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A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

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Titania's Infatuation with Bottom Reveals Insights on Love and Character

Summary:

Titania's infatuation with Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream reveals insights into love and character. Bottom's response to her love highlights his pretentious and simple-minded nature, as he fails to grasp the gravity of her affection, reflecting Shakespeare's comedic portrayal of him. Titania's love, induced by Oberon's magic, underscores the irrationality of love, as seen in her absurd devotion to Bottom, a man transformed with a donkey's head. This scenario illustrates love's capacity to override reason, leading to irrational behavior.

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What does Bottom's response to Titania's love reveal about his character in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

In act three, scene one, Titania wakes up and instantly falls in love with Bottom. She falls in love with him because Oberon, her disgruntled husband, has sprinkled a love juice on her eyelids as she slept.

Upon awaking, Titania sees Bottom and exclaims, "What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?" Bottom's initial response seems reasonable enough. He says that Titania's reaction is irrational ("you should have little reason for that") but also acknowledges that love and reason seldom go together. Titania then praises him for his wise words, and Bottom replies with "No, that's not true." These initial reactions suggest that Bottom is indifferent to Titania's protestations of love. He would rather engage in logical pedantry, which is in keeping with his character. He is, after all, like many of Shakespeare's comedic characters, a rather pretentious figure with an excessively high regard for his own wit.

When Titania summons four fairies to serve Bottom, to bring him "jewels from the depths of the ocean" and to grant him eternal life, Bottom responds by suggesting he might use one, Cobweb, as a bandage if he cuts his finger, and he speaks to another, Mustardseed, about the use of mustard as a condiment to beef. Bottom, who at this point in the play rather appropriately has the head of a donkey, simply fails to comprehend what Titania has given to him. His response to Titania in this instance highlights the simple-minded buffoonery of his character. In fact, even Titania, who is madly in love with him because of the love potion, orders the fairies at the end of act three, scene one, to "tie up my love's tongue" to stop him from speaking anymore.

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What does Bottom's response to Titania's love reveal about his character in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

He is a real piece of work, this guy.  First, his name is BOTTOM.  Puck changes his head into that of an ASS.  See where this is going?  Shakespeare had great fun with this one.

Bottom's behavior both in the rehearsal and with Titania suggest that he is a control freak with a very elevated opinion of himself.  He wants to play all the parts, he can be both hero and herione and can also play the part of the lion and the moon and the wall.  He wants all the attention.

With Titania, he enjoys the attention and being waited on hand and foot, but he dislikes it when she is kissing his long, hairy ears and stroking his face.  Perhaps he feels too manly for this, which is also a huge joke since he still does not realize the truth about his metamorphosis.

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What would Bottom write about his experience with Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream?

Nick Bottom is the actor whose head is changed into that of a donkey in A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is done to distract Titania while Oberon steals the boy she is protecting. Bottom is clueless as to the reason for his transformation, though, and therefore decides it was all a dream. He is so mystified with wonder that he says, "I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called 'Bottom's Dream' because it hath no bottom" (IV.i.215-217). This shows that Bottom wants the dream to be turned into a song, which he eventually says he could sing at the end of a production. But he also says that it has no bottom, which could mean that there is no reasonable explanation for what he experienced or what it meant. That being the case, Bottom would have to recall events that took place in order to provide a topic for Quince to write lyrics.

First, Bottom would probably have the song discuss his transformation and Titania's beauty. Many songs sing the praises of the women they are written for, so her beauty, as well as her voice, gentleness and kindness would be mentioned. Then, he might sing about how deeply and quickly she fell in love with him even though his head looked like a donkey's. And finally, he might sing about the lovely words that she spoke to him, such as the following:

"I am a spirit of no common rate.

The summer still doth tend upon my state,

And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.

I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,

And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,

And sing while thou on pressed flowers does sleep.

And I will purge thy mortal grossness so

That thou shalt like an airy spirit go" (III.i.133-141).

In this passage, Titania not only speaks about her love for Bottom, but also applies iambic pentameter, which would work really well in a song. The bouncy rhythm and rhymed endings not only are a perfect fit for a song, but also describe her love and what happened to Bottom in his "dream."

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Analyze Titania's infatuation with Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Well, we know it only happens because Oberon has anointed her eyes with the "love-in-idleness" flower. And, Shakespeare makes perfectly clear, it's absolutely an on-sight reaction based on Bottom's (probably awful) singing as well as his physical appearance:

I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamored of thy note
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape,
And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.

Bottom, half-translated into a donkey, is treated like a king by Titania, who demands that her fairies look after him:

The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise...

The last line also points to the other obvious thing to say about the relationship: it's probably a sexual one, with Bottom asking for "new nuts", in their awakening scene.

The real question, I suppose, is why Oberon might want to cuckold himself (that is, have his wife cheat on him) with a donkey-man in order to revenge himself on Titania - of course, he does regret it by the end of the play. But the facts are simple: Oberon causes the infatuation, and then removes it with another flower.

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In A Midsummer Night's Dream, what insight about love is revealed when Titania vows love for Bottom?

You are of course refering to Act III scene 1, when Titania's slumber is disturbed by the sound of Bottom stumbling around with his new head. What is interesting about this scene is the way that Bottom responds to Titania's confession of instantaneous and passionate love for him. Note what he says:

Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.

Bottom's response is particularly apt in a play where characters are repeatedly shown to have their reason overwhelmed by the force of love, which causes them (and us) to do irrational things and act in stupid ways. Of course, Bottom's quote therefore perfectly describes the behaviour of Titania, who we imagine to be an incredibly sensuous and beautiful woman. There is no way that following reason would lead her to suddenly pledge her undying love for a person as ridiculous as Bottom. Yet again, the capacity of love to blind us and to make us act in stupid ways is reinforced.

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