A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay: Importance of the Nighttime Forest

A Midsummer Nights inspiration The Importance of the night Forest In Shakespeares play A Midsummer Nights Dream the dark forest is the center of the world, relegating Athens, center of the civilized classic world, to the periphery. Day gives way to night, and mortal rulers leave the stage to be replaced by fairies. The special properties of night in a forest make it the sodding(a) setting for the four turn inrs to set unwrap on a suggest of self-discovery. Shakespeare implies that in darkness, reliance on senses other than eyesight leads to true seeing. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, the nighttime forest, by disrupting and transforming vision, forces introspection and improvisation that benefactor the four lovers on their way to self-understanding. The darkness of the night setting seems particularly important in a play (and a culture) where the language of love relies so heavily on sight imagery. Fairy magic literalizes the contact between love and sight appropriately, Ober ons love juice is applied to the eyes. In the language of the play, to look on or at someone is the nigh common metonymic expression for falling in love with a new person, or for spending time with the one you already love. Lysander steels himself and Hermia against the rill of separation with a call to starve our sight / From lovers food trough morrow deep midnight (1.1, ll. 221-2). Vision and hunger together become the elements of Lysanders metaphor close lovers and separation to see is to be with, and a lovers company is elevated in importance to the need for food and drink. But Hermia and Lysander are not breathing out to see each other by the uncontaminating of day. The scant light of midnight-midnight, when dawn and dusk are both equally far off-will go out all... ... which connotes shallow feeling (Garber 10/13) the word dote is instead mute for description of his former feelings about Hermia (4.1 ll. 163-73). His feelings for Hermia are the ones that have metaphoric ally been snuffed out by the dawn, melted as the snow before the sun (4.1 l. 163). What began in night as magic, as introspection and improvisation, has in daylight coagulate into deep feeling. Although he speaks of Helena being the object and pleasure of his eye, the optic metaphor is accompanied by a proclamation of the faith and truth of his hearts devotion (4.1 ll. 166-7). Introspection allows keener observation new ways of looking ameliorate more ordinary types of sight. Night teaches the four lovers how to see more intelligibly during the day. Works CitedShakespeare, William. A Midsummer Nights Dream. New York Washington Square Press, 1993.