A midsummer Night’s Dream 國立中山大學 【通識博雅核心課程】

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12月12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?

• --Ovidian poems

• Venus and Adonis (1593)

• The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

• --154 Sonnets (in early 1590s)

• about love, fidelity, mortality,

• and the artist’s power and voice.

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”

• a play within the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

• 4 separate plots

• 4 groups of characters

Act I, Scene i

• New Characters:

• Theseus: duke of Athens; engaged to Hippolyta

• Hippolyta: engaged to Theseus

• Egeus: Hermia’s father

• Lysander: the youth in love with Hermia

• Demetrius: the man chosen by Egeus for Hermia

• 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.

• 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 (pwp)

• 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)

• 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:

• Hermia and Lysander

• 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:

• Wall:

• Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;

• And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

• [Exit.]

• Lion:

• You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear

• The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,

• May now perchance both quake and tremble here,

• When lion rough in widest rage doth roar.

• …

• [Roaring.] Oh--

• Moon:

• This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;

• Myself the man i’ th’ moon do seem to be.

• …

• All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon, I, the manin the moon, this thorn-bush my thorn-bush, and this dog my dog.

• 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

• What are the 4 separate plots?

• What are the 4 groups of characters?

Questions for Assignment 2

• 1.

• Draw a plot map for A Midsummer Night’s Dream to indicate 4 groups of characters and the relationship among them.

• 2.

• If you have a chance to play a part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which character would you like to play? Why? Please refer to the lines from the play to support your argument.