Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, A (Sparknotes Literature Guide)

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In 1971, James L. Calderwood offered a new view on the role of Oberon. He viewed the king as specialising in the arts of illusion. Oberon, in his view, is the interior dramatist of the play, orchestrating events. He is responsible for the play's happy ending, when he influences Theseus to overrule Egeus and allow the lovers to marry. Oberon and Theseus bring harmony out of discord. He also suggested that the lovers' identities, which are blurred and lost in the forest, recall the unstable identities of the actors who constantly change roles. In fact the failure of the artisans' play is based on their chief flaw as actors: they can not lose their own identities to even temporarily replace them with those of their fictional roles. [46] Kopf, Dan (22 September 2016). "What Is Shakespeare's Most Popular Play?". Priceonomics . Retrieved 11 October 2022. The two are interrupted when Oberon enters from one side of the glade, followed by a train of attendants. At the same moment, Titania enters from the other side of the glade, followed by her own train. The two fairy royals confront one another, each questioning the other’s motive for coming so near to Athens just before the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Titania accuses Oberon of loving Hippolyta and of thus wishing to bless the marriage; Oberon accuses Titania of loving Theseus. The conversation turns to the little Indian boy, whom Oberon asks Titania to give him. But Titania responds that the boy’s mother was a devotee of hers before she died; in honor of his mother’s memory, Titania will hold the boy near to her. She invites Oberon to go with her to dance in a fairy round and see her nightly revels, but Oberon declines, saying that they will be at odds until she gives him the boy.

Wyver, John (10 June 2019). "A midsummer night's mystery: my search for Peter Brook's Dream". The Guardian . Retrieved 4 July 2022. Director 3: Hi Steve, it’s Peter, I like the way you use the darkness to your advantage, and Oberon is certainly a creature of the night. Well done. Tell me, how did you get the idea for torches?

A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary

Director 1: Geraldine, I have to admit that would be very atmospheric, and I can see the audience getting involved in the action with such a picturesque setting, there's just one problem, what if it rains? William Duff, writing in the 1770s, also recommended this play. He felt the depiction of the supernatural was among Shakespeare's strengths, not weaknesses. He especially praised the poetry and wit of the fairies, and the quality of the verse involved. [30] His contemporary Francis Gentleman, an admirer of Shakespeare, was much less appreciative of this play. He felt that the poetry, the characterisation, and the originality of the play were its strengths, but that its major weaknesses were a "puerile" plot and that it consists of an odd mixture of incidents. The connection of the incidents to each other seemed rather forced to Gentleman. [31] A 1969 film version was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty. The cast included Jean-Claude Drouot as Oberon, Claude Jade as Helena, Christine Delaroche as Hermia, Marie Versini as Hippolyta, Michel Modo as Flute, Guy Grosso as Quinze. [ citation needed] The next critic known to comment on the play was John Dryden, writing The Authors Apology for Heroique Poetry; and Poetique Licence in 1677. He was preoccupied with the question of whether fairies should be depicted in theatrical plays, since they did not exist. He concluded that poets should be allowed to depict things which do not exist but derive from popular belief. And fairies are of this sort, as are pygmies and the extraordinary effects of magic. Based on this reasoning, Dryden defended the merits of three fantasy plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, and Ben Jonson's The Masque of Queens. [30] 18th century [ edit ] O'Donovan, Gerard (30 May 2016). "Russell T Davies made Shakespeare engaging, fresh and funny". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 5 August 2016 . Retrieved 1 April 2017.

The Maryland Shakespeare Players at University of Maryland staged a queer production in 2015 in which the lovers were same-sex couples and the mechanicals were drag queens. [76]In 1887, Denton Jacques Snider argued that the play should be read as a dialectic, either between understanding and imagination or between prose and poetry. He also viewed the play as representing three phases or movements. The first is the Real World of the play, which represents reason. The second is the Fairy World, an ideal world which represents imagination and the supernatural. The third is their representation in art, where the action is self-reflective. Snider viewed Titania and her caprice as solely to blame for her marital strife with Oberon. She therefore deserves punishment, and Oberon is a dutiful husband who provides her with one. For failing to live in peace with Oberon and her kind, Titania is sentenced to fall in love with a human. And this human, unlike Oberon is a "horrid brute". [39] Dorothea Kehler has attempted to trace the criticism of the work through the centuries. The earliest such piece of criticism that she found was a 1662 entry in the diary of Samuel Pepys. He found the play to be "the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life". [30] He did, however, admit that it had "some good dancing and some handsome women, which was all my pleasure". [30]

George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, his first original full-length ballet, was premiered by the New York City Ballet on 17 January 1962. It was chosen to open the NYCB's first season at the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center in 1964. Balanchine interpolated further music by Mendelssohn into his Dream, including the overture from Athalie. [96] A film version of the ballet was released in 1966. [97] In 1969, Michael Taylor argued that previous critics offered a too cheerful view of what the play depicts. He emphasised the less pleasant aspects of the otherwise appealing fairies and the nastiness of the mortal Demetrius prior to his enchantment. He argued that the overall themes are the often painful aspects of love and the pettiness of people, which here include the fairies. [45] In 2011, Opera Memphis, Playhouse on the Square, and contemporary a cappella groups DeltaCappella and Riva, premiered Michael Ching's A Midsummer Night's Dream: Opera A Cappella. [93] From the outset, Shakespeare subtly portrays the lovers as a group out of balance, a motif that creates tension throughout the play. For the sake of symmetry, the audience wants the four lovers to form two couples; instead, both men love Hermia, leaving Helena out of the equation. The women are thus in nonparallel situations, adding to the sense of structural imbalance. By establishing the fact that Demetrius once loved Helena, Shakespeare suggests the possibility of a harmonious resolution to this love tangle: if Demetrius could only be made to love Helena again, then all would be well. By the end of the play, the fairies’ intervention effects just such an outcome, and all does become well, though it is worth noting that the restoration of Demetrius’s love for Helena is the result of magic rather than a natural reawakening of his feelings.Levenson, Jill L.; Ormsby, Robert (2017). The Shakespearean World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-69619-3. The tailor chosen to play Thisbe’s mother in the craftsmen’s play for Theseus’s marriage celebration. He ends up playing the part of Moonshine. Tom Snout A Thirty Minute Dream: Abridgement by Bill Tordoff, Shakespeare's text reduced to the length of a school lesson.