In this case, we have two books, A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Canterbury Tales from which we extract our examples. ... They also show how fancy can take over a relationship like The Wife of Bath and her three "rich, old husbands," from The Canterbury Tales. ... Lysander stood for what his heart told him, by questioning both, Egeus and The Duke Theseus. ... "I'll tell the truth. ...
The play's title, for instance, refers to an English holiday custom: on "Midsummer Eve,"" or the night of the summer solstice on June 23, English men and women would spend the night outdoors around bonfires, telling supernatural tales of fairies and witchcraft. ... By the time Theseus reappears at the end of the play, however, he and Hippolyta seem genuinely and mutually happy together, and he presides over a magically resolved triple wedding in which everyone gains their heart's desire. The character of Theseus appears in Greek myth (he was a friend of Hercules and a giant-killer...
These highly subjective sonnets are wonderful tales full of love, deception, and betrayal. ... The first quatrain introduces the theme with the image of reflected beauty, "Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest" (ll. 1). ... The final portion of the sonnet tells how Shakespeare's beloved differs from the summer in various respects. ...
"Tales, description and anecdotes of the fairies from all over the country and, indeed, from all over the world, make it clear that they are not generally conceived as existing in a independent and self-contained state, but have great concern with mortal things" (Briggs, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, 95). ...
