Category: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream is a comedian play that describes the marriage of the duke of Athens, Theseus, and the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, the complicated love story of Hermia and Lysander, and multiple other characters. The central topic of this play is love. Shakespeare makes the readers think of whether love is ration, why people fall in love, and what love is in general. The play received numerous praises and criticisms. The current essay reviews the analysis of A Midsummer Nights Dream conducted by Kelly Bulkeley,

According to Bulkeley, the central topic of Shakespeare’s play is dreaming (Bulkeley 297). What is more, she calls A Midsummer Nights Dream “the greatest celebration of dreaming in the Western literary canon (Bulkeley 298). Indeed, it is impossible to disagree with this view. Undoubtedly, Shakespeare devotes a lot of attention to the issue of love and shows how complicated it might be; however, the topic of dreaming is closely related to the one of love. The word “dream” per se is mentioned numerous times in the play, and for characters, a dream is a way to explain mysterious events that happen to them. Furthermore, from the very beginning, the audience is immersed in dreaming where the concepts of time and space are subjective and where several epochs intertwine with each other. However, Bulkeley makes an important notice that dreams in the play could not be treated as dreams of real people and should be regarded only as literary devices (Bulkeley 314).

The particular attention should be devoted to the fact that dreams are not separated from reality but, on the contrary, are closely connected to it. As a prove of this idea, Bulkeley cites the example of Hermia’s nightmare (Bulkeley 303). The night before Lysander`s escape, Hermia saw a dream where a snake was eating her heart while Lysander was calmly watching at her. This nightmare “directly reflects that waking-world event” and shows the audience how strongly Hermia loves Lysander and how strongly his escape breaks her heart (Bulkeley 303). It could be added that the correspondence of Hermia’s dream with reality makes the discussed play even more mysterious.

At the same time, Bulkeley raises a peculiar question of why Shakespeare chose a snake to eat Hermia`s heart (Bulkeley 303). The most obvious answer is that snakes symbolize betrayal and separation, as proposed in the Bible. However, Bulkeley notices that the action of A Midsummer Nights Dream takes place in pre-Christian times, and, therefore, the choice of a snake could not be justified by religious traditions (Bulkeley 303). The answer provided by Bulkeley is rather untypical. She argues that a snake is a “phallic symbol” because “Lysander has sexually pressured Hermia just before they go to sleep” (Bulkeley 303). From this, it could be inferred that a snake in Hermia`s nightmare is exactly Lysander.

To conclude, the review of A Midsummer Nights Dream by Kelly Bulkeley because it is creative and not traditional. The author of the discussed article analyzes the role and meaning of dreams in one of the most prominent Shakespeare’s plays by referring to the psychological theories of dreaming. Still, the article is not a breakthrough as it does not provide any alternative interpretations of the play.

Summary

The essay discusses the article of Kelly Bulkeley dedicated to the role of such phenomenon as dreaming in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Nights Dream. This article was chosen because it discusses a topic that is not usually analyzed in scholarly literature. Even though Bulkeley marks several curious details on dreaming in the play, generally, the article could not be seen as a revolutionary one since it does not provide any alternative interpretations.

Work Cited

Bulkeley, Kelly. “A midsummer night’s dream: Shakespeare’s play of dreaming.” Dreaming, vol. 30, no.4, 2020, pp. 297-316.

The Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream is a seminal piece composed by Felix Mendelssohn in the 19^th century. The composition is representative of the Romantic era with all its features and characteristics. Mendelssohn was one of the prominent German composers of the time and demonstrated an incredible musical talent. He was born into a wealthy family of a banker, meaning that he had a fitting, comfortable environment for the development of his musical abilities (Biography, n.d.). Consequently, Mendelssohn’s earlier works were significantly ahead of the average expectations even from a child prodigy. His childhood pieces were characterized by exceptional depth and complexity of the melody, as well as the use of advanced instrument techniques. Surprisingly, the Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream also dates back to Mendelssohn’s earlier pieces. He wrote at a relatively young age of seventeen, inspired by William Shakespeare’s comedy.

Interestingly, this piece is not designed as an overture to an opera but to a collection of incidental music. This term refers to a format in which the composition itself is not designed to be in the center of the audience’s attention. Instead, its purpose is to accompany a dramatic performance (Alsop). As implied by the title of Mendelssohn’s piece, it is related to the famous comedy written by William Shakespeare. Accordingly, the Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream can be placed in the category of program music, which refers to pieces, which carry a certain shade of extramusical meaning. In this regard, Mendelssohn’s overture is intended to reflect the theme and narration of Shakespeare’s comedy. The beginning of a performance is a phase of paramount importance, as it sets the mood and the flow of the subsequent numbers.

The Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream successfully accomplishes this objective through the careful arrangement. The exposition opens with four powerful chords in the key of E major, which leave a lasting impression and ensure the flow of the piece. The strings suddenly shift toward E minor, marking the character’s transition to a different world of fairies (Alsop). The latter are represented by gentle woodwind fanfares, creating vivid images of fantasy throughout the second subject group and the Development. Whenever fairies are present, they dominate the musical landscape through the selection of instruments. They return once more for the closing appearance in the Coda, only to disappear like a gentle dream. Interestingly, Mendelssohn originally devised the structure of this composition to incorporate the use of the ophicleide, an archaic keyed brass instrument. However, in the modern performances of the Overture, it is usually replaced by the tuba. Strings also play a pivotal role in this piece, as their braying sound is used to represent Bottom’s transformation into a donkey.

Overall, the Overture to a Midsummer Night’s Dream has become one of the most prominent pieces of incidental music. Felix Mendelssohn has managed to capture the very essence of Shakespeare’s comedy in a musical form, accurately translating it into a combination of memorable chords. The transition from reality to a distant dream is clearly marked by key changes. Furthermore, Mendelssohn artfully plays with the tempo of the piece, reflecting the key events of the original comedy. While his piece becomes a perfect accompaniment for the staged performance, it can effectively exist as a standalone rendition of Midsummer Night’s Dream in the musical form.

References

Alsop, Marin. “Marin Alsop’s Guide to Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” NPR, 2014. Web.

“Biography”. Mendelssohn House Leipzig & Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Foundation. n.d. Web.

The play A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written by William Shakespeare during the 16^th century. This play can be discussed as the comedy which is based on the magic plot referred to the humorous and fairy-tale adventures of the main characters in Athens. It is important to note that a play has the most important impact on the audience when it is performed on stage. Today, film adaptations can also be discussed as the variants of the plays’ production.

From this point, it is necessary to refer to the most vivid film adaptation of the play realized by Michael Hoffman in 1999. To analyze the play or its adaptation, a person should refer to the approaches proposed by the German playwright Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the Greek philosopher Aristotle in order to discuss the aspects of the play and its success. On the one hand, the analysis of the play’s text cannot reflect the real meaning or idea based on the author’s intention without references to the real performance on stage.

On the other hand, the vision of the director can also affect the audience’s vision of the play and its idea significantly. That is why, it is important to balance these positions while analyzing the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream with references to Hoffman’s film. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999) is the vivid and expressive film adaptation of the classic Shakespeare’s play which is characterized by bright pictures and the accentuated comic component to emphasize the farce of the story.

According to Aristotle’s viewpoint, there are six significant elements in the play which should be discussed in detail in order to analyze it effectively. These elements are the plot, thought, character, diction, spectacle, and song (Downs, Wright, and Ramsey 88-89). Focusing on the play, it is important to determine several lines of the plot which include the stories of relationships between Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena, between King Oberon and Queen Titania, between Duke Theseus and Hippolyta.

All these plot lines are closely connected guaranteeing the complex and interesting net development in the play. The element of thought is presented in the play with references to the moral ideals which are followed by different characters. Thus, the plot development depends on the progress of the characters’ complicated relations which are reflected in their love for each other, affection, and even hate and revenge.

Referring to the play’s characters, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that Hoffman’s interpretation of the characters differs from Shakespeare’s original descriptions (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Thus, Hoffman’s characters are more comic and inconsistent in their actions, they are too expressive and even grotesque, and their actions and ideas are exaggerated.

In spite of the fact that the film is based on the play appropriately, and Shakespeare’s words are followed strictly, there are some details which are added to adapt the play to the director’s vision of the play’s world. From this perspective, the diction in the form of pathetic speeches is adapted according to the play’s mood and new features acquired by the characters.

Thus, Titania is the most pathetic in the film because of her status and attitude to the partials and situation. Furthermore, the role of Puck’s trickery is also emphasized in the context of its impact of the characters, their behaviours, and associated diction presented in Shakespeare’s play, but changed with references to the presentation of more ridiculous facts and situations. Analyzing the play’s spectacle, it is important to note that the action of the play is performed not in Athens, but in Italy during the 19^th century.

This fact influences the pictures provided in the film, their connection to reality, the characters’ usage of bicycles and their attitudes to each other. However, the illustrations of the magic forest reflect the play’s text appropriately to draw the attention to the imaginative world. The music by Felix Mendelssohn and operatic elements included into the film are helpful to create the specific fairy-tail world of the film with the focus on romantic plot lines.

Goethe’s approach to the analysis of the play depends on more general discussion of the play’s elements. In the 18^th-19^th centuries, Goethe proposed to concentrate on what an artist could try to do, on the effectiveness of his techniques, and on the overall importance of the play as the work of art (Downs, Wright, and Ramsey 89). The purpose of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999) is to provide the comic effect in its connection with the people’s feelings and their ability to follow their passion without hesitation.

If Shakespeare achieves this goal with the help of accentuating controversies in the characters’ behaviours, the film’s author focuses on exaggerating the effects of mad love and self-assurance (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Although the original variants of the play and its adaptation of 1999 differ in details and shifted focuses, the play and film are worth seeing and discussing by the audience because the authors’ intention to emphasize the magic world of people’s feelings is realized effectively.

Thus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an important play which is interesting for the audience because of its deep idea and focus on the people’s inner world in combination with the vivid pictures of magic and comic world.

Works Cited

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ex. Prod. Michael Hoffman. USA: Regency Enterprises. 1999. DVD.

Downs, William Missouri, Lou Anne Wright, and Erik Ramsey. The Art of Theatre: A Concise Introduction. USA: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.

Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream follows several groups of warring couples from both the natural human world and the world of fantastical creatures such as fairies and sprites. Interestingly, both the human couples and the non-human couples encounter strife within their romantic interaction and struggle to overcome jealousy and competition within their respective relationships. This essay analyzes Act II, Scene I of the play and delineates its numerous thematic functions within the play as a whole.

Act II, Scene I represents the locus wherein a significant number of themes investigated over the course of the play originate; these include power, competition, jealousy and covetousness within the romantic context; romantic rejection and unrequited love; empathy; and most notably interference.

Act II, Scene I remains a pivotal scene in the play since this scene marks the moment Oberon decides to interfere in the affairs of the human world and thus initiates the convergence and overlap between the natural human world and the world of fantasy.

Act II, Scene I opens with Puck and the Fairy discussing the schism recently erupted between the power couple of Shakespeare’s fantasy world: Oberon, the king of the fairies and Titania, the queen of the fairies (Shakespeare II, I). Given that they serve warring masters – Puck sides with Oberon and the Fairy with Titania – the stage directions note that Puck and the Fairy enter “from opposite sides,” a physical example of the reality of the world we enter as audience members, a world ostensibly at war (Shakespeare II,I,1).

Puck warns the Fairy to “take heed the queen come not within his sight; For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, Because that she as her attendant hath, A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king” (Shakespeare II,I,19-22). This first interlude establishes the particulars of the argument between Oberon and Titania, and clarifies for the audience that it remains unresolved, again in a physical manner, intimated by the fact that Fairy leaves as soon as she hears that Titania is one her way (Shakespeare II,I,1).

She cannot afford to be seen talking to someone from Oberon’s side (Shakespeare II,I,1). Oberon and Titania arrive then, and again we see Shakespeare employ war imagery as he describes their entrance as “from one side, Oberon, with his train; from the other, Titania, with hers,” both parties squaring off like soldiers on the field of battle (Shakespeare II,I,59).

The husband and wife exchange a frosty greeting that further elucidates the nature of the conflict between Oberon and Titania; Oberon desires the Indian boy for his own train; Titania refuses(Shakespeare II,I, 60). Oberon accuses Titania of obstinacy when he says, “I’ll met by moonlight, proud Titania” (II,I,60). Titania counters with “what, jealous Oberon,” orders her minions to depart, and shames Oberon publicly when she announces “I have forsworn his bed and company” (Shakespeare II,I,61-62).

The couple’s squabble ends unsettled when Oberon makes Titania an offer, “give me that boy and I will go with thee” to which she curtly replies, “not for thy fairy kingdom” (Shakespeare II,I,143-144). This is the crux of the argument which launches the themes of power, jealousy, covetousness and competition explored through the various romantic relationships in both the natural human world and the fairy world.

Once Titania departs Oberon schemes with Puck and hatches a plan to acquire the Indian boy for his own retinue (Shakespeare II,I). Oberon sends Puck on an errand to locate “a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew’d thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid, Will make or man or woman madly dote, Upon the next live creature that it sees” (Shakespeare II,I,166-172).

With Puck gone, Oberon shares his plot to use the potion to distract his queen with the audience: “Having once this juice, I’ll…drop the liquor of it in her eyes. The next thing then she waking looks upon, Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull…She shall pursue it with the soul of love: And ere I take this charm from off her sight…I’ll make her render up her page to me” (Shakespeare II,I,175-185).

Oberon covets the Indian page boy to such an extent that he will only offer his wife an antidote for the love potion in exchange for the boy. This exchange demonstrates the theme of covetousness playing out between Oberon and Titania, echoed also later in the play by Helena.

Demetrius and Helena, members of the natural human world, interrupt Oberon’s confession and immediately commence the theme of rejection in the romantic context and unrequited love that runs throughout the play from this point onward. Their exchange, which Oberon eavesdrops upon, also follows the theme of covetousness on Helena’s part which we saw initiated earlier in the scene by the fairy king. Demetrius enters with harsh words for love struck Helena: “I love thee not, therefore pursue me not” (Shakespeare II, I, 188).

He also states his intentions toward the object of his affection Hermia and her lover Lysander: “Where is Lysander and fair Hermia? The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me” (Shakespeare II, I, 189-190). We see Shakespeare’s theme of unrequited love in Helena’s response to this abysmal rebuff from Demetrius: “You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; But yet you draw not iron, for my heart, Is true as steel” (Shakespeare II, I, 195-197).

As secret witness to the rough treatment that Helena receives in this scene, Oberon instigates two important thematic developments as a result (Shakespeare II,I, 245). In the first case Oberon exhibits empathy for a human: “Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love” (Shakespeare II, I, 245-246).

Secondly, Oberon makes the decision to interfere in the affairs of humans when he instructs Puck to dose Demetrius with the love potion: “A sweet Athenian lady is in love, With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; But do it when the next thing he espies, May be the lady: thou shalt know the man, By the Athenian garments he hath on. Effect it with some care, that he may prove, More fond on her than she upon her love” (Shakespeare II, I,260-266).

With this instruction to his servant Puck, the king of the fairies takes a firm step into the human world to consciously meddle in the romantic lives of Helena and Demetrius. This pivotal action begins the gradual intermingling of the two worlds over the course of the play, not to mention prompts the later foul up when Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius.

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act II, Scene I marks the starting point for multiple themes that the playwright explores through the action of the play including power, competition, jealousy and covetousness within the romantic context; romantic rejection and unrequited love, and empathy. Most importantly, this scene dramatizes Oberon’s decision to interfere in the affairs of humans, an action that reverberates throughout the play as the natural human world and the world of the fairies slowly yet inevitably merge.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, W. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The Annotated Shakespeare: The Comedies, Histories, Sonnets and Other Poems, Tragedies and Romances Complete. Ed. A.L. Rowse. New York: Greenwich House, 1988. 236-277. Print.