A Cubist Perspective of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream Essay

A Cubist Perspective of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream The great cycle of the ripens is renewed. Now Justice returns, returns the Golden old age a new generation now descends from on high. - Virgil, Eclogues 1.5 As Virgil stated so many years ago, history is a cyclical phenomenon. The experiences of one age tend to be repeated in future generations. Knowing that, we should not be surprised to find the seeds of modern styles and philosophies sprouting in earlier ages. Elizabethan England was a society undergoing major social changes. In religion the country had recently left the fold of Catholicism to establish the Church of England. While England during this season was a major world tycoon, she also enjoyed a level of security thanks to her easily defended boundaries as an island nation with a powerful navy. The sense of power and security allowed for the growth of a prosperous middle class. Within this milieu of power combined with internal security and ec onomic growth the seeds of change were nurtured. talented and artistic freedom and growth were fostered in this environment, Elizabethan England provided an envisronment that allowed men like William Shakespeare to find a voice that reached not only his own generation except continues to speak to the modern world. If we look at the world at the beginning of the 20th century we can find many parallels with Elizabethan England. In both ages Europe was experiencing a great social and political realignment. The growing nationalism that was the precursor to World War I and the Russian Revolution was accompanied by a new sense of self and a new set of allegiances. For artists like Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris these ... .... William Shakespeare Comedies & Romances. Ed. Harold Bloom. naked York Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. Schanzer, Ernest. _A Midsummer-Nights Dream. 26-31 in Kenneth Muir, ed. Shakespeare The Comedies A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs P rentice-Hall, 1965. Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Nights Dream, ed. Brian Gibbons. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1991. Vaughn, Jack A. Shakespeares Comedies. New York Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1980 Watts, Cedric. A Midsummer Nights Dream. London Penguin, 1986. Wells, Stanley & Gary Taylor, General Eds. _William Shakespeare The _Complete Works. New York Oxford University Press, 1986. Young, David P. Something of Great Constancy The Art of A Midsummer Nights Dream. New Haven Yale University Press, 1966.