Identity Crises in a Midsummer Nightmare: Comedy as Terror in Disguise*

Drama was early an action of magic at a sacred festival performed to ward off evil, chaos, stagnation, and sterility. When the magic failed, the result was tragedy; when the magic worked, the result was comedy. For Cornford comedy's resolutions center on such ceremonies as marriage; for Sypher the resolution is a “carrying away of death”; for Langer it is “fertility rite”; for Frye it is “resurrection”; and for Barber it is “nature celebrated.”1 For all of these critics comedy is a plea to the gods through ritual enactment to assist man in securing the means by which he may attain the good, ordered, growing, fructifying life. Comedy remains didactic, as it illustrates the basic requirements of those means. In order for man to achieve the good life, it is necessary for him to give up certain of his individual desires for the advantages which derive from a binding with another in a traditional ceremony called marriage. And the conjunction—union, fusion, or communion—is at the same time a transformation rite; one becomes another; two become one. In Shakespeare the basic marriage tie is between a man and a woman, which assures the continuation of the human race. However, other marriages such as those between a religious and God, between parents and children, and between friends are also honored. But marriage which leads to family is