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A Midsummer Night's Dream
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream – Introduction
• It is unknown when MND was first written or performed, but it is usually dated between 1594 – 1596.
• May have been written for an aristocratic wedding or to celebrate the Feast of St. John
• Midsummer Eve, or St. John’s Eve, was celebrated on June 23.
• Categorized as a comedy, it is one of Shakespeare’s most popular works.
Titania Embracing Bottom, Henry Fuseli (1793)
A Midsummer Night's Dream, a comedy believed to have been
written by William Shakespeare between 1590 and 1597, portrays
the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the
Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta.
A Midsummer Night's Dream – The Text
• First quarto edition published in 1600 by Thomas Fisher.
• Second quarto edition published in 1619 by William Jaggard, as part of “False Folio.”
• Included in First Folio of 1623.• First documented performance
occurred at Court on Jan. 1, 1605.
Title page of first quarto, 1600
A Midsummer Night's Dream – Sources
• MND has no single source.• Unlike many of Shakespeare’s plays, it’s not an
adaptation of another work.• Pyramus and Thisbe comes from Ovid’s The
Metamorphosis.• Wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta comes from
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.• Other aspects of the play are derived from
Roman comedic tradition and English folk tales.
Thisbe, John Waterhouse (1909)
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Themes
• Love is the central theme of the play.• Shakespeare examines many aspects of love
by showing the behavior of six pairs of lovers:• Theseus and Hippolyta • Oberon and Titania• Titania and Bottom• Pyramus and Thisbe• Helena and Demetrius• Hermia and Lysander
Dreams
Gender Relationships
Love
Magic
Order and Disorder
The Power of Theatre
• Although the Athenian lovers and Titania are under Puck’s magic spell, Shakespeare is making fun of the way lovers act in real life.
• Lovers are shown to be fickle and foolish.• Passionate love is brief and often based on
appearances.• These themes have also been treated by
Shakespeare in tragedies, such as Romeo and Juliet.
• Lysander’s oft-quoted comment in the opening scene sets the tone for the lovers’ struggles:• The course of true love never did run smooth;• Although the play focuses on the foolishness of lovers,
the tone is lighthearted, as is appropriate for comedy.• Even the tragic story of the lovers, Pyramus and
Thisbe, as performed by the tradesmen, is a source of humor and entertainment.
• The theme is resolved by the reconciliation of Oberon and Titania and by the triple wedding at the end of the play.
Characters
The Athenians Theseus – Duke of Athens Hippolyta – Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus Philostrate – Master of the Revels Egeus – father of Hermia, wants her to marry Demetrius Hermia – daughter of Egeus, in love with Lysander Helena – in love with Demetrius, Hermia's friend Lysander – in love with Hermia at first but later loves Helena and
then returns to loving Hermia Demetrius – initially loves Hermia but later loves Helena Spirits 1 & 2 (speak only to Puck and Oberon)
The Fairies• Oberon – Titania's husband and King of the Fairies• Titania – Oberon's wife and Queen of the Fairies• Robin Goodfellow/Puck – servant to Oberon• Peaseblossom – fairy servant to Titania• Cobweb – fairy servant to Titania• Moth – fairy servant to Titania• Mustardseed – fairy servant to Titania
The Mechanicals (an acting troupe)
• Peter Quince – carpenter, leads the troupe and plays Prologue• Nick Bottom – weaver, plays Pyramus• Francis Flute – bellows-mender, plays Thisbe• Robin Starveling – tailor, plays Moonshine• Tom Snout – tinker, plays Wall• Snug – joiner, plays Lion
Plot
• The play opens with Hermia, who is in love with Lysander, on wanting to submit to her father Egeus' demand that she wed Demetrius, whom he has arranged for her to marry. Helena meanwhile pines unrequitedly for Demetrius. Enraged, Egeus invokes an ancient Athenian law before Duke Theseus, whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus offers her another choice: lifelong chastity while worshiping the goddess Artemis as a nun.
• Peter Quince and his fellow players plan to put on a play for the wedding of the Duke and the Queen, "the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe".[2] Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them to the players. Nick Bottom, who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is over-enthusiastic and wants to dominate others by suggesting himself for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also rather be a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Quince ends the meeting with "at the Duke's oak we meet".
Hermia and Helena byWashington Allston, 1818
In a parallel plot line, Oberon, king of the fairies, and Titania, his queen, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titaniaby Joseph Noel Paton
Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his "knight" or "henchman", since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshipers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience. He calls upon Robin "Puck" Goodfellow, his "shrewd and knavish sprite",[3] to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called "love-in-idleness", which turns from white to purple when struck by Cupid's arrow. When the concoction is applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, that person, upon waking, falls in love with the first living thing they perceive. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower with the hope that he might make Titania fall in love with an animal of the forest and thereby shame her into giving up the little Indian boy. He says, "And ere I take this charm from off her sight,/As I can take it with another herb,/I'll make her render up her page to me."[4]
• Hermia and Lysander have escaped to the same forest in hopes of eloping. Helena, desperate to reclaim Demetrius's love, tells Demetrius about the plan and he follows them in hopes of killing Lysander. Helena continually makes advances towards Demetrius, promising to love him more than Hermia. However, he rebuffs her with cruel insults against her. Observing this, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the magical juice from the flower on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius goes to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Upon waking up, he sees Helena. Now, both men are in pursuit of Helena.
• However, she is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. Hermia is at a loss to see why her lover has abandoned her, and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander away from her. The four quarrel with each other until Lysander and Demetrius become so enraged that they seek a place to duel to prove whose love for Helena is the greater. Oberon orders Puck to keep Lysander and Demetrius from catching up with one another and to remove the charm from Lysander. Lysander returns to loving Hermia, while Demetrius continues to love Helena.
• Meanwhile, Quince and his band of six labourers ("rude mechanicals", as they are described by Puck) have arranged to perform their play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus' wedding and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Bottom is spotted by Puck, who (taking his name to be another word for a jackass) transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen run screaming in terror, much to Bottom's confusion, since he has no idea what has happened. Determined to await his friends, he begins to sing to himself. Titania, having received the love-potion, is awakened by Bottom's singing and immediately falls in love with him. She lavishes him with attention and presumably makes love to him.
• While she is in this state of devotion, Oberon takes the changeling. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania, orders Puck to remove the donkey's head from Bottom, and arranges everything so Helena, Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander will all believe they have been dreaming when they awaken Puck distracts Lysander and Demetrius from fighting over Helena's love by mimicking their voices and leading them apart. Eventually, all four find themselves separately falling asleep in the glade. Once they fall asleep, Puck administers the love potion to Lysander again, claiming all will be well in the morning.
• The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius no longer loves Hermia, Theseus overrules Egeus's demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the night's events must have been a dream. After they exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides that he must have experienced a dream "past the wit of man". In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. The performers are so terrible playing their roles that the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and everyone retires to bed. Afterwards, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occusspants with good fortune. After all the other characters leave, Puck "restores amends" and suggests to the audience that what they just experienced might be nothing more than a dream.
Hermia and Lysander by John Simmons (1870)
The Awakening of the Fairy Queen Titania
"Puck" by Joshua Reynolds, 1789
Titania and Bottom by Johann Heinrich Füssli 1793–94
Joseph Noel Paton: "The Reconciliation of Titania and Oberon
The Marriage of Oberon and Titania by John Anster Fitzgerald
La Folie de Titania, by Paul Gervais, 1897
