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| Joseph Noel Paton's 1846 depiction of A Midsummer's Night Dream |
Despite the lovers’ will, what happened while
they were in the woods was something that they couldn’t control and it was a
product of the games played by the fairies, especially Puck, in which the
lovers transform into puppets of the fairies. Hermia and Lysander elope because
they wanted to be together. However, Demetrius goes there following Hermia and
Helena goes there following Demetrious, and that’s how the 4 of them got
involved in this magical “experience”
The world of the fairies is a non-sense one,
not only because of the consequences that the fairies games bring to the
lovers, but also because their Queen, Titania, falls in love with a donkey because of a love potion. At the same time this evidences that the love is
highly connected with the human’s irrationality and magic, in other words, is
connected to madness.
The fairies’ effect on the lovers makes them go
to physical and emotional; physical because they move from Athens to the Woods
and emotional because they start loving someone that they would have never fell
in love in Athens.
I think that Athens is the perfect scenario for
this play as it is connected with both, magic –because of the Ancient Greek and
its myths –and “human rationality” and laws –because of the biggest
contribution of the Greeks in philosophy, laws, arts, literature and so on. This duality presented in Athens also shows the
necessity of having magic side by side with reality, they need each other and
also exists because the presence of the other; we wouldn’t have magic without
reality nor reality without magic. Furthermore, both places represent an escape
from the other one; when Hermia and Lysander were in Athens they feel the necessity
to go to the Woods so that they would be together. However, when they were at
the wood they realize that they need Athens because of this sort of “order”
that existed there.
References:
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Comedy of A Midsummer-night's Dream. Ed, William. J, Rolfe. New York: American Book Company, 1903. Shakespeare Online. 08 October. 2014. http//www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/midsummer/mdsrolfe.html
Skottowe, Augustine. The Life of Shakespeare: Enquiries Into the Originality of His Dramatic Plots and Characters. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824. 09 October, 2014. htt://theatrehistory.com/british/fairies_of_midsummer. html
Hello Maria Josefa!
ResponderEliminarVery interesting point of view, I wrote something related to your post but I never got to the conclusion that maybe the characters need Athens to find order again. Actually, I believe that even though they return to Athens, the experience lived in the woods remains in their lives forever, and they cannot find that order they had in Athens before because none of them need it anymore.
I think that the woods changed them a hundred percent because they now are able to be themselves and be happy in the world from which they escaped before. Possibly all of them wanted to return to the city but bringing with them that magic they found in the magic woods