Abstract
After the great plague (1592-1594), Shakespeare had a miraculous year in 1594. He had already printed Venus and Adonis in 1593,and dedicated it to the Earl of Southampton. He published The Rape of Lucrece next year and again presented it to the earl. In the same year the poet put Love's Labour's Lost on the stage and was about to write Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Richard II and got the plan in his mind of King John and the Merchant of Venice. In Love's Labour's lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream, which were written just after the plague, he revealed his daring viewpoint on nature. In the so-called marriage sonnets, probably written during the plague years, the poet depicted his twofold views of nature as life and death. In Venus and Adonis he told us his idea of nature through the mouth of Venus. The goddess tried in vain to persuade Adonis into making love to her. Her point was that mortals were bound to breed by law of nature. In Love's Labour's Lost the playwright again depicted his view of nature as life and death. At the very end of the play, he put a song in dialogue, sung by a party of people representing winter and death, led by one attired as an owl, and a party representing spring and life, led by one attired as a cuckoo. In A Midsummer Night's Dream he presented us a fantastic world of love produced by fairies. They were figures visualized as fertility spirits to make the pairs of lovers wedded and blessed.
