Midsummer Night’s Dream Response/Lit-Crit Paper
In the early Eighteenth-Century, drama transitioned into "Sentimental Comedy" which embraces high moral ground, sex, and satire. The audience is moved not only to laughter, but also to sympathetic tears. While the Restoration Period in England literature was undergoing a shift towards highlighting the middle class and poor, not every critic was enthusiastic for the new writing style, one William Shakespeare excelled at. Samuel Pepys, an English naval administrator and a Member of Parliament, is one of the aforementioned critics. Pepys firmly dislikes Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and both succinctly and freely writes these thoughts in his diary. Pepys’s criticism helps lend a new perspective to a widely renowned and admired play, and from Pepys’s analysis the harsh reaction of upper class citizens to Shakespeare’s rowdy and at times inappropriate play is quite observable. …show more content…
Pepys even goes on to write that he would never go to see A Midsummer’s Night Dream again! He is utterly unimpressed, declaring one of Shakespeare’s greatest works “The most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life,” (Pepys n.pag). Pepys’s short examination is mostly negative, however he also includes one redeeming sentence, Pepys says “I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure,” (Pepys n.pag). The last sentence of Pepys’s scrutiny appears positive however, it seems to have a rather mocking and sarcastic twist when compared to the context of Pepys’s
In the early Eighteenth-Century, drama transitioned into "Sentimental Comedy" which embraces high moral ground, sex, and satire. The audience is moved not only to laughter, but also to sympathetic tears. While the Restoration Period in England literature was undergoing a shift towards highlighting the middle class and poor, not every critic was enthusiastic for the new writing style, one William Shakespeare excelled at. Samuel Pepys, an English naval administrator and a Member of Parliament, is one of the aforementioned critics. Pepys firmly dislikes Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and both succinctly and freely writes these thoughts in his diary. Pepys’s criticism helps lend a new perspective to a widely renowned and admired play, and from Pepys’s analysis the harsh reaction of upper class citizens to Shakespeare’s rowdy and at times inappropriate play is quite observable. …show more content…
Pepys even goes on to write that he would never go to see A Midsummer’s Night Dream again! He is utterly unimpressed, declaring one of Shakespeare’s greatest works “The most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life,” (Pepys n.pag). Pepys’s short examination is mostly negative, however he also includes one redeeming sentence, Pepys says “I saw, I confess, some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure,” (Pepys n.pag). The last sentence of Pepys’s scrutiny appears positive however, it seems to have a rather mocking and sarcastic twist when compared to the context of Pepys’s