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A Midsummer Night's Dream Essay: Aspects of Love

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Love in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Love is a very inaccurate word, as it can be used in many different ways. It can be used to describe an object which one particularly likes, or to describe ones feelings towards a person. However it does not rest at just these two points. Love for someone can be in a material sense (sexual), or in a more moral sense for example.

Some of the various aspects of love are mentioned In William Shakespeare's, Midsummer Night's Dream. Here we are presented with the various characters, and their conflicts, which all have something to do with love.

The most important relationship in the play is that between Titania, the queen of the fairies, …show more content…

This brings me onto the first aspect of love in William Shakespeare's play.

"This man hath my consent to marry her."

Egeus demands that Hermia marries Demetrius. This tells us that for Egeus love is not the result of people living together in happiness, and caring for each other. For him love is a kind of business, which is to be sorted out by the "lovers" parents. It is something that is determined by the father of the family, and not by personal feelings.

However the love between Lysander and Hermia for example is one which came from the heart. By this I mean that it was not forced to be, but a natural attraction between the two people occurred, and consequentially they loved each other. Hermia seems to think that you are destined to lovers, and in the following she tries to explain this to her father, Egeus.

"If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,

It stands as an edict in destiny:"

This was also the case on assumes between the fairy king and queen however was not so harmonic, which is why they ended up having the quarrel.

This beings me back to the magic potion Oberon got out of the special flower, and carefully dropped onto Titania's eyes, in order to make her "fall in love" with the next person to pass her. The next person happened to be Bottom whose head was now that of a donkey. This is the other aspect of love discussed in

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