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“All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely
players.”~Meet the players!
Historical Context-Need to Know
• Literary Period: The Renaissance (1500’s)• It is a romantic comedy-in opposition with Romeo and
Juliet. • The play was first performed between 1595 and 1596• Shakespeare explores the complex nature of the
human heart.• Midsummer mocks many aspects of human behavior.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy which portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and their interactions with the fairies who inhabit it.
Comedy - in simple terms means that the play will end happily.Romantic comedy is usually based on a mix-up in events or identities. Shakespeare’s comedies often move towards tragedies (a death or lack of of resolution) but are resolved in the nick of time.
Comedy – despair to happiness
Tragedy – happiness to despair
Shakespeare’s comedies often end with a wedding.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written by William Shakespeare in approximately 1595.
There are several theories at to the origins of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
1) Some have theorized that the play might have been written for an aristocratic wedding; numerous such weddings took place in 1596.
2) Others suggest it was written for the Queen to celebrate the feast day of St. John. The feast of John the Baptist was celebrated as an English festival on June 24 (Midsummer Day) It was believed that on Midsummer Night that the fairies and witches held their festival. To dream about Midsummer Night was to conjure up images of fairies and witches and other similar creatures and supernatural events.
In either case, it would also have been performed at The Theatre, and, later, The Globe in London.
THE THREE WORLDS of
1. THE ATHENIANS-High Social Class Characters:
• Theseus and his bride, Hippolyta (Theseus represents law and order.)• The four lovers: Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, Lysander (They represent adolescent rebellion.)• Egeus (Hermia’s father)
High Social Class Characters:• Lysander: Beloved of Hermia
• Hermia: Beloved of Lysander
• Helena: in love with Demetrius
• Demetrius: in love with Hermia, but then falls in love with Helena later on.
Beloved: Someone or something that is loved. A favourite book is a beloved book, or someone you're in love with can be called your 'beloved‘.
Left to right: Helena, Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia
High Social Class Characters:• Egeus: Father of Hermia, wants to force
Hermia to wed Demetrius.• Theseus: Duke of Athens, good friend of
Egeus.• Hippolyta: Queen of the Amazons and
betrothed of Theseus.
• Theseus and Hippolyta
Left to right: Helena, Demetrius, Lysander, Hermia
Helena and Demetrius
Theseus and Hippolyta
2. THE ACTORS- The Lower Class Citizens:• Bottom (the rather vain “leader” of the group who wishes to play all the parts• Other members of the cast: Quince, Flute, Starveling, Snout, Snug, Philostrate
Lower Class Citizens• Philostrate: Master of the Revels for
Theseus.
Lower Class Citizens: The Acting Troupe (Mechanicals)
• Peter Quince: Carpenter and leads the troupe.
• Nick Bottom: Weaver. He plays Pyramus in the troupe’s production of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” and gets a donkey head put on him by Puck so that Titania will magically fall in love with a monster.
Lower Class Citizens: The Acting Troupe (Mechanicals)
• Francis Flute: The bellows-mender who plays Thisbe.
• Robin Starveling: The tailor who plays Moonshine.
• Tom Snout: The tinker who plays the wall.• Snug: The joiner who plays the lion.
• The bellows
3.The Fairies-Supernatural Characters:
Their realm is the woods where they interact with the humans who wander there. This setting is outside the walls of Athens and so disorder prevails.
• Titania (Queen of the Fairies)• Oberon (King of the Fairies)• Puck (a.k.a. Robin Goodfellow or
Hobgoblin) – Oberon’s loyal helper
Puck and Oberon
Bottom and Titania
Titania’s Fairy Servants (known as her train)
• First Fairy• Peaseblossom• Cobweb• Moth (sometimes rendered as ‘Mote’)• Mustardseed
The three worlds come together in the woods at night: a place of magic and mystery where illusion reigns!
Shakespeare cleverly weaves together not only fairies and lovers, but also social hierarchies with the aristocratic Theseus and the "rude mechanicals," or the artisans and working men. This allows the play to become more lyrical, since it is able to draw on the rougher language of the lower classes as well as the poetry of the noblemen.
What’s really happening in Midsummer?• Shakespeare uses different kinds of humor to mock people’s
common assumptions about love.
• Shakespeare uses numerous examples of figurative language to explore the complexities of human emotions.
• Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to heighten the sense of comedy and humor in the play.
What’s really happening in Midsummer?
• Shakespeare uses soliloquies by major characters to draw the audience into central ideas and themes.
• Shakespeare portrays human relationships in several different lights in order to illustrate the changing and complex sides of human emotions.
