The Concept Of Love In Shakespeare S A Midsummer Night S Dream

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Bonn, language: English, abstract: William Shakespeare is one of the most important English authors, his plays are well known today although he lived in the 16th century. Especially his love dramas enjoy great popularity. This paper deals with his comedy „A Midsummer Night's Dream“. Nearly everybody knows the famous sentence Lysander says to Hermia: „The course of true love never did run smooth“ (MND I.i.134). Love is the main theme in this play and this sentence mirrors the love between the four Athenian lovers very well. The flower 'love-in-idleness' screws up the whole love constellation as well as Egeus, Hermia's father, who does not allow his daughter to marry the man she loves. Throughout the play love is presented with a huge range of metaphors and it acquires new shapes. It is notable that those metaphors who describe the love in the play are metaphors of nature. The moon, the image of inconstancy is often used to show the inconstancy of love between the four Athenian lovers caused by the magic flower. Furthermore, love is linked to the eyes, but it is misleading, however, to conclude that there is a simple association between love and beauty, just because the eyes are linked to love. Besides Shakespeare shows the power of love between the protagonists. Love is not only a feeling, it changes the perception.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: keine, University of Leipzig, course: Shakespeare Goes Hollywood, language: English, abstract: William Shakespeare surely is one of the most important English authors - although he lived 500 years ago, his works are still read and discussed. Since 1897, well over 200 films and countless television programmes adapted from Shakespeare's plays were produced . Especially his comedies enjoy great popularity. Because this paper will deal with one of Shakespeare's comedies, it is necessary to clarify the term "comedy." In Shakespeare's century, a comedy was everything that was not a tragedy or a historical play - so the term was as neutral as our German 'Schauspiel' is. The intended effect of a comedy was to "frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life," so to evoke laughter and entertainment with a therapeutic intention. In addition to that, comedies had a didactic function: they should show general mistakes like thoughtlessness, quarrelsomeness and meanness in the form of exaggeration. The main theme of the Shakespearean comedy is love. This paper will deal with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (written in 1595 or 1596) with a special attention to the play's couples. Their state of relationship and the language the lovers use will be in the foreground. Does it differ from normal language use? If so, do the couples all speak in the same way? Does the language differ from couple to couple, in dependency of their quality of relationship? Firstly, it will be explained how the Elizabethan concept of love works. Secondly, it is demonstrated how a crush is revealed in terms of language and how a lover's language develops in Shakespeare's play. To conclude, the film version of Michael Hoffmann from 1999 will be looked at with special regards to a comparison of play and film.

Cupid and Psyche Apuleius - Cupid and Psyche is a story from the Latin novel Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century AD by Apuleius. It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche (Soul or Breath of Life) and Cupid (Desire), and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage.

Among the most enduring poetry of all time, William Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets address such eternal themes as love, beauty, honesty, and the passage of time. Written primarily in four-line stanzas and iambic pentameter, Shakespeare’s sonnets are now recognized as marking the beginning of modern love poetry. The sonnets have been translated into all major written languages and are frequently used at romantic celebrations. Known as “The Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare’s works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare’s innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Würzburg (Lehrstuhl für Englische Literatur - und Kulturwissenschaft ), course: HS: Shakespeare's Comedies, language: English, abstract: “The course of true love never did run smooth” – this statement, made by the male protagonist Lysander in I,1 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is arguably one of the most well-known lines from the play. In a nutshell, it represents its: the trials and tribulations of love; the obstacles young love has to overcome, the intrinsic complexities of established love, and the victory of true love in the end. This paper aims to take a look at the way, how different stages of love and love concepts are represented in AMD. As Shakespeare is said to have written this particular early play between 1594 - 1596 , a closer look will be taken at the conventions of love poetry in the literature of the Elizabethan age. The influence of the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch’s love poetry concept on Elizabethan love poetry conventions will be of special interest at this point. Further on, Shakespeare’s very own love concept in his romantic comedies will be compared and contrasted to the love poetry of his age. The late 16th century and early 17th century, from the 1690ies and particularly with the onset of the reign of King James I, brought about a change in the perception and creation of conventional Elizabethan love poetry: from the commonplace Petrarchan conceits to a more individual, realistic yet Puritan depiction of the praised woman . With AMD being conceived in this particular time frame, possible reflections of this literary change of mind in the discussed play will be outlined in the analysis of this play. Scholars argue, that AMD originally might have been written by Shakespeare for a noble wedding celebration , because of its lenght, the marriages at the end of the play and the different aspects of married life the play offers. The aspect of marriage and marital conventions in the Elizabethan age will be another point of analysis in this paper, determining whether Shakespeare stayed true or subverted common assumptions of married life at his age. The final analysis will try to apply the aforementioned theoretical points to AMD and take a look at how marriage, love, and literary love concepts are represented by the respective couples in the play.

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Sheffield (School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics), course: Shakespeare’s Drama, language: English, abstract: To write about love in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream means to write about the main topic of the play. Love is both essential for the plot structure and a genre convention of the romantic comedy. As Peter G. Philias pointed out, “in the comedies [Shakespeare] chose to place side by side the romantic and realistic concepts of love and in so doing to point to a middle ground, a golden mean.” . This is especially true for the play before us, because here Shakespeare exaggerates this technique: The inconstancy in love is taken to extremes by the device of the magic juice. The play also focuses on other aspects of love, especially its destructive power, the obstacles it has to get over and the conflict between passionate and platonic love.