Background to the play

• Written in the mid 1590s, performed in the late 1590s

• first published 1600 from a manuscript written by Shakespeare.

• Performed when Shakespeare was successful, perhaps for the Queen or at an aristocratic wedding

• Shakespeare usually borrowed story lines from other sources, but this play is one of the few original plots by Shakespeare

• some characters borrowed from Classical literature

• All the actors were men and young boys during his time

• The ‘menials’ presenting a play – Shakespeare was parodying his own theatre efforts.

1.3.6 Themes

The theme of Love is the most significant one in the play:

• love affects almost all the important characters except the ‘mechanicals’

• parental love and parental disapproval of young love

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• unrequited love, jealousy, pettiness, rage and vindictiveness brought on by love, even the brutality of love – Hippolyta and Theseus were first enemy warriors, suffering for the sake of love (Helena)

• fragility of love – Lysander’s words

• passion and desire – Jan Kott thinks this is an honest representation of sex

• conflict between passion and reason (passion – how passion affects human rationality)

• The blindness of love – “the dislocation between the eye and the mind”

• The sexual connotations of Bottom with an asses head – for the Elizabethans the ass represented sexual prowess

• Two different kinds of relationships – one “constant, static, ardent, full of common sense and maturity” (Theseus and Hippolyta), the other – the young lovers, “an adolescent whirl, unstable” says Stanley Wells

• Feminist theme: love compromises individuality – the need to give up identity, selfishness, Helena challenges the image of the passive female lover – she aggressively seeks to convince Demetrius of her love for him. She is also his equal in wit and wordplay (act 2 scene 1 their exchange in the woods). This is s

The conflict between illusion and reality:

• Reality is often clouded by illusion, but a totally non-illusory reality is nonexistent (Stanley Wells). A lot of discussion among the characters about this, as well as all the “happenings” of the midsummer night.

• Puck’s prank of putting the juice – the resulting confusion among the lovers is comic, but the confusion between reality and illusion is caused by the “failure of their emotions to keep up with reason” SW

• Bottom and his friends also illustrate the need to distinguish between illusion and reality – therefore the interruptions in the play to explain things to the audience

• illusion in love – bottom’s song is a donkey braying, but it sounds like sweet music to Titania

Contrasts, or in Stanley Well’s words, the “concord in the discord”:

• the juxtaposition of contrasting elements bring about unity in disunity – the real in the unreal, the shocking in the comic:

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Classical Athens vs16th century Warwickshire

Theseus and Hippolyta’s dignity vs youthful silliness Verse vs comic prose

delicate fantasy vs earthy robustness

Working men enacting a tragic Greek love story Ethereal Titania in love with an ass braying songs.

Feminist interpretation of the play

Are the males and females equal in the play? There is evidence to say yes and no. For example:

Yes: Helena, unlike a silent, submissive lover, takes control of her own feelings, expresses her love to Demetrius, pursues him.

No: Hippolyta, after falling in love, is submissive and quiet, even though she led an army of female warriors, the Amazons: in the complaint of Egeus about his daughter’s refusal to marry the man he chooses, she remains silent.

Also, Oberon and Puck’s attitude to women, how women are treated by the mechanicals in the play, how the lovers talk about/talk to the two girls can be examined to find further proof.

The play also offers a glimpse of Elizabethan society:

• the noblemen and women and the working class people, shows the nature of a feudal society, with very little intermingling of the nobles and the menials

• their celebrations of marriage, some of their beliefs and attitudes as well as Shakespeare’s portrayal of amateur actors of the time in Peter Quince etc.

• The supernatural and the superstitions in Shakespeare’s times presented through the magic in the play (good and the bad) very real to Elizabethans, hooniyam, gurukam, etc. Jan Kott believes the names of the fairies make up an Elizabethan aphrodisiac potion.

1.3.7 Plot

• has parallel plots – the young star-crossed lovers, the lovers’ fight between Oberon and Titania, and Bottom and his friends’ preparation of the masque.

• an intricate plot that has a web of events – coincidences, accidents, mistaken identities, characters are separated and reunited (typical in Shakespeare)

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• The three plot lines converge as the story progresses

• in the end all the conflicts are resolved and order restored.

1.3.8 Characters

There isn’t deep character analysis, no rise and fall of a tragic hero: “the lovers are interchangeable” (Jan Kott)

There are four levels of characters – human and non-human. The human characters are based on the social order of the time.

1) Theseus, Hippolyta – King of Athens and the Queen of the Amazonsabout to marry, happy and in love after a time of turmoil. They embody all that is regal, dignified and exemplary. Significant that they were enemies fighting a war before they fell in love. 2) Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena – young, in love, realistic in their friendships

and associations, passionate, impetuous, also very honest and brave, believe in the power of love, impatient and rebellious before authority (parental and royal)

3) Oberon and Titania – King and Queen of the Fairies, and their servants like Puck. – also regal, but also exotic, beautiful, and in this situation, angry and vindictive. Puck – a mischievous fairy, plays tricks on humans, sometimes humourous, sometimes evil. The other fairies – Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mustardseed etc used to be played by young boys. 4) The ordinary (human) folk – the “rustics” or the “mechanicals”:

• working-class people, each identified by his trade: Nick Bottom, the weaver, Peter Quince, a carpenter, Francis Flute, a bellows mender, Tom Snout, a tinker, Robin Starveling, a tailor, Snug, a joiner.

• Comic figures,

• but realistic in their placement in the social structure.

• They represent a theatre company of amateur actors.

• They are seemingly low in intelligence and learning, one dimensional characters.

• Shakespeare satirises himself as well as his audience through them: the comical improvisations, warning the ladies about the frightening parts of the play.

• They are also full of camaraderie and fun, contrasting with the anger and the vindictiveness seen in the other noble characters

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1.3.9 Significance of Language

• Written in blank verse, iambic pentameters

• poetry in the mouths of the noble characters, both fairies and human

• earthy, colloquial prose of the menials

• Poetry of Titania contrasts with the down-to-earth prose of Bottom when she falls in love with him. Here too, the theme of illusion is presented, this time through language: Titania’s beautiful poetry is the words of a deluded person, while Bottom speaks the truth in his earthy prose

• Comic effect of the menials who try to mimic the poetry of the nobles in their play

1.3.10Activities

1) Select a scene in the forest in which emotional exchanges between the lovers take place (for example, Act II Sc. 1 with Demetrius and Helena). Rewrite this dialogue in contemporary Sri Lankan English. If possible, act it out in class.

2) Discuss and design costumes for the four groups of people in the play, iif possible using local materials and local themes. Give reasons as to why you chose these materials and themes.

3) Discuss the events of the first scene from your own point of view. Which characters do you support? Which characters do you think are wrong? Give reasons for your answer.