Midsummer Night’s Dream Love Isnt All You Need Essay

The love story is one of the oldest and most cherished traditions in any world culture. The prevalence of romantic works throughout history, whether Greek myths, Jane Austen’s dramatic narratives, or today’s dime-a-dozen romantic novels, ultimately encourages us to believe in the power of true love. We identify with the archetypal star-crossed lovers, who combat established convention in order to assert their romance, because we too yearn for our own â€Å"happily-ever-afters.† When used in conjunction with reason, love is the highest form of compassion – without it, we could not possibly interact productively with one another or develop as individuals. But when we take a new perspective and examine love as an independent,†¦show more content†¦William Shakespeare masters this art throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream, building through his characters’ actions the faà §ade of love as pure and noble, but at the same time dashing thi s faà §ade by exposing weaknesses and flaws in these characters’ perceptions of love. Shakespeare does not show this irony in individual lines, but painstakingly develops it over entire scenes and acts. Eastman dubs this development â€Å"large-scale irony†: an author can create subtle irony throughout his work as a â€Å"sustained strategy of indirect attack† (Eastman 126). Throughout his play, Shakespeare uses this long-term, indirectly critical irony to sharpen his assertion that love is not benevolent, but willfully destructive. One of love’s most prominent characteristics is its ability to engulf the human mind in floods of pure emotion. In the short term, love is often associated with phrases such as hearts â€Å"skipping a beat† or â€Å"butterflies† in one’s stomach. As an act of intuition and instinct, love can have immediate physiological and psychological effects. As a result, love’s psychosomatic manifestations often lead their bewitched to direct as many efforts as possible toward winning another’s heart. With regard to this motif of physical and emotional infatuation, Shakespeare argues, being in love causes us to become inconsistent and to allow ourselves to be buffeted by the wild waves of our ever-changing desires. In the play,Show MoreRelatedA Midsummer Night s Dream852 Words   |  4 PagesIntro Paragraph:In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.Shakespeare portrays four different kinds of love,parental love,romantic lo ve and complicated love.The way I see what he shows us readers is that love is in a way connected to life because life is very unpredictable since no one’s what will happen tomorrow in a way love is the same way it is very unpredictable because you never know where is might end up. Just like in the play who knew if Hermia and Lysander will end upRead MoreThe Tempest by William Shakespeare1858 Words   |  8 Pagesplay A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, nature is shown to be mysterious presence that blurs the lines between reality and illusion; it is a magical force that is unreachable and incomprehensible for human beings. A Midsummer Night’s Dream gives nature a mischievous, playful, dreamlike feel because in this play nature interferes for the sake of love. The Tempest breaks down the barrier that divides human society and the natural world, a divide that is present in A Midsummer Night’sRead MoreComparing Shakespeare s Mi dsummer Night s Dream, Pride And Prejudice And The Great Gatsby2712 Words   |  11 Pagespresentation of love and marriage in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby. The main theme which brings A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby together is the idea of how love and marriage is presented. Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Austen all portray love and marriage as being two separate issues, which rarely intertwine. The different contexts in which these texts are written have all had a huge impact on the way in which love and marriageRead MoreTwo of the Strongest Emotions A person can Feel1137 Words   |  5 PagesLove and hate are two of the strongest emotion a person has for two seemingly very different reasons. These two emotions are classified as total opposites, but I believe that they are closer than one might expect even though they have very different connotations. Love is classified as the stereotypical eccentric and bubbly emotion with a fairly positive connotation. When you feel love, you feel like you are walking on air and you don’t understand it but all you know is that you are feeling theRead MoreTheme Of Love Gone Love And A Midsummer Nights Dream1892 Words   |  8 PagesLiterature Theme Comparison Love is a popular theme in a multitude of literature pieces throughout the times. Forbidden love seems nearly as popular as does love gone wrong and unconditional love. Two tales that contain the theme of forbidden love, the theme of love gone wrong, and the theme of unconditional love are: William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Fay Weldon’s â€Å"IND AFF or Out of Love in Sarajevo.† Though these stories were both written many years apart, they have a commonalityRead MoreModern-Day Adaptations of Shakespearian Plays3263 Words   |  14 Pages Adaptation is the process or state of changing to fit new circumstances or conditions, or the resulting change (Encarta#174; World English Dictionary #169; 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.). When something adapts, or is adapted, it retains the basic content of its former self while taking on new qualities. When a story is adapted, either to a different medium than the one originally used or to a different time or place, theRead MoreEssay Act V in A Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare2868 Words   |  12 PagesAct V in A Midsummer Nights Dream by William Shakespeare A: The final act at first seems completely unnecessary to the overall plot of the play. After all, in Act Four we not only have the lovers intent on getting married, but there has been a happy resolution to the overall conflict. Thus, the immediate question which arises is why Shakespeare felt it necessary to include this act. The answer lies in part with the entrance of all the characters in the final sceneRead MoreThe Purpose of Authority in Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream1157 Words   |  5 Pagesin A Midsummer Nights Dream Whether its Athens or London, cities have laws, and civilized life has rules. It is impossible to have a population that agrees with all the rules and laws of the state they are subject to. If a group disagrees with a rule or law enough to cause civil unrest it can be a major problem for the authority of the state. One way to mitigate civil unrest, and remind citizens of how good they have it, is through purposeful entertainment. In Act III:ii of A Midsummer NightsRead MoreTrue Love in William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream1928 Words   |  8 PagesTrue Love in William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream I have been studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream and exploring how the characters within this play deal with love and the consequences resulting from falling in love. I will be answering the question asked by providing quotes and examples of Shakespeare’s technique in showing that ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’ as well as providing answers as to why Shakespeare made this the case in the playRead MoreLa Story and Shakespeare1546 Words   |  7 Pagescredited with being a variation on A Midsummer Nights Dream. This is a more subtle lifting of the works. The similarities are limited to the device of the confused lovers, and the possible use of magic in order to bring the lovers to their correct partner. The similarities would probably have gone unnoticed were it not for the production notes that came as a supplement on the DVD, wherein Steve Martin bluntly says that he took the idea from A Midsummer Night‘s Dream. But as previously stated, the theme