A Midsummer night’s Dream
by William Shakespear
'A Midsummer Night’s
Dream' was written by William Shakespeare, who was born in
Stratfort-upon-Avon, in 1564. After he had attended the
He died on 23rd April,
It´s a Spring Book, published by The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited. It was first published in 1958 under the title 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare'.
Type of book:
' A Midsummer Night’s Dream' is a stage play. It includes a mixture of elements and a style which enables William Shakespeare to be serious and not serious at the same time. For him, the plot is as important as the characters. Many of his acts have, like this one, an open end and a nearly sudden beginning.
This play in V Acts throws up both, romantic and anti romantic attitudes. He stimulates the imagination of the spectator by fantastic contrasts and the creation of an exotic fairy world in the theatre.
It´s a play about an entertainment more obvious than a realistic representation of what life is like. So it is more a comedy which may have moments that disturb, but it will find its way past them to a happy ending and a celebration in harmony and with good hope for the future.
It is the story about four different plots which I will describe more exactly in the plot synopsis.
The most important persons:
There are four different groups of characters:
Theseus and Hippolyta; the young lovers Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena; Oberon, Titania and the fairies with Puck; Bottom and the Anthenian workmen.
Theseus: He is the Duke of Athens and chief administrator of the law.
Hippolyta: She is the Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus.
Oberon: He is the King of the fairies. He is jealous that Titania will not allow him to have her cheeriched Indian boy to serve as his page and gains revenge by using a magic flower to make her love the transformed Bottom.
Titania: She is the Queen of the fairies. After she was bewitched by the magic flower, she fell in love with the goss Bottom, made even gosser than usual by the ass’s head he got from Puck. She is a proud woman. She also has a special friendship with the mother of the Indian boy, which the whole quarrel is about.
Egeus: He is the father of Hermia and wants her, by law, to marry Demetrius.
Lysander: He loves Hermia really and flees with her to the near forest.
Demetrius: He loves Hermia too and Hermia’s father wants
him to marry her, but after he got the magic juice in his eyes, he loves
Hermia: She is the daughter of Egeus. She is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius.
Puck: He is the fairy-lieutnant, so he is able to fly. But he is not allknowing, what is shown to us, the spectators, by his mistake, as he mistakes Lysander for Dymetrius and the other way round.
The Athenian workmen
Quince: the Carpenter
Snug: the Joiner
Flute: the Bellows-mender
Snout: the Tinker
Starvelling: the Tailor
Bottom: He is slightly dull, naive and unintelligent but he is also enthusiastic, creative, self confident, honest and laughable. He is one of the Athenian workmen and works as a weaver.
All assemble under Quince’s direction to cast the play of 'Pyramus and Thisby', which they would like to play for the duke’s wedding. So they meet for rehearsals in the wood.
There are two stage-changes. The set
This story happened in
There was a law which made young women very unhappy. By that law a father could choose any man and make his daughter marry him.
One day Egeus brought his daughter
Hermia to the Duke of Athens. Egeus wanted Hermia to marry Demetrius, a
powerful man. But there was also Lysander. Hermia loved Lysander and so they
made a plan to run away in the evening. Later
In the evening there were a lot of people where Lysander and Hermia wanted to meet. Those people were fairies. Oberon and Titania were there too.
They had a quarrel because she didn´t want to give him her little boy.
Some time later, when he was alone, the king called Puck. Oberon ordered that he should bring him the flower which let a man or a woman fall in love with the next person he or she saw.
While Puck was looking for the
flower, Demetrius and Helena passed the wood near Oberon. On their way to
Hermia and Lysander, Demetrius told
At the same time Puck put the flower
into Lysander´s eyes because he thought that it was Demetrius. Later
Hermia looked for Lysander but she
found Demetrius. Then she went on and he fell asleep. The king and Puck saw
them and then the king, Oberon, ordered Puck to do it right then. So he put the
flower into Demetrius´eyes too, who saw
The king told Puck to put the flower in all of their eyes after the fight, when they had fallen asleep, to correct all mistakes. Then everything would be alright again.
After this little adventure Oberon went to his queen and took away the power of the flower. When she woke up later, she thought that everything had been a dream. She loved Oberon again.
In the end Lysander loved Hermia,
Ideas, opinions and comments:
I think Shakespeare has put a symbolism into that play. The movement of the scenes could mean that the actors leave the real world for a short time, and enter a dreamworld, to solve their problems there and come back, when all problems are solved.
I watched the play
Ultimele referate adaugate
- Mihai beniuc - „poezii"
- Mihai eminescu - student la berlin
- Mircea Eliade - Mioara Nazdravana (mioriţa)
- Chirita in provintie de Vasile Alecsandri -expunerea subiectului
- Dragoste de viata de Jack London
|Ion Luca Caragiale
- Triumful talentului… (reproducere) de Ion Luca Caragiale
- Fantasticul in proza lui Mircea Eliade - La tiganci
- „Personalitate creatoare” si „figura a spiritului creator” eminescian
- Enigma Otiliei de George Calinescu - geneza, subiectul si tema romanului
- Arta literara in romanul Ion, - Liviu Rebreanu