8. Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream

About this Lecture

Lecture

We’ve just been talking about how love is often presented as harmony. Another play which explores the harmony of love – or rather the disharmony – is Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this play, the disharmony emanates from the central couple of the play – Titania and Oberon – and it is a disharmony which permeates down to the world of men. While in tragedy, however, disharmony often leads to the complete breakdown of society, comedy tends to see harmony disturbed, but ultimately restored – and so it is here.

Course

This course explores the theme of love from the earliest English literature to the present day – from authors that you have likely heard of, such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Byron and Keats, to authors that are perhaps less well-known. This is a course that celebrates love in all it forms and between all kinds of people.

Lecturer

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies and Teaching Associate in the School of English at Nottingham University, and holds Visiting Professorships in China, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. He is co-author of The Routledge History of Literature in English with Ron Carter, and also wrote The Language of Poetry, Literature with a Small 'l' and the first critical edition of Teleny by Oscar Wilde and others.