandro and Hermia; Demetrio and Helena)
In comedy, the blocking characters are more often reconciled or converted, instead of repudiated, like it happens with Demetrio, who is bewitched by theelf and falls in love with Helena instead of Hermia, and also with Teseo who finally sees with good eyes the love between Hermia and Lisandro, allowing them to fullfill their will.
Frye states that the action of a comedy moving from one social center to another is like a lawsuit in which defendant and plaintiff have different versions of the same situation: one is finally judged as real and theother like illusory. So, in this comedy, the action begins with the law of a compulsory marriage and ends wit the break of it. There are different devices that bring about some comic resolution, like the confusion made by the elf (Qué has hecho? Te has equivocado y has derramado el néctar del amor sobre los ojos de un leal amante….)
Fray claims that there are two ways of developing the formof comedy: to emphazise the blocking characters or to emphazise the scenes of reconciliation. The form in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the second one, where the hero (Lisandro) has a bit part, and a group of interesting characters such as the elf and the fairies plays an important role in the development of reconciliation.
Another argument of Frye is taht although there exist some comedieswithout humor, generally they are humorous, and this is the case with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (No sé si es importante, pero él lo dice en el articulo, si no te oarece no lo pongas)Humor is related to an obsession or to a whim that seems absurd to the audience and the action of comedy moves toward breaking it. In this comedy, Demetrio is obsessed with marrying Hermia, and also is Egeo, (Egeoesta obsesionado con que Demetrio se case con Hermia)but the development of the play leads to the breakage of this obsession and to a happy ending Demetrio falls in love with Helena, and Lisandro can marry Hermia according to his wills. The way in which the obsession breaks is a movemenet from illusion to reality. It is more important here what happened to achieve this than the charactersthemselves, as they are undeveloped characters, and their real life will begin at the end of the play, as the audience supposes they will be happy everafter.
Regarding the types of comic characters in comedies, Fryes says that there are three types: alazons or impostors, eirons or self-deprecators and buffons. I think that we can recognize an eiron in the elf, as an eiron is described as a tricky...