Magic And Love In A Midsummer Night's Dream

Throughout Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, magic, illusion, and enchantment maintain common themes surrounding the main characters in the play. Most simply, magic is surely in the eye of the beholder - whether they realize it or not. Inherently, love, can be viewed as a type of illusion, or better yet, magic. This being said, perspective is one of the most important elements to consider when analyzing what relation magic has to love; and in this case it is illustrated both as supernatural and natural. As we can clearly recognized in the play, love is portrayed a type of magic - this is the “natural” side of things. However, love can also be caused by magic, in this case, Puck’s love potion, The potion alludes to the “supernatural”

It can be argued that Act V was of no necessity to the plot of the play. In essence it serves as a comical yet powerful conclusion to the play and resolution to the conflict, all the while examining small elements of Shakespeare's thoughts that allow us to understand why he included its content. One main point that Shakespeare wanted to drive home is the fact that the play could have ended in tragedy as opposed to comedy. The play by Pyramus and Thisbe helps us better understand this, this is due to the fact that it closely parallels the lovers actions. This being said, Shakespeare continues to challenge the readers views on imagination and reality, in this instance, love and magic. By watching the play, it opens our eyes to see exactly how love can affect us. “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact” (5.1.7-8). When Theseus states this he is outlining the fact that without imagination - and some lunacy - creativity and ambition can be stunted. Similarly to love and magic, without love we would not have any “magical” ambitions or creativity, in essence making the world a bland place to