Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, A (Sparknotes Literature Guide)

Product Information

Waleson, Heidi (25 January 2011). "A Remarkably Inventive A Cappella Premiere". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. OCLC 781541372. In his essay "Preposterous Pleasures: Queer Theories and A Midsummer Night's Dream", Douglas E. Green explores possible interpretations of alternative sexuality that he finds within the text of the play, in juxtaposition to the proscribed social mores of the culture at the time the play was written. He writes that his essay "does not (seek to) rewrite A Midsummer Night's Dream as a gay play but rather explores some of its 'homoerotic significations'... moments of 'queer' disruption and eruption in this Shakespearean comedy." [23] The story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which comes from an ancient Babylonian legend often reworked in European mythology, would have been familiar to educated members of Shakespeare’s audiences. The story likely influenced Romeo and Juliet, although Shakespeare also pulled elements from other versions of the Romeo and Juliet tale. In both stories, two young lovers from feuding families communicate under cover of darkness; both male lovers erroneously think their beloveds dead and commit suicide, and both females do likewise when they find their lovers dead.

A young man of Athens, in love with Hermia. Lysander’s relationship with Hermia invokes the theme of love’s difficulty: he cannot marry her openly because Egeus, her father, wishes her to wed Demetrius; when Lysander and Hermia run away into the forest, Lysander becomes the victim of misapplied magic and wakes up in love with Helena. Green, Douglas E. (1998). "Preposterous Pleasures: Queer Theories and A Midsummer Night's Dream". In Kehler, Dorothea (ed.). A Midsummer Night's Dream: Critical Essays. Garland reference library of the humanities. Vol.1900 (reprinted.). Psychology Press. pp.369–400. ISBN 978-0-8153-3890-1. While they discuss their relationship, Egeus enters with his daughter, Hermia, and her two suitors, Lysander and Demetrius. Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. Lysander argues that he is as good of a match as Demetrius, but Egeus won't listen. Instead, he declares that if Hermia won't marry Demetrius, she will die: This is the law of Athens and his right as her father. Theseus agrees that Hermia should obey her father but offers her a third option: spending her life in a nunnery. Hermia has until the day of Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding to decide upon her fate. Director 1: Geraldine, I have to admit that would be very atmospheric, and I can see the audience getting involved in the action with such a picturesque setting, there's just one problem, what if it rains? In 1964, R.W. Dent argued against theories that the exemplary model of love in the play is the rational love of Theseus and Hippolyta. He argued that in this work, love is inexplicable. It is the offspring of imagination, not reason. However the exemplary love of the play is one of an imagination controlled and restrained, and avoids the excesses of "dotage". [41] Genuine love is contrasted with the unrequited love (and dotage) of Demetrius for Hermia, and with the supposed love (and dotage) of Titania for an unworthy object. [42]Kehler, Dorothea (1998). "A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Bibliographic Survey of the Criticism". In Kehler, Dorothea (ed.). A Midsummer Night's Dream: Critical Essays. Garland reference library of the humanities. Vol.1900 (reprinted.). Psychology Press. pp.3–76. ISBN 978-0-8153-3890-1. Both Horace Howard Furness and Henry Austin Clapp were more concerned with the problem of the play's duration, though they held opposing views. [39] Clapp, writing in 1885, commented on the inconsistency of the time depicted in the play, as it should take place in four days and nights and seems to last less than two, and felt that this added to the unrealistic quality of the play. [30] Furness, defending the play in 1895, felt that the apparent inconsistency did not detract from the play's quality. [30] W. Stanley Moss used the quotation "Ill met by moonlight" as the title of his Ill Met by Moonlight (1950), a non-fiction book about the kidnap of General Kreipe during WWII. [81] The book was adapted into a film with the same name in 1957. [82] Absurda Comica, oder Herr Peter Squentz by Andreas Gryphius, which was probably written between 1648 and 1650 and was published in 1657, is evidently based on the comic episode of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Director 3: People go to outdoor productions of Shakespeare all the time, I can see this being really engaging. Wiles, David (2008). "The Carnivalesque in A Midsummer Night's Dream". In Bloom, Harold; Marson, Janyce (eds.). A Midsummer Night's Dream. Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism. pp. 208–23. ISBN 978-0-7910-9595-9. Dent also denied the rationality and wisdom typically attributed to Theseus. He reminded his readers that this is the character of Theseus from Greek mythology, a creation himself of "antique fable". [41] Theseus' views on art are far from rational or wise. He cannot tell the difference between an actual play and its interlude. The interlude of the play's acting troop is less about the art and more of an expression of the mechanicals' distrust of their own audience. They fear the audience reactions will be either excessive or inadequate, and say so on stage. Theseus fails to get the message. [42] In 1863, Charles Cowden Clarke also wrote on this play. Kehler notes he was the husband of famous Shakespearean scholar Mary Cowden Clarke. Charles was more appreciative of the lower-class mechanicals of the play. He commented favourably on their individualisation and their collective richness of character. He thought that Bottom was conceited but good natured, and shows a considerable store of imagination in his interaction with the representatives of the fairy world. He also argued that Bottom's conceit was a quality inseparable from his secondary profession, that of an actor. [38] Dorothea Kehler has attempted to trace the criticism of the work through the centuries. The earliest such piece of criticism that she found was a 1662 entry in the diary of Samuel Pepys. He found the play to be "the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life". [30] He did, however, admit that it had "some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure". [30]The Donkey Show: A Midsummer Night's Disco". Internet Off-Broadway Database. n.d . Retrieved 31 March 2017. Mancewicz, Aneta (2014). Intermedial Shakespeares on European Stages. Palgrave Studies in Performance and Technology. Springer. ISBN 978-1-137-36004-5. Presenter: Ha ha ha ha nice comic delivery, and his team mates can really see the effort he’s putting in, and so will the crowd. He’s got a clear field of vision, and for sheer entertainment this tactic really scores. Charles, Gerard (2000). "A Midsummer Night's Dream". BalletMet. Archived from the original on 1 May 2011 . Retrieved 29 January 2010.

Geraldine: Oh well, it does state in the script that Oberon’s bad mood affects the weather, so if it were to rain I would simply blame the fairies. Whittall, Arnold (1998). "Midsummer Night's Dream, A". In Sadie, Stanley (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Vol.3 (8ed.). Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 0-333-73432-7 . Retrieved 31 March 2017– via Grove Music Online. BFI Screenonline: Ill Met By Moonlight (1957)". www.screenonline.org.uk . Retrieved 18 January 2018.The structure of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is roughly such that Act I introduces the main characters and the conflict; Act II sets up the interaction among the Athenian lovers, the fairies, and the craftsmen (the lovers wander through the forest, the fairies make mischief with the love potion); and Act III develops the comical possibilities of these interactions. As Act III is the first act in which all three groups appear, the fantastic contrasts between them are at their most visible. Levenson, Jill L.; Ormsby, Robert (2017). The Shakespearean World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-69619-3. Wyver, John (10 June 2019). "A midsummer night's mystery: my search for Peter Brook's Dream". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 July 2022. The Donkey Show is a disco-era experience based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, that first appeared off Broadway in 1999. [92]