Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Paderborn (Fakultät für Kulturwissenschaften), course: Shakespeare: The Comedies, 14 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is Shakespeare's most enchanting comedy and one of his most popular plays. It is very lyrical and poetic, filled with magical beings from mythological worlds and the power of true love. Shakespeare's age was the great time of fairy poetry in English literature, but no other work has influenced our visions of fairies as much as "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Till today the idea of fairies, as we have them in our mind, is shaped by Shakespeare's delighting comedy. The play can be interpreted as "a fantasia on love", because love, it's follies, absurdities, conflicts and even dangers draw a red line through the play: from the quarrel between the fairy king and queen, to the heroic love of Theseus for his war-conquered Amazon queen, to the love-chase of Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius, and to the enchanted experiences of Bot-tom. In nearly all of these love affairs the fairies have their (sometimes helping) hand engaged and they are thus very important agents in the main- and in the sub-plots. In this paper I will first take a survey of the historic belief in fairies in Shakespearian England, and then look at Shakespeare's literary sources for the most important and most famous fairies who appear in this play, namely Oberon, Titania and Puck. Then I will show some parallels between the fairy queen Titania and Queen Elizabeth I, and afterwards I will analyze the quarrel between Oberon, king of fairies, and his wife. Finally I will give a comprehensive overview of the various ways of performing the play, both in theatre and in film.

Excerpt from The Fairy Mythology of Shakespeare The present study is a reprint, with slight additions, omissions, and modifications, of my 1897 Presidential Address to the Folklore Society, entitled "The Fairy Mythology of English Literature: its Origin and Nature." I have retained the address form. The thesis which I have essayed to demonstrate is based, upon studies set forth at considerable length in Vol. II of my work entitled "The Voyage of Bran." Discussing therein the Celtic doctrine of rebirth, I was compelled to form a theory of primitive conceptions of life and sacrifice, compelled also to determine the real nature of the fairies believed in to this day by the Irish peasantry, and of their ancestors in early Irish mythology, the Tuatha de Danann. In postulating an agricultural basis for the present belief, as well as for the ancient mythology, I found myself in accord with the chief recent students of myth and rite in this country and on the Continent. For a full exposition and, discussion of the facts upon which I rely, as well as of the principles which have guided me, I must refer to "The Voyage of Bran." The Bibliographical Appendix is designed to aid the student who wishes to further work at the subject by himself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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