A Study Of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream From The Perspective Of "Source Criticism"

As one of Shakespeare’s four comedies,A Midsummer Night’s Dream is widely recognized as Shakespeare’s first masterpiece,which embodies Shakespeare’s excellent creative ability and contains profound ideological connotation.This paper,starting from the source of the drama of A Midsummer Night’s Dream,attempts to explore this play from the perspective of source criticism,through a comparative analysis of Shakespeare’s adaptation of the main sources of drama,more clearly understand Shakespeare’s dramatic creation art and its complex thoughts.The thesis includes three parts: introduction,text and conclusion:The introduction part is the general grasp of the research situation,mainly composed of three aspects.First of all,this paper reviews and discusses related research literature briefly,draws on previous studies on the origin of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,and makes a brief and accurate analysis.Secondly,the significance of the topic selection and its research value,mainly analyzes the significance of the research on the source of Shakespeare’s plays and the important value of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.Finally,the research ideas are sorted out,and the research scope and methods are identified,so as to enhance the theoretical value of this paper.The text is composed of three chapters.The first chapter takes the drama source of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare by Geoffrey Bullough as the clue,and refers to the division of material sources by Bullough to sort out and analyze the drama source of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.This paper mainly introduces the sources of certainty,possibility and similarity,aiming at systematically summarizing and sorting out the sources of drama in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.On the one hand,the sources of the material are presented clearly and completely,while at the same time,the sources of the material are carefully examined to determine which materials are most likely to be used by Shakespeare and thus become the main dramatic sources for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.The second chapter focuses on the main factors in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,through close reading of the text,makes a comparative analysis of the four main factors in the play--the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta,the love and plight of young people,the transformation of the Elves and Bolton,and the plays of Pyramus and Thysberth--with the sources of materials used for reference.Make an indepth study of the creative adaptations of these factors on the materials used for reference in the aspects of plot setting,theme and character shaping,and explore the artistic effects achieved by these adaptations and their role in the overall work.The third chapter explores Shakespeare’s creative intention and the profound ideological connotation of his plays through Shakespeare’s adaptation.The first is the human nature of the love theme.This paper probes into Shakespeare’s view of love and marriage embodied in the adaptation of the drama and his thoughts on human nature,and explores Shakespeare’s understanding of the relationship between reason and emotion and his views on human nature reflected in the adaptation.Second is the subtle political implication.This paper probes into Shakespeare’s political thoughts,which has been neglected for a long time in the plays,and explores Shakespeare’s political thoughts conveyed in the plays through Shakespeare’s discussion on the polity and the depiction of the city-state order.Finally,the innovation and development of drama creation concept.This paper explores how Shakespeare tried to integrate style and style through the practice of drama creation.The conclusion briefly combs and summarizes the thesis,points out that it is necessary to correctly view the reference of Shakespeare’s creation to the source of material,affirms Shakespeare’s outstanding talent for dramatic creation,and discusses the necessity and important value of studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream from the perspective of source criticism.