What a Lunatic, Lover, and Poet Have in Common
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
-Theseus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Are of imagination all compact.”1
This famous line from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream means that lunatics, lovers, and poets are each entirely full of imagination. They don’t see the world as it objectively is, but rather through an illusory lens.
The madman “sees more devils than vast hell can hold”.2 The lover sees beauty where there may be none. And the poet glances back and forth between heaven and earth, and gives shape, name, and local habitation to airy nothings, to paraphrase Theseus.3
Shakespeare understood the great- and often perilous- power behind these mindsets. Since imagination is unique to each of us, it has the power to grant glory, but also vulnerability. And it can be isolating, since no one else sees exactly what we see.
Love Transforms Individuals
Others
Love, for example, has a magnifying- even transfiguring- quality. It can make you see someone as far grander than they truly are.
It can also make you see the good in a very bad person- someone who treats you or others terribly. Love can cause you to justify or overlook their cruelty, while focusing on their positive qualities. But love can be weaponized. Rose-coloured lenses are both beautifying and obscuring.
Self
Love can also shape the way we see ourselves. As the play progresses, both Helena and Hermia begin to doubt their own beauty when love is not reciprocated. Each woman defines her worth through her lover’s gaze, so when that gaze shifts away, her self-image crumbles.
Helena thinks she was wrong to ever see herself as beautiful now that Demetrius doesn’t love her. And Hermia starts angrily referring to herself as “dwarfish and low” when Helena scorns her and Lysander, bewitched by magic, abandons her.4 Even when Hermia is judging herself based on her friend, Helena’s, scorn, she is doing so based on Lysander’s opinion.
Meanwhile, Lysander and Demetrius also fail to see themselves clearly. Throughout the play, characters often do not understand the true nature of their emotions- yet they profess these with absolute certainty.
In fact, even before he was bewitched, Demetrius didn’t see himself accurately in love, as he prioritized his feelings and completely ignored Hermia’s.
The four characters are not clearheaded in love, and their emotions spiral almost to the point of physical violence.
Love (or the lack of it) can obscure a person’s judgment, self-value, identity, and intentions.
Love Transforms Environments
Love can also change how we see our surroundings. A run-down apartment becomes a magnificent palace in the presence of those we love. Four walls and a roof feel exquisite.
This mirage is comforting but it can also be deceptive.
When love leaves, the veil drops, and that same place can feel desolate.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Helena describes the dark, secluded woods as bright and full of company when Demetrius is near.5 But when he leaves she is scared and alone in the dark.6 Her fantasy dissolves and harsh reality returns.
When Love Becomes a Weapon
When we are in love, we lose objectivity- a quirk of human nature that Shakespeare understood more than 400 years ago.
We think we are seeing the best in someone, but our strong feelings can blind us to the truth. And this blindness can be exploited- in abusive relationships or romance scams. Abusers know that when you love them, they can do no wrong in your eyes or that they will be quickly forgiven for indiscretions.
And if they are your primary source of affection and validation, then you will hesitate all the more to question them or hold them accountable.
That gives them immense power. They can grant or withhold affection at will, turning love’s imaginative power into toxic delusion.
Romance scammers hijack this imagination- making grand promises of love or future togetherness- to trick you into sending something valuable like money or explicit photos.
To love is to imagine, protect, and hope. But imagination can lead us away from reality, either toward paradise or ruin.
Digital Companions
A disconcerting reality in the modern world is that our opinion of ourselves and our perspective of the world will not just be influenced by other humans. It can be affected by digital companions as well.
We have started to see how deeply people can become emotionally attached to AI beings- even to the point where they isolate themselves, or physically harm themselves or others.
They too, diverge from reality; just like the other categories mentioned in the above quote. And this gap can widen immensely.
Also, if the digital companion is ever taken away, the person could be devastated and suddenly realize the true nature of their life and decisions; that they were led down a path based on fantasy, not reality.
And so, if I may, I would propose adding a fourth category to Theseus’ list: those who lose themselves to technology, whether it be AI, video games, virtual reality, social media, etc.; any space where the person departs from reality.
Like love, or “doing your own research”, or inventing your own creation, a person can begin innocently enough down these paths- but without guardrails, they can spiral into delusion.
Messy Bun Book Lover
References:
All quotations from A Midsummer Night’s Dream are taken from the Collins Classics Edition (2011). The following list indicates the corresponding act, scene, and line numbers.
- 5.1.7-8
- 5.1.9-10
- 5.1.12-17
- 3.2.295
- 2.1.221-226
- 2.2.86