A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s early “festive comedies,” written around 1595-6. Despite the many thematic references to “dreams” and the fantastic setting of the Athenian forest, the play also contains a fair amount of commentary on Shakespeare’s contemporary English world. The play’s title, for instance, refers to an English holiday custom: on “Midsummer Eve,” or the night of the summer solstice on June 23, English men and women would spend the night outdoors around bonfires, telling supernatural tales of fairies and witchcraft. The play not only suggests this holiday, but also refers to “the rite of May,” or “maying” – a similar English tradition that took place on the first night of May, when young men and women would engage in singing, dancing (and possibly more amorous pursuits) in the woods outside their towns. In other words, the play’s title and plot recall English traditions in a way that suggests a combination of Halloween (Puck and the fairies) and a big rave (with love-juice instead of Ecstasy). At the time that the play was written, these traditions had come under attack by the English Puritans, who thought that they were “pagan” practices that gave the peo
Wedded with Theseus in all jollity. Unfortunately, moments later, the two accidentally cross paths to prove Puck’s story right – as Oberon says, the two are “Ill met by moonlight.” Titania at first won’t even stop to speak to Oberon, declaring that she has “forsworn his bed and company.” Oberon commands her to “tarry, rash wanton [whore],” asking “am I not thy lord?” Titania responds by pointing out the number of times Oberon has cheated on her. She even accuses Oberon of having an affair with the Amazon queen Hippolyta, while he counters by accusing Titania of similar conduct with Duke Theseus. Oberon finally demands the “little changeling boy,” but Titania will not hear of it. She tells the story of how she came to have the boy in her train (he was the son of one of her exotic “vot’resses” or priestesses). After insisting on the boy’s sentimental value, the queen leaves Oberon’s presence in a huff. Puck and the fairy also discuss the current dispute between Oberon and the Fairy Queen Titania. Once again, the play considers the connection between love and strife – but if Theseus and Hippolyta had replaced war with marriage, Oberon and Titania are doing quite the reverse. According to Puck, Oberon has become terribly jealous of one of Titania’s attendants, “a lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king,” and wishes to have him for his own service. It is unclear whether Oberon is jealous of Titania’s love for the boy, or the boy’s love for Titania. Whatever the reason, Oberon has grown more and more furious as Titania “withholds the loved boy / Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy.” Relations between the King and Queen have become so bad that Puck warns the fairy not to let Titania near the place where Oberon is holding his “revels.”
Some topics in this essay:
Oberon Titania,
Hippolyta Theseus,
Peter Quince,
Puck Lysander,
Lysander Demetrius,
Demetrius Lysander,
Hermia Lysander,
Theseus Oberon,
Theseus Hippolyta,
Bottom Weaver,
love helena,
hermia lysander,
theseus hippolyta,
marry demetrius,
duke theseus,
oberon titania,
demetrius lysander,
lysander demetrius,
hermia helena,
love hermia,
midsummer night’s dream,
falls love helena,
oberon tells puck,
hippolyta queen amazons,
falls madly love,
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Approximate Word count = 10864
Approximate Pages = 43 (250 words per page double spaced)
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