Meanwhile, the young lovers are made to suffer the pain of betrayal, but they learn the transformational power of magic and love. In the end all that was brought to confusion is set right again. Photographer: Simon Kane. It was likely written between and , around the same time Shakespeare was working on Romeo and Juliet and Richard II.
In Tudor culture fairies and sprites were less benevolent than vaguely menacing, which Shakespeare hints at in the play. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce. I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Are you sure That we are awake?
Every romantic relationship in this play is subject to imbalances and difficulties, which are made even worse by the actions of third parties, such as Puck.
A Midsummer Night's Dream also deals with pairs of opposing concepts, such as reason versus imagination or individual will versus the rule of law. These are especially evident in the character of Egeus. The contrast between dreams and reality is also a major theme in this play, and the characters often resort to dreams when their circumstances become too difficult to comprehend or get out of hand. The play's closing scene, where the audience is asked to question their own perception of reality, could be Shakespeare's way of telling us that perhaps we should not take things too seriously, as there is a fine line between certainty and fantasy.
It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream" "Oh hell! To choose love with another's eye! Shakespeare takes Titania, the name of his Fairy Queen, from Ovid's Metamorphoses where it means Titan's daughter and is used to refer to various divinities, such as the huntress and moon goddess, Diana, and Circe, the transformer of men into swine.
After so much material from pagan antiquity, there is also the source of St Paul's letter to the Corinthians. This text, central to the Christian tradition, lies behind Bottom's account of his marvellous dream. The dream surpasses Bottom's powers of eye, ear, hand, tongue and heart to apprehend or express, just as Paul acknowledged the gifts of God to be beyond the eye, ear and heart of man.
Bottom's account is, of course, a mixed-up version of this sacred text: his is a comic and warmly human account of his 'most rare vision'. When was the play written?
Sources The transformations Shakespeare took inspiration for this play from a rich and varied range of materials. Changing into an ass There were many versions of the tangles and tensions between young love and friendship. The fairies Shakespeare's King and Queen of the Fairies can trace their origins back to many sources, both ancient and modern.
Bottom's dream After so much material from pagan antiquity, there is also the source of St Paul's letter to the Corinthians. You are in: About Shakespeare. Also in this section Also in this section Famous quotes Stage history. The three couples leave to enjoy their wedding-nights.
Oberon, Titania, and Puck come to bless the house and all its occupants. First quarto, Second quarto, dated on the title-page but published in Printed from the first quarto. First Folio, Printed from the second quarto, apparently annotated from a promptbook.
Second Folio, Printed from the first folio. Shakespeare took both Theseus and Hippolyta from this translation of Plutarch. British Library, C.
Shakespeare drew on Chaucer for some of his language, as well as the characters of Theseus and Hippolyta. Ovid, translated by Arthur Golding, The. Bookes of P.
Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis This includes the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and was also a source for the hunting scene in act 4. Apuleius, translated by William Adlington, The.
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