A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay The Perspective of Theseus

A Midsummer Nights Dream:nbsp;The Perspective of Theseusnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp; In his play, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare clearly establishes the feelings of Theseus with respect to love and reason.nbsp; Theseus distrusts the nature of love and its effect on people as he states in the following passage: I never may believe these antic fables or these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold: That is the†¦show more content†¦This place where the line between dream and reality blurs is an important theme of the play. nbsp;Theseus is also a lover, but his affair with Hippolyta is based upon the cold reality of war, Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, And won thy love doing thee injuries(I, i, 16-17). He is eager to wed Hippolyta and marriage is the place where reason and judgment rule. He wins the hand of his bride through action not through flattery, kisses and sighs inspired by her beauty. In lines 4-6 of his monologue he dismisses the accounts of lovers and madmen on the grounds that they are both apt to imagine a false reality as being real. When, in I, i, 56, Hermia tells Theseus, I would my father looked but with my eyes, Theseus responds, Rather your eyes must with his judgment look(57). Theseus has a firm belief that the eyes of lovers are not to be trusted. That the eye of the lover sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egypt(11) is, to him, proof of this. It precisely by enchanting the eyes of the lovers that the faeries manage to create so much mayhem: Flower of this purple dye, hit with c upids archery, sink in apple of his eye! When his love he doth espy, let her shine as gloriously as the Venus of the sky(III, ii, 101-7). Puck doesnt change Helenas nature, nor does he change her features. When Lysander wakes, he beholds the same Helena that hes always despised and suddenly he isShow MoreRelated A Cubist Perspective of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream2475 Words   |  10 PagesA Cubist Perspective of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The great cycle of the ages is renewed. Now Justice returns, returns the Golden Age; a new generation now descends from on high. - Virgil, Eclogues 1.5    As Virgil stated so many years ago, history is a cyclical phenomenon. The experiences of one age tend to be repeated in future generations. Knowing that, we should not be surprised to find the seeds of modern styles and philosophies sprouting in earlierRead More The Northern Lights2820 Words   |  12 Pagesquite healthy. I just had one of those most rare visions. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be an ass to have this dream. On the Dover cliffs, under the hot sun, with a director screaming action, and a camera pointing towards me, I found Shakespeare. This quarter I had the opportunity to experience Shakespeare everywhere at once. I read four plays: Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and A Winter’s Tale. I sat through eight film productions of various plays and wore those blue libraryRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s A Midsummer Night s Dream1760 Words   |  8 Pages Early in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, the fascistic use of charm, Oberon’s ability to use incantations to unsettle Theseus’ early wish for perfect harmony (1.1.11-15) and control wild forces such as nature, other fairies and mankind, foregrounds the play’s action. Modeled after the power of speech-acts (utterances considered as actions, particularly in terms of its intention, purpose or effect), the theatrical use of charm I propose here predominantly resides in the vocal chords