The main language difference between the first two scenes
of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is that the first is
written in verse and the second in prose.
Scene 1 contains
this speech of Hippolyta's:
readability="10">
Four days will quickly steep
themselves in night,/Four nights will quickly dream away the time;/And then the moon,
like to a silver bow/New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night/Of our solemnities.
(lines 6-10)
Her
language is a poetic one, rich in similes and
personification.
Scene 2 has these words of Peter
Quince's:
readability="15">
But masters, here are your parts; and
I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you to con them by tomorrow night; and meet
me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight. There will we rehearse;
for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known.
(lines 88-94)
His
directions to his fellow thespians are purely prosaic, a mere list of
instructions.
Scene 1 (lines 134-140) boasts this exchange
between Lysander and Hermia:
readability="15">
Lysander: The course of true love
never did run smooth;/But either it was different in blood
-
Hermia: O cross! too high to be
enthralled to low.
Lysander: Or else
misgraffed in respect of years -
Hermia:
O spite! too old to be engaged to
young.
Lysander: Or else it stood
upon the choice of friends -
Hermia:
O hell! to choose love by another's
eyes.
Lysander's
and Hermia's lines romantically intertwine, as if being spoken by one empathetic voice
full of elegance and symmetry.
Scene 2 (lines 36-42) has
this dialogue between Quince and Flute:
readability="19">
Quince: Francis Flute the
bellows-mender.
Flute: Here, Peter
Quince.
Quince: Flute, you must take
Thisby on you.
Flute: What is
Thisby? a wand'ring knight?
Quince:
It is the lady that Pyramus must
love.
Flute: Nay, faith, let me not
play a woman. I have a beard
coming.
The
back-and-forth between these two "rude mechanicals" is characteristic of the language of
the scene as a whole: earthy and straight-forward. There are no frills
here.
A second difference in the styles of the two scenes
is in the length of the lines. In scene 1, the characters, for the most part, make long
rhetorical speeches. Egeus's speech to Theseus (lines 22-45) is a good example, as are
Lysander's (lines 99-110) and Helena's soliloquy (lines 226-251). In scene 2, the
characters -- with the occasional exception of the egotistical Bottom -- speak to each
other in relatively short exchanges, (lines 1-20, for
example).
Shakespeare continues this contrast in styles --
poetry for the lovers, prose for the laborers -- throughout the play, until the two
linguistic worlds collide in the final scene. Ironically, in this last scene (V, 1),
the "mechanicals" get to speak the poetry (albeit bad poetry), and
the lovers speak primarily in prose.
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