Publisher's Synopsis
Set in ancient Athens, the play is associated with the gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon, mythical creatures who often manifested themselves to humans in strange, sometimes terrifying, and often magical ways. Most literary critics believe the play was written to be performed at a private wedding, so while it has a satiric edge, commenting on the difficulties of love, it is also a joyful, festive play, filled with dancing and singing, fairies and enchantment. Drenched in moonlight and filled with dreamers, this play is meant to mesmerize its audience. This scene, for example, opens with Theseus and Hippolyta planning the festivities for their upcoming wedding. Love itself is associated with fantasy and magic, according to Helena. She says thoughts, dreams, sighs, wishes, and tears are all love's minions. Both love's happy and sad aspects are present is this opening scene, which establishes all of the major themes and topics of the drama, including the emphasis on magic and mystical transformations, the often difficult course of true love, and the conflict between imagination and reason.As its title suggests, this is a play about dreams, and their often illogical, magical, and sensual character. Midsummer's Night is a time of craziness, of mirth and magic. This magic is enacted in the play through the concept of transformation, both personal and general: Helena would like to be "translated" into Hermia, but, more generally, she claims that love transforms everything it looks upon. While Midsummer is the primary setting of the play, references to May Day also abound. For example, Helena and Hermia are supposedly doing "observance of a morn in May" (167). Pagan rituals of May have generally celebrated sexuality and fertility, and this play does not take a Puritanical stance on either subject: The love in this dream is overtly sensual, linked to the songs, dances, and physical pleasures introduced by the fairies. Together these two framing ritual times provide a tone for the play: love and sexuality within a realm of crazy, magical fantasy.The thematic emphasis on transformation and magic is intensified by the key images of the play, in particular, the recurring references to the moon. Like the moon, which constantly metamorphoses, shedding its old self for something new, the lovers will go through several phases before returning, refreshed and slightly altered, to themselves in Act V. Cyclical, constantly transforming itself in the night sky, the moon is an apt image for the dreamy, moonlit scenes of the play in which characters are constantly transformed. In her three phases - the new, virginal moon of the goddess Diana; the full, pregnant moon of the goddess Luna; and the dark, aging moon of Hecate - the moon is linked with all of the various moods of the play.In line 3, Theseus connects his wedding to the changes in the moon by assuring Hippolyta that their marriage will occur in four happy days, with the arrival of a new moon. Here Theseus characterizes the moon as a "step-dame" keeping her heir waiting for her death so that he can claim his inheritance. Theseus wants the moon to hurry to her death so he can begin enjoying his "inheritance": marriage to Hippolyta. Hippolyta also associates the moon with love and marriage, declaring it will be "like to a silver bow/ New bent in heaven" (9-10) on the day of their wedding. From stepmother, the moon is transformed in the course of a few lines into the image of fruitful union contained in the "silver bow," an implicit reference to Cupid's arrow, which draws men and women together. Later in the scene, the moon transforms once again, moving into her role as Diana, the chaste goddess of the hunt. Theseus vows that if Hermia does not marry Demetrius as her father wishes, she will live a barren life, "[c]hanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon" (73).
