fairies in A Midsummer Nights Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream is William Shakespeare's most enchanting comedy and one of his

most popular plays. It is very lyrical and poetic, filled with magical beings from mythological worlds and the power of true love. Shakespeare's age was the great time of fairy poetry in English literature, but no other work has influenced our visions of fairies as much as A Midsummer Night's Dream. From the quarrel between the fairy king and queen, to the heroic love of Theseus for his war-conquered Amazon queen, to the love-chase of Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius, and to the enchanted experiences of Bottom. In nearly all of these love affairs the fairies have their (sometimes helping) hand engaged and they are thus very important agents in the main- and in the sub-plots One of the most noticeable and entertaining elements of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream is the presence of the fairies. Titania, Oberon, Puck, and the attendant fairies all affect the human beings in the woods, and provide glimpses into the fairy realm. Although Shakespeare applies several important aspects of the Elizabethan belief in fairies to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare alters the conception of fairies not only within the context of the play, but for all time. Aspect of fairies life style: One aspect of fairies that Shakespeare left intact was their enjoyments. Shakespeare's fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream enjoy dancing and music, which was the favorite pastime of the fairies of Elizabethan folklore. Fairies were thought to dance in fairy circles, which humans were forbidden to see. Any person spying on fairy circles would be punished by pinching. Shakespeare's correlation of fairies to night is also consistent

with the folklore of his time. Although the fairy "hours" were midnight and noon and fairies were occasionally known to work magic in the day, the main time for fairies was night. Fairies were also active in the summer, and not known to appear after All Hallows' Eve (Halloween). Shakespeare is consistent with this idea of "fairy time" in the play. Complicated to understand the nature of fairies: The fairies are the most complicated element in A Midsummer Nights Dream, though it is not their individual characters in which the complexity lies, but in nature of what they represent. It can be difficult to know how to approach the fairies in A Midsummer Nights Dream. Theyre as slippery and insubstantial a group of characters as one might expect when dealing with the denizens of a magic wood. For a start, they give radically different impressions of themselves at different points. When we first meet Puck (in Act II, Scene 1), he is addressed by a fairy as that shrewd and knavish sprite/ Called Robin Goodfellow. This very bucolic English name is reinforced by the tricks he is described as playing: hiding in acorn cups, frightening maidens, hindering butter-churning and leading horses astray. Likewise the fairies that wait on Bottom have homely, rural names: Cobweb, Moth, Pease-blossom and Mustardseed. Oberon and Titania, at first glance, seem entirely defined in aesthetical references to nature. Certainly they are concerned with the beauty of nature, flowers and fruit and birds, as well as landscapes: Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, (II.i.83-85)

Appearance of the fairies in the play: For that matter, were never entirely sure how big the fairies are supposed to be. Titania and Oberon apparently must be the same size as Bottom and the Indian votaress, but their attendant elves are described as hiding in acorn cups when the royal couple fights. At one moment Bottom is small enough to be mistaken for a roasted crab in a drink, then large enough to do duty as a stool. Of course trying to calculate the precise dimensions and origins of the fairies is to completely miss the point. Scholars can shed light on Shakespeares sources by pointing out parallels with folklore, classical mythology, ballads and plays, but the fairies in A Midsummer Nights Dream dont fall precisely into any previous category. Just as they can become invisible by declaring themselves so, their words can make them any size and transport them to any place they are fairies after all! Its tempting to see them as an apt metaphor for Shakespeares theatre itself endlessly ambiguous, with bits of exotic myth and folklore sticking out here and there, verbally inventive, and elusive in the best sense While the idea of Oberon as the fairy king was familiar to the Elizabethans, the name of Titania fbor the fairy queen was not. Titania's name was probably taken from Ovid's Metamorphosis, which describes the fairy queen in a similar vein to the moon goddess Diana. Despite this difference, Titania's train is consistent with the folkloreher time is from midnight to sunrise, she and her fairies sing and dance, she has jewels, and she has possession of a changeling. Shakespeare does add flowers to Titania's image, which had not been previously associated with fairies. It should be noted that although Oberon was a familiar name to the Elizabethans, the fairy queen was considered to be the

reigning monarch of the fairies. However, the play takes place not in the English countryside, but in Athens and the wood nearby. Titania and Oberon have distinctly Classical-sounding names, and their conversation reveals their involvement with the noble couple Theseus and Hippolyta, as well as other mythical Greek characters such as Aegles and Ariadne. The basis of their quarrel, a child whom Titania claims as her squire, suggests that her power stretches well beyond the Athenian wood, even to having an order of votaresses, or worshippers, in India. Even the humble Puck, when called away from bumping the bottoms of dairy workers, can boast that hell put a girdle round the earth/ In forty minutes, a truly supersonic speed for a rural hobgoblin. Different critics have expressed different views about the manner in which Shakespeare has presented these denizens of the fairy-land. The Alleged Malevolence of the Fairies: According to one critic, the fairies in this play have been depicted as being evil, or at any rate amoral creatures, as they played with emotions of the lovers and retained no sympathy. This view seems to be one-sided, because it ignores the actual behavior of the fairies in the play. If these fairies were downright malevolent, they wouldnt bless the married couple at the end. It is true that puck mistakes with Lysander for Demetrius, and applies the love-juice to Lysanders eyes; but this is a purely accidental error and not a deliberate mischief which rectified later. The fairies are Benevolent: Another view says that king and queen of the fairies are definitely benevolent creatures and they show an active kindness. Titania feels distressed by the hardship which Oberons quarrel with her is causing to

the human being and the animals, In fact Oberon intervenes to set the lovers affairs to right; and both Titania and Oberon go to bless the married couples. Even Titanias child-theft has an affectionate motive; she took the child because of her love for the childs mother. According to this view, Oberon and Titania are the counterpart, in the spirit-world of Theseus and Hippolyta, like them full of stateliness and dignity. Conclusion: In the conclusion we can say that the fairies in the A Midsummer Night Dreams are hard to understand but still they are most amazing part of the play.