Reading Notes for A Midsummernight's Dream

Reading Notes for Shakespeare’s

A Midsummernight’s Dream

Steven Marx

Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo

smarx@calpoly.edu

I,i [Attend to the "subscenes" marked by entrances and exits]

lines1-19

Theseus is the mythological Greek hero who killed the Minotaur, founded the city of Athens, raped or seduced many women, and defeated the Amazons, a tribe of women warriors who had hitherto ruled the land. Hippolyta was their queen.
The opening insists on the festive tone of the play and its overall celebration of romance and marriage, but notice the undertones.

20-126

who and what are set in conflict here? Watch these opposing forces shape the plot, character development, and abstract theme as the play proceeds.
how are the conflicts and characters shown to be both serious and funny?
what's relation between this subscene and the previous one?

127-179

what's the effect of the large exit on the audience? on the characters who remain? i.e. on their language and movements?
how is love defined and represented here--in poetic image, sound of language, intellectual analysis, and dramatic situation. Compare it to views of love in the first two subscenes.
in what ways is Lysander's plan appropriate?

180-251

what happens to the tone when Helena enters; many of Shakespeare's plays have been set to music (including this one--the Benjamin Britten version is available on video in LRC). Can you imagine a musical transition at this point? Or a change in lighting?
how are the earlier representations of love--Theseus', Egeus', Lysander's and Hermia's-- expanded and challenged by Helena's perspective? How has the emergence of sexual love affected friendship as well as parental love? By what means does love wreak havoc? In what sense does it cause a fall from paradise and turn heaven into hell (205-207)?

I,ii

are there subscenes here?
what happens to the story line between scene i and ii? What are some of the gaps or walls here? How do we as audience overcome them? What helps are provided by the script? What does it feel like to be puzzled or mystified and then to "get it"? Is our being "out of it" or "with it" due to us or to the play?
How are the working stiffs different from the lords and ladies? what makes us laugh at them? Are there ways that the two social groups are also similar? Are there any connections between the play they are casting and the action and themes of the previous scene?
How do the actors' personalities vary? Describe and account for Bottom's. What are some of the problems they face, both real and imagined?
Does their departure for the woods a mile outside the town suggest a connection with the departure of the lovers? You may want to skip ahead to Theseus' speech (V, i, 2-22) for an explicit statement of the play's repeated linkage of fantasy, madness, love and poetry, keeping in mind that "poet" was also a word for playwright.

II,i

Acts II-IV take place in the wood; notice the properties of this "green world" and the effect of being there on the characters from the city.
lines1-59

what devices make this introduction succeed at creating a fantasy we are willing to believe in?
Puck begins the obscure story of the marital squabble between the Queen and King of the fairies, Titania and Oberon. He wants and is jealous of the "lovely boy" whom she keeps for a page. Montrose's article, on reserve, provides a suggestive interpretation of the strange tale.
Puck, a spirit of mischief and confusion in peasant mythology, is jester to Oberon. What's his relation to the comedy we laugh at?

lines 60-187

after mutual accusations of jealousy, blame for the disastrous consequences of their conflict, and sexual infidelity (with Theseus and Hippolyta) Titania and Oberon fill in more details: the boy is son of her servant-playmate who died in childbirth. Oberon will enchant Titania by painting her eyelids with juice from a pansy. The juice will make her fall in love with the next live creature she sees. This power comes from having been pierced by an arrow that Cupid once shot at a virgin mermaid who had the power to calm the sea. He had fallen in love with her but missed his target.

lines 188-244

what's connection between Helena-Demetrius relationship portrayed here and other male-female relationships shown so far? What does it reveal about love and power, love and lunacy, love and Puck's spirit of mischief and confusion?

lines 245-268

why does Oberon ask Puck to also smear the juice on Demetrius? Is there a connection between him and other authority figures in the play?

II,ii

notice the tone sequence of five subscenes: innocent lullaby purging threats followed by sinister poisoning of helpless sleepers repeated twice, followed by loud chaotic awakenings
two new themes: the passage between sleeping and waking (what's real?) and the juxtaposition of delicate and brutish aspects of sex
significances of parallels between the ways the sleepers go to bed and between how they are drugged?
Check Lysander's absurd drug induced appeal to reason 114-122. How does it serve as a commentary on Helena's various undrugged rationalizations of her own behavior? Is there a connection between our laughter at these characters, under the influence of powers they don't understand, and our laughter at the "hard-handed" craftsmen?
what's the direction of movement of Act II? Do you see an overall pattern of the plot taking shape? What might you expect to take place in Act III, knowing the play has five acts altogether?

III,i

lines 1-120

any significance in Titania being on stage asleep while the clowns rehearse? between sleep and rehearsal?
implications of the equivalencies in Quince's opening directions? of make believe in general?
what's relation between Bottom's (and Snout's) concerns and Peter Quince's concerns about representing reality on stage?
what do Quince and Bottom's two alternative methods of "signifying" moon and wall suggest about the transmission and reception of information?
what's suggested by Puck's considering the rehearsal as a play? of his playing both auditor and actor? Follow the buildup of intensity from line 1 to 120; as a rehearsal turns into a performance.
any connection between all the errors that Bottom makes in decoding his part--e.g. his stringing together his cues and his lines or his use of the word opposite the one he means--and other errors and confusions in the play? e.g. line 113.
how does the plot and language of "Pyramis and Thisbe" reflect the main plot? What makes one silly and the other serious?
how is Bottom's transformation similar to Lysander's?

lines 121-202

dramatic effect of mass exit which leaves Bottom alone on stage singing to himself while Titania remains sleeping
comic effect of juxtaposing their different modes of feeling and speech--Queen of the Fairies and Bully Bottom; comparisons to mismatches of Helena, Demetrius, Lysander and Hermia; implications about love
How does Bottom react to his own transformation, his new status and the fairy servants? Any connection to his thoughts and behavior as a player?

III,ii

lines 1-40

Oberon's mood? What multiple satisfactions does his "plot" provide? How does Puck's narrative entertain him?
Relate Puck's account of how delusion works on the "rude mechanicals" to Theseus' speech in Act V.

41-87

Watch audience-actor configuration in this and later subscenes. Whose confusion and error do we observe?
Compare Hermia's confusion with Demetrius'; her process of "reasonable" inference with his "mad" obsession
How is his (and others') sudden going to sleep both absurd and believable? What's relation among being asleep, dead and offstage?

88-121

Watch audience become director-playwright and change the script in the process of production. To eventually bring about resolution, they complicate the plot further.

122-176

Do we see Lysander and Helena as free agents or puppet-actors? What's connection between this question and their discussion of oaths and loyalty (or "truth")? See also line 92.
compare Demetrius' awakening to Titania's

177-344

what's effect of arrival of Demetrius and Hermia? In addition to the drug, what other factors heighten the confusion here? See especially Helena's recollection, lines 201-216, where friends' similarity is disrupted by sexual differentiation. An analogous process seems to take place in communication, where deception or sarcasm can makes words mean both themselves and their opposites, as in 194, 247-248, 264, raising the question of what makes a joke?
what happens to fond schoolgirl memories at 323?
This subscene moves from confusion toward violence; how is hate similar to love?

345-400

To what place in the plot line and five-act structure have we come? What factors shape Oberon and Puck's shaping of the action here?

401-464

atmosphere of this final "wood" scene--"rounded with a sleep": Demetrius and Lysander are engaged in the most conclusive activity of fighting, yet it's the least substantial, closest to dream. General exhaustion prevails. But when you dream you're dreaming, you're closest to waking up.
significance of Puck's transformation from mischief- maker to guardian angel? Compare his blessing here to fairy lullaby, II,ii, 9.

IV,i

1-48

Bottom and Titania are carried further away on their dream of love. Contrast how they appear to one another and how they appear to audience. Also contrast their two versions of ultimate pleasure. How could you stage this subscene for the sexiest and funniest effects and still maintain its romantic lyricism?

49-105

As we move from night to morning, dream to waking, fairyland to the wood and then back to the city, the separated plot lines converge in a common "reality." Compare Oberon's triumph to Theseus'.
What are the various functions of music at the end of this and beginning of the next subscene. How is music as a form of imaginative, artistic creation effective in carrying out these functions?

106-188

What's relation between "musical confusion" of animal barking and the "jangling sport" of the lovers (III,ii, 353). Does the play suggest other parallels between the sports of hunting and love?
What causes the"gentle concord" that resolves the plot's earlier conflicts?

189-203

How is the experience of "awakening" represented here? What makes that experience remarkable? Do you see parallels between awakening and leaving a play or movie?
What changes in consciousness take place within the course of these lines? Why is it important for the lovers to be sure they are awake? How do they prove it? What do they do once they're sure they're no longer dreaming?

204-223

To make sense of this parallel awakening scene, you have to fill in some empty spaces. What's the first thing Bottom remembers? How is his memory of dreaming different from the lovers'? What's expressed in the dashes in lines 211 and 212? How is the way Bottom orients himself and uses his dream different and similar to the lovers'? What's suggested here about dreams and playwriting? Whose death is he talking about in 222? Why is she referred to only with a pronoun?

IV,ii

What other aspects of playacting are highlighted here? How are we enchanted by the institution of theatre and the character of Bottom in this scene? What secret does he share with us only?

1-28

Study Theseus' speech closely. What is his theory of the imagination? How does it apply to all that happens in the play, to its actors as well as its audiences? What is his attitude toward the imagination; how does that attitude fit his role? How does it relate to the lovers' reflections on their experiences? To Bottom's?
Does Hippolyta accept his explanations? What's her argument?

29-105

What is Theseus' attitude to the upcoming play? Is it consistent with his theory of poetry as "nothing."
Philostrate, the master of revels, is in charge of royal entertainments. What makes him laugh? What makes Puck, Theseus, and us laugh in this play? What's suggested about a relation between tragedy and comedy here?
How does Theseus counter Hippolyta's objection? What does he suggest about the process of communication and understanding?

106-372--the play within the play

How are these suggestions explored in the Prologue's speech and the audience's response?
Shakespeare's theatre company was maneuvering for patronage by the royal court at the time MND was written. Does this scene compliment or criticize the audience? the players?
Elizabethan players often presented pantomime summaries of the upcoming play to help the audience follow the plot
Notice the role of error and confusion--"misprision-- in the tragic plot of Pyramis and Thisbe, a parody of Romeo and Juliet. What makes the poetic language of the speakers appropriate to tragedy and at the same time comic?
What parallels can you find between "Pyramis and Thisbe" and MND?
Examine some of the incongruities in both the script and in the performance of Pyramis commented on by the audience. How do conspicuous errors reveal the hidden norms they violate?
Notice Theseus' royal estimation of theatrical quality, lines 211-216, and audience jockeying with players for the limelight.
Theseus states that the players' entertainment as well as the four day interval preceding it were just a way of passing time before this "nuptial hour" when newlyweds go to bed. How does this concluding emphasis on sleep relate to the awakenings in Act IV?

373-440

What's the effect on us of this final appearance of the fairies? How does it fit with Theseus' sense of what's real? with the lovers'? with Bottom's? with Hippolyta's?
How does the fairies' blessing on the wedding beds relate to the earlier lullabies and to the idea of love as madness and poetry? Relate their dance here to earlier dances. There is some evidence that MND was first presented at Queen Elizabeth's court as a wedding entertainment. Does this seem plausible?
What polarized frames of reference or states of reality are drawn together in Puck's final address to the audience? What does the play's title refer to?