Magic, fairies and gods: A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest (2024)

In a Midsummer Night’s Dream, fairies and magical devices seem to move much of the play’s action, providing innumerable conflicts and resolutions to mock, challenge and counter the ineptitudes of the human characters. Fairy magic appears as the mysterious counterpart of the human world, and Shakespeare depicts the latter, albeit unbeknownst to it, as completely entangled in the former. But The Tempest portrays a different kind of magic: a power under the control of a seemingly benevolent Renaissance magician, a wronged Duke determined to make things right. In both these plays, fairies work, gods appear, magic spells are cast, yet the status, purposes and motivations of these powers remains elusive and ambiguous. Finally, there is another kind of magic, one upon which both plays touch in their own way: the magic created by the poet, playwright and dramatist: mysteriously alluded to by Theseus and Hippolyta, masterfully handled then (seemingly) dismissed by Prospero, the art and magic of the poetic imagination is a bewitching theme in both The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This course will weave together changing ideas about magic, the supernatural and poetry in the Renaissance and contrast these with the unique, playful and often provocative ways Shakespeare makes use of magic, fairies and gods to achieve compelling and suggestive dramatic conflicts and resolution. Each session will begin with a short lecture exploring these themes and move to collaborative close reading and discussion to bring light aspects of the plays. Why might Shakespeare make use of these seemingly gods, spirits and other supernatural devices to create or resolve precise situations? Is love portrayed as a kind of mysterious power or merely a manipulation of immature desire achieved by Puck, Oberon or Prospero? Lastly, do the plays suggest that poetry and the human imagination are themselves a kind of magic?