William Shakespeares plays are some of the most important and best plays ever to be written. Shakespeare draws from classical sources to create different types of literary elements in A Midsummer Nights Dream and others of his plays. His characters are inspired from Celtic fairies and some are also even somehow connected to Greek myths. Greek gods are mentioned a lot throughout A Midsummer Nights Dream and are mentioned many times by some of the characters. In his plays, Shakespeare uses many sources to add historical context to his writings; and also uses the same ideas to create characters similar to Celtic Fairies and Greek gods.
Celtic Fairies are mischievous beings, which according to legend, are mostly doing bad things to humans. In A Midsummer Nights Dream the fairies presented can be compared to those mentioned in those legends. Shakespeares fairies are trying to use humans around doing things that change the plot and how things are supposed to be, and change them for their own benefit. In A Midsummer Nights Dream the king and queen of fairies, Oberon and Titania, are fighting over and Indian boy that Titania took custody of after his mother died. Oberon wants this boy to be his henchman as he says in Act 2 scene 1 when he has an argument with Titania about the boy. What Oberon does to gain the boy is that he sends his servant Robin Goodfellow to trick people. Oberon tells Puck, another name for Robin Goodfellow in other versions of the play, to go fetch him a magical flower that has a special juice that once laid on a sleeping persons eyes, they will awake and fall madly in love with the first living creature that he or she sees. Oberon even uses this magical flower on his wife Titania to make her fall in love with someone else so she becomes distracted and he can take the little Indian boy for himself. This is something that could be expected from a Celtic fairy. As mentioned before, Celtic fairies are mischievous and would do anything for their own benefit. This can be proved with textual evidence such as The Stolen Child and Tam Lin where fairies also mess around with humans by luring them to their world for unknown purposes and are portrayed as sort of evil by paying tributes to hell. Shakespeare bases off some of his ideas for some of his fairy characters and makes them tricky and mischievous creatures.
Shakespeare sets A Midsummers Nights Dream in Athens and its surroundings. In keeping the Mediterranean setting, Shakespeare makes some of his characters allude often to Greek gods and other personages in Greek and Roman myths and legends. An excellent example is the passage said by Hermia: My good Lysander! I swear to thee, by Cupids strongest bow, by his best arrow with the golden head, by the simplicity of Venus doves, by that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, and by that fire which burnd the Carthage queen, when the false Troyan under sail was seen, by all the vows that ever men have broke, in number more than ever women spoke, in that same place thou hast appointed me, to-morrow truly will I meet with thee. (Act I scene i lines 174 184). In this passage Dido and Aeneas are mentioned. Dido is not referred to by name but by the designation Carthage queen, meaning she was the queen of the North African country of Carthage. She appears in the epic poem, The Aeneid, where she falls in love with Aeneas, who is the Troyan mentioned in the previous passage. Venus, Roman name for the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, was also mentioned here. She was the mother of Cupid, who is also mentioned in that quotation. Cupid is the Roman name for the Greek god of love, Eros, who shoots arrows at humans to wound them with love. Cupid also plays a big role in the play because supposedly thanks to him, there is such flowers that can make living creatures fall deeply in love with another living creature. This is significant because if it were not for the flower, the play would have been boring, and we would have not seen the fairies have fun with the lovers. Shakespeare also decides to have a play going on in his play. Some of the lower class characters are contracted by Theseus to take part of his wedding and perform a play portraying the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. Theseus is also a character from Greek myths and one of the legendary kings of Athens. Greek myths are definitely important for the plot and characters of A Midsummer Nights Dream.
Shakespeare creates three different worlds in his play by mixing up the ideas based off Celtic Fairies and Greek myths. He first creates a plot with the Athenian characters who live apparently just for love. Shakespeare then also creates a plot of peasant mechanicals who try to recreate the tragic Greek myth of Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus wedding. And after that, he also introduces a world of fairies which are very similar to Celtic fairies. There are practically many stories going on at the same time, and at a certain point they all collide and conclude the whole story. This happens when all the characters are affected by Oberons plans to take the little Indian boy for himself and sends out Puck to get the flower. Once he got the flower, he did not completely follow what Oberon told him and he messes with Lysander and Demetrius by using the magical flower on them, making them both fall in love with Helena. After that certain other events happens ending with Theseus wedding and the play within the play. The ideas based off Celtic Fairies and Greek Myths coincide and create several plots within the play that make it one of Shakespeares best.
Shakespeares use of several sources for inspiration makes his plays very interesting. His ideas taken from Celtic Fairies and Greek myths are of high importance in A Midsummer Nights Dream. Those ideas make several plots that make one great play. It is most likely that Shakespeare took a lot of these sources to use as inspiration for other of his plays and also involve Greek myths and characters similar to Celtic Fairies. What is definite, is that Shakepeare is one of the most amazing play writers of all time.
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