Magic in A Midsummer's Night’s Dream

By Chris

Love-in-idleness

“Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:It fell upon a little western flower,Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,And maidens call it love-in-idleness.Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laidWill make or man or woman madly doteUpon the next live creature that it sees.”

• Puck is instructed by Oberon to fetch the love-in-idleness flower for its enchanted juices

• When applied to a person's sleeping eyelids while sleeping makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen upon awakening

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The Athenians

Demetrius is initially in love with hermia

After Puck applies the love potion, Demetrius falls in love with Helena

This restores balance among the quartet by establishing two couples

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,”

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Oberon

King of fairies It is by his orders that the love-

idleness flower is used He restores order in the end by

undoing the enchantments and blessing the Athenian lovers.

“To the best bride-bed will we,Which by us shall blessed be;And the issue there createEver shall be fortunate.So shall all the couples threeEver true in loving be;”

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Titania

Queen of fairies Her argument with

Oberon affects the weather

Due to an enchantment cast by Puck, Titania falls in love with Nick Bottom

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:There sleeps Titania something of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.”

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Puck Oberon’s jester, a mischievous

fairy who delights in playing pranks on mortals

He causes chaos among the group of lovers by applying the love potion to Lysander instead of Demetrius

Also transforms Bottom’s head into that of an ass

I am that merry wanderer of the night

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Nick Bottom

A craftsmen in Athens whose head is transformed into that of an ass by the mischievous fairy Puck

It is Nick Bottom who the Fairy Queen Titania falls in love with via the love potion

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The forest

The forest is home to mythical creatures such as fairies and satyrs

The Athenians attempt to explain the magical events in the forest as dreams

“I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was”

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Bibliography

Cupid-pschye. www.itsablackthang.com/.../cupid-psyche.jpg. www.myspace.com.

"Folklore." Internet Shakespeare Editions. 28 May 2009 <http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/ideas/folklore.html>.

"Noel Paton - The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania." Victorian Paintings. 28 May 2009 <http://goldenagepaintings.blogspot.com/2008/02/noel-paton-quarrel-of-oberon-and.html>.

"Pansy Viola." Wikimedia Commons. 28 May 2009 <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>. Palmer, Barrie. The British Shakespeare Company, source: © BSC. 28 May 2009

<http://www.shakespeare.cz/lss/img.php?sect=default&id=350&type=jpg&lang=en&artid=85>. "Puck Through The Ages." Robin Hood -- Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood. 28 May 2009

<http://www.boldoutlaw.com/puckrobin/puckages.html>. "Scene From A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania and Bottom by Sir Edwin Landseer." Museum Syndicate:

Experience Art and History. 28 May 2009 <http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=3006>. "There Sleeps Titania." Undertones of Life. 28 May 2009 <http://undertone.wordpress.com/2007/02/22/there-

sleeps-titania/>. "Young America." American Art. 28 May 2009

<http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1ya/index-noframe.html?/t2go/1ya/1990.21.html>. 29 May 2009 <http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/14289172.jpg>.