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Marriage and Relationships in Shakespeare’s
Comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream and
The Merchant of Venice

1

Table of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction: Aim and Method………………………………………………………
...
6
Chapter 3: Marriage in the Romantic Comedies: Theatrical Conventions………………………19
Chapter 4: Real and Illusive Love and Marriages in A Midsummer Night's Dream……………
...
40
Chapter 6: Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………
...
52

2

Chapter I
Introduction: Aim and Method
This research paper analyzes the themes of marriage and relationships in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice, and the way these plays were related with the social
structures and conditions of Shakespeare’s age, attesting the continuity of the fundamental
features of marriage over centuries
...
This being understood, it will be easier to notice that A
Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice reflect aspects of the reality of those
times
...
Precisely, I intend to depict how love and its
resultant emotions are mirrored in these plays and how social relationships, marriages and moral
values are promoted in the background of those times
...

In writing this thesis I appealed to a large variety of sources that helped me display in a
facile manner the diversity of examples that can better illustrate marriages and relationships in
Shakespeare’s comedies
...
Some excerpts included will require further reading
or connecting the excerpts with the play under study
...
Marriage was the central topic of the shakespearen comedy and it was presented in terms
of a social union because it was the foundation of society
...
Although today love is the most important reason for getting married, in Elizabethan
times, it was generally considered foolish to marry for love
...
These criteria

3

are particularized in the second chapter, where we will discover that arranging a marriage was
not the judgment of two people who loved each other, but their union was a fact decided by their
families
...

We will also get acquainted with the role of the females in society, their implication in
cultural activities and also their taste in clothing and beauty
...

Marriage and family were the central institutions of private life for Shakespeare’s
contemporaries
...
The issues that marriage threw up are, therefore
...

Further, this research paper analyzes the Elizabethan stage conventions and the methods
of creating a better effect on the spectators
...
There was an open exchange
between actors and public that contributed to the creation of the theatre’s atmosphere
...
Poetry, asides, soliloquies, female roles played by boys and some other conventions kept
the play moving and delivered the message of the story to the audience
...
Love may be seen as a risky business adventure, as it is in The
Merchant of Venice
...

I intended to highlight the exposure of marriage and relationships in their various ways
on the stage remembering the representative elements of love
...
Shakespeare
supports the idea that people of different religions and different locations could get married, even
though in the Elizabethan age most people married within their district
...
Usually, in
Shakespeare’s plays marriage is never accomplished without some sort of impediments and
adventures before the actions come to that desirable end everyone is expecting
...
And that is
how this chapter takes us into the background where these love-based stories are performed on
stage
...
This play introduces the idea that people’s feelings can be induced by magic and
moonlight so they cannot tell the difference between illusion and reality
...
The combination of plots contains elements which are
alluring and frightening, common and mystical, just as dreams are
...

Marriage and relationships involve social arrangements and love that may occur in
different shapes varying from true love to false love
...
The play involves several relationships
that present the illusive aspects of love and question the existence of true love and of how
individual characters view it
...

From the beginning, we are introduced into the preparations of the wedding between Theseus
and Hippolyta that is to take place because Theseus has won her in battle, and, therefore, he
wants to make her his wife
...
Next, on the stage appears Egeus who complains to the Duke about the
disobedience of her daughter unwilling to marry to the one he chose for her
...
The father is the one who chooses, because women were considered
men’s property
...
Oberon and Titania argue,
Oberon punishes her in his own way, and in the end the man is the one who wins the fight
...

This feature is presented mainly in The Merchant of Venice, where the reader meets Bassanio,
the nominal hero, whose intentions are to marry a rich heiress, not necessarily because of his
love for her, but for the fortune she possesses
...
All he has in his favour are his correct idealistic perceptions, but he has no money
...
This pecuniary marriage is the intrigue of the play and it
determines the other plots of the story
...
The
wonderful moonlight scene depicts the perfect love and happiness of Lorenzo and his lovely
Jessica, and the beautiful comedy of the rings reveals the noble part of Portia in the rescue of
Antonio
...
This is another couple that ends in marriage
...
If Bassanio had
not chosen the right casket, Nerrisa and Gratiano would not have announced their engagement
...
By this marriage
between a Jew and a Christian, the dramatist announces his belief in the fundamental identity of
the two races and suggests that love can resolve all their conflicts
...
Even
the conflict between Christian and Jew is not due to any primary antagonism in human nature,
but to prejudices and accidental differences
...

In this play Shakespeare emphasizes not only the importance of love, but also the social and
moral values between friends
...
In approaching the
topic of this book, the historical and cultural perspective of the Elizabethan age were combined

6

with the theatrical conventions of the stage in order to induce the proper atmosphere and enhance
the enjoyment of understanding literature easily
...
The women in society
Feminism in Shakespeare's plays was more like a joke than a serious statement
...
He did not want to make physically, intelectually or spiritually distinctions
...
Women were treated as inferior to men and had to obey to all male members of the
family
...
Of course, their riots did not always have the effect
they were expecting but at least they encouraged women to be more outspoken
...

For women, the standard of living was consistently lower than for men of similar class
status
...

The role of the women in society was limited to the household activity
...
They only had permission to domestic
information and training in housewifery, which they would have learned from their mothers in
the household
...

The women were expected to be more concerned with their families than with
themselves
...
The

7

Renaissance women of Elizabeth I's reign were very religious, firm believers of the Church, and
feared the forces of Devil as well as they feared the wrath of God
...
They started to think more positively, be more selfconfident and made the expansion of their freedoms a certainty
...

The women from the Renaissance and Elizabethan Age started to be more outspoken than
they used to be
...
So men used to play the female role
...
Flute: Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming
...
“ 1 If women were not in
the position to control things, they started at least to be more outspoken on matters of importance
such as marriage
...
Women wanted to make their
opinions heard
...
It was of big importance to them how
their future husband would be, even though most times their criteria about the perfect man would
not matter in front of their parents’ interests
...

One of the most interesting cultural aspects of the Elizabethan age was the clothing
...
Their
clothes started to contain so many items, which they created in order to make themselves look
more imposing and elegant as well
...
So the social status of each woman was
1

William Shakespeare
...
2003) 1
...
305-9

8

obvious from the first look
...

According to Kathy Elgin, “The keynote for Elizabethan women’s wear is stiffness
...
These were not
clothes to relax in
...
The women also
followed the fashion of the court which preferred fair skin and fair hair
...
Forgeng
writes, “Elizabethan women wore their hair long, although they generally pinned it up
...
A fashionable lady or a young unmarried
woman might leave her hair uncovered, but most women wore at least a simple cap known as a
coif
...

Fashion is so important to them that they will use complex clothing that we may nowadays
consider an instrument of torture
...
Not only clothing but also hair and make-up raise the interest of this new
emancipated woman
...

This is called Venetian Ceruse and they used for it different combinations of white products and
chemical solutions that apparently made their face look perfect but in fact it caused them many
injuries
...

During this period curls are fashionable
...
According to
Courtney Crump Wright,
The bleaching solution used to lighten the hair unfortunately produced baldness with
repeated applications
...
The women faced another problem of teeth
2

Kathy Elgin, Elizabethan England (New York: Chelsea House Pub, 2009), p
...


3

Jeffrey L
...
(Place: Greenwood Press, 2009), p
...
To brighten them the women began brushing with a
compound which initially lightened the teeth but, unfortunately, caused the teeth to turn
dark
...
Inadequate food, hygiene and dangerous
child-birth practices were even more constant enemies of the lower classes
...
Law was one of the many domains women were not
allowed in but still they managed to fight for their rights
...
There was a tension between women’s
right to legal process and the independence that could accompany that right
...

As Tim Stretton observes regarding the situation of women in Elizabethan times,
It may be significant that depictions of slander and false accusation against women
became prominent in dramatic works at a time when concern about male and female
sexual reputation were particularly prominent, when women were coming to dominate
rising levels of defamation prosecutions in the church courts, and when the law of slander
was in flux and undergoing rapid change
...
5
The one example in Shakespeare of a woman at law who is not herself on trial is Portia in
The Merchant of Venice
...
She remains a remarkable example of a woman exercising amazing courage to speak in
public
...
Portia and Venice could be a symbol of the justice of the New Testament and Shylock the
justice of the Old Testament
...
9
...
57-

58
...
Arranging marriage
In the Elizabethan time, marriage was a necessity because women who did not marry risked to be
considered witches
...
Marriage served as a tripartite purpose, which was procreation, avoidance of
fornication, and companionship
...
The laws allowed
men to use corporal punishment on women, children and servants
...
Women lived in poverty, diligently
maintaining themselves and their families at or slightly above poverty
...

Marriage among the very poor was sometimes discouraged by the wider community
when there were fears that in the future the new family might become a drain on parish poor
relief funds
The traditional Catholic view appeared in 1565 in the Summa of Christian Doctrine by
the Dutch Jesuit Peter Canisius, who believed that the ends of marriage were propagation,
companionship and avoidance of fornication
...
Greaves observes,
Traditional concepts of marriage were challenged in Elizabethan society
...
By the Elizabethan era, English Protestants had
ceased to regard matrimony as a sacrament, though Anglican theologians attributed to it
near sacramental quality and continued the custom if including weddings with this
proclivity towards sacramental marriage and objected to the depiction of matrimony in
the Book of Common Prayer as a signification of the mystical union between Christ and
His Church
...
In Puritan writings, a
fourfold analogy was used to represent the convenantal nature of marriage, that is,
marriage as friendship, as government (with the husband and wife being fellow citizens
and governor of the household), as a church (with the husband as pastor and the family

11

and servants as the congregation), and as a business partnership (with the husband and
wife sharing a contractual relationship)
...
The partnership between man and woman is a natural instinct
exactly like the people’s need to live together in a community
...
Living together means mutual help, the freedom to confess to
your partner about worries, needs and hopes
...
Beside these
reasons, there is also the mutual help that makes the weakness of old age and the discomforts of
life more bearable
...

Elizabethan Puritans tended to accept the traditional order for the ends of marriage, with
emphasis on procreation while a strong minority focused on its role as a remedy for
incontinency
...
Whereas English
Catholics adhered to the orthodox view of marriage as a sacrament, Anglicans no longer
accepted this view but still attributed an essentially sacramental quality to matrimony
...
Greaves observes,
The Puritans deviated by stressing the covenantal nature of wedlock, and Separatists
radicalized marriage as a civil rather than a religious institution
...
Most
Anglicans and Puritans agreed with the Catholics that the primary end of marriage was
procreation, though some Puritans focused on wedlock as a remedy for incontinency
...
7
2
...
To be or not to be…a celibate?
6

Richard L
...
116
...
Greaves, Society and Religion in Elizabethan England (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press,1981), p
...


12

Single life was, by some people, believed to be the best option, of course only for those
who had the gift for chastity
...
For wives,
the cessation of chastity as the main target opened the door for the gradual achievement of a new
dignity while, simultaneously, humanist and Protestant educational views resulted in increased
numbers of learned women
...
Although Catholics never fully denigrated matrimony,
which was sacrament, their high regard for celibate life denuded marriage, sex and the family of
social dignity that Protestants accorded them
...

The vow of chastity was regarded as perpetual and in the context of the Catholics
asserted the necessity of the celibate life of clergy
...
Also they could not maintain
their sexual temperance while they were having a wife which with they were supposed to
perpetuate the human species
...
2
...
Some thought
that in a marriage of believers the husband and wife could use their relationship as a mirror to
perceive the love of Christ
...
Men were urged to seek brides who possessed good lineage
and virtue rather than wealth, but most people were primarily concerned that the bride and groom
be of approximately the same social standing
...
A woman who marries beneath her
social degree must remember that the marital bond requires subjection to her husband
...
Marriage was
an important avenue of social mobility
...

A third factor in selecting a spouse was wealth
...
One reason was fear that
good relations would continue only as long as the money lasted
...
In practice, the admonition not to marry for wealth often was ignored
...
In The
Merchant of Venice we have an example of a marriage which Bassanio was interested in mostly
because he was broke
...
Even though
love comes after they meet, the first factor for Bassanio in choosing his spouse regarded the
money she had from her dead father
...
“In
Belmont there is a lady richly left / [
...
” (1
...
6)
A fourth factor in selecting marital partners was personal qualities
...
A woman
should keep her virginity and modesty in order to easily get married
...
The basic maxim was expressed in the note to Proverbs 18:22 in the
Geneva Bible: A man with a virtuous qualification in a maiden is chastity and modesty
...
Virtue was more valuable to Puritan authors than a substantial dowry or physical
attractiveness, so parents must advise children to have more respect for inner graces than
external appearances
...
Again, this criterion was
a matter of greater concern to Puritan commentators than to Anglicans, although it was argued
that wedlock should be based in part on a love that grows and endures
...
The increased education of girls resulted in a greater capacity for
emotional experience, including love
...
After they were taken away and detached from their parents, women got attracted
by their husbands because they needed protection and someone to love them as they no longer
had their families next to them
...
What really mattered were the mutual attraction and the compatibility and not exclusively
the physical beauty, which might cause a vain temptation
...
Age mattered, because it was
important for people to marry someone close to their age
...
A twenty-year gap between husband and wife was
not prefered, even though men felt that the age differential facilitated the husband’s rule of the
household
...
Elderly men must not marry young women, in part due to their
inability to satisfy the latter sexually
...
Neither should a young man marry
an older woman; to do it for wealth is wrong and leads to female domination and jealousy and
unfavorable comparisons with a former husband create unpleasant relationships
...

Wedlock between persons significantly disparate in age was criticized because of their possible
inability to procreate
...
The rate of mortality in childbirth forced some men to marry several
times in the hope of producing a male heir; for such a purpose they tended to select young wives
...
Men were advised to choose a woman with a healty body
and a good complexion, regarding also a woman's fertility as important, which was an opinion
widely shared, especially among the landed classes
...
Political advantage sometimes was considered in the upper social levels
...
Both groups deplored marriage for financial considerations
...

It was recommended to marry at approximately the same age in order to obtain a
successful marriage
...
Because a man was believed to remain fertile until around seventy
and a woman fifty, the optimum ages for marriages were thirty-eight and eighteen, respectively,
but this prescription conflicted with the ideal of age affinity
...
Espousals could be broken by
either party at the ages of fourteen and twelve, but it was often observed that children at this age
rarely had the strength of character or will to reject a marriage arranged by their parents or
guardians
...
From the medical
standpoint, it was doubted that a very young wife had the physical childbirth or feeble children
...

Various reasons may be advanced for delayed marriages in Elizabethan society
...
The tendency of rural young people to begin laboring as
live-in servants doing agricultural or domestic work delayed wedlock
...
In times of
economic expansion or high mortality, earlier marriage was feasible
...


16

Personal factor also accounted for later marriage
...

For child marriages in Elizabethan society, the Church of England bears the major
responsibility, for without a license, such marriages were illegal for girls under twelve and boys
under fourteen
...

To conclude, in a number of areas the customs and views of Anglicans and Puritans on
marriage differ
...
Nevertheless, some Puritans placed more emphasis
on marriage as a sexual remedy than as the means of reproduction
...

One of the most divisive issues on marriage was the role of parental consent and
individual choice
...
Weddings in the upper classes were social pageants,
mainly intended to reinforce the social hierarchy
...
The person whose spouse died faced the question of remarriage, often acute for widows
...
In all three areas – parental
consent, weddings, and remarriage – the Anglicans and the Puritans came into conflict with the
practices of a property-oriented society
...
Weddings, christenings and funerals reflected
status in the divinely ordained hierarchy
...
The social customs of the engagement banquet and
laying the engaged couple together were unsuitable
...
The church regulated the weddings and some of the accompanying
social rites
...
The ring
could have been used on the right hand before wedding as a symbol of fidelity, but it was
transferred during the wedding ceremony from the right to the left hand, where it symbolized
infinite love and the denotation of eternity
...

Weddings were social occasions where the community gathered
...
The celebrations were often filled with profane songs, dancing, games,
outdoor sports and, for the well to do, masques
...
In Elizabethan England, bridesmaids carried cakes and
garlands of gilded wheat which were symbols of fertility
...

Marrying for love was not relevant in the formation of a wedlock
...

We have also got acquinted with the interest of the women in fashion, beauty and
glamour
...
Of course, for the rich women the situation was a bit
different
...


18

Chapter 3
Marriage in the Romantic Comedies: Theatrical Conventions

3
...


Introduction in the Elizabethan theatre

In Shakespeare’s time the favourite leisure activity for many members of the London
society was attending a play in the theatre
...
Other theatres were built soon
afterwards: the Curtain Theatre, The Rose, The Swan, The Globe, The Fortune, and The Red
Bull
...

In the Elizabethan times plays were being performed either in private theatres or in public
theatres
...
The
wealthier ones could sit onstage at right and left
...

The public theatres were for the lower class
...

Because this opened structures depended on natural lighting, all plays took place in the
afternoon
...
A trumpeter would also announce the play in song
...
The stage conventions were similar to those of the
theatre today, but also very different
...


19

According to Muriel Clara Bradbrook, “Themes are a special form of convention; a topic
which is defined by a set of concepts, or perhaps distinguished by certain formulations
...
A convention
may be generally defined as an agreement between writers and reader, whereby the artist is
allowed to distort and simplify his material through a control of the distribution of emphasis
...
The open exchange between actors and the public
contributed to the creation of the theatre’s atmosphere
...

Soliloquies were used to present the character's mind so the audience would be able to
hear his thoughts or arguments also
...
However,
asides were spoken by actors to the audience overhearing them
...
The inflection and interpretation of their lines indicated that they always
knew whereof they spoke and, ultimately, that they found the center to the play in the mysterious
powers of the imagination, a faculty as easily the source of darkness as of light
...
The close
distance between the audience and the stage created a more interactive connection between the
actors and the spectators
...
When
the audience did not like a character, they booed and even threw food at the performers to
demonstrate their displeasure
...
1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1980), p
...

2

Dorothea Kehler, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Critical Essays ( London: Routledge, 2001), p
...


20

Seating in the Elizabethan theatre was determined by wealth and social status
...
Those seats were usually
occupied by the wealthier owners of the theatre who were the most likely to be able to pay this
fee
...
Occasionally, honored guests of the theatre were given seats of honor on the edge of the
stage as well
...
These acting companies
performed wherever they could find an audience, usually setting up their stage in the courtyard
of an inn or sometimes in the home of a nobleman at his request
...
The dialogue would
include all the information that was needed for the audience to know the time and place of the
action, the characters’ identities, and even the physical appearances of the characters
...
Parts of the stage could
represent different or unlocalized places on Earth
...

The traveling acting companies often had the reputation of being vagabonds, largely
because of the audiences that they attracted
...
So, wherever large groups of people
were gathered, thieves, beggars, prostitutes also appeared
...
The female characters were acted by young boys, who were the apprentices of the senior
actors
...
Actors could represent a fool, a hero, a clown, etc
...
Besides being able to act, Elizabethan
actors also had to be able to sing, clown, fence, perform acrobatic feats, and dance
...
The costumes were based on the contemporary clothing styles of the time
...
A crown and purple robes, for example, would immediately identify an
actor as a king
...

The emphasis that was given to a character’s clothing made the theme of disguise a
common convention of Elizabethan theatre
...
Presumably he wore the dark red dress and
yellow cap traditionally associated with Jews
...
After the trumpet songs that
summoned the audiences to the theatre, music played an important role in setting the mood of the
plays
...

We can notice that poetry was the most obvious convention, followed by asides,
soliloquies, female roles played by boys, the daylight convention, movement from place to place
as suggested by the script and the audience’s imagination
...
There was little scenery and mostly
suggestive, for example, one or two trees standing in for a whole forest
...
In Shakespeare’s
plays, theatrical conventions were most evident in passages of dancing, clowning, music
...

3
...
Marriage in the Romantic Comedies
In Shakespeare's romantic comedies marriage occupies a central role
...
In many instances single or multiple marriages are used to provide comic closure,
as in As You Like It and Love’s Labour’s Lost, in which four couples marry or are expected to
marry, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night, in each of which three couples marry,
and Much Ado About Nothing and Two Gentlemen of Verona, in each of which two couples
marry
...
”

3

Marriage is portrayed in several different ways in The Merchant of Venice
...
So he
talks with his friend Antonio and confesses about his plan
...
It is not difficult to read a love-triangle
here: Antonio is a rich older man, besotted with Bassanio, to whom he has already given much;
Bassanio has now decided that he can do even better by marrying an heiress
...
”4
Shakespeare supports the idea that people of different religions and different locations could get
married, even though in the Elizabethan age most people married within their district
...
The religious differences are not an obstacle for the two of them, because
Jessica makes her own rules and becomes a Christian
...
She is conscious of her behaviour and
she is ashamed of her crossdressed garb, and of her exchange of faith and community she has
lived in
...

The defeat of Shylock and the conversion of Jessica through marriage to Lorenzo might
likewise appear to be a victory of provincialism over cosmopolitanism
...
36
...
50
...
Mahon observes, “To enter Belmont, Jessica must become a Christian, as it
appears non-Christians are not allowed
...
So as not to be
recognized, Jessica must risk her gender and sexual preference by transforming herself into the
“lovely garnish of a boy” (2
...
39, 45) whom Lorenzo heartily admires
...
In
The Merchant of Venice we see how a dead father still controls the future of his daughter
...
The three caskets that
Portia’s father left after his death started a contest for Portia’s hand, in which suitors from
various countries choose among a gold, a silver, and a lead casket
...
Mahon observes, “The appearances of the first two caskets are illusory: gold
offers death and blindness, silver offers idiocy
...
In these trials, one
deliberately chooses life or death
...
The Fall came from choosing illusion rather than
reality; and illusion, absence, privation are traditional attributes of evil and Hell
...
To be willing to hazard all
brings one to reality, to Portia, to the “inheritance”
...
Harold Bloom discusses the significance of Portia’s ring, quoting Karen
Newman: “Portia’s ring accumulates more meaning than a symbol of her love, and as Karen
Newman points out, when Bassanio gives it away, he “opens his marriage to the forces of
disorder”
...
Once he admits that he gave it away to the lawyer that saved Antonio’s life, she cautions
her new husband: Let not that doctor e’er come near my house—Since he hath got the jewel that
I loved, And that which you did swear to keep for me, I will become as liberal as you, I’ll not

5
6

John W
...
337
...
Mahon, The Merchant of Venice: New Critical Essays, (London: Routledge, 2002), p
...
Know him I shall, I am well
sure of it
...
7
So, the ring represented fidelity and the loss of it might mean infidelity
...
According to Alexander Leggatt, “The comic stylization of the ring sequence,
though it functions effectively on its own term, involves a narrowing of the play’s stylistic and
emotional range
...
This sense of instability is reflected in the dramatic idiom
...
This combination produces shifting, unpredictable results, from the trust in
convention in the casket scenes to the distaste of the trial scene, in which the conventionalized
action suggests an unhealthy narrowing of the vision
...
”8
As we know Shakespeare would describe marriage from a dramatic point of view as
being the origin of the tragedy, the source of historical legitimacy, while in comedies marriage
would represent the romantic point of reconciliation
...

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare shows many different kinds of love and
marriage
...
At the start of the play,
Theseus is impatient for his marriage immediately making the difference between his desire and
social reasons
...
Theseus
and Hypolita appear in the daylight both at the beginning and at the end of the play
...
Theseus attempts to keep his world of reason separate from the
7

Harold Bloom, William Shakespeare: The Comedies (New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009), p
...


8

Alexander Leggatt, Shakespeare’s Comedy of Love (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p
...


25

world of romantic love
...

Hippolyta uses reason to relay a desire for love, but she only uses reason in order to better
supplicate her husband, a man of reason
...
We get to know that the play happens for them rather than to them
...
”9
There is also the power struggle between the couple Oberon and Titania, who are
quarrelling over the custody of a human boy
...
Oberon puts her under the spell of having to fall in love with an amateur actors
called Bottom whose head has been transformed into an ass’s head
...
Titania has been a protecting spirit for Hippolyta and Oberon to
Theseus
...

The main couples are Lysander and Hermia and Demetrius and Helena
...
At the beginning, Hermia’s
father wants her to marry Demetrius, but she loves Lysander and remaining with no alternatives
they decide to run away
...
Being newly
in love, Theseus proposes her either to die or to become a nun
...
Demetrius also asks for Egeus’s will to be obeyed, but
Lysander gets involved in the argument and advises Egeus and Demetrius to get married if they
love each other so much
...
However, like in all Shakespeare’s comedies, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream also has a happy ending
...
142
...

The Pyramus and Thisbe play-within-the-play shows that love can also have tragic
outcomes
...
Perhaps as they watch
Pyramus and Thisbe, the lovers might feel particularly grateful that the misunderstandings they
went through in the wood ended in a good way
...
In contrast to this wedding, the mechanicals choose for
Theseus a plot inappropriate for a wedding: love tragedy
...
The moment we
meet the mechanicals in I
...
Even
without the early reminder that Pyramus would kill himself, the audience would at once
recognize in the familiar story parallels
...
Unlike Hermia
and Lysander, Pyramus and Thisbe, will find their sympathy in choice brought to such sudden
catastrophe as Hermia and Lysander had expressly feared
...
In the end, peace is
restored and harmony is established, followed by marital satisfaction and happiness
...
Frequently, the
young lovers had to struggle and overcome obstacles in order to make their love win
...
With the love running through their veins, having no other choice but to listen to
their hearts, lovers would fight so nobody can separate them
...
We can notice it both in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and in The Merchant of Venice
...
Of course, her disguise
has the deliberate scope to save her husband and his friend from the unmerciful Jew Shylock, but
we will also be meeting this gender mix-ups in other plays
...
Viola has a twin brother, Sebastian, whom she believes to be dead,

27

but when she disguises as a boy, one of Sebastian’s friends will mistake her as being his friend
...

Shakespeare relied heavily on stock characters for his plays as we will notice several
stereotype characters, such as the young couple, the fool, the clever servant, the drunk
...

Theatre being the most favourite activity for members of the London society had to rely
on stage conventions and an open exchange between actors and audience in order to create the
right atmosphere
...

It is important to be familiar with the history of Shakespeare’s theatre to better
understand how marriages were portrayed on stage
...
In The Merchant of Venice marriage is presented either as a dangerous business
adventure that determine the relationship of two friends to become stronger, a mythological
quest, a father’s plan to choose the right husband for his daughter and the possibility of people
from different cities or with different religions to get married
...
A Midsummer Night’s Dream breaks the theatrical illusion by placing the actions in a
fantastical world of fairies and magic
...

Marriage and relationships are presented in their various ways on stage
...


28

Chapter 4
Real and Illusive Love and Marriages in A Midsummer Night's Dream
4
...

It is a play about lovers, including madness and magic
...

Love is an important theme in the play and, whether it is true love or induced by magic, it
inhibits people's ability to distinguish between what is real or simply an illusion
...
It is so dazzling that the reader has to suspend reality and ask
himself whether the story too is an illusion
...
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a cheerful comedy in which
particular characters fight for their love, follow it wherever it goes and, in some cases, they even
use special resources to distribute love to others after their own will
...
The
entire play is centered around the idea of marriage, and, in fact, it ends with a triple marriage
...
Love is not brought into discussion, because she is his trophey and has to
obey to him
...
To show his leadership, Theseus went with Hercules in the land of the Amazons
...
When Hercules

29

and Theseus arrived at the Amazon settlement, they invited the queen of the Amazons on board
their ship
...
Theseus tricked Hippolyta, and set
sail for Athens before she could get off the ship
...

Next, on the stage appears Egeus who complains to the Duke about the disobedience of
her daughter unwilling to marry to the one he chose for her
...
The father is the one who chooses, because women were considered men’s property
...
Also, in the world of the
mortals marriage has to be approved by the Gods, that’s why Egeus asked for Theseus’s
intervention
...
In the last
case we have as example the quarrel between Titania and Oberon, who fight for an indian boy
...

The fairy world also plays an important role In A Midsummer Night’s Dream
...
Their home is the forest outside of Athens, and
their quarrels are blamed for miserable weather and poor crops
...

The marriages do not provide closure by occurring at the end of the play
...

Shakespeare presents a group of young lovers so irresponsible in their actions that their
behavior can be explained only by the burning love
...

The play has two settings: Athens which represents reality, order and daylight and the
woods, the world of the fairies, which symbolizes illusion, magic and a place of darkness
...
The play involves the events surrounding their marriage, but
they will appear only at the beginning and at the end of the play to restore the order
...
He brings with him two young boys, Demetrius and Lysander
and presents Hermia’s refusal to marry Demetrius as the reason of his displeasure, while pointing
to Lysander and blaming him for her disobedience
...

Theseus gives her time to reconsider her decision until the day of his wedding, when she will
choose either to marry or to die or become a nun
...
They confess to Helena, who is in love with
Demetrius
...
Both couples get lost in the woods
...
Titania and Oberon are arguing about an Indian boy and
because Oberon wants to control her, sends his servant to bring him a magical flower whose
juice makes anyone fall in love with the first creature seen
...

Puck puts a spell on one of the actors rehearsing in the forest, Nick Bottom, transforming
his head into that of an ass and determining him to be the first creature that Titania sees when she
wakes up
...
Even though Puck’s errors lead to much confusion, everything will be corrected,
Oberon is reunited with Titania, the two couples end together in love with the right person and
forget what has happened with the help of Puck’s magic
...
Puck suggests to the
audience that what they have experienced could have been a dream
...
2

Illusive love and marriage

The play involves several relationships that present the illusive aspects of love in the play
and question the existence of true love and of how individual characters view it
...

First, there is the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta
...
Theseus discusses his right to marry the
defeated Amazonian women, not as a desire of true love, but because he had won her in battle
and marries her as a trophy of war
...

Theseus and Hippolyta appear in the daylight at both the beginning and the end of the
play’s main action
...
Athens represents
the logical side of human interaction; Theseus is the ruler and Hippolyta is a warrior bride, both
representing order and stability, contrasting with the uncertainty and instability of most of the
play
...

Also, there is the relationship between Oberon and Titania that reflects another example
of a complicated marriage in which the male wants to be in authority
...
Oberon is jealous of Titania’s power and
tries to show his domination in a humiliating manner
...
He would have not embarrassed her
like that if he really felt love for Titania, because instead of making her fall in love with an ass,
he could have make her fall in love with him
...
They control and live in a fairy paradise which
sometimes is a mirror of the human society, but sometimes it is far superior to it, operating
according to a different kind of reality
...
The Indian boy is a subtext referring to the era’s mentality
...
If Titania first says that she is keeping the Indian boy for her
mother’s sake and will not give him up for all of fairyland, later in order to reconcile with
Oberon, she will give him up without a thought and the boy will not be mentioned any more
...
Anyway, when this quarrel ends, another begins
...
He does not deny it, but instead tries to accuse her, in turn, for hypocrisy saying
that she loves Theseus
...
Anyway, Titania rejects
Oberon’s accusation
...

Oberon and Titania are a sexual couple whose quarreling and reconciliation represent the
cause of the violation of the natural order
...
Oberon is never called Titania’s husband and she is
never called her wife, but their marriage is almost taken for granted, even though never explicitly
confirmed
...
In contrast to
the human world, where marriage, living and loving with a partner is a necessity, the fairy world
represents the force of nature that can manipulate, dominate with magic and sexual violence
...
The forest is representative of the wilder, irrational side, where nothing seems to
follow a normal way
...
Anything can happen in the forest, both wonderful and terrible
...

The fairies are a central element to the fantastic atmosphere of illusions
...
Fairies are
used to create a magic world and to represent the supernatural power of love, symbolized by the
love potion
...

The abusive use of magic causes disorder just like when Puck, by mistake, puts the love
potion to Lysander’s eyelids, and there are also other examples
...
After
Puck has put the magical flower’s juice in the eyelids of Titania, Bottom’s singing woke her up,
making her madly fall in love with him
...
This can lead to weird behaviour, just like when she

33

compares him with an angel asking him to sing and show her more of his beautiful shape
...

Titania summons four fairies and orders them to be kind and courteous with Bottom,
naming him a gentleman
...
She reminds them to treat Bottom with respect because she notices that
the fairies may not believe him worthy of such spoiling
...
After Titania dismisses the fairies, the lovers hug themselves and fall asleep
together
...
We
shall see that the same magic that created disorder is the one that, by restoring the balance of
love, will also resolve the tensions occurred during the play
...
After being a spectator to what
has happened in the woods, especially between Titania and Bottom, he feels pity for her and
decides to end this magic
...
Bottom has been an instrument that has, by chance, helped them
reconcile
...
Dreams are linked to the
magical events from the forest
...
Shakespeare tries to recreate the environment of dreams in the play
through the intervention of the fairies in the magical forest
...
This kind of illusion is essential to the atmosphere of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as it gives the play a fantastical allure, rather than a serious drama
...
Egeus has already promised her hand to Demetrius, who does not feel true
love for Hermia, but believes to be his right to marry her and benefit upon this marriage
...
Hermia has to make a decision until Theseus’s wedding, but

34

instead of death or nunnery, she runs away with Demetrius
...
She further accepts his plan to elope
...
After they fall asleep in the woods, Puck mistakes
Lysander with the Demetrius and places the magic juice in Lysander’s eyes making him fall in
love with Helena, who was searching for her beloved one, Demetrius
...
When the two couples meet, Helena accuses her
old friend of being part of the plot to ridicule her, but Hermia is shocked to see that Lysander
claims not to love her anymore
...

In order to correct his mistakes Puck puts the love potion in Demetrius’ eyes to make
him fall in love with Helena and then there will be two lovers in love with the same woman
...
We can see that
in the woods, the land of magic, love is not a feeling that originates from the heart, but from an
enchanted potion able to play with human’s destiny
...
However, magic changes his mind and determines him to
follow the will of the fairies
...

Helena is another example of illusive love that is rather an obsessive one than a real love
...
As Helena tells Demetrius, “The more you beat me, I will
fawn on you/ Use me but as your spaniel; spurn me, strike me,/ Neglect me, lose me; only give
me leave,/ Unworthy as I am, to follow you
...
1
...
It is notable to
remark that, by the end of the play, she does not express her happiness with her situation,
because there is still left in her a sense of confusion
...
52
...


35

Helena betrays her friend by telling Demetrius about Hermia and Lysander’s plan, hoping
that he will forget them and his love will return to her
...
If Lysander speaks about love, Demetrius’s fake love hides jealousy and rivalry
against his enemy
...
Egeus does not
deny his love for Demetrius, but also never mentions his love for his daughter
...
Demetrius does not defend
himself and neither does Shakespeare give an explanation for his behaviour, but Egeus fights
back and accuses Lysander of bewitching Hermia with false love
...
Demetrius and Helena will finally love each other, but their loves will be unequal
because Demetrius needs to be loved less in order to love at all, and she first seems to recognize
that the more she pursues him, the less he wants her
...
Love’s idealization becomes
deification
...
Under the influence of the love juice, Demetrius
falls in love with Helena and hopes to marry her, while Helena believes both he and Lysander are
mocking her and accuses them of being uncivil and unmanly
...
When the two couples wake up, all
the previous night’s events will seem like a dream and Demetrius will love Helena and Lysander
will love Hermia again
...
There is one expression of Lysander that suggests true love: “The course of true
love never did run smooth” (1
...
134)
...
Being affected by
magic, their innocence is lost and their minds are filled with doubt
...
The same thing happens with the other couple who
has been affected by Puck’s love potion
...
Because of their clumsy performance, the craftsmen give the play a joyful and a
humorous ending
...
In this story, Pyramus mistakenly believes that
Thisbe has been killed by a lion and, therefore, decides to kill himself
...

This play-within-a-play, which the amateur actors started to rehearse in the forest, is only
slightly connected to the plot of the play
...
This group of common craftsmen are
meeting to rehearse a play about which they know nothing, but have to present it at the duke’s
wedding celebration
...

These characters have names which give hints about the type of craft they practice
...
The artisans are some common characters trying to
excel their condition by meddling into the world of the theater
...
So, Bottom is a new victim
of Oberon’s magic
...
He doubts her love, feels a little scared, but he lets
himself enjoy the dream he believes to be experiencing
...

Bottom’s singing wakes Titania, who falls madly in love with him at first sight
...
Titania tries with her words to make herself more
attractive to Bottom, but he seems immune to her beauty and even to her royal presence
...
Titania directs the fairies to feed Bottom with
sweet, rare fruits and they are to hunt and steal from living creatures, so that they can attend to

37

him when he goes to bed, when he is asleep and when he wakes up
...
Then, it follows a funny scene in
which Bottom leans back and asks the fairies to bring him gifts
...
He is brought into the
enchanted, erotic world of Titania containing sexual tensions that give the whole experience a
distinctly erotic aura
...
Titania finds him
as wise as beautiful and falls in love with Bottom for the sound of his voice and shape of his
looks
...

He is a prisoner of love, as Titania says to him not to wish to leave the forest
...

Bottom is having the time of his life, while Titania takes him as an object of her sexual desires
...
Here is where we
begin to see what the play-within-the-play is all about
...

Contrast is one of the most present characteristic of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as it is
emphasized by Titania and Bottom, two of the figures less compatible with each other What it
makes A Midsummer Night’s Dream so charming is the fact that it has so many dramatic
illusions
...
The play
presents the notion that what is considered true love is often not love at all but selfishness or
infatuation
...
It was
intended as a joyous comedy, most likely to celebrate a court wedding, and the emphasis is fun,

38

with comic elements arising from amazing contrasts
...
The love theme is
an illusion, the play being centered mostly on sex and desire
...
Titania is beautiful, Bottom is grotesque, Helena is tall, Hermia is short,
Puck plays pranks, Bottom is the victim of pranks, the lovers are serious, and the fairies are
graceful and magical, while the craftsmen are earthly, unskillful and happy
...

To the audience, the emotions and actions of the characters within the play, which relate
to love, especially during their time within the fairy forest, are equally fictitious
...
Love occurs in different shapes and it varies from
true love to false love, showing love’s blindness and its inconstancy
...


39

Chapter 5
Romantic and Pecuniary Marriages in The Merchant of Venice

This play is based upon three of the most radical of the teachings of the Bible: “Judge
not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24), “He that loseth his
life for my sake shall find it” ( Mattew: 10:39), ”Love does no harm to a neighbor
...
” (Romans: 13:10) Presentiment, intuition and superstition are
related to the central ideas, while opinion and prejudice are introduced with rare art into this
play, which opens with a statement freighted with presentiment
...
The
love of Antonio for Bassanio supplies the situation that starts the first conflict of the drama
...
Then in turn, the happy
culmination of Bassanio's love affair supplies Antonio with the legal skill of his friend's wife, by
which he escapes the wickedness of Shylock
...

The play begins with Antonio, who is sad, and neither he, nor his friends can explain the
reason for it
...
But Antonio is not sad about that,
because his financial situation is good enough and would still have money, if his boats were to
sink
...
Antonio’s cousin, Bassanio, appears with his friends
Lorenzo and Gratiano, and Salarino and Solanio decide to leave Antonio in their company as
long as they did not succeed to cheer him up
...
When Antonio is told that he is in love, he simply answers
“Fie, fie!” (I
...
49)
Undoubtedly, from the first act we get familiar with the relationship between Bassanio
and Antonio, who would do anything for each other
...
He plans to woo the hand of a rich lady from Belmont, whose dead father left her a
big fortune
...
For Antonio, if Bassanio has doubts about their
friendship, it would mean worse than if he got bankrupt
...
It is not difficult to read a love-triangle here: Antonio is a rich
older man with feelings for Bassanio, to whom he has already given a lot of money, while
Bassanio has now decided that his situation can greatly improve by marrying a rich heiress
...
For this reason,
Bassanio talks about her in terms of modern commerce, which emphasizes his materialistic
intentions
...

Because Antonio’s ships are at sea, he cannot afford to give Bassanio the money he needs
in order to appear as a rich noble man and be able to woo Portia, but Antonio promises him all
the support his reputation can offer him
...
Shylock reproaches them that
they have treated him like an animal, mocked him and spit on him, but Bassanio reminds him
that he may not give this loan to some friends, but it is better to think of them as enemies that
would have to suffer the consequences if they do not pay in time
...

Mainly, in this play Shakespeare presents the pecuniary marriage of Bassanio, the
nominal hero, whose intentions are to marry a rich heiress, not because of his love for her, but
for the fortune she possesses
...
All
he has in his favour are his correct idealistic perceptions, but he has no money
...
However, his words about the lady let us see that he is in love with her, and his
confidence of success proves the assurance of a lover
...

Antonio is a generous and gifted friend with a capacity to love so great that he would
lay down his life for his friend
...
Venice in
Shakespeare's day was the center of both the financial and legal world
...
Shakespeare chose to dramatize this play by adding the
racial hatred of the Jew, a very deeply rooted prejudice in the minds of all people
...
This introduces into the play the conflict of the greatest interest, that between
the Christian and the Jew
...
It is clear to us that Shylock wants to lend
Antonio the money not as a deal between friends in search for reconciliation, but rather as a
cover of his vindictive intentions
...
It is very important to highlight
the significance of this character, Shylock, because with his terms of the loan he is attempting to
Antonio’s life, which will determine the pecuniary marriage between Bassanio and Portia not to
be entirely finalized
...
For this reason, the life or death consequences upon Antonio also affect
the emotional love triangle
...

The object of Bassanio's quest, the beautiful and wealthy Portia, exhibits considerable
concern as one after another of her would-be husbands are choosing among the caskets
...
Her
second suitor, the Prince of Aragon, chooses the silver casket and is rewarded with the picture of
a blinking idiot
...
Although the audience may know more of his
weaknesses than she does, Bassanio at least stands out well in the mass of the suitors
...

This rich young lady is the surviving daughter of a wealthy but eccentric old father, whose will

42

demands that her hand shall be given in marriage only to the one who shall choose the right one
among three caskets arranged in accordance with his plan
...
Suitors have come and have gone, some refusing to take the risk of loss and leaving
without making any choice
...
Bassanio, however, who had previously come to
Belmont, had already made a very favorable impression on both Nerissa and Portia, who
remembers him worthy of praise
...

The inscriptions upon the caskets are marked with particular significance and are the
direct result of the basic ideas upon which this play rests
...
7
...
In his argument before choosing, he
showed clearly that what he desired was the great wealth of Portia, as symbolized by the golden
casket
...
A little better was the
choice of the Prince of Arragon, who was taken by the inscription on the silver casket: "Who
chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves
...
7
...
Then, in his arrogant pride, he felt sure
that it was he who deserved the noble Portia and he opened the silver casket only to find "the
portrait of a blinking idiot" (2
...
3) to suggest to him his true worth
...
" (2
...
5) His love for Portia was so true and so intense that he was willing to risk all to win
her
...
He could not lose on
these conditions, for the inscriptions were of such a character that the false must lose and the true
must win
...
The ingenious scheme of her father was vindicated and Bassanio became
the happy husband of the lovely Portia
...
, 2004), p
...
All further
references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the text
...
No
wonder the daughter of a father so smart should herself prove to be clever in the ulterior defence
of her husband's friend
...
She told Nerissa that if she was forced to marry someone she did not
care for, she said she would chose again: “If I should marry him, I should marry twenty
husbands” (1
...
60–61)
...
Forced to marry
against her will, Portia suggests that she might choose new sexual partners
...

Shakespeare makes clear that Portia confirms her fidelity to Bassanio, even before he
picks the correct casket: “One half of me is yours, the other half yours” (3
...
16)
...
In this way, the play suggests a strong connection between a wife’s consent and her
fidelity
...
If he lost the ring, things could change upon her
will
...
2
...
When she gives the ring to Bassanio, at the same time and in the same
manner Nerissa gives a ring to Gratiano
...
It is
important to mention that this marriage occurred because of true love, but it also bore some
conditions
...

Shylock’s own daughter, Jessica, chooses to marry a Christian, hoping for better
conditions and mentioning that their house is a hell
...
Moreover, his sorrow for the ring
of his wife is more for its value than for its sentiment
...
By this marriage
between a Jew and a Christian, the dramatist announces his belief in the fundamental identity of
the two races and suggests that love can resolve all their conflicts
...
Even
the conflict between Christian and Jew is not due to any primary antagonism in human nature,

44

but to prejudices and accidental differences
...
vi
...
In cutting
herself off from her father, Jessica also divorces herself from her Jewish ancestry
...
vi
...

She escapes from her father’s house dressed as a page and is aware of her behavior, “For I am
much asham’d of my exchange” (II
...
35)
...
Lorenzo: I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you
can the getting up of the Negro’s belly: the Moor is with child by you Launcelot!
Launcelot: It is much that the Moor should be more than reason: but if she be less than an
honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for
...
v
...
Reading
Portia as the heroic, subversive female proves particularly problematic when we place her
actions in relation to other categories of difference
...
3
3

Emma Smith, Shakespeare’s Comedies: A Guide to Criticism (Cornwall: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p
...


45

The play suggests that Portia’s suitors represent the world in search of a false concept of
the Ideal, judging according to the appearances
...
Belmont represents the
home of the Ideal, where the fulfillment is achieved
...

When they are announced that Antonio’s ships have miscarried and that the Jew would
rather have his flesh than twenty times the value of the sum, Portia offered to pay six thousand
ducats and proposed Bassanio to go and see his friend
...
So, Bassanio departs while Portia plans
with Nerissa to go and help them, saying that they are going to see their husbands before they
even think of them
...

When she finds that Bassanio's friend, Antonio, is in danger for the sum of a few thousand
ducats, she instantly offers thrice the amount
...

In the court, even the Duke recognizes Shylock’s cruelty and tells him to show mercy for
Antonio, but Shylock will not change his mind
...
They remind Shylock that he may take a
pound of Antonio’s flesh, but it is against the law of Venice to make him bleed, so if one single
drop of his flesh will shed, he will be punished
...
So, the situation is changed against Shylock, whose life lies at the mercy of the
Duke
...
As a reward for saving Antonio, Portia asks for
Bassanio’s ring and he heavily and with sorrow gives it
...

Portia’s ring accumulates more meaning than a symbol of her love, and when Bassanio
gives it away, he opens his marriage to the forces of disorder
...
Once he admits that he gave it away to
the lawyer that saved Antonio’s life, she warns her new husband: “Let not that doctor e’er come
near my house—Since he hath got the jewel that I loved, /And that which you did swear to keep
for me,/ I will become as liberal as you, /I’ll not deny him anything I have, /No, not my body,
nor my husband’s bed
...
” (5
...
223–229)
Portia seems to be telling Bassanio that by losing the ring, he loses the male privileges
the exchange of women and the rings insured
...
She pretends that she might be powerless to the
charms of the Doctor that was able to get the ring from Bassanio
...
Bassanio forgives and confirms her innocence with
the idea that Portia can sleep with the Doctor: “Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow, / When
I am absent then lie with my wife
...
1
...

The legal skill of Bassanio's wife has repaid many times the value of the money Antonio
had expended on fitting out the expedition to Belmont
...
Shakespeare, therefore, was not satisfied to close the story of Bassanio
and Portia without describing their completed love after the Trial Scene
...
After describing with
exquisite taste the beautiful Caskets Scene and showing the self-abandoning love of Bassanio for
the fair Portia, he postponed the love story until he had depicted the triumph of love in Portia's
efforts on behalf of her husband's friend, in his danger from Shylock
...
The wonderful moonlight scene depicts the perfect love

47

and happiness of Lorenzo and his lovely Jessica, and the beautiful comedy of the rings reveals
the noble part of Portia in the rescue of Antonio
...
The element of
romance in their love has been absorbed into the great reality of complete devotion
...

The Trial Scene, deservedly one of the most popular in Shakespeare, is also one of the
deepest and fullest in meaning
...

It is needless to say that Shakespeare does not treat these religions as dogmatic systems of
theology, with which a dramatist has nothing to do, but as practical advice or codes of moral
principles
...

The Merchant of Venice is primarily the story of Antonio and his friends; it was
necessary for the dramatist to present clearly the completed love of Bassanio and Portia that had
been the means of the triumph of Antonio in the Trial Scene
...
In the fourth act, love had triumphed in Portia's
deliverance of Antonio, and with the close of this act the play passed beyond the point of highest
passion
...

This happy culmination of all the stories of the play seems to be an attempt of the
dramatist to depict his conception that love is the true and, indeed, the only reconciler of all our
human conflicts
...
The love of Bassanio and Portia
and their united love for Antonio, on the one hand, and the love of Lorenzo and Jessica, on the
other, suggest that all such conflicts may be reconciled under the sweet and holy influences of
love
...
This conclusion of the play presents a full and final
solution of the conflict of the drama
...
Marriage is not a romantic affair in the
play, because here all of the marriages exist for convenience or necessity
...
The ring

48

episode provides a proof about their readiness to compromise
...
These wedding rings reflect faithfulness and loyalty in
marriage
...

Lorenzo and Jessica got married despite their different religions
...
Shakespeare has approached the themes of love,
marriage, and even friendship in a very successful manner
...
1

Conclusions

This study has analyzed the representations of marriage and relationships in two
Shakespearian comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice, and the
reflection of the social background of the age in the plays of the time
...
Marriage is presented as a social contract, where the possible spouse is selected
carefully taking into count the economic prospects, but we witness also couples that are matched
by their own will
...

The 2nd chapter has presented the difference between men and women in the Elizabethan
age and what was the female role in society
...

Even though women were under the authority of men, they started to fight for more
rights, to become more self-confident and to make a contribution in cultural activities, in fashion,
glamour and beauty
...
As we have seen in these two
comedies, an union was more like a family business than a relationship based on love
...

Further, in the third chapter the reader has learned about the Elizabethan stage
conventions and the methods of creating a better effect on the spectators
...
In this chapter, we have learned that
performing a play on stage was more difficult than is today because actors used poor scenery and
symbolic object to represent significant details upon the location or event of the play
...

Later, there have been presented the forms in which love occurs in A Misummer Night’s
Dream
...
Love and marriage
appear in different shapes and vary from true love to false love, showing love’s blindness and it’s
inconstancy
...
We have learned
that what is considered true love is often not love at all but selfishness or infatuation
...
Mainly, in this play Shakespeare presents the pecuniary marriage of Bassanio
whose intentions are to marry a rich heiress, not because of his love for her, but for the fortune
she possesses
...
This chapter has shown that marriage is not a
romatic affair in the play, because all marriages here exist for convenience or necessity
...
This should
lead the reader step by step in the world of Shakespeare’s comedies where true love is less
important in arranging a marriage, but the male domination and social rules are those who
decide
...


51

Bibliography
Bloom, Harold
...
New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009
...
A History of Elizabethan Drama, Vol
...

Crump Wright, Courtney
...
Maryland: Univeristy Press of
America,1993
...
Elizabethan England
...

Forgeng, Jeffrey L
...
Place: Greenwood Press, 2009
...
Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s Comedies
...

Greaves, Richard L
...
Minneapolis: Univeristy of
Minnesota Press, 1981
...
London: Routledge, 2001
...
Shakespeare’s Comedy of Love
...

Lombardi, Barber Cesar
...
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012
...
The Merchant of Venice: New Critical Essays
...

Shakespeare, William
...
New Jersey: Wiley Publishing, 2008
Shakespeare, William
...
Clayton: Prestwick House, Inc
...
The Merchant of Venice
...
, 2004
Smith, Emma
...
Bodmin: Blackwell Publishing,
2004
...
Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England
...


52



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