Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THE INHERITED PAST
- PART II THE ELIZABETHAN PRESENT
- 9 The Context of Comedy
- 10 Theseus and the Setting
- 11 Puck's Permutations: The Context of Love
- 12 ‘Sweet Moon’: The Woods and the Context of Magic
- 13 Literary Context
- 14 Playing Parts
- 15 Transgressions and Translations
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - Playing Parts
from PART II - THE ELIZABETHAN PRESENT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- PART I THE INHERITED PAST
- PART II THE ELIZABETHAN PRESENT
- 9 The Context of Comedy
- 10 Theseus and the Setting
- 11 Puck's Permutations: The Context of Love
- 12 ‘Sweet Moon’: The Woods and the Context of Magic
- 13 Literary Context
- 14 Playing Parts
- 15 Transgressions and Translations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
[…] every dream turns out to be a meaningful psychical formation which can be given an identifiable place in what goes on within us in our waking life.
We all play parts: son, daughter, father, mother, husband, wife, lover, master of the household, shop owner, tailor's apprentice, friend. The roles are infinite and those we play may alter from moment to moment. Life is broken into stages and we play different parts at different ages. Then there are the parts we assume temporarily – angry father, rebellious daughter, jilted girl, passionate lover, fool, concerned friend, wise man, counsellor, actor, director.
Long before Pedro Caldéron de la Barca's 1635 play La Vida es Sueño (Life is a Dream) the image of life as an unreal experience was already current. To Christians life was a dreamlike, ephemeral, transient thing, soon over. We are born, we live, we die. Bede's History of the English Church and People (731 AD) describes the fleeting nature of life as being like ‘the swift flight of a lone sparrow through the banqueting hall’,
in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the darkness from whence he came. Similarly, man appears on earth for a little while, but we know nothing of what went before this life, and what follows.
The afterlife – in Hell or Heaven – was what was real and most important. Mortal life only had value as a preparation for eternity, as a chance to live purely and devoutly, casting off all the fleshly burdens of sin and purifying your soul ready for union with God. Other metaphors for life were that it was a voyage, a pilgrimage, a play. All are forms of journey. Erasmus has Folly remark, ‘What else is the whole life of man but a sort of play?’
Actors come on wearing their different masks and all play their parts until the director orders them off the stage, and he can often tell the same man to appear in different costume, so that now he plays a king in purple and now a humble slave in rags. It's all a sort of pretence, but it's the only way to act out this farce.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in ContextMagic, Madness and Mayhem, pp. 263 - 272Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2016