원문정보
초록
영어
In A Midsummer Night's Dream dances give the play beauty and mysterious appeal. The work was made to be a wedding celebration for an aristocrat couple and it specially needed graceful adornments. But the dances function more than that. They have power to live human in order and harmony. The dances are like prayers and benediction, they make the play a ritual.
The fairy queen laments that, from the interrupting of the dance of fairies, the order of nature is disturbed, the climate changed, plants rotted, death and desertedness occupying, games and sports disappeared, and seasons confused. Her long description contains the terms of English folk dance and other traditional dances such as morris dancing, ringlet, round, and carol. Those mentions remind the audience of the absence of dance and the loss.
In the latter part of the play the disagreement between the fairy king and his queen is solved and they dance “the dance of amity”. The dance is the visual sign declaring the harmony of the couple. In this play dance symbolizes order, harmony, peace, happiness, and festivity. As the peace of the fairy kingdom is extended into the human world, from Theseus' palace the entanglements and conflicts of lovers are disappeared and the marriage ceremony is reported. The group dance of fairies of the last scene is accompanied by singing. That brings up the image of a medieval ritual dance, carol. And the carol performs the roles of blessing, praying, and warding off evil. Therefore it can be said that the dance functions as a kind of ritual dance.