Humor in William Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor Through history, there have been many explanations at to why Shakespeare wrote the “Merry Wives of Windsor”. Some have argued that the play was written for the Garter Ceremony held on April 23, 1597, when the patron of Shakespeare’s company, Lord Hudson, was installed; supposedly, the play was later revised for public performance, around 1601. Shakespeare wrote the “Merry Wives of Windsor” as a comedy, however it does not obey all typical conventions of a Shakespearean comedy as noticeable differences in the plot show. Key parts of the play in which Shakespeare creates the main humour are the scenes in which the wives manage to humiliate and deceive Falstaff, a fat knight with a devious mind and inflated ego. A convention used repeatedly in this play to create verbal, and physical humour, is disguise and misunderstanding. Within the category of disguise and misunderstanding comes incongruity and ironic knowledge. In act 3, scene 3, the wives have discovered Falstaff’s identical letters to them both, and have secretly planned their revenge on him. The fact that the wives received the same letters in the first place shows the audience how little Falstaff actually cared for the women, and shows his desperation. This has a great affect on the audience’s reactions. The audience is pre-warned of the wives’ plans and early jokes by Mistress Ford prepare them for the visual humour approaching. “Without any pause or staggering take this basket on your shoulders: that done take it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Tha... ... middle of paper ... ... horns and turn into part deer, part man. The final scene, when the fairies torture Falstaff, seems like a scene of comedy rather than one of grief or sympathy. There is the added hilarity of Doctor Caius and Slender whisking away the wrong person, and finding themselves marrying a boy, instead of Anne Page. The play concludes as an entirely happy ending as Ford includes “Sir John and all” in his final speech. Although this is a rather unconventional comedy in some ways, the ending still consists of the protagonist overcoming the antagonist, creating a happy ending. It is also a farce due to the improbably and ludicrous events that take place throughout. Shakespeare’s great uses of comedic structures are extremely successful in creating not only a great comedy, but also one that has lasted the test of time.
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. ” (Pg. 18). By creating a comedy using both dramatic and situational irony, Shakespeare was able to get the true meaning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream across to his audience: “love is blind”. When using situational irony, the readers were often tricked into believing in different outcomes to certain events in the story. With dramatic irony, on the other hand, it was used mainly for a comedic effect, rather than creating a plot twist for the audience. By creating a comedy using these two types of irony, Shakespeare was able to deliver his message of the true meaning of love.
William Shakespeare, the author of many various forms of writing, was born in Stratford upon Avon, in 1564. He wrote plays and sonnets alike, and occasionally combined the two. “Romeo and Juliet” was an example of this as many sonnets are used in it so as to display their love. This play was perhaps the shortest one that he ever wrote, and it is a tragedy that still warms the hearts of people today. It is, no doubt, amongst the most well known plays by him, and is greatly enjoyed by children and adults alike. In this essay, I will identify the various techniques used in this work of art, explicitly focusing on dramatic irony and foreshadowing.
“Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afraid,” Exclaimed
In this playwright The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the author uses many types of writing to make this play interesting. Suspense is the first of the three used and is the most common in this play. The second type will be dramatic irony since it is used a lot but not as often as suspense, and finally, the third type is tragedy. In this playwright there are many types of play writing forms used, so I will only cover the big three.
On the surface, Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night may seem like to the run of the mill Shakespearean comedy. It has loads of the ingredients you would typically see in a Shakespeare play; love being the be all end all, revenge, and yes, cross-dressing. Aside from dramatics, this comedy embodies the fundaments of the battle of the sexes; the age-old conflict is reminiscent to how gender roles are to this day. Man vs. Woman, or the main ingredient as it is, sets the ball rolling for the tone and the social construct of the comedy. Viola, disguised as Cesario, says, “Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness wherein the pregnant enemy does much. How easy it is for the proper-false in women 's waxen hearts to set their forms!” (Twelfth Night, II.ii 27-30.) This quote alone expresses not only the ambiguity of gender through identity, but also the way men portray female’s inferiority and deceitfulness. Despite the male protagonists ' view on women 's incapability to love, Viola 's
Laughter and humor are ongoing topics amongst philosophers to ponder and to determine what makes one laugh, what’s funny? Thomas Hobbes’ theory, though short, is one that is a central point of reference, to date, when analyzing what makes us laugh. According to Hobbes “the passion of laughter is nothing but sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others” (Hobbes 458). Hobbes believes that it’s one’s superior feelings over another person’s inferiorities that the superior finds humorous, which result in laughter. He also theorizes on Wit. Wit, by the comedic definition, is natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humor. Hobbes also views wit as being natural and consisting of: “celerity of imagining – that is swift succession of one thought to another – and steady direction to some approved end. (Hobbes 458). Wit, or one’s quick wittedness, can be put back into Hobbes’ equation that suggests what we find funny is that which one can experience from an unsympathetic distance allowing him to laugh at another’s infirmities.
“The Canterbury Tales” was written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales constitutes a frame story which each pilgrim has to tell their own story to the Chaucer, the pilgrim; not the poet. As we know, the tale itself is a satire, but the stylistic structure in the tales creates a sense that can be a parody as well. To support this idea of parody, it is need to know the definition of parody and how Chaucer use this style to make his own ideas clear through the general prologue and the tales such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale”.
My presentation is based an article titled The Inhibited and the Uninhibited: Ironic Structure in the Miller’s Tale it s written by Earle Birney. The literary theme that Birney is discussing in his essay is structural irony. Structural irony is basically a series of ironic events and instances that finally build up to create a climax. The events and the climax the Birney chooses to focus his essay on are the events that lead towards the end when almost each character suffers an ironic event:
Andrew is funny, it is not intentional. His faults include a lack of wit, a
After Olivia has her very first conversation with Cesario (Viola), where he tries to woo her for Duke Orsino, she immediately falls in love with him. After Cesario leaves her palace, Olivia says to herself ‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast; soft, soft. Unless the master were the man. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?’ Here Olivia states that Cesario’s external features are what attract her to him. Her metaphor contains a s...
to address Viola as if she were male, he says, "Boy, thou hast said to
The perfect lives that make up the routine of the Illyrian citizens portrays a society in which enjoyment, and personal gain are held in utmost priority. Shakespeares mocks the passivity of the Illyrian lifestyle to explain to the audience that excess of such festivity has negative side effects such as ego and lack of true love. He expresses that the pursuit of expression and truth in itself invokes enjoyment. Sir Aguecheek mirrors the uncertainty of a person through lack of self-confidence and the desire to openly reveal his true self when lamenting “Is it a world to hide virtues in?” (1.3.131). While uncovering aesthetic and emotional mysteries, the Illyrians find that disport restrains them from actual enjoyment and love. The play follows the audience to motivate them towards dissemination of feelings and expression of passion as a “locus of growth and self discovery” (Logan 223) and to obtain true happiness by ridding themselves of excessive, meaningless fun.
In Act 2 scene 5 the mood is very lighthearted and is full of theatrical comedy, we find Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and their friend Fabian hidden away as they await Malvolio to stumble upon the letter supposedly written by Olivia. Even though they are hidden the audience can still see their reactions and hear their comments, which adds to the melodramatic aspect of the scene. The audience is anxious to see what unravels next as they know Maria purposely wrote the letter in order to fool Malvolio.
that Olivia is in love with him is a good example of a humorous and
Humor in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night In Twelfth Night we see different types of humour. There is the witty