The Inner Fairy: Reason and imagination in 'The Faerie Queene' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

"The Inner Fairy: Reason and Imagination in The Faerie Queene and A Midsummer Night's Dream" explores the impact of the fairy figure, Fairy Land, and the fairy tale genre in Spenser's The Faerie Queene and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . The dissertation argues that while Shakespeare's aim in presenting the fairy figure and Fairy Land is to intermingle fantasy and reality, Spenser's aim in presenting these same figures is to employ fantasy to educate Elizabethan England on how to live in the real world. "The Inner Fairy: Reason and Imagination in The Faerie Queene and A Midsummer Night's Dream " covers the manner in which The Faerie Queene corresponds to the allegorical romance genre and A Midsummer Night's Dream corresponds to the romantic comedy genre upon the presence of the fairy figure and Fairy Land. This dissertation also explores how The Faerie Queene and A Midsummer Night's Dream are classified in the fairy tale genre by interfacing those texts with Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories.".;The first chapter, "The Faerie Queene: A Moralistic Portrait of the Fairy," demonstrates that Spenser fulfills the end of romance in Books III-V of The Faerie Queene by offering the fairy figure and Fairy Land as ideals in chastity to educate Elizabethan England to fulfill. The second chapter, "Fairies: The Realm of Imagination in A Midsummer Night's Dream" presents that Shakespeare portrays the fairy figure and Fairy Land as personifications of imagination in order to delineate the eminence of imagination in the world. The second chapter also demonstrates that Shakespeare metafictionally reflects on the fairy tale and romantic comedy through the fairy figure and Fairy Land.;The conclusion explores how Spenser's and Shakespeare's presentations of the fairy figure, Fairy Land, and the fairy tale in Books III-V of The Faerie Queene and A Midsummer Night's Dream allows the audience to grasp the genres of allegorical romance in Book II, Canto X of The Faerie Queene and fairy tale and metadrama in As You Like It and The Tempest.