Reading Questions for A Midsummer Night’s Dream

(1.2.08)

 

 

Act One, Scene One: Generations in conflict, and a wedding in waiting

 

  1. Who is Theseus, and whom is he marrying? (I.i.1-19; pp. 3-4)

 

  1. Who is Egeus, and why is he angry? What is the “ancient privilege of Athens”? (I.i.21-82; pp. 4-6)

 

 

  1. What is Hermia and Lysander’s plan? (I.i.156-8; pp. 8-9)

 

  1. Who is Helena, and whom does she love? What is her plan? (I.i.180-251; pp. 9-12)

 

Act One, Scene Two: Meeting the rude Mechanicals (working men of Athens)

 

  1. What jobs in the city do each of these working class characters hold? What parts do they play in the drama they are putting on for the Athenian court? Use the notes to explain their names and professions. You may also want to refer to the brief essay on this scene in the HCC Handbook, “Analyzing Drama”, pp. 105-111. NB: This scene will be the focus of Paper #4.

 

  1.  What is the purpose of their gathering? Who is in charge?

 

  1. What play do they plan to perform, and what is it about?

 

Act Two, Scene One: The fairies are fighting!

 

  1. Who are Titania and Oberon, and why are they fighting? (II.i.18-31; p. 18)

 

  1. Who is Puck (also called “Robin Goodfellow”)? What kind of mischief does he do in the human world?

 

  1. What are the properties of the flower called “love-in-idlenss” and how did it get them? What does Oberon intend to do with it? (II.i.146-187; pp. 22-23)

 

  1. Who enters the wood at the end of the scene, and what is going on between them? (II.i.189-243; pp. 24-5)

 

Act Two, Scene Two: Mixing things up!

 

1.      Whom does Lysander love when this scene begins? Whom does he love when it ends? Why?

 

Act Three, Scene One: A rude rehearsal

 

1.      What are the actors’ main concerns about the play they are preparing to put on? How do they resolve these problems? How are we meant to feel about both the problems and their solutions? (III.i.9-77; pp. 33-35)

2.      What event interrupts their rehearsal? (III.i.105-120; p. 37)

3.      With whom does Titania fall in love, and why? (III.i.138-64; p. 30)

 

Act Three, Scene Two: Increasing the mix-up!

 

1.      Who loves whom at the beginning of the scene? What is the arrangement of affections by the end of the scene? Why? Consider the relationships among the romantic couples, but also between the two young women.

2.      What is Oberon’s plan? (III.ii.354-77; pp. 53-54)

 

Act Four, Scene One: Waking Up

 

  1. What changes in Titania’s relationship to Bottom? Why? What about her relationship with Oberon?
  2. What is the arrangement among the young lovers at the end of the scene? Why? How do the young people explain their experiences to each other?
  3. What are Bottom’s thoughts and feelings at the end of the scene (IV.i.203-222; pp. 66-67)?

 

Act Five, Scene One: Three Weddings and a Performance

 

  1. What is Theseus’ attitude towards the story told by the young people? How about Hippolyta? (V.i.1-27; pp. 70-71)
  2. Most of this scene is comprised of the performance of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe? What makes this tragedy “comic” – for the noble audience on stage? For us as the audience for all of them?

 

Discussion questions

 

A. Love, Marriage, and Remarriage

 

  1. The generational conflict set up in Act One, Scene I concerns the right of fathers to determine the marriage partners of their daughters, versus the right of young women to consent to marriage. Does this conflict remain a living one in your household, community, or tradition? Did a version of this problem play a role in Jane Austen’s Persuasion? Reconstruct the scenario in Austen, and compare it to the scenario here.

 

  1. Comedies  traditionally end in marriage. (Review Jane Austen’s Persuasion as a model of this paradigm.) This play ends with three marriages, plus a re-marriage (the reconciliation of Titania and Oberon). How is the generational conflict resolved in Act Five, Scene One? How transparent, straight-forward, or free is each consent to marriage / re-marriage at the end of the play? In your view, which of these unions is most likely to be a happy one? Why? In any of these cases, does marriage appear to occur at a cost? (These costs might include other forms or objects of affection and attachment as well as subjective autonomy or freedom.) Consider this question in relation to the following couples:

 

> Lysander and Hermia

> Demetrius and Helena

> Theseus and Hippolyta

> Titania and Oberon

 

B. Theatre, Imagination, and Forms of Making

 

  1. The various scenes in which the “rude mechanicals” (= working men of Athens) cast, rehearse, and then perform their play constitute some of Shakespeare’s most explicit representations of the process of creating a theatrical experience. (Literary critics call this “metatheater,” or “theater about  theater.”) Are there other instances or moments of metatheater in the play? (They will be less explicit.) In each instance, who is the audience,who is the stage director, and who are the players?

 

  1. If you were going to adapt this play to a modern setting with naturalistic explanations (no fairies!), how would you make the lovers fall in and out of love with each other?

 

  1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, along with The Tempest, is Shakespeare’s most fanciful or fantastic play, involving supernatural creatures and a bodily metamorphosis from one species to another. The play also includes Shakespeare’s most explicit, if ambivalent, discourse on the imagination, the famous speech by Theseus at the beginning of Act Five, Scene One (pp. 70-71).

 

a.      What, according to Theseus, do the lunatic, the lover, and the poet have in common? Explain the comparison.  Give an example from the play that demonstrates the connection.

b.      Compare Theseus’ theory of the imagination to Descartes’.

c.       Theseus does not like the imagination. Do you think Shakespeare fully agrees with the opinion of the character he has created? Why or why not?

d.      Explain Hippolyta’s response to Theseus. Does she agree with Theseus? Why or why not?

 

7. In Act Three, Scene One, the troupe of working-class performers is concerned that the violent subject matter of their play will frighten the ladies in the audience. How are we in the audience meant to evaluate this discussion? Do similar fears continue to shape discussions of entertainment and media today?    

 

C. Making connections: rhetoric and causality

 

  1. rhetoric review: Lysander calls Hermia’s speech at I.i.150-55 (p. 8) “a good persuasion.” Analyze her speech in terms of ethos, logos, and pathos. Can you identify any paradigms? Enthymemes? Compare and contrast Lysander’s use of the word “persuasion” and Jane Austen’s.

 

Other speeches for rhetorical analysis:

> Lysander on “reason,” II.ii.111-123 (pp. 30-31) (see Handbook, p. 49)

> Theseus on the imagination, V.i.2-22 (pp. 70-71; see Handbook 98-102)

> The epilogue delivered by Puck at the very end of the play, V.i.425-440 (p. 86)

 

  1. causality review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play filled with transformations and metamorphoses, whether it’s the shift from one object of love to another, or from one bodily shape to another.  Analyze Lysander’s falling in love with Helena using Aristotle’s causal categories. What are the efficient, material, formal, and final causes of this change or transformation? What role if any does chance play? How are we as the audience supposed to understand and evaluate these changes? (You can review Aristotle’s causes, HCC Handbook, p. 29.)

 

Other scenes for causal analysis:

Ø      Demetrius falls in love with Helena (III.ii.123-177, pp. 45-47)

Ø      the transformation of Bottom into an ass (III.i.104-125, p. 37)

Ø      Titania falls in love with Bottom (III.i.126-201; pp. 38-40)

Ø      Lysander falls back in love with Hermia (III.ii.354-369 [pp. 53-54]; IV.i.149-202 [pp. 66-67])

 

D. Research fun

 

1)      Search for a key word from A Midsummer Night’s Dream  in the on-line works of Shakespeare, http://www.it.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/test.html

2)      How many times does he use the word throughout his writing career? In which play or plays does this word occur most often?

3)      Look up the word in the OED. What meanings did it carry in Shakespeare’s day? How, if at all, have its meanings changed?

 

Possible words: fancy, fantasy, feign, imagination, toy, dream, conceit, consent, interlude, history, fairy, bottom, joiner, tinker, interlude, ass, preposterous, translate, transport

 

4)      Do you find reading Shakespeare dry or tedious? Take a break and check out the Shakespeare Insult Generator: http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html?

 

Want to generate your own insults? Check out the http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html

How would you find out if any of these insults comes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream?