The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. ... This is seen in everyday life, women give up their wants to make their men happy. ... In this area, legends, myths, and impossible stories originate. ... The fairies bring the stories to you from the East. ... (McIntosh 3) " four happy days bring in another moon: but, O, me thinks, how slow. ...
The character of Theseus appears in Greek myth (he was a friend of Hercules and a giant-killer), but Shakespeare more likely got the idea for his character from Chaucer's Knight's Tale, which refers to Theseus and Hippolyta in the larger context of the story of Palamon and Arcite, two men in love with the same woman (a plot that resembles aspects of this play). ...
However, if one man can so exquisitely write fictional stories about love and still include a controversial issue in them, then where do we draw the line between fact and fiction? ... The first quatrain introduces the theme with the image of reflected beauty, "Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest" (ll. 1). ... Shakespeare is also once again reminding the audience that her mother had hoped to achieve a sense of immortality by giving birth to her. ... The speaker is giving his beloved an ultimatum as it were. ... With this the speaker is able to accomplish what can only dream of;...
Theseus admits that he has heard this story, and he takes Egeus and Demetrius aside to discuss it. ... Quince tells the group what play they are to perform: The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe, which tells the story of two lovers, separated by their parents' feud, who speak to each other at night through a hole in a wall. ... Titania, however, refuses to give the boy up. ... The conversation turns to the little Indian boy, whom Oberon asks Titania to give him. ... She invites Oberon to go with her to dance in a fairy round and see her nightly revels, bu...
