READING FOR WEEK 8

Hi all, please read the following prior to our lesson next week. We will be looking at the various themes in the play. Have a restful weekend! :)

Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Love’s Difficulty
“The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s most important themes—that of the obstacles that love is often confronted by. Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance, and though the play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story; it distances the audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the torments and afflictions that those in love suffer. The tone of the play is so lighthearted that the audience never doubts that things will end happily, and it is therefore free to enjoy the comedic portions without being caught up in the tension of an uncertain outcome.

The theme of love’s difficulty is often explored through the motif of love out of balance—that is, romantic situations in which a disparity or inequality interferes with the harmony of a relationship. The prime instance of this imbalance is the asymmetrical love among the four young Athenians: Hermia loves Lysander, Lysander loves Hermia, Helena loves Demetrius, and Demetrius loves Hermia instead of Helena—a simple numeric imbalance in which two men love the same woman, leaving one woman with too many suitors and one with too few. The play has strong potential for a traditional outcome, and the plot is in many ways based on a quest for internal balance; that is, when the lovers’ tangle resolves itself into symmetrical pairings, the traditional happy ending will have been achieved. Somewhat similarly, in the relationship between Titania and Oberon, an imbalance arises out of the fact that Oberon’s coveting of Titania’s Indian boy outweighs his love for her. Later, Titania’s passion for the ass-headed Bottom represents an imbalance of appearance and nature: Titania is beautiful and graceful, while Bottom is clumsy and grotesque.

Magic
The fairies’ magic, which brings about many of the most bizarre and hilarious situations in the play, is another element central to the fantastic atmosphere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare uses magic both to embody the almost supernatural power of love (symbolized by the love potion) and to create a surreal world. Although the misuse of magic causes chaos, as when Puck mistakenly applies the love potion to Lysander’s eyelids, magic ultimately resolves the play’s tensions by restoring love to balance among the quartet of Athenian youths. Additionally, the ease with which Puck uses magic to his own ends, as when he reshapes Bottom’s head into that of an ass and recreates the voices of Lysander and Demetrius, stands in contrast to the laboriousness and gracelessness of the craftsmen’s attempt to stage their play.

Dreams
As the title suggests, dreams are an important theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; they are linked to the bizarre, magical mishaps in the forest. Hippolyta’s first words in the play evidence the prevalence of dreams (“Four days will quickly steep themselves in night, / Four nights will quickly dream away the time”), and various characters mention dreams throughout (I.i.7–8). The theme of dreaming recurs predominantly when characters attempt to explain bizarre events in which these characters are involved: “I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what / dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about t’expound this dream,” Bottom says, unable to fathom the magical happenings that have affected him as anything but the result of slumber.

Shakespeare is also interested in the actual workings of dreams, in how events occur without explanation, time loses its normal sense of flow, and the impossible occurs as a matter of course; he seeks to recreate this environment in the play through the intervention of the fairies in the magical forest. At the end of the play, Puck extends the idea of dreams to the audience members themselves, saying that, if they have been offended by the play, they should remember it as nothing more than a dream. This sense of illusion and gauzy fragility is crucial to the atmosphere of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as it helps render the play a fantastical experience rather than a heavy drama.

READING FOR WEEK 7&8

Comedy in A Midsummer Night's Dream

"Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me afeard."(3.1.99)

In this quote, the speaker, Bottom, is wondering why everyone is afraid of him. He doesn't realize that as a practical joke, the trickster sprite Puck, has put an ass head on his shoulders. This makes all of his companions afraid of him so that they run away. This is an example of the element of comedy involved in the play.

The funniest part of this play seems to be when Puck, the trickster, mixes up the people who he is assigned to put the love juice on. The first example of this mistake of Puck's is where he puts the love juice in Lysander's eyes, mistaking him for Demetrius. Oberon tells Puck to put the love juice in the eyes of an Athenian man, Demetrius, and to make sure that the first thing he sees after this is the woman whom he hates, but who loves him so much, Helena. Puck ends up finding Lysander and Hermia, lovers, sleeping on the forest floor. He asummes that they are the Athenian maid and man that Oberon referred to and so puts the love juice in Lysander's eyes and leaves. In a bizzare twist, along come Helena and Demetrius to the very spot where Lysander and Hermia lie. Demetrius and Helena are still arguing and Demetrius leaves her with the sleeping Lysander and Hermia. Helena only notices Lysander there and tries to wake him up, concerned that he has been hurt or is dead. Lysander wakes and the first thing he sees is Helena. Lysander says to Helena when he sees her that he will "...run through fire for thy sweat sake. Transparent Helena! Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart."(2.2.103). Lysander has now fallen in love with Helena, a person he has always viewed and trusted as a friend. This is where the comedy of this love mix up begins. Now Helena is confused and thinks that Lysander is playing a trick on her and mocking her for her inability to make Demetrius fall in love with and so she runs away. This is a particularly funny part of the play, especially when viewed and these mix ups between the lovers seem to make up some of the funniest portions of the play.


Clip 1: Hermia & Lysander elope- in the Athenian forest



Clip 2: The four lovers during the tangled confusion in the forest



Another funny section in this play is where Puck puts an ass head on the shoulders of Bottom. This happens when Bottom is gathered with the other craftsmen to rehearse a play for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. Bottom comes across as bossy and offers some ideas of how to improve the play while resolving the perceived problems in the scene where the lion appears on stage. Puck who chances upon the gathering notices Bottom. He decides to pull a little prank on them all so he puts an ass head on Bottom's shoulders. When the others see him, they are frightened of him and are flee to escape the monstrosity that Bottom now was.

"O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! Fly, masters! Help!."(3.1.91) Quince yells this out when he notices the head on Bottom. Obviously he is frightened by what he sees. Bear in mind that Elizabethan audiences lived in a time when superstition was rife and it is entirely possible that the audiences might have shared in Quince's horror at the transformation of Bottom.

"O Bottom, thou art changed! What so I see on thee?"(3.1.101) Snout shouts this out at Bottom when he sees him with the head that Puck has given him. Everyone is afraid of him because they perceive him as having been tampered with and 'possessed' by spirits. This is quite a humorous section in the play. Puck's action of transforming Bottom's head into that of an ass allows for much humor in terms of reactions by the craftsmen but also the language that Bottom uses as he wonders why they have left him alone. His reactions after the other craftsmen have left are also equally humourous; he sings loudly and in the process awakens the immediately smittened Titania which brings the humor within the play into yet another level.

Humor and comedy are rife when Titania falls in love with Bottom despite his monstrous appearance and ass' head. She sees him immediately upon being awakened by his singing and says, "I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note; So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape; And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me. On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee."(3.1.123) Titania has fallen in love with an ass and treats him as her lover, getting her delicate ethereal fairy attendants to attend attentively to Bottom's every whim. Visually, the sight of delicate creatures fawning over a monster in the shape of Bottom is sure to bring a smile to one's lips. The incongruity of the situation adds yet another element of humor and comedy to the play.

READING 2 FOR WEEK 6&7

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Theseus as the Voice of Reason

In the play, Theseus begins as the voice of reason when he tries to convince Hermia to accede to Egeus’ request that she be wedded to Demetrius. He attempts to reason with her by advising her that ‘To you your father should be as a god’ (Act1,Sc1, 47) and that she should ‘…with his judgment look.’ (Act1, Sc1, 57). Although he does not eventually manage to convince Hermia to bend to her father’s will, he does ask her to ‘Take time to pause…’(Act1,Sc1, 83) and re-examine her decision to choose a live of enforced chastity as a nun over marriage to Demetrius.

Towards the end of the play however, Shakespeare allows Theseus to assert his authority by having him decree that the lovers are free to marry the ones they love and over-ruling Egeus’ claims of his parental rights. His decision, while brought about by the confused events in the night time in the Athenian forest also bears testimony to the forest as a place where the line between dream and reality blurs within the play.

At the end of the play, Shakespeare also clearly establishes the feelings of Theseus with respect to love. Theseus expresses his doubt in the truth of the lovers’ recount of their night in the forest; he says that "Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends" (Act5, Sc1, 5-7). It is evident from what he says that he has no faith in the ravings of lovers- or poets-, as they are as likely as madmen are to be divorced from reason and ‘Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt’ (Act5,Sc1, 11). He comes across as a very practical and reasoning man when he further elaborates to HIppolyta his apparent doubt in the lovers’ recollection of events that took place in the dark Athenian forest: ‘Or in the night, imagining some fear, / How easy is a bush supposed a bear?’ (Act5,Sc1, 21-2). Coming, as it does, after the resolution of the lovers' dilemma, this speech of Theseus’ serves to dismiss most of the play a hallucinatory imagining of people in love.

Theseus is also a lover, but his relationship with Hippolyta is based upon the once cold reality of war. As he himself professes, "Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword / And won thy love doing thee injuries...’ (Act 1, Sc1, 17-18). He is eager to wed Hippolyta and marriage is perceived as the place where reason and judgment rule. He wins the hand of his bride through action not through flattery, kisses and sighs inspired by her beauty as was the case of the four young lovers. As a man of action it is easy to understand why Theseus may have been quick to dismiss the lovers as being apt to imagine a false reality as being real. Theseus has a firm belief that the eyes of lovers are not to be trusted as they are wont to see things from an imagined perspective while in love.

This is particularly apt if one were to recall how it was precisely by enchanting the eyes of the lovers that Puck and Oberon manage to create so much mayhem: "Flower of this purple dye, / hit with Cupid's archery, / sink in apple of his eye!/ When his love he doth espy, / Let her shine as gloriously / as the Venus of the sky."(Act3, Sc2,102-8) Although no character involved in the lovers’ ‘love-triangle’ had his physical features changed, the lovers still initially fell in love disastrously with the wrong partner, due to the influence of the love-juice. For example, when Demtrius awakes, he beholds the same Helena that he despises earlier in the play and yet suddenly, he is enthralled: ‘O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect,/ divine!’ (Act3,Sc2, 136-7).

For Theseus, who is a man of reason and for whom decisions are dictated by fact and action, such a situation is merely impulse and in no means grounded in reality. This would explain why Theseus deduces that the lovers, who are at a loss to explain the inexplicable changes of heart they've experienced in the forest, dreamed up possible versions of what had transpired in the night. Theseus reasons with Hippolyta who was more wont to accept the lovers’ narration of events by saying, "And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them into shapes and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name."(Act5, Sc1, 15-18) A trick of the light, an abundance of shadows, lack of sleep, an overactive imagination or any one of these or million other causes are the most likely explanation, according to Theseus. While distrusting the nature of love and its effect on people, Theseus also recognizes the beneficial effect it has, as Demetrius and Lysander, once bitter foes, present themselves to him as friends. He also allows himself to revel in the anticipation of his upcoming nuptials to Hippolyta. By allowing sense and reason to overcome archaic laws and allowing the lovers to marry according to their affections, Theseus betrays his own affection and appreciation for the intoxicating draught called love, "Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends, go and fresh days of love accompany your hearts!"(Act5, Sc1,27-29). While he is a man of reason, Theseus too has no issues enjoying the heady sensation of being in love for as long as there is logic to the madness.

Question to consider:
1. Is Theseus merely ruled by his sense of logic and reason or do you suspect there be a deeper motivation to his decision to allow the four lovers to marry at the end of the play?

READING 1 FOR WEEK 6&7

The Foolish Lovers of A Midsummer Night's Dream

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream the young lovers fall in and out of love in a manner that is almost reckless, and act in such a manner that is aptly summed up by Puck's statement, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!' (A3, Sc2. 115) The lovers are foolish because they act like children, or at their best, like unthinking young adults.

Although Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena appear grown-up in terms of what they say about love, when they are in love they act foolishly. Each of the lovers illustrate at different points in the play how they can be quite foolish: Demetrius, because he is unaware how his love changes, Helena, because she chases Demetrius even though he does not love her, Lysander, because he persuades Hermia to run away with him, and Hermia, because she risks death and all that she knows for love.

Demetrius is foolish and ignorant because he is mostly unaware of the fact that his love (or rather, his attentions) waver and changes through out the play. When Helena chases Demetrius into the forest, he tells Helena quite clearly, "I love thee not, therefore pursue me not." (Act2, Sc1,188) and bids her to "Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more." Demetrius' feelings for Helena have been overshadowed by Hermia's beauty, as Helena woefully extrapolates in her soliloquy 'For ere Deemtrius looked on Hermia's eyne. / He hailed down oaths that her was only mine, / And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, / So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.' (Act1,Sc1, 241-44). Enraptured as he were by Hermia, Demetrius does not seem to realize or acknowledge his feelings that once existed for Helena. In fact, he remains stoically bent on pursuing Hermia and ignoring Helena. However, after being anointed by the love-juice, Demetrius' feelings for Hermia disappear, as he declares matter-of-factly '...my love for Hermia, / Melted as the snow,' (Act4, Sc1, 166-7) and elaborates that 'The object and pleasure of mine eye,/ Is only Helena' (Act4, Sc1,170-1). Demetrius neither questions his change of heart or how his feelings for Helena comes and goes within the short span of the play. In this respect, he rather placidly and foolishly accepts the given situation and does not even try to make sense of the events that have taken place.

In a similar vein, Helena is acts foolishly in her pursuit of Demetrius whose feelings for her have disappeared. In the Athenian forest Demetrius shows no love for Helena. Demetrius says, "I'll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts." (Act2, Sc1, 227-8) telling Helena in no uncertain terms that he is keen to be rid of her and is unconcerened about her safety in the woods. he also brusquely asks her- "Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?" (Act2, Sc1, 199-201) Demetrius clearly communicates to Helena that he has no interest in her pursuit, but Helena persists. However, rather inappropriately for a Athenian nobel-born woman, Helena replies to his spurnious statements with a self-debasing statement, "I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you." (IAct1,Sc1,223-4) So enamored of Demetrius is Helena that she even stakes her reputation as a maiden in the dark Athenian forest whilst pursuing Demetrius. So trusting is she of Demetrius to claim 'Your virtue is my privilege' (Act2, Sc1, 220) and to believe wholeheartedly that no harm can befall her in the woods as she is with the one she loves. Her foolish tenacity in pursuing Demetrius who repeatedly spurns her highlights Helena's propensity for acting foolishly in love.

Lysander on the other hand acts foolishly when he persuades Hermia to avoid death and life as a nun and to run away with him. Despite his calm and seemingly mature words of comfort to Hermia: 'The course of true love never did run smooth' (Act1,mSc1, 134), his subsequent suggestion reveal him to have a mind like that of a child; to suggest such a simplistic solution to a serious state of events that confront him and Hermia. He selfishly asks that Hermia 'steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night' (Act1,Sc1, 164) without so much as a thought about what repercussions there might be had Hermia been caught in the act of slipping away in the dead of night to meet her lover in the Athenian forest. As such, Lysander's actions (while perhaps belying the sincerest of intentions) prove to be self-serving and unthinking- much like a child's ego-centric view of the world. Lysander further puts his seemingly innocuous suggestion (of eloping to escape the long arm of the law) to question when later in the woods, he endeavors to lie near Hermia- 'One turf shall serve as pillow for us both/ One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.' (Act2, Sc2, 47-8). One can't help but if the suggestion to elope through the Athenian forest was but a ruse to get Hermia alone, in a darkened setting. Thankfully though, Hermia has the presence of mind to stop anything from happening before it even begun. Lysander's decision to elope with Hermia betrays a simplistic desire to find the easy way out of the obstacle that they face. His impetuous decision to elope with Hermia puts both of them at risk of discovery and pursuit by Athenian law while simultaneously placing them in harm's way of any wild beasts that lurk in the dark forest.

Despite her laudable efforts in repelling Lysander's advances in the forest, Hermia too is not beyond reproach for her role in the mad decision to elope. She seems to act foolishly, choosing celibacy and solitude over love that is to be procured by force. Hermia calmly declares to Theseus ''So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,/ Ere I will yield my virgin patent up/ Unto his lordship whose unwished yoke/ My sould consents not to give sovereignty.' (Act1, Sc1, 79-82). This is despite what Theseus reasoning that '...earthlier happy is the rose distilled/ Than that which withering on the virgin thorn, / Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.' (Act1, Sc1, 76-8). Hermia's decision to elope with Lysander point not only to a certain level of desperation in action, but also of a certain level of foolishness. She does not stop to think of what might become of her should her plans to elope be discovered. Neither does she think of how Egeus might feel losing a daughter, regardless of his treatment of Hermia. When Hermia says, "My good Lysander,/ I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,/ ... Tomorrow truly will I meet thee." (Act1,Sc1, 168-8 & 178), she is being self-absorbed and refuses to even consider if there are any alternative solutions to the obstacle that she and Lysander faces. In this respect, Hermia proves herself to be foolish and impatient, preferring to take matters into her own hands instead of acting on her statement to Lysander 'Then let us teach our trial patience/ Because it is a customary cross,' (Act1, S1, 152-3)

William Shakespeare's A Midsummers Night's Dream shows how childish foolish lovers can be. Each of the lovers proves that they are inclined to act foolishly when in love (or supposedly in love): Demetrius, because he is unaware and seemingly unconcerned about how his love changes, Helena, because she pursues Demetrius even though he does not love her, Lysander, because he persuades Hermia to run away with him, and Hermia, because she risks death for love.

Other readings will be posted up presently :)

ACTIVITY FOR WEEK 5

Hi all

Our MSND lesson (for BN & GR) has once again been taken over by TKAM but I trust that you have all been catching up and continuing with your reading and revision and research at home.

I will be speaking to Mr. D regarding the Lit lessons for Week 6- am hoping that I will get both periods for BN and GR and we can then use the time to discuss what we missed this week.

In the meantime, please find the time to pen down your thoughts on the following:

1. Many contemporary productions of the play cast the same actor in the role of Theseus and Oberon, and also of Hippolyta and Titania. What does this suggest about the functions of these characters in the play?

2. How does the relationship that exists between Theseus and Hippolyta differ from that of the relationship between the four young lovers?

and

3. Why do you think Shakespeare made Hermia and Helena more distinguishable than the men, Lysander and Demetrius?

Please prepare your thoughts in advance for next week's lesson.

As a precaution against last minute changes, please ensure that you have your MSND text in school every week, regardless of lesson.

Cheers
~Ms. Nsa~