Background
Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream toward the beginning of his career. The play describes the comic misadventures of two pairs of lovers who become lost in a dark wood and fall under the power of sprites. To Shakespeare’s audiences, the play’s title was a clue that the play might be about romance, magic, and madness. Midsummer Night was thought to be one of the nights of the year when sprites were especially powerful. People also believed that flowers gathered on Midsummer Night could work magic and that Midsummer Night was a time when people dreamed of their true loves and sometimes went insane.
This tale of frustrated love and mistaken identity makes audiences laugh at the ridiculous ease with which lovers change the object of their affection, while still believing that their feelings are completely sincere. However, although it is a comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream also poses some profound and difficult questions: What is love? How and why do people fall in and out of love? How is love related to questions of identity—both of the lover and the beloved? Are lovers in control of themselves and their destinies? Which is more real, the “daylight” world of reason and law or the “nighttime” world of passion and chaos? Shakespeare leaves these questions for the audience to answer.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains a play-within-a-play, which features comically clumsy writing, poor staging, cheap costumes, and awful acting. Furthermore, Oberon, the fairy king, can be seen as a kind of mad director, stage managing the passions of others for his own amusement or pleasure. Yet A Midsummer Night’s Dream allows us to laugh at human nature and observe the interaction between actors and audience. Pyramus and Thisbe––the play-within-a-play––may be silly, but it is funny. A Midsummer Night’s Dream can also be seen as a tribute to the magic of illusion. After waking from their dream parts in Oberon’s “play,” Bottom, Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, and Hermia all express a sense of wonder and bewilderment at their recent experience.
This tale of frustrated love and mistaken identity makes audiences laugh at the ridiculous ease with which lovers change the object of their affection, while still believing that their feelings are completely sincere. However, although it is a comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream also poses some profound and difficult questions: What is love? How and why do people fall in and out of love? How is love related to questions of identity—both of the lover and the beloved? Are lovers in control of themselves and their destinies? Which is more real, the “daylight” world of reason and law or the “nighttime” world of passion and chaos? Shakespeare leaves these questions for the audience to answer.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains a play-within-a-play, which features comically clumsy writing, poor staging, cheap costumes, and awful acting. Furthermore, Oberon, the fairy king, can be seen as a kind of mad director, stage managing the passions of others for his own amusement or pleasure. Yet A Midsummer Night’s Dream allows us to laugh at human nature and observe the interaction between actors and audience. Pyramus and Thisbe––the play-within-a-play––may be silly, but it is funny. A Midsummer Night’s Dream can also be seen as a tribute to the magic of illusion. After waking from their dream parts in Oberon’s “play,” Bottom, Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, and Hermia all express a sense of wonder and bewilderment at their recent experience.
Shakespeare's Writing Style
Shakespeare wrote much of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and most of his plays, in a style called blank verse. This style was fairly new in the 1500s. Blank verse was first used in English drama in a play four years before Shakespeare was born. It follows a flexible rhythmic pattern consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Look, for example, at the lines that Hippolyta speaks to Theseus in act 1, scene 1:
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
Most English verse, or poetry, falls naturally into this pattern. Prose, or ordinary, everyday language, was also becoming a popular dramatic writing style, frequently mixed with blank verse. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses different writing styles to suit different characters. For example, Bottom and his friends generally speak in prose, which gives them a simple, rustic quality. For the speeches of Oberon and Titania, Shakespeare uses a much more complex form of poetry, implying the exquisite beauty and magic of the fairy kingdom.
Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
Most English verse, or poetry, falls naturally into this pattern. Prose, or ordinary, everyday language, was also becoming a popular dramatic writing style, frequently mixed with blank verse. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses different writing styles to suit different characters. For example, Bottom and his friends generally speak in prose, which gives them a simple, rustic quality. For the speeches of Oberon and Titania, Shakespeare uses a much more complex form of poetry, implying the exquisite beauty and magic of the fairy kingdom.
Our Text
We will be reading the Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston edition of the play. In addition, I've provided a link to the No Fear Shakespeare on-line text and the pdf file.
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Major Character List
- Theseus is the Duke of Athens and a hero of classical Greek mythology. As the play opens, Theseus is preparing to marry the Amazonian queen Hippolyta.
- Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons, is engaged to be married to Theseus.
- Egeus is Hermia's father.
- Lysander, an Athenian youth in love with Hermia
- Hermia, the daughter of Egeus, is a short, blonde maid of Athens who defies her father's wishes and elopes with Lysander rather than marry Demetrius.
- Demetrius is the Athenian youth who also loves Hermia.
- Helena, an Athenian maiden, loves Demetrius.
- Nick Bottom, the weaver, is the most comical and fully characterized of the laborers.
- Titania is queen of the fairies and married to Oberon.
- Oberon, the king of the fairies is married to Titania.
- Puck (or Robin Goodfellow) is the mischievous fairy sprite who serves as Oberon's jester and is the chief executor of his orders.
Studying the Play
While we will read some of each act aloud in class, we will read most of the play outside of class. To help you in your outside reading, choose one of three reading activities for each act.
- Study Questions - emphasize knowledge and comprehension level questions to help you follow the characters and events of the act. Answers evaluated for accuracy.
- Guided Reading Questions - focus on the staging, characterization, language, and plot development of the play to help you think about and respond to the play as you read it. Answers evaluated for relevancy and connection to the text.
- Dialogue Journals - assume an understanding of the characters and events of the play. Each entry requires that you comment thoughtfully on the play you're reading - the plot so far, your opinion of the characters, themes, and/or figurative language. You will create an ongoing dialogue with another student about the play as you are reading it. Entries and responses evaluated for depth of understanding.
Act V
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Dialogue Journal
Draw a line down the middle of a page. On the left side, comment on Act V - the plot so far, your opinion of the characters, themes, and/or figurative language. The next class meeting, a Dialogue Journal partner will provide a response to your comments. Together you create an ongoing dialogue about the play as you are reading it. |
Act IV
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.Dialogue Journal
Draw a line down the middle of a page. On the left side, comment on Act IV - the plot so far, your opinion of the characters, themes, and/or figurative language. The next class meeting, a Dialogue Journal partner will provide a response to your comments. Together you create an ongoing dialogue about the play as you are reading it. |
Act III
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Dialogue Journal
Draw a line down the middle of a page. On the left side, comment on Act III - the plot so far, your opinion of the characters, themes, and/or figurative language. The next class meeting, a Dialogue Journal partner will provide a response to your comments. Together you create an ongoing dialogue about the play as you are reading it. |
Act II
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Dialogue Journal
Draw a line down the middle of a page. On the left side, comment on Act II - the plot so far, your opinion of the characters, themes, and/or figurative language. The next class meeting, a Dialogue Journal partner will provide a response to your comments. Together you create an ongoing dialogue about the play as you are reading it. |
Act I
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Creating a Dialogue Journal
Draw a line down the middle of a page. On the left side, comment on Act I - the plot so far, your opinion of the characters, themes, and/or figurative language. The next class meeting, a Dialogue Journal partner will provide a response to your comments. Together you create an ongoing dialogue about the play as you are reading it. |
The Roman Myth of Pyramus and Thisbe
Two neighboring youths, Pyramus and Thisbe, fall in love. The only problem is that their families hate each other. They are forbidden to meet in person, so they communicate through a small chink in the shared wall between their houses. One day, they decide to meet at Ninus' tomb. They long to be together, as lovers do, to declare their feelings in person.
However, a horrible misunderstanding ensues! When Thisbe arrives, she sees a lioness with a bloody mouth who has just finished killing her prey. Terrified, Thisbe flees, but leaves behind her veil. The lioness randomly shreds the veil, smearing it with blood. When Pyramus arrives, he sees the veil, and he is horrified, assuming the lioness has slaughtered Thisbe. As was the Roman way, he commits suicide by falling on his sword. As he falls, his blood stains the white fruit born by the Mulberry tree. Thisbe returns to the tomb to find Pyramus dead. Grief stricken, she, too falls on Pyramus' sword and kills herself. In pity, the gods permanently turn the fruit of Mulberry trees a crimson color.
However, a horrible misunderstanding ensues! When Thisbe arrives, she sees a lioness with a bloody mouth who has just finished killing her prey. Terrified, Thisbe flees, but leaves behind her veil. The lioness randomly shreds the veil, smearing it with blood. When Pyramus arrives, he sees the veil, and he is horrified, assuming the lioness has slaughtered Thisbe. As was the Roman way, he commits suicide by falling on his sword. As he falls, his blood stains the white fruit born by the Mulberry tree. Thisbe returns to the tomb to find Pyramus dead. Grief stricken, she, too falls on Pyramus' sword and kills herself. In pity, the gods permanently turn the fruit of Mulberry trees a crimson color.