A Midsummer Night’s Dream -
The relationship between Bottom and Titania
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I. Who are they?
Titania is the queen of the fairy world and therefore holds a high status in the fairy world. Bottom on the other hand is a weaver and is part of a group of characters known as The Mechanicals or The Craftsmen. Throughout the play The Mechanicals are seen to be practising their own play: ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ which they hope to perform at the wedding nuptials of Theseus and Hippolyta. Bottom is the most enthusiastic actor in the Mechanicals’ play and is also the one with the largest part. During Act 3 when they are practising their play in the woods, Bottom’s head is transformed into that of an ass by the mischievous fairy Puck. Meanwhile, Titania’s husband Oberon who is king of the fairies has squeezed love juice on her eyes so that she will fall in love with the first thing she sees when she awakes. Bottom and his transformed ass’s head is the first thing that Titania hears and sees when she awakes creating comedy for the audience as they watch the queen of fairies ‘dote’ over a craftsman with an ass’s head! Eventually in Act 4 Scene 1 Oberon applies the antidote to Titania’s eyes and she regains her senses. Puck removes the ass’s head from Bottom and he goes on to be reunited with the other Mechanicals. They all perform their play for the three mortal couples in Act 5.
II. Context
It appears as though Shakespeare may have been familiar with The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleis- first written in Latin and later translated into English in 1598 by William Addlington. In the story, a man finds his entire body transformed into an ass. On his journey he goes through many adventures and also finds himself having a sexual affair with a rich matron figure. Of course we do not know if Shakespeare actually took inspiration from this story, but it is interesting that the original idea had already been penned.
III. What do critics say?
There is a huge amount of criticism concerning the relationship between Bottom and Titania including whether or not their relationship can be considered as sexual. The first person to openly suggest that their relationship is overtly sexual was Jan Kott in 1964 in his book: Shakespeare, Our Contemporary. He said that the play is ‘the most erotic of Shakespeare’s comedies’ and in that in none of his plays ‘except Troilus and Cressida is the eroticism expressed so brutally.’
Tredell also asserts that Kott also sees a huge amount of significance ‘in the kind of mammal whom Oberon imagines Titania… will fall in love with’. The animals he hopes she will fall in love with: ‘lion, bear, wolf, bull, monkey, ape’ (Act 2, Scene 1) ‘represent abundant sexual potency’. He also says that ‘the ass does not symbolize stupidity. Since antiquity and up to the Renaissance the ass was credited with the strongest sexual potency… and is supposed to have the longest and hardest phallus’.
Therefore, rather than seeing the light hearted humour in the relationship between Bottom and Titania, Kott sees Oberon’s treatment of Titania as cruel: ‘the monstrous ass is being raped by the poetic Titania, while she keeps chattering on about flowers’.
The first notable production to overtly stage the sexual relationship between Titania and Bottom was the 1970 Peter Brook production where Bottom is carried into Titania’s bower in the arms of the fairies. One of them then thrusts his arm between Bottom’s legs to represent a phallus.
Of course there are many who disagree with Kott’s views. Tredell points out for example that Alexander Leggatt ‘does not deny the erotic potential… but he does contend that it is partly controlled by language… and partly by the nature of comedy as a genre which is hostile to extremes’. Leggatt says: ‘The suggestion of bestiality in Titania’s affair with Bottom is kept under control by the cool, decorative poetry as she leads him off stage. There are going off to bed, but there is nothing torrid about it’.
David Bevington also challenges Kott’s views on this relationship. He says about Titania: ‘her hours spent with Bottom are touchingly innocent and tender. Like the royal creature that she is, she forbids Bottom to leave her presence... rather than descending into the realm of human passion and perversity, she has attempted to raise Bottom into her own’.
Therefore when studying the play, it is important to remember that an Elizabethan audience would most probably not have interpreted the relationship as overtly sexual. Rather, this is rather modern interpretation and each director can exercise their own directorial choice to portray the relationship as they wish.
Further reading:
Nicholas Tredell , Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream- A reader’s guide to essential criticism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pages 68-69 ,76, 83
IV. Analysis
1. Act 3 Scene 1
Whilst the Mechanicals have been rehearsing their play in the woods, Puck has followed Bottom offstage and given him an ass’s head. The rest of the Mechanicals run away when they see that Bottom has been ‘transformed’ and he starts to sing. This is particularly amusing for the audience as there has been some suggestion that Bottom’s singing sounds like neighing. Interestingly as well, the first time that Titania hears Bottom, he is singing in rhymed verse rather than prose. Bottom and the rest of the Mechanicals speak in prose throughout the play which signifies them as characters that possess a lower status.
When Titania awakes, she falls in love with Bottom as he is the first thing she hears. She says ‘what angel awakes me from my flowery bed?’ Bottom continues to sing and Titania says: ‘I pray thee gentle mortal, sing again’ and ‘on the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.’ The combination of Titania calling Bottom an ‘angel’ when he is wearing an ass’s head; calling him a ‘gentle mortal’ which shows her awareness that he is of a lower status; and her assertions that she ‘loves him’ highlights just how irrational her love for him is: it is purely an effect of the love potion. Bottom responds to Titania’s words with seeming wisdom. He says: ‘Methinks mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays’. This quotation perhaps sums up all the relationships in the play where the effect of the love potion means that many characters love each other for no or little reason at all. It also directly juxtaposes with Lysander’s words earlier in Act 2 Scene 2 when the love potion has made him fall in love with Hermia instead of Hermia. He says to Helena: ‘The will of man is by his reason sway’d;/ And reason says you are the worthier maid’. Of course the irony here is that the audience know that Lysander is not being influenced by ‘reason’ but is under the influence of the love juice. Therefore when we compare Lysander’s words to Bottom’s words in this scene, the latter seems very rational.
It is further comical when Titania says: ‘Thou art wise as thou art beautiful’ as Bottom is neither of these things generally in the play. However although the audience are laughing at Titania, it can also be interpreted that she remains in power as she forbids him from leaving the woods. She tells him that her fairies will attend on him and that she shall ‘purge thy mortal grossness so/That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.’ This is interesting because here it can be interpreted that rather than Titania lowering her own status by falling in love with Bottom, she attempts to raise him up to her own status and is therefore still in control.
Titania then orders her fairies to ‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman’. Of course Bottom is not a gentleman which he knows but he whole heartedly takes on the role when he says to the fairies: ‘I cry your worships mercy, heartily. I beseech your worship’s name. However although Titania is in love with Bottom, it can be interpreted that the relationship is superficial and that on some level, Titania finds Bottom’s chattering somewhat irritating. At the end of the scene she says ‘Tie up my lover’s tongue; bring him silently’ meaning that she is dominant and has retained her status as fairy queen.
2. Act 4 Scene 1
The scene begins with Titania and Bottom entering along with Titania’s fairies. The stage directions also state that Oberon enters behind them. This is important as visually, the audience can see that Oberon is witnessing and enjoying the effect on the love juice on his wife. Titania immediately wants to shower attention on Bottom and says: ‘Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed/ While I thy amiable cheeks do coy’. Here she is inviting him to sit down in her bower while she caresses him with flowers and love.
Bottom greatly enjoys all the attention and asks all the fairies to carry out tasks for him. Not only are the audience confronted with the emblem on stage of the fairy queen lavishing love and attention on a man with ass’s head, but here there is also a marked difference in the language
they used. Titania continues to speak in rhymed verse whilst Bottom continues to speak in prose. This heightens the class difference between the two characters and adds to the comic nature of the scene.
Titania offers Bottom some music and Bottom replies ‘I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and bones’. This is amusing to the audience as his reply is typical of his self- confidence and arrogance throughout the play first seen in Act 2 Scene 2 when he wants to play every part in ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’. The audience who have just heard him singing earlier in the play in Act 3 Scene 1 find this amusing.
Bottom mentions that he feels sleepy and Titania orders him to sleep in her arms. She sends the fairies away and her last line before she falls asleep with Bottom is ‘O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!’ At this moment Puck enters and Oberon steps forward. The emblem created on stage here is important: as Titania and Bottom lie on stage, they are watched by the two characters that created the situation. The audience may either feel shame and pity for Titania here for the fact that she arguably has lowered herself, or they may feel relieved that Puck and Oberon are clearly about to reverse the love spell. Puck has the last lines in the scene before (Act 3 Scene 2) where he says: ‘Jack shall have Jill/ Naught shall go ill/ The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well,’ therefore the audience expect that all is soon to be resolved.
This is the end of Bottom and Titania’s relationship as Oberon applies the antidote to Titania’s eyes and when she awakes she is horrified by the sight of Bottom: ‘O how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!’ She and Oberon are reunited and although Puck removes the ass’s head from Bottom’s eyes, he does not awake until the end of the scene when he believes that his experience has been a dream.
V. Summary – Bottom and Titania’s relationship
Key points to remember:
1) Titania is queen of the fairies and Bottom is a weaver and part of a group of characters in the play called The Mechanicals. 2) Titania only falls in love with Bottom because Oberon applies love juice to her eyes. 3) When Titania falls in love with Bottom, Puck has transformed his head into that of an ass. 4) The two scenes which highlight Titania and Bottom’s tryst are Act 3 Scene 1 and Act 4 Scene 1. 5) The first person to read the relationship between Titania and Bottom as overtly sexual was Jan Kott in 1964. 6) The first major performance to be influenced by Kott’s ideas was Peter Brook’s production in 1970. 7) Kott proposes that the ass was considered as one of the most potent sexual creatures up to the Renaissance. 8) It is important to remember that an Elizabethan audience would most likely have not interpreted the relationship between Bottom and Titania as cruel. 9) There are many critics who disagree with Kott’s views for example David Bevington and Alexander Leggatt. 10) Titania speaks in rhymed verse and Bottom speaks in prose. 11) The first time Titania hears Bottom, he is singing in rhymed verse.
Personal Assessment
(Some questions may have more than one correct answer)
1) Who are Titania and Bottom?
a) Duke of Athens
b) Queen of the Fairies
c) Part of the character group known as The Mechanicals
d) A weaver
2) In which scene does Puck transform Bottom’s head?
a) Act 3 Scene 1
b) Act 3 Scene 2
c) Act 1 Scene 2
d) Act 4 Scene 1
3) Which scenes feature the relationship between Bottom and Titania?
a) Act 4 Scene 1
b) Act 3 Scene 2
c) Act 3 Scene 1
d) Act 3 Scene 2
4) Who was the first critic to suggest that Bottom and Titania’s relationship is overtly
sexual?
a) Alexander Leggatt
b) Marjorie Garber
c) Jan Kott
d) David Bevington
5) In which year was Peter Brook’s production of the play first performed?
a) 1960
b) 1970
c)1980
d) 1990
6) What is Bottom doing when Titania first hears him?
a) singing
b) talking
c) dancing
d) shouting
7) Which words does Titania use with Bottom?
a) ‘Thou art wise as thou art beautiful’
b) ‘Sing again/, mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note’
c) ‘O how I love thee, how I dote on thee’
d) ‘Truth, reason and love/ keep little company together nowaways’
8. Who follows Titania and Bottom in Act 4 Scene 1
a) Oberon
b) Puck
c) Lysander
d) Starveling
9. What is Titania’s reaction when she sees Bottom after the antidote has been applied to her eyes?
a) she still loves him
b) she loathes the sight of him
c) she’s indifferent
d) she is angry at him.
10. When does Bottom awake after Puck has removed the ass’s head?
a) Straight away
b) At the end of the scene
c) During Titania and Oberon’s dance
d) In Act 5
Answers
1) B, C, D
2) A
3) A, C
4) C
5) B
6) A
7) A, B, C
8) A
9) B
10) B