A MIDSUMMER NIGHT`S DREAM

In a civil parish (alternatively known as a town, village, neighbourhood or community) named Stratford-upon-Avon in south Warwickshire, England in 1564 was born the famous England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" , Wiliam Shakespeare. He was an important playwright, poet and actor . His works, including some collaborations,consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. Shakespeare's works are often divided into three periods beginning with what is referred to as an experimental period starting around 1589 and ending around 1600 which includes Titus Andronicus, Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and The Taming of the Shrew ; the tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the comedies The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado about Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor , Twelfth Night ; the history plays, Henry IV ( two parts), Henry V, Richard II, King John and Julius Caesar. The second period ending around 1608 marks perhaps the apex of Shakespeare's work with the tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear ,but also comedies such as All's Well that Ends Well and the epic history play, Antony and Cleopatra. The final period ends around 1613 with the plays, Cymbeline, Henry VIII and romances such as The Tempest and The Winter's Tale. Shakespeare's death is unknown ; he died in 1616 April 23rd at the age of 52. On his tombstone are inscribed the following words, which are believed to be written by the author himself . Good friend, for Jesus sake forbeare /To digg the dust enclosed here! /Blest be
ye man that spares thes stones /And curst be he that moues my bones.

The tombstone is an appeal that he be left to rest in peace with a curse on those who would move his bones... A Midsummer Night`s Dream supposedly was written and represented for the first time in 1595-1596 and saw the light of day in 1600. The plot of the story is the creation of Shakespeare ; he borrowed a number of reasons from The Knight`s Tale (The Canterbury Tales ) of Geoffrey Chaucer , The Legend of Good Women of the same author , Theseus life by Plutharh and the Metamorphoses by Ovidius Naso (Ovid).

The style of the story is firm and supported to a great height . Shakespeare takes comparisons in all areas of life , bringing in the same verse or in the same passage metaphors surging observation of everyday life and images constructed with elements of world air and the stars.We see this at the beginning- THESEUS : Now, fair Hippolyta, our
nuptial hour /Draws on apace; four happy days bring in /Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow /This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,/Like to a step-dame or a dowager/Long withering out a young man revenue. HIPPOLYTA : Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;/Four nights will quickly dream away the time;/And then the moon, like to a silver bow/Newbent in heaven, shall behold the night/Of our solemnities. (act I, scene 1). The comparison of

the moon with a master is a characteristic style full of contrast for Shakespeare ; it could not occur only in the mind of a man who sees life with depth and also think poetic . From Midsummer Night`s Dream its draw a larg part of modern poetry , dream poetry and nature , which is exactly what makes up one of the essential characters of romance. The story is the most romantic of Shakespeare's comedies.Is characterized by an atmosphere of anger and dream (such as the title suggests) and by the adventures of ample fantasy. The definition that Theseu gives to the poet and the poetry []The
lunatic, the lover and the poet[]/ The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,[..] (act V , scene 1) ,

emphasizes the importance of poetic imagination shown by a theoretical generalization of the entire work . In the same replica of Theseus, Shakespeare sets off the important evidence of the concret "realization" of the artistic image. The most poetic passages do not resort to beauty, but to a common specific vocabulary. A particularity expression of the fairies are , generally , the use of rimate lyrics . The main heroes of the piece talk in white lyrics , and the beings really alive in the dreamthe craftsman (J.Dover Wilson) , ordinary people of the people , in prose. Puck`s vocabulary is the most authentic and english in the entire piece. A fundamental theme of the play , reflected and refracted in one of the subordinate elements, throwing light on the group identity and character, is the love ; a thing that is only natural in a play considered love comedy , as Romeo and Juliet is considered love tragedy. This theme passes the play from one end to another , conditioning the action and conflict , and shapes that the dresses are very different , colourfol : Love is physical,
spiritual, blind, reckless, moody, loyal, crazy, shy , natural, true, faithful , dove and snake, madness, mystery, friendship bonding in childhood, spell, curse and blessing.

His enemies are hatred, jealousy, pleasure to dominate others or to see them arguing and even chastity .( Donald A. Stauffer , Shakespeare`s World of Images , 1949 , Indiana University

Press , 1966 , p.60-61). Between Theseu and Hipolita is not love itself, but a good friendship.(Ion Marian Sadoveanu ) .Lysander- Hermia and Demetrius Helena are the protagonists which illustrated love in action ( unlike Theseu-Hipolita) , they know a range of feelings between happiness and suffering , characteristic feelings of the group pertaining to age and training . In contrast with the young , Oberon and Titania give the impresion of a mature couple even and older one.
Each piece offers many examples illustrating the skill with which , the author individualizes characters.( Thomas Wathely). Each character is as much as himself and independent of

others as the author ,as if it were a real being and not merely an invention of the mind . In Midsummer Night`s Dream , Shakespeare used for the first time an outside force that intervenes and controls the human life . The characters in The Midsummer Night's
Dream are classical ,but the costume is strictly Gothic and shews that it was through the medium of Romance that he drew the knowledge of them .( Letter on Shakespeare's authorship of the

Two Noble Kinsmen). The story is surrounded by characters such as the people and duke of Athenes , the craftsmens , faries and the legendary queen of the Amazons , which in some way are truly magical beings. The fairies were so woven into the popular and were supposed to exert so wide and general an influence that Shakespeare considered it no absolute anomaly to introduce them at Athens in the time of Theseus . Fairies were beings that always existed whose presence was not confined to one quarter or part of the world . Oberon is the unseen, unheard and unsuspected by anyone fairy, who solves the one problem of the play, in what he regards mortals , namely the revival love of Demetrius for Helena . The king of the fairies , is not an ancient mythological creature, but Shakespeare wants to assign his name to Indian mythology , and first appears in French Renaissance literature as Auberon. The name is taken from the stories of the frenchman Huon de Bordeaux , transalated in England by Lord Berners around the year 1534. Oberons jester , Puck the less ethereal fairy of the world of spirits represents the moods, the whim of nature unlike other fairies and ghosts. He is considered by many people to be

the central or the most important character of the play.The mischievous, quick-witted sprite sets many of the plays events in motion with his magic, by means of both deliberate pranks on the human characters (transforming Bottoms head into that of an ass) and unfortunate mistakes (smearing the love potion on Lysanders eyelids instead of Demetriuss). His name is taken from the old Scandinavian mythology , that appears in the form of pki ( in Old English pca , form akin to pixy-pixies , malicious spirits of Celtic folklore from Cornwall , southeast England ; in English folklore is known as Robin Goodfellow ). Shakespearean texts are those that tell us how well the author knew his country's folklore. (about Puck and the fairies). Hermia , Helena ,Lysander and Demetrius ( the main characters ) are only those Athnes people who in spite of their friendship and jealousy become the only one who suffer in the play. The lovers are simple puppets of the spirits . The characterization of this
young people is deliberately insignificant . Shakespeare dosen`t intended to suggest customizing ; they are simply representative figures . (Stanley Wells ). M.R.Ridley describes Lysander and

Demetrius as being two young Athenians , presentable, but undifferentiated , that could very
well be pieces in a chess problem .But Hermia and Helena are described : [They] are highly differentiated both in appearance and temperament ,and the contrast increase alertness of each portrait ; and there are times when both evoke sympathy .( Shakespeare`s Plays , London ,

1937 , p.82). The heroines ( Helena and Hermia) are superior to the male characters only because they realize how unusual is the situation they going through . The symbols and the themes are what makes this play so loved and appreciated. The fairies magic, which brings about many of the most bizarre and hilarious situations in the play, are another central element to the fantastic atmosphere of A Midsummer Nights Dream. Shakespeare uses magic both to embody the almost supernatural power of love (symbolized by the love potion) and to create a surreal world. Although the misuse of magic causes chaos, when Puck mistakenly applies the love potion to Lysanders eyelids, magic ultimately resolves the plays tensions by restoring love to balance among the quartet of Athenian youths. Additionally, the ease with which Puck uses magic to his own ends, as when he reshapes Bottoms head into that of an donkey and recreates the voices of

Lysander and Demetrius, stands in contrast to the laboriousness and gracelessness of the craftsmens attempt to stage their play. The magical necatar of the flower that Puck collects is a love potion made from the juice of a flower that was struck with one of Cupids misfired arrows. It is used by the fairies to wreak romantic havoc throughout Acts II, III, and IV. Because the meddling fairies are careless with the love potion, the situation of the young Athenian lovers becomes increasingly chaotic and confusing (Demetrius and Lysander are magically compelled to transfer their love from Hermia to Helena), and Titania is hilariously humiliated (she is magically compelled to fall deeply in love with the ass-headed Bottom). The love potion thus becomes a symbol of the unreasoning, ,erratic and undeniably powerful nature of love, which can lead to inexplicable and bizarre behavior and cannot be resisted. As the title suggests, dreams are an important theme in A Midsummer Nights Dream.They are linked to the bizarre, magical mishaps in the forest .The theme of dreaming recurs predominantly when characters attempt to explain events in which they are involved. Imagination, dream, illusion are the form of specific knowledge in A Midsummer Night`s Dream . The play is an continuous sample of lyric drama thing that make the book a comedy-love-drama story. Whenever and wherever an action of a play by Shakespeare would happened , he has in front of his eyes only his world. Mihnea Gheorghiu.

Bibliography
Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard. An Introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream, 1841

Culegere de texte critice , Shakespeare si opera lui , Editura Pentru literatura universala cu Prefata de Tudor Vianu , Bucuresti 1964 Val Munteanu , Shakespeare , Opere complete volumul 3 , Editura Univers , Bucuresti 1984 Traducere si note de Dan Grigorescu , William Shakespeare , Visul unei nopti de vara , Univers Enciclopedic , Bucuresti , 1998