Theseus and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Nights Dream Research Paper

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Theseus and Hippolyta are two characters from ancient Greek legends and their presence in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare serves to ground the action of the play in a certain time and place in history—or at least in myth, as Forey, Panoksky and Saxl show. The myth aspect of these two characters also allows Shakespeare to play up the other myth quality of the play—that is, the woodland spirits and fairies who lead the four Athenian youths into so much trouble as they seek to engage in wooing and romance. Theseus and Hippolyta may not be very active in the play, but they certainly do provide the comedy with sufficient backdrop to give it a playful, mythological, fun-filled dynamism that brings the action full-circle and caps it off with a few pleasant reminders for newlyweds (which is what Theseus and Hippolyta are at the end of the play). Though they are not central characters, their characters are central to the ideas expressed in the play—i.e., the need for balance, proportion, respect and appreciation in all one’s dealings with other human beings.



As Theseus himself says at the end of the play, “The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst / are no worse, if imagination amend them… / If we imagine no worse of them than they of / themselves, they may pass for excellent men” (5.1.2056-2060). This line comes in response to the jests that are being made at the players’ expense. They are poor actors and deserve to be mocked, but Theseus patiently reminds his friends that the actors are trying and that in order for the viewers to be positive, they should try to see the actors as the actors see themselves.

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This advice can be applied to everything in the play, from the four Athenian youths who are fighting over who loves whom and who is most lovely, to the fairy king and queen themselves who are fighting over a little page, to Bottom whose very appearance is altered so that he becomes something he is not. In other words, Theseus delivers the moral of the story—that if people use their imaginations for good, that is, to see in others those good qualities that they want to see in themselves, a happier time can be had by all (Dent).



This advice is certainly taken to heart by Hippolyta who marries Theseus and serves as his new bride, full of patience and love and respect for her new husband who conquered her on the battlefield. They could be enemies—but instead she has given her mind to love and that allows her to see Theseus in a better light than that in which he might be cast were she still to think of him as an enemy combatant. With respect to her, Theseus is proven right: imagination amends that which might otherwise offend (Dent; Olson).



So while the majority of the play focuses on the other characters, Theseus and Hippolyta are never far from the action. The actors are preparing a play for their wedding….....

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Works Cited

Dent, Robert W. "Imagination in A Midsummer Night's Dream." Shakespeare Quarterly 15.2 (1964): 115-129.

Forey, Madeleine. "Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou Art Translated!": Ovid, Golding, and" A Midsummer Night's Dream." The Modern Language Review (1998): 321-329.

Garner, Shirley Nelson. "A midsummer night's dream:“Jack shall have Jill;/Nought shall go ill”." Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 9.1 (1981): 47-63.

Olson, Paul A. "A Midsummer Night's Dream and the meaning of court marriage." ELH 24.2 (1957): 95-119.

Panofsky, Erwin, and Fritz Saxl. “Classical mythology in mediaeval art.” Metropolitan Museum Studies 4.2 (1933): 228-280.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=midsummer&Scope=entire&pleasewait=1&msg=pl

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