The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet: The Use of the Supernatural and Comedy in Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream–Derek Newman

Throughout his career, William Shakespeare wrote many literary masterpieces: tragedies, comedies, histories, and romances. When comparing Shakespeare’s plays, it is ironic to discover that his tragedy Hamlet has much in common with his romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare wrote, “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact” (Dream 5.1.7-8). In these two lines, Shakespeare himself ties the two plays together. Using Hamlet, the lunatic, and Titania and Bottom, the lovers, the poet, Shakespeare himself, he has created plays of such imagination that they have become part of the fabric of history. Each play features the supernatural and confusion, each contains lovers, and both were given life by a poet. Hamlet is a supernatural tragedy in which the young prince’s confusion and uncertainty caused by the ghost of his father are disguised by his feigned madness and use of humor, while A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a supernatural comedy in which the humans’ confusion and uncertainty caused by the fairies are disguised by magical madness and humor.

The use of the supernatural in Hamlet and Dream would be quite familiar to Shakespeare’s audiences. As the Elizabethan audience would expect, the ghost in Hamlet appears during the night and fades with the break of dawn. According to James F. Lacey, “[a] common opinion regarding ghosts was that they were evil spirits impersonating the deceased” (834). Lacy continues by saying that in Hamlet, unlike Macbeth, the ghost appears to Hamlet instead of his murderer, Claudius. Since this Ghost has no way to get revenge itself, it must use the living Hamlet to gain its revenge. The Ghost is not just the instigator of Hamlet’s revenge, but it also serves another purpose in the play. As Lacey points out in his article, “the ghost provides the audience with a great deal of information necessary for understanding the play, a brilliant way of handling exposition” (Lacey 834).

In Dream, just as Shakespeare’s audiences would expect, the fairies are mischievously intruding into the lives of the humans. According to David P. Young in Something of Great Constancy: The Art of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “[f]airies were sometimes said to be fallen angels and inhabitants of hell, so that a certain confusion about their moral status probably existed among the audience” (28). However, according to M. W. Latham, “Shakespeare altered the folk concept of fairies [in Dream], converting them into benevolent, ethereal, dream-like creatures” (219). This change is evident from the fact that the fairies begin the play intruding into the lives of the humans, but in the end the fairies fix their mistakes and the lives of the humans are ultimately better.

Both Hamlet and Dream are plays filled with confusion caused by the supernatural. After Hamlet encounters the ghost in Act I, scene iv, he is confused and does not know whether the ghost is good or evil. The appearance of his father’s ghost sends Hamlet into a quandary of indecision. Is it really Hamlet’s father, or is it a thing of evil? After all, as Marcellus notes in Act I, the apparition fades with “the crowing of the cock” (Hamlet 1.1.157). Hamlet is bound by tradition to avenge his father’s death, but he wonders if his father was really murdered. Hamlet is trapped in the prison of his mind, and according to Martin Scofield “[i]n seeking to unlock it he must define his relation to the past, his duty towards it, and his need for freedom from it” (33). Shakespeare’s

Characters for Students states that Hamlet shows “erratic behavior as he contemplates acting against Claudius” after seeing his father’s ghost (92). Hamlet’s internal confusion comes out as “erratic behavior” (92).

The erratic behavior of Hamlet, caused by his difficulty in perceiving the truth, leads to a kind of comedy, which Scofield calls “the comedy of the distorting mirror” (120). In much of the play, the comedy is demonstrated in the puns which Hamlet uses against the other characters. Often this comedy of Hamlet is used against the foolish Polonius. In Act III Hamlet questions Polonius’ perceptions of a cloud. First, the cloud is a camel, then a weasel, and finally a whale (Hamlet 3.2.335-340). Poor Polonius agrees, never realizing that once again he is the butt of Hamlet’s jibe.

Similarly, the humans in Dream become confused because the fairies begin interfering with their lives. In Act III the fairies cause Lysander and Demetrius both to fall in love with Helena. The fairies actions cause much confusion between Helena and Hermia and much conflict between Lysander and Demetrius. As David P. Young writes in his book, “[t]he four lovers . . . are puppets while they are in the woods, the helpless victims of supernatural enchantments” (68). The behavior of all four lovers is erratic and out of the ordinary. Polonius and the four lovers are all helpless victims of confusion caused by an outside force. Hamlet’s comic wit is something against which Polonius is defenseless; similarly, when Puck and Oberon interfere in the lovers’ lives, they are helpless to resist.

The four lovers’ erratic behavior, caused by the fairies’ enchantments, parallels Scofeild’s description of “the comedy of the distorting mirror” found in Hamlet. However, unlike the confusion caused by Hamlet, the comic confusion and conflict among the four lovers is caused by supernatural interference. Puck admits to Oberon that he has caused this erratic behavior when he says, “Captain of our fairy band, / Helena is here at hand, / And the youth, mistook by me, / Pleading for a lover’s fee. / Shall we their fond pageant see? / Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (Dream 3.2.110-115). Therefore, the resulting comedy is caused by Puck’s mistake.

Although there is comedy in both plays, the comedy in Hamlet and Dream appear in different forms. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet is first confused and outraged by the hasty remarriage of his mother—not just a hasty remarriage but marriage to Claudius, the brother of her recently deceased husband. This outrage and confusion of Hamlet’s is often revealed in his comedic use of puns. Early in Act I, Hamlet demonstrates his clever wit as he creates a pun. He says, “Oh that this too too sullied flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!” (Hamlet 1.2.113-114). According to the University of Kentucky’s Marvin D. Hinten in his article “Shakespeare’s Hamlet” from The Explicator, “‘a dew’ fits perfectly with the liquefying images of melting, thawing, and resolving. But Shakespeare may have well intended his audience to be reminded of the French adieu, or goodbye” (145). Since Hamlet is contemplating suicide, Hinton believes he is saying goodbye to the world (145). The “a dew” pun is a possibly an attempt by Shakespeare to foreshadow how Hamlet’s wit and talent in the creation of puns will play a role later in the play. It is interesting to note Hamlet’s use of this pun and others occurs before he has encountered the ghost of his father but after the hasty marriage. He knows that something is “rotten in the state of Denmark” just not precisely what (Hamlet 1.4.90).After his meeting with the ghost, Hamlet’s puns become increasingly disturbing as he tries to convince others of his madness.

In Hamlet the comedy is mainly found in Hamlet’s puns, which in most ways are subtle to the reader; however, in Dream the comedy is evident throughout the play. Of course, the difference is obvious when you consider that Hamlet is a tragedy and Dream is a comedy. In a tragedy, the audience would not expect broad humor, while subtle humor is not always effective in a comedy.

For Hamlet and the many characters in Dream, they are trapped in a dreamlike situation; they seem to have little control over the actions in their lives. In an 1848 essay, Edward Strachey calls Hamlet a skeptical, a person who “finds its more and more difficult to act, as his knowledge becomes more and more comprehensive and circular” (102). Hamlet, like the other skepticals of Strachey, becomes more satirical in his observations of those who surround him. Although Hamlet is intellectually superior to the other characters, they “are always reminding him that he is dreaming while they are acting” (Strachey 102). Because of Hamlet’s hesitancy in acting, he plays the fool or the madman.

Samuel Johnson wrote, Hamlet “plays the madman most when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty” (295). Ophelia, who loves Hamlet, is tormented by his increasingly crude double entendres (Hamlet 3.2.97-105). Later in the same scene, Ophelia’s comment to Hamlet, “You are keen, my lord, you are keen” brings an even cruder response “It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge” (Hamlet 3.3.223-224). Ophelia may not be as intelligent as Hamlet, but she recognizes the pun and responds, “Still better, and worse” (Hamlet 3.2.225). By acting the madman, Hamlet does indeed drive Ophelia away; however, it also drives her to madness and death.

In Dream, Shakespeare takes confusion to a new level. In a study of Shakespeare, Georg Brandes writes, “The lovers seek and avoid each other by turns . . . and the poet’s delicate irony makes the confusion reach its height and find its symbolic expression when the Queen of the Fairies, in the intoxication of a love-dream, recognizes her ideal in a journeyman weaver with an ass’s head” (549). Shakespeare himself wrote the best description of the confusion found in both Hamlet and Dream in a speech by Theseus:

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name. (Dream 5.1.7-17)

Hamlet who is haunted by his demons serves as the lunatic; Tatiana who falls in love with a weaver wearing an ass’s head represents the lover; and Shakespeare who gives both plays shape is the poet.

Interestingly enough, in both plays a court jester is instrumental is moving the action along. Beginning Act V of Hamlet, Shakespeare includes one of his comic interludes that hints of the tragedy yet to come. Two clowns digging a grave discuss who builds the stronger house, and the first clown declares it is the gravedigger because “the houses he makes lasts till doomsday” (Hamlet 5.1.51). While the gravedigger sings, Hamlet, who is unaware the grave is for Ophelia, and Horatio stop to discuss his lack of feeling since he sings while he digs the grave. Then Hamlet and the clown exchange puns. While at the grave site, Hamlet discovers the skull of Yorick and discusses his childhood memories of the king’s jester who brought pleasure to both Hamlet and the court. According to Hamlet, Yorick was “a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy” (Hamlet 5.1.158). This discussion of Yorick causes Hamlet to contemplate death, leading to his realization that Ophelia is dead and beginning the catastrophe that leads to Hamlet’s death.

However, in Dream, the court jester plays a much larger role. Puck is seen as the official jester to Oberon. It is Puck who “jests to Oberon and make him smile” (Dream 2.1.44). Like Yorick, Puck entertains his lord, bringing him pleasure. In a commentary by Oscar James Campbell, Puck “is a tiny insubstantial elf, like the other fairies” (543). However, Puck shares a striking resemblance to Hamlet himself. According to Campbell, Puck “is bent on mischief, delighted to confuse and bewilder hapless mortals” (543). Hamlet’s mission in much of his play is to confuse and confound those who surround him. Of course, the main difference between Puck and Hamlet is one is immortal while the other is all too mortal.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet tie together the plays Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Each play features the supernatural, Hamlet with its ghost and Dream with its fairies, which causes characters to doubt their sanity and feel a sense of madness. This doubt causes confusion and conflict in each play. Each play features lovers who use comedy to confuse or confound the other. Titania is attracted to the ass-headed Bottom by magic, the enchanted young lovers are confused about who loves whom, and Hamlet uses his biting comedy to push away Ophelia, as well as anyone else who is close to him. Only a master poet could tie the two plays together. Of course, when the poet is William Shakespeare, this is easily done.

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