Writing a play may be like having magical power over a whole world, the world of the characters in the play. The writer has absolute sway over what happens in this world. He or she chooses how the main plot unfolds; how each lover loses his or her heart; how good and evil find their way on stage; how predicaments are resolved and how the world is ended. Playwrights may be the only real magicians. They alone may understand the true potential and the true limitations of magic. Shakespeare chose to reveal some of his understanding of magic through some of his characters in two of his plays.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, fairies abound. There are "the tiny fairies" who are "aerial, timid, and courteous" (Schanzer 30). There are Oberon and Titania, "the King and the Queen of fairyland"(Schanzer 30), who are not tiny. Then there is Puck, who is not timid or courteous.

"Shakespeare clearly thinks of Titania and Oberon as of the same stature as the traditional English fairies, who were believed to be of normal human height or slightly below it" (Schanzer 30). Puck is one of their subjects, "gross and earthy, boisterous, rough, and boyish" (Schanzer 30). He is Shakespeare's main magic tool in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The fairies aren't so different from humans, except for their magical powers, "for although the fairies certainly possess supernatural qualities, they are nevertheless closely linked to the world of mankind and have their share of human frailties" (Clemens lxvii).

For instance, Oberon is mad at Titania, because she ignores him. He, with the help of Puck, means to regain her obedience. Puck doesn't limit his mischief to Titania.

Puck's most used magical instrument is an elixir that, when rubbed on the eyelids, causes the one with those eyes to fall in love with whoever he or she first sees. Starting with Titania, who falls in love with Bottom, a mortal given the head of a donkey by Puck, three lovers, two mortal, while sleeping, have the elixir applied and fall in love with someone new. Total chaos results.

Shakespeare seems to use the fairies ebullience to comment on the sometimes random nature of romantic love. The fairies' "origin in the realm of the elemental and their partly instinctive, partly playful nature, together with their capriciousness and irrationality, indicate which forces and qualities Shakespeare wanted us to see as conditioning and influencing human love relationships … However, the fairies not only make other people behave in a way that corresponds, as it were, to their own fairy natures; they also strengthen and reinforce people's latent tendencies" (Clemens lxvii).

The fairies through their magic remove all self will from the mortal lovers. "For the supernatural, which intervenes in the activities of the characters, turns their intentions upside down, and directs their actions. It is the fairies who are responsible for the confusion, and also for the final reconciliation, thus substituting enchantment and arbitrariness for the lovers' own responsibility and powers of will" (Clemens lxvi-lxvii).

In the end, order is returned to the entire situation. Oberon instructs Puck to use his magic to release Titania from her spell and to fix "the lovers' quadrangle" (Wirth). Both pairs of mortal lovers who Puck had put under enchantment once again love their original objects of affection. "The Dream ends with three weddings and the reconciliation of Oberon and Titania" (Bloom 150).

One outcome of using magic in A Midsummer Night's Dream is a commentary by Shakespeare on the capricious nature of falling in love and the fatuous reasons that some people have for doing so. It could also be possible that Shakespeare was reflecting in the magical powers of the fairies the magic power he wielded over the characters and plots of his plays. Oberon disrupted the lives of most everyone in A Midsummer Night's Dream through Puck and his magic. Recognizing when the time for restoring order had come, Oberon commanded that the magic spells be lifted, bringing about the happy ending, just as the playwright controls the action in his or her plays. Both Oberon and Shakespeare magically brought order out of chaos.

Oberon and Shakespeare used their magic for a purpose, to show Titania the error of her ways and to show the audience how foolish lovers can be. Each understood the limitations of their magic. Oberon stopped Puck's disrupting romp before anyone really got hurt. Shakespeare shut Oberon's magic down so his audience could have an orderly and happy ending.

In The Tempest, Shakespeare again gives magical powers to one of his characters, Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan. Again the magic involves romance. In actuality, Prospero doesn't wield most of the magic himself. He controls some type of spirit called Ariel. Ariel is "a spirit of the elements of fire and air" (Bloom 671). In the Bible "Ariel" means "lion of God" (Bloom 671).

Through Ariel, Prospero controls other spirits. "Whatever happens in The Tempest is the work of Ariel, under Prospero's direction, yet it is not solitary labor … The sprite is a leader of a band of angels" who do Prospero's "strong bidding task" (Bloom 672).

At the beginning of the play, Prospero and Ariel, through magic occult powers, cause a ship to wreck on the island where Prospero and his daughter Miranda live in exile. On the ship is Antonio, who usurped Prospero's dukedom, and Alonso, the King of Naples, who helped Antonio. Also on the ship is Ferdinand, son of Alonso. It is Prospero's plan to have Ariel cause Ferdinand and Miranda to fall in love, which he does. Prospero didn't let even one person get hurt through his magic.

During the next few hours, by magic, Prospero brought about reconciliation and forgiveness among all the characters in the play. Sins of the fathers were healed by the children, as Milan and Naples were united through the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand. Prospero's wishes in this play idealized Shakespeare's own life's theme.

The Tempest is one of the plays Shakespeare wrote in the last phase of his playwrighting career, along with Pericles, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale (Dobrée 165).

Dobrée agrees with Muir that the center of Shakespeare's later literary and dramatic vision "was a belief in the necessity for forgiveness. (165)"

Again, Shakespeare has one of his characters, Prospero, accomplish with magic the same thing he accomplishes with the magic of his writing, a world of one of his plays is put right through reconciliation and forgiveness.

The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's last plays. Dobrée feels that it may be "Shakespeare himself taking his farewell of the stage" (173) when Prospero makes his farewell speech at the end of the play and that Prospero breaking his magic wand may represent Shakespeare ending his writing career (173). If he is correct, Shakespeare is once again equating Prospero's magic with his own play writing.

Ian Wetherbee

05 March 2000

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