Themes and issues

Abstract

Shakespeare presents so many aspects of love and its effects in this play that it is impossible to single out a particularly dominant view. The characters, the actions and the images all make ‘statements’ about love, some of which have almost become clichés, and it is only by considering many of these that we can begin to understand the dramatist’s thinking. First, we should distinguish between the love through the senses which Shakespeare calls ‘doting’ and the more permanent kind of love, which the play ultimately seems to advocate, in which there is an element of mind. This is not to underestimate Shakespeare’s attitude to the physical aspects of love for the play begins with a couple impatient for their wedding and ends with three couples about to legitimately consummate their love in bed. However, when love is nothing more than a doting through the senses it becomes a fixation lacking reason and this is presented very clearly in the memorable visual image of Titania making love to the ass-headed Bottom.