Titania

Titania was the name of a character in William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In Shakespeare's play, she is the queen of the fairies. Due to Shakespeare's influence, later fiction has often used the name "Titania" for fairy queen characters.

In traditional folklore, the fairy queen has no name. Shakespeare took the name 'Titania' from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", where it is an appellation given to the daughters of Titans.Holland, Peter, ed. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (OUP, 1994)]

In the Shakespeare play, Titania is a very proud creature and as much of a force to contend with as her husband Oberon. The marital quarrel she and her husband are engaged in over which of them should have the keeping of a changeling page is the engine that drives the mix ups and confusion of the other characters in the play. Due to an enchantment cast by Oberon's henchman Puck, Titania magically falls in love with a rude mechanical (a lower class laborman), Nick Bottom the Weaver, who has been given the head of an ass by Puck, who feels it is better suited to his character (which bears a resemblance to the story of Lycaon).

Oberon states in the play:

:"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
":"Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
":"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
":"With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
":"There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
":"Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
":"And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
":"Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
"

Faerie View on Human Mortality

In the second act, Titania refers to the Athens as "human mortals." Scholar John Hale interprets this as a reference to the mortality of humans from the fairie point of view, indicative of Shakespeare's ability to write from the perspective of all of his characters. Titania's use of the word "mortal" both looks down upon and sympathizes with youths. Hale, John, "Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.101"]

Other historical references

Subsequently, Titania has appeared in many other paintings, poems, plays and even graphic novels.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe took the figures from Shakespeare's work to Faust I. Titania is married to Oberon, and the couple is celebrating its golden wedding anniversary in Faust I.

Titania is also the largest of Uranus's moons, among others that are also named after Shakespearian characters and those of Alexander Pope.

Modern references

*She has occasional cameo roles in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comic series, and is a major supporting character in "The Books of Magic". In the mythology of those comic series, she is a mortal woman, who has lived and ruled in fairy land so long that no one remembers she once looked (and still is, under her magical seeming) human. It is hinted, though never outright stated, that she may have once been the lover of Dream, the protagonist of the "Sandman" series. It is eventually revealed that she is the mother of Timothy Hunter, the protagonist of the "Books of Magic" series. The character recently returned in her own graphic novel "God Save the Queen".

* In Disney's "Gargoyles", Titania was the queen of the fairies, but a millennium before the main events of the series, she apparently greatly angered her husband Oberon, causing them to divorce and him to banish her and all other members of their race from Avalon to teach her to "grow up." It is possible that she manipulated Oberon into that action though, as she was shown to make several such clever feints and ploys during her appearances in the series. The royal pair eventually reconciled and remarried.
* Titania and Oberon appear as major characters in the novel "Magic Street" by Orson Scott Card.
* Titania is the queen of the Summer Court of the Faeries in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books.
*In , Titania and Oberon must save the world of Eldritch. This is her only appearance in the series and is the mother of Edgar and the sister of Malacia which are boh made up characters.
* In Frewin Jones's The Faerie Path, Titania is the mother of the book's main character, Tania.
* In E.D. Baker's book Winged Titania plays the Queen of the Fairies who the goblins disslike, because her rules and judgment of what the goblins do in the human world.
*Titania is the Queen of the Fay in the "Dungeons and Dragons" role-playing game.
* In the "Doubled Edge" series by Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis, Titania is the High Queen of the Sidhe (elves) and the to Oberon. She is the patron and protector of the young magician Elizabeth Tudor. It is hinted that Titania is in fact Hera.
*Titania is the aunt of the Raven King The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
* In , Titania is a Persona of the Lovers Arcana, while Oberon is a Persona of the Emperor Arcana.
*Titania is the name of the axe-wielding knight in the English versions of the Nintendo Video Games, and . She was second-in-command of a small mercenary group called, "Greil's Mercenaries".
* Titania and Oberon both appear as the king and queen of the fairies in the TV film, Voyage of the Unicorn .
* In Final Fantasy Legend II, the final evolution of the Fairy-class was called Titania.
* Titania is the heart, the mind, the spirit, the soul of the Starship Titanic. novel and video game by Douglas Adams
* Titania is mentioned in the Star Trek episode "Time's Arrow". While traveling back in time to save Data, the rent on the lodging for Picard and his crew in the 20th century is due. When the landlord comes in to collect it, Picard pretends to have an acting troupe and has the landlord read the part of Titania.
* Titania is the name of a fictional planet in the Starfox video game series.
* In many fanfiction stories based on Jim Henson's Labyrinth (film), Titania is the mother or sister of David Bowie's character Jareth, the Goblin King.
* Titania appears as the King of Pride in the Little Fears RPG.

References