Image-magic in A Midsummer

This article argues that the modern world is not only produced by, and is promoting, processes of rationalization and disenchantment, but is also the site of ‘enchanting ’ influences that are genuinely ‘charming ’ or ‘magical’. Such modes of influencing rely increasingly on the power of images, and on theatre-like performances of words or discourses. The impact takes place under conditions that, following Victor Turner’s work, could be called ‘liminal’, and which can be turned through ‘image-magic ’ into a state of ‘permanent liminality’. A path-breaking analysis of such influences can be found in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written at a highly liminal moment in European history, the end of the Renaissance and the unfolding of the Reformation. It is argued that the central problem of the play is the source of the power that motivates, from the inside, human beings. Shakespeare attributes this power to images through which human beings can be incited to act, i