Night in William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream Essay examples

Night in William Shakespeares A summer solstice Nights conceive ofOne of the recurring themes throughout Shakespeares A midsummer Nights Dream is the time of day during which the plays major action takes place night. This being the case, there are reliable words that are directly linked to this theme that appear many times throughout the script. Four such words are moon on, moonlight, moonshine, and lunatic. distributively comes from a feminine root that serves to identify the women in the play as prizes to be won and controlled.It becomes clear when looking up the term moon in the Oxford incline Dictionary that the word is associated with the feminine. In poetry, for instance, the moon is a lot personified, always as female (1050). It is important to note that the play upsets handed-down cultural customs in this regard, for may was the time of female fruitfulness over which the moon presided, but the play begins with an im sequence of lunar age and sterility, a dowager, a cold fruitless moon (Paster and Howard, Popular Festivals 93). It is contingent that Shakespeare applied such images intentionally to make it clear to his audience that the women in this play are not as free as the May Day festivities might make them out to be. The female fertility that is explicit freely in Shakespeares blend of May Day and midsummers Eve is outside of the controlled realm of marriage. Instead of the unrestrained women that twain holidays celebrate, however, Shakespeare bookends the play with a woman tamed by a man.In the first scene, the moon is spoken of by Theseus and Hippolyta as a criterion of time when Theseus announces, four happy days bring in / some other moon but, O, methinks, how slow / This old moon wanes She linger... ...more.Works CitedBrown, Lesley, ed. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 5th ed. Oxford Clarendon, 1993.moon, moonlight, moonshine, and lunatic. Shakespeare Concordance. 23 Feb. 2006 .Paster, Gail Kern, and Skiles Howard. Female Attachments and Family Ties. A midsummer Nights Dream Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. Boston and New York Bedford/St. Martins, 1999. 192-264.---. Popular Festivals and Court Celebrations. A Midsummer Nights Dream Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. Boston and New York Bedford/St. Martins, 1999. 89-99.Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Nights Dream. A Midsummer Nights Dream Texts and Contexts. Ed. Gail Kern Paster, and Skiles Howard. Boston and New York Bedford/St. Martins, 1999. 1-86.The Oxford English Dictionary. second ed. 1989.