2.

The Comic Hero (illustrate with two Shakespearean comedies) A comedy is a story of the rise in fortune of a sympathetic central character. The tradition of comedy that Shakespeare inherited and developed was as mixed as that of tragedy but considerably richer in examples. The main features of Shakespeares comedies are a struggle of old haters to overcome difficulty, often presented by young people ; separation and re-unification; mistaken identities ; a clever servant ; heightened tensions, often within a couple ; one, intertwining plot ; frequent punning ; nobody dies. Comic heroes are often ironic and disengaged from the situation; they tend to respond with wit, imagination, or cynicism. They tend to abstract themselves from their misfortunes. The audience is expected to react in much the same way to what the characters undergo. In the comical romance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" two characters provide the plot of the story and accompany it with the comic relief necessary. Nick Bottom and Puck (Robin Goodfellow) could easily be argued the two most important characters in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" because of the distinguished roles they play in the story. When comparing Puck to Nick Bottom Puck is considered the protagonist of the story for two main reasons. Puck's mischievous spirit dominates the mood of the play principally because of the control that he grasps on all of the events going on throughout the duration of the story, and secondarily because he single-handedly changes the direction of love in all off the young lover's hearts. Nick Bottom is the most noticeable character amongst the mechanicals in A Midsummer Nights Dream. Mostly because he seems to be constantly talking. At his first appearance, when Quince is giving out the parts for the play Pyramus and Thisbe, Bottom volunteers to play Pyramus, Thisbe and the lion, as well as giving an extempore example of how he would play Hercules, if he were ever called upon to do so. The words Bottom uses to talk about his dream are also worth considering: man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought. The image of a patched fool evokes a madman in ragged clothes, such as Tom aBedlam in King Lear, but it also suggests the Fool in the same play. The patches could be the motley clothing of a jester, or for that matter the shabby clothes which actors were

mocked for wearing as they trudged the provinces. This vision, which only a patched fool would offer to present, could be taken as an image of the theatre itself. Bottoms comic confusion in this scene also has echoes of a more famous text. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen... is a mangling of St. Pauls words in Corinthians, in the Bishops Bible which was generally used in English churches during Shakespeares youth. Readers, and directors, have to decide for themselves whether this is simply a joke about an illiterate craftsman messing up a quotation, or whether the echo means that Bottoms experience has given him some glimpse of a great vision he cannot articulate properly. Touchstone As You Like It Touchstone starts off as Duke Frederick's court fool and ends up being Rosalind and Celia's partner-in-crime for the runaway adventure. As a "licensed fool," he literally has a license to say whatever he wants. Touchstone is brilliant he's insightful about human nature and has a quick wit. He's most notable for his incredible ability with words; he loves to twist any argument and nitpick over any little thing. He is also in the habit of driving his listeners to frustration if they're not as sharp as he is, and goodness knows the man can belabor a point. So Touchstone provides a few good laughs. What he says is believable and usually has something interesting beneath the surface. Touchstone's name is an explicit reference to the type of rock called a "touchstone." A touchstone is a stone that's used to identify precious metals by testing their purity for instance, scraping gold against the touchstone will leave a little trail of dust that one could judge as evidence of how pure or mixed (and thus how valuable) the gold was. Like a touchstone, our beloved fool has the ability to reveal the purity and value (or lack thereof) in human beings by scratching at their surface with his words and revealing what's underneath. Touchstone, like the Fool in King Lear, is another one of Shakespeare's characters that can say wise things in an amusing way without sounding like a drone. Touchstone himself comments that he loves a good

fool, and more than once talks about the wisdom of foolishness. Perhaps the strangest thing about Touchstone is that with all his cynicism and insight into human action, he's actually a rather jolly character. Mostly, Touchstone is a wise guy who he doesn't think he is above anybody or beyond the folly that just comes with being human. Touchstone laughs at himself as easily as he laughs at others. He's raunchy, funny, and observant, and never fails to provide a witty perspective on the serendipity and capricious madness that characterize the entire play.