mers throughout history have parodied one another’s work in this way.This parody of his own work is an appreciation of the concept that even his own perception of what is good work is changing. Not only do people perceive differently from each other but also differently from themselves over time. In a wonderful self-reflective, self parody in Twelfth Night Fabian says,“If this were played upon a stage now, I couldCondemn it as an improbable fiction.” (Act III, scene iv, line 126) Shakespeare overtly foregrounds the artificiality of his play. This emphasises the humour and absurdity of the farcical nature of the torment of Malvolio.Shakespeare enjoys toying with conventional theatre conventions and renders absurd the ‘love at first sight’ myth by showing Titania to be in love with Bottom who has an Ass’ head. Bottom says, “Methinks, mistress, you should have little reasonfor that: and yet, to say the truth, reason andlove keep little company together now-a-days;”(Act III, scene i, line 135)Love as a form of madness is a conventional notion in the drama of the period and is central to the understanding of Midsummer. In a wonderfully ironic line Titania replies, “Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful” (Act III, scene i, line 140). Bottom is known to the audience as being comically stupid and is obviously very ugly. Nevertheless, at the same time the line is paradoxically true because of these very things. Shakespeare twists the convention through paradox to produce humorous results that could only take place in theatre. The dramatic construction Titania, is used to good effect in a metadramatic device, saying that the mortal world is in disorder because of immortals discord. “Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,The childing autumn, angry winter, changeTheir wonted liveries, and the mazed world,By their increase, now knows not which is which:”(A...
