The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. (7-8)
This is one of Shakespeare’s greatest lines. Theseus now compares the lover and the madman to a poet or playwright. Of course, Shakespeare himself was a poet. And, so, Shakespeare may be admitting that he shares at least one quality with madmen. Theseus is suggesting that lunatics, lovers, and poets all have great imaginations. All three kinds of men see things that are not really there. The poet-playwright imagines numerous characters and adventures about people who never existed. The playwright goes even further into his imagination than the madman because the playwright gives names and lines of dialogue to his characters. The playwright’s fantasy is more involved and more intricate and more developed than the fantasies of the madman. But, what Theseus believes to be a fault, Shakespeare sees as an advantage. And where Theseus firmly believes that there is no truth in dreams, Shakespeare knows that truth does exist in dreams; for his dreams take the shape of plays, and those plays contain universal truths.
Theseus supplies somewhat specific examples to justify his opinion: he explains that the madman may see hundreds of devils dancing all around him and the lover may see “Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt” (11). Theseus is suggesting that the lover will see the beauty of Helen of Troy (depicted as the most beautiful woman ever in Homer’s Iliad) in a common gypsy girl (the word gypsy was derived from the word Egypt, and so the two words were nearly synonymous in Renaissance usage). Theseus’ description of the poet’s imagination is even more detailed:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth
The form of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. (12-17)
Although Theseus intends to be critical of the poet in these lines, the description is actually quite magical and positive. Although Theseus suggests that the poet is crazy (in a frenzy) with visions that extend from the stars to the earth, Shakespeare is simultaneously suggesting the poet is able to see into the heavens and envision the glories within. The word heaven also connotes God. And, like a god, a poet is a creator. God created the stars and the earth out of an “airy nothing.” Poets also create people and places out of the same substance.
Theseus concludes his side of the debate by expressing the view that the imagination is triggered or turned on by the emotions. If a man feels joy, such as the joy of being in love, he needs a source of that joy. Such a source cannot be plain or ordinary. Rather it must be extraordinary or marvelous. The source must be a Helen or a Venus. Theseus adds that a negative emotion, like fear, can also trigger the imagination. Such a negative emotion would explain the lunatic seeing a multitude of devils.
Theseus thus argues that reasonable men do not see the wild images of the emotional man because such images do not really exist outside the minds of the lover or lunatic or poet.
However, Hippolyta argues that in the stories of the four lovers there is too much “constancy” (26). She is arguing that the stories are too consistent or too similar. She is suggesting that since the four young lovers all have had the same dream, it could not be just a product of the imagination. Lovers may dream strange things, but one man’s dream is never identical to that of another. That is too strange or wonderful. Hippolyta does not believe it can be mere coincidence.
Before Theseus can respond, he and his bride are interrupted by the entrance of the four lovers. The debate thus ends without a real winner. Theseus continues to disbelieve in fairies, but Hippolyta is not so certain. Shakespeare, however, leaves it up to the members of his audience to form their own opinions.