Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.”
- Date
- c. 1595
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Theseus
Meaning of “The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,…”
The image captures artistic movement between abstract possibility and concrete experience, suggesting that poetry gives form to what imagination first sees.
Where does it come from?
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene 1; Theseus continues the same speech with the poet’s eye moving between heaven and earth. Verified in the scan-backed 1918 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Willard Higley Durham; direct evidence resolves to the reviewed Act V transcription.
Why the local voice matters
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, Scene 1. Theseus continues the same speech about imagination, poets, lovers and madmen.
