Shakespeare

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  • 21 september 2003
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Taal
Engels
Vak
Imagination, Dream and Reality
The Shakespeare Experience

In his poems Shakespeare reflects a lot on imagination, dream and reality. For example, in the piece ‘Our revels now are ended’ (The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1) he has an actor discuss acting and life itself. He indicates that acting and life, thus reality, is a kind of dream. It will linger for a while and in the end, fade away leaving nothing behind. ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep’ (The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1)
In the Queen Mab speech (Romeo and Juliet, Act 1 Scene 4) he has Mercutio tell about a dream he supposedly had. Romeo then says: ‘thou talks of nothing’ saying that dreams are not real. So that life and dream have no connection. This is a contradiction with what Shakespeare has a character say in The Tempest.
One must then question if Mercutio really had such a dream, thus proving Romeo right, if he didn’t, because Mercutio ‘talks of nothing’. What I feel is likely, is that he indeed ‘talks of nothing and is just making something up to shut Romeo up and convince him that he should just go to the Capulet’s feast and stop arguing.
In Hamlet Ophelia has a dream after she, under pressure of society, loses control over herself. She dreams that she dies, which is very much like reality as everyone dies, and as I don’t know the context it is hard to judge what Shakespeare really means by this speech.
Shakespeare also refers to a connection between imagination and dream. In The Tempest, Act 3 Scene 2, the character says that he loves to dream as it brings him images of things he enjoys or wants. Maybe they are images of his imagination?
‘The clouds me thought would open and show riches
ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak’d
I cried to dream again’
In this he uses less striking images than in some of his other “dream-connected” work. His language also is far more realistic, showing a simplistic love for dreams, which are part of our day to day world.
In Richard III, Act 1 Scene 4 the person has a nightmare. There are wonderful descriptions in this piece as the character sees his death. The last few lines especially show the connection between dream and reality,
‘… for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made my dream.’
(Richard III, Act 1 Scene 4)
This dream seemed so real to him it had a lingering impression. The person found his dream so horrifying that he hopes that it is not reality.
Another piece debating death and life after death is taken from Measure for Measure. It says that anything is better than death. He describes several images of the continuity of identity;
‘To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
to be imprison’d in the viewless winds…’
(Measure for Measure, Act 3 Scene 1)
This has some relationship with the piece taken from Richard III, both reflect on death and how it is the most horrible thing. In the end death is a big part of reality.

To conclude the relationship, according to Shakespeare, between reality, dream and imagination is almost one and the same. Dream and imagination are very similar due to the fact that both could be made up, but dreams can also seem incredibly real, or be real, connecting them to reality.

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