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All Site ContentMidsummer Night's DreamAct 5Scene 1
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"airy nothing"
Humor
Act 5,
Scene 1
Lines 1-27

An explanation of the humor in Theseus’ opinion of poets in Act 5, Scene 1 of myShakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

[Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, and other lords. The religious ceremonies for the three couples have concluded, but the other nuptial festivities are ongoing.]

Hippolyta

'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.

Theseus

More strange than true; I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are, of imagination, all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold –
That is, the madman. The lover all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear.

Hippolyta

But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,
And grows to something of great constancy,
But howsoever strange and admirable.

In this passage, William Shakespeare the poet seems to be engaging in some self-deprecating humor. Theseus paints an unflattering picture of the typical poet as a sham mystic glancing "from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven" while writing "airy nothing" using "tricks" (deceptions).