The presentation of love in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, University of Sheffield (School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics), course: Shakespeare's Drama, language: English, abstract: To write about love in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream means to write about the main topic of the play. Love is both essential for the plot structure and a genre convention of the romantic comedy. As Peter G. Philias pointed out, 'in the comedies [Shakespeare] chose to place side by side the romantic and realistic concepts of love and in so doing to point to a middle ground, a golden mean.' . This is especially true for the play before us, because here Shakespeare exaggerates this technique: The inconstancy in love is taken to extremes by the device of the magic juice. The play also focuses on other aspects of love, especially its destructive power, the obstacles it has to get over and the conflict between passionate and platonic love.