Comparing Shakespeare In Love And A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare is most renowned for his world-class romantic plays. Like most successful writers, his plays have certain distinguishing qualities that set apart his works from others. Shakespeare 's romantic themes in particular can be found in all of his plays to some extent. The two movies Shakespeare in Love, based on Romeo and Juliet with a very creative twist, and the movie A Midsummer Night 's Dream, based upon a play with the same name, show these themes. Yet Shakespeare in Love, a unique twist on a traditional Shakespearean play, demonstrates the values of Shakespearean romance with greater impact than A Midsummer Night 's Dream because it is more concise and stays true to the themes of Shakespearean Romance better than what is a recorded …show more content…
A Midsummer Night 's Dream begins with Demetrius infatuated with Hermia, Helena infatuated with Demetrius and Oberon and Puck with a “love juice” that can induce infatuation on it 's victims. The entire center of the movie is based around the concept of infatuation. Hermia and Lysander run away, because they would rather love each other and be in great danger rather than not be together (Hoffman, A Midsummer Night 's Dream). Demetrius follows Hermia who is in turn pursued by Helena and Titania experiences infatuation with Bottom (Hoffman, A Midsummer Night 's Dream). All are great examples of infatuation but they are outdone by Shakespeare in Love. In Shakespeare in Love, Shakespeare becomes infatuated with Viola, with both losing their sense of reason and taking part in needlessly dangerous actions. Viola and Shakespeare engage in acts of love in risky areas, Shakespeare sneaks into Viola 's mansion and wishes to challenge Lord Wessex to a duel (Madden, Shakespeare in Love). A Midsummer Night 's Dream has more examples of infatuation, and has the loss of reason, when Lysander and Demetrius both fall in love with Helena instead of Hermia, but Shakespeare in love shows more emotion, specifically madness. Shakespeare in Love uses the creative freedom of a more modern movie and the extra screen time from cutting unnecessary side-plots to better convey the raw emotion in …show more content…
Shakespeare in Love uses fewer examples of the themes triumphing over adversity, facing genuine danger and infatuation but expresses them in a very clear and simple manner, increasing its impact on the audience. Shakespeare in Love, a modern, creative piece loosely based upon Romeo and Juliet, manages to stay true to Shakespeare 's romantic themes better than a movie more based in Shakespeare 's work, further proving that creative freedom is important in creation of new media, rather than sticking to an old, previous