In Shakespeare^s play A Midsummer Night^s Dream, one of the main reoccurring themes is love. Shakespeare writes of love that is passionate and impulsive, or sensible and reasonable. In Act three, Bottom, a crude commoner states on opinion of love. "And Yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days; the more pity, that some honest neighbors will not make them friends." Act III, Scene i, line 136 However, in many ways, reason and love are already much more closely linked in their society than the modern day reader is used to. Shakespeare has one example...
to Lysander by saying "True, [Demetrius] hath my love, And what is mine my love shall render him. And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius." Act I, Scene I, line 97 With these relationships, Shakespeare illustrates the irony of love in the values of the community and culture. In this way, The reader discovers that sensible marriages are more likely to be embraced by the community than passionate ones and that Bottom^s suggestion that love should be more closely linked to reason has, form a modern reader^s eye, already been followed.