• What Does Puck Tell Oberon About Titania
• William Blake Oberon Titania And Puck With Fairies Dancing 1786

Apr 20, 2012 - Artwork page for ‘Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing’, William Blake, c.1786 on display at Tate Britain. At the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, fairy king Oberon and queen Titania make friends again, and Moth, Peaseblossom, Cobweb and Mustardseed dance in a ring, while Puck claps the beat.William Blake’s fairies dance on weightless tiptoes wearing petals, leaves and gauzy.

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing - William Blake (1786) As a pioneer of visual arts of the Romantic period, the subject of this 18th century watercolour is the last scene from Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Dancing 'hand in hand with fairy grace”, the final scene of the play sees the characters in the painting. Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing by William Blake, c. 1786 A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. The composition or arrangement of dancing figures is reminiscent of Blake's watercolour 'Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing' from 1786. Dance is commonly recognized as 'a key point of (Matisse's) career and in the development of modern painting'. It resides in the Hermitage Museum in St.

Moving away from the bestiaries, I invite you to take a look at William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Taking place in Athens, Greece, this play describes the descent of four young lovers into the nearby forest, all of whom seek to escape social responsibility and attain their desired love. Unfortunately, their journey is soon impeded by the antics of the residing fairies, causing lines to be redrawn within this “love square”.

But wait a minute, what’s this got to do with anything? Since when are fairies considered animals? Such questions were the first in mind when I initially began to study this text, and I’m sure you’re thinking the same as well.

Professor Julia Lupton of the University of California, Irvine describes fairies as being “composed of human, animal, and plant characteristics” and whose “power of song and dance allow them to perform the mysteries of life and the rhythms of the seasons.” In this case, while they do embody certain animalistic traits, the fairies seemingly take on the animals’ usual didactic role in literature.

Returning to the story, these creatures serve almost as antagonists in the play, evident by their mischief against the Athenian lovers. Using the love potion, they essentially shift the lovers’ realities by changing who’s in love with who, resulting in broken hearts and near-battles to the death.

What Does Puck Tell Oberon About Titania

What do the fairies’ actions mean for humans as a whole? To answer this question and simultaneously retain the text’s role as a play, I’ve designed a playbill which you can see in the next below.

Although we would expect our realities to depict the absolute truth, we must remember that said reality is at risk of manipulation. With the influence of an outer force, our reality can essentially turn into fantasy – much to our lack of awareness.

In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lysander, Demetrius, and the Fairy Queen Titania fall victim to this manipulation, thanks to Oberon and his right-hand man Puck. With the help of a magical flowers’ extract, Puck enchants the trio and causes them to “fall in love” with people outside of their original affections: Lysander falling out of love with his dearest Hermia, Demetrius falling in love with a once-detested Helena, and Titania falling in love with a rude mechanical-turned ass.

The playbill serves to depict these ideas by using the picture of a forest and a pair of yellow arrows. On one hand, the image of the forest represents the play’s main setting. It is here where the Athenian lovers and the rude mechanicals flee to, and it is here where they fall victim to the fairies’ mischief. On the flipside, given that the image is an optical illusion, it also serves to represent the idea of manipulated realities. It initially appears as if there’s a human eye at the forest’s center. Like all optical illusions, this is simply a matter of perspective – there isn’t really a human eye in the forest, but it appears as if so because of the way the trees have been planted in order to give that image. In the play, Lysander, Demetrius, and Titania aren’t truly in love with their newfound affections; they have simply been “enchanted” into doing so.

The golden arrows on the playbill also support this theme, particularly by serving as an allegory to the love god Cupid and his golden-tipped arrows. In the play, the flower’s love-properties and their subsequent effects on the plot – are as a result of Cupid’s stray arrow. Once more, this idea of shifted realities is represented here with this nod towards Cupid, given his abilities to cause people to fall madly in love with each other no matter their prior feelings.

In essence, we mustn’t put our entire faith into our reality – because they can easily be just as fictional as our fantasies.

Works Cited

Lupton, Julia. “Into the Animated Woods.” Humanities Core Lecture. Anteater Learning Pavillion, Irvine. 5 November 2019. Lecture.

Shakespeare, William. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Signet Classics, 1998.

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William Blake Oberon Titania And Puck With Fairies Dancing 1786