A Midsummer Nights Dream Western Literature Shakespeare 2008

A Midsummer Night’s Dream 國立中山大學 【通識博雅核心課程】 中外文學 Western Literature Shakespeare 講授日期： 2008年 10月17日

William Shakespeare (1564 -1616) • Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England • Between the years of 1588 and 1613 --38 plays (comedy, history, tragedy) Q: 4 great tragedies by Shakepeare? A: Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello --Ovidian poems Venus and Adonis (1593) The Rape of Lucrece (1594) --154 Sonnets (in early 1590 s) about love, fidelity, mortality, and the artist’s power and voice.

Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 4 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd 8 But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 12 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595 or 1596) • Themes of love and transformation • Midsummer’s Eve and May Day • One of Shakespeare’s early comedies • At approximately the same time as Romeo and Juliet • “Pyramus and Thisbe” (the play-within-the-play) • 4 separate plots • 4 groups of characters

Act I, Scene i • • New Characters: Theseus: duke of Athens; engaged to Hippolyta: engaged to Theseus Egeus: Hermia’s father Lysander: the youth in love with Hermia Demetrius: the man chosen by Egeus for Hermia: a young woman in love with Lysander but ordered by her father to marry Demetrius • Helena: Hermia’s friend from childhood who is in love with Demetrius • Philostrate: the master of the revel (celebration for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding)

Act I, Scene I • Theseus awaits his wedding day. • Egeus brings Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius to Theseus. • Lysander and Hermia plan an escape.

Lysander: How now, my love! 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. Lysander: Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood, --

Helena: How happy some o'er 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 Hermia's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities: Things base and vile, folding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's 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 beguil'd. (I, i)

Act I, Scene ii New Characters: • Peter Quince (the carpenter): --author and director of the play-within-the-play • Nick Bottom (the weaver): --manager of the pwp --Pyramus in the pwp --the object of Titania’s love • Francis Flute (the bellows mender): --unwillingly plays the role of Thisbe in the pwp • Snug (the joiner): --portrays the lion in the pwp because he roars well • Robin Starveling (the tailor): --portrays the moon in the pwp • Tom Snout (the tinker): --portrays a wall in the pwp

Act I, Scene ii • The craftsmen meet in the wood to rehearse the pwp. • The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe

Act II, Scene i New Characters: • Robin Goodfellow (Puck): a hobgoblin in Oberon’s service • Oberon: king of the fairies • Titania: queen of the fairies

Act II, Scene i • Puck plays all sorts of tricks on humans and animals alike. • Titania remarks that Nature is at odds with itself due to their argument. • Oberon sends Puck to find a certain flower called “love-in-idleness” (for love juice). • Demetrius enters the wood with Helena in pursuit. • Oberon instructs Puck to anoint Demetrius.

Act II, Scene i A fairy to Puck: Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere (II, i)

Demetrius to Helena: You do impeach your modesty too much, To leave the city and commit yourself Into the hands of one that loves you not; To trust the opportunity of night And the ill counsel of a desert place With the rich worth of your virginity.

Helena replies to Demetrius: Your virtue is my privilege: for that It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me?

Helena: Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: We cannot fight for love, as men may do; We should be wood and were not made to woo.

Act II, Scene ii • Oberon anoints Titania's eye with the love juice. • Lysander and Hermia enter and sleep separately. • Puck enters and anoints the eyes of Lysander wearing “Athenian garments. ” • Puck leaves • Demetrius arrives with Helena in fast pursuit. • Helena awakens Lysander. • Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena, but she is convinced he is mocking her. • Lysander sees Hermia but does not love her any more. • Hermia awakens from a nightmare.

Act III, Scene i • The craftsmen meet in the wood to rehearse their play. • The moonlight and the Wall • Puck replaces Bottom’s head with that of an ass. • Bottom, frightened, sings to keep up his courage. • Bottom’s song wakes up Titania. • Titania falls in love with Bottom.

Act III, Scene ii • Hermia and Demetrius enter. • Oberon finds that Puck has mistakenly placed the love juice in Lysander’s eye, not Demetrius’. • Demetrius Hermia • Demetrius sleeps. Hermia leaves. • Oberon anoints Demetrius’ eyes. • Puck needs to look for Helena.

Act III, Scene ii • Helena appears pursued by the wooing Lysander. • Demetrius falls in love with Helena. • Helena thinks Hermia is the third party to mock her. • Puck entices Lysander and Demetrius into sleep by tricking them. • Puck creeps in, re-anoints Lysander’s eye, and leaves.

Act IV, Scene i • Oberon orders Puck to take the ass’s head from Bottom. • Puck complies as Titania causes Bottom, Helena, Hermia, Demetrius, and Lysander to fall far more deeply asleep than they already are. • Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus order Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius to join them at the temple.

Act IV, Scene I dreams and dreaming Bottom: • I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play (IV, i)

Act IV, Scene ii • Snug arrives to tell the craftsmen that two other couples are also being married that night and, were they performing, they would have made their fortunes. Q: What are the other couples? A: 1) Hermia and Lysander 2) Helena and Demetrius

Act V, Scene i • a fantasy • The craftsmen present their play much to the delight of their audience. • Oberon, Titania, and the fairies take over the night intending to sing and dance until daybreak.

Fantasy Theseus: More strange than true: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. …… The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact:

Theseus: Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear? (V, i)

Puck: If we shadows have offended, Think but this, --and all is mended, -That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. (V, i)

Q & A 1. What are the 4 separate plots? 2. What are the 4 groups of characters?

Questions for Assignment 2 • 1. From the passages we posted for reading, choose no less than 8 lines and explain why they are significant to you. • 2. Lysander says, “The course of true love never did run smooth” (Act I, Scene i). Do you agree or not? And why?