William Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night 's Dream

The artificial love given by Titania to Bottom demonstrates how magic can duplicate the realist atmosphere given from true love as both of those involved are unable to recognise that it is false. True love can cloud judgement and Shakespeare shows how artificial love can do the same, Titania is convinced Bottom is beautiful even though he has the head of a donkey 'Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful'. Bottom responds to the beautiful, magical fairy queen's devotion as nothing out of the ordinary and that all of the trappings of her affection, including having servants attend him, are his proper due. His unawareness of the fact that his head has been transformed into that of an ass parallels his inability to perceive the absurdity of the idea that Titania could ever truly fall in love with him.

Within Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the reader is exposed to the idea that love is an over-arching shadow that casts itself over the entirety of the play, despite it being the most fundamental theme within the plot it is the main cause of nearly every major event that happens within the play. This is seen within Theseus’ monologue where he discusses the ideas of: love being able to drive you to do insane acts, love altering one’s perception of reality, and the lengths one is willing to go to in the name of love.

Love is a timeless topic. It will forever be the theme of popular entertainment and source of confusion for men and women alike. No one understands this better than William Shakespeare, and he frequently explores this complex emotion in his plays. In "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" Shakespeare cleverly reveals the fickle and inebriating aspects of love through his mischievous character Puck.

The Theme of Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare In the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ many aspects of love are explored. In this essay I will be exploring how Shakespeare conveys the theme of love including illusion, confusion, escape, harmony and lust. Historically, it has been suggested that ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was written for a wedding, signifying the importance of love in this play, however there is no real evidence to prove this myth.

Finding a metaphor in Shakespeare’s plays is like searching for a book in a bookstore. It is easy to find one, but requires time to fully understand its rich content and significance. In the expository scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , it first seems that Theseus, the Duke of Athens, emphasizes only his authority and Hermia’s inferior, unexperienced status by telling her to “Know of your youth, examine well your blood” (1.1.68). If Hermia would literally inspect the red fluid flowing in her arteries and veins on stage, she would have mistaken the phrase. The blood is rather a complex metaphor which is crucial for the understanding of the comedy. This paper sketches the thesis that the blood-metaphor in AMND represents hierarchies in family and society given by birth as well as the theory of the four humors. In the Early Modern Period, humorism was an approved medical explanation for personal temperaments based on four distinct bodily fluids, of which blood is one. In some Shakespearean tragedies and histories, the blood symbolizes death and guilt following combats and murders. In the comedy AMND however, the conflicts surrounding order and desire do not necessarily result in bloodsheds, but lead to little combats about blood-lines inside the Athenian clans.

William Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” continuously features the theme of love that serves as a perspective through which three major aspects of the work become apparent. First, Shakespeare develops his characters in this play by showing their participation in and reaction to love. From the beginning, Theseus and Hippolyta’s description of love sets the bar for the whole play. The purity of their love is the reference point against which all other romantic relationships in the play are based. In the process, Theseus’ character traits emerge. He appears a caring and loving individual who is keen on details. Similarly, Puck’s character trait emerges later on. He is mischievous. This trait emerges from his participation in Oberon’s

A Midsummer Night 's Dream is a play about love. All of its action—from the escapades of Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, and Helena in the forest, to the argument between Oberon and Titania, to the play about two lovelorn youths that Bottom and his friends perform at Duke Theseus 's marriage to Hippolyta—are motivated by love. But A Midsummer Night 's Dream is not a romance, in which the audience gets caught up in a passionate love affair between two characters. It 's a comedy, and because it 's clear from the outset that it 's a comedy and that all will turn out happily, rather than try to overcome the audience with the exquisite and overwhelming passion of love, A Midsummer Night 's Dream invites the audience to laugh at the way the passion of love can make people blind, foolish, inconstant, and desperate. At various times, the power and passion of love threatens to destroy friendships, turn men against men and women against women, and through

In any society there are rules and conventions that must be followed in order to uphold the established ideas of normality. These rules are imposed with the intentions of maintaining order and harmony; without them many would believe that society would fall into chaos. Within Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ these rules can be undermined in the confines of settings in which the supernatural reigns, allowing the characters to grow and develop before returning to society as changed people. Through this creation of comedic disorder, characters of authority are often displaced from their positions within a social hierarchy, thus making the supernatural an integral part of Shakespeare’s comedy. Without the supernatural elements that

Love is a powerful force capable of clouding rational thought. The mind succumbs to the whirlwind of emotions over reality, and the lover is sucked into their own fantasy. It is whimsical and irrational. In A Midsummers Night Dream, Shakespeare pokes fun at the effects of love, with its tendency to be blinding, and consequently, a source of contention. Three couples fall victim to love's grip. The young Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius get caught up in a chase for love in the forrest outside of Athens. Love almost tears apart their friendships and leads to foolish actions. Simultaneously in those very woods, the Fairy queen Titania becomes enamored by a half man- half donkey, leading to a night that would be best left unspoken. Quoting Theseus,

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare explores the subjectivity of love. The play shows the absurdity of love through its characters like an episode of “MTV The Real World”: they fall in love, break up, lose friendships, and someone will ultimately look like an ass. Shakespeare’s play examines the combination of both traditional and non-traditional gender roles affecting the character’s perception of their respective romantic relationships. Shakespeare then questions whether love is real through Lysander and Helena. Shakespeare’s play as a whole demonstrates how initial perceptions of love are subject to transformation. Both the characters and the play debunk that love is static, but rather an ever metamorphosing reality.

Throughout the events which unfold in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare delivers several messages on love. Through this play, one of the significant ideas he suggests is that love is blind, often defying logic and overriding other emotions and priorities. Helena loves Demetrius unconditionally and pursues him despite knowing that he loathes her; conflict arises between Helena and Hermia, childhood best friends, over Demetrius and Lysander; and because she is in love, Queen Titania is able to see beauty and virtue in the ass-headed Nick Bottom.

Shakespeare’s comedies, like those of most Renaissance playwrights, involve love and its obstacles. Much of the comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream derives from the attempt of Lysander and Hermia to remain together while overcoming the adult authority figure who attempts to hinder the love of a young couple. The overcoming of an obstacle functions as a common motif in Renaissance comedy. The audience must wonder, however, whether Lysander and Hermia, as well as Demetrius and Helena, actually love each other. While it is the love potion that alters the objects of the men’s affections, one may interpret the juice as a metaphor for lovers’ inconstancy. The juice only contains magic because the male lovers do not possess a fervent and true love. It is significant that Lysander and Demetrius change their minds about whom they love, but Hermia and Helena never waver; perhaps Shakespeare correlates faithfulness with gender. Audience members generally support the relationship between Lysander and Hermia—partly because her father does not. They are struck by his indifference to his daughter’s happiness: He prefers that she die rather than be happy with a man of whom he does not approve. Egeus, furthermore, provides no reason to Theseus as to why he does not support Lysander; it is as if he disapproves for arbitrary reasons—merely to exert his will. His abuse of paternal authority renders him absurd but dangerous nevertheless. His support for Demetrius colors the audience’s point of

Romantic love, to William Shakespeare, as portrayed in A Midsummer’s Night Dream is something fleeting and ever-changing, along with something that cannot always be true or trusted. Shakespeare displays his apprehension towards love through his language, through the actions made by characters that are seemingly ‘in love,’ and by changing how different characters love each other throughout the first two scenes. An example of Shakespeare displaying his negative opinions on love are through Helena, in her soliloquy. Helena, who is deeply in love with Demetrius, a man who said he would marry her but left her for another girl, states that “love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and is therefore wing’d Cupid painted blind (1.2.2.234-235.)”

Examples of true love in literature can be found in a myriad of oeuvres and opuses. It is extremely popular in the contemporary era to include romance in a novel. An exemplary case of an instance of true love in modern writing would be the affiliation of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully in George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. These two characters share an intense romance, and never sincerely stop loving one another. Moreover, in the aforementioned author’s A Song of Ice and Fire saga, there are additional relationships with a true bond. The list of these is quite extensive, but it includes Khal Drogo and Daenerys

William Shakespeare is estimated to have lived from 1564 to about 1616. He is often recognized as great English poet, actor, and playwright, and paved the way for many on all of those categories. Over that span he wrote many pieces that are still relevant today such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth. I would like to take a deeper look into one on his pieces “A Midsummers Night’s Dream.” This piece is estimated to have first been preformed in about 1595 and then later published in 1600. Many of his works are love stories and this one is no different, but this one puts a twist on the typical love story by turning it into a comedy. In the play, "A Midsummer Night 's Dream", several examples of love 's association with a higher power