从《仲夏夜之梦》看莎士比亚的爱情观

Abstract"A midsummer night's dream" is one of the most romantic comedies in Shakespeare's plays, its main characteristic of his thought is against the feudal marriage,shows the pursuit of free love and the freedom of marriage. Shakespeare skillfully sets circumstances,and makes the atmosphere of suspense through the myth manufacturing, and finally makes everyone get the happiness of love. This drama mainly pay attention to the creations of female images who are always fighting against difficulties to pursue of free love.All these images express Shakespeare’s pursuit of love, and shows a view of humanism love which is full of liberty, equality and fraternity.Key words:Shakespeare;the view of humanism love;free love;the happiness of love.摘要《仲夏夜之梦》是莎士比亚戏剧中最富浪漫主义色彩的喜剧，其主要的思想特征是反抗封建的婚姻，追求自由恋爱以及自由婚姻。

莎士比亚巧设情节，通过神话制造悬念，最后使每个人都获得了幸福的爱情。

莎士比亚在戏剧中主要注重塑造追求自由恋爱的女性形象，寄托了自己对美好爱情的追求，同时表现了一种自由、平等、博爱的人文主义爱情观。

关键词：莎士比亚；人文主义爱情观；自由恋爱；美好爱情Contents Introduction (1)I.Basic Information of the author (1)II.Introduction of the book (2)III. Introduction of Shakespeare’s View of Love (2)IV.Shakespeare’s View of Love Expressed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (3)Conclusion (4)Bibliography (5)Analysis of Shakespeare’s View of Love fromA Midsummer Night’s DreamIntroductionWilliam Shakespeare is one of the greatest dramatists during the period of the European Renaissance,he plays a very important role in the world history of literature and in the history of drama. The age in which he lived was the age of Renaissance in Europe, humanism was the main thought weapon. And Shakespeare's works brightly manifested the characteristic of humanism literature,he reached a high level in thought as well as art, which brought the European humanism literature to the peak."A midsummer night's dream" is one of his famous comedies.And it is also one of his typical works to express the humanism love.The paper aims at analysing the reflect of his view of humanism love in "A midsummer night's dream".I.Basic Information of the authorWilliam Shakespeare was born on April 23,1564 in Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire.There is no official record of Shakespeare’s schooling,but it is widely believed that he attended the local grammar school and read widely. William Shakespeare is one of the greatest dramatists during the period of the European Renaissance.He has great contribution to the humanism.The humanism ideal, equality, fraternity, humanitarian thoughts and the praise for youth, friendship and love which reflect in his works are of great practical significance in today's society. In Shakespeare's masterpiece, the creation of his drama is his main achievements.Among them, the song of love is the basic major themes of Shakespeare's dramas. Shakespeare’s dramas about love are mainly reflected in some comedies, their contents are colorful, some are from the long Italian stories, some use ancient works, and some come from folklore. In these dramas, the basic theme is to sing for love and friendship,and the basic mode is that a pair of lovers or two young men and women fall in love with each other at first sight,we all know that true love never run smooth, so they have to come over all obstacles and finally go through all of them well that ends well,those stories happen in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "As You Like it","Twelfth Night", "The Merchant of Venice" and other dramas in which the two "basic" themes have reflected.II.Introduction of the book"A midsummer night's dream" is a love story of two young men and women in the middle-age Greek.Two young men Lysander and Demetrius both fall in love with the young woman Hermia, and Hermia loves Lysander while her good friend Helena loves Demetrius. The disagreement of Hermia’s father and the interference of prince of Athens force Hermia and Lysander to run away from the city to the forest which is a few miles away from the town. Helena tells Demetrius the news,and they follow Hermia and Lysander to the forest. There are the fairy king, the fairy queen and their little elves living in the forest.At this time, the king and the queen don’t get along well with each other in the disagreement of a "in son".They both want the "in son" to serve for them. In order to let the fairy queen make concessions, the king sends his little elve Puck to get to the magic juice to tease the fairy queen. This kind of magic juice can make you fall in love with anyone who you see at the first sight when you wake up if it drops in the eyelid.The king gets the "in son" after he succeeds in teasing the queen and he also send his little elves to help those four young people. Because the appearance of the juice, the whole story has changed dramatically. Athought Elves drop juice to wrong people which makes the relationship between lovers more complicated, everyone still have his love in the end.At the same time ,they also get the pardon of the prince and Hermia’s father and gain the freedom of marriage.III.Introduction of Shakespeare’s View of LoveFirstly,Shakespeare believes that love is beautiful and wonderful in some extent.In almost every comedy,Shakespeare sings the praises of love, friendship, and calls for personality liberation.And he thinks that everyone has the rights to fight for the freedom of marriage and the persuit of happiness. Roman poet Virgil summarized the theme of Shakespeare's comedies in a sentence "love can conquer everything."In a series of plays, Shakespeare creates many images of noble young men and women.They are happy, vibrant and smart. They often fall in love with each other at first sight, they get great passion in love. Even when they meet all kinds of difficulties, they are never going to give up their love.Nothing can block the combination of them, they will love with vigour and vitality, and keep on pursuing their pure love. For Shakespeare,love and happiness is the result of the persistent pursuits of the hero and heroin which expresses the romantic lyrical atmosphere in his love comedies.Secondly,most of Shakespeare's plays are filled with strong romanticism elements. His plays reflect desires of humanists to new life.Humanists want to get rid of the shackles of feudal ethics and religious asceticism,they want to strive for individual liberation and love freedom.In Shakespeare’s love comedies, the hero and heroine always have a good ending.In his play,the regrets of evil people and the solution of the contradictions fully express the humanistic love view of Shakespeare.We know that Shakespeare’s wife was eight years older than him.Although Shakespeare was one of the greatest writers,he never wrote a word for his wife.He once said that it was the tradedy of a man to marry a older wife to warn other men.His marriage had certain influence on his writing.In Shakespeare’s palys,he advocates free love,and love loyalty to make up the deficiency of love in his marriage. Shakespeare longs for ture love and contempt of all the feudalism. Images in Shakespeare’s writing are not constrained ,they can break taboos,and gain courages to get ture free love and happiness.Shakespeare’s plays are full of humanity and longing for true love.He shapes a lot of brave and free young men and women especially the images of women.Many his plays express the themes through women.They play active roles in the struggle to get rid of authority from husband and father.They try to break the traditional custom, and ask for the freedom of marriage which truly reflects a kind of "equality" humanistic spirit.In general, Shakespeare believes that love is beautiful and wonderful. And his plays are shining with individual liberation and the beauty of humanism love art.IV.Shakespeare’s View of Love Ex pressed in A Midsummer Night’s DreamShakespeare’s longing for beautiful and wonderful love are fully expressed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.It is a love comedy with a happy ending.No matter what difficulties the main characters meet,they are never going to give up. Hermia and Lysander do not give up even with the disagreement of Hermia’s father and the interference of prince of Athens.And the persistence of Helena is also a reflect of Shakespeare’s pursuit of love.The most dramatic part of this paly is that the magic juice can change people’s feelings to fall in love with another person.In this point,we can see that Shakespeare’s hope for all satisfications in love.With th help of the king and his little elves, Hermia and Lysander get the freedom of marriage while Demetrius and Helena fallin love with each other.All of these endings of the stories express Shakespeare’s compliment for beautiful and happy love.A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare’s famous play to sing for the freedom of love and marriage which also a great piece of work to express the view of humanism love.The heroine Hermia is brave and stubborn,she is always fighting with unreasonable feudal marriage for their own happiness. She is not afraid of criticism and blame from the feudal opinion.And she runs away with Lysander to fight for the success. She is regardless of the limits of feudal ethical code to struggle for love which shows her extraordinary courage and aggressive personality.She uses actions to ask for the freedom from the authority of the husband and paternity to break the limits from traditional custom. Her pursuit of personality liberation and happiness of love shows her courage and intelligence.Her self-esteem and self-respect quality shines in the middle ages of the dark society.In that society,the equality between men and women is not allowed to be mentioned, but Shakespeare gives people dawn, although is short, but he is a forerunner. In this way,his impact is inestimable. And all of these truly reflects a kind of "equality" humanistic spirit and shows Shakespeare’s compliment for humanism love.Another female image in the play is Helena, Hermia 's good friend, she is clever and acute.She never give up searching for his love,. She is deeply in love with Demetrius but Demetrius is crush on her good friend Hermia. When she learns that Hermia and Lysander are going to escape into the forest,she tells Demetrius only to get a little reward to comfort herself.She follows Demetrius to the forest,she is always pursuing her love.She is also a vivid female character in Shakespeare’s play to show his view of humanism love.ConclusionShakespeare sings for the beauty of love.He longs for happy and ture love.At the same time,he shows his view of humanism love.Bibliography[1]H. B .Charton,Shakespearcan comedy,Muthucn&Co.Ltd,London 1945.[2]《仲夏夜之梦（双语版）》作者：威廉•莎士比亚朱生豪译出版社：江苏文艺出版社出版时间：2012年09月[3]《仲夏夜之梦(英文版)(英文原版影印插图本-阿登版莎士比亚-)》作者：(英)布鲁克斯编者:(英国)(Harold F.Broooks)哈罗德·F·布鲁克斯出版社：中国人民大学出版社出版时间：2008年01月[4]《莎士比亚评论汇编（上）》作者：杨周翰主编，出版时间：1979出版社：中国社会科学出版社[5]《视读莎士比亚》作者：（英）尼克·格隆出版社：安徽文艺出版社出版时间：2007年1月[6]《最伟大的戏剧大师：莎士比亚—图说名人》作者：晓树主编出版社：中国画报出版社出版时间：2009年8月[7] 《莎士比亚爱情故事》作者：（英）莎士比亚著，萧乾，张愫珩译出版社：汕头大学出版社出版时间：2004年9月。