Titania’s word for her desires is, of course, ‘love’: ‘how I love thee, how I dote on thee!’ (4.1.44). In the sixteenth century, as now, this word encompassed a range of emotions and behaviours, from romantic yearning to passionate sex. Once we see Titania’s bower less as a sentimental nursery illustration and more as a site of pleasurable sexual transgression, we can recognize other sexualized meanings in the play.
