What kinds of comedies are Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like it?

Shakespeare’s As You Like It and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream were famously classified as “festive
comedies” by C. L. Barber in his highly influential book Shakespeare’s Festive
Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972). What, however, does the term “festive
comedy” mean precisely? What are some distinguishing traits of festive comedies? In the
introductory chapter of his book, Barber outlines some of the special traits of
“festive” comedies and explains why he thinks many of Shakespeare’s early comedies
exhibit those traits. Among the traits he mentions are the
following:

• their tone is “merry”
  (3)


• they exhibit a “happy comic art”
  (3)


• they resemble the comedies of the ancient Greek
  playwright Aristophanes (3)


• the exhibit a basic movement
  “through release to clarification” (4)


• they were
  influenced by “the social form of Elizabethan holidays”
  (4)


• they were influenced by the English theatrical
  tradition of the clown and Vice figure (5)


• they were
  influenced by “the cult of fools and folly” (5)


• they were
  influenced by the custom of “seasonal feasts” (5)


• they
  emphasize “beneficent natural impulses” (7)


• they depict
  “ritual abuse of hostile spirits” (7)


• they emphasize
  “liberty,” “mirth,” and “wanton vitality” (7)


• in these
  comedies, “inhibition is freed for celebration” (7)


• they
  emphasize “a heightened awareness of the relationship between man and nature”
  (8)


• they “present a mockery of what is unnatural”
  (8)


• they also present “a complementary mockery of what is
  merely natural” (8)


• the characters mocked in these plays
  seem unnatural because they are “killjoys” (8)


• however,
  the satire in these plays is only incidental; it is not the main purpose of these plays
  to be satirical (8)

Barber then proceeds to
devote individual chapters to particular comedies by Shakespeare that display these
“festive” traits. The plays he discusses as “festive comedies” include As You
Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Most analysts
would agree with Barber that these plays exhibit many of the traits itemized
above.

In any case, these are definitely happy plays, with
happy conclusions. They are not biting or satirical in the ways that some of Jonson’s
comedies (for instance) are. They emphasize romantic love between attractive (if
somewhat foolish) young people, and the opposition those young people face to their love
is rather easily overcome. Both plays involve a movement away from somewhat unattractive
courts into a beautiful rural landscape. Shakespeare’s purpose in these plays seems to
have been to celebrate the joys of life, to make mild fun of its follies, and to show
how genuine love can be the basis of the establishment (or reestablishment) of a happy,
charitable, and content society.