Midsummer Night's Dream Smooth

William Shakespeare’s comedic play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, uses similes and metaphors through its characters to imply that love is preposterous due to its complexity and uncertainty. Shakespeare begins the play in act one, scene one where two of the four lovers converse on the complexity of love. Lysander, a young Athenian, discusses with Hermia, the woman he is in love with, the ways love can be flawed.. He states, “The course of true love never did go smooth.” (1.1.36) This proverb outlines an underlying theme in the overall perspective of love in this play. Referring to love as a “course” emphasizes the obstacles that one must overcome when finding and falling in love. Stating that “true love never” goes smooth foregrounds the ideology that strong and lasting affection …show more content…
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold: / That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic…” (5.1.5-10) The triple comparison between a lunatic, a lover, and a poet, highlights the assumed commonalty that all three types of people have unsound thoughts. Since a “lunatic” is a wildly foolish person and a poet has “remarkable powers of imagination, creativity, and expression” (OED Online) one may assume that a lover possess both these attributes due to the involvement in this comparison. If a lover has the attributes of a “lunatic” it is safe to presume that a lover’s love is complex since it would involve a lot of wild occasions. Though lovers may experience intricacy in their love an uncertainty is affecting its lasting ability. This uncertainty is due to the unreality of a lover’s thoughts as well as the different expressions they may go