What is love? Webster's defines it as a passionate affection for another person. In the play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," by William Shakespeare, the character Demetrius falls in love with the character Helena, through a love potion. Accordingly, Demetrius' love for Helena is not true love because of the lack of foundation, justification, and unreal nature of the love.

The feeling that Demetrius has for Helena is not love because the foundation that the love is based on is missing. His undying desire for her suddenly appeared in his head and he would not be able to explain why he loves her and give evidence of it, other than the fact that she is beautiful. His love for her can be compared to a tree that has no roots or foundation but is still growing. However, if the magic that created the tree were to disappear, the tree would die. In the same way, Demetrius's love for Helena would die if the love potion were to lose its effectiveness, all because the foundation of the love was not properly planted.

Furthermore, if a person always gave gifts and recognized special dates in the other person's life, but never expressed his or her feelings verbally, the object of his or her love would feel as if the love was being bought.

Demetrius's love for Helena is not true love, since the feeling that he thinks is love is illusory because the passionate affection he has for her has no basis in reality. He did not develop the passion for her, it just appeared from nowhere. True love must be acquired, not given. For example, when someone is learning, he or she acquires what is to be learned, rather than being given it, since it is intangible. In other words, love is not something that is tangible, so you cannot receive it from any potion.

In conclusion, Demetrius' love for Helena is false because its foundation is based on an illusion. His affection does not meet the requirements of what constitutes love since he obtained the love through a tangible love potion, Even if Demetrius has a passionate affection for Helena, his basis of devotion is supposititious

Shakespeare had an abundance of ideas about love, each idea twisted to suite his views of the connections with life and people. One of his main focuses is love, the different types of love, and the way in which love is expressed and deciphered in his comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It contains situations in which we find ourselves asking a big question - "What are Shakespeare's ideas on love?" With his outlook, we find ourselves answering this question in a lot of different ways, as love is not only pure and simple but also deep and interesting. There are a lot of these ideas throughout "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Each character that Shakespeare created represented his ideas to answer this question.

As the play begins we are introduced to a proposal of love in the form of two intendeds a few days before their ."..nuptial hour.." Theseus is set to wed his Hippolyta. He is desperate and voices his opinion, and this view of love contrasts with the history of the myth from which these characters are adapted. ."..O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires..." This character is believed to have triumphed over this woman to win her heart. However with Hippolyta's speech, which is very scarce throughout the play, the audience does not see this immense feeling of love requited. A woman with similar yearning would not deduce the waiting time to "Four days...[that]...will quickly steep themselves in night..." Theseus' attempt to finalise his ideas, and seemingly convince Hippolyta that the wedding will be the best thing for them both, ignites the idea of a conquest of swords over love - he won her by battle, not by her heart.

Hermia, the idea of pure love, brings in a reference to love being nothing of a fairytale. Mythical characters such as Cupid and his arrow are strong symbols of this pure love, and to want his best arrow gives the impression of love, forsaking all others. Even though Hermia is a young character, Shakespeare gives her this line to show that age is no issue with love. Shakespeare uses a mixture of these old legendary figures and simple, beautiful imagery to show his audience his this idea of love and how he presents his other ideas are often intense and unusual.

A character that has outside influences on love is Lysander. This outlook on love is a complete contrast to the idea of Hermia which is why it is interesting that Shakespeare has them fall in love. "The course of true love never does run smooth..." Throughout the play, this line corresponds to most situations, as it does in life also. Shakespeare was amazing at bringing forward all the right ideas. His manipulation of characters and their love for each other refers to this quotation. The circle of love is abused by magic, this is why Lysander's love is interfered with. This precious circle of love is broken down by greed on Egeus' part and changed by time as the lovers seek happiness in the wood over night. Even in this short space of a night time, so many events change the feelings of the characters, yet the outcome is still happy. Lysander and Hermia's relationship, even thought we only see the real start of it, gives us an idea of the trials and tribulations that young lovers face. Nowadays though we have no extremes of law like in the fictional world of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Egeus is presented as the barrier between love running smooth, or love running free. "As she is mine, I may dispose of her..." Giving this ultimatum to a young girl who has fallen in love shows a complete misunderstanding of human nature. This character shows no remorse and is hard in the face of love as money and a more higher social status is obviously more important. And yet, he only wants what is best for his daughter, which is the real reason why he has this view. This is, from a modern point of view, very old fashioned in the way we look at love.

The other male character, Demetrius, gives us another idea of love that is unlike the others. He shows ignorance toward the insane love radiated from Helena. "Use me as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me," Helena is infatuated with Demetrius, and he shows nothing back, not even recognition of her presence at times. This attitude gives the audience a glance at unrequited love. The kind of love that is wasted on people who have only one desire, and that is their own selfish wants. Helena still loved Demetrius from their time together. She is the idea that true love dotes on another, even though the favour is never returned. Her loves grows stronger as his hate grows deeper. True in life as well as their world, Shakespeare, with Helena, creates the idea of optimistic love that never wavers.

Comedy or tragedy that is the question, Shakespeare has written more than a hand full of plays. People consider Shakespeare as a sad person that always wrote tragedies, but A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the other hand is not a tragedy. It is with out a shadow of a doubt a comedy; there are many reasons why A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s many comedies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about lovers falling in and out of love for each other and in the end the lovers think it is only A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The reasons that convinced MND was a comedy was that it was funny and lighthearted, makes fun of human weakness, and mistaken identities etc.

In a comedy the factor of being funny and lighthearted comes often. For example there are characters like Bottom, Snug, Quince, and Snout in the play to make people laugh. “ But I will aggravate my voice…” (I, ii, 78-79) Bottom says. That is an example of lightheartedness because Bottom does not mean what he is saying he really means to soften his voice, Shakespeare meant that to be funny. Another example is when Snout and his crew are rehearsing Bottom gets his head turned into a donkey head and Snout says “ O Bottom, art thou changed! What do I see on thee?” (III, i, 118-119). That is an example of the comedy because Bottom gets changed into an ass-head, if that is not funny what is? A further example of the funny side of Shakespeare is after Titania had fallen for Bottom the ass-head Bottom gets used to the royal treatment and tries to be smart and shows his egregious knowledge by saying

“ Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cavalery
Cobweb to scratch. I am marvels hairy about the
face. And I am such a tender ass, if my hair do
but tickle me, I must scratch
(IV, i , 23-27).

Determining the comedy from the tragedy does not just mean recognizing the funny and lighthearted it also includes the fact of mistaken identities. In MND mistaking identities comes easy. For instance Oberon the king of the Magic Forest tells his joyful servant to place magic flower nectar on an Athenian man to fall in love. Off goes Puck Oberons servant to find that Athenian man, he finds Lysander “ Night and silence! Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear” (II, ii, 75-77). That is example of mistaken identity because he sees a man with Athenian clothing thinking it is just a man when in fact Lysander is already in love with Hermia. So Puck mistook Lysanders love for Hermia because they were sleeping on separate beds. Again the mistaken identities come when Oberon blames Puck for the entire quarrel cast upon the lovers in MND Puck tries to explain to his king Oberon

“ Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook. Did not you tell me I should know the man By the Athenian garments he had on?”
III, ii, 368-369).

That is an example of mistaking identities because Oberon is blaming Puck for anointing the wrong man with the love nectar. And puck is trying to convince that it was the unclear instructions of the kings and not the fault of the obeyed. Also another mistook identity appears in MND when Puck is trying to fix the broken bond of the lovers rightful connections Puck throws his voice to fool Lysander in thinking that he is talking to Demetrius. Puck in Demetrius voice “ Here, villain, drawn, and ready.” and Lysander “ I will be with thee straight.” III, ii, 424-425).

The main plot of Midsummer is a complex contraption that involves two sets of couples (Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius) whose romantic cross-purposes are complicated still further by their entrance into the play's fairyland woods where the King and Queen of the Fairies (Oberon and Titania) preside and the impish folk character of Puck or Robin Goodfellow plies his trade. Less subplot than a brilliant satirical device, another set of characters—Bottom the weaver and his bumptious band of "rude mechanicals"—stumble into the main doings when they go into the same enchanted woods to rehearse a play that is very loosely (and comically) based on the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, their hilarious home-spun piece taking up Act V of Shakespeare's comedy.

A Midsummer Night's Dream contains some wonderfully lyrical expressions of lighter Shakespearean themes, most notably those of love, dreams, and the stuff of both, the creative imagination itself. Indeed, close scrutiny of the text by twentieth-century critics has led to a significant upward revision in the play's status, one that overlooks the silliness of its story and concentrates upon its unique lyrical qualities. If A Midsummer Night's Dream can be said to convey a message, it is that the creative imagination is in tune with the supernatural world and is best used to confer the blessings of Nature (writ large) upon mankind and marriage.