Midsummer Night’s Dream - Shakespeare Case

In the novel, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare references moon imagery. In the first act when moon imagery is mentioned it is representing leading up to an event of some sort. For example, 1.5 states “Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow this old moon wanes!” This demonstrates how Theseus thinks that it will take a long time until he marries Hyppolyta, when its only four days away. For example, on 1.165, it states, “Steal fourth thy father’s house tomorrow night” At this part of the novel Lysander and Hermia are planning to run away to the woods to get married, which is a big event in this book. In the novel they further discuss the event of Hermia and Lysander running away together on 1.210. It states, “Tomorrow night, when phoebe doth behold…”. In short, these few examples represent leading up to major events later on in the novel.

Throughout the novel, they talk more about night and all of the events the moon and night time leads to. Another example is on 2.5 when Quince states, “Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Dutchess, on his wedding day at night.” This shows that they have only little time until they perform their play at the wedding, which is at night. One last example is on 1.100, when Quince also says, “…to con them by tomorrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight.” This explains how the craftsmen must be in the woods (the next event), by night time. Overall, during the novel, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, moon imagery I mentioned countless times. Shakespeare expresses moon imagery as foreshadowing an important event later on in the novel, which we will read about further into the book.