Oberon and Titania are reconciled. Day breaks as Theseus and Hippolyta arrive with a hunting party. They discover and awake the sleeping pairs of lovers. Theseus decrees that Hermia will marry Lysander, and Helena will marry Demetrius. Bottom, restored by Puck to his natural appearance, awakes. He is convinced that his amorous adventures with Titania were a dream. Bottom and his fellow craftsmen play the story of Pyramus and Thisbe before the newly-weds.
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 For example, the themes of love and transformation reverberate through all levels of the play, creating coherence and complexity.
Coherence is also produced by the play's emphasis on time. The action is associated with two traditional festivals — Midsummer Eve and May Day — both allied with magic, mayhem, and merriment. To emphasize further the connections between the different groups, many modern directors of the play cast the same actor for the roles of Theseus and Oberon, and for those of Hippolyta and Titania.
While the play rejoices in the magical power of love to transform our lives, it also reminds us of love's excesses and foolishness. More ominously, it tells of the violence often perpetrated in the name of lust: Mythological references to the tales of Philomela and Perogina, for example, remind us that desire results not only in happy, consensual union, but also in rape. In addition to love's combat with violence, the play shows passion's conflict with reason.
For example, Egeus' rigid, patriarchal view of the world clashes with his daughter's notion of love and freedom. Another important theme is the duality between fantasy and reality.
Indeed, the play highlights the imagination and its inventions: dreams, illusions, and poetry. One of the central quotes in the play is Theseus' statement that lovers, madmen, and poets share the same propensity to fantasize V. Shakespeare is concerned with the relationship between imagination and reality and with the way our emotions alter our perceptions.
Early in the play, for example, Egeus accuses Lysander of bewitching Hermia with love charms and intriguing songs I. Similarly, Helena recognizes love's blindness and fickleness when she argues that strong emotions such as love can make the vile beautiful I. Besides weaving together various themes, the play is also intriguing as a spectacle of dance, music, and costume. Numerous critics have noted the important role of dance in this drama, suggesting that the rhythm of the play's poetry and the movement of the characters in and out of scenes have an underlying dance rhythm.
Attending the theater in Shakespeare's time was quite unlike attending a professional performance today. First, the theaters were of two distinct kinds: public and private. The government closely regulated both, but particularly the public theaters. Public theaters such as the one in which Shakespeare made his livelihood were fairly large open-air structures, able to hold about 3, people.
In order to compete with rival theaters, as well as the popular pastimes of bullbaiting and bearbaiting, acting troupes changed their show bills often, generally daily. They introduced new plays regularly, helping partially explain why about 2, plays were written by more than dramatists between and the closing of the theaters in Public performances generally started in the mid-afternoon so spectators could return home by nightfall.
Because of weather, plague, Puritan opposition, and religious observances, theaters often advertised on a day-to-day basis unlike today when we know in advance the dates a show will run. Chaucer's Merchant's Tale has the fairy King and Queen here named Pluto and Proserpina arguing over a mismatched pair of mortal lovers.
Oberon appears in Robert Greene's The Scottish History of James the Fourth probably written in , observing and occasionally intervening in mortal affairs.
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. You may also like.
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