Midsummer and Elizabeth A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedic drama that centers on marriage. Indeed, it is traditionally held that Shakespeare penned the play for a friend's wedding; therefore, it should be no surprise to find that the theme of marriage runs through and through Midsummer, from the young adults to the nobility (and even to the fairy world, where marital strife is encountered). Yet, being penned in an age when the Queen of England herself never married, one may think that Midsummer serves as a kind of critique of Elizabeth. If the medieval view of women (both common and noble) was that they were for two things (either the cloister or the married state), it would appear that Elizabeth had certainly bucked that trend. Yet Elizabethan England itself was on the cusp of bucking the medieval world: it had already abandoned the Church of the old world; and Elizabeth herself may be said to have had a modern view of life. Shakespeare's plays also are a blend of the old world and the new (Hamlet is, after all, often considered a representation of the first modern man). Nonetheless, Midsummer Night's Dream reinforces the old world ideas of women and marriage -- and backs them up with a mysterious element called "love," which ultimately binds men and women to a higher realm -- a fairy realm in Midsummer, but a spiritual realm in real life. This paper will analyze...
In this little and subtle passage, Shakespeare reinforces the idea of the medieval natural order -- that the woman should submit to the man. An earlier reflection of the toppling of this order appears in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (wherein the Wife of Bath literally beats her husbands and tries to rule them). But here we see that Theseus has won the love of his bride by dominating her -- and she has submitted to be his wife (which is not to say that she has submitted to be his slave -- but there is of course always a hint of subjection in the idea of "love." Helena for example pursues Demetrius with all the devotion of one has been chained to him. She has not been chained through any physical device -- but by the heart: he made love to her, she accepted it, and now she follows him (abjectly, as she herself intimates, like a beaten dog) -- but all out of love.
Midsummer's Night Dream Acting: Were the actors believable in their roles? I did not find all of the actors particularly believable in their roles. I could not help noticing that several of the members of the cast forgot their lines or misspoke their lines, sometimes saying a line in the wrong place. Knowing the play well, this really threw me off and took me out of the moment of the performance. I
Even fairies struggle with love and romance. Oberon and Titania bicker; because of Puck's potion, Titania even falls in love with an ass. Puck's potion illustrates the fleeting nature of sexual attraction, too. At the opening of a Midsummer Night's Dream, Demetrius is in love with Hermia but Hermia is in love with Lysander. Lysander returns the affection. Hermia's best friend Helena, on the other hand, does love Demetrius and
He forgives her and order is restored in the fairy world thanks to the proper balance of love between head and heart. As for the actors who go into the woods to prepare for their play before the king and queen of Athens -- they too show a side of love. Bottom shows what happens when one lacks imagination: he is the most unimaginative actor in the history of theater
Those who watch the play make comments about how silly the play is and the play becomes more and more ridiculous, adding the parts of a Lion and Moonshine, played by two more rustics. In the play, the principle actors, Thisby and Pyramus kill themselves, as Romeo and Juliet did, then Pyramus rises to sing about his death, slumps into death, and then rises again to ask the audience if
Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare's play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was written in 1595. A woman's role in her family and community were determined by a patriarchal society. It was during this time, after all, that women were being burned at the stake all across Europe. The play begins in an Athenian palace just before the wedding of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, "Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour /
The soul of girl/woman Jenna is returned to normal at the end of the film, and the girl's knowledge about working as an adult editor on a magazine, the true nature of her chief junior high school tormenter, and Matt's worth as an older man make her a more mature thirteen-year-old, thus the delving into fantasy make the real world 'better,' as in "Midsummer," and more moral and thus more
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