Remarks on A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer-Night's Dream is written as much as an entertainment full of fairies, nymphs, and sprites, as a play with plot and character development. Like most of Shakespeare's comedies the plot is of little consequence, and characters seem more like caricatures or stereotypes than the more rounded and developed characters we expect in serious plays. Of course Shakespeare probably did not mean for his play to be taken seriously as it involved what we call today, "relationships" and what in Shakespeare's day was called, love. To a certain extent love was mythologized in the Renaissance certainly more than it is today. Love was associated with Greek and Roman times as opposed to contemporary situations. Ancient literature seemed more openly suggestive when the subject was love, which was acknowledged as fun, spicy, and often unpredictable. Certainly it defied the tenets of reason, which was another strong point of the ancients. With only a few exceptions when writing about love, Shakespeare and his contemporaries were circumspect by our standards. And when writing about sex they were very circumspect.
The Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, were not burdened with Christian morality, and they displayed a healthy and often humorous interest in sexual activity. For them procreation or sex was a part of life that was exciting, fun, and if approached with the right attitude, largely harmless. It was only when people took sex too seriously that fights broke out and people could get hurt. Shakespeare, in his comedies, wants his audience to ease up, relax, and enjoy. Love is not reasonable, so the only way to cope is to laugh and enjoy. Make love not war. Hang up your sword and go to bed and embrace the moment of ecstasy, not to mention the lady or the man.
To help the audience see the proper spirit of love, Shakespeare not only evokes the Greeks and Romans with a setting in Athens and mythological figures, he also peppers in pagan English fairy lore. What are Robin Goodfellow, Peaseblossom, and Cobweb doing in Greece? They were supposed to populate the English forests and are seldom connected with figures like Theseus and Hippolyta. Oberon and Titania are vaugely mythological and appear to try and bridge the gap between the fairies and the mythological figures. The real bridge or connection, I believe, is the pagan or non-Christian orientation of these figures. As I said earlier, it is very difficult to have a rollicking time with sex in a Sixteenth century Christian moral context, at least it was for Shakespeare. So here's to paganism. Let's get on with the play!