These are just some very brief questions and observations whittled down from my full commentary on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They may prove useful for participating in class discussion. If you want to view the full questions and commentary set, just follow the relevant links in the sitewide menu bar above.
Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Quarto. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 406-53).
Act 1, Scene 1 (406-11, Theseus , Duke of Athens and Amazon Queen Hippolyta await their wedding ….)
Things to look for ….
The different attitudes that Theseus and Hippolyta display toward the time delay between now and the consummation of their marriage.
Lysander will say to Hermia, “The course of true love never did run smooth” (409, 1.1.134). Why is there always an “Egeus” who gets in the way?
When Lysander tells Helena of his plan to steal away with Hermia into the forest, Helena decides to reveal this information to Demetrius. What should we say about this?
Helena puts a lot of faith in love’s power: “Things base and vile, holding no quantity, / Love can transpose to form and dignity” (411, 1.1.232-33). What is she implicitly suggesting about love?
To what extent can or should desire be directed so that it guarantees order, social harmony and decorum? To what extent should love hold sway in human life?
Act 1, Scene 2 (412-14, Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding will include a play as entertainment, and six tradesmen in Athens decide to compete for the prize money ….)
Things to look for ….
How does this scene continue the theme of transformation introduced by the first scene’s conversation between Theseus and Hippolyta? Add to that Hermia’s statement about love’s capacity to transform the beloved.
Bottom the Weaver is told that he is to play the hero Pyramus (412, 1.2.16), but he isn’t satisfied. He wants to play the other roles as well. Is that desire a good thing or a bad thing, or neither?
What concerns do these “mechanicals” or working-class characters have about being too realistic? What are they probably assuming about their audience?
Act 2, Scene 1 (414-20, Oberon and Titania, the Faerie King and Queen, argue over who will get to raise an Indian boy ….)
Things to look for ….
What powers does Robin Goodfellow or “Puck” have, and what is his attitude about wielding those powers? In what way does he represent the limitations that surround humans?
What are Oberon and Titania really arguing about with regard to the Indian boy? How do they want to raise him? What is Oberon planning to do to get the child into his custody?
The Fairy World in Midsummer is one of Shakespeare’s most beloved Green Worlds, a natural and yet somehow magical place. So what are its magical properties, thanks to the fairies who inhabit it? How do the woods both trouble and benefit human beings?
What special property does the Pansy Flower have?
What mistake does Oberon’s earnest attempt to help poor Helena set Puck up to make?
In chasing after Demetrius, Helena is reversing the usual Ovidian love-chase: “Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase” (419, 2.1.241). But she also laments, “We cannot fight for love as men may do; / We should be wooed and were not made to woo” (419, 2.1.241-42). Does that remark hold for most of Shakespeare’s female characters?
Act 2, Scene 2 (420-23, Oberon sprinkles pansy-juice in sleeping Titania’s eyes; Robin mistakenly bewitches Lysander ….)
Things to look for ….
Titania enters, and Oberon bewitches her: “When thou wak’st, it is thy dear. / Wake when some vile thing is near” (420, 2.2.33-34). Why do you suppose Oberon thinks this is an appropriate mode of coercion? This probably isn’t the only thing he could have done, so ….
Hermia and Lysander make their sleeping arrangements. What’s the reason for their polite dispute about these arrangements? What basic misunderstanding leads Robin Goodfellow to make the mistake of bewitching Lysander instead of Demetrius?
Helena and Demetrius hurry in, and confusion soon reigns. The juice of the pansy flower sows a certain cruelty or at least unfairness in the way it operates—how can we explain that factor?
How does this unfairness visit Helena, too? What does she think is happening to her when Lysander starts to pursue her?
Act 3, Scene 1 (423-27, the tradesmen meet in the woods to begin their rehearsals; Peter Quince and the others voice some concerns about certain representations …; Bottom awakens the bewitched Titania, who falls in love with him.)
“There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and / Thisbe that will never please” (423, 3.1.8-9), says Bottom, and one of those things is that “Pyramus must draw a / sword to kill himself, which the ladies cannot abide” (423, 3.1.9-10). So how does Bottom deal with this difficulty, which we might call the problem of excessive realism?
Snout worries about the lion. What’s Bottom’s solution for this issue? What’s the underlying assumption these characters are making about their audience?
Representing moonlight and wall must also be worked out, and here the issue is insufficient realism (424, 3.1.51-55). What’s Bottom’s ingenious strategy here. Again, what’s being assumed about the audience?
A similar ambiguity attaches to the “moonshine” problem. Quince proposes … what exactly?
Could it be that Bottom and the others themselves have trouble negotiating between reality and fantasy, so that they think their so-called betters have the same problem?
Still, these actors are wrestling with an important neoclassical concern: what is the moral impact of fictional representations? Can mere fantasies cause distress or even actual harm?
Robin picks Bottom to transform. So Bottom becomes strangely connected with the natural world, turned partially into an animal, and Titania falls in love with him. Why should it be Bottom who gets this special treatment instead of another of the workmen-actors?
Act 3, Scene 2 (427-438, Robin tells Oberon about the bewitching he has done, but Oberon realizes that Robin bewitched the wrong Athenian; Oberon then charms Demetrius, who falls in love with Helena; Helena is sure both suitors are making fun of her….)
Robin’s mistake has sundered a couple grounded in true love, and it has left Hermia wondering where Lysander has gone (429, 3.2.88-91). Oberon now bewitches Demetrius (430, 3.2.102-09) to turn his affections toward Helena.
Robin sees good sport in the coming fireworks amongst the couples: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (430, 3.2.115). What does he apparently think of human passions?
Why is the assumption that Hermia makes—namely, that she is being mocked by two men—plausible? Demetrius and Lysander go off into the woods to fight a duel over Helena (435, 3.2.335-37), and Helena, in spite of her taller stature, flees Hermia’s wrath. We have reached the height of chaos in the play.
Oberon orders Puck to fix his mistake with Lysander (435, 3.2.354-68). What does Oberon seek above all else, and how does he plan to achieve it?
The men soon grow weary, and Helena and Hermia also lie down. Robin can correct his earlier mistake with Lysander, and as he says, “Jack shall have Jill, / Naught shall go ill, / the man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well” (438, 3.3.461-63). Robin doesn’t sharply differentiate one human couple from another. Why not?
Act 4, Scene 1 (438-43, Titania and her faeries treat Bottom royally, and he falls asleep; Oberon tells Robin that Titania has relented about the Indian boy, so now it’s fair to un-bewitch her and Bottom; in Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta make conversation; in the forest, Bottom wakes up and waxes philosophical.)
Oberon has succeeded in his plan to extort the Indian boy from Titania, whom he now pities, conceding, “I will undo / This hateful imperfection of her eyes” (439, 4.1.60-61).
After Titania has been returned to normal, and Robin will un-charm Bottom. Oberon explains that now Bottom and the couples “May all to Athens back again repair / And think no more of this night’s accidents / But as the fierce vexation of a dream” (439, 4.1.64-67).
Oberon sprinkles Dian’s bud in Titania’s eyes to undo the earlier spell. Robin undoes Bottom’s transformation, and Titania and Oberon dance near where the human lovers sleep.
What we have been witnessing is a species of “vexation.” Does this teach Shakespeare’s audience a lesson of any sort? If so, what is it?
Hippolyta shows some of her old fighting spirit, reminding Theseus that she has kept better company. The tenor of this conversation is civil—a far cry from the violence that forged their union. Now that Demetrius desires Helena, Egeus’s demand can be dismissed.
To end the scene, Bottom waxes philosophical: “Man is but an ass if he / go about to expound this dream” (442-43, 4.1.203-04).
1 Corinthians 2:15 continues, “But he that is spirituall, discerneth all thynges, yet he hym selfe is iudged of no man.” Perhaps Bottom has special insight into the nature of his vision. He alone sees and talks with the inhabitants of the fairy realm. Somehow, he is at home there.
Most of us live fitfully trying to negotiate the gap between waking and sleep, reality and fantasy, what is and what might be, but not Bottom. Is Shakespeare—a working artist—hinting that his own response to his art is similarly a matter of both wonder and utility?
Act 4, Scene 2 (443-44, just as the tradesmen are sure their hopes of putting on their play are lost, Bottom arrives and tells them that their play is “preferred” for tonight.)
The other actors are waiting for Bottom to make his appearance, lest they lose their chance at courtly patronage. It seems that the play’s marriages have just taken place.
Although the workmen are worried that their moment has passed, Bottom shows up and receives a hero’s welcome. He tells them that their play is recommended.
Act 5, Scene 1 (444-53, Theseus chooses Pyramus and Thisbe for the evening’s entertainment …; when the couples have all gone to bed, the Fairy King and Queen and their helpers bless their marriages; Robin Goodfellow asks the audience to be generous.)
Theseus tells Hippolyta and his lords that he will have none of today’s talk about “antique fables” (444, 5.1.2): “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, / Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more / Than cool reason ever comprehends” (444, 5.1.4-6).
In his view, “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact” (444, 5.1.7-8), and the poet’s “imagination bodies forth / The forms of things unknown” and then his “pen / Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name” (444, 5.1.14-17). What has been imagined is the Classical poetic frenzy or furor poeticus.
Hippolyta is less willing to downplay what she has heard. As in the X-Files, “The truth is out there.”
What finally sells Theseus on this particular play?
When the play gets going, Hippolyta can’t hold silent, and says, “This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard,” while in return, Theseus says, “The best in this kind are but shadows, and the / worst are no worse if imagination amend them” (449, 5.1.207-09). So how does a stage play compare to reality?
Next, in comes Snug as “Lion.” Snug ensures that the ladies will not be frightened: “Then know that I as Snug the joiner am / A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam” (449, 5.1.218-219). The actor both steps forth as himself, Snug, and at the same time he is a ferocious lion.
Samuel Johnson observes in his “Preface to Shakespeare” that we are moved by actions before us on the stage not because we are fooled into taking them for real, but because they remind us of something real: “Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.” Does that account for the royals’ reactions?
Oberon and Titania speak their instructions to their fairy underlings, with orders to dance and sing. All that they do is to ensure a happy futurity.
Robin remains to speak an epilogue. He invites the audience either to think of the play as “no more yielding but a dream” (453, 5.1.414), or as a promise of fine performances to come.
Final Reflections on A Midsummer Night’s Dream
To some degree like love itself, the theater (“make-believe”) is a power in the world and one to be treated with due regard. At the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, therefore, Robin Goodfellow begs indulgence for the play’s mockery of romantic desire as an irrational, chaos-inducing force that nonetheless seems conducive to individual happiness and social order.
On the whole, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a romantic comedy with a fairy-guided twist. This play may owe much of its success over the centuries to its way of dealing with passion in a curiously dispassionate, bemused, moonstruck manner.
In the end, as Theseus himself predicts midway into the play “the fierce vexation of a dream,” the strife and confusion, will give way to spirit-blessings and decorum (440, 4.1.83-90).
Last Updated on February 21, 2025 by ajd_shxpr