Voice, Face, and Fascination: The Art of Physiognomy in 'The Midsummer Night's Dream'

Bottom: I see a voice. Now will I to the chinkTo spy an I can hear my Thisbe’s face.Thisbe?(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5.1.191–3)The revels have begun. After long rehearsals, the artisans finally perform their play in honour of Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding: ‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus / And his love Thisbe: very tragical mirth’ (5.1.56–7). The play within the play provides a comic reflection of the communication situation in the theatre insofar as it creates another space-within-a-space wherein observers observe other observers observing. But, as Theseus notices (‘“Merry” and “tragical”? “Tedious” and “brief”?’ (5.1.58)), it also reconciles the irreconcilable: it makes the tragic comic; it makes visible what can only be heard; and it disembodies what can usually only be seen.In the following, I will take up Bottom’s cue and provide new perspectives on voices and faces as well as their interaction and translation in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As I will argue, much of the fascination with this specific play derives from the complex physiognomic discourse it reveals and with which it engages its audience(s).