Midsummer Insights

A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival
A
Midsummer
Nights
Dream
The articles in this study guide are not meant to mirror or interpret any productions at the Utah Shakespeare
Festival. They are meant, instead, to bean educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the plays (in
any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles
(and even characters, at times) may differ dramatically from what is ultimately produced on the Festivals stages.
The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720.
Bruce C. Lee, communications director and editor; Phil Hermansen, art director.
Copyright 2009, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you
do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
For more information about Festival education programs:

Utah Shakespeare Festival
351 West Center Street
Cedar City, Utah 84720
435-586-7880
www.bard.org.
Cover photo: Anne Newhall (left) and Michael Sharon in A Midsummer Nights Dream, 1996.
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Contents
Information on William Shakespeare
Shakespeare: Words, Words, Words 4
Not of an Age, but for All Mankind 6
Elizabeths England 8
History Is Written by the Victors 10
Mr. Shakespeare, I Presume 11
A Nest of Singing Birds 12
Actors in Shakespeares Day 14
Audience: A Very Motley Crowd 16
Shakespearean Snapshots 18
Ghosts, Witches, and Shakespeare 20
What They Wore 22
Information on the Play
Synopsis 23
Characters 24
Scholarly Articles on the Play
All an Illusion 25
Connecting Plots into a Unified Structure 27
A Genuine Fairy Kingdom 29
Love Is Where Its At 30
The Force of Imagination 33
Folktales, Myths, and Amazons 35
Classroom Helps
About A Midsummer Nights Dream 36
The Story of the Play 37
Whos Who in A Midsummer Nights Dream 38
Shakespeares Words 39
Shakespeares Language 42
A Midsummer Nights Dream in Modern Terms 44
The Globe Theatre 45
William Shakespeare 46
Shakespeares Plays 47
Shakespeares Audience and Audiences Today 48
Famous Lines and Passages 50
Elementary School Questions and Activities 52
Middle and High School Study and Discussion Questions 54
Middle and High School Activities 55
Lesson Plan 57
Folktales, Myths, and Amazons in A Midsummer Nights Dream 60
A Midsummer Nights Dream: Love Is Where Its At 63
Midsummer Nights Dream: A Genuine Fairy Kingdom 66
A Midsummer Nights Dream in Film 68
Additional Resources 69
Works Cited 70
Utah Shakespeare Festival 3

351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880
Shakespeare: Words, Words, Words
By S. S. Moorty
No household in the English-speaking world is properly furnished unless it contains
copies of the Holy Bible and of The Works of William Shakespeare. It is not always thought
that these books should be read in maturer years, but they must be present as symbols of
Religion and Culture (G.B. Harrison, Introducing Shakespeare. Rev. & Exp. [New York:
Penguin Books, 1991], 11).
We, the Shakespearean-theater goers and lovers, devotedly and ritualistically watch and
read the Bards plays not for exciting stories and complex plots. Rather, Shakespeares lan-
guage is a vital source of our supreme pleasure in his plays. Contrary to ill-conceived notions,
Shakespeares language is not an obstacle to appreciation, though it may prove to be difficult to
understand Instead, it is the communicative and evocative power of Shakespeares language that
is astonishingly rich in vocabularyabout 29,000 words
strikingly presented through unforgettable characters such as Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, Othello,
Rosalind, Viola, Iago, Shylock, etc.
In the high school classroom, students perceive Shakespeares language as Old English.
Actually Shakespeares linguistic environment, experience, and exposure was, believe it or not,
closer to our own times than to Chaucers, two hundred years earlier. Indeed, the
history and development of the English language unfolds as follows: Old English, 4491100;
Middle English 11001500; and Modern English 1500-present. Shakespeare was firmly in the
Modern English period.
At the time Shakespeare wrote, most of the grammatical changes from Old and Middle English
had taken place; yet rigid notions about correctness had not yet been standardized in gram-
mars. The past five centuries have advanced the cause of standardized positions for words; yet the
flexible idiom of Elizabethan English offered abundant opportunities for Shakespeares linguistic
inventiveness. Ideally it is rewarding to study several facets of Shakespeares English: pronuncia-
tion, grammar, vocabulary, wordplay, and imagery. The present overview will,
however, be restricted to vocabulary.
To Poloniuss inquisitive question What do you read, my lord? (Hamlet, 2.2.191) Hamlet
nonchalantly and intriguingly aptly replies: Words, words, words (2.2.192). This many-splen-
dored creation of Shakespeares epitomizes the playwrights own fascination with the dynamic
aspect of English language, however troubling it may be to modern audiences and readers.
Shakespeare added several thousand words to the language, apart from imparting new meanings to
known words. At times Shakespeare could teasingly employ the same word for different shades
of thought. Barownes single line, Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile (Loves
Labours Lost, 1.1.77), as Harry Levin in his General Introduction to The Riverside Shakespeare
(9) explains, uses light in four significations: intellect, seeking wisdom, cheats eyesight out of
daylight.
Another instance: Othello as he enters his bedroom with a light before he smothers his dear,
innocent Desdemona soliloquizes: Put out the light, and then put out the light (Othello,
5.2.7) Here light compares the light of Othellos lamp or torch to Desdemonas light of life.
In both instances, the repeated simple ordinary word carries extraordinary shades of mean-
ing. Usually such a tendency in a Shakespeare play indicates a more or less conscious the-
matic intent. (Paul A. Jorgensen, Redeeming Shakespeares Words [Berkeley and Los Angeles;
University of California Press, 1962], 100).
Living in an age of the grandiose humanistic confidence in the power of the word (Levin
4 Utah Shakespeare Festival

9), Shakespeare evidently felt exuberant that he had the license to experiment with the lan-
guage, further blessed by the fact that there were no English grammars to lay down rules or
dictionaries to restrict word-formation. This was an immeasurable boon for writers (Levin
10). Surely Shakespeare took full advantage of the unparalleled linguistic freedom to invent, to
experiment with, and to indulge in lavishly.
However intriguing, captivating, mind-teasing, beguiling, and euphonious, Shakespeares
vocabulary can be a stumbling block, especially for readers. In the theater the speaking
actor frequently relies on tone, semantic drive, narrative context, and body language to com-
municate the sense of utterly unfamiliar terms and phrases, but on the page such words become
more noticeable and confusing (Russ McDonald, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An
Introduction with Documents [Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martins Press, 1996], 184).
Unlocking the meaning of Shakespeares vocabulary can prove to be an interesting
challenge. Such words include those which have dropped from common use like bisson
(blind) or those that the playwright seems to have created from Latin roots . . . but that
did not catch on, such as conspectuities (eyesight or vision) or unplausive (doubtful or disap-
proving). Especially confusing are those words that have shifted meaning over the interven-
ing centuries, such as proper (handsome), nice (squeamish or delicate), silly (innocent),
or cousin (kinsman, that is, not necessarily the child of an aunt or uncle (McDonald 184).
Because of semantic change, when Shakespeare uses conceit, he does not mean vanity, as we
might understand it to be. Strictly following etymology, Shakespeare means a conception or
notion, or possibly the imagination itself.
Perhaps several Shakespearean words would have been strange to Shakespeares audience
because they were the products of his invention or unique usage. Some words that probably
originated with him include: auspicious, assassination, disgraceful, dwindle, savagery.
Certainly a brave soul, he was a most audacious inventor of words. To appreciate and under-
stand Shakespeares English in contrast to ours, we ought to suspend our judgment and disbe-
lief and allow respect for the process of semantic change, which has been
continually eroding or encrusting his original meaning (Levin 8).
Shakespeares vocabulary has received greater attention that any other aspect of his
language. Perhaps this is because it is the most accessible with no burdensome
complications. Whatever the cause, Shakespeares language will forever be challenging
and captivating.

Not of an Age, but for All Mankind
By Douglas A. Burger
After an enormous expenditure of money and effort, Shakespeares Globe Theater has risen
again, four centuries later, on Londons south bank of the Thames. Designed as a faithful
reconstruction of the original, it uses the building methods of the time and
traditional materials (oak timbers, plaster walls, wooden pegs, water-reeds for thatching
the roof ). From above, the shape seems circular (actually, it is twenty-six sided) with three cov-
ered tiers of seats surrounding a central area which is open to the sky.. There the groundlings
may stand to see the action taking place on the stage, which occupies almost half of the inner
space. There are no artificial lights, no conventional sets, no fancy rigging.
Seeing a Shakespeare play in the afternoon sunlight at the new Globe must come very close
to the experience of those early-day Londoners, except, of course, that we in the twentieth-
century behave better. We dont yell insults at the actors, spit, or toss orange peels on the
ground. We also smell better: the seventeenth-century playwright, Thomas Dekker, calls the
original audience Stinkards . . . glewed together in crowdes with the Steames of strong breath
(Shakespeares Globe: The Guide Book [London: International Globe Center, 1996], 42). And
we are safer. The first Globe burned to the ground. The new theater has more exits, fire-retar-
dant insulation concealed in the walls, and water-sprinklers that poke through the thatch of the
roof.
That hard-headed capitalists and officials would be willing, even eager, to invest in the proj-
ect shows that Shakespeare is good business. The new Globe is just one example. Cedar Citys
own Utah Shakespearean Festival makes a significant contribution to the economy of southern
Utah. A sizable percentage of all the tourist dollars spent in England goes to Shakespeares
birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, which would be a sleepy little agricultural town without its
favorite son. The situation seems incredible. In our whole history, what other playwright could
be called a major economic force? Who elsewhat single individual
could be listed along with agriculture, mining, and the like as an industry of a region?
Why Shakespeare?
The explanation, of course, goes further than an attempt to preserve our cultural
traditions. In an almost uncanny way, Shakespeares perceptions remain valuable for our own
understandings of life, and probably no other writer remains so insightful, despite
the constantly changing preoccupations of audiences over time.
The people of past centuries, for example, looked to the plays for nuggets of wisdom and
quotable quotes, and many of Shakespeares lines have passed into common parlance. There is
an old anecdote about the woman, who on first seeing Hamlet, was asked how she liked the
play. She replied, Oh, very nice, my dear, but so full of quotations. She has it
backwards of course. Only the King James Bible has lent more quotations to English
than Shakespeare.
Citizens of the late nineteenth century sought in the plays for an understanding of human
nature, valuing Shakespeares character for traits that they recognized in themselves and in
others. The fascination continues to the present day as some of our best-known movie stars
attempt to find new dimensions in the great characters: Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh in
Hamlet, Lawrence Fishburn in Othello, Leonardo de Caprio in Romeo + Juliet, to name just a
few.
Matters of gender, class, and race have preoccupied more recent audiences. Beatrice sounds a
rather feminist note in Much Ado about Nothing in her advice to her cousin about choosing a

husband: Curtsy to your father, but say Father, as it please me. Coriolanus presents a recurring
dilemma about class relations in its explorations of the rights and wrongs involved in a great
mans attempt to control the masses. Racial attitudes are
illuminated in Othello, where the European characters always mark the hero by his race, always
identify him first as the Moor, are always aware of his difference. Londons new/old Globe is
thus a potent symbol of the plays continuing worth to us. The very building demonstrates the
utter accuracy of the lines written so long ago that Shakespeare is not of an age but for all
time.

Elizabeths England
In his entire career, William Shakespeare never once set a play in Elizabethan England. His
characters lived in medieval England (Richard II), France (As You Like It), Vienna (Measure for
Measure), fifteenth-century Italy (Romeo and Juliet), the England ruled by Elizabeths father
(Henry VIII) and elsewhereanywhere and everywhere, in fact, except Shakespeares own time
and place. But all Shakespeares playseven when they were set in ancient Romereflected
the life of Elizabeths England (and, after her death in 1603, that of her successor, James I).
Thus, certain things about these extraordinary plays will be easier to understand if we know a
little more about Elizabethan England.
Elizabeths reign was an age of explorationexploration of the world, exploration of mans
nature, and exploration of the far reaches of the English language. This renaissance
of the arts and sudden flowering of the spoken and written word gave us two great
monumentsthe King James Bible and the plays of Shakespeareand many other
treasures as well.
Shakespeare made full use of the adventurous Elizabethan attitude toward language. He
employed more words than any other writer in historymore than 21,000 different words
appear in the playsand he never hesitated to try a new word, revive an old one, or make one
up. Among the words which first appeared in print in his works are such everyday terms as
critic, assassinate, bump, gloomy, suspicious, and hurry; and he invented literally doz-
ens of phrases which we use today: such un-Shakespearean expressions as catching a cold, the
minds eye, elbow room, and even pomp and circumstance.
Elizabethan England was a time for heroes. The ideal man was a courtier, an adventurer, a
fencer with the skill of Tybalt, a poet no doubt better than Orlando, a conversationalist with
the wit of Rosalind and the eloquence of Richard II, and a gentleman. In addition to all this,
he was expected to take the time, like Brutus, to examine his own nature and the cause of his
actions and (perhaps unlike Brutus) to make the right choices. The real heroes of the age did
all these things and more.
Despite the greatness of some Elizabethan ideals, others seem small and undignified, to us;
marriage, for example, was often arranged to bring wealth or prestige to the family, with little
regard for the feelings of the bride. In fact, women were still relatively powerless under the law.
The idea that women were lower than men was one small part of a vast concern with order
which was extremely important to many Elizabethans. Most people believed that everything,
from the lowest grain of sand to the highest angel, had its proper position in the scheme of
things. This concept was called the great chain of being. When things were in their proper
place, harmony was the result; when order was violated, the entire structure was shaken.
This idea turns up again and again in Shakespeare. The rebellion against Richard II brings
bloodshed to England for generations; Romeo and Juliets rebellion against their
parents contributes to their tragedy; and the assassination in Julius Caesar throws Rome into
civil war.
Many Elizabethans also perceived duplications in the chain of order. They believed, for
example, that what the sun is to the heaves, the king is to the state. When something went
wrong in the heavens, rulers worried: before Julius Caesar and Richard II were overthrown,
comets and meteors appeared, the moon turned the color of blood, and other bizarre
astronomical phenomena were reported. Richard himself compares his fall to a premature set-
ting of the sun; when he descends from the top of Flint Castle to meet the conquering
Bolingbroke, he likens himself to the driver of the suns chariot in Greek mythology: Down,
down I come, like glistring Phaeton (3.3.178).

All these ideas find expression in Shakespeares plays, along with hundreds of othersmost
of them not as strange to our way of thinking. As dramatized by the greatest
playwright in the history of the world, the plays offer us a fascinating glimpse of the thoughts
and passions of a brilliant age. Elizabethan England was a brief skyrocket of art, adventure, and
ideas which quickly burned out; but Shakespeares plays keep the best parts of that time alight
forever.
(Adapted from The Shakespeare Plays, educational materials made possible by Exxon,
Metropolitan Life, Morgan Guaranty, and CPB.)

History Is Written by the Victors
From Insights, 1994
William Shakespeare wrote ten history plays chronicling English kings from the time of
the Magna Carta (King John) to the beginning of Englands first great civil war, the Wars of
the Roses (Richard II) to the conclusion of the war and the reuniting of the two factions
(Richard III), to the reign of Queen Elizabeths father (Henry VIII). Between these plays,
even though they were not written in chronological order, is much of the intervening his-
tory of England, in the six Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI plays.
In writing these plays, Shakespeare had nothing to help him except the standard
history books of his day. The art of the historian was not very advanced in this period, and
no serious attempt was made to get at the exact truth about a king and his reign. Instead, the
general idea was that any nation that opposed England was wrong, and that any Englishman
who opposed the winning side in a civil war was wrong also.
Since Shakespeare had no other sources, the slant that appears in the history books of
his time also appears in his plays. Joan of Arc opposed the English and was not admired in
Shakespeares day, so she is portrayed as a comic character who wins her victories through
witchcraft. Richard III fought against the first Tudor monarchs and was therefore labeled in
the Tudor histories as a vicious usurper, and he duly appears in Shakespeares plays as a mur-
dering monster.
Shakespeare wrote nine of his history plays under Queen Elizabeth. She did not encour-
age historical truthfulness, but rather a patriotism, an exultant, intense conviction that
England was the best of all possible countries and the home of the most favored of mor-
tals. And this patriotism breathes through all the history plays and binds them together.
Englands enemy is not so much any individual king as the threat of civil war, and the history
plays come to a triumphant conclusion when the threat of civil war is finally averted, and the
great queen, Elizabeth, is born.
Shakespeare was a playwright, not a historian, and, even when his sources were correct,
he would sometimes juggle his information for the sake of effective stagecraft. He was not
interested in historical accuracy; he was interested in swiftly moving action and in people.
Shakespeares bloody and supurb king seems more convincing than the real Richard III,
merely because Shakespeare wrote so effectively about him. Shakespeare moved in a differ-
ent world from that of the historical, a world of creation rather than
of recorded fact, and it is in this world that he is so supreme a master.

Mr. Shakespeare, I Presume
by Diana Major SpencerFrom Insights, 1994
Could the plays known as Shakespeares have been written by a rural, semi-literate,
uneducated, wife-deserting, two-bit actor who spelled him name differently each of the six
times he wrote it down? Could such a man know enough about Roman history, Italian geogra-
phy, French grammar, and English court habits to create Antony and Cleopatra, The Comedy of
Errors, and Henry V? Could he know enough about nobility and its tenuous
relationship to royalty to create King Lear and Macbeth?
Are these questions even worth asking? Some very intelligent people think so. On the other
hand, some very intelligent people think not. Never mind quibbles about how a line should be
interpreted, or how many plays Shakespeare wrote and which ones, or which of the great trage-
dies reflected personal tragedies. The question of authorship is The Shakespeare Controversy.
Since Mr. Cowell, quoting the deceased Dr. Wilmot, cast the first doubt about William of
Stratford in an 1805 speech before the Ipswich Philological Society, nominees for the real
author have included philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, playwright Christopher Marlowe, Queen
Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the earls of Derby, Rutland, Essex, and Oxford--among
others.
The arguments evoke two premises: first, that the proven facts about the William
Shakespeare who was christened at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26,
1564 do not configure a man of sufficient nobility of thought and language to have written the
plays; and, second, that the man from Stratford is nowhere concretely identified as the author
of the plays. The name Shakespearein one of its spellingsappears on early quartos, but
the man represented by the name may not be the one from Stratford.
One group of objections to the Stratford man follows from the absence of any record
that he ever attended schoolin Stratford or anywhere else. If he were uneducated, the argu-
ments go, how could his vocabulary be twice as large as the learned Miltons? How could he
know so much history, law, or philosophy? If he were a country bumpkin, how could he know
so much of hawking, hounding, courtly manners, and daily habits of the nobility? How could
he have traveled so much, learning about other nations of Europe in enough detail to make
them the settings for his plays?
The assumptions of these arguments are that such rich and noble works as those
attributed to a playwright using the name Shakespeare could have been written only by some-
one with certain characteristics, and that those characteristics could be distilled from the facts
of his life. He would have to be noble; he would have to be well-educated; and so forth. On
these grounds the strongest candidate to date is Edward de Vere, seventeenth earl of Oxford.
A debate that has endured its peaks and valleys, the controversy catapulted to center stage in
1984 with the publication of Charlton Ogburns The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Ogburn,
a former army intelligence officer, builds a strong case for Oxfordif one can hurdle the
notions that the author wasnt Will Shakespeare, that literary works should be read autobio-
graphically, and that literary creation is nothing more than reporting the facts of ones own life.
The Controversy was laid to resttemporarily, at leastby justices Blackmun, Brennan, and
Stevens of the United States Supreme Court who, after hearing
evidence from both sides in a mock trial conducted September 25, 1987 at American
University in Washington, D.C., found in favor of the Bard of Avon.
Hooray for our side!

A Nest of Singing Birds
From Insights, 1992
Musical development was part of the intellectual and social movement that influenced all
England during the Tudor Age. The same forces that produced writers like Sir Philip Sidney,
Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, and Francis Bacon also pro-
duced musicians of corresponding caliber. So numerous and prolific were these talented and
imaginative menmen whose reputations were even in their own day firmly established and
well foundedthat they have been frequently and aptly referred to as a nest of singing birds.
One such figure was Thomas Tallis, whose music has officially accompanied the Anglican
service since the days of Elizabeth I; another was his student, William Boyd, whose variety of
religious and secular compositions won him international reputation.
Queen Elizabeth I, of course, provided an inspiration for the best efforts of Englishmen,
whatever their aims and activities. For music, she was the ideal patroness. She was an accom-
plished performer on the virginal (forerunner to the piano), and she aided her
favorite art immensely in every way possible, bestowing her favors on the singers in chapel and
court and on the musicians in public and private theatrical performances. To the great compos-
ers of her time, she was particularly gracious and helpful.
Singing has been an integral part of English life for as long as we have any knowledge.
Long before the music was written down, the timeless folk songs were a part of our
Anglo-Saxon heritage. The madrigals and airs that are enjoyed each summer at the Utah
Shakespearean Festival evolved from these traditions.
It was noted by Bishop Jewel in l560 that sometimes at Pauls Cross there would be 6,000
people singing together, and before the sermon, the whole congregation always sang a psalm,
together with the choir and organ. When that thundering unity of congregational chorus came
in, I was so transported there was no room left in my whole body, mind, or spirit for anything
below divine and heavenly raptures.
Religious expression was likely the dominant musical motif of the Elizabethan period;
however, the period also saw development of English stage music, with Morley, John Wilson,
and Robert Johnson setting much of their music to the plays of Shakespeare. The masque, a
semi-musical entertainment, reached a high degree of perfection at the court of James I, where
the courtiers themselves were sometimes participants. An educated person of the time was
expected to perform music more than just fairly well, and an inability in this area might elicit
whispered comments regarding lack of genteel upbringing, not only in the ability to take ones
part in a madrigal, but also in knowing the niceties of musical theory. Henry Peacham wrote in
The Compleat Gentleman in l662 that one of the fundamental qualities of a gentleman was to
be able to sing your part sure, and...to play the same upon your viol.
Outside the walls of court could be heard street songs, lighthearted catches, and ballads,
all of which indicates that music was not confined to the cathedrals or court. We still have
extant literally hundreds of ballads, street songs, and vendors cries that were sung or hummed
on the street and played with all their complicated variations on all levels of Elizabethan soci-
ety.
Instruments of the period were as varied as the music and peoples, and the instrument
and songbooks which remain in existence today are indicative of the high level of excellence
enjoyed by the Elizabethans. Songbooks, mainly of part-songs for three, four, five, and six
voices exist today, as do books of dance music: corrantos, pavans, and galliards. Records from
one wealthy family indicate the family owned forty musical instruments, including twelve

viols, seven recorders, four lutes, five virginals, various brasses and woodwinds, and two great
organs. To have use for such a great number of instruments implies a fairly large group of play-
ers resident with the family or staying with them as invited guests, and the players of the most
popular instruments (lutes, virginals, and viols) would be playing from long tradition, at least
back to King Henry VIII. In short, music was as necessary to the public and private existence of
a Renaissance Englishman as any of the basic elements of life.
The Utah Shakespearean Festival musicians perform each summer on authentic replicas
of many of these Renaissance instruments. The music they perform is authentic from the
Elizabethan period, and the instruments are made available for audience inspection and learn-
ing.

Actors in Shakespeares Day
By Stephanie ChidesterFrom Insights, 1994
The status of the actor in society has never been entirely stable but has fluctuated from the
beginnings of the theatre to the present day. The ancient Greeks often considered actors as
servants of Dionysus, and their performances were a sort of religious rite. Roman actors, often
slaves, were seen as the scraps of society, only one step above gladiators. In medieval Europe,
both the theatre and the actor, suppressed by the Catholic Church, were almost non-existent
but gradually re-emerged in the form of the liturgy and, later, the Mystery plays. The actors of
Shakespeares age also saw fluctuations in reputation; actors were
alternately classified as vagabonds and sturdy beggars, as an act of Parliament in 1572 defined
them, and as servants of noblemen.
As early as 1482, noblemen such as Richard, duke of Gloucester (later Richard III), the earl
of Essex, and Lord Arundel kept acting companies among their retainers. But other than these
select groups protected by nobles, actors lived lives of danger and instability because when they
abandoned their respectable trades, they also left behind the comfort
and protection of the trade guilds.
However, life soon became much more difficult for both of these classes of actors. In 1572,
Parliament passed two acts which damaged thespians social status. In the first one, the Queen
forbade the unlawful retaining of multitudes of unordinary servants by liveries,
badges, and other signs and tokens (contrary to the good and ancient statutes and laws of this
realm) in order to curb the power of local grandees (Dennis Kay, Shakespeare: His Life,
Work, and Era [New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1992], 88). One result of this
was that some of the actors, now considered superfluous, were turned away.
To make matters even worse, these actors faced yet another impediment: the Acte for
the punishment of Vacabondes (Kay, 88), in which actors were declared vagabonds and
masterless men and hence were subject to arrest and imprisonment (Thomas Marc Parrott
and Robert Hamilton Ball, A Short View of Elizabethan Drama [New York: Charles Scribners
Sons, 1943], 46).
However, there were still nobles, such as the earl of Leicester and the earl of Sussex, who
endorsed players; the protector would usually seek royal permission for these actors to perform
in London or, less frequently, some other less prestigious town. Thus the actors were able to
venture forth without fear of arrest. It is through these circumstances that Shakespeare ends up
an actor in London.
There are many theoriesguesses reallyof how Shakespeare got into the theatre.
He may have joined a group of strolling players, performed around the countryside, and
eventually made it to London, the theatrical hub of Britain. Another theory suggests that he
began as a schoolmaster, wrote a play (possibly The Comedy of Errors) and then decided to take
it to London; or, alternately, he could have simply gone directly to that great city, with or with-
out a play in hand, to try his luck.
An interesting speculation is that while he was young, Shakespeare might have participated
in one of the cycles of Mystery plays in Stratford: On one occasion the Stratford
corporation laid out money for an entertainment at Pentecost. In 1583 they paid 13s 4d
to Davi Jones and his company for his pastime at Whitsuntide. Davi Jones had been
married to Elizabeth, the daughter of Adrian Quiney, and after her death in 1579 he took as
his wife a Hathaway, Frances. Was Shakespeare one of the youths who trimmed themselves for
the Whitsun pastime? (S. Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life
[New York: New American Library, 1977], 111).

But however he got into the theatre and to London, he had made a very definite
impression on his competitors by 1592, when playwright Robert Greene attacked Shakespeare
as both actor and author: There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his Tigers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able
to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and . . . is in his own conceit the only
Shake-scene in a country (G. B. Harrison, Introducing Shakespeare [New York: Penguin
Books, Inc., 1947], 1).
We dont often think of Shakespeare as primarily an actor, perhaps because most of what we
know of him comes from the plays he wrote rather than the parts he played. Nevertheless, he
made much of his money as an actor and sharer in his company: At
least to start with, his status, his security derived more from his acting skill and his eye for busi-
ness than from his pen (Kay, 95). Had he been only a playwright, he would likely have died a
poor man, as did Robert Greene: In the autumn of 1592, Robert Greene, the most popular
author of his generation, lay penniless and dying. . . . The players had grown rich on the prod-
ucts of his brain, and now he was deserted and alone (Harrison, 1).
While Shakespeare made a career of acting, there are critics who might dispute his acting tal-
ent. For instance, almost a century after Shakespeares death, an anonymous enthusiast of the
stage . . . remarked . . . that Shakespear . . . was a much better poet, than player (Schoenbaum,
201). However, Shakespeare could have been quite a good actor, and this statement would
still be true. One sign of his skill as an actor is that he is mentioned in the same breath with
Burbage and Kemp: The accounts of the royal household for Mar 15 [1595] record payments
to William Kempe William Shakespeare & Richarde Burbage
seruantes to the Lord Chamberlain (Kay, 174).
Another significant indication of his talent is the very fact that he played in London
rather than touring other less lucrative towns. If players were to be legally retained by
noblemen, they had to prove they could act, and one means of demonstrating their
legitimacy was playing at court for Queen Elizabeth. The more skilled companies obtained the
queens favor and were granted permission to remain in London.
Not all companies, however, were so fortunate: Sussexs men may not have been quite up
to the transition from rural inn-yards to the more demanding circumstances of court perfor-
mance. Just before the Christmas season of 1574, for example, they were inspected (perused)
by officials of the Revels Office, with a view to being permitted to perform before the queen;
but they did not perform (Kay, 90). Shakespeare and his company, on the other hand, per-
formed successfully in London from the early 1590s until 1611.
It would be a mistake to classify William Shakespeare as only a playwright, even the
greatest playwright of the English-speaking world; he was also an actor, a sharer, a member of
a company (Kay, 95), obligations that were extremely relevant to his plays. As a man of the
theatre writing for a company, he knew what would work on stage and what would not and
was able to make his plays practical as well as brilliant. And perhaps more importantly, his the-
atrical experience must have taught him much about the human experience, about
everyday lives and roles, just as his plays show us that All the worlds a stage, / And all
the men and women merely players (As You Like It, 2.7.14950).

Shakespeares Audience:
A Very Motley Crowd
From Insights, 1992
When Shakespeare peeped through the curtain at the audience gathered to hear his first play, he
looked upon a very motley crowd. The pit was filled with men and boys. The galleries contained a fair
proportion of women, some not too respectable. In the boxes were a few gentlemen from the royal
courts, and in the lords box or perhaps sitting on the stage was a group of extravagantly dressed gentle-
men of fashion. Vendors of nuts and fruits moved about through the crowd. The
gallants were smoking; the apprentices in the pit were exchanging rude witticisms with the painted
ladies.
When Shakespeare addressed his audience directly, he did so in terms of gentle courtesy or
pleasant raillery. In Hamlet, however, he does let fall the opinion that the groundlings (those on the
ground, the cheapest seats) were for the most part capable of nothing but dumb shows and noise. His
recollections of the pit of the Globe may have added vigor to his ridicule of the Roman mob in Julius
Caesar.
On the other hand, the theatre was a popular institution, and the audience was representative of all
classes of London life. Admission to standing room in the pit was a penny, and an additional penny
or two secured a seat in the galleries. For seats in the boxes or for stools on the stage, still more was
charged, up to sixpence or half a crown.
Attendance at the theatres was astonishingly large. There were often five or six theatres giving daily
performances, which would mean that out of a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, thirty thou-
sand or more spectators each week attended the theatre. When we remember that a
large class of the population disapproved of the theatre, and that women of respectability were not fre-
quent patrons of the public playhouses, this attendance is remarkable.
Arrangements for the comfort of the spectators were meager, and spectators were often disorderly.
Playbills seem to have been posted all about town and in the theatre, and the title of the piece was
announced on the stage. These bills contained no lists of actors, and there were no programs,
ushers, or tickets. There was usually one door for the audience, where the admission fee was
deposited in a box carefully watched by the money taker, and additional sums were required at
entrance to the galleries or boxes. When the three oclock trumpets announced the beginning of a
performance, the assembled audience had been amusing itself by eating, drinking, smoking, and play-
ing cards, and they sometimes continued these occupations during a performance. Pickpockets were
frequent, and, if caught, were tied to a post on the stage. Disturbances were not infrequent, sometimes
resulting in general rioting.
The Elizabethan audience was fond of unusual spectacle and brutal physical suffering. They liked
battles and murders, processions and fireworks, ghosts and insanity. They expected comedy to abound
in beatings, and tragedy in deaths. While the audience at the Globe expected some of these sensations
and physical horrors, they did not come primarily for these. (Real blood and torture were available
nearby at the bear baitings, and public executions were not uncommon.) Actually, there were very few
public entertainments offering as little brutality as did the theatre.
Elizabethans attended the public playhouses for learning. They attended for romance,
imagination, idealism, and art; the audience was not without refinement, and those looking for food
for the imagination had nowhere to go but to the playhouse. There were no newspapers, no magazines,

almost no novels, and only a few cheap books; theatre filled the desire for story
discussion among people lacking other educational and cultural opportunities.
The most remarkable case of Shakespeares theatre filling an educational need is probably that
of English history. The growth of national patriotism culminating in the English victory over the
Spanish Armada gave dramatists a chance to use the historical material, and for the fifteen years from
the Armada to the death of Elizabeth, the stage was deluged with plays based on the events of English
chronicles, and familiarity with English history became a cultural asset of the London crowd,
Law was a second area where the Elizabethan public seems to have been fairly well informed, and
successful dramatists realized the influence that the great development of civil law in the
sixteenth century exercised upon the daily life of the London citizen. In this area, as in others,
the dramatists did not hesitate to cultivate the cultural background of their audience whenever
opportunity offered, and the ignorance of the multitude did not prevent it from taking an interest in
new information and from offering a receptive hearing to the accumulated lore of lawyers,
historians, humanists, and playwrights.
The audience was used to the spoken word, and soon became trained in blank verse, delighting in
monologues, debates, puns, metaphors, stump speakers, and sonorous declamation. The public was
accustomed to the acting of the old religious dramas, and the new acting in which the
spoken words were listened to caught on rapidly. The new poetry and the great actors who recited it
found a sensitive audience. There were many moments during a play when spectacle, brutality,
and action were all forgotten, and the audience fed only on the words. Shakespeare and his
contemporaries may be deemed fortunate in having an audience essentially attentive, eager for
the newly unlocked storehouse of secular story, and possessing the sophistication and interest to be
fed richly by the excitements and levities on the stage.

Shakespearean Snapshots
From Insights, 2002
By Ace G. Pilkington
It is hard to get from the facts of Shakespeares life to any sense of what it must have been like to
have lived it. He was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon and died there in 1616. The day of his birth
is not certain, but it may have been the same as the day of his deathApril 23if he was baptized,
as was usual at the time, three days after he was born. He married Anne Hathaway in the winter of
158283, when he was eighteen and she was twenty-six. He became the father of three children. The
first was Susannah, who was born around May 23, close enough to the date of the wedding to suggest
that the marriage was not entirely voluntary. Shakespeares twins, Hamnet and Judith, were baptized
on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes (at least unknown by us at this distance in time)
in 1596. Shakespeares career as actor, theatre owner, manager, and, of course, playwright began in the
vicinity of 1590 and continued for the rest of his life, though there are clear indications that he spent
more and more time in Stratford and less and less in London from 1611 on. His work in the theatre
made him wealthy, and his extraordinary plays brought him a measure of fame, though nothing like
what he deserved or would posthumously receive.
Its hard to get even the briefest sense of what Shakespeares life was like from such information. It
is probably impossible ever to know what Shakespeare thought or felt, but maybe we can get closer to
what he saw and heard and even smelled. Perhaps some snapshotslittle close-upsmight help to
bring us nearer to the world in which Shakespeare lived if not quite to the life he lived in that world.
In Shakespeares youth, chimneys were a new thing. Before that, smoke was left to find its way out
through a hole in the roof, often a thatched roof, and there were even some who maintained that this
smoky atmosphere was better than the newfangled fresh air that chimneys made possiblealong with
a greater division of rooms and more privacy.
In the year of Shakespeares birth, Stratford had more trees than housesupwards of 400 houses
as well as 1,000 elms and forty ashes (Peter Thomson, Shakespeares Professional Career [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992], 1). Peter Levi says, The town was so full of elm trees that it must
have looked and sounded like a woodland settlement. For example, Mr. Gibbss house on Rothermarket
had twelve elms in the garden and six in front of the door. Thomas Attford on Ely Street had another
twelve. The town boundaries were marked by elms or groups of elms (The Life and Times of William
Shakespeare [New York: Wings Books, 1988], 7). Shakespeares Bare ruined choirs where late the
sweet birds sang becomes a far more majestic image with the picture of Stratfords elms in mind. And
the birds themselves had a sound which modern ears no longer have a chance to enjoy. We must real-
ize that it was ordinary for . . . Shakespeare to hear a dawn chorus of many hundreds of birds at once. .
. . as a young man thirty years ago I have heard a deafening dawn chorus in the wooded Chilterns, on
Shakespeares road to London (Levi 10).
Exactly what Shakespeares road to London may have been or at least how he first made his way
there and became an actor is much debated. He might have been a schoolmaster or fifty other things,
but he may well have started out as he ended upas a player. We can then, in John Southworths
words, Picture a sixteen-year-old lad on a cart, growing year by year into manhood, journeying out of
the Arden of his childhood into ever more unfamiliar, distant regions, travelling ill-made roads in all
weathers, sleeping in inns, hearing and memorising strange new dialects and forms of speech, meeting
with every possible type and character of person; learning, most of all perhaps, from the audiences to
which he played in guildhalls and inns (Shakespeare the Player: A Life in the Theatre [Gloucestershire:
Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000], 30). At some time in his lifein fact, many timesShakespeare
must have known theatrical tours very like that.

In London itself, the new Globe, the best theatre in (or rather just outside of ) the city, was
in an area with a large number of prisons and an unpleasant smell. Garbage had
preceded actors on the marshy land where the new playhouse was erected: `flanked with
a ditch and forced out of a marsh, according to Ben Jonson. Its cost . . . included the
provision of heavy piles for the foundation, and a whole network of ditches in which the water
rose and fell with the tidal Thames (Garry OConnor, William Shakespeare: A Popular Life
[New York: Applause Books, 2000], 161). The playgoers came by water, and the Globe, the
Rose, and the Swan drew 3,000 or 4,000 people in boats across the Thames every day (161).
Peter Levi says of Shakespeares London, The noise, the crowds, the
animals and their droppings, the glimpses of grandeur and the amazing squalor of the poor,
were beyond modern imagination (49).
England was a place of fear and glory. Public executions were public entertainments. Severed
heads decayed on city walls. Francis Bacon, whom Will Durant calls the most powerful and
influential intellect of his time (Heroes of History: A Brief History of Civilization from Ancient
Times to the Dawn of the Modern Age [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001], 327), had been
one of the persons commissioned to question prisoners under torture in the 1580s (Levi 4).
The opportune moment when Shakespeare became the most successful of playwrights was
the destruction of Thomas Kyd, who broke under torture and was never the same again, and
the death of Christopher Marlowe in a tavern brawl which was the result of plot and counter-
plota struggle, very probably, between Lord Burghley and Walter Ralegh (Levi 48).
Shakespeare, who must have known the rumors and may have known the truth, cannot have
helped shuddering at such monstrous good fortune. Still, all of the sights, smells, and terrors,
from the birdsongs to the screams of torture, from the muddy tides to the ties of blood, became
not only the textures and tonalities of Shakespeares life, but also the information and inspira-
tion behind his plays.

Ghosts, Witches, and Shakespeare
By Howard Waters
From Insights, 2006
Some time in the mid 1580s, young Will Shakespeare, for reasons not entirely clear to us,
left his home, his wife, and his family in Stratford and set off for London. It was a time when
Elizabeth, la plus fine femme du monde, as Henry III of France called her, had occupied the
throne of England for over twenty-five years. The tragedy of Mary Stuart was past; the ordeal
of Essex was in the future. Sir Francis Drakes neutralization of the Spanish Armada was pend-
ing and rumors of war or invasion blew in from all the great ports.
What could have been more exciting for a young man from the country, one who was already
more than half in love with words, than to be headed for London!
It was an exciting and frightening time, when the seven gates of London led to a maze of
streets, narrow and dirty, crowded with tradesmen, carts, coaches, and all manner of humanity.
Young Will would have seen the moated Tower of London, looking almost like an island apart.
There was London Bridge crowded with tenements and at the southern end a cluster of trai-
tors heads impaled on poles. At Tyburn thieves and murderers dangled, at Limehouse pirates
were trussed up at low tide and left to wait for the water to rise over them. At Tower Hill the
headsmans axe flashed regularly, while for the vagabonds there were the whipping posts, and
for the beggars there were the stocks. Such was the London of the workaday world, and young
Will was undoubtedly mentally filing away details of what he saw, heard, and smelled.
Elizabethan people in general were an emotional lot and the ferocity of their entertainment
reflected that fact. Bear-baiting, for example, was a highly popular spectator sport, and the
structure where they were generally held was not unlike the theatres of the day. A bear was
chained to a stake in the center of the pit, and a pack of large dogs was turned loose to bait,
or fight, him. The bear eventually tired (fortunately for the remaining dogs!), and, well, you
can figure the rest out for yourself. Then there were the public hangings, whippings, or draw-
ing and quarterings for an afternoons entertainment. So, the violence in some of Shakespeares
plays was clearly directed at an audience that reveled in it. Imagine the effect of having an actor
pretend to bite off his own tongue and spit a chunk of raw liver that he had carefully packed in
his jaw into the faces of the groundlings!
Despite the progressing enlightenment of the Renaissance, superstition was still rampant
among Elizabethan Londoners, and a belief in such things as astrology was common (Ralph
P. Boas and Barbara M. Hahna, The Age of Shakespeare, Social Backgrounds of English
Literature, [Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1931] 93). Through the position of stars many
Elizabethans believed that coming events could be foretold even to the extent of mapping out a
persons entire life.
Where witches and ghosts were concerned, it was commonly accepted that they existed and
the person who scoffed at them was considered foolish, or even likely to be cursed. Consider
the fact that Shakespeares Macbeth was supposedly cursed due to the playwrights having
given away a few more of the secrets of witchcraft than the weird sisters may have approved
of. For a time, productions experienced an uncanny assortment of mishaps and injuries. Even
today, it is often considered bad luck for members of the cast and crew to mention the name
of the production, simply referred to as the Scottish Play. In preaching a sermon, Bishop Jewel
warned the Queen: It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within
these last few years are marvelously increased. Your Graces subjects pine away, even unto
death; their color fadeth; their flesh rotteth; their speech is benumbed; their senses bereft

(Walter Bromberg, Witchcraft and Psychotherapy, The Mind of Man [New York: Harper
Torchbooks 1954], 54).
Ghosts were recognized by the Elizabethans in three basic varieties: the vision or purely sub-
jective ghost, the authentic ghost who has died without opportunity of repentance, and the
false ghost which is capable of many types of manifestations (Boas and Hahn). When
a ghost was confronted, either in reality or in a Shakespearean play, some obvious
discrimination was called for (and still is). Critics still do not always agree on which of these
three types haunts the pages of Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Richard III, or Hamlet, or, in some
cases, why they are necessary to the plot at all. After all, Shakespeares ghosts are a capricious
lot, making themselves visible or invisible as they please. In Richard III there are no fewer than
eleven ghosts on the stage who are visible only to Richard and Richmond. In Macbeth the
ghost of Banquo repeatedly appears to Macbeth in crowded rooms but is visible
only to him. In Hamlet, the ghost appears to several people on the castle battlements but only
to Hamlet in his mothers bedchamber. In the words of E.H. Seymour: If we judge by sheer
reason, no doubt we must banish ghosts from the stage altogether, but if we regulate our fancy
by the laws of superstition, we shall find that spectres are privileged to be visible
to whom they will (E.H. Seymour Remarks, Critical, Conjectural, and Explanatory
on Shakespeare in Macbeth A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare [New York: Dover
Publications Inc., 1963] 211).
Shakespeares audiences, and his plays, were the products of their culture. Since the validity of
any literary work can best be judged by its public acceptance, not to mention its lasting power,
it seems that Shakespeares ghosts and witches were, and are, enormously popular. If modern
audiences and critics find themselves a bit skeptical, then they might consider bringing along a
supply of Coleridges willing suspension of disbelief. Elizabethans simply had no need of it.

Shakespeares Day: What They Wore
The clothing which actors wear to perform a play is called a costume, to distinguish it from
everyday clothing. In Shakespeares time, acting companies spent almost as much on costumes
as television series do today.
The costumes for shows in England were so expensive that visitors from France were a
little envious. Kings and queens on the stage were almost as well dressed as kings and queens in
real life.
Where did the acting companies get their clothes? Literally, off the rack and from used
clothing sellers. Wealthy middle class people would often give their servants old clothes that
they didnt want to wear any more, or would leave their clothes to the servants when they died.
Since clothing was very expensive, people wore it as long as possible and passed it on from one
person to another without being ashamed of wearing hand-me-downs. However, since servants
were of a lower class than their employers, they werent allowed to wear rich fabrics, and would
sell these clothes to acting companies, who were allowed to wear what they wanted in perfor-
mance.
A rich nobleman like Count Paris or a wealthy young man like Romeo would wear a dou-
blet, possibly of velvet, and it might have gold embroidery. Juliet and Lady Capulet would have
worn taffeta, silk, gold, or satin gowns, and everybody would have had hats, gloves, ruffs (an
elaborate collar), gloves, stockings, and shoes equally elaborate.
For a play like Romeo and Juliet, which was set in a European country at about the same time
Shakespeare wrote it, Elizabethan everyday clothes would have been finethe
audience would have been happy, and they would have been authentic for the play. However,
since there were no costume shops who could make clothing suitable for, say, medieval
Denmark for Hamlet, or ancient Rome for Julius Caesar, or Oberon and Titanias forest for A
Midsummer Nights Dream, these productions often looked slightly strangecan you imagine
fairies in full Elizabethan collars and skirts? How would they move?
Todays audiences want costumes to be authentic, so that they can believe in the world of the
play. However, Romeo and Juliet was recently set on Verona Beach, with very up-to-date clothes
indeed; and about thirty years ago, West Side Story, an updated musical version of the Romeo
and Juliet tale, was set in the Puerto Rican section of New York City.
Activity: Discuss what the affect of wearing special clothes isto church, or to a party. Do
you feel different? Do you act different? How many kinds of wardrobes do you have? School,
play, best? Juliet and Romeo would have had only one type of clothing each, no matter how
nice it was.
Activity: Perform a scene from the play in your everyday clothes, and then in more
formal clothes. Ask the participants and the spectators to describe the differences between the
two performances.
Utah Shakespeare Festival

Synopsis: A Midsummer Nights Dream
Theseus, duke of Athens, after conquering the warrior Amazons in battle, is in turn conquered
by the charms of their queen, Hippolyta, and they are now planning to marry. To speed the time
until their wedding night, he orders amusements to be staged. In a spirit of loyalty, Bottom the
weaver and other tradesmen decide to prepare a play for the duke and his bride.
The preparations are interrupted by Egeus, an Athenian, who brings his daughter, Hermia, and
her two suitors before Theseus, entreating him to command Hermia to wed Demetrius. Hermia
pleads to be allowed to marry the other suitor, the one she loves-Lysander. The duke orders her to
obey her father under penalty of death or confinement in a convent. Hermia and Lysander bewail
the harsh decree and secretly agree to meet in a wood nearby and flee to another country. They tell
their plans to Helena, a jilted sweetheart of Demetrius, and she, to win back his love, goes straight-
way to inform him of the plan.
Meanwhile, in the forest, the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania are at odds. In spite,
Oberon bids Puck procure a love-juice to pour upon Titanias eyelids when she is asleep, in order
that she may love the first thing her waking eyes behold. Just then, Oberon sees Demetrius, who
has sought out the trysting-place of Lysander and Hermia only to meet Helena, much to his dis-
taste. The ladys distress at her lovers coldness softens the heart of Oberon, who bids Puck touch
Demetriuss eyes also with the love-juice, for Helenas sake.
Meanwhile, Lysander and Hermia arrive, and Puck in error anoints Lysanders instead of
Demetriuss eyes, so that Lysander, happening to awake just as the neglected Helena wanders by,
falls in love with her-and abandons Hermia.
The same enchanted spot in the forest happens to be the place selected by Bottom and compa-
ny for the final rehearsal of their play. The roguish Puck passes that way while they are rehearsing,
and mischievously and magically crowns Bottom with an asss head, whereupon the other players
disperse terror-stricken. Then he brings Bottom to Titania; and, when she awakens, she gazes first
upon the human-turned-to-an-ass and falls in love.
Meantime, the four lovers are greatly bewildered. Oberon finds that Puck has anointed the eyes
of Lysander instead of those of Demetrius, so Oberon anoints Demetriuss eyes with another potion
which breaks the spell. When Demetrius awakes, he sees his neglected Helena being wooed by
Lysander. His own love for her returns, and he is ready to fight Lysander. Helena deems them both
to he mocking her, and Hermia is dazed by the turn of affairs. The fairies interpose and prevent
conflict by causing the four to wander about in the dark until they are tired and fall asleep. Puck
repairs the blunder by anointing Lysanders eyes, in order to dispel the illusion caused by the love-
juice. Thus, when they awake, all will be in order: Lysander will love Hermia, and Demetrius will
love Helena.
Titania woos Bottom until Oberon, whose anger has abated, removes the spell from her eyes.
Bottom is restored to his natural form, and he rejoins his comrades in Athens. Theseus, on an early
morning hunting trip in the forest, discovers the four lovers. Explanations, follow; the duke relents
and bestows Helena upon Demetrius and Hermia upon Lysander.
A wedding-feast for three couples instead of one only is spread in Duke Theseuss place.
Bottoms players come to this feast to present the comic tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, which is
performed in wondrous and hilarious fashion. After the company retires for the night, the fairies
dance through the corridors on a mission of blessing and goodwill for the three wedded pairs.

Characters: A Midsummer Nights Dream
Theseus: The duke of Athens, Theseus is betrothed to Hippolyta, the warrior queen. His nuptial
day is at hand, and, while the other lovers are agitated, bewildered, and incensed, Theseus
remains in calm possession of his joy. He is a good and thoughtful ruler.
Hippolyta: The warrior queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta is betrothed to Theseus. She has been
captured by, and is subject to, her intended husband, but is also strong and wise in her own
right.
Philostrate: As master of the revels at Duke Theseuss court, Philostrate is responsible for planning
the court entertainments, including the wedding party.
Egeus: The father of Hermia, Egeus insists on his rights as a father to choose his daughters
husband.
Hermia: The daughter of Egeus, Hermia, despite her fathers wishes and threats, is in love with
Lysander and is the strongest of the four lovers whose adventures in the enchanted wood are
the centerpiece of the play.
Lysander: The least distinctive of the four young lovers, Lysander is, however, deeply and tenderly
in love with Hermia.
Demetrius: Also in love with Hermia, Demetrius was, before the play opened, in love with
Helena, and, by plays end, is again is love with her.
Helena: The last of the four young lovers, Helena is obsessed with Demetrius, even to the extent
of shaming herself and betraying her friend, Hermia.
Oberon: King of the fairies, Oberon works the magic that ensures the triumph of love that is the
focus of the play. He gives an unpleasant first impression, but, in the end, he is a gentle and
good-natured king and a playful husband.
Titania: Queen of the fairies, Titania leads a luxurious, merry life, given to the pleasures of the
senses, the secrets of nature, and the powers of flowers and herbs.
Puck: Oberons servant, Puck is a happy-go-lucky practical joker. He is the source of much of the
confusion for all the lovers.
Fairies: Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed attend upon Titania and later on Nick
Bottom. Shakespeares portrayal lends them a charm that was not always agreed upon in
Elizabethan times.
Peter Quince: A carpenter, Peter Quince is the leader of the rustics, a band of country citizens
who plan on presenting the play Piramus and Thisbe for the wedding celebration of Theseus
and Hippolyta.
Nick Bottom: A weaver and one of the rustics, Nick Bottom is a hale fellow with all his mates.
He is easy-going, kind, and pleasant. It is Bottom who gets caught in the middle of the quarrel
between Oberon and Titania and is changed into an ass with whom Titania falls magically in
love.
Francis Flute: A bellows mender, Francis Flute is also one of the rustics.
Tom Snout: A tinker, Tom Snout is one of the rustics.
Snug: A joiner, Snug is one of the rustics.
Robin Starveling: A tailor, Robin Starveling is one of the rustics.

A Midsummer Nights Dream:
All an Illusion
By Donna R. Cheney
From Midsummer Magazine, 1999
A Midsummer Nights Dream was the nex play Shakespeare wrote after Romeo and Juliet,
and the plays are as different as tragedy and comedy can be. Scholars who have looked for deep
meaning in the A Midsummer Nights Dream, have mostly found themselves frustrated. The
whole play is comprised of illusion. It was intended as a joyous comedy, most likely to celebrate a
court wedding, and the emphasis is fun, with comic elements arising from amazing contrasts. The
dualistic world in which A Midsummer Nights Dream takes place combines alien exotic with
English familiar. The combination of plots encompasses elements which are both alluring and
frightening, common and mystical, just as dreams usually are.
The action opens with Athenian Duke Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyra dreaming of their
marriage which is to be celebrated in just four days. They come from two very different worlds;
his is civilized, hers savage. He has defeated her in battle, even injuring her, and is marrying her as
a trophy of war. Yet she is content, even eager, for the marriage, intending to dream away the four
days till they are wed.
Contrasting sharply to this hope of merriment, indeed, after only twenty lines, an angry
father/daughter tension is set up when Egeus brings his case before the duke. His daughter,
Hermia, will not obey him. She wants to choose her own husband out of love, rather than
bending to her fathers will. Though the two young men seem much the same in looks and
fortune, as Egeus acknowledges, he threatens his daughter with death or eternal virginity if she
will not yield. She does what any sensible modern woman would do: runs away with her beloved,
from the court to the woods.
The woods represent leaving reality behind. Anything can happen in the woods, both
wonderful and awful. The rigid court rules are suspended, and magic reigns. The characters are
the same within themselves as they would be in an ordinary world, frightened or brave as the
occasion demands, but the mystical setting allows their reactions to be exaggerated. Much of the
humor is based on their unexpected reactions.
Hermia and Lysander slip into the woods at night, hoping that with mornings light all can be
happily resolved. They had not counted on fairies interfering. In a world of reality, who would?
As Hermia and Lysander wake from their bad dreams, in another section of the woods a
group of mechanicals, English common craftsmen, are meeting to rehearse a grossly improper
play to present for the dukes wedding celebration. Their dream is simple; they love the money
they are certain will be rewarded to them for their excellence. But they have never seen a play and
have no idea how to put one on. The mechanicals bear names which are puns on the type of craft
they follow. For instance, a bottom is the center spool a weavers skein of yarn is rolled around for
the loom, just as Bottom is the center of their interaction. The mechanicals are English homespun
characters trying to be more than they are, reaching into an alien world they dont know.
Yet when Bottom meets the queen of the fairies, he feels at home. He is comfortable with
fairies who are named for things familiar to him, Moth and Mustardseed and Cobweb. He is not
aware that he bears the head of an ass, a reversal of the man-beast stories of most English folktales
in which men keep their human heads when they bear half-beast bodies. Bottom leans back and
bids the fairies bring him gifts, till even Titania can no longer stand the sound of his braying.
Strangely, this scene is light and fun, not lustful. The wonder is that Titania can love a common
ass, even with a velvet muzzle, when she is married to the beautiful king of the fairies. But the
quarrels of the fairies are longstanding, since neither is faithful in marriage. Such a different
standard for humans and fairies seems normal to all involved.
Balancing against mostly-human Bottom is Puck, a character of dual nature within himself.
In English folk lore he is wicked, noted for leading travelers to harm or spirits to rise early from
the dead. He even spoils good English beer by stealing the yeast before the liquor can ferment.
Sometimes he is called Robin Goodfellow, a cross-your-heart name for the devil himself. But
Puck is held in check in the Dream. He is Oberons messenger, doing as the fairy lord com-mands,
bringing magic potions and interfering with love.
Pucks mischief is mostly accidental, mis-matching the lovers so that in turn the two young
men are in love with first Hermia, then Helena, before they get it right. Puck does add an extra
turn for Oberon when he turns Bottom to an ass for Titania to fall in love with, but even that
situation is righted finally, much to the better. Titania must yield to her lords leadership because
he out-maneuvers her. Puck should have included the fairy folk when he exalted, Lord, what
fools these mortals be!
So far we are balancing four plot-lines: the older lovers, Theseus and Hippolyta; the four
young lovers and Egeus; the jealous/loving fairies; and the innocent/comic mechanicals, primanly
Bottom. In the last act, the playwright adds a fifth story line, the tragic love tale of Pyramus
and Thisbe. Strangely, this classical tale fits well into the English world. In fact, the Greek story
pulls all the other story-lines together when the lovers and mechanicals join as the Dream moves
back to the court to celebrate three weddings and a reconciliation. Through the success of the
unwitting burlesque performed by the mechanicals, all quarrels end and everyone is happy.
Finally, tairy magic rrom tne woods intrudes on reality as Oberon and Tirania lead their fairy
followers into the court to give their blessing. The lovers are promised beautiful, perfect children
to perpetuate the joys of the perfect summer night we have shared. We have seen a great deal
of silly stuff and thoroughly enjoyed, as Puck concludes, a weak and idle theme, / No more
yielding but a dream.

A Midsummer Nights Dream: Connecting
Several Plots into a Single Unified Structure
By Diana Major Spencer
From Insights, 1993
Samuel Pepys, the seventeenth-century diarist who left a detailed, if quirky, record of Englands
Restoration period, ranked A Midsummer Nights Dream as the most insipid ridiculous play that ever
I saw in my life. To Pepys and his contemporaries, the Restoration meant more than the restoration
of the English monarch to the throne; it also meant the restoration of classical standards to all that
was good, true, and beautiful. In theatre, it meant evaluating plays according to Aristotles unities and
rewriting those that seemed messy. Shakespeares seemed messy; what couldnt be fixed was not per-
formed.
Aristotles unity of place required one sequence of events revolving around one central character.
Yet, Shakespeares works are rarely so simple as to have just one plot and one set of characters, but his
plays are unified nevertheless: They have a central theme that may be illustrated by parallel situations
among different characters in different families or social classes. A Midsummer Nights Dream demon-
strates Shakespeares genius for approaching a theme from different directions and connecting several
plots into a single unified structure.
In the first scene Lysander comforts Hermia by saying, The course of true love never [did] run
smooth (1.1.134). His words define the major theme of all of Shakespeares comedies, which usually
introduce at least three sets of characters: a kind duke and his associates, high-born young lovers, and
lower class servants or country folk. A Midsummer Nights Dream has these, plus a fourth set--the fair-
ies. Each group engages in love-at-first-sight, mistaken identities, jealousies, rivalries, and love triangles
or chains--all standard elements of a love comedy, and all proof that the course of true love never does
run smooth.
We then see five examples of how unsmooth love can be: Theseus and Hippolyta (the kind
duke and associates) frame the story; Hermia-Lysander-Helena-Demetrius (the high-born young lov-
ers) represent first love; Oberon and Titania (the fairies, but also a king and queen) display jealousy
and obstinacy in marriage; Bottom and Titania (the fairies and the lower class) suffer enchantment;
and Pyramus and Thisbe (the nobles played by the rustics) die for love gone wrong. In this play,
Shakespeare tells five separate stories, so thoroughly interwoven that one cannot be extracted without
diminishing the others.
One obstacle to true love is, of course, parental approvalmuch less an obstacle today than it was
four hundred years ago. Often one of Shakespeares young lovers has a father or old counselor who
is too strict. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Hermias father, Egeus, displays his strictness in the
opening scene by choosing her husband for her. By older community standards, parents must at least
approve their childs choice of a mate, and in Shakespeares time, disobedience to parents could be pun-
ished by law. Hermias disobedience not only upsets the social balance, but also brings on the events in
the forest.
Bracketing the entire play are Theseus announcement of his wedding to Hippolyta and the
celebration of three weddings, presumably four days later (though it seems like the next morning).
Shakespeare doesnt reveal much about the Theseus-Hippolyta match beyond the fact that they have
been at war and now theyre marrying. In his only comment on the subject, Theseus confesses, I wood
thee with my sword, / And won thy love doing thee injuries (1.1.16-17). Their names, for some of the
audience, would identify them as the King of Athens and Queen of the Amazons, who married after he

captured her in battle. For the rest of the audience, it wouldnt matter much beyond his function of
kind duke, who postpones judgement on Hermias disobedience to her father until the wedding day.
At the end of Act 4, the dukes sunrise hunting party discovers the couples asleep in the forest, and he
invites them to join his wedding ceremony.
The main love story, based on the Babylonian tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, a sort of Romeo and
Juliet story retold by Ovid in The Metamorphoses, occurs twice in A Midsummer Nights Dream,
each time with a different ending. In Ovids story, the fathers of Pyramus and Thisbe have built a wall
to separate their houses and their children. Undaunted, Pyramus and Thisbe whisper through a crack
and fall in love, promising to meet outside the city walls and run away. When Thisbe arrives, she sees
a lioness and drops her veil as she runs for shelter in a cave. Pyramus finds the veil, which the lion-
ess has stained with the blood of a recently eaten lamb. Thinking the lioness has devoured Thisbe,
Pyramus stabs himself. Thisbe returns from the cave, finds the dying Pyramus, and, distraught, falls
on his sword. They die in each others arms. This is the plot acted out by Bottom and the other rus-
tics.
In Shakespeares version, after Hermias father forbids her love for Lysander, the young lovers agree
to meet outside the city walls and thence to run away. Shakespeare also reveals the situation before
the play opens: Demetrius and Helena have been in love, but Demetrius has changed his mind and
now loves Hermia. Lysander and Hermia are in love, but her father approves of Demetrius instead. To
escape the dukes judgement called forth by Egeus, Lysander and Hermia flee to the forest, but three
Shakespearean complications change Ovids plot: First, Hermia confides in Helena who in turn tells
Demetrius, who both chase into the forest after love. Second, Lysander gets lost in the forest. Third,
the fairies get into the act.
Also in the forest are the hempen homespuns, the rustics rehearsing their play in hopes of per-
forming at the wedding party. Ovids tragedy becomes comic as the players find ways to act out every
part--even the props and scenery. When Puck stumbles onto them, the complications blossom into
all-out confusion before the couples are sorted out.
The fairies are responsible for the confusion in the forest, the magical resolutions of the conflict,
blessings of peace, and their own love story. Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of fairies, are
already married, but their course of true love [doesnt] run smooth anyway. Throughout the play,
each jealously accuses the other of infidelity--Titania with Theseus and Oberon with Hippolyta,
among others. They fight over an Indian boy, and they seem willing to punish each other if sufficient-
ly angered. Titanias brief fling with the altered Bottom is love at another level--definitely not true,
and certainly not smooth-running.
Every plot touches the frame, and the fairy plots at some point. The only plots that do not inter-
act directly are the lovers in the forest and the rustics, but they come together in the final act as new-
lyweds and entertainers at the wedding. Shakespeares strategy is to alternate pieces from each story,
emphasizing the connections. His plays are easier to study if you comprehend each story separately,
then reshuffle them to study their dependence on each other.
Just because the plot is confused doesnt mean that Shakespeare was either confused or incom-
petent. On the contrary, he used confusion in the plot to illustrate the confusion in the minds of the
characters. People in love, says Shakespeare, behave most irrationally (Puck says, Lord, what fools
these mortals be [3.2.115]). And the course of true love is exactly like the plot: confused, foolish
and magic.

A Genuine Fairy Kingdom
By Stephanie Chidester
From Souvenir Program, 1993
Toward the end of The Merry Wives of Windsor, William Shakespeare created a pretend
fairy world, an entertainment devised by Mistress Page and Mistress Ford for the humiliation
and reformation of Falstaff and for the fat rogues integration into the plays middle-class com-
munity. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare crafted a genuine fairy kingdom, and all
those who enter it emerge in some way transformed and enlightened.
Oberon, king of the fairies, directs the transformations in the play; he is the chief arbiter in
his magical forest, particularly in matters of love. When he spies Helena pursuing her former
suitor through the woods, he pities her and declares, Ere he do leave this grove, / Thou shalt
fly him, and he shall seek they love (The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare, ed. Sylvan
Barnet [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972], 2.l.245-46). And accordingly, when
the lovers leave the forest, Demetriuss affections are once more focused upon Helena.
However, even the king and queen of the fairies are not without love troubles; their first
encounter in the play is marked with such comments as Titanias Why art thou here / . . .
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, / Your buskined mistress and your warrior love, /
To Theseus must be wedded (2.l.68, 70-72) and Oberons How canst thou thus for shame,
Titania, / Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, / Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
(2.1.74-76). In addition, Titania is withholding from Oberon a beautiful changeling boy whom
he wants for his court.
Oberon deals with these troubles in much the same way as he does with the mortals: he
plans to place a love spell upon Titania; and, while she is engrossed with some monstrous lover,
he will ask her for the changeling, and then all things shall be peace (3.2.377). The fairy king
may occasionally put his own interests above those of all others, but his designs always seem to
work out exactly as he intendshappily.
If Oberon is the director of the action, Puck is his chief actor, and one who doesnt mind
taking a bit of creative license. He is a spirit who, while generally obedient, thrives on mischief
and delights in pranks: while assisting Oberon in his plan for Titania to wake when some vile
thing is near(2.2.34), Puck changes Bottoms head into that of an ass rather than finding the
cat, or bear, / Pard, or boar (2.2.30-31) that Oberon suggests for the purpose. Also, in Act II,
Puck innocently drops the love potion intended for Demetrius into Lysanders eyes, causing the
latter to reject Hermia and fall in love with Helena. When Oberon berates him for his knaver-
ies, Puck explains, Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook, . . . [But] so far am I glad it so did
sort, / As this their jangling I esteem a sport (3.2.347, 352-53).
However selfish the motives or means may be, a benevolent objective is invariably achieved.
Lysander falls back in love with Hermia, and Demetrius with Helena; Titania relinquishes her
changeling boy and resumes peaceful and loving relations with Oberon; and even Bottom, the
shallowest thickskin of that barren sort (3.2.13), is enlightened by his experience with the fairy
queen: he expresses his new (albeit rudimentary) level of awareness, I have had a most rare
vision. . . . The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, mans hand is not able
to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was (4.1.207-208, 214-
17). As Peter Levi explains, The wood where Oberon is king is one where all travelers get lost,
and love is a wood where all travelers get lost, though it may have a happy ending (The Life
and Times of William Shakespeare [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988], 138).
To put the finishing touch on this happy ending, all the fairies visit Theseuss palace and
end the play with song and dance, just as Bottom and the mechanicals ended their theatrical

effort with the Bergomask dance. Oberon, having resolved the present problems, now ensures a joyful
future: To the best bride-bed will we, / Which by us shall blessed be; / And the issue there create /
Ever shall be fortunate. / So shall all the couples three / Ever true in loving be (5.1.403-410).
Love Is Where Its At

By Patricia Truxler Coleman
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,

Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is wingd Cupid painted blind.
(Helena, 1.2.232-35)
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
(Theseus, 5.14-8)
In bringing A Midsummer Nights Dream to life on the stage at Cedar City this summer, the Utah
Shakespeare Festival makes possible a splendid opportunity. As Harold C. Goddard has pointed out,
A Midsummer-Nights Dream is in many respects the lightest and most purely playful of Shakespeares
plays.
Yet it is surpassed by few if any of his early works in its importance for an understanding of the
unfolding of his genius (The Meaning of Shakespeare, Vol. 1 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1951], 74). Here Shakespeare announces overtly for the first time many of the convictions which
underlie his earlier works and which will inform his later works: that love is, indeed, a complex matter
and has as much potential for disaster as for success; that women, on the whole, are intellectually and
morally superior to men in matters of love; and that love is, to borrow a l960s phrase, where its at.
While, on the surface, this play is just thatpure playwe are given here a view of a universe
constructed of many worldscourt, country, and fairy. And we find in this universe that these various
worlds at times collide, overlap, and intersect, all in a rich and wonderfully comical way. At the heart
of this comedy is the world of love, in all its various dimensions, and the assertion of the necessity of
permanence in love. But we also discover what is so characteristic of all seven of the romantic comedies
composed between l595 and l600: that love, the essential human experience, is to be earned through
sheer hard work sprinkled with a little magic and a conviction that harmony in the universe is of funda-
mental importance.
Exactly how complex an issue love is is demonstrated in the very first scene of this play. Here we
find Hermia virtually sentenced to choosing among three alternatives, none of which much appeals to
her: she can either wed the man her father chooses, be a virgin all of her life, or lose her life. Lysander,
her faithful lover, laments that the course of true love never did run smooth, and Hermia sighs about
what hell [it is] to choose by anothers eyes. Meanwhile, Demetrius, who is Hermias fathers choice
for her in marriage, is beloved of Helena. And Helena openly asserts her love for Demetrius who ere
he looked on Hermias eye, / . . . haild down oaths that he was mine. So we have here something

central to all the romantic comedies and to many of the tragedies: that the universe is frequently
peopled with insufferable young men, sanctimonious fathers, self-contained young women, faithless
heroes, faithful heroines, and sudden conversions. And we see that love, for all its promise, holds
out always the possibility of disappointment, if not disaster.
But A Midsummer Nights Dream is to be a comedy and not a tragedy like Romeo and Juliet,
and, therefore, needs the intervention of other worlds. This intervention comes not only in this
play in the form of women who are faithful even to their faithless men, but in the magical world of
the fairy kingdom. Still, not everything is easy, especially in matters of love, and the fairy kingdom
manages to create a whole passel of problems before it solves any. Puck is told by Oberon, the king
of the fairies, to place a love potion on Demetriuss eyes and that he will know the young man by
his Athenian garb. Of course, the fairies are busy with their own affairs and are operating right
outside the city of Athens. Oberon, for all his sophistication, never considers, in his order to Puck,
that there may be more than one Athenian in the forest. Naturally Puck puts the potion on the
wrong Athenians eyes, and Lysander awakens in love with Helena.
We may wonder what is to be accomplished by having a young womanHermiasuddenly
bereft of not one but two lovers and another young womanHelenasuddenly beloved of two
men; but we do not have to look very far. Hermia, in her moral smugness, has one-upped Helena,
and not, I think, without some slight sense of glee. Now it is Helenas turn to one-up Hermia,
though she does not understand how.
And these two women behave just like any two women in pursuit of the same man. Hermia
accuses Helena of having won Lysander by urging her height, thus suggesting that women dont
play fair in matters of love. Yet, with the exception of Titania, the queen of the fairies, the women
here are (at least morally, if not intellectually) superior to the men: while the men change their
minds about whom they love, the women never do.
But we mustnt forget that this play is about worlds within worlds, about conflict, collision, and
collusion. That is why we have not just the world of the fairies and the world of the court, but also
the world of the countryor, as it has been called, the world of the mechanicals. Here we are intro-
duced to Bottom and company, who propose to stage a play for Theseus and Hippolytas wedding,
and not altogether insignificantly for Hermia and Lysanders and Helena and Demetrius weddings.
That they choose to stage a play about the tragedy of love is no accident. These men are aspiring
actors who, while well-intentioned, have little sense of social propriety and even less of real love.
That Shakespeare chooses to make fun of his craftsplay writing and actingis, of course no acci-
dent. After all, as Jacques reminds us in As You Like It, all the worlds a stage. Furthermore, it is a
reminder of Shakespeares attitude toward love, most eloquently expressed by Henry V in his woo-
ing of Kate and by Rosalind in her attachment to Orlando (As You Like It); that men have, in fact,
died from time to time, and that worms have eaten them, but not for love.
And so we have all the elements for both splendid comedy and intellectual commentary. While
it may be very tempting to dismiss this play as nothing but frivolity, it is a very serious mistake, For
in this play, Shakespeare anticipates as he never has before what is to occupy his mind for most
of the rest of his life: in the infinite scheme of things, what is love to the universe, and, given its
importance, how do we arrive at lasting love. We have here the Shakespearean formula for hope in
the universe: it begins in love at first sight; it is tested because love must, of necessity, be perma-
nent; and it ends in a commitment which results in rejuvenation of this race.
Oberon tells his fairies after the weddings to roam the households and bless the wedding beds
so that . . . all the couples three / Ever true in loving be; / And the blots of Natures hand / Shall
not in their issue stand. The purpose of love, then, is not just companionship but also rejuvenation
of a dying race.

And if we do not like the message of the play, Puck is there to remind us that, as the title
suggests, this has been but a dream, and if we [fairy] shadows have offended, / Think but this
and all is mended. / That you have but slumbered here / While these visions did appear.
Indeed, here, as in much of Shakespeare, love is where its at because love, lasting love,
is the only hope for the restoration and rejuvenation of the species. Is it not interesting that
love can transpose to form and dignity that which once was base and vile? And are we not
caught up by Theseuss reminder that this love which transposes is something like a madness?
Perhaps what the world needs today, as in Shakespeares time, is a little less reason and a great
deal more madness.

The Force of Imagination
By Ace Pilkington
In J. B. Priestleys Arthurian fantasy, The Thirty-First of June, an exasperated character asks,
Whats imagination? Nobody tells usat least nobody who has an imagination ([London: Mandarin,
1961], 14). But, of course, in A Midsummer Nights Dream, somebody with a truly extraordinary
imagination has told us a great deal. As Stanley Wells says, There is a sense in which the entire play is
about the power of the imagination: it has been called Shakespeares Ars Poetica (Shakespeare: A Life
in Drama [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995], 64).
The subject undoubtedly seemed more important to Shakespeare than it sometimes does to us,
not only because he was a playwright and an actor and therefore made his art and living from imagina-
tion, but also because some Renaissance thinkers gave imagination credit for far greater powers than
we usually ascribe to it. One of the best examples of just how large those powers were supposed to be is
Montaignes Of the Force of Imagination. Montaignes essay is never (well, hardly ever) mentioned as
a source for A Midsummer Nights Dream, but it probably should be.
Many scholars have assumed that Shakespeare could have read Montaigne only in John Florios
translation, published approximately eight years after the writing of A Midsummer Nights Dream.
However, Shakespeare and Florio had a number of shared acquaintances and, of course, a shared
patronthe Earl of Southampton. Florios translation was published in 1603, but circulating in
manuscript long before that (Dennis Kay, Shakespeare: His Life, Work, and Era [New York: William
Morrow and Company, Inc., 1992], 155). And there is another very strong possibility: Montaignes
first essays (including the one on imagination) were in print in French by 1580, and Peter Levi declares
that in his youth Shakespeare learned French well (The Life and Times of William Shakespeare [New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988], 34). Certainly, Shakespeare used French often enough in his
plays, most obviously in Henry V but also in Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and elsewhere. At the very least,
Of the Force of Imagination can be taken as an indicator of what educated people thought on the
subject at the time Shakespeare was writing his play.
Montaigne tells of a man who was found starke dead upon the scaffold, wounded only by the
stroke of imagination (Essays Volume One, translated by John Florio [London: J. M. Dent & Sons
Limited, 1910, reprinted 1935], 92-93). In the light of this, the fear of Bottom and company that
their imaginary lion might do real harm seems a little less farfetched (though not much less ludicrous).
Montaignes examples include a man who dreamed of hornes in his head and brought them forth
the next morning (93); women transformed into men; and, interestingly, given Theseus intense admi-
ration for his hounds, dogs, who for sorrow of their Masters death are seene to die (101).
Montaigne argues (appositely for the mechanicals in A Midsummer Nights Dream) that the prin-
cipall credit of visions, of enchantments, and such extraordinary effects, proceedeth from the power of
imaginations, working especially in the mindes of the vulgar sort (94). He also has words that might
have been written especially for the young lovers, Burning youth (although asleepe) is often therewith
so possessed and enfolded, that dreaming it doth satisfie and enjoy her amorous desires (93). In addi-
tion, Montaigne gives an example of a man whose fond doting was in time remedied by another kind
of raving, a summary which fits Titania, Lysander, Demetrius, and Oberon, among others.
The end of Shakespeares play, where Oberon announces, To the best bride bed will we, / Which
by us shall blessed be (5.1.405-6) may strike modern audiences as a somewhat puzzling ritual, even if
we remember that Oberon and Titania have virtually been given the status of pagan gods. However,
one of the powers which Montaigne ascribes to imagination is enlightening here. He says, So it is, that
by experience wee see women to transferre divers markes of their fantasies, unto children they beare in
their wombes (102).

Oberon, king of shadows, and Titania, goddess of the moon, have come to ensure that the peril-
ous realm of dreams is safe for their former lovers, Theseus and Hippolyta, and for those other lovers
who have wandered through their magical forest. There will be no nightmares on this midsummers
eve, and, even if there are, when the sunlight returns, it will bring no reminders of bad dreams. Oberon
promises, So shall all the couples three / Ever true in loving be; / And the blots of natures hand /
Shall not in their issue stand (5.1.409-412).
Harold Bloom declares, Nothing by Shakespeare before A Midsummer Nights Dream is its
equal, and in some respects nothing by him afterward surpasses it (Shakespeare: The Invention of the
Human [New York: Riverhead Books, 1998], 148). In this play, Shakespeares imagination, like that of
his audience, has been set free. The plot and subplots were largely his own, and he invented and com-
bined them with such wild panache that even while we watch, it is an astonishment to see Celtic fair-
ies, English mechanicals, Greek myths, and courtly lovers skipping to the same delightful music. What
better demonstration of the power of imagination could Shakespeare have conjured up than this gor-
geous gallimaufry? And yet, there is more to the play than this because it contains the suggestion that
dreams and imagination do, in fact, wield the enormous powers that Montaigne believed they did. Not
only do poets provide a local habitation and a name for airy nothings, they may also shadow forth
realities, transform dunderheads, and unite audiences into a shared epiphany of the true glory of the
shining world and the startling humans within it.
If this seems too much to claim in the cold light of the approaching millennium, I would point to
the words of the American anthropologist and historian of science Loren Eiseley, who argues that it
was imagination that first made us human. Man was becoming something the world had never seen
beforea dream animalliving at least partially within a secret universe of his own creation. . . . The
unseen gods, the powers behind the world of phenomenal appearance, began to stalk through his
dreams (The Immense Journey [New York: Vintage Books, 1959], 120). Or as Shakespeare himself
puts it in The Tempest, We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
At the very least we may agree with the words that Rafael Sabatini puts into the mouth of a
Renaissance prince, Will you tell me what reality in all the world was not first a dream? Are not all
things of human fashioning the fruit of dreams? (The Romantic Prince [New York: Grosset and
Dunlap, 1929], 11). And we might wish that all dreams could bear fruit as perfect as this midsummer
vision of Shakespeares.

Folktales, Myths, and Amazons
in A Midsummer Nights Dream
By Ace G. Pilkington and Olga A. Pilkington
From Insights, 2005
A Midsummer Nights Dream is a play about women defying men. It is also, of course, about many
other things, but, nevertheless, this play contains a series of stories where women defy men at almost
every level from the marital to the martial, from recalcitrant brides to warring Amazons. For example,
Theseus and Hippolyta meet on the battlefield, and their relationship continues to have its conflicts.
Oberon and Titania nearly come to blows over her fixation on the changeling child, a mania that
Oberon cannot break directly-even with all his magic-but only by replacing one of Titanias obses-
sions with another. Hermia refuses to obey her father-or Theseus, come to that. Helena will not accept
Demetriuss rejection of her, chasing him down (like another Helena in Alls Well That Ends Well)
while she points out that, as a woman, she should not be chasing him at all (particularly in the woods
at night). And because this is Shakespeare and comedy, not one of these assertive, argumentative, occa-
sionally armor-bearing females comes to a bad end as a result of her aggression.
Shakespeare set the stage for these battles of the sexes by invoking the old and (by the lights of
the Protestant Reformation) destabilizing fertility rituals of Midsummer. As Stephen Greenblatt says,
These folk customs, all firmly rooted in the Midlands, had a significant impact upon Shakespeares
imagination, fashioning his sense of the theater even more than the morality plays. . . . Folk culture is
everywhere in his work, in the web of allusions and in the underlying structures. The lovers who meet
in the Athenian woods in A Midsummer Nights Dream are reminiscent of May Day lovers (Stephen
Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare [New York: W. W. Norton
&Company, 2004], 40). It is not too much to say that Midsummer festivals are about fertility and also
about older systems of belief, pagan gods, and less patriarchal social structures. In the words of Harold
F. Brooks, It was in the May-game that the tradition of the ancient fertility cult lived on. The òbser-
vaunce to May was èverybodys pastime: it was at least as much a popular custom as a courtly one.
There is a correspondence in the Dreams whole action with the movement of the May game, from the
town to the woods and back, bringing home the summer (Harold F. Brooks ed., The Arden Edition
of the Works of William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Nights Dream [London: Methuen, 1983], lxix).
There were such games with their half-forgotten, half-numinous rituals scattered all over Europe.
Some of them are especially pertinent to Shakespeares story. Sir James Frazer found, for example, that
in Sweden the ceremonies associated elsewhere with May Day or Whitsuntide commonly take place
at Midsummer. He also wrote (in 1922) that in the Swedish province of Blekinge they still choose
a Midsummers Bride who selects for herself a Bridegroom (Sir James George Frazer, The Golden
Bough [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940], 133). Frazer tells of Briancon (Dauphine) where
on May Day the lads wrap up in green leaves a young fellow whose sweetheart has deserted him. . . .
He lies down on the ground and feigns to be asleep. Then a girl who likes him, and would marry him,
comes and wakes him and raising him up offers him her arm (Frazer, 133).
Often, the new religion (or the latest version of the new religion as was the case in Elizabethan
England) connects such ceremonies and their older gods to the dead and to evil as a way of sup-
pressing them, but folk memories are long, and the stories have within themselves the seeds of their
own resurrection. Katharine Briggs points out such forms of suppression and the close connection
between ghosts, fairies, White Ladies, the Irish `Bean Fionn, and Guenevere in the Arthurian cycle
(Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies [Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1977], 430). The

rusalka offers an especially clear example of the process. The rusalka survives in Slavic folklore as a
water spirit, fertility spirit, fairy, nymph, ghost, or sometimes all of the above. Weaving flowers into
her hair, she was the very picture of eroticism. Like the supernatural creatures in A Midsummer Nights
Dream, in early summer . . . the rusalki would leave their homes in the rivers and streams to dance
together in the woods and fields (Forests of the Vampire: Slavic Myth [New York: Barnes and Noble,
2003], 66-67). The rusalkas description shows very handily the inversion which occurs to an impor-
tant pre-Christian figure with the growing influence of Christianity. What was once sacred becomes
profane; what was positive becomes negative.
The rusalka is probably a descendant of Mokosh, the goddess of fertility, bounty, and moisture,
and the protectress of womens work and the fate of maidens. Her taming by the cross may reflect
just that-the taming of belief in the rusalka as a powerful supernatural figure due to the influence of
Christianity (Philippa Rappaport, If It Dries Out, Its No Good: Women, Hair, and Rusalki Beliefs,
SEEFA Journal, vol.4, no.1 Spring 1999: 55-64).
It is likely that the rusalka is a remnant of an older society in which women were freer to express
their sexuality and to disagree with men. The folk beliefs which Shakespeare is invoking also have a
strong element of feminine freedom about them. Brides may choose their husbands, goddesses grant
fertility and survival, and women succeed as warriors. Interestingly enough in view of his miniaturiza-
tion of some of his fairies, Shakespeare has worked hard to restore others to their full divine power.
Titania is not merely Queen of the Fairies; she is also Diana/Artemis, in the words of Sir James George
Frazer, a goddess of wild beasts, a mistress of woods and hills, of lonely glades and sounding rivers. . .
. Diana . . . may be described as a goddess of nature in general and of fertility in particular. As a god-
dess of fertility, it behooved Diana to have a male partner. Folk beliefs have her coupled with the
priest who bore the title of King of the Wood. Frazer suggests that the aim of their union would be
to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, of animals, and of mankind (Frazer, 140-141) all of which is
threatened, should Titania cross her Oberon (Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Wolfgang
Clemen ed.[New York: Signet,1963], 2.1 19). But, of course, the situation in A Midsummer Nights
Dream of bad weather to be corrected by the sympathetic magic of a male-female union is exactly what
the folk rituals were.
Titania as Diana/Artemis is also an Amazon goddess; a deity who is, as the Amazons were thought
to be, both virginal and sexual. Titanias obligations as such a goddess would be with fairy grace (4.1
402) to bless the marriage of Theseus and his warrior bride. Hippolyta and Theseuss way to the altar
lay through the path of war. Amazons and Hippolyta as their Queen are part of the pre-Christian
society where women hold religious power and thus possess more freedoms. As Lyn Webster Wilde
says, The Amazons . . . are borderline beings . . . : they are women with the power of women but they
express that power in a masculine way (Lyn Webster Wilde, On the Trail of the Women Warriors
[New York: St. Martins Press, 2000], 105). In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare has given us
an Amazon goddess, an Amazon Queen, and for good measure, Queen Elizabeth, who was sometimes
viewed as an Amazon.
During her lifetime, Queen Elizabeth was identified with several Amazonian personages, includ-
ing Diana (Gail Kern Paster and Skiles Howard, eds., William Shakespeare A Midsummer Nights
Dream: Texts and Contexts [New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999], 199). So, in the end, in that all-
inclusive way of his, Shakespeare took his audience into the mythic past, only to bring them again to
their present, where a new myth was being built, and a new woman wielded power.

About A Midsummer Nights Dream
A Midsummer Nights Dream is one of Shakespeares most popular comedies and has long been
a favorite for both professional and amateur productions. The play is a fantasy of folklore and
fairies, a medley of poetry, song, and dance, with vivid contrasts between the dainty folk in Titanias
train and the rude mechanicals in Bottoms company. Shakespeare possibly wrote A Midsummer
Nights Dream for the wedding of some great personage, but that personages identity has escaped
historians. An elaborate compliment to Queen Elizabeth in Act Two refers to her as the fair Vestal,
throned by the West, and we assume from these lines that Elizabeth was in attendance at the opening
performance. The play has many qualities of a masque, an elaborate show emphasizing spectacular cos-
tume and scenic devices rather than dramatic plot and poetry.
The spirit of the masque is evident in A Midsummer Nights Dream, but Shakespeares genius
always transcends conventions, and this play is a poetic drama rather than a stereotype pageant. There
is meaning and significance deeper than mere entertainment. There is a commentary on life and love,
the whimsical and irresponsible aspects of love, and the midsummer madness that has no explanation
except the whims of men and women and deviltry of Puck.
Shakespeare contemplates these moods and qualities with no spirit of criticism or reproof. Love, he
tells us, can make men and women do many foolish things, but we laugh gaily at such folly and accept
it as part of life.
Shakespearean scholars cannot agree on definite dates for either the creation or first production
of this play. Possibly it was written originally around 1592 then went through several revisions, with a
definite first publication date of 1600.
Sources of the plot are numerous. Plutarch and Chaucer possibly supplied models for Theseus and
Hippolyta, Ovid for Titania and for the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. For the artisans, Shakespeare
drew on his own memories of yokels and craftsmen he had known at Stratford or observed in London.
Their humor is the robust humor that comes from intimate contact with
simple folk, and could only be developed in the mind of one who had observed closely the people who
make up the population of the small town and the countryside.
A Midsummer Nights Dream had evidently been popular ever since it was written, beginning with
the notation on the page of the 1600 First Quarto that it had been sundry times publicly acted.
Samuel Pepys saw it at the Kings Theatre in 1662 (declaring it the most insipid ridiculous play I ever
saw in my life), and various adaptations and performances are noted through the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. David Garrick, for example, put on a version at Drury
Lane that left out the artisans, who violated his sense of decorum and propriety. One spectacular per-
formance occurred in 1930, when Max Reinhard staged a performance in the Hollywood Bowl with
three hundred wedding guests carrying lighted torches, and thousands of blue lights signifying fairies
glowing and flickering. The poetry of Shakespeare was lost in the wilderness of stage effects.
Despite such occasional deviations from good taste, most modern productions retain the spirit of
Shakespearean repertory theatres, and todays audiences enjoy a perfectly delightful play, often appreci-
ating it just for the sheer fun of the story. The fairies, the music, the dances, the marvelous lyric poetry,
Bottom and his troop of incompetent actorsall make this one of Shakespeares most delightful offer-
ings, and we can exclaim with Puck, What fools these mortals be! realizing that for all of that, the
mortals are rather charming beings.

The Story of the Play
Theseus, duke of Athens, after conquering the warrior Amazons in battle, is in turn con-
quered by the charms of their queen, Hippolyta, and they plan to marry. Their
preparations are interrupted by Egeus, who brings his daughter, Hermia. Egeus commands
Hermia to wed Demetrius. Hermia pleads to be allowed to marry the other suitor, the one she
lovesLysander. The duke orders her to obey her father under penalty of death or
confinement in a convent. Hermia and Lysander bewail the harsh decree and secretly
agree to meet in a wood and elope. They tell their plans to Helena, a jilted sweetheart
of Demetrius, and she, to win back his love, goes straightway to inform him of the plan.
Meanwhile, a group of rough Athenian tradesmen plan to perform a play for Theseuss
wedding.
In the forest, the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania are arguing. Oberon bids Puck
procure a love-juice to pour upon Titanias eyelids when she is asleep, in order that
she may love the first thing her waking eyes behold. Just then, Oberon sees Demetrius
reject Helena and tells Puck to anoint Demetriuss eyes also, so that he will fall in love
with Helena. Lysander and Hermia arrive, and Puck in error anoints Lysanders instead
of Demetriuss eyes, so that Lysander, happening to awake just as the neglected Helena
wanders by, falls in love with herand abandons Hermia.
The same enchanted spot in the forest happens to be the place selected by Bottom and
company for the final rehearsal of the play they are planning to perform at Theseuss wed-
ding. Puck passes that way while they are rehearsing, and mischievously and magically crowns
Bottom with an asss head. Titania awakens and falls in love with Bottom.
Oberon finds that Puck has anointed the eyes of Lysander instead of those of Demetrius,
so Oberon anoints Demetriuss eyes with the love potion. When Demetrius awakes, he sees
his neglected Helena being wooed by Lysander. His own love for her returns, and he is ready
to fight Lysander. Puck repairs the blunder by anointing Lysanders eyes, in order to dispel
the illusion caused by the love-juice. All will be in order; Lysander will love Hermia, and
Demetrius will love Helena. Titania woos Bottom until Oberon, whose anger has abated,
removes the spell from her eyes. Bottom is restored to his natural form, and he rejoins his com-
rades in Athens.
Theseus and Hippolyta, on an early morning hunting trip in the forest, discover the four
lovers. The duke relents and bestows Helena upon Demetrius and Hermia upon Lysander.
Bottoms players come to Theseuss wedding and present the comic tragedy of Pyramus and
Thisbe, which is performed in wondrous and hilarious fashion. After the
company retires for the night, Puck returns and blesses the three wedded pairs.

Whos Who in A Midsummer Nights Dream
Theseus: The duke of Athens, Theseus is betrothed to Hippolyta, the warrior queen. His nuptial day is at
hand, and, while the other lovers are agitated, bewildered, and incensed, Theseus remains in calm pos-
session of his joy. He is a good and thoughtful ruler.
Hippolyta: The warrior queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta is betrothed to Theseus. She has been
captured by, and is subject to, her intended husband, but is also strong and wise in her own right.
Philostrate: As master of the revels at Duke Theseuss court, Philostrate is responsible for planning the
court entertainments, including the wedding party.
Egeus: The father of Hermia, Egeus insists on his rights as a father to choose his daughters husband.
Hermia: The daughter of Egeus, Hermia, despite her fathers wishes and threats, is in love with Lysander
and is the strongest of the four lovers whose adventures in the enchanted wood are the centerpiece of
the play.
Lysander: The least distinctive of the four young lovers, Lysander is, however, deeply and tenderly in love
with Hermia.
Demetrius: Also in love with Hermia, Demetrius was, before the play opened, in love with Helena, and, by
plays end, is again is love with her.
Helena: The last of the four young lovers, Helena is obsessed with Demetrius, even to the extent of shaming
herself and betraying her friend, Hermia.
Oberon: King of the fairies, Oberon works the magic that ensures the triumph of love that is the focus of
the play. He gives an unpleasant first impression, but, in the end, he is a gentle and good-natured king
and a playful husband.
Titania: Queen of the fairies, Titania leads a luxurious, merry life, given to the pleasures of the senses, the
secrets of nature, and the powers of flowers and herbs.
Puck: Oberons servant, Puck is a happy-go-lucky practical joker. He is the source of much of the confusion
for all the lovers.
Fairies: Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed attend upon Titania and later on Nick Bottom.
Shakespeares portrayal lends them a charm that was not always agreed upon in Elizabethan times.
Nick Bottom: A weaver and one of the rustics, Nick Bottom is a hale fellow with all his mates. He
is easy-going, kind, and pleasant. It is Bottom who gets caught in the middle of the quarrel between
Oberon and Titania and is changed into an ass with whom Titania falls magically in love.
Peter Quince: A carpenter, Peter Quince is the leader of the rustics, a band of country citizens who plan
on presenting the play Piramus and Thisbe for the wedding celebration of Theseus and Hippolyta.
Francis Flute: A bellows mender, Francis Flute is also one of the rustics.
Tom Snout: A tinker, Tom Snout is one of the rustics.
Snug: A joiner, Snug is one of the rustics.
Robin Starveling: A tailor, Robin Starveling is one of the rustics.

Shakespeares Words
Vocabulary
Since A Midsummer Nights Dream was written, many words in English have changed their
meaning, and some are no longer used. If you remember the slang you used a few years ago, it
seems dated. Who now uses the word groovy? Shakespeare used the rich vocabulary of his
day within his plays. When reading Shakespeare, you should read the line in context of the
scene. Try translating the lines into your own words; use todays vernacular.
Immediately: expressly, explicitly
As she is mine, I may dispose of her;
Which shall be either to this gentleman,
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.
Egeus (1.1.4245)
Mewd: caged
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mewd
To live a barren sister all your life.
Theseus (1.1.7072)
Lodestars: guiding stars
Air: melody, music
Tuneable: tuneful
Your eyes are loadstars, and your tongues sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherds ear.
Helena (1.1.18485)
Thats all one: that makes no difference
Thats all one
Quince (1.2.49)
Obscenely: Bottom may connect this word with seen and mean without being observed, or
with scene and mean dramatically
We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely.
Bottom (1.2.108)
Orbs: fairy rings, circles of darker grass
I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
Fairy (2.1.89)
Dewlop: fold of skin on the throat
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlop pour the ale.
Puck (2.1.4950)
Leviathan: gigantic sea-beast, usually identified with the whale
Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
Oberon (2.1.17374)
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase: according to the myth, Daphne, pursued by

Apollo, was saved from rape by being transformed into a laurel tree
Griffin: fabulous monster with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle
Hind: female red deer
Bootless: useless, futile
The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will; the story shall be changd:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tigerbootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valor flies.
Helena (2.1.229234)
Aby: pay for, atone for
Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.
Demetrius (3.2.17475)
Curst: quarrelsome, shrewish, sharp-tongued
I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness.
Helena (3.2.300301)
Favors: flowers as love gifts
Seeking sweet favors.
Oberon (4.1.49)
May: can
Antic: grotesque
Fairy Toys: trifling tales about fairy doings
More strange than true. I never may believe
These antic fables, nor these fairy toys.
Theseus (5.1.23)
Figurative Language
In addition, Shakespeare uses figurative language as he speaks with metaphors, similes, and
personification. Recognizing when his characters are speaking figuratively helps in understand-
ing the play.
A metaphor is the application of a word or phrase to somebody or something that is not
meant literally but to make a comparison. For example: Lysander compares Hermias cheeks to
roses. She then replies comparing her tears to rain.
Lysander: Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
Hermia: Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes (1.1.128131).
A simile is a figure of speech that draws comparison between two different things using
the word like or as. For example: Lysander compares choice to numerous momentary
events.
Or if there were any sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,

Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth (1.1.141146).
Personification occurs when human attributes or qualities are applied to objects or
abstract notions. For example: Lysander eludes to the law chasing after he and Hermia.
There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,
And to that place the sharp Athenian law
Cannot pursue us (1.1.161163).
Shakespeares Language
Many studentsand adults for that matterfind Shakespeare difficult to read and hard
to understand. They accuse him of not speaking English and refuse to believe that ordinary
people spoke the way his characters do. However, if you understand more about his language, it
is easier to understand. One idea that may help is to remember that his plays are written in two
forms: prose and verse. In A Midsummer Nights Dream prose and verse are both used exten-
sively.
Prose
Prose is the form of speech used by common people in Shakespearean drama. There is no
rhythm or meter in the line. It is everyday language. Shakespeares audience would recognize
the speech as their language. These are characters such as murderers, servants, and porters.
However, many important characters can speak in prose. The majority of The Merry Wives of
Windsor is written in prose because it deals with middle-class. The Rustics from A Midsummer
Nights Dream speak in prose.
For example:
Bottom: That will ask some tears in the true performance of it: if I
do it, let the audience look to their eyes. I will move storms,
I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief
humor is for a tyrant (1.2.2630).
Nick Bottom, a weaver, explains to his colleagues how he will play the principle role in
Pyramus and Thisbe. Because there is no rhyme or rhythm, and the text flows without concern
of where the line ends on the page, we recognize the passage as prose. Consequently, we can tell
that Bottom is a commoner who speaks with the language of an Elizabethan audience member.
Verse
The majority of Shakespeares plays are written in verse. A character who speaks in verse is
a noble or a member of the upper class. Most of Shakespeares plays focused on these charac-
ters. The verse form he uses is blank verse. It contains no rhyme, but each line has an internal
rhythm with a regular rhythmic pattern. The pattern most favored by Shakespeare is iambic
pentameter. Iambic pentameter is defined as a ten-syllable line with the accent on every other
syllable, beginning with the second one.
For example:
Puck: Thou speakst aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
(2.1.4245).
The accent occurs on every other syllable, and the natural accent of each word is placed in
that position on the line.
At times Shakespeare found it necessary to take a vowel out of a word so that the rhythm
of the line would not be interrupted. For example, flowr is pronounced as one
syllable.
For example:

Oberon: Fetch me that flowr; the herb I showed thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
(2.1.169171).
Shakespeare used this style of writing as a form of stage direction. Actors today can tell by
scanning a line (scansion) what words are most important and how fast to say a line. When
two characters are speaking they will finish the ten syllables needed for a line, showing that one
line must quickly come on top of another. This is called a shared line or a split line.
For example:
Oberon: I do but beg a little changeling boy,
To be my henchman.
Titania: Set your heart at rest.
The fairy land buys not the child of me (2.1.120122).
Trochaic Verse
On some special occasions Shakespeare uses another form of verse. He reverses the accent
and shortens the line. The reversed accent, with the accent on the first syllable is called trocha-
ic. He uses this verse frequently in A Midsummer Nights Dream and in Macbeth where magic
or ritual is involved.
For example:
Oberon: Flower of this purple dye,
Hit with Cupids archery,
Sink in apple of his eye (3.2.102104).
When reading or acting a Shakespearean play, count the syllables in the lines. You will
be surprised at Shakespeares consistency. Then circle the syllables where the accent appears.
You will notice that he places the most important words on the accent. Words like the, is,
and and that do not carry the meaning are on the unaccented portion of the lines. In the
Globe Theatre where there were no microphones, the more important words would carry and
an audience member would still know what was going on because the important words were
heard. Iambic pentameter has been called a heart beat, and each of Shakespeares lines con-
tains that human beat.
in Modern Terms
Activity: Have the students translate the speech below into their own words,
encouraging the use of slang, colloquialisms, or regional jargon.
Helena: How happy some oer other some can be!

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermias eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Loves mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured everywhere.
For ere Demetrius looked on Hermias eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermias flight.
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again (1.1.226251).

The Globe Theatre
The theatre where audiences watched Shakespeares company perform many of his plays
was called the Globe, situated on the south side of London.
It is thought that the stage was several feet above the ground where the people who paid a
penny stood, and that it extended into the audience from the backstage wall. This was a model
for construction of the Adams Shakespearean Theatre at the Utah Shakespeare Festival (see
photo), with the difference being that all the audience is seated and no one has to stand.
As you can see in the photo, there is a center section near the back which is somewhat inset
from the outer stage; this is called the inner below and is the area of the stage where bedcham-
bers and intimate scenes with only two people were staged, so that a curtain could be drawn in
front of it, while another scene begins on the stage closer to the audience. At the back of the
inner below is a space for a curtain.
Two columns support the second story of the inner below, providing a balcony called the
above. You can see that there is space behind the balcony where actors can walk, and that is
called the inner above.
The stage has four possible entrances on the main floor and three entrances on the
second floor, so all the actors in a court scene could enter at the same time.
All the main architectural features in the photo are permanent; some plays add various
kinds of staircases to get from the first level of the stage to the balcony, and some plays separate
the balcony completely from the main floor, so that actors have to go up or down stairs which
are hidden backstage.
Items which can change are the curtains or doors at the front of the inner below, which can
be of several different colors and can be open or closed; the kinds of doors, which can be plain
wood, decorated, or replaced with iron gates; and the various kinds of furniture which can be
brought onto the stage.

William Shakespeare (15641616)
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in England on April 23, 1564. His father
was John Shakespeare, a well-to-do general storekeeper. Shakespeare went to a good school, very much
like yours, except he studied some Latin and Greek and became familiar with Greek and Roman plays
and poetry.
We dont know much about his early life, since no one wrote a biography of him while he was alive,
but we do know that he married Anne Hathaway in 1582 when he was eighteen, and that they had
three children: Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith. Nothing is known of why he decided to go to London,
but the next mention we have of him is in 1594, when he was a member of the Lord Chamberlains
men, a professional acting company. Through looking at some of the records of the theatre, we can
find out that his first play was probably The Comedy of Errors, written in 1591, and that A Midsummer
Nights Dream was written probably between 1594 and 1596.
Shakespeare died on his birthday, April 23, in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. His only son, Hamnet,
had died at the age of eleven, and his wife died seven years after her sons death. Although his two
daughters married and had children, the line died out, so there arent any descendants of Shakespeare
alive today.
What are still alive are his plays, which are still being performed after almost 400 years, in countries
all over the worldin German, French, Russian, and Japanese. Every ten years or so, the film industry
rediscovers Shakespeare and makes lavish movies of some of his most famous plays.
Michael Hoffman directed a film version of A Midsummer Nights Dream in 1999, which stared
Kevin Kline as Bottom, Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania, and Rupert Everett as Oberon. The text of the
play is stripped down a bit in the production, but the reactions and responses of the characters have
helped to portray the missing lines.
Question: Can you name some of Shakespeares plays which have been made into movies recently
and some famous actors in them?
Answer: Hamlet with Kenneth Branagh; another Hamlet with Mel Gibson; Richard III with Ian
McKellen; Twelfth Night with Nigel Hawthorne, Much Ado about Nothing with Kenneth Branagh,
Emma Thompson, and Michael Keaton; Henry V with Kenneth Branagh; Romeo and Juliet with
Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio; Othello with Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh; Loves
Labours Lost with Alicia Silverstone, Nathan Lane, and Kenneth Branagh; and The Merchant of Venice
with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons.

Shakespeares
Plays
Comedies
The Comedy of Errors
The Taming of the Shrew
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Loves Labours Lost
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
Much Ado about Nothing
Twelfth Night
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Alls Well That Ends Well
Measure for Measure
Histories
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 2
Henry VI, Part 3
Richard II
Richard III
King John
Henry VIII
Tragedies
Titus Andronicus
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
Troilus and Cressida
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Timon of Athens
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Romances
Pericles
Cymbeline
The Winters Tale
Shakespeares Audience and
Audiences Today
Seating
Shakespeares audience for his outdoor plays was the very rich, the upper middle class, and
the lower middle class. The lower middle class paid a penny for admittance to the yard (like the
yard outside a school building), where they stood on the ground, with the stage more or less at
eye levelthese spectators were called groundlings. The rich paid two pennies for entrance to
the galleries, covered seating at the sides. The rich paid three pennies to sit in the higher galler-
ies, which had a better view. The best seats were in the lords rooms, private galleries closest to
the stage.
How Much Did It Cost?

To get an idea of the cost of a ticket in todays terms, consider that the average blue collar
worker earned five to six pennies a day; bread for his midday meal cost a penny, ale cost anoth-
er penny, and if he were lucky enough to have chicken for dinner, it cost two pennies. His rent
was often a shilling (twelve pennies) a week, so there wasnt much money left over for playgo-
ing, nor would he have been able to take time off from work to go and see a play in the middle
of the day, when they were usually performed.
Activity: Ask the students to set the space with room to sit on the floor (for the one penny
seats), a semi-circle of chairs on the floor (for two-penny seats), and tables behind the chairs
for three-penny seats. Depending on the size of the class, a second rank of tables with chairs on
them may be set up as lords rooms.
Before the students decode what seating area they wish to be in, have them cost out the
price of a ticket, using their allowances or earnings as a base for comparison with Elizabethan
ticket prices and deducting amounts for rent and food,
Example: A student gets an allowance of $5 a week. He gets 500 pennies, as compared to
the Elizabethan workers 36 pennies per week. Therefore, 14 of the students pennies equal
one of the workers pennies. From his weekly allowance he must deduct his food and lodging,
which would be 33 pennies Elizabethan (12 pennies for lodging and 3 pennies times 7 days for
food). The worker has 3 pennies left for entertainment or extra chicken or ale. Let the student
work out how much he has left for entertainment, and whether he will see one play with a very
comfortable seat, or several, standing in the yard.
How Was Seeing a Play in Shakespeares Time Different

from Seeing a Play Today?
Shakespeares audience was perhaps not as well behaved as you are. Since the play was
so long, people would leave their seats and go looking for food to eat and ale to drink
during the performance, or perhaps go visit with their friends. Some playgoers, especially those
who had saved up money to come and see the play, were extremely annoyed if they were unable
to hear the actors and would tell rowdy audience members to quiet down.
Later in Shakespeares career, his acting company was invited to perform in noble houses
and royal courts; the audience there was a good deal more polite and focused on the play as
you do.

Todays Audience
Today, you have a lot of entertainment to choose from, not including the ones you
provide yourselves, such as sports or putting on your own shows. Todays audiences can choose
television, movies, or stage shows, and there is a different kind of behavior that is right for each
one.
Television audiences are the most casual; they dont have to dress up, they dont have
reserved seats, and they can talk or go to the fridge whenever they want.
Movie audiences sometimes think theyre at home. Have you ever been annoyed by some-
one who sat behind you and kicked your chair or talked loudly so you couldnt hear the movie?
And you paid good money to go and see it, too! Then there are the people who cant decide
where to sit, and keep getting up in front of you so you cant see the screen. What other behav-
iors have you seen which ruin your enjoyment?
People who go and see theatre (like you) usually pay more for a ticket than they would for
a movie, and are most often annoyed by any disturbance. A theatre performance is not some-
thing you put on tape and play back on your VCRits like seeing a basketball game live
there arent any instant replays. It requires your full attention, and you dont want to be inter-
rupted by other people talking and moving.
The actors who put on a show for you also want your attentiontheyve worked for a long
time to develop a good production, and you can see them concentrating extremely hard to get
the best meanings out of all they have to say and do. If youve seen any golf
on television, you know that when the golfer is lining up his shot, even the announcers
stop talking. What other situations can you think of where you need quiet and full
concentration?
Activity: Take a four- or eight-line speech from the play and ask the students to
memorize it while you provide some aural distraction (loud music, some of the students talk-
ing, you asking questions). Then have them write down what they remember. Take another
speech of the same length, provide an environment with no distractions, and ask the students
to study it. Then have them write down what they remember. The third
method is to have the students study a speech in units of two or three, keeping the groups as
far apart as possible, and keeping voices at a low level. This shows that interplay between actors
helps memorization.

Famous Lines and Passages
Ay me! For aught that I could ever read, The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
Could ever hear by tale or history, seen, mans hand is not able to taste, his tongue to con-
The course of true love never did run smooth. ceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
Lysander (1.1.13234) Bottom (4.1.21114)
Ill put a girdle round the earth Not a mouse

In forty minutes. Shall disturb this hallowd house.
Puck (2.1.17576) I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Puck (5.1.38790)
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, If we shadows have offended,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine; Think but this, and all is mended,
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, That you have but slumbred here
Lulld in these flowers with dances and delight; While these visions did appear.
And there the snake throw her enamelld skin, And this weak and idle theme,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in. No more yielding but a dream,
Oberon (2.1.24956) Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
You spotted snakes with double tongue, And, as I am an honest Puck,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen, If we have unearned luck
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong. Now to scape the serpents tongue
Come not near the fairy queen. We will make amends re long;
First Fairy (2.2.912) Else the Puck a liar call.
So, good night unto you all.
Lord what fools these mortals be! Give me your hands, if we be friends,
Puck (3.2.115) And Robin shall restore amends.
Puck (5.1.42338)

Elementary School
Questions
How Big?
Have students make a list of the main fairies and then of the rustics. Ask them to determine which
of the fairies are larger when theyre by themselves and smaller when theyre with the rustics. How can
Bottom lie in Titanias lap if shes so much smaller.
Role Playing
Have students discuss or role-play one of the situations that follow:
A good friend tells you a secret. You want to be friends with another student (same or oppo-
site gender). Would you tell him/her the secret your good friend told you? What would
happen to the first friendship?
Pick four students to be the lovers. Have the boys who play Lysander and Demetrius both tell
Helena how wonderful she is (they can be as extravagant as they like). Ask Hermia how she
feels; ask the rest of the class what they would tell Hermia to do to get the boys to like her
more. Ask Helena how she can help the situation.
Me First . . .
Tell students that they have been hired to perform Pyramus and Thisbe before the principal. Decide
who should play Pyramus, and who Thisbe. Who would be good as the Wall, Moonshine, or the Lion?
Why? Can they arrange the play so everyone has a part? How would they rewrite it?
Do As I Say
Have a group of students be Egeus, and the second group be Hermia. Egeus wants to go on vacation
to Disneyland; Hermia wants to stay home and watch television. Have each group prepare arguments,
and the rest of the class vote on which arguments are the best. Ask why Egeus is likely to winbest
argument, best choice, or because hes the parent?
Do You Believe in Fairies?
Discuss who is the best-behaved fairyOberon, Titania, or Puck? Who do they sympathize with?
Ask them to think of contemporary equivalents for fairies: Angels? Grandparents? Their own conscienc-
es? Do they think the fairies helped the lovers? Or do they think the lovers helped themselves?
Everyones a Playwright
Have the students discuss whats bad about Pyramus and Thisbehow do you write a play thats
really bad. Encourage them to write a bad play about the lovers or the fairies.
Activities
Mirrors
This exercise trains sharing, focus, and physical listening
Description
Divide the students into pairs. Have one of the players in each pair begin to gradually move. The
other player mirrors the movements of the first player. Initially one player leads the other, and then they
switch. Eventually there is no way to tell which player is leading the exercise. The focus is being shared
rather than taken by one player or the other. The object is not to confuse or lose the other player, but to
make the reality of the mirror the priority.
Variation One
Have three or more players all mirroring actions in a circle, like a kaleidoscope.

Variation Two
After practice with mirrors, have students move with no one leading or following. Then examine indi-
vidual pairs and eliminate groups in which one partner is leading or the moves are not mirrors.
Variation Three
Form the class into a large circle. Send one student out of the space, and then assign a group leader.
With the leader leading the circle, start a mirror activity. Call the excluded student back to stand in the
center of the circle and try to identify the leader.
Relationship to Text
Helping Puck distinguish between the pairs of lovers.
Machines
This exercise is designed to help players work together and develop physical cooperation.
Description
A machine that does not exist is called for and the players create the machine by each adding an
essential part. There is no discussion amongst the players before starting. The first player starts with
a repetitive activity and an associated noise. The next players add to the machine with some activity
that fits into the previous players activity. This continues until the machine is created. The machine is
sped up and slowed down. Certain players can be asked to malfunction, and the whole machine must
respond. There is no leader in the creation of the machine. It is important that all the players reflect the
change in each part of the machine.
The performance of Pyramus and Thisbe
Do You Like Your Neighbors?
Description
Students form a large circle with their chairs. One student stands within the circle, facing a seated
student on the opposite side of the circle. The center student asks a seated student, Do you like your
neighbors? If the seated student replies Yes. The students seated on either side change seats. If the
seated student says No, two replacements must be named. Then the new neighbors exchange seats
with the old ones. During either circumstance, the student in the center of the circle attempts to get a
seat. Whoever is left without a seat becomes the new center person.
The switching of affections among the four lovers.
Garden of Statues
Description
Students spread out around the room. Choose one or two students to stand outside the large group
of students. The large group of students will create various different creative poses, as if they were stat-
ues. The two students who were chosen will be seekers who will wander among the statues.
As the seekers roam between the statues, the frozen students will attempt to create new poses
without being caught by the seekers. If a student is caught the seeker will state their name and say, I
saw you move. When a student is caught they will sit outside of the group of statues. Seekers may not
touch the other students, but they may talk to them in order to get them to laugh or move. When most
of the student statues have been caught moving, choose two new students to become your seekers.
The hidden nature and trickery of the fairies.

Middle and High School
Study and Discussion Questions
1. What celebration is approaching at the opening of A Midsummer Nights Dream? How
is this significant, especially as the play unfolds?
2. How is Puck presented when he first appears? What is the meaning of the label
attached to him? Do your perceptions of him change over the course of the play?
3. What is the cause of the quarrel between Oberon and Titania? How is it resolved?
4. Describe the rehearsal of the play conducted by the rustics. To what extent are they
aware of the humor they generate?
5. What is your first impression of Theseus and Hippolyta? Do they seem rational, heroic,
model characters in their attitudes toward love? How do they treat each other? How do
they change by the end of play?
6. How does Titania address Bottom when she awakes from her magical sleep?
What is the effect?
7. What are Oberons feelings at seeing Titanias infatuation with Bottom, and what does
he do to bring the infatuation to an end?
8. Identify and discuss some of the poetic passages in the play. Why do you think
Shakespeare used poetry in this play?
9. How are the plays two locations and thematic contrasts (town/forest, city/country,
mortal/fairy, light/moonlight, Theseus/Oberon) suggested by the words of the play?
Can you identify other contrasts?
10. If you were to cast this play with present-day actors, whom would you choose to play
Theseus? Hippolyta? The lovers? Oberon? Titania? Puck? Bottom? Why?

Middle and High School Activities
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
Have students work in small groups to create a chart that lists different sources of romantic
attraction. Encourage students to be as specific as possible. For example, one
column of the chart might list physical attributes, such as sparkling eyes, a delicate
complexion, luxurious hair, athleticism, and so on. A second column might list personality char-
acteristics, such as a sense of humor, kindness, intelligence, and so on. Challenge
students to go beyond the obvious in their lists. Have each group share its completed chart
with the class. Discuss what the charts reveal about the nature of romantic attraction.
Linking to Today: Contemporary Images of Love

Invite students to discuss how romantic love is portrayed in contemporary culture.
Encourage them to consider how love is depicted in movies, television shows, commercials,
music, and other media. Is love depicted as irrational, or does it have a basis in sound
judgment? Is love measured by the excitement it creates or the commitment it elicits? Discuss
how popular images of love might influence young people or reflect their own
experiences of love.
Dad, You Just Dont Understand

Begin a class discussion by asking students, Who should decide whom you marry, you or
your parents? Ask them how much influence their parents have on the decision. Should par-
ents have more or less influence? Does the answer vary by ethnicity, culture, and/or
gender? Allow students to thoroughly explore the issue. Which characters in the play do they
agree with the most about who should decide whom one marries? Why?
Its Different in the Daylight

Have students consider the following questions: To what extent can one believe ones own
eyes? What is the nature of reality? In what way is illusion important? What part does imagi-
nation play in romance? Why do we need illusions in our life? Encourage them to talk about
how theyve changed their opinions of people since they were, say, ten years old? Who were
their heroes then? Do they remember who they had a crush on? Has that changed, and if so,
why?
Status
By Mark Sheppard (adapted from IMPO, Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone)
Description
Four students are each given a slip of paper with a number (one, two, three, or four), which
they are to keep as a status number. They are not to tell anyone else their number. They are
then given a situation in which the group must make a consensus decision, such as choosing a
movie to see or video to rent, planning the menu for a party, or selecting one member of the
group to run for class office. In pursuing the objective, each member of the group is to main-
tain his or her own status number and to determine the status number of the others, without
asking or divulging. As the students role play their numbers, the numbers work as following:
1. Always in charge.
2. Participates in leadership, but defers to number one. May offer mediation.
3. Offers suggestions, but not leadership, and defers to number one and number two.
4. May offer suggestions, but always defers to the rest of the group.
After the scene is played, ask each player to identify what the status numbers of the others

were before divulging their own. Ask audience members if they concur or differ in their perceptions
of the status chain of command that they observed.
Variation/Progression
Four students are each told to secretly choose their own status number. Then they are given a scene
situation in which the group must make a consensus decision, as suggested above. In pursuing the
objective, each member of the group is to maintain his or her own status number and to
determine the status number of the others, without asking or divulging. After the scene is played, ask
the audience to identify what they perceived as the status chain of command. Then ask each player to
identify how he or she perceived the status of their scene partners before divulging their own.
Excellent examples of scenes involving status are the opening court and mechanical scenes in
A Midsummer Nights Dream. In the court scene, Duke Theseus is a definite number one and Egeus a
feisty number two. Is Hermia number three? Who are the number fours? Does Helena change from a
self-abasing number four in her scene with Hermia and Lysander to a number one or two in her mono-
logue at the end of the scene? In the mechanical scene, Bottom, an amateur actor, insists on being in
the number one status position, leaving Peter Quince to take the number two position if he wants to
keep the scene moving forward (despite his role as director). Watch Peter Quince attempt to establish
his number one status and then shift to number two. While Francis Flute plays at number three, Snug
the Joiner, along with Robin Starveling and Snout are clearly number fours.
How Well Do You Know Me?

Description
This activity is a useful getting-to-know-you exercise. Divide the students into pairs and have part-
ners study one anothers appearance; then have partners sit back-to-back and each one change three
details of his or her appearance; for example the way they wear their hair, how their top is buttoned,
which wrist they wear their watch on. When they turn back and face each other, each must try to spot
the changes made.
Do the lovers love the inner qualities or the appearances? How does Oberons magic flower (emo-
tion) blur Bottoms reality to Titania?
Ten Second Objects

Description
Divide the students into small groups. Once the students are in groups call out the name of an
object. Once the object is called out each group has to make the shape of that object out of their own
body shapes, while the leader/teacher counts down from ten to zero. Usually every group will find a dif-
ferent way of forming the object. Examples could be: A car, a clock, a sewing machine, a birthday cake,
a ship, and a keyanything you like.
Variation
Groups can also be given a few minutes to devise two objects of their own which the rest of the
class then tries to guess.
Bottom and his friends, who have to devise their own costumes and scenery, perform Pyramus and
Thisbe.

Lesson Plan
A Lesson Plan from ArtsEdge
By Jim Carpenter, Ph.D.
Examining Tone in Parody and Tragedy

Lesson Overview
Some scholars have suggested that the scene in which Juliet is discovered by the Nurse and
is presumed dead (Romeo and Juliet, 4.5), is at least in part, a parody. In this lesson, students
entertain this idea and explore how the scene might work if presented as parody. Students com-
pare and contrast the language and tone in the scene with Shakespeares parody of Pyramus and
Thisbe in A Midsummer Nights Dream (Act 5, Scene 1). Students will consider how the interpre-
tive choices made by directors and actors create the meaning of the text.
Length of Lesson
Three forty-five minute class periods
Instructional Objectives:
Students will:
Present scenes from Romeo and Juliet.
Develop multiple interpretations and visual and aural production choices based on a
close study of the text.
Justify interpretation, and visual and aural artistic choices made for performance with
support from the text.
Constructively evaluate their own and others' collaborative efforts and artistic choices in
informal presentations.
Demonstrate through performance how literary devices such as irony, repetition, and
diction assist the actor and director in making informed choices concerning production.
Analyze and critique dramatic presentations by their peers, taking into account the con-
text, and constructively discuss the effect of their artistic choices.
Supplies
Text of Act 4 Scene 5, Romeo and Juliet
Text of Act 5 Scene 1, A Midsummer Nights Dream
Pencil
Instructional Plan
Note: Have students take the vocabulary home to study the night before you introduce this les-
son. Students need to be familiar with the definitions. Before beginning the lesson, review the
words and their meanings. Ask students for examples to describe the words.
Vocabulary: Examining Tone in Parody and Tragedy
Comic relief: a humorous or farcical interlude in a serious literary work or drama, especial-
ly a tragedy, intended to relieve the dramatic tension or heighten the emotional impact
by means of contrast
Diction: choice and use of words in speech or writing
Dramatic irony: the dramatic effect achieved by leading an audience to understand an
incongruity between a situation and the accompanying speeches, while the characters in
the play remain unaware of the incongruity
Parody: a literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a
work for comic effect or ridicule

Begin by giving students a copy of lines 168174 from Act 1 Scene 1 of A Midsummer
Nights Dream and lines 4954 from Act 4 Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet. Ask students to read
over the lines silently and then together note what the passages have in common. Ask them
how they think the lines should be read? Are they comic or tragic in tone? Have students vol-
unteer to give readings of the lines in two different ways: as if they are dramatic text and as if
they are comic text. Lead the students in a brief discussion regarding how the language and
tone create meaning. (To further support the idea that the tone of the text can be changed by
the actor, you might show the students the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from the Kevin Kline
version of A Midsummer Nights Dream, paying particular attention to the way the actor play-
ing Thisbe changes the tone of the entire sequence with great effect during his death scene.)
Explain to the students that the Pyramus and Thisbe scene from A Midsummer Nights
Dream is a parody of Romeo and Juliet, and that the scene from Romeo and Juliet is regarded
by some to be a parody of Jasper Heywoods translations of Roman tragedies. The Catholic
Encyclopedia website provides information on Jasper and his brother John and the work that
they did involving these translations. Why would Shakespeare put a parody near the end of this
tragedy? The students may speculate on a variety of possible reasons for the
parody, the most logical consideration being Shakespeares masterful use of dramatic irony in
the scene, that the audience knows that Juliet is not really dead. Another suggestion might be
that it may provide some comic relief. One might argue that Shakespeare could afford a bit of
parody at the expense of the parents and the nurse, who were not terribly sympathetic in their
treatment of Juliet in the previous scene.
How then are we to play this scene? What are we to make of the characters and
their expressions of grief, which so closely match the diction we find in the parody in
A Midsummer Nights Dream? Would a sudden lapse into parody change the tone of the
production? (You might note that the most recent commercial films of Romeo and Juliet essen-
tially cut this scene from the film, and ask students to speculate on the reasoning behind their
choice.)
Read the scene aloud with the students addressing any questions the students might have
about vocabulary and the basic content of the scene. As you read the scene through ask stu-
dents to consider some issues of staging and characterization such as: What is the frame of
mind of the character when he or she first enters the room? When does the character realize/
discover that Juliet is dead and how does the character react? In cases where characters repeat
words, how might the actor give variety to the speech? Can the actor
capitalize on the repetition of vowel and consonant sounds in various passages to further char-
acterization? To create tone? For example consider what the cumulative effect might be of
repetition of the long o sound in O woe repeated by the Nurse. To what extent do characters
interact with each other? React to each other? For example, do Lord and Lady Capulet console
each other? Do they console Paris? Do they interact with the body of Juliet? Decide who, if
anyone, the characters are directing their lines to each time they speak. For example, what is
the effect if the Nurse directs her lines of woe to Lady Capulet, Lord Capulet, and the body of
Juliet? Or if she directs them upward to the sky? Or straight forward to the audience?
Special attention must be given to Friar Lawrence because he, like the audience, knows that
Juliet is not really dead. He is actually acting when he enters the room, pretending to be look-
ing for the bride. Does the audience ever see what he is really thinking as he watches the scene
unfold? How does dramatic irony color the Friars words in lines 65 through 83?
Read and discuss the scene with the intention of opening up to the students the wide
variety of possibilities of how this scene might be staged. Then assign the students to groups

of five or six to prepare the scene for presentation to the class. Distribute the Student Scene
Preparation and Observation Form worksheet available at ArtsEdge (http://artsedge.kennedy
-center.org/content/3737/3737_randj_sceneprep.pdf ). Remind the students that they are to
address the notion that this scene may indeed be a parody, and that you want them to explore
the tone of the scene. Students should be encouraged to give full expression to the enormous
emotions suggested by the words and to find a variety of ways to express the repeated words
and exclamations. Tell students to explore working with exaggerated or
overblown emotions while trying at the same time to keep those huge emotions believable.
Have the students present the scenes one right after another, avoiding full discussion until all
the scenes are presented. Each scene will have nuanced differences in interpretation, and that
is what you will want the students to focus on in their comments, the differences in interpreta-
tion. Ultimately you want to lead the students into discussing the importance of this scene in
the play. What does it add? Is it essential to the play? Is it a parody? What does it tell us about
the characters that we might not know otherwise?
Assessment
Rvaluate students on the following criteria:
Can the student justify his interpretive choices by textual reference?
Did the student allow diction (word choice) to inform characterization?
Did the student create a cohesive interpretation of scene with his/her peers?
Does the student demonstrate an awareness of multiple possibilities for the
interpretation of the same text?
Was the student fully engaged in the presentation?
Was the student fully engaged in the preparation of presentation?
Was the student fully engaged in discussions comparing and contrasting scenes?
Extensions
Students may turn to the final scene of the play to consider how the tone and diction is dif-
ferent from Act 4 Scene 5. You may also show students how various film makers have chosen
to handle Act 5 Scene 4. The Franco Zeffirelli 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet omits the
scene but does manage to present Friar Lawrence in a way that may provide some insight to the
students regarding his position in the scene. The 1996 Baz Luhrmann version with Leonardo
DiCaprio and Claire Danes omits the scene altogether.
Sources
Print:
Shakespeare, W. Holland, Peter, ed. A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Oxford
Shakespeare, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Shakespeare, W., Gibbons, Brian, ed. Romeo and Juliet, The Arden Shakespeare,
New York: Methuen, 1980.

Authors
Jim Carpenter, Ph.D.
La Plata High School, Charles County Public SchoolsLa Plata, Maryland (retired)

Folktales, Myths, and Amazons in
By Ace G. Pilkington and Olga A. Pilkington
From Insights, 2005
A Midsummer Nights Dream is a play about women defying men. It is also, of course, about
many other things, but, nevertheless, this play contains a series of stories where women defy
men at almost every level from the marital to the martial, from recalcitrant brides to warring
Amazons. For example, Theseus and Hippolyta meet on the battlefield, and their relationship
continues to have its conflicts. Oberon and Titania nearly come to blows over her fixation on
the changeling child, a mania that Oberon cannot break
directlyeven with all his magicbut only by replacing one of Titanias obsessions with
another. Hermia refuses to obey her fatheror Theseus, come to that. Helena will not accept
Demetriuss rejection of her, chasing him down (like another Helena in Alls Well
That Ends Well) while she points out that, as a woman, she should not be chasing him at
all (particularly in the woods at night). And because this is Shakespeare and comedy, not one of
these assertive, argumentative, occasionally armor-bearing females comes to a bad
end as a result of her aggression.
Shakespeare set the stage for these battles of the sexes by invoking the old and (by the
lights of the Protestant Reformation) destabilizing fertility rituals of Midsummer. As Stephen
Greenblatt says, These folk customs, all firmly rooted in the Midlands, had a significant
impact upon Shakespeares imagination, fashioning his sense of the theater even more than the
morality plays. . . . Folk culture is everywhere in his work, in the web of
allusions and in the underlying structures. The lovers who meet in the Athenian woods in A
Midsummer Nights Dream are reminiscent of May Day lovers (Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the
World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004],
40). It is not too much to say that Midsummer festivals are about fertility and also about older
systems of belief, pagan gods, and less patriarchal social structures. In the words of Harold F.
Brooks, It was in the May-game that the tradition of the ancient fertility cult lived on. The
òbservaunce to May was èverybodys pastime: it was at least as much a popular custom as
a courtly one. There is a correspondence in the Dreams whole action with the movement of
the May game, from the town to the woods and back, bringing home the summer (Harold
F. Brooks ed., The Arden Edition of the Works of William Shakespeare: A Midsummer Nights
Dream [London: Methuen, 1983], lxix). There were such games with their half-forgotten, half-
numinous rituals scattered all over Europe. Some of them are
especially pertinent to Shakespeares story. Sir James Frazer found, for example, that in Sweden
the ceremonies associated elsewhere with May Day or Whitsuntide commonly take place at
Midsummer. He also wrote (in 1922) that in the Swedish province of Blekinge they still
choose a Midsummers Bride who selects for herself a Bridegroom (Sir James George Frazer,
The Golden Bough [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940], 133). Frazer tells of Briancon
(Dauphine) where on May Day the lads wrap up in green leaves a young fellow whose sweet-
heart has deserted him . . . . He lies down on the ground and feigns to be asleep. Then a girl
who likes him, and would marry him, comes and wakes him and raising him up offers him her
arm (Frazer, 133).
Often, the new religion (or the latest version of the new religion as was the case in
Elizabethan England) connects such ceremonies and their older gods to the dead and to evil
as a way of suppressing them, but folk memories are long, and the stories have within them-

selves the seeds of their own resurrection. Katharine Briggs points out such forms of sup-
pression and the close connection between ghosts, fairies, White Ladies, the Irish `Bean
Fionn, and Guenevere in the Arthurian cycle (Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies
[Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1977], 430). The rusalka offers an especially clear
example of the process. The rusalka survives in Slavic folklore as a water spirit, fertility spirit,
fairy, nymph, ghost, or sometimes all of the above. Weaving flowers into her hair, she was the
very picture of eroticism. Like the supernatural creatures in A Midsummer Nights Dream, in
early summer . . . the rusalki would leave their homes in the rivers and streams to dance together
in the woods and fields (Forests of the Vampire: Slavic Myth [New York: Barnes and Noble,
2003], 6667). The rusalkas description shows very handily the inversion which occurs to
an important pre-Christian figure with the growing influence of Christianity. What was once
sacred becomes profane; what was positive becomes negative. The rusalka is probably a descen-
dant of Mokosh, the goddess of fertility, bounty, and moisture, and the protectress of womens
work and the fate of maidens. Her taming by the cross may reflect just that-the taming of belief
in the rusalka as a powerful supernatural figure due to the influence of Christianity (Philippa
Rappaport, If It Dries Out, Its No Good: Women, Hair, and Rusalki Beliefs, SEEFA Journal,
vol.4, no.1 Spring 1999: 55-64).
It is likely that the rusalka is a remnant of an older society in which women were freer to
express their sexuality and to disagree with men. The folk beliefs which Shakespeare is invoking
also have a strong element of feminine freedom about them. Brides may choose their husbands,
goddesses grant fertility and survival, and women succeed as warriors. Interestingly enough in
view of his miniaturization of some of his fairies, Shakespeare has worked hard to restore others
to their full divine power. Titania is not merely Queen of the Fairies; she is also Diana/Artemis,
in the words of Sir James George Frazer, a goddess of wild beasts, a mistress of woods and hills,
of lonely glades and sounding rivers . . . . Diana . . . may be described as a goddess of nature in
general and of fertility in particular. As a goddess of fertility, it behooved Diana to have a male
partner. Folk beliefs have her coupled with the priest who bore the title of King of the Wood.
Frazer suggests that the aim of their union would be to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, of
animals, and of mankind (Frazer, 140-141) all of which is threatened, should Titania cross her
Oberon (Shakespeare, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Wolfgang Clemen ed. [New York: Signet,
1963], 2.1.19). But, of course, the situation in A Midsummer Nights Dream of bad weather to be
corrected by the sympathetic magic of a male-female union is exactly what the folk rituals were.
Titania as Diana/Artemis is also an Amazon goddess; a deity who is, as the Amazons were
thought to be, both virginal and sexual. Titanias obligations as such a goddess would be with
fairy grace (4.1.402) to bless the marriage of Theseus and his warrior bride. Hippolyta and
Theseuss way to the altar lay through the path of war. Amazons and Hippolyta as their Queen
are part of the pre-Christian society where women hold religious power and thus possess
more freedoms. As Lyn Webster Wilde says, The Amazons . . . are borderline beings . . . : they
are women with the power of women but they express that power in a masculine way (Lyn
Webster Wilde, On the Trail of the Women Warriors [New York: St. Martins Press, 2000], 105).
In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare has given us an Amazon goddess, an Amazon
Queen, and for good measure, Queen Elizabeth, who was sometimes viewed as an Amazon.
During her lifetime, Queen Elizabeth was identified
with several Amazonian personages, including Diana (Gail Kern Paster and Skiles Howard,
eds., William Shakespeare A Midsummer Nights Dream: Texts and Contexts [New York:

Bedford/St. Martins, 1999], 199). So, in the end, in that all-inclusive way of his,
Shakespeare took his audience into the mythic past, only to bring them again to their
present, where a new myth was being built, and a new woman wielded power.

Love Is Where Its At
By Patricia Truxler Coleman

Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is wingd Cupid painted blind.
(Helena, 1.2.23235)
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
(Theseus, 5.1.48)
In bringing A Midsummer Nights Dream to life on the stage at Cedar City this summer
[1993], the Utah Shakespeare Festival makes possible a splendid opportunity. As Harold
C. Goddard has pointed out, A Midsummer-Nights Dream is in many respects the light-
est and most purely playful of Shakespeares plays. Yet it is surpassed by few if any of his early
works in its importance for an understanding of the unfolding of his genius (The Meaning
of Shakespeare, Vol. 1 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951], 74). Here Shakespeare
announces overtly for the first time many of the convictions which underlie his earlier works
and which will inform his later works: that love is, indeed, a complex matter and has as much
potential for disaster as for success; that women, on the whole, are intellectually and morally
superior to men in matters of love; and that love is, to borrow a l960s phrase, where its at.
While, on the surface, this play is just thatpure playwe are given here a view of a uni-
verse constructed of many worldscourt, country, and fairy. And we find in this universe that
these various worlds at times collide, overlap, and intersect, all in a rich and wonderfully comi-
cal way. At the heart of this comedy is the world of love, in all its various dimensions, and the
assertion of the necessity of permanence in love. But we also discover what is so characteristic
of all seven of the romantic comedies composed between l595 and l600: that love, the essential
human experience, is to be earned through sheer hard work sprinkled with a little magic and a
conviction that harmony in the universe is of fundamental importance.
Exactly how complex an issue love is demonstrated in the very first scene of this play. Here
we find Hermia virtually sentenced to choosing among three alternatives, none of which much
appeals to her: she can either wed the man her father chooses, be a virgin all of her life, or lose
her life. Lysander, her faithful lover, laments that the course of true love never did run smooth,
and Hermia sighs about what hell [it is] to choose by anothers eyes. Meanwhile, Demetrius,
who is Hermias fathers choice for her in marriage, is beloved of Helena. And Helena openly
asserts her love for Demetrius who ere he looked on Hermias eye, / . . . haild down oaths that
he was mine. So we have here something central to all the romantic comedies and to many of
the tragedies: that the universe is frequently peopled with insufferable young men, sanctimo-
nious fathers, self-contained young women, faithless heroes, faithful heroines,

and sudden conversions. And we see that love, for all its promise, holds out always the pos-
sibility of disappointment, if not disaster.
But A Midsummer Nights Dream is to be a comedy and not a tragedy like Romeo and
Juliet, and, therefore, needs the intervention of other worlds. This intervention comes not
only in this play in the form of women who are faithful even to their faithless men, but in the
magical world of the fairy kingdom. Still, not everything is easy, especially in matters of love,
and the fairy kingdom manages to create a whole passel of problems before it solves any. Puck
is told by Oberon, the king of the fairies, to place a love potion on Demetriuss eyes and that he
will know the young man by his Athenian garb. Of course, the fairies are busy with their own
affairs and are operating right outside the city of Athens. Oberon, for all his sophistication,
never considers, in his order to Puck, that there may be more than one Athenian in the forest.
Naturally Puck puts the potion on the wrong Athenians eyes, and Lysander awakens in love
with Helena.
We may wonder what is to be accomplished by having a young womanHermia
suddenly bereft of not one but two lovers and another young womanHelenasuddenly
beloved of two men; but we do not have to look very far. Hermia, in her moral smugness,
has one-upped Helena, and not, I think, without some slight sense of glee. Now it is Helenas
turn to one-up Hermia, though she does not understand how. And these two women behave
just like any two women in pursuit of the same man. Hermia accuses Helena of having won
Lysander by urging her height, thus suggesting that women dont play fair in matters of love.
Yet, with the exception of Titania, the queen of the fairies, the women here are (at least mor-
ally, if not intellectually) superior to the men: while the men change their minds about whom
they love, the women never do.
But we mustnt forget that this play is about worlds within worlds, about conflict,
collision, and collusion. That is why we have not just the world of the fairies and the world
of the court, but also the world of the countryor, as it has been called, the world of the
mechanicals. Here we are introduced to Bottom and company, who propose to stage a play
for Theseus and Hippolytas wedding, and not altogether insignificantly for Hermia and
Lysanders and Helena and Demetrius weddings. That they choose to stage a play about the
tragedy of love is no accident. These men are aspiring actors who, while well intentioned, have
little sense of social propriety and even less of real love. That Shakespeare chooses to make fun
of his craftsplay writing and actingis, of course no accident. After all, as Jacques reminds
us in As You Like It, all the worlds a stage. Furthermore, it is a reminder of Shakespeares atti-
tude toward love, most eloquently expressed by Henry V in his wooing of Kate and by Rosalind
in her attachment to Orlando (As You Like It); that men have, in fact, died from time to time,
and that worms have eaten them, but not for love.
And so we have all the elements for both splendid comedy and intellectual commentary.
While it may be very tempting to dismiss this play as nothing but frivolity, it is a very
serious mistake, For in this play, Shakespeare anticipates as he never has before what is to
occupy his mind for most of the rest of his life: in the infinite scheme of things, what is love
to the universe, and, given its importance, how do we arrive at lasting love. We have here the
Shakespearean formula for hope in the universe: it begins in love at first sight; it is tested
because love must, of necessity, be permanent; and it ends in a commitment which results in
rejuvenation of this race.
Oberon tells his fairies after the weddings to roam the households and bless the
wedding beds so that . . . all the couples three / Ever true in loving be; / And the blots

of Natures hand / Shall not in their issue stand. The purpose of love, then, is not just
companionship but also rejuvenation of a dying race.
And if we do not like the message of the play, Puck is there to remind us that, as the title
suggests, this has been but a dream, and if we [fairy] shadows have offended, / Think but this
and all is mended. / That you have but slumbered here / While these visions did appear.
Indeed, here, as in much of Shakespeare, love is where its at because love, lasting love, is
the only hope for the restoration and rejuvenation of the species. Is it not interesting that love
can transpose to form and dignity that which once was base and vile? And are we not caught
up by Theseuss reminder that this love, which transposes is something like a madness? Perhaps
what the world needs today, as in Shakespeares time, is a little less reason and a great deal more
madness.

A Genuine Fairy Kingdom
By Stephanie Chidester
From Souvenir Program, 1993
Toward the end of The Merry Wives of Windsor, William Shakespeare created a
pretend fairy world, an entertainment devised by Mistress Page and Mistress Ford for the
humiliation and reformation of Falstaff and for the fat rogues integration into the plays
middle-class community. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare crafted a genuine fairy
kingdom, and all those who enter it emerge in some way transformed and enlightened.
Oberon, king of the fairies, directs the transformations in the play; he is the chief
arbiter in his magical forest, particularly in matters of love. When he spies Helena pursuing her
former suitor through the woods, he pities her and declares, Ere he do leave this grove, / Thou
shalt fly him, and he shall seek they love (The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare, ed. Sylvan
Barnet [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972], 2.l.245-46). And accordingly,
when the lovers leave the forest, Demetriuss affections are once more focused upon Helena.
However, even the king and queen of the fairies are not without love troubles; their first
encounter in the play is marked with such comments as Titanias Why art thou here / . . .
But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon, / Your buskined mistress and your warrior love, /
To Theseus must be wedded (2.l.68, 70-72) and Oberons How canst thou thus for shame,
Titania, / Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, / Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
(2.1.74-76). In addition, Titania is withholding from Oberon a beautiful
changeling boy whom he wants for his court.
Oberon deals with these troubles in much the same way as he does with the mortals: he
plans to place a love spell upon Titania; and, while she is engrossed with some monstrous lover,
he will ask her for the changeling, and then all things shall be peace (3.2.377). The fairy king
may occasionally put his own interests above those of all others, but his designs always seem to
work out exactly as he intendshappily.
If Oberon is the director of the action, Puck is his chief actor, and one who doesnt mind
taking a bit of creative license. He is a spirit who, while generally obedient, thrives on mischief
and delights in pranks: while assisting Oberon in his plan for Titania to wake when some vile
thing is near(2.2.34), Puck changes Bottoms head into that of an ass rather than finding the
cat, or bear, / Pard, or boar (2.2.30-31) that Oberon suggests for the
purpose. Also, in Act II, Puck innocently drops the love potion intended for Demetrius
into Lysanders eyes, causing the latter to reject Hermia and fall in love with Helena.
When Oberon berates him for his knaveries, Puck explains, Believe me, king of shadows,
I mistook, . . . [But] so far am I glad it so did sort, / As this their jangling I esteem a sport
(3.2.347, 352-53).
However selfish the motives or means may be, a benevolent objective is invariably achieved.
Lysander falls back in love with Hermia, and Demetrius with Helena; Titania relinquishes her
changeling boy and resumes peaceful and loving relations with Oberon; and even Bottom, the
shallowest thickskin of that barren sort (3.2.13), is enlightened by his experience with the
fairy queen: he expresses his new (albeit rudimentary) level of awareness, I have had a most
rare vision . . . . The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, mans hand is not
able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was (4.1.207-208,

214-17). As Peter Levi explains, The wood where Oberon is king is one where all travelers get
lost, and love is a wood where all
travelers get lost, though it may have a happy ending (The Life and Times of William
Shakespeare [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988], 138).
To put the finishing touch on this happy ending, all the fairies visit Theseuss palace
and end the play with song and dance, just as Bottom and the mechanicals ended their the-
atrical effort with the Bergomask dance. Oberon, having resolved the present problems, now
ensures a joyful future: To the best bride-bed will we, / Which by us shall blessed be; / And
the issue there create / Ever shall be fortunate. / So shall all the couples three / Ever true in lov-
ing be (5.1.403-410).

A Midsummer Nights Dream in Film
Silent Shakespeare (1909)
This collection of seven short films includes British versions of King John (1899),
The Tempest (1908), and Richard III (1911); A Midsummer Nights Dream (1909) and Twelfth
Night (1910) from the United States; and Italian productions of King Lear (1910) and The
Merchant of Venice (1910). 88 minutes with music score.
Cast: Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Frank R. Benson, James Berry, Francesca Bertini, Alfred
Brydone, Benson Constance, Maurice Costello, Olga Giannini Novelli, Gladys Hulette,
Charles Kent, Clara Kimball Young, Erneste Novelli, William V. Ranous, and Julia Swayne
Gordon.
A Midsummer Nights Dream (1935)

An all-star cast is featured in this Hollywood recreation of Shakespeares timeless
comedy. James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, and Jean Muir are the star-crossed
lovers; Mickey Rooney is the mischievous Puck, and Hugh Herbert, Joe E. Brown and Victor
Jory are also featured. Max Reinhardt directs. 150 minutes.

Diana Rigg, David Warner, Ian Richardson, Judi Dench, and Ian Holm star in Shakespeares
farce, presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Mismatched lovers, supernatural beings,
and some hearty belly laughs make up this classic film. 124 minutes.

Originally produced for British television, this lush and lyrical rendition of the Bards
romantic fantasy features fine performances by a Royal Shakespeare Company cast that includes
Lindsay Duncan as Hippolyta and Titania, Alex Jennings as Theseus and Oberon, Desmond
Barrit as Bottom, and Barry Lynch as Puck. 103 minutes.

Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Calista Flockhart, Stanley Tucci, Anna Friel,
Dominic West, Christian Bale, Sophie Marceau, and David Strathairn star in this film directed
by Michael Hoffman. 116 minutes.

Additional Resources
ArtsEdge
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
ArtsEdge offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the
classroom, as well as professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for
arts-based instruction and assessment.
Utah Shakespeare Festival Education Website

http://www.bard.org/education.html
Expand your horizons, your outlook, your understanding with our myriad of educational
resources, not just for students, but for students of life.
ProjectExplorer, Ltd.
http://www.projectexplorer.org/
ProjectExplorer, Ltd. is a not-for-profit organization that provides an interactive global
learning experience to the kindergarten through twelfth grade community. Providing users
globally the opportunity to explore the world from their own computer, this is a free, all-inclu-
sive site that uses story-based learning to spark students imaginations.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/
The Webs first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. This site has
offered Shakespeares plays and poetry to the Internet community since 1993. Downloadable
plays by scene or in their entirety.
Absolute Shakespeare
http://absoluteshakespeare.com/
Absolute Shakespeare provides resources for William Shakespeares plays, sonnets, poems,
quotes, biography, and the legendary Globe Theatre.
Royal Shakespeare Company

http://www.rsc.org.uk/learning/Learning.aspx
Provides resources materials from the Royal Shakespeare Company shows for teachers and
students.
Folger Shakespeare Library

http://www.folger.edu/
The Folger Shakespeare Library, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., is a world-
class research center on Shakespeare and on the early modern age in the West. It is home to the
worlds largest and finest collection of Shakespeare materials and to major
collections of other rare Renaissance books, manuscripts, and works of art.

Works Cited
Carpenter, Jim, Ph.D. Examining Tone in Parody and Tragedy. ArtsEdge. <http://artsedge.
kennedy-center.org/content/3737/>. 30 November 2006.
Chidester, Stephanie. A Midsummer Nights Dream: A Genuine Fairy Kingdom. Utah
Shakespeare Festival. Souvenir Program, 1993.
Clemen, Wolfgang. Shakespeares: A Midsummer Nights Dream. New York: Signet Classic,
1998.
Coleman, Patricia Truxler. A Midsummer Nights Dream: Love Is Where Its At. Midsummer
Magazine. Utah Shakespeare Festival, 1993.
Frezza, Christine, Ph.D. A Midsummer Nights Dream Study Guide. Utah Shakespeare Festival,
1993.
Lee, Bruce C., Ed. Insights. Utah Shakespeare Festival, 1993.
Pilkington, Ace G. and Olga A. Pilkington. Folktales, Myths, and Amazons in A Midsummer
Nights Dream. Insights. Utah Shakespeare Festival, 2005.


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A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival

For more information about Festival education programs:

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Love Is Where Its At

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,

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Helena: How happy some oer other some can be!

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How Much Did It Cost?

How Was Seeing a Play in Shakespeares Time Different

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Ill put a girdle round the earth Not a mouse

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Linking to Today: Contemporary Images of Love

Dad, You Just Dont Understand

Its Different in the Daylight

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How Well Do You Know Me?

Ten Second Objects

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Examining Tone in Parody and Tragedy