Titania, illustration for Act II, Scene ii, A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

Edwin Austin Abbey created this illustration for Act II, Scene ii, of Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream". Abbey was an American artist who achieved great success illustrating Shakespeare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His images were infused with a sense of romanticism. This sensibility resonated with the Victorian era's fascination with the supernatural and fantasy. In this piece, Titania, Queen of the Fairies, stands with butterfly wings, surrounded by her attendants. The scene is charged with sensual tension, as Titania is about to fall under a love spell, a metaphor for the irrationality of desire. Abbey’s Titania, however, is not merely a figure of fantasy. She embodies the complex negotiation of power, desire, and identity of women in Shakespeare’s comedies. Her ethereal beauty and powerful presence challenge conventional representations of female characters. Abbey transforms the literary into visual, inviting us to reflect on the transient nature of love, the fluidity of identity, and the enduring power of female agency.