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Use Of Love Poion In A Midsummer Night's Dream

Decent Essays

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written by William Shakespeare, first published in the early 1600’s and was performed between 1595 and 1596.

This was around the Elizabethan era and there was high demands for entertainment and A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the right play for that era. It seems like a silly choice but despite all the dancing, silly jokes, partying, and enchanted witchcraft, it all comes down to an alternate state of mind. Shakespeare writes the character of Helena’s character in a way that shows the not so loveable aspects of women today. I like how Shakespeare uses the love potion as a symbol in the play. The love potion is what caused most of the mischief and it represent the fickle nature of love. We can fall in and …show more content…

The play refers to another holiday in the English world, “the rite of may” which basically means marrying. The play’s title and plot resembles English traditions in a way that suggest a combination of Halloween and rave. The theme of equivalence runs throughout the whole play-even the two lead female characters names are hard to separate (Hermia and Helena). Shakespeare makes each pair of lovers very interchangeable and they make subjective choices in the name of love. I believe the fairies are a part of the Elizabethan folk culture and the lower class people believed in them. We imagine fairies incredibly small but Tatiana was big enough to hold Bottom in her arms which seems odd. Both Hippolyta and Titania embody certain aspects of Queen Elizabeth royal mystiques. Hippolyta was referred to as the “Amazon Queen” recalling Elizabeth’s reputation for military prowess. As for Titania, the Queen Of Fairies, she was a great benefactress of music, art, and dancing-as Queen Elizabeth famously attempted to be. A couple of important research topics that would be necessary to complete this project are: dream vs reality, foolish things love can cause, the role of a female during the Elizabethan era, and how the world Shakespeare was living in at the time influence his style of

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