SOURCE: Kott, Jan. “The Bottom Translation.” In The Bottom Translation: Marlowe and Shakespeare and the Carnival Tradition, translated by Daniela Miedzyrzecka and Lillian Vallee, pp. 29-68. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1987.

In the following essay, Kott examines the significance of Bottom's metamorphosis in A Midsummer Night's Dream, particularly focusing on why Shakespeare alluded to both St. Paul and Apuleius in reference to Bottom's transformation.

I

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind” (1.1.234).¹ This soliloquy of Helena's is part of a discourse on love and madness. Does desire also look with “the mind” and not with “the eyes”? Titania awakens from her dream, looks at the monster, and desires him. When Lysander and Demetrius awaken, they see only a girl's body and desire it. Is desire “blind” and love “seeing”? Or is love “blind” and desire “seeing”? “And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind” (1.1.235). Puck is...