Significance of the tite A Midsummer Night's dream:- 1.

Hungarian critic Tzevetan

TOdorov in his work "The Fantastic: a structural Approach to a literary Genre"
(1975), states that, inorder to consider whether a text is fantastic or not depends
some conditions. He claims that the reader's hesitation
on the fulfilment of three
between a natural and supernatural explanation of events is the first condition of
the fantastic. The text msut compel the reader to consider the world of characters
to differentiate
as the world of living persons, and to hesitate between a natural and supernatural
explanation of the events described. Second this hesitation may also be experienced
consider
by a character thus the reader's role is to speak being responsible to a character,
and at the smae time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of
the work. Thus in simple according to Todorov the fantastic implies the "inegration
of the reader into the world of the characters".

* Thus dreams play a very significant role in A Midsummer Night's dream, as clearly
depicted by the title, we find that the entire play is presented as a dream to the
readers, it is a midsummer Night's dream a time favourable for supernatural
experiences. Thus, the introduction of the fairies becomes very significant, and
they play a strong impact on the lives of the characters. In fact it is not a
surprise that the whole universe feels the impact of the disagreement arising
between oberon and titania, the king and queen of the fairy world. Their conflict
has led to climate change, bad weather and "progeny of evils". However, the fairies
are not only the source of chaos and conflict, they also contribute to the
dreamlike atmosphere of the play, and also create harmony among the four Athenian
lovers. Thus, Mebane stated that the magic flower used by Puck to create all the
confusion in the play is the "supernatural machinery", and is thus one of the major
components of the fairy world, and is integral to the dreamy ambience of the play.

* For many critics the choice that the play offers is "either between the rational
and the irraional or between reason and the imagination". Thus it becomes
significant for us to understand the realm of the fantastic that shakespeare
depicts in the play regarding the faculty of imagination.This is best exemplified
in Duke Theseus' speech on wide-ranging poets' powers of imagination. As even
though at the latter part of the play we find that Theseus does not believe what
the Athenian lovers have told him, he claims that there are elements and entities
that go beyond what "cool reason" can grsp. These elements, are intelligible
through imaginative flights of the mind of each person.

* As mebane claims that the awareness of life's beauty and value is derived not
from reason, which is limited faculty, but from "imagination and intuition". The
play carries a sense of wonder and astonishment at the blessings of life and it is
this emphasis that associates the play's vision of love and harmony with dreams.

* The faries also dominate the final scene of the play. When night falls the lovers
go to bed, and the faries come to bless the sleeping couples with a fairy song.
Here, in the final address to the audience Puck states that if the play has not
satisfied the taste of the audience and offended them, they may conisder it just a
dream.

* In this manner, the readers integration into the world of play is highlighted. A
scholar named Dent coments that the play asks us to enter imaginatively into the
world dominated by faries, and to accept them, while at the smae time not asking us
to "believe in them at all".

* Thus in concllusion, we can say that, the title of the play A Midsummer Night's
dream is significant as it clearly gives the readers an indicator to what might be
expected from the play, as it successfully represents and at the same time it drags
the spectators/readers into it's realm of dreams or fantasy.