What is the meaning of this line from Shakespeare's A Mid-summer Night's Dream?
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"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact"
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Bramblewild
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What's the context of the phrase? I mean, what character is saying it, what else are they saying at that time, who are they speaking to?
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Theseus:
"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!"
I've found an explanation of it online.
Here it is for anyone thats interested:
What does Theseus mean in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he claims that "The lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact"? | eNotes
"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!"
I've found an explanation of it online.
Here it is for anyone thats interested:
What does Theseus mean in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he claims that "The lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact"? | eNotes
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