9781565106918

Foreword

(2)

Introduction

(2)

A Biography

(11)

William Shakespeare

Characters and Plot

(6)

Social and Cultural Contexts of A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Play's Festive Spirit

(5)

Gail Kern Paster

Skiles Howard

The action of A Midsummer Night's Dream is shaped by two kinds of festive celebrations, the holiday of Midsummer's Eve and the ceremony of a court marriage. Shakespeare's use of holiday allusions throughout the play evokes the festive spirit of Midsummer's Eve

Actors and Audiences

(9)

Alvin B. Kernan

The rise of popular theater in England in the late sixteenth century forged a new relationship between actors and their audiences, which were composed of all ranks of society. The play-within-a-play in the last act of A Midsummer Night's Dream provides a sustained meditation on the nature and power of dramatic illusion

The Fairy World

(8)

John Russell Brown

Fairies play a central role in A Midsummer Night's Dream; they lead astray the four young lovers, arrange the rendezvous between Bottom and Titania, bless the play's marriages, and confide in the audience at play's end. Shakespeare manipulates the subtle connections between fairies, dreams, and imagination

The Play's Depiction of Female Power

(11)

Helen Hackett

English literature in the 1590s is replete with allusions to and images of Queen Elizabeth, whose presence is also prominent in passages of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play's treatment of female rulers is somewhat degrading, though, which may reflect Elizabethan society's growing disaffection with female rule

May Games and Metamorphoses

(7)

C.L. Barber

The May Game spirit reflected in A Midsummer Night's Dream had connotations of both confused affections and sexual experimentation. The fairies of the play seem to embody this rather vexing experience of eros, or passiondominated love, that confuses the young lovers

Literary Influences on A Midsummer Night's Dream

(9)

R.A. Foakes

The word ``source'' is inadequate to convey the rich tapestry of literary influences involved in the creation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare derives plot strands and characters from such diverse sources as John Lyly, Ovid, Chaucer, and French romance

The Plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Exposition of the Plot in Act One

(5)

Harold F. Brooks

Act One of A Midsummer Night's Dream introduces each of the major character groups and suggests their common plot trajectory toward the wedding ceremony of Theseus and Hippolyta

Dreams and the Play's Structure

(7)

Peter Holland

There are few other transformative states as common as sleep and dreaming, and Shakespeare has put both states at the center of his play. In one sense, the structure of the play is simple and symmetrical in its movement from court to woods and back to court. However, by making the moment the lovers wake from sleep the climax of the central action, Shakespeare is able to provide a most unexpected and delightful ending to the play

A Reflective Plot Structure

(8)

David P. Young

The two worlds of A Midsummer Night's Dream are the orderly, rational world of Theseus and the irrational, imaginary world of Oberon, and the main characters move from the first to the second and back again. In a further unifying feature of the play's structure, each group of characters serves as a reflection and commentary on the situation of the other characters

Intellectual Polarities

(10)

Peter Hollindale

A Midsummer Night's Dream has a rather unconventional plot, but it maintains a strong sense of unity through parallel sets of characters and through recurrent thematic or intellectual polarities. Though these poles of knowledge and experience are often antagonistic, the play suggests that they are also necessary and complementary

The Ending of the Play

109

(6)

Anne Barton

The last act of A Midsummer Night's Dream is largely extraneous to the plot since all sets of the lovers are reconciled, and their frustrations resolved, by the end of Act Four. Instead, the final act serves as thematic commentary on the complex relationship between dreams and waking, between art and life

The Themes of A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Complexities of Love

115

(9)

Catherine Belsey

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare approaches the subject of love, but he does not attempt to define it in rational terms. Rather, he presents the experience of love in all its complexity, dramatizing it through a range of distinct voices and experiences

The Lovers' Transformation

124

(9)

Alexander Leggatt

All the lovers in the play are subject to their own foolish, limited perspective on love, symbolized by the ridiculous encounter between Bottom and Titania. But while many of the play's relationships fall into discord, the lovers sustain an integrity in their love that leads in the end to harmony

The Dark Side of Love and Marriage

133

(12)

David Bevington

Though the potential for sexual license, violence, and chaos are ever present in the forest, the restrained conduct of the lovers and the ultimate benevolence of the fairies result in a powerful measure of comic reassurance

The Play's Affirmation of Patriarchy

145

(9)

Shirley Nelson Garner

Though A Midsummer Night's Dream begins in relative chaos---Titania and Oberon are feuding, Hermia and Helena cannot have the men they love---by play's end all broken relationships are mended and order is restored. The price of restored order, however, is paid primarily by the female characters

Reason and Imagination in the Final Act

154

(9)

Michael Mangan

Because Theseus is ruler of the play's society, some readers have assumed that his opinions in Act Five are those the play wants us to embrace. Theseus's endorsement of reason over imagination, however, is undercut in several ways by his limited perspective

Chronology

163

(4)

For Further Research

167

(4)

Index

171