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ROLE OF PLAY-WITHIN-THE-PLAY IN MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | MEG - 2 | British Drama

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INTRODUCTION     A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play written by William Shakespeare in the late 16th century. It is a comedy that explores the themes of love, magic, and the supernatural. One of the unique features of this play is its use of a play-within-the-play structure , which has been the subject of much critical analysis and interpretation. In this essay, we will explore the role of the play-within-the-play structure in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, examining its purpose, its effects on the audience, and its relationship to other works of literature.  THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT   A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written during the Elizabethan era, a time when theater was a popular form of entertainment. The play was first performed in 1595 or 1596, and it was likely written for a specific occasion, such as a wedding or a festival. The play-within-the-play structure was a common device in Elizabethan theater, and it was used in many other plays of the time. For a long time it wa
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Discuss Alexander Pope’s An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot as a SOCIAL SATIRE | MEG - 1 | Block 5: The Neoclassical Poets

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  The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is a satire in poetic form written by Alexander Pope and addressed to his friend John Arbuthnot , a physician . It was first published in 1735 and composed in 1734 , when Pope learned that Arbuthnot was dying . Pope described it as a memorial of their friendship . It has been called Pope's " Most directly autobiographical work ", in which he defends his practice in the genre of satire and attacks those who had been his opponents and rivals throughout his career.   Both in composition and in publication, the poem had a chequered history. In its canonical form, it is composed of 419 lines of heroic couplets . The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot is notable as the source of the phrase " damn with faint praise, " which has subsequently seen so much common usage that it has become a clichĂ© or idiom. Another of its notable lines is " Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? " The term " epistle " originally meant ju
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