The word “fantasy” has a fairly obvious connection to A Midsummer Night’s Dream; fairies, magical juice from a flower, a human with a donkey head. But if the play is examined through the lens of the word “fantasy” not in terms of the supernatural, but for how perception relates to reality, then the use of the word “fantasy” may shine a new light on the play. Continue reading
In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Fairy King Oberon and Queen Titania are at odds with each other because of some individual referred to as a “changeling.” Puck, Oberon’s main attendant, describes the source of the strife: “For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, Because that she as her attendant hath a lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling:” (Ii.i.20-24). Continue reading
Although their modern definitions are more distinct from each other, “fantasy” and “fancy” could more or less be used synonymously in Shakespeare’s era. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, both could mean “the process, and the faculty, of forming mental representations of things not present to the senses” (See definition 4a: OED – Fantasy). Yet at the same time, both words have a variety of underlying meanings that invoke a deeper understanding of Shakespeare’s social commentary. Continue reading
The blending of reality and fantasy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream leaves lingering questions about the relationship between reality and fantasy, reinforced by the shifting setting. The play opens in Athens, an important city and a hub of political power, but moves later to the woods where fairies live and cast spells on the unwitting Athenians, who return to a state of normalcy once they leave the woods. This shift in understanding reality comes from Shakespeare’s changing context of the word “fantasy” and “fancy” in the play. Continue reading