Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream

The young lovers, conversely, have the moon shine a different light upon them. It is 'by moonlight at [Hermia's] window' (1.1.30) that Lysander woos her. Only through the Endymion myth would the Elizabethan audience associate the moon with love. The tale of Endymion and Selene differs throughout sources, but it is generally assumed that the moon-goddess Selene would visit Endymion as he slept in order to gaze upon his beauty. Just as Selene would behold her love at night, Lysander does so too. Theseus threatens revert the selenic imagery back to that of the virgin Diana. As a consequence of betraying her father's wishes, Hermia is threatened by the Duke to be sentenced to life as a nun. She is to spend her days 'chanting' to the 'cold fruitless

Due to Puck's use of the love-in-idleness flower, Lysander and Demetrius turn their eye towards Helena. For Shakespeare, the idea of lunar love is as fickle as the moon's forms. Moreover, their love represents the madness and lunacy associated with the powers of the moon. Schanzer considered the 'inconstancy, magic [and] madness' to be linked the prominent feature of the moon which frames the play. The madness is a result of the quarrel between the king and queen of fairyland, Oberon and Titania. The duo both desire possession of the changeling child who, according to Cesar L. Barber, represents Titania's 'wanton joy in achieved sexuality, in fertility; and a gay acceptance of the waxing of the body (like joy in the varying moon)'. The power of a woman's body is, again, associated with the fluctuating moon and is something, especially for Titania, worthy of worship. Moreover, it is Oberon and Titania's quarrel that results in a disruption in the weather. It was well regarded that, in England, the moon could influence the crops and human physiology. The moon, full of anger at their dispute 'washes all the air' (2.1.104), the grounds flood and are unworkable, the animals are affected as well as the humans suffer who suffer 'rheumatic diseases' (2.1.105). The disorder in the macrocosm attends their dispute, the moon, therefore, has a godly power. Similarly, in

Similarly, it is under the moon's light in A Midsummer Night's Dream that the faeries walk amongst the mortals, hence, the moon that hangs above as the bridge is crossed and the fairies roam upon the earth. Titania and Oberon embody both an English essence of fairies yet also have aspect of mythological traits. Barber denotes how they 'are at once common and special', just as the moon brings both light, blessings, and lunacy, the king and queen of fairy land present both chaos and good will. The medieval speculations about the plurality of worlds presented the question 'had God in his plenitude created one world or many?' Through Titania and Oberon, Shakespeare explores how creatures from other worlds behave. Just as Ariosto uses the moon to reflect upon human frailties and follies, Shakespeare uses the enchanted forest and the visitors from fairy land to combine earnestness and jest; imagining a world upon or beyond the moon was 'perhaps a response to a shuffled world' which is embedded with 'systems of hierarchy, authority, religion, and gender, all of which are called into question with the arrival of Oberon and